Washington D.C., Aug 9, 2009 / 02:04 am
A new documentary tells the stories of Greek and Roman Catholic women religious who lived their faith under communist harassment and persecution in Eastern and Central Europe.
The one-hour documentary, “Interrupted Lives: Catholic Sisters Under European Communism,” will be distributed to ABC television stations and affiliates on September 13. It will be scheduled at the discretion of local stations.
Between World War II and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, many women religious endured imprisonment, exile to Siberia, forced farm and factory labor, deportation, seizure of their schools and hospitals and even expulsion from their convents.
Some sisters were nurses or educators while others cared for orphans, the elderly and the mentally ill, a Friday press release from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) says. “Interrupted Lives” tells their stories and interviews the “secret sisters” who joined religious life during the Communist period and lived their vocations in the underground.