By Darya Shkurlyatyeva, responsible editor, The Church of Ingria magazine
It looks like the first 2020 issue of The Church of Ingria magazine is going to be just as rare an item as Issue 1 of 1991! This issue is really special!
– It came out during the pandemic. Right after the layout was done, its electronic version was published at http://elci.ru/arkhiv/ We had part of the copies printed in Finland because the borders are closed and we couldn’t have gotten them out to our Finnish subscribers otherwise. Usually, we have the copies for Russia printed by NP-Print, a printer in St. Petersburg. On the first day of work, barely re-opened after the lockdown, the printer took our order for 500 copies.
– This issue doesn’t have an editor-in-chief because neither the former editor-in-chief (Bishop Emeritus Arri Kugappi) nor the new one (Bishop Ivan Laptev) could do a magazine issue about themselves. The two key topics of this issue are the consecration of the new bishop of The Church of Ingria and thanking the former bishop for his service. The text of the bishop’s oath comes in lieu of the editorial.
– Another important topic is the 50th anniversary of the congregation in Petrozavodsk. This is the first congregation of The Church of Ingria that had an amazing chance to be officially registered in the Soviet time.
– One day, this issue will be read by future generations because a copy of it was placed in a time capsule which was buried in the foundation of the new building of the Theological Institute of The Church of Ingria (TICI) on May 24, 2020.
All donations collected for this issue will be used to support TICI. Several copies have already been obtained for a record-breaking amount of 5,000 rubles! Your donation doesn’t have to be that big. You can wire any amount of donation to the bank account of TICI (see the QR code), send your mailing address to Darya Shkurlyatyeva (you don’t need to let her know the amount of donation), and receive a gift copy of the magazine with the autographs of Bishop Emeritus Arri Kugappi and Bishop Ivan Laptev. The number of copies are limited!
We made a decision to send free copies to the congregational libraries, depending on the number of church members. The congregations of The Church of Ingria fall into six groups – the list is approved by the synod annually (the number of church members determines the amount of contribution the congregation pays to the Central Office.)
We sent 10 free copies of the magazine to the Group One congregations, 5 copies to Group Two, 3 copies to Group Three, 2 copies to Group Four, and one copy to each of the Group Five & Six congregations. Those are not collectors items, without the autographs.
In the future, we’ll do our best to send more copies to the smaller congregations because that’s where demand for the “hard copies” of the magazine turns out to be highest. We plan to continue publishing a digital version on our Church’s main website.
We’re working on the next issue whose topic is “We’ll keep in touch.” We’re going to talk about theological issues that arose during the lockdown, share testimonies and stories about congregational life in March through May 2020, and congratulate the congregation in Volosovo and its senior pastor Rev. Leonard Kazakov on four significant dates at a time!
Please take part in a poll, send your stories, testimonies, and reflections! Let’s keep in touch!