Istoriya katolicheskoj cerkvi na Vostochnom Timore i ee rol' v bor'be za nezavisimost'

Abstract

he article deals with the history of the development of the Catholic Church in East Timor since the appearance of the first Catholic priests on the island in the 16th century. Since its inception, the Catholic Church has played an important role in the political history of East Timor. In many cases, the Church took the side of the local population against the colonial regime, but became the center of the struggle for independence, turning from an institution closely associated with the Portuguese colonial order, to the institution that discovered a new mission to protect the interests of the Timorese people, after the start of the Indonesian occupation in 1975.