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Historic Moment for Miles Jesu Over the past year or so the declining health of our beloved Father Founder, the Very Rev. Alphonsus Maria Duran, has necessitated a historic step for Miles Jesu—the election of Father Founder’s first successor to the position of General Director. The General Assembly of Elections took place in Kyiv, Ukraine. It began on August 28th, the Eastern Rite Feast of the Dormition of Mary (the Eastern Church’s equivalent to the Assumption of the Mary), placed thus under the guidance and protection of the Blessed Mother, and it came to a close on August 31st. At the General Assembly, Fr. Mark Gelis, MJ, was elected General Director. Fr. Gelis was born in Slidell, Louisiana, USA, in 1963. Joining Miles Jesu in 1980, Fr. Gelis was a close collaborator with Father since 1987. He obtained his philosophy and theology degrees at Pontifical Universities in Rome, where he was ordained to the priesthood in 1994. Since 1991, Fr. Gelis served as the Vicar Director up until the recent election. Fr. Gelis asks for prayers for the grace to fulfill his duties as the first successor to Miles Jesu’s Father Founder as General Director and for Miles Jesu as it begins this new phase of its history. The location for the assembly was chosen because of Father Founder’s great love for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and as a sign of Miles Jesu’s continued commitment to promote unity between East and West in the Church. Pope John Paul II liked to speak of the Church breathing fully “with both lungs,” in reference to freedom being restored to the Church in the former Soviet bloc, and when Christians in Constantinople recognized their unity with Rome. Miles Jesu has been bi-ritual since the early 1990’s. As our Father Founder wrote in his Litany for Unity, “in today’s world, where business and many other things tend to be global (becoming not only international but global), the universality or Catholicity of the Church is even more essential for the independence and freedom of the Church.” Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in October 1989 and all the changes which quickly followed, our Father Founder dreamed of bringing Miles Jesu to Russia and Eastern Europe. As quickly as the countries of the communist bloc opened up to the West, his dreams changed to plans and then to realities. Fr. Gelis reminisces on Miles Jesu’s first trip to those lands, a fact-finding adventure that took him and our Father Founder to Kyiv and many other points further east and north than Miles Jesu had ever ventured before: “As soon as the news media began to report the fall of the communist regimes in the Eastern European satellite countries of the USSR in 1989, our Father Founder was inspired and determined to go there. Within a few months, the trip was set. I was appointed to accompany him. “What an adventure to go to the Soviet Union! This was during the times when everything about a visit to the Soviet Union was still controlled. They tell you the hotel you must stay in (of the few cities that are open to foreigners), the roads you must travel on, what you can or cannot take pictures of, etc. “To say Mass was another story. We had heard of a group of Spaniards who had traveled there before, among whom was a priest. Some of them gathered privately in one of their rooms at the state-run hotel to say Mass. Ten minutes into the Mass, a voice came over a loudspeaker in perfect Spanish that the meeting taking place in that room was illegal and must disband immediately. The way we avoided this and other problems was to go dressed as laymen and hide all the materials for the celebration of the Mass scattered through our luggage. When it came time to have Mass, we closed the curtains, locked the door, turned the tv on loud, and said Mass in a whisper. These weren’t the most recollecting of conditions, but, praise the Lord, it worked! “The first church we visited on this trip was one which had been taken over by the communists and was being used as a museum of atheism.” One of the first projects directed by our Father Founder, after the visit to Kyiv, was the acquisition of a beautiful Eastern Rite church in Lviv, Ukraine, which had been closed and utilized first by the Nazis and then by the Communists as a place of interrogation and torture. After having the church re-painted with Byzantine-style iconography, and re-dedicating the church in the name of St. Josaphat, Martyr of Unity, Miles Jesu continues to draw many of the faithful from Ukraine and from any other parts of the world, who seek communion with Our Lord and the unity of all Christians. Now, after twenty years, Miles Jesu operates two orphanages, a soup kitchen, a farm, a center for street youth, a traveling medical team, and many other apostolates in these lands that once used churches as museums to the “non-existence” of God. Many young men and women from Ukraine, Slovakia, Czech Republic, and Poland are now consecrated to God in Miles Jesu and many more have benefited from all the work of God using Miles Jesu in these countries. It was a special satisfaction for us to be able to place this historical step of our election of the next General Director on the ground hallowed both by apostles of the past and martyrs of our own times. Editor’s note: We apologize for the delay in sending a newsletter out since the June issue. Due to circumstances surrounding the illness of our founder and the election of our new General Director, the publication of this newsletter was delayed. Prayers for Father and personal letters are welcome. Letters for Father can be sent to: |