Save the ruins of a Slovak monastery - Katarinka

As we are slowly but surely approaching the beginning of our main season on Katarinka, we would like to share some of the project highlights from the past three months.

Traditionally at the end of March, we organised our biggest and most important volunteer training course – we invited around 100 young people, who took part in our summer voluntary camps and have shown interest and eagerness to support our project in the next season. The aim of the training was to share the basic knowledge about the history, vision and processes in our project, help the young people to develop their organisational, communication and leadership skills and in such a way prepare them for the organization of the project events in the future. The training consisted of  lectures, group discussions, role-plays and practical exercises. The feedback from all participating volunteers was very positive and they described the workshop as extremely helpful and found the shared information very practical for they future volunteering activities.

After Easter one of our main traditional public events kicked off the spring season - the so-called White Sunday Pilgrimage. The tradition of the White Sunday pilgrimage dates back to 18th century, when thousand of pilgrims walked from Trnava town through the Carpathian forests up to Katarinka. In 2000, volunteers from our project renewed this tradition and started to organize the pilgrimage again on yearly basis. More than 200 people walked  through the Carpathian forests  from Buková railway station to Katarinka and more than 300 visitors joined the event on the spot. The highlight of the program was the holy mass celebrated in the ruins of the Church of St. Catherine, which was attended by more than 500 pilgrims  altogether despite of the fact, that the weather was not very pleasant.

In May Katarinka again participated in „The night churches“ – an official event, during which various churches throughout Slovakia are open to the public at night. The main program at Katarinka started with the holy mass celebrated at the dawn in the ruins of the church and was followed by a special music concert. After the concert there was a possibility to join a special night guided tour and eat some tasty refreshments prepared by the volunteers. The event attracted a huge number of visitors who enjoyed the great atmosphere, beautiful music performance and also the impressive views of the church and monastery, which were illuminated especially for the occasion.

We are looking forward to our coming summer season – our project is celebrating incredible 25 years of existence and this anniversary – 25 years of voluntary project Katarinka, 25 years of our history, our volunteering activities and our volunteers - this will be the main theme of all the public events held in our main season.