The Marian Martyrs of Rosica

40 The Marian Martyrs of Rosica SERVICE IN THE FAR EAST After the celebration of his First Mass, the young priest went off to his pastoral duties which he performed for almost 25 years in the Far East, never visiting his family or country. First he worked for a year as vicar in Irkutsk, where the memory of Marian Father Krzystof Szwernicki, the apostle of Siberia, was still alive. In 1915-17, Fr. Anthony was the vicar in the city of Chita, where he also worked as the teacher of religion in one Polish and two Russian schools. In 1917, he was transferred to the Polish parish of St. Stanislaus in Harbin, China, but initial- ly he was ordered to take care of the large Polish colony in a branch of that parish in a hamlet called Mandzuria, 866 kilo- meters from Harbin. There, too, he taught religion in Russian schools and in one Polish school. He also taught Latin in the Polish Henry Sienkiewicz High School. Robert Wierzejski, a Marian who came to Harbin at the beginning of 1927 following a naturalist expedition to South America, also taught in the same high school for some time. In 1924, the bishop of Vladivostok, Charles Sliwowski, cre- ated a second parish for the Poles at the Harbin harbor. It was dedicated to St. Josephat and assigned to Fr. Anthony Leszczewicz. Everything needed to be set up from scratch. Even though the cornerstone had been laid for the new church as early as 1922, work came to a standstill because of subse- quent serious obstacles. The new pastor shifted the site of the church a little, and on September 5, 1924, he laid new founda- tions. The new church was consecrated on June 15, 1925. Designed by architect W. Jankiewicz, it was constructed of cedar in the neo-Gothic style. A rectory was also built in which the pastor immediately opened a kindergarten and an elemen- tary school for poor children. The total construction cost was US $7,000. At the end of 1928, Fr. Fabian Abrantowicz arrived in Harbin, named by Pope Pius XI as Apostolic Administrator for Russian Catholics of the Eastern Rite. Soon after, a Marian reli- gious house and a school for boys opened at the Eastern