Celebrant:
His Excellency, Bishop Athanasius Schneider Auxiliary Bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan
Guests of Honor:
- Prince Dimitri Galitzine, Great-Grandson of Blessed Karl, and Princess Alexandra Galitzine
Special Guests:
- Father Boniface Hicks, O.S.B., and Suzanne Pearson, Delegates for The Emperor Karl League of Prayer, U.S.A. / Canada
- Declan Ganley, Irish Entrepreneur, Pro-Life Advocate
- Raymond de Souza, International Catholic Apologist
- Paul D. van Wei, Kaiser-Karl-Archive of North America
Music by Musikanten, Saint Marys Schola, and Saint Benets Schola
Following Mass will be veneration of a First Class Relic of Blessed Karl and a reception with a presentation on Blessed Karl (close to Saint Mary's on 5th Street).
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, O.R.C., serves as the auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana. Born Anton Schneider in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union, his parents were ethnic Germans from the 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. When he joined the Canons Regular of the Holy Cross of Coimbra he was given the religious name Athanasius. He was ordained a priest on March 25, 1990. Beginning in 1999, he taught Patristics at Mary, Mother of the Church Seminary in Karaganda. In 2009 he authored, Dominus Est — It is the Lord: Reflections from a Bishop in Central Asia on Holy Communion (Newman House Press), which discusses ways of receiving the Eucharist with reverence. On June 2, 2006, he was consecrated a bishop at the Altar of the Chair of Saint Peter in Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome, by Angelo Cardinal Sodano. In 2011 he was named auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Astana.