Shock was the overriding reaction felt by Russia’s Protestants when the invasion of Ukraine broke loose on 24 February.

This article is an update on my long piece from 17 September 2018 in this same file on Ukraine and Moldova.

There are wars and rumours of wars, also here in the Kaliningrad enclave – this sprawling, heavily-rural version of Cold War West Berlin.

Rev. Mikhovich reported that more than a few younger persons are disappointed by the political stance of the country’s churches. Younger visitors “had not placed their hope in Christ, but were instead counting on us to take a political stand”.

Today, “Word of Life” is Moscow’s largest Protestant congregation with 6.000 participants meeting at 26 locations in and around Moscow.

Daria Nedbay is the New Parish Secretary in Kaliningrad Region, Russia.

A visit to Poland's eastern and western borders is a study in contrasts. Or more precisely: The contrast between Polish crossings into Germany and those into Russia. In the German-Polish twin city of Guben/Gubin on the Neisse River, there is no visible border at all as of October 2021. Germans eat or shop in Gubin freely without impediment; there are joint kindergartens and many Poles work in Germany. The two mayors of the twin city occasionally stand in for each other at public meetings.

The Baptist Vitaly Vlasenko is the Russian Evangelical Alliance’s (REA) new general-secretary. That was decided during this year’s conference at the VSEKh’s (“All-Russian Fellowship of Evangelical-Christians”) Moscow headquarters on 8 April.

After a six-month illness, Siberia’s last General Conference, “Church Mennonite” pastor died of cancer on 3 March 2020. That sad fact only became known outside of Siberia and Germany a year later.

Born in Apollonovka in 1960, Peter Epp was the oldest of nine children in a Mennonite family. He published a very comprehensive documentation about the “Omsk Brotherhood” in 2007; four years later, a work about his home village of Apollonovka. These two books prove that this lay historian is an expert in his field.