The idea and project to build a Church in Antarctica did start in the year 2003 after having seen that just few Bases down there have their own Church for personnel and researchers. Some of them are: US Mc Murdo Base, Chilean P.te Frei Base, Russian Bellinghausen base, Bulgarian St. Klimend Ohridski Base. and sone Argentine’s Stations. Italian Base Mario Zucchelli Station which guests about 120-160 people does not have a site to feed spiritual needs of its personnel.
I did start to involve authorities, politics, media (newspapers and TV) and of course the PNRA (National Antarctic Research Program, which is the authority that holds responsibility and jurisdiction of the Italian installations and research programs in Antarctica), to sensitize the pubblic opinion and the institutions about this matter.
Bureaucracy is a huge problem, particularly in Italy and of course, we are still working in trying to convince PNRA to give the authorization. Also we did involve the Vatican through the official channels such as The Secretary of State Vatican and CEI Italian Episcopal Conference .
After a national TV interview, we have been called by Italian Companies who have offered to build and donate the Churc:: Saint Gobain and Bertero Technology located in the city of Cuneo in the North west part of Italy have developped bio materials for building industry and both Companies did offer to join together in building and pack the Church in a container ready to be shipped to Terra Nova bay in Antarctica where the Italian base is located.
Unfortunately every thing was jusr a great purpose …permission is not been given, but we are still fighting to make the dream a reality