It’s become a good tradition for students from the Higher School of Printing and Media Technologies in St. Petersburg to visit Sts. Peter and Paul Lutheran Congregation in Vyborg in the St. Petersburg region. The church is the base of Agricola Club which studies Lutheran history and culture.Olga Starkovskaya, Cand. Sc. (Philology), a teacher of the history of book publishing, asked church member Darya Shkurlyatyeva who has completed her graduate studies at the Higher School of Printing and Media Technologies, to tell the future editors about Mikael Agricola (1510-1557), the founder of literary Finnish.
Together, they discussed why Agricola could be compared to Alexander Pushkin, Cyril and Methodius, and Martin Luther combined. They admired the philological talent of the Finnish reformer and enlightener who most likely spoke Swedish as a child, but eventually became the author of the first Finnish primer and a Bible translator into Finnish. And they also dreamed that one day Vyborg would have a replica of Gutenberg’s printing press and a book printing museum.
Darya sang for the students the Mikael Agricola hymn “Exultet coelum laudibus” to an organ accompaniment, which was followed by a short extempore organ recital.
Source: Olga Starkovskaya’s news article and photo at the School’s website