Today in Saint Petersburg Mgr Paolo Pezzi will ordain Deacon Nikolaj Vojtechovič. The young man comes from Mary, Queen of the Apostles Seminary, which is headed by the bishop himself.

Moscow (AsiaNews) – The first ceremony of ordination officiated by Mgr Paolo Pezzi, appointed last year as archbishop of Mother of God in Moscow, will take place today in Saint Petersburg, in the Catholic church of the Assumption, when Deacon Nikolaj Vojtechovič, 31, from Belarus, will become a priest.

Since 2004 the young man has attended Mary, Queen of the Apostles Seminary in Saint Petersburg. In 2007 he submitted his Bachelor thesis on the Eucharist as the origin of mercy in the spirituality of Saint Faustina Kowalska.

The seminary of Saint Petersburg is the only institution of its kind in the whole of Russia. It opened on 29 June 1993 in Moscow and later moved to Saint Petersburg to the building of the Catholic Seminary (under the Mogilev Metropoly) that which the Bolsheviks shut down in 1918. Today it is home for 19 aspiring priests and 12 friars. Since 1996 28 seminarians have be ordained priests. Mgr Paolo Pezzi is its current rector.

Another seminarian, Deacon Vasilij Zazdravnych, will be ordained in Tomsk (south-western Siberia) on 29 June.

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• queen of the apostles seminary catholic seminary bolsheviks1918 mogilev metropoly vasilij zazdravnych