Additional Letter to Dr William Yoder
Vladivostok, June 17, 2018
Dear William,
Church services are over and in the two hours before the church concert begins I will have time to write you. You shouldn’t throw Omsk under the bus, but just do the opposite. You should praise Omsk because in hindsight the Bishop at that time, Bishop Otto Schaude, apologized to the Far East Deanery that the consistory sent the candidates for Khabarovsk/Komsomolsk to Tomsk. That just repeats a mishap for the pastorate at Khabarovsk/Komsomolsk. Without a doubt you need to protect these two congregations of ours. They were unsuccessful not two times, but three.
I am going to suggest the following wording to you:
The placement of a pastor in the congregations at Khabarovsk/Komsomolsk after the departure of Pastor M. Lesinski in 2002 was a failure three times. The first candidate was Hartmut Lippold a retired pastor from Germany. He had to decline the position due to a sudden onset of heart disease. The second candidate, Vitali Moor, wanted to come to the Far East but because of a decision by the Omsk Consistory due to ecclesiastical strategies, he was sent to Tomsk. This prompted Bishop Schaude to ask Dean Brockmann for his understanding and offered him an apology. The third candidate, Andrei Filipzoff, left for Germany with the help of the Hermannsburg Mission. We can give thanks to the courageous members and to Pastor Marcus Lesinski that the congregation in Khabarovsk, in spite of all this, is still in existence. Pastor Lesinski visits each of his former congregations every year to organize “German-Russian Culture Days” and to see to their care.
William, this is and should be your article, but I am honored that you depicted the misfortune of the congregations at Khabarovsk/Komsomolsk; but, of course, it is because you visited these two congregations.
Best Wishes from the Far East
Manfred Brockmann
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