Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine de Hueck Doherty (August 15, 1896 – December 14, 1985) was a Russian-Canadian

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwide . It is am ...

baroness, social worker, racial justice activist, and founder of Friendship House and Madonna House Apostolate. A pioneer of

social justice Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, Equal opportunity, opportunities, and Social privilege, privileges within a society. In Western Civilization, Western and Culture of Asia, Asian cultures, the concept of social ...

and a renowned national speaker, Doherty was also a prolific writer of hundreds of articles, best-selling author of dozens of books, and a dedicated wife and mother. Her cause for

canonization Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...

as a saint is under consideration by the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

.Catherine Doherty: Her Life
catherinedoherty.org

Biography

Doherty was born Ekaterina Fyodorovna Kolyschkine (Екатерина Фёдоровна Колышкина) in

Nizhny Novgorod Nizhny Novgorod ( ; rus, links=no, Нижний Новгород, a=Ru-Nizhny Novgorod.ogg, p=ˈnʲiʐnʲɪj ˈnovɡərət ), colloquially shortened to Nizhny, from the 13th to the 17th century Novgorod of the Lower Land, formerly known as Gork ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the List of Russian monarchs, Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended th ...

. Her parents, Fyodor and Emma Thomson Kolyschkine, belonged to the minor

nobility Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the realm with many e ...

and were devout members of the

Russian Orthodox Church , native_name_lang = ru , image = Moscow July 2011-7a.jpg , imagewidth = , alt = , caption = Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow, Russia , abbreviation = ROC , type ...

who had their child baptized in St. Petersburg on September 15, 1896. She was not baptized on the same day that she was born because her mother was worried she might get a disease as she had been born on a train. Schooled abroad due to her father's job, she had exposure to the

through her schooling in Alexandria, Egypt, where her father, an aristocrat, had been posted by the government.Murray PP, John, "Servant of God: Catherine de Hueck Doherty", ''The Messenger'', July 2007
/ref> Her family returned to St. Petersburg in 1910, where she was enrolled in the prestigious Princess Obolensky Academy. In 1912, aged 15, she married her first cousin, Boris de Hueck (1889–1947). At the outbreak of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Catherine de Hueck became a

Red Cross The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement is a Humanitarianism, humanitarian movement with approximately 97 million Volunteering, volunteers, members and staff worldwide. It was founded to protect human life and health, to ensure re ...

nurse at the front, experiencing the horrors of battle firsthand. On her return to St. Petersburg, she and Boris barely escaped the turmoil of the

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution was a period of political and social revolution that took place in the former Russian Empire which began during the First World War. This period saw Russia abolish its monarchy and adopt a socialist form of government ...

with their lives, nearly starving to death as refugees in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bo ...

. Together they made their way to England, where de Hueck was received into the Catholic Church on November 27, 1919. Emigrating to Canada with Boris, de Hueck gave birth to their only child, George, in Toronto in 1921. To make ends meet, she took various jobs, eventually traveling across the United States, giving talks on the

Chautauqua Chautauqua ( ) was an adult education and social movement in the United States, highly popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Chautauqua assemblies expanded and spread throughout rural America until the mid-1920s. The Chautauqua bro ...

lecture circuit.Fay, Terence J., ''History of Canadian Catholics'', McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP, 2002

Friendship House

Prosperous now, but deeply dissatisfied with a life of material comfort, her marriage in ruins, de Hueck began to feel the promptings of a deeper call through a passage that leaped to her eyes every time she opened the Bible: "Arise — go... sell all you possess... take up your cross and follow Me." Consulting with various priests and the bishop of the

diocese In church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided provinces were administratively associat ...

, she began her lay apostolate among the poor. In 1932, she gave up all her possessions, lived among the multitude of poor people in downtown Toronto and established Friendship House with its soup kitchen. She gave food to them when she had none for herself – and offered Catholic education and fellowship, too. She was tagged as a communist sympathizer and, beleaguered by her own organization, Friendship House was forced to close in 1936. Catherine then went to Europe and spent a year investigating Catholic Action. On her return, she established the Friendship House at 34 West 135th Street in

Harlem Harlem is a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, New York City. It is bounded roughly by the Hudson River on the west; the Harlem River and 155th Street on the north; Fifth Avenue on the east; and Central Park North on the south. The greater Harl ...

in 1937. The interracial charity center, in addition to distributing goods to the poor, conducted lectures and discussions to promote racial understanding. In 1943, having received an

annulment Annulment is a legal procedure within secular and religious legal systems for declaring a marriage null and void. Unlike divorce, it is usually retroactive, meaning that an annulled marriage is considered to be invalid from the beginning almost ...

of her first marriage—as she had married her cousin, which is forbidden in the Catholic Church—she married Eddie Doherty, an American journalist, whom she had met when he was writing a story about her.

Madonna House

Serious disagreements arose between the staff of Friendship House and its foundress, particularly surrounding her marriage. When these could not be resolved, Doherty and Eddie moved to Combermere, Ontario, on May 17, 1947 to retire. As she recovered, she started to serve the needs of the community. What eventually blossomed was a new rural apostolate called Madonna House that now numbers approximately 200 staff workers with 17 missionary field-houses throughout the world.

Death

Catherine de Hueck Doherty died in Combermere, on December 14, 1985, at the age of 89. Since then, the cause for her

as a saint has been officially opened in the Catholic Church.

Spirituality

"I considered Nazareth to be the center of my vocation. Only by being hidden would I be a light to my neighbor’s feet in the slums," Doherty wrote. She believed that activism should be rooted in prayer and that faith should be brought to every aspect of daily life.

"The Little Mandate"

The core of Doherty's spirituality is summarized in a "distillation" of the Gospel which she called "The Little Mandate" — words which she believed she received from

Jesus Christ Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...

and which guided her life. It reads: The spirituality expressed in The Little Mandate is also known as "the Madonna House way of life".

Duty of the moment

A central theme in Doherty's spirituality is "the duty of the moment". As she herself put it:

The duty of the moment is what you should be doing at any given time, in whatever place God has put you. You may not have Christ in a homeless person at your door, but you may have a little child. If you have a child, your duty of the moment may be to change a dirty diaper. So you do it. But you don't just change that diaper, you change it to the best of your ability, with great love for both God and that child.... There are all kinds of good Catholic things you can do, but whatever they are, you have to realize that there is always the duty of the moment to be done. And it must be done, because the duty of the moment is the duty of God.

Poustinia

Doherty is perhaps best known for having introduced the concept of poustinia to Roman Catholicism through her best-selling book ''Poustinia'', first published in 1975. A poustinia is a small sparsely furnished cabin or room where a person goes to pray and

fast Fast or FAST may refer to: * Fast (noun), high speed or velocity * Fast (noun, verb), to practice fasting, abstaining from food and/or water for a certain period of time Acronyms and coded Computing and software * ''Faceted Application of Subje ...

alone in the presence of

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

for 24 hours.

Notable awards

* Cross of St. George, for bravery on the Russian Front * Order of St. Anna, for continuing in the line of duty under attack * '' Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice'', Papal decoration medal, awarded by

Pope John XXIII Pope John XXIII ( la, Ioannes XXIII; it, Giovanni XXIII; born Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, ; 25 November 18813 June 1963) was head of the Roman Catholic Church, Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City, Vatican City State from 28 Oc ...

for "exceptional and outstanding work for the Church and for the Pope", 1960 * Member of the

Order of Canada The Order of Canada (french: Ordre du Canada; abbreviated as OC) is a Canadian state order and the second-highest honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the c ...

, "for a lifetime of devoted services to the underprivileged of many nationalities, both in Canada and abroad", 1976. In July 2008, the Madonna House Apostolate returned Doherty's Order of Canada insignia to

Rideau Hall Rideau Hall (officially Government House) is the official residence in Ottawa of both the Canadian monarch and their representative, the governor general of Canada. It stands in Canada's capital on a estate at 1 Sussex Drive, with the main ...

as a symbolic gesture of protest over the induction of Henry Morgentaler into the order. * Dame of the

Order of Saint John of Jerusalem The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem ( la, Ordo Fratrum Hospitalis Sancti Ioannis Hierosolymitani), commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), was a medieval and early modern Catholic military order. It was headqu ...

* Jules Favre Foundation Award,

Académie française An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...

* Woman of the Year, World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations, Rome * International

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...

Society * Poverello Medal, Franciscan University of Steubenville

Cause for canonization

Doherty's cause for

as a saint was opened by

Pope John Paul II Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...

in 2000, and she has been given the official title Servant of God — the first step on the way to being declared

Venerable The Venerable (''venerabilis'' in Latin) is a style, a title, or an epithet which is used in some Western Christian churches, or it is a translation of similar terms for clerics in Eastern Orthodoxy and monastics in Buddhism. Christianity Cat ...

, then

Blessed Blessed may refer to: * The state of having received a blessing * Blessed, a title assigned by the Roman Catholic Church to someone who has been beatified Film and television * ''Blessed'' (2004 film), a 2004 motion picture about a supernatura ...

, and finally Saint. At the current stage in the process, a diocesan tribunal, as well as a historical commission, are examining Doherty's life and writings under the supervision of the bishop of the Diocese of Pembroke.

References

External links

Catherine Doherty's Cause for CanonizationMadonna House ApostolateBooks by Catherine Doherty
{{DEFAULTSORT:Doherty, Catherine 1896 births 1985 deaths 19th-century venerated Christians 20th-century venerated Christians Activists for African-American civil rights Canadian activists Canadian anti-poverty activists Canadian Christian pacifists Canadian civil rights activists Canadian Eastern Catholics Canadian hermits Canadian Roman Catholic theologians Canadian Servants of God Canadian spiritual writers Canadian women non-fiction writers Catholic pacifists Catholic social teaching Converts to Eastern Catholicism from Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Catholic Servants of God Eastern Catholic writers Emigrants from the Russian Empire to Canada Former Russian Orthodox Christians Founders of Catholic religious communities Leaders of Christian parachurch organizations Members of the Order of Canada People from Renfrew County Roman Catholic activists Roman Catholic writers Russian Eastern Catholics Russian hermits Russian untitled nobility White movement people White Russian emigrants to Canada Women civil rights activists