St. Michael’s Church hails new deacon, celebrates anniversary
On Sunday, December 19, 2021, Aleksei Savonchik was ordained as a deacon at St. Michael’s Lutheran Church on Vasilyevsky Island in St. Petersburg. The rite of ordination was administered by Bishop Ivan Laptev and the pastor of the church Rev. Dmitri Petrov. We wish God’s richest blessings to Deacon Aleksei in his ministry!
Aleksei’s call to the ministry takes place as St. Michael’s Church is celebrating its 145th anniversary! Among those who extended their greetings on the occasion were Karl May School Museum and Ot Strelki do Gavani (“From the Spit to the Harbor”) local residents’ club based on Vasilyevsky Island. Bishop Silvanus, Rector of St. Petersburg’s Russian Orthodox Theological Academy, gave St. Michael’s congregation a luxury edition of the Bible. The celebration culminated in the inauguration of a model of St. Michael’s Church made by an atelier in St. Petersburg to a scale of 1/65. The model shows the historical church as it was 145 years ago.