Assumption College Presents Bishop Bernard Flanagan Lecture with Dr. Gary Hamburg

March, 2004—Assumption College's Ecumenical Institute presents the 2004 Bishop Bernard Flanagan Lecture, "Faith and Terror: An American Assumptionist in Moscow, 1934-1938," with Dr.Gary Hamburg, professor of Russian history at the University of Notre Dame. This lecture takes place on Thursday, March 18, 2004, at 7:30 p.m. in the Salon of La Maison Francaise.

Dr. Hamburg will discuss the experience of Fr. Leopold Braun, A.A., (1903-1964), who was the first of 10 American Assumptionist priests to serve as a Catholic chaplain to the diplomatic corps in Moscow under the provisions of a 1933 agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union. He arrived in the Soviet capital in 1934 and remained in his post until the end of World War II in 1945. For most of that time, Fr. Braun was the only Catholic priest ministering in the Soviet Union under the rule of Josef Stalin.

A specialist in modern Russian history, Dr. Hamburg took part in the symposium held in Rome in November 2003 in observance of the centennial of Assumptionist presence in Russia. He is preparing Fr. Braun’s memoir, Twelve Russian Years To Remember, for publication in the United States, as well as a Russian-language edition of the memoir to appear in Moscow.

This lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Dr. Marc A. LePain, director of the Ecumenical Institute, at 508-767-7127 or malepain@assumption.edu.