General Synod - Day 4

September 14, 2012

Bishop (and acting Archbishop) Dietrich Brauer with new
President Bentzel and outgoing President Pivovarov.

In some ways the final full day of the General Synod was anti-climactic. After dealing with difficult and unpredictable discussions the day before, the main item on the agenda for the last day was the elections. With the resignation of Archbishop Kruze, a new person needed to be named. In addition, a new President of the Synod Council (aka General Consistory) needed to be elected. Here, it is clear, the General Consistory had done much work ahead of time considering the best options for leadership positions in our church. They suggested that the best option for the present was that Bishop Dietrich Brauer of the ELCER become the acting Archbishop for the next two years, while Pastor Wladimar Bentzel from Yekaterinburg would be the President. Because Bishop Brauer will be busy enough in his duties in Moscow, Pastor Bentzel will need to take on a number of new responsibilities for the General Consistory to be able to work effectively in the period leading up to the next General Synod in two years time. 

While elections were somewhat of a formality, there was an air of tension about them. In my mind this revealed a degree of distrust between the two Russian synods based on the old politics of ELCROS. Such tension between the Russian churches wasn't so noticeable before since this is the first general synod where really only the Russian voices count. In other words if at earlier general synods there were a number of different currents of piety and church politics flowing all at once (Central Asia, Ukraine, Georgia, Russia....), now all the political tension is packed into the relationship between these two churches. That said, the elections went by without any major problems, and I believe that the next years will be filled with productive and cooperative ministry, and this will build up the trust that has not thus far been strongly established. 

The only other item of business for the day (other than once again confirming all the decisions that had been made up until that point) was to confirm the text of a letter to the press about recent vandalism in St. Paul's Church in Moscow. It is possible that you have already heard or read about the damage done to the organ there, but if you have not, I ask your prayers for Christ's peace to reign in that congregation that has suffered much at the hands of former leaders. 

The day ended up being "heavier" than expected. But despite all our frustrations, we ended on a high note - a Holy Communion service at Petrikirche in St. Petersburg with commissioning of those with new responsibilities (photos below).

General Synod - Day 3

September 13, 2012

The hardest day of the General Synod began with continued discussion about theological education. In the end it was clear that, on the one hand, the need for reform is great; on the other hand, it was also clear that there were too many possible options for them to all be given careful consideration in the context of the GS. For that reason the Synod decided to appoint a working group for checking into questions related to accreditation, while Seminary President Anton Tikhomirov will take on responsibility for reforming the program of the seminary, focusing on education by extension. The new General Consistory (which could also be called the Synod Council) will oversee this process and will form a new seminary board together with representatives from the other Lutheran churches in the former Soviet Union (i.e., former ELCROS churches, now united in the Union of Lutheran Churches). 

What proved to be even more difficult than education was the question of the Central Church Administration in St. Petersburg. In the years since I have started serving in Russia I have seen tensions rise in the relationship between the central office and its partners; in addition to that, there was significant pressure on church staff to perform well in the absence of the leader of the administration (i.e., the Archbishop). However synod delegates came to the conclusion that the manager had fulfilled his responsibilities neither in the Archbishop's office nor in the Theological Seminary, though in the latter he had been serving for most of a dozen years. The end result is that he was let go; there will be a search for a new church administrator, while the General Consistory will now consider whether or not the seminary needs a full-time administrator. In the meantime this will mean quite a bit of added work for President Anton Tikhomirov, who will have to sort out ways to deal with all the financial and administrative challenges at the seminary. 

Working on final changes to the text
 of the church constitution. 

The final act of business for the day was making changes to the ELC constitution. After a process of revision that was rather chaotic at the last General Synod, this was done in a way that was relatively orderly. Delegates had a chance to analyze and suggest changes to the text, though overall the structure of the revised document included a lot of positive clarifications. While it was a bit trying to go through all that "nit-picking," it was constructive. One of the most obvious changes is to the name of the church - we will now be known as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia. 

I had the challenge and opportunity of closing the business of the day by leading a service of evening prayer. It felt great to once again be preaching in the seminary chapel and to look out upon those who had been my students, colleagues and friends throughout my decade of service in the country. We made it through the hardest day; not without difficulty, but we made it. Thanks be to God!

General Synod - Day 2

September 12, 2012.

Bishop Otto Schaude set a very positive tone for working together at the General Synod through his sermon at opening worship. At the center of his message was the message of 1 Peter 4.10:  "Like good stewards of the manifold grace of God, serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received." (NRSV). Reminding delegates of the great gift they had received and the responsibility to use it well, Bishop Schaude helped us to put aside any secondary concerns and to focus on the needs of the church in Russia at this moment in time. 

Consistory President Rev. Vladimir Provorov
leading the proceedings of the first day.

After worship and a lunch provided (as usual, with significant skill) by the seminary staff, we moved on to introductions and other formalities that usually occupy the first hours of all official proceedings here. There were greetings given from partners in attendance, including Rev. Arden Haug, the ELCA Global Mission representative in Europe, Dr. Eva-Sibylle Vogel-Mfato, the Lutheran World Federation representative responsible for the region, and Oberkirchenrat Michael Huebner from the Evangelical Church in Germany. Others could not attend but sent letters of greeting. There were two people whose absence were felt even as their letters were read - Bishop Arri Kugappi., from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria in Russia (ELCI); the last General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church seemed to point toward greater cooperation between Lutherans in Russia, but there are some (including myself) who are rather disappointed at the progress made in that direction. Even more difficult for those at the GS was the absence of ELC Archbishop August Kruze. His call in this ministry was very difficult ever since his election in 2008. At the time he was Bishop of ELCUSFE, though he fulfilled his duties not from the church's center, but with the help of a very good administrator in Omsk, from his home congregation in the Urals. The election process during the last General Synod was an indication of future developments; there was not good order then, nor did Archbishop Kruze have an orderly time in his position. A number of factors contributed to this, but in the end the very frustrating situation he found himself in led him to refuse to fulfill his functions as the Archbishop for most of the last year of his service. Rev. Kruze wrote a lengthy and difficult letter to the synod; it was read and the reaction of the delegates (this one, at least) was sympathy and sadness. At the same time, we all felt a degree of relief that there was official resignation after an extended period of time when there was no clarity.

The day's business went by rather quickly, but that just meant that we were able to move on of the difficult item on the agenda - education - up one day. The topic was difficult because of the challenges facing our Theological Seminary. We heard the report of Seminary President Dr. Anton Tikhomirov, during which he explained the decision he made to suspended the program of full-time education at the seminary for this academic year. Dr. Tikhomirov pointed to two major factors - a lack of students available for full-time studies and the expenses related to running a seminar in the traditional way. He presented a plan for re-focusing educational ministries in our church; Bishop Schaude and I added on our own suggestions. With that, the day's business was over, giving us the opportunity to return to more concrete decisions about education the next day. 

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.

Deportation Day Remembered

Citing danger from behind the front lines to to the Red Army as it fought against Hitler, in August of 1941 Joseph Stalin ordered that German Russians be deported from European territories to far-flung corners of the Soviet Union.

By then ethnically German Russians had already been living on the Volga for more than two centuries. Some of them supported the Bolshevik revolution; even for those who did not, the Soviet Union was their homeland, and they were as ready and willing as anyone to defend it from fascism. 

This is one of the reasons why remembering the deportation is particularly painful for German Russians today. They had no sympathy for Nazism, yet because of their language, faith and cultural traditions, they were associated with the enemy. Now, every 28th of August, German Russians gather together to remember the injustice of Stalin's regime (and the regimes that followed) and the innocent suffering their people experienced.  In this part of Siberia a very large percent of Lutherans have their roots in the Volga region; some even remember their childhood homes there. Yet for decades they had no chance to return, and now there is nothing to return to...

Though more than seven decades have passed, for many it has been hard to reach a point of healing. One of the reasons for this is the fact that ethnic Germans (unlike many other minorities that Stalin suppressed) were never officially acknowledged as a “repressed people;” it is as if the government is saying, somehow, that the deportation was justified. And it painful. Both Father Clemens Wert (S.J) (right) at the Catholic cathedral and I tried to address their pain and to bring words of comfort. It wasn't easy, though, insofar as it was not clear the degree to which we could speak with those gathered (first at the Cathedral, then at a chapel outside of the city) as those sharing with us one faith.

Knowing how small our own, Lutheran congregation is, I had hoped to see that the participants (more than a hundred) in the day's services were practicing Catholics (since so few of them are practicing Lutherans). Yet, it was clear by their confusion during the prayer service that that was not the case. Perhaps German Russians today, in terms of religious affiliation, are similar to the wider population, which, to a large degree identifies themselves with a particular faith tradition based on family history, though does not actively participate in any congregation. It comes to mind that, because of their history, perhaps Russian Germans are even more alienated from their traditional faith than others here. 

The day was filled with memories, with prayers, and with the desire to take some lessons from these events, insofar as younger participants are now generations removed from that fateful fall when their grandparents or great-grandparents were  loaded in cattle cars and brought to Siberia.

Retreat in Krasnoyarsk

In the Russian Lutheran church the term “retreat” is unfamiliar (in fact, if any of my Russian-speaking readers know a good translation for the word, please tell me!), as is the practice. However, one of the congregations in our region, the one most willing to experiment, decided to do something new. For 3 days in mid-August, more than a dozen congregational members and friends gathered outside of the city at the dacha of their church council president for Bible study, prayer and fellowship.

Pastor Gleb Pivovarov (above left) organized the event, and chose challenging Biblical texts for study - Jacob's wrestling with a man /an angel/ God (Gen. 32), the book of Job, and Christ's temptations in the desert.

I was asked to lead Bible study on the first day, and I had the joy of dealing with one of my favorite Biblical narratives – the story of Jacob. Many in the group were relatively new to the church, and it was moving to be reminded again together with them of the ways stories of faith that come to us through Scripture can change our outlook on life.

  

Although I could attend only two of the three days, I can say that experiment was a fruitful one. In many of our churches there is a certain degree of passivity, and the congregational makeup is fairly uniform; more concretely, most of our members are elderly, ethnic German women. The congregation in Krasnoyarsk has always differed from the norm in this regard, but in the year and half since Gleb has been in the parish, there has been a large influx of young members. It was really heartwarming to be in a church gathering here with old and young together, going deep into Biblical texts, singing, cooking, and playing games. I hope that the example of Krasnoyarsk will encourage other congregations to expand their ministry in new ways in the future.