Visitors from the ELCIR

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Exchange visits have led to strong ties of friendship and have deepened our faiths. Nina Jurttajeva, a deaconess from Moscow visited in June of 2006.
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Nadia and Alex Krongholm visited in April/May, 2008, and were guests at the Synod Assembly and area churches
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In 2011, Dina Korepanova, deaconness in the Ural Deanery, and Anu Valiaho, an Estonian missionary married to the Dean of the Ural Deanery, were welcomed visitors who were an inspiring presence at synod assembly and area churches.
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Aleksandra S Seliverstova, head of Diaconal Ministry in the ELCIR, spent six weeks in our synod in late winter, 2014, to observe social ministries in our country and to improve her English speaking skills (funded by the Suomi Conference). .
Deacon Evgeny Raskotov from St. Petersburg and Deacon Sergey Anikin from Saratov were guests of our Northeastern Minnesota Synod Assembly and spoke in area churches in April, 2016.
 
Other visits have included the Bishop of the ELCIR, Arri Kuggapi; Tapio and Kaija Karjalainen from the seminary; Pastor Fedor Tulinen and wife Elena, on internship at Gethsemane Lutheran Church in Virginia

Visitors to the ELCIR

A delegation from our Synod visited ELCIR Bishop Arri Kuggapi and other leaders in St. Petersburg in 2002 and officially endorsed the Companion Synod agreement between the ELCIR and the Northeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA). Since that time members and delegations from the Northeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA) have made numerous visits to ELCIR churches and offices, for example:
  • to meet with churches in the Ural Deanery (2005, 2007, 2011),
  • participate in Friendship English Language Camps  (2004-2011)
  • participate in the 40th anniversary celebration of the registration of the Petrozavodsk congregation as a church in 2010 and the 400th anniversary celebration of the founding of the ELCIR in 2011
  • a Northeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA) delegation to visit leaders in the ELCIR and ELCIR churches in St. Petersburg and the Republic of Karelia in 2016, and
  • a delegation representing the Northeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA) and Vision Petrozavodsk partnering churches to visit leaders in the ELCIR and the Petrozavodsk congregation in 2017.  
 
If interested in being part of some future delegation, please contact the Northeastern Minnesota Synod (ELCA) at 218-728-4424.