Additionally, Bishop Schneider will be at Ss Peter and Paul and St Philomena, New Brighton on Saturday 27th February - details of his visit there can be viewed here.
(Priests, Deacons, Seminarians and Religious)
On the Feast of St Matthias, Apostle:
- 6:00PM: Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (confessions heard during that time)
- [Clergy may arrive any time before 7PM]
- 6:45PM: Benediction
- 7:00PM: Spiritual Talk to clergy: "The priest as a minister of the truth"
- 7:45PM: Questions and Answers
- 8:00PM: Refreshments
- 11:00am Pontifical Low Mass with music
- 12:15pm Refreshments
- 1:00pm Spiritual talk to all: "The Christian faith and martyrdom"
Bishop Athanasius Schneider was born in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union. His parents were ethnic Germans from Ukraine who were sent by Stalin to gulags in the Ural Mountains after the Second World War. They traveled to the Kirghiz SSR after being released from the camps.
In 1973, shortly after making his first Holy Communion by the hand of Bl. Oleksa Zaryckyj, priest and martyr, he left with his family for Germany. He joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra, a Catholic religious order, and was ordained a priest in 1990, earning a doctorate in Patristics, a topic he taught at Mary Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda.
On 2 June 2006 he was consecrated Bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in the Vatican by Angelo Cardinal Sodano. In 2011 he was transferred to the position of auxiliary bishop in the Archdiocese of Astana. He is the Secretary of the Bishops' Conference of Kazakhstan. In Karaganda, formerly the centre of Soviet atheistic persecution, he managed to build a superb landmark Catholic cathedral.
Bishop Schneider speaks many languages and is regularly invited to give conferences on faith and morals to clergy and lay people at international Catholic events.