Greetings!
As one of the Briercrest students living and studying abroad
at SPbCU, I have been granted the opportunity to write a guest post and would like to write about some of the excursions outside
of St. Petersburg that we had the opportunity to take.
At
the end of October the whole student body piled into a bus and we
headed off to Novgorod.This is one of the oldest, most historic cities
in all of Russia. In fact Novgorod was made the first capital by
Russia's very first ruler, Riurik.
In Novgorod we had the
opportunity to visit a monastery and the Novgorod Kremlin where we
visited one of the oldest cathedrals in Russia, the St. Sophia
Cathedral. We also had the chance to see a wooden village and the monument to the Millennium of Russia.
Here are some pictures (courtesy of Roman Evglevsky):
In
addition to visiting Novgorod, we also received the opportunity to
visit Moscow, Russia's current capital. While St. Petersburg has a
population of about 4.8 million, Moscow has a population of around10 million! Needless to say Moscow was quite different than St. Petersburg, and it was amazing to be able to experience both cities. Although we spent only
three days in Moscow, we sought to make the most of it. We visited the
Kremlin and Lenin's tomb, and we stopped at many important buildings
along the way. We also visited a variety of museums and viewed some of
the art at the Tretyakov Gallery.
Once again, here are some pictures:
Jordan Kahler (on the left) after a visit to Vladimirsky Cathedral - the last domestic temple of Dostoevsky.
Dr Paul Contino (on the right) before an excursion to Russian Museum in the Mikhailovsky Palace - one of the biggest museums of Russian Fine Arts in the world.
In May 2011, the group of 10 students from Pepperdine University (Malibu, CA) visited SpbCU within the International Program.
The students studied Russian as a Foreign Language and Dostoevsky's “Brothers Karamazov.” The group also visited Moscow, Novgorod, Staraya Russa, and the suburbs of Petersburg, including Peterhof, and Vyborg.
The course on the Karamazovs was taught by Professor Paul Contino — a Dostoevsky scholar. The students were also accompanied by Professor Sharyl Corrado who is known in Russian Christian community as the author of the book "The Philosophy of Ministry of Col. Vasiliy Pashkov". Sharyl spent much time in Russia, gathering the material on Slavic Evangelical movement in XIX-XX.
For Paul, teaching Dostoevsky’s final, great novel -- with its profound Christian vision -- was a wonderful opportunity. He especially valued travelling with his students to visit Dostoevsky’s homes in St. Petersburg and Staraya Russa, and reading the novel’s final chapter, “The Speech at the Stone,” at Dostoevsky’s grave in Alexander Nevsky Cemetery. For Sharyl, Russia studies is an opportunity to explore how we understand the world and one another, how the Americans see Russia, who Russian believers were and are, and their traditions, practices, and identities.
On Aug 24, a new group of students arrived to St Petersburg Christian University for the Fall Semester 2011.
We are happy to see the desire of Brian, Amy, Courtney, and David to explore Russia through our school.
Amy is the sister of John and Joanna that studied at SPbCU within the Fall Semester 2009.
During January 25-28, 2011, the Center of the Christian life in Ukraine in Irpin (near Kiev) hosted a colloquium on the development and definition of the basic principles of writing a commentary on the canonical books of the Bible with a modern Slavic perspective.
The editorial board of the "Bible Commentary" includes the faculty, alumni, and the former head of SPbCU. SPbCU representatives (teachers and graduates) will be actively involved in the project as authors and editors and provide necessary information and prayer support.
The colloquium brought together nine members:
* Dr. Sergey Sannikov: Chief Editor (Executive Director EAAA, http://e-aaa.info, http://sannikov.info)
* Master of Theology and Religious Studies Taras Dyatlik: Project Manager (Head of Resources and Research Centre EAAA, http://e-aaa.info, http://dyatlik.net)
* Bachelor of Theology Alexander Geychenko: Executive Secretary (Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs of Odessa Theological Seminary, http://www.odessasem.com
* Dr. Peter Penner: executive editor of the section "New Testament" (vice-president of the European branch of "Training Christians for Ministry", in Vienna, http://tcmi.org), former rector of SPbCU 1992-1999)
* Dr. Alexander Negrov: Executive editor of the section of the New Testament (Academic Dean of SPbCU 2001-2005, Rector of St. Petersburg Christian University in 2005, http://spbcu.ru, http://negrov.com )
* Dr. Gennady Pshenichniy: executive editor of the section of the "Old Testament" (Rector of the Kuban Evangelical Christian University, Krasnodar, http://kecu.ru), a graduate of the SPCU Program Bachelor of Divinity in 2003)
* Dr. Valery Alikin: executive editor of the section of the "Old Testament" (Head of the Department of Biblical Studies of the St. Petersburg Christian University, http://spbcu.ru),
* Ph.D. Roman Soloviy: executive editor of the section of analytical articles (rector of the Lviv Theological Seminary, http://lts.lviv.ua, http://soloviy.org.ua)
* Master of Divinity Fedor Raychinets: executive editor of the section of analytical articles (the head of the Master's program for transforming leadership Ukrainian Evangelical Theological Seminary, Kiev, http://uets.net)
Alexander Negrov, the rector SPbCU said: "I enjoyed working in such a creative group. Perhaps to fully appreciate how serious and important this meeting was we will be able to only in a few years. "
Peter Penner, a former rector of SPbCU adds: "At last we have begun the practical work, and I'm looking forward to the time when I'm holding the first biblical commentary, not translated or reprinted, and written by national authors."
The meeting participants identified several outcomes with reference to the Christian theological research community with a proposal to become partners, sponsors and active participants in this project. The Editorial Board is aware that a new Bible Commentary, which is obviously the biggest and most ambitious project in the past 20 years, needs a collective prayer, research and critical financial support, and invites all interested individuals and organizations to contact them for more information or with suggestions on cooperation through the project manager Taras Dyatliku (tdyatlik@e-aaa.info, +38-067-2232023).
What is the New Bible Commentary?
This project was initiated by the Euro-Asian Accrediting Association of Evangelical schools (http://e-aaa.info), which includes about 50 theological seminaries, Bible colleges and institutes, Christian universities. In writing the commentary, more than 30 authors are expected to participate. It is expected to be released from the press in the fall 2015. The main task of "Bible Commentary: The Modern Slav perspective" is to contribute to the preacher in the acquisition of a more holistic view of the biblical text and help in the search for the application of biblical truth in the modern Slavic context.
The Biblical commentary will be a one volume commentary (about 2 million words), including all the canonical books of the Bible. It is help evangelical ministers in Eastern Europe with relevant education and experience in church ministry. The commentary's focus is primarily for the pastors and preachers, as well as informal church leaders and all students of the Bible. The commentary will include about 100 analytical articles dealing not only with interpretations of the Bible, the Jewish people and the early Church, but also answer important questions of contemporary reality: the power of the church, tradition and innovation in the church, a virtual dependency, labor migration, human trafficking, bribery, social responsibility and justice, incomplete family, divorce, remarriage, family violence, suicide, etc.
The reader from Eastern Europe now has available to him translated biblical commentaries (Catholic and Protestant), or written by Orthodox authors. The "Bible Commentary: The Modern Slav perspective" is the first commentary, which will be written in the Slavic evangelical Christians in Eastern Europe. The new commentary intends to help ministers and members of evangelical churches to find the solution of modern problems through the prism of the biblical text.
Welcome to the International Program at St Petersburg Christian University, Russia!Our mission is to provide students and specialists the possibility to obtain a cross-cultural experience in a Christian context for intellectual, social, personal, and spiritual development.For more, incl. the video on SPbCU in English, see http://spbcu.ru/en/international
During January 25-28, 2011, the Center of the Christian life in Ukraine in Irpin (near Kiev) hosted a colloquium on the development and definition of the basic principles of writing a commentary on the canonical books of the Bible with a modern Slavic perspective.
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