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”.
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.