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{{no footnotes|date=May 2014}}
{{Infobox Christian leader
| type = Bishop
| name = Joseph Werth [[Society of Jesus|SJ]]
| title = [[Bishop]] of Transfiguration at [[Novosibirsk]]
| image = Coat of arms of Joseph Werth.svg
| alt =
| caption =
| church = [[Catholic Church]]
| archdiocese =
| diocese =
| see = [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Transfiguration at Novosibirsk|Latin Diocese of Transfiguration at Novosibirsk]]
| term = February 11, 2002–present
| predecessor = [[Excellency|HE]] [[Monsignor|Msgr]] [[Jerzy Mazur]] [[Divine Word Missionaries|SVD]]
| successor = incumbent

| ordination = May 27, 1984
| ordained_by = [[Society of Jesus]]{{disputed-inline|Ibx "ordained by"|date=August 2013}}
| consecration = June 16, 1991
| consecrated_by = [[Excellency|HE]] [[Francesco Colasuonno]], [[Excellency|HE]] [[Monsignor|Msgr]] [[Tadevush Kandrusievich]], and [[Excellency|HE]] [[Monsignor|Msgr]] [[Juozas Tunaitis]]
| rank =

| birth_date = {{Birth date and age|1952|10|4|mf=y}}
| birth_place = [[Qaraghandy|Karaganda]], [[Kazakhstan]]
| death_date =
| death_place =
| previous_post =
}}
[[Bishop]] '''Joseph Werth''' SJ ({{lang-ru|Иосиф Иоганнович Верт}}; born October 4, 1952 in [[Qaraghandy|Karaganda]]) is Bishop of [[Roman Catholic Diocese of Transfiguration at Novosibirsk|Transfiguration]] in [[Novosibirsk]] ([[Russia]]).

Named as the Latin-rite Apostolic Administrator of [[Siberia]] - a see that encompassed 4.2 million square miles (10.3 per cent of all the land on earth) and extends through nine of the world's twenty four time zones - by [[Pope John Paul II]] on April 13, 1991, Werth initially had only two Ukrainian-born priests to help him minister to an estimated 500,000 Catholics. He has since assembled over 100 priests, nuns and lay missionaries from 18 different countries, mostly from Poland, Germany, and Slovakia, but also Nicaragua, Lebanon, India, Argentina, South Korea, and other countries. At least fourteen are from the United States.

The Apostolic Administration of Siberia was divided in 1999 into the Apostolic Administrations of Eastern and of Western Siberia, and the Apostolic Administration of Western Siberia was elevated in 2002 to the rank of a diocese, the Diocese of Transfiguration in Novosibirsk.
The center of his diocese is at [[Novosibirsk]], the capital of [[Siberia]], where the cathedral stands. He has sent church workers to the largest cities of Siberia, as well as many towns with sizeable Catholic populations.

Joseph Werth began studies for the priesthood clandestinely in Lithuania under the direction of a leader of the underground Jesuits, who also secretly accepted him into the Lithuanian Province of the [[Society of Jesus]]. Later he completed his studies at the seminary in [[Kaunas]]. In 1984 Father Werth became the first Roman Catholic priest ordained since the 1930s in the Asian part of the former [[Soviet Union]].

He pursued pastoral work at [[Aktyubinsk]], [[Kazakhstan]] from 1984 till 1988. He was reportedly so successful in his ministry at Aktyubinsk that the local communist officials expelled him from the city in 1988. {{Citation needed|date=September 2007}}

In 1988 he moved to [[Marks, Russia|Marx]] in Russia's [[Saratov oblast]], where two of his own sisters (both Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament) had organized about thirty Catholic congregations among the thousands of ethnic Germans who, following the death of Stalin, had returned to the area of the former Volga German Republic. He served there until 1991.

Bishop Werth is fluent in Russian, German, and Lithuanian.

==Family==
The Bishop's paternal grandfather was Joseph Werth, who was born in 1871 at Schoenchen [http://volga.schoenchen.org:8000/], [[Russian Empire]] and deported as a [[kulak]] to Kazakhstan in 1929 (with his wife and children). He died in 1951. The Bishop's paternal grandmother was Paulina Demund (b. 1881, Schoenchen - d. 1933). The Bishop's maternal grandfather was Dominic Hoerner (born near Odessa, Ukraine), who was deported around 1931 to [[Kazakhstan]] with his family. Joseph and Paulina Werth (and their son Johannes) were part of a trainload of 30000 ethnic Germans gathered up during the collectivization and dumped in the middle of the Kazakhstan steppe in the middle of winter of 1929.

Those who survived did so by digging holes in the earth. By the time the next load arrived, 12,000 had died. This area is now the city of [[Karaganda]], where on October 4, 1952, Msgr. Werth was born. He was the second of eleven children born to Johannes Werth (born October 1, 1923 in Schoenchen, [[Russian Empire]] - died November 18, 1995 in [[Frankfurt|Ilbenstadt, near Frankfurt, Germany]]) and Maria Hoerner Werth (born December 23, 1931, near [[Odessa, Ukraine]]).

==External links==
*[http://sibcatholic.ru/ Diocese of Novosibirsk (in Russian)]
*[http://feefhs.org/lfs/werth.html Werth Biography]
*[http://www.usccb.org/aee/russiadir.shtml US Conference of Catholic Bishops/Russia]
*[http://www.usccb.org/comm/archives/2007/07-094.shtml US Conference of Catholic Bishops archives]
*[http://ncrcafe.org/node/218 Summit on religion]

{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Werth, Joseph}}
[[Category:1952 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:Russian-German people]]
[[Category:Russian Jesuits]]
[[Category:Russian Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:Russian Roman Catholic bishops]]
[[Category:Kazakhstani Roman Catholics]]
[[Category:People from Karaganda]]
[[Category:People from Novosibirsk]]
[[Category:Kazakhstani people of German descent]]

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