Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Three Anniversaries - German Culture Days in Vladivostok


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

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