by Paolo Affatato
Korneewka – In a small village in northern Kazakhstan, a school continues to invest in the future: the St Lawrence School in Korneewka, an educational project launched thirty years ago on the initiative of a German priest and which has grown into a point of reference for more than 200 students. Here, education is also a way of giving children and adolescents the opportunity to imagine a different life, discover their talents and grow into people capable of taking responsibility within their families and society.
Father Leopold Kropfreiter, a priest of the Servants of Jesus and Mary and headmaster of the school since 2018, spoke to Fides News Agency about this experience. Having arrived in Kazakhstan in 2008, after his first years of pastoral ministry and a period serving as national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies, Father Leopold is well acquainted with the challenges of a vast territory, marked by long distances and social change. The school is located in a small community of around 2,500 inhabitants in the country’s northern region, approximately 120 kilometres from Petropavlovsk. In a rural context, providing a quality education means offering young people the tools to build their own future, even when opportunities close to home are limited.
The St Lawrence School was founded on the initiative of Catholics. Inspired by a Christian vision of education, it is a private school operating under an agreement with the Kazakh state, which recognizes its educational program. “We cannot call it a Catholic school,” Father Leopold Kropfreiter explains, “but we seek to convey a Christian vision of the human person through education, ethics and personal development.” This identity is open to encounter: students and staff include Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants and Muslims of different nationalities.
The story of St Lawrence School began in 1996, as Father Leopold tells Fides: “After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the reorganization of the country, Father Lorenz Gawol, a German priest who had arrived in Kazakhstan in 1991, was faced with a choice. Many families of German origin lived in the region, including a large number of Catholics. The priest had contributed to the life of the community and the establishment of parishes, but during the 1990s many Germans returned to Germany. Should he stay or leave? The answer took shape as he looked at the children and young people who remained.”
“One option was to return to Germany himself; another was to try to help the country and its local children and young people by providing them with a good education, a solid moral foundation and a form of Christian formation.” It was this second path that gave rise to the school, which opened in September 1996 with just eleven children. Within a few years, enrolment had grown to more than 200 students aged between five and eighteen.
Education and opportunities for young people
The St Lawrence school is part of Kazakhstan’s education system and places particular emphasis on character formation, responsibility and personal growth. Alongside the state curriculum, students can take part in sports, artistic, musical and craft activities. The school also includes a kindergarten and a boarding facility for students from distant communities.
“One of the school’s distinguishing features is language teaching,” Father Leopold explains. “German, in particular, has played a central role since the school was founded, partly because of the region’s historical ties with the ethnic German community. Since 2009, the school has participated in the DSD program, which enables students to prepare for the German Language Diploma examinations, with qualifications recognized in Germany and Austria. This offers a concrete opportunity to pursue further studies abroad and broaden their career prospects.”
“Families send their children here because they appreciate what the school offers,” the priest observes. “First of all, I believe it is because the fees are very affordable, as this is also a social project. And then because of the quality of education.” The results can be seen in the young people who have continued their studies in Europe: according to the headmaster, around 25 to 30 former students are currently studying in Germany and Austria.
Yet the value of these opportunities goes beyond the possibility of studying abroad. For Father Leopold, “the most important result is that young people can discover abilities and opportunities that might otherwise remain hidden. Education broadens their horizons, strengthens their self-confidence and helps them choose their own path with greater freedom.”
Christian witness that welcomes everyone
The school’s missionary dimension is evident in everyday life. Its teaching staff comprises laypeople from different religious backgrounds: Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Protestants and Muslims. The students, in turn, come from families with diverse traditions. “The school thus becomes a tangible place of encounter, where Christian witness is expressed through hospitality, the quality of education and the sharing of everyday life,” he explains.
“The most important thing is that they do not see me merely as the school’s headmaster. They call me ‘Father’,” Leopold says. “The students recognize and describe the institute as ‘the Shepherd’s School’, and that is what it is: a place where education is rooted in a Christian vision of the human person.”
“Throughout the year, we celebrate various Christian feast days together, from St Martin’s Day to Christmas,” the headmaster recounts. St Martin’s Day is marked by a procession on horseback, while the Christmas pageant, featuring the Nativity, involves the entire school community and is also appreciated by the village. These occasions allow students to become familiar with Christian traditions and symbols without those belonging to other religions having to give up their own identity.
Father Leopold recalls the experience of a former Muslim student who moved to Austria. “When her Catholic boyfriend suggested that, because she was Muslim, she might have been treated with hostility at a Christian school in Kazakhstan, she described a completely different experience. She had taken part joyfully in the Christmas celebrations and had even played Mary in the Christmas Eve pageant. She proudly defended the education she had received at our school and explained its spirit of openness and intercultural understanding.”
For the headmaster, such experiences show that a school inspired by the Gospel can provide a space for dialogue and mutual respect. “We have the opportunity to meet people who are not Christians, to engage in dialogue with them and perhaps speak to them about Jesus. Or simply to set them a good example, a Christian example, which is very important.”
“In this context, missionary witness means making visible a vision of the human person that recognizes everyone’s dignity, freedom and potential for growth. Education thus becomes a meeting point between faith and life, where the Christian faith can be experienced through concrete human relationships,” he explains.
Preparing for the future, even through Technology
The St Lawrence School is also looking to the future through innovation. In 2026, as part of a program aimed at extending computer education to rural areas of Kazakhstan, the school introduced courses in digital skills, equipped itself with computers and organized training seminars on Artificial Intelligence. Father Leopold enthusiastically explains that “students are beginning to learn programming and are experimenting with creating apps and games using AI tools.”
The project has particular significance in a small village, where access to new technologies can help bridge the gap with urban centres. Offering young people with digital skills means preparing them for a rapidly changing world of work and knowledge, helping ensure that they are not excluded from future opportunities.
Korneewka, however, is experiencing a gradual migration of young people to other places. “Many families leave because they cannot find sufficient opportunities, and the number of school-age children is tending to decline,” Father Leopold acknowledges. The school’s future will also depend on its ability to sustain the project and maintain student enrolment.
The institute is supported by the communities of the Servants of Jesus and Mary and the Franciscan Sisters of Vöcklabruck, together with Church and missionary organizations such as Aid to the Church in Need and the Pontifical Mission Societies. The project relies on donations and on the work of an educational community in which religious and laypeople share responsibility for the formation of young people.
Father Leopold hopes that similar initiatives may be established elsewhere in Kazakhstan, “in the capital, Astana, or in other cities, where a school of this kind could become a centre for intercultural and interreligious dialogue.”
“Despite its modest size and the challenges of a rural context, the St Lawrence School demonstrates that an educational project can make a real difference in people’s lives and offer Christian witness that is open to society,” he explains.
The school continues to sow the seeds of the future in the steppe through languages, culture, technology, personal formation and encounters between different traditions: a missionary work that helps young people in Kazakhstan imagine and build their own future.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.