By Darya Shkurlyatyeva
The main task of the Information Department is to ensure that anyone interested can learn as much as possible about the life of The Church of Ingria: our history, how we live today and what we believe in, as well as our future plans.
We monitor congregational news and persuade our remote and small congregations to establish a presence on VK and keep in touch.
We help our congregations communicate with our Bishop and Central Office. We maintain a news feed on our website and in social media, regularly update the electronic directory of ELCIR congregations, create infographics, prepare the Liturgical Calendar and the Church Diary, publish The Church of Ingria magazine, write reviews and reports, translate partner news into Russian.
In October 2019, our department printed ballots for the bishop’s election. In February 2020, we prepared the Certificate of Episcopal Ordination.
Now that we are under lockdown, we publish a daily program of live streams and are very happy that many of our pastors and deacons have responded and take turns in leading our churchwide evening prayer!
Each of our team workers has their own area of responsibility:
Darya Shkurlyatyeva: head of the department, responsible editor of www.elci.ru and The Church of Ingria magazine, translator from Finnish and English.
Olga Rudaya: department secretary, communication with congregations, monitoring congregational news, preparation of updates for the electronic directory of ELCIR congregations, moderator and editor of VK group “Lutherans of Russia — The Church of Ingria.”
Kristina Gainova: Bishop’s information secretary, SMM specialist, moderator of VK groups “Central Office” and “Ministers of The Church of Ingria.”
Kristiina Paananen and Liliann Keskinen are responsible for Finnish-language work (www.inkerinkirkko.fi, Inkerin Kirkko magazine, social media). You may also remember their photo reports from our synods and church feasts.
Aleksei Zubtsov is responsible for English-language work (http://eng.elci.ru, social media). Aleksei has translated a number of theological works. His translations have been published on the Theological Institute’s website at https://www.seminariaelci.ru (click Biblioteka). We are very happy to have Aleksei on our team since January 2020!
So, if you are studying English or Finnish, you can practice by reading Church of Ingria news in different languages!
Rev. Dmitri Rozet is very helpful in our department’s work, providing practical assistance and advice.
Also, we’d like to thank all the people who administrate social media groups of our Church’s congregations and its various ministries and send us news and notice of upcoming events! This is very valuable!
Our short-term plans:
– Update our Church’s central websites (the goal is to improve navigation and make the design simpler and cleaner as most of the visitors use smartphones and tablets to navigate);
– Help congregations promote their social media groups (Kristina Gainova provides this service to five congregations during each month);
– Sum up the experience of working under lockdown, make recommendations on how to do live streams and connect with church members who don’t have internet access;
– Prepare an issue of The Church of Ingria magazine on the topic “Let’s Keep in Touch!” talking about theological issues that arose during the lockdown, sharing testimonies and stories about congregational life in March/April 2020;
– Continue daily churchwide prayers at Lutherans of Russia—The Church of Ingria https://vk.com/infoinkeri
We hope our pastors and deacons will soon be able to give thanks to God for the end of the pandemic and for our church life going back to normal!
Let’s keep in touch!