Catholic Compendium now available in Russian
The Russian version of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church will be presented on Tuesday at Moscow’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception. The decision to have Catechism published belongs to Pope John Paul II who also wanted a shorter version made available to anyone interested in it. I hope it will “serve as an effective instrument of evangelisation and strengthening of Christian faith and contribute to cooperation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches,” says Archbishop Kondrusiewicz.

Moscow (AsiaNews/Agencies) – As Pope John Paul II requested, a Russian version of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church has been published and will be presented on Tuesday at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Moscow.

For Mgr Tadeusz Kondrusiewicz, archbishop of the Diocese of the Mother of God in Moscow, the new edition is “a source that conveys clearly and precisely the essence of the Catholic doctrine, which one can turn to in order to get a coherent and authentic idea of the faith and morality.”

The prelate expressed hope that the Compendium would become very popular and “serve as an effective instrument of evangelisation and strengthening of Christian faith and contribute to cooperation between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches in preaching and protecting Christian values.”

The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains the official teachings of the Church and was John Paul II’s idea. The first edition dates back to 1992.

In 2003, the Pope decided that a Compendium to the Catechism be published so that anyone interested in the basic tenets of the faith could study them. But the task of presenting the Compendium fell on Pope Benedict XVI on June 28, 2005.

Divided in four parts, the book offers a clear but simple history of the Catholic faith in the form of a dialogue between the catechist and his listeners.

The first Russian edition will be 216-pages long and will be printed in 3,000 copies.

The Russian version of the actual Catechism of the Catholic Church has 814 pages. In the last ten years it has already run to six editions for a total of 12,000 copies, this according to Jean-Francois Thiry, director of the Spiritual Library Cultural Centre.