From November 21-23 at the St. Thomas Institute the ecumenical seminar “The Doctrine of Justification 500 Years Later” was held. The organizers of the seminar were St. Thomas Catholic Institute and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of European Russia (ELCER).
The St. Thomas Institute has already been in cooperation with the ELCER for quite some time, especially with the Central Deanery. Many of its graduates are working in ELCER congregations. The Rector of the Institute, Father Thomas Garcia, has preached numerous times in our Sts Peter and Paul Cathedral in Moscow. Therefore during one of the meetings between Father Thomas, Father Viktor Zhuk, Dean Elena Bondarenko and Lay Minister Artist Petersons the idea arose to organize a joint theological conference open to the two denominations and to the public during the year of the anniversary of the Reformation.
The idea became incarnate – a three day seminar in St. Thomas Institute with lectures by Father Jose Vegas from the “Mary Queen of the Apostles” Seminary in St. Petersburg and Pastor Anton Tikhomirov, the President of the Novosaratovka Theological Seminary. It ended up being an interesting dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics about sin, justification, salvation and the role of the Church in contemporary life.
At the conclusion of the seminar there was a discussion moderated by Father Zhuk. Dean Bondarenko and lay ministers Artis Petersons and Nikolai Demonov helped in the preparations for the seminar.
Tbilisi, Georgia
November 12 was a memorable day in the history of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Georgia and Southern Caucasus (ELCG). A new bishop was installed at Sunday worship at the Church of the Reconciliation. Pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Wortemburg, Markus Schock became the 5th bishop of the ELCG. His predecessor, Hans-Joachim Kiderlein, was the head of Georgian Lutherans from 2008 to 2017.
The installation service was led by the Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kyrgyzstan, Alfred Eicholtz; he was assisted by Bishop Hans - Joachim Kiderlen, the Bishop Emeritus of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia Abroad Elmars Rozitis, Bishop Emeritus of the ELG Johannes Launhardt, Klaus Rieth from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Wurttemberg, Dean Olga Timurbulatova, Pastor Irina Solei and Pastor Viktor Miroshnichenko.
The 51 year old Schock was elected bishop at the synod assembly of the ELCG a year ago, in November 2016. Bishop Schock is familiar with ministry in the post-Soviet context; he worked for 5 years as the pastor of the German Evangelical Lutheran congregation in Latvia, and earlier (beginning in 2000) he had worked for 4 years as the pastor of St. Georgia's in Samara (Russia).
The new bishop was greeted by representatives from other confessions, from government structures, from the German embassy and the partner church in Wurttemberg. Klaus Rit from the Wurttemberg church inspired the small Georgian church to be a “lighthouse for society.” Bishop Eicholtz, representing the Union of Evangelical Lutheran Churches – mentioned that it was a special blessing for him to take part in this installation insofar as he himself is a direct descendant of the Swabian emigrates who founded the first Lutheran congregations in Georgia. He quoted 1 Cor 4.15 as he reminded Bishop Schock of the need to love the church that has been entrusted to him and to lead it like a father.
The Area Dean for Samara Olga Temirbulatova read the congratulations written by the Archbishop of the ELCR, Dietrich Brauer, and added on her own that she has been acquainted with Pastor Schock for a long time, and knows that he is very capable of building on past developments and has the gift of consolidation and reconciliation. She sees him as a person “with a big heart,” and sees it as a blessing that he is serving in this new capacity.
The first Lutheran congregation in Ekaterinburg was founded in 1723. The first Lutherans were engineers, craftsmen and mining experts who came from Europe. After the war between Russia and Sweden in 1741-43, many parishioners were prisoners of war from Sweden and Finland.
In 1791 the first Lutheran wooden church was destroyed, and a new Orthodox church was built on the square. Until 1872 services were celebrated in various places in the city. In 1873 the new stone church was dedicated. The money for the construction was donated by church members (Germans and Swedes).
Congregational life was re-established in 1999 after the end of the Communist era. Now for the first time, after many trials, the congregation has its own space. On November 26, 2017, the congregation's building was consecrated.
The pastor of the congregation, Raikin Dürr, writes:
In the summer of last year, after many years of effort, we were finally allowed to buy a congregational center. The renovation work then lasted for over a year until we could celebrate the official dedication.
We are grateful to all friends and donors, but above all to our church members and staff who have not left us alone throughout the years.
On November 26, 2017, our newly renovated parish hall with an altar and pulpit was dedicated by Area Dean Valdemar Jesse. Brothers and sisters from different Lutheran congregations in the Urals visited us for this event. Representatives of the Liebenzell Mission also came to Ekaterinburg for the occasion. It was so crowded that people even had to sit in the cry room and there was no room left for the children - almost like the time when Jesus was born.
In his sermon Bishop Alexander Scheiermann reminded us of the heavenly hope that God offers to us Christians. We understand very well that with ownership comes responsibility.
And so, as Lutheran Christians in Ekaterinburg, we want to tell the people of our city the saving message of Jesus. We want to help the poor with diaconal ministry. And we want to invite people to join us for worship at church services where we hear His Word.
We very much hope that God sends people from our midst to be co-workers in His kingdom to serve in the most diverse fields.
Sometimes it seems that the church is too interested in the question of what is appropriate for women to do in the church and what is not appropriate (e.g., the type of clothing that is worn, wearing a scarf or not, whether or not women can preach in the church). Even in the Lutheran church where we officially recognize the equality of men and women to serve at the altar and where wearing a scarf is not required, all the same people discuss and make judgements that, sometimes, even go so far as to humiliate a woman – a sister in Christ.
Women are freely offered all sorts of work – from washing floors to working with kids in Sunday school, from preparing snacks to taking care of the homebound. This work is familiar to every woman and women do it well. But can any woman listen to a brother or sister who is weighed down with sin and bring them comfort, praying together with them and saying “The Lord loves you. He takes on your sin, you are forgiven through the blood of Christ. He died for you?” If there is such a woman in a congregation, this is a gift from the Lord! It's not very helpful at that moment to hurriedly quote Paul's Letter to the Corinthians where he speaks about scarfs and haircuts (the latter not only for women, by the way).
Women are happy to lovingly prepare feasts, to take care of children and to help the sick. But if God gave her the gift to preach the Good News and to teachs, it is not good to “close” her mouth and say that you are forbidden to do that. Why do we trust women to raise our children in faith, but we don't allow them to speak from the pulpit? It seems that it is a larger responsibility to work with children, who are vulnerable and sincerely trust the adults that work with them.
These and other questions interested me and I wanted to speak about them with my sisters in order to support them, to raise their self-esteem and their importance – in fact, sometimes their indispensability in the congregation. I suggested that they lead “women's ministry meetings” and on Sunday after worship the women of St. Paul's Lutheran gathered for fellowship in our comfortable ship cabin (that is what we call the balcony in the kirche). It wasn't very difficult to find a theme for our meeting: “Church (Lutheran) holidays.”
The women were interested in hearing about the church calendar, about the holidays of the church year, about the decorating of the church during those times as well as food and other traditions. There weren't many of us, but they listened attentively to what I had to say and added their own contributions, especially when we spoke about traditions and special foods.
We closed our meeting by drinking tea together; instead of traditional cookies, we ate a snack from the German-Russian tradition – krebel. Those who knew the recipe shared with those who wanted to know how to make them themselves.
The time went spent together went by quickly, and as we parted we agreed to “get together more frequently.” We do, after all, have lots of things to think about and discuss!
I am thankful to God that he has given me the courage to work with women and strengthens me in this ministry! I am thankful to my sisters who came to the meeting and gave me support!
Nina Dmitrieva
Our 21st German Cultural Days have a special meaning this year when we celebrate three anniversaries: the 25th anniversary of the rebirth of the Lutheran Church in the Russian Far East; the 20th anniversary of the return of St. Paul's church in Vladivostok, and the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
We invited many friends from Russia and abroad to attend. We will be especially happy to see the delegates from the Central States Synod of the ELCA, which has been our partner for 25 years. We also are anticipating our newly-elected bishop, Alexander Scheiermann to come from Omsk and our Archbishop Dietrich Brauer from Moscow; the latter had part of his internship with us when he was still a student.
In the 25 years since the rebirth of the Lutheran church in the Far East and the 20 years of restoration of our beautiful St. Paul's Church in Vladivostok we can only be thanks to God. Despite many people leaving us and emigrating west – this was the theme of our Culture Days last year – we can only with wonder and thankfulness affirm how many blessings we have been given over these years! And here we remember the promises given by God to Abraham: “And you will be a blessing" (Genesis 12.2). This is our blessing as well.
The main event – the “Day of Three Anniversaries” will be October 1 in St. Paul Church! And of course we again visit the universities of Vladivostok; there are again meetings with students in the Goethe hall at the regional library. We again will offer folk dancing. And again we will have the “German Vladivostok” tour. The Honorary Consul of Germany Y.I. Kotyk will host a reception on the “Day of German Unity.” We will celebrate worship on October 1 as Harvest Day.
And as always we will have much music, since music is our pride. We will also have the traditional “Evening of Polish Music,” and there will be a concert of Manfred Brockmann's compositions.
Once again organist Jamin Raschfrom Hamburg will be with us with three organ concerts in our church. And we will conclude our Culture Days with the works of our great J.S.Bach.
I thank all of our sponsors.
Manfred Brockmann, Pastor of St. Paul Church in Vladivostok, Dean of the Russian Far East, retired Honorary Consul of Germany
September 2017
Much of my ministry here is teaching; at other times my role as a pastor comes to the forefront. Yet another significant aspect of my work is related to organizing educational processes; one of the concrete ways I try to do that is to put together the right students with the right teachers.
This year this included two important events – the September seminar on men's ministry (see below), and the first in a series of seminars on pastoral care. The approach for the latter is called Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE), and it is what most pastors in America go through as a part of their Master of Divinity program. A long-time friend of our church from Germany, Kurt Schmidt, is a CPE teaching supervisor; he and I have been working together to attempt to not only run the full course of CPE, but also to go further and train a few teaching supervisors who can act as founding members of the Russian Association of Pastoral Care and Counseling.
While it will take a couple of years to reach this goal, I could hardly be more pleased with our progress so far. The group of participants was made up of 12 men and women (half pastors and half lay leaders), most of whom had previously expressed to me their desire to get further education in this area. Yet the approach to learning in CPE is so different than the lecture approach that is familiar to them; we were not sure how smoothly the course would run. Additionally when a group comes together to work on pastoral care, difficult issues (including deeply personal ones) are raised; it is typical for there to be resistance, tension and conflict as part of the process. To our surprise, however, all of the participants displayed openness to one another, to a new kind of learning, and to the self-discovery that is necessary for quality pastoral care. The 10 days they spent in Novosaratovka were very productive.
While students evaluations in Russia tend to avoid specifics, after this course I saw a pattern of positive results: “I learned how to listen;” “I saw how important it was to avoid giving direct advice and to instead accompany the care-seeker as he/she finds his own solutions;” “I now realize that... empathy is at the center of pastoral care.” “My job as a pastoral caregiver is to be a sojourner along the path of life that the Lord has given us.”
For some of the participants the seminar was transforming on a personal and professional level: “I understood that pastoral care is interesting to me, is a gift God has given to me;” “Before this seminar I saw pastoral care from a different perspective and what I learned is really valuable and important;” “This... was a turning point in my understanding of the means and methods of pastoral ministry;” “I thought about...aspects of my life that I hadn't considered before;” After this seminar “I feel healthier spiritually and physically. I've been sleeping like I haven't slept since I was a child. Many thanks once again for accompanying me on the way, for caring about the healing of my soul.”
By the end of the seminar the participants were so motivated to continue their studies that we moved up the schedule; while I had planned on one seminar in each of the next two years, we've decided that it is desirable and possible to do parts two and three in June and October of 2018.
There are at least another six people waiting to take part in the next round of such a course, so I will continue to pray for Kurt's ability to come to Russia to teach, for the financial gifts to the “Equipping...” program to keep coming in order to make the funding of the seminar possible, and the support of the church's leadership as we attempt to make pastoral care a significant part of the life of our congregations.
Bradn Buerkle
Bishkek
In early October I had the pleasure and the privilege of traveling to Bishkek in order to spend a week with brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Kyrgyzstan. While I had made a brief visit to the country almost 10 years earlier – when as a seminary teacher I visited an intern who was my student – this was my first real chance to get acquainted with church life in Kyrgyzstan today. While I admit that my impression is based on limited experience, it certainly seems to me that the Holy Spirit is working through the church's ministers in order to bring help and hope to people in physical and spiritual need.
While I have frequently encountered Lutheran churches which have highly educated ministers but relatively low energy for practical service, what I saw in Bishkek was close to the opposite. This church has a number of very dedicated men and women, some of whom are only beginning their path of deeper theological education. That said, they are not afraid to actually do the work of living the Christian life – sincerely praying, passionately studying the Scriptures, actively finding ways to meet the practical needs of their congregations and of wider society.
My task during this seminar was to focus on the theological underpinnings of our church life in the year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. I explored foundational principles of the Lutheran movement; we began by looking through the lens of Luther's life and moved on into more in-depth discussions of those issues that participants found particularly relevant for their ministry. One area that we focused on was the question of a Lutheran approach to ethics. I noted that the idea that our motivation for doing good is a reaction to God's grace was not something new for them; on the other hand, many found that approaching ethics primarily from the point of view of meeting other's needs – as opposed to pure living through subordination to the commandments – to be rather unfamiliar. Among other things we spoke about Luther's understanding of Law and Gospel, what it means to be simultaneously saint and sinner and how Lutherans have both failed miserably and been faithful disciples when faced with such extremely challenging situations as the period of the Second World War.
During this seminar my colleague was Pastor Tatyana Wagner, whom I knew from my days as a teacher at the Novosaratovka Theological Seminary. After serving as a pastor in Russia, Tatyana continued her education in Germany, where she is currently serving. She was able to speak so that all the participants were able to understand, both in terms of language and in regards to her ability to apply the theology and practice of diaconia to the post-Soviet context. This, I believe, was incredibly helpful for the church as it seeks to apply theoretical and practical aspects of this work to Kyrgyz society. That said, the Church there faces challenges that exceed those in most other countries – the exodus of Russian speakers, the Muslim majority, and the restrictive religious laws might lead others to simply to “keep their heads down” and serve only their own, internal needs. Tatyana and I were continually impressed, however, with the variety of small-but-significant initiatives carried out by pastors and their congregations; we heard from them about their desire to share Christ's love with people, yet this is done without a “hidden agenda,” and their willingness to help does not depend on another's openness to our faith.
I am very thankful to those who helped support this seminar through their financial gifts. I believe that the chance given to the seminar's participants for intellectual stimulation, for encouragement, for fellowship and for listening to the ways the Spirit might be moving among them will be of benefit for the participants, will give additional motivation and order to their efforts to meet their neighbor's needs, and will bear good fruit for the church in the future.
Bradn Buerkle
