by Chiara Dommarco
Novosibirsk (Agenzia Fides) - On Sunday 2 February, the German Jesuit Father Stephan Lipke was ordained bishop in the Cathedral of the Transfiguration in Novosibirsk. Pope Francis appointed the Jesuit Lipke auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of the Transfiguration of Novosibirsk on 12 September 2024, giving him the Titular See of Arena. The Diocese of the Transfiguration is headed by Bishop Joseph Werth, who has been in office since 1991, when the Catholic structures in Russia were restored with the two apostolic administrations for European and Asian Russia.
Father Stephan Lipke has been a missionary in Russia for 17 years. After learning of the murder of two Jesuit priests (Father Otto Messmer and Father Victor Betancourt) in Moscow by a psychiatric patient in October 2008, Father Lipke asked his superiors if he could be sent on a mission to Russia: they replied yes, but that he would have to wait three years and learn the language first. Thus, in September 2011, Father Stephan arrived in Siberia for the first time, where he carried out his pastoral service first in Novosibirsk and then in Tomsk. He received his doctorate in philology from the Tomsk State University. It is in Tomsk that the Society of Jesus runs a gymnasium founded in 1993 by local Catholics, still among the best schools in the region. From Siberia, Father Stephan was transferred to Moscow, where since 2018 he has been rector of the St. Thomas Institute. Since 2020, he has been Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Russian Federation. In the Russian capital, Father Lipke is an important reference person for many Catholics and a sincere friend for many Orthodox and Protestants. With regard to the current relations between Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy, the Jesuit stresses in an interview with Fides on the occasion of his episcopal ordination how "important it is to always have a dialogue when and where we see that we are united by the desire to live according to the Gospel".
In addition to his cultural activities at the St. Thomas Institute and teaching at various Russian universities, Father Stephan Lipke was entrusted during his years in Moscow with the pastoral care of the Anglophone Catholic communities, which are mainly made up of Filipino immigrant workers and students from various African countries.
On January 20, 2025, Father Stephan returned to Novosibirsk, where he will now take up his new role as Auxiliary Bishop. The episcopal motto he has chosen is "Obsecramus pro Christo" (2 Cor 5:20): "We are therefore ambassadors for Christ". "An urgent call for reconciliation," explains the Jesuit, referring to the content of the Second Letter to the Corinthians, from which the quote is taken. The Diocese of Transfiguration in Novosibirsk, which extends over an area of 2 million square kilometers, is home to a good half a million Catholics, or around 2% of the total population. Together with the Diocese of St. Clement in Saratov and the Diocese of St. Joseph in Irkutsk, it is a suffragan diocese of the Archdiocese of the Mother of God in Moscow: all four form the ecclesiastical province of the Catholic Church in Russia with its widely scattered and mostly small Catholic communities. "There is a great need among Catholics to be united despite the distances and at the same time to care for others, for example the poor, regardless of what background they come from," says the new bishop.
Furthermore, the Jesuit stresses that the value of the educational and charitable initiatives of the Catholic Church in the Diocese of the Transfiguration of Novosibirsk is significant for the entire Russian civil society: "Think, for example, of the tireless help of Caritas for the children of Central Asia or the help of the Sisters of Mother Teresa for alcoholics. Or even of the schools in Novosibirsk and Tomsk. It is not only Catholics who expect something good from these initiatives and institutions".
From the years spent in Moscow, Father Lipke will take with him to Novosibirsk "a special love for migrants and foreigners, especially for the many African students who are found in every university town". When asked what feature of his own formation in the charism of Saint Ignatius of Loyola will accompany him as bishop in Siberia, the Jesuit replies: "The teaching of not paying so much attention to circumstances, but of doing the good that is possible here and now". (Agenzia Fides, 3/2/2025)