On June 30, 2021, Rev. Vladimir Yakushov, the senior pastor of the Lutheran Congregation of Kem, Karelia, attended a meeting of the Advisory Council of the Kem Municipal District Administration. Among other matters on the agenda were the efforts of religious and nongovernmental organizations to strengthen interethnic and interfaith concord as a major factor in the prevention of extremism.Rev. Yakushov: “As a social institution, the Evangelical Lutheran Congregation of Kem has been functioning as a community-focused organization in Kem District for more than 20 years. And as a church, it expresses first of all the cultural and religious preferences of Russia’s Ingrian Finns and other people who want to confess Christianity in the Lutheran faith tradition. For example, among the people who receive spiritual guidance in our church are local residents who are natives of Belarus and were baptized in the Roman Catholic Church in the Soviet era.”