KARAGANDA, Kazakhstan (UCAN) -- A Russian Orthodox community in a Karaganda suburb is so keen on having its own church that its members are trying to build it brick by brick without external financial assistance.

Parishioner Sergei Weselowski recently told UCA News they even "write (their) names on the bricks" they buy for the building in a gesture of ownership.

For now, between 200 and 400 worshippers huddle together in the winter cold for Masses held in a makeshift chapel dedicated to St. Boniface in the basement of half-finished Holy Cross Church. The church is located in Maikuduk, a suburb of Karaganda, 200 kilometers southeast of Astana.

The second story of the two-story church is still incomplete.

"Despite the church being unfinished, it is crowded," Weselowski pointed out, "which indicates it is needed."

The parish started building the church in 2004. Father Igor Lisitsin, the priest in charge, told UCA News construction had to stop a few times during winter cold spells, when temperatures can drop below minus-30 degrees Celsius. Nevertheless, the scarcity of funds is the more severe hardship, he admitted.

Russian Orthodox parishes in the country normally depend on funds from the Church's headquarters in Moscow, but local Church leaders also turn to private benefactors for their projects.

Some businessman initially sponsored the construction of Holy Cross Church, but later stopped, so parishioners are now working to complete the project on their own.

This may take yet a while longer, but Father Lisitsin is not despairing.

The parish does not yet have a finished building, "but we do have a church (community) and I see it as a miracle," he said.

The Russian Orthodox priest added that he is not sure when the building will be finished, because parishioners have to use what they can spare from their income to pay for the construction and bricks.

One of them, 88-year-old Zinaida Ananyeva, has been living in Maikuduk for more than 30 years. The elderly woman, who recalls having to attend Mass in churches in other districts in the past, does not have much, but she tries to save at least some of her monthly pension to help build her church. She has also contributed in another way.

"I prayed a great deal for the construction of the church in our district and waited long for it," she told UCA News.

Other women, who make up the majority of the parishioners, cook meals for the male parishioners who do the construction work.

One of the male parishioners, Grigory Aphinogenov, is looking forward to the completion of the church, because "there are many non-Christians in our district and it's good that this church is being built here."

The small Russian Orthodox community in this suburb has long struggled to practice its faith. Before the makeshift chapel was built, people prayed in apartments and later in tents. Before the parish was registered in 1993, some even traveled to other districts of Karaganda to attend Mass.

Today parishioners number about 600, mostly ethnic Russians.

Sergei, a miner who also serves as sacristan and catechism teacher, blames the communist suppression of religion during the Soviet era, which ended in 1991, for damaging people's faith life. "Our people are illiterate in terms of religion, and it is important to educate them about it," he said.

Many of the ethnic Russians around Karaganda are related to people Soviet leader Joseph Stalin deported here in the 1930s and 1940s for "political crimes," which included religious belief. Many Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Lithuanians, most of whom were Roman and Greek Catholics, were also exiled to Kazakhstan.

Russian Orthodox Church members comprise 30 percent of Kazakhstan's 15 million people, while Muslims account for 60 percent. Roman Catholics make up 250,000 and Greek Catholics about 3,000.

The Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan is divided into three dioceses with 202 parishes between them.

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