General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia (formerly ELCROS)

September 11-15, 2012. Novosaratovka (St. Petersburg)

A lack of internet access made it impossible for me to post a blog entry each day of the proceedings, as I had hoped. Had we been connected to the internet, though, that would not have guaranteed that I would have found the time to gather and type up my notes; even when the official business meetings of the synod were finished for the day, parallel to the synod other meetings were arranged that kept most of us occupied until later into the evening.

In the following pages you'll find short articles based on my notes from the end of each day; at the end, I'll write a short summary.

September 11. (Day 1)

The first day of the General Synod began in the evening, when delegates began to gather from the two church bodies (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in European Russia (ELCER) and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Urals, Siberia and Far East (ELCUSFE)) and the many regions of this enormous country; Kaliningrad and Vladivostok each sent representatives and thus the western and eastern reaches of the church were present.) Evening prayer felt like home in the seminary's St. Catherine chapel, where I attended weekly worship (as well as daily morning prayer) with students for many years. Afterwards delegates from the ELCUSFE (including me) gathered for an orientation in the issues that were to be a part of the agenda for the synod. While it had been clear for quite a while that the General Synod was not going to be an easy and uplifting event, I ended the day feeling rather concerned about the days ahead. What was clear was that the Consistory (much like a “synod council” in the U.S. context) had done the best they could to make the sure the days of the General Synod would go by as effectively and as peacefully as possible.