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An online conference dedicated to Archbishop Eduard Profittlich, S. J., on the 80th anniversary of his martyrdom.

On Feb 15, 2022, the Jesuit-run St. Thomas Institute in Moscow, together with the Apostolic Administrature for the Catholics in Estonia, hosted an online conference dedicated to Eduard Profittlich (1890-1942), the German-born Jesuit who became bishop in independent Estonia in 1936, was sentenced to death by a Soviet court and died in a prison in Kirov (Ural), on Feb 22, 1942. More than 40 people participated from Kyrgyzstan and Russia, from Latvia and Lithuania, from Germany and Italy, but most of all, obviously, from Estonia.

Msgr. Profittlich’s successor in Tallinn, Bishop Philippe Jourdan, shared that Pope Francis, in 2018, while visiting Profittlich’s memorial in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, asked whether Profittlich died as a martyr. Having heard that this is the case, the Pope stated: “Santo subito”! But, of course, this is not going to be the case. Yet, as Fr. Pascual Cebollada, S. J., the general postulator of the Society of Jesus in Rome, and Ms. Marge-Marie Paas, his co-worker on this case in Tallinn, stressed, after around eight years of work, they will be able to hand in the positio causae to the Vatican Congregation for the Causes of Saints, hopefully, by the end of 2022.

Archbishop Paolo Pezzi from Moscow and Fr. Bogusław Steczek, S. J., Superior of the Russian Region, stressed the importance Profittlich’s beatification would have for Christians all over Central and Eastern Europe: in Poland and Estonia, where he studied and worked, but also in Russia, where he reached the aim of his via crucis.

Priit Rohtmets, a Lutheran scholar from Tartu (Estonia), presented the situation in Estonia during the time when Profittlich worked there. It was a country that was already strongly secularizing, so, Profittlich was among those who understood that they had to address the growing urban intellectual elites in order to spread Christ’s kingdom. A strong challenge was then (and is now) to make clear that Catholicism is not something only for foreigners but offers good news to Estonians as well.

As Maria Chiara Dommarco, a Milan and Moscow-based church historian, and Fr. Stephan Lipke, S. J., the director of the St. Thomas Institute, pointed out, this was the context in which Eduard Profittlich lived, worked, and died as a witness for Christ.

Nowadays, books and articles by Marge-Marie Paas, Fr. Christoph Wrembek, S. J., by Katrin Laur and many others are being published in Estonian, English, and German to spread Profittlich’s memory. Hopefully, this martyr can lead us in our prayers for peace and light in these dark times all over the world and, particularly, in Eastern Europe.

Stephan Lipke, S. J.

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