70 spring from Isaac, and now Isaac was to be put to death! And yet Abraham showed a blind faith: he obediently obeyed all commands. The Book of Genesis doesn’t even try to analyze his thoughts; that would be done ages later by the author of the Letter to Hebrews, providing perhaps the only possible interpretation of this extraordinary trust: for he [Abraham] reasoned that God was able to raise even from the dead (Heb 11:19). “God never lies: if He promised that Isaac would father progeny, it will happen even if I give him in sacrifice!” This was the completion of Abraham’s “spiritual journey” – his purifying road to the heights of faith. Harbin owed its origins to the Russian Trans-Siberian Railway, the construction of which began in 1898. Under special agreements, it was managed by the Russians and possessed an eminently Russian character. After the revolution, this town became the largest center of Russian emigrants, the majority of whom belonged to the elite of pre-revolutionary Russia. Members of this so-called “white emigration” resided in the Old Russian district of Harbin, known as the “fortress of white Russians.” Also, marginalized people settled in Harbin: convicts, refugees from Siberia and broken tsarist prisons (also Poles), survivors of the intervention armies. With time, as the communist regime strengthened, large numbers of Soviet citizens with communist beliefs arrived in the city. Harbin’s population at the time of the Marian mission there was a melting pot of nationalities, races, religions, various sects, denominations and political orientations – often at odds with one another in terms of religion, politics and nationality. The first place among these groups belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church with around 100,000 faithful in the 1920s. The Catholic Church had about 4,000 faithful (not counting the Chinese parish that lived a completely separate life). Catholics had two parish churches, a minor theological seminary and two chapels: one at the seminary and the other at the high school. There were also two secondary schools run by the Franciscan and Ursuline Sisters. After the installation of the Byzantine-Slavic mission, these schools passed under the jurisdiction of its Ordinary and closely cooperated with the Marian missionaries in their work. The relations between the Russians and the Polish colonies in Harbin were filled with hostility and no attempt was made to improve
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