TheCatholic Church in Kazakhstan is part of the worldwideCatholic Church, under the spiritual leadership of thePope inRome.
The 2021 census noted thatKazakhstan is 17.19%Christian.[1] Other figures suggest that less than 1% of the population is Catholic.[2] This is approximately 125,000 people, or half of the membership that the church had in 2007.[3]
In 2020, there were 104 priests and 133 nuns serving 81 parishes in the country.[4]
In 2007, most Catholics in the country were ethnic Poles, Germans and Lithuanians; the population of Catholics had decreased after the fall of communism as many German Catholics emigrated to Germany.[5] There were also 3,000Greek Catholics, also referred to asEastern Rite Catholics, in the country.[5]
In the second century AD, ChristianRoman prisoners of war were taken to what is now Kazakhstan after their defeat by theSassanidPersians.[3] A bishop's see existed in the fourth century, and there was also aMelkite monastery in the late fourth and early fifth centuries.[3]
AFranciscan monk,William of Rubruck travelled around Kazakhstan in 1254 and metMöngke Khan andSartaq Khan (great-grandson of Genghis Khan). A few years laterPope Nicholas III established the Diocese of Kipciak.[6]
The head of theSoviet UnionJoseph Stalin caused a great increase in the Catholic population of Kazakhstan by the deportation of Catholics and their clergy to concentration camps in the country. Some of the priests later decided to help build the church in that country.[3] In the late 1960s, two Catholic churches were registered, one inAlma-Ata and one inKustanai, and later disbanded and were re-registered.[7]
With the fall of communism in 1991, the Catholic community fully came back out into the open.[8] In 1991,Pope John Paul II established anApostolic Administration that covered all ofCentral Asia.[9] Diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Kazakhstan were established in 1994.[3] In 1997, the other four countries of the region,Kyrgyzstan,Tajikistan,Turkmenistan, andUzbekistan all became independent missions, so the Apostolic Administration became for only Kazakhstan and was based inKaraganda.[9] In 1999, the apostolic administration was split in four; three new apostolic administrations were created, based in Almaty, Astana, and Atyrau, and a diocese was created inKaraganda.[9]Pope John Paul II became the first Pope to visit Kazakhstan in the country's history in 2001.[10] In 2003, John Paul II elevatedAstana to an archdiocese andAlmaty to a diocese.[11] In 2006, Catholic priests were ordained for the first time ever in the country.[12]
Bishop José Luis Mumbiela Sierra, of Almaty Diocese, described the variety of the Catholic population in Kazakhstan during a conference with Aid to the Church in Need: "A large proportion of the Catholics live in the north of the country, where there is a Polish majority. In the larger cities there is a bigger mix of people. For example, there are many Koreans, from past deportations, who are Catholic. There are also people from non-Christian populations who converted to Catholicism. It is like a river that keeps flowing, because people are attracted by the Church’s message."[13]
In 2008, the Church in Kazakhstan affirmed its Asiatic identity when its episcopal conference was formally accepted into theFederation of Asian Bishops' Conferences.[3]
In 2022 three of the Catholic Church's bishops issued calls for peace, following the episodes ofcivil unrest that led to hundreds of deaths in the country.[14]
In 1996 here was appointed by the Holy See an Apostolic Visitor, who was replaced in 2002 byApostolic Delegate, who depended from theCongregation for the Oriental Churches. But on 1 June 2019 byPope Francis was established theApostolic Administration of Kazakhstan and Central Asia for the all Byzantine Rite (mainlyUkrainian Greek Catholic) parishes. The circumscription encompassesKazakhstan and others fourCentral Asia states.[15]
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