More than one million people celebrated City Day during the first September weekend in Moscow, Russia, as Muscovites marked the city’s 855th birthday. Garlanded with multicolor lights and ribbons on the streets, the city sparkled, and the mayor declared it one of the most beautiful cities in the world.
However, for Baptists who suffered much under Communist rule, the dedication of the new building of the Moscow Theological Seminary of the Union of Evangelical-Christian Baptists of Russia (UECBR) on Sept. 1, was the real cause for joy.
More than 300 guests gathered outside to praise God for providing the impressive seminary building. Baptist leaders from around the world joined the celebration.
“It is a great miracle what the Lord has presented to us,” said Alexander Kozynko, president of the seminary. “This is a special day in the life of the European Baptist Federation, Russia and all Baptists around the world.”
He emphasized the purpose of the institution is to provide ministers and missionaries for more than 30,000 towns and villages in Russia that have no church or Christian witness.
Yuri Sipko, chairman of the seminary board and president of the UECBR, described a changing Moscow with new roads and buildings, but he said the greatest change is spiritual.
“Now in the former atheist state the seminary is a celebration of the right that every human being has to worship freely,” he said. “
The building is a most powerful sermon in itself that preaches to the lost. We all rejoice, because only in God will Russia have a bright future,” he said.
Denton Lotz, general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA), presented a check of $15,000 for the seminary. This came from a tithe of the BWA Building Fund to be used for theological education, established when the organization raised funds for a new headquarters.
Started on Oct. 4, 1993, with 17 students, the seminary struggled with an inadequate facility to train students over the last 10 years. With the help of Ian Chapman, former president of Northern Baptist Seminary, and generous support from Baptists in the United States and other countries, a spacious complex to accommodate more than 57 residents is almost completed. The school currently offers a three-year bachelor of theology and a two-year Master of Divinity degree.
Since it began, 72 students have graduated and serve the churches in various ways. (BWA)
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