Christian Century, April 20, 1994  by Sabine Downey

IN THE REPUBLICS that have emerged from the Soviet Union, organized religion is something new, strange and exciting. One by one Lutheran church bodies are establishing themselves. In the last 20 years of Soviet rule the organization of these local congregations was possible in theory, but in practice only a limited number of congregations registered with the government. Most Christians were afraid of facing harassment and disadvantages at work, and met privately if at all. Contact between local congregations was forbidden. Each congregation developed in isolation, nurtured by the gifts and talents of its members. Leadership lay in the hands of the laity, since most clergy were annihilated under Stalin's rule. Bishop Harald Kalnins in Riga, Lithuania, deserves credit for having established contact with Lutheran Christians in the vast area of the Soviet Union during those difficult times. Under his leadership there developed the loose structure of the German Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Soviet Union. Really close friends of Harald Kalnins are in Germany  Bishop Dr. Heinrich Rathke and the not only in eastern countries since long years famous Organist Dr. Neithard Bethke, whose names you will find in the next lines.

With the breakdown of the Soviet Union the new republics issued their own religious laws. Some republics are more favorable than others to religious bodies; some Middle Asian republics are Muslim. The Lutherans have had to organize anew both locally and nationally. They receive help from the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and others. Registration with the government is important for purposes of acquiring property or taking up collections. Once the national church is registered, individual churches can follow suit and register at the local level.

Founding synods were held throughout 1993. Siberia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and the European part of Russia established national Lutheran bodies. Kyrgyzstan will follow; the synod of Lutheran congregations is being held shortly in its capital, Bishkek. In neighboring Tajikistan there will be no synod, but a handful of Lutheran Christians remain, left from churches that flourished before the bitter civil war.

The official name of the national churches is the "Eparchy of Evangelical Lutheran Congregations in..." The term "eparchy" was chosen because of its use by the Russian Orthodox Church. The new Lutheran churches belong to the "Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Russia, the Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Middle Asia" (registered with the Russian Department of Justice in April 1993). The superintendents heading up the national churches belong to the Bishops' Council of the larger church body. In September the first General Synod of the newly established Lutheran churches will be held in St. Petersburg where church headquarters will also be located.

To gather in a synod is difficult. The about 180 delegates to the 1993 synod in Kazakhstan traveled as far as 1,500 miles and spent more than one month's income to get to the capital, Alma-Ata. The delegates represented approximately 250 Lutheran congregations in Kazakhstan. Many congregations are small and can't afford to send a delegate of don't have a person suitable for the task. A good number of church members have difficulty reading and writing. Others are reluctant to join an organization beyond the local congregation. When Christians were forced to live in isolation, their congregations were self-sufficient. Why change now? They endured the years of hardship and made do with what they had. Why should someone tell them now what to do? Three of the delegates in Alma-Ata declared that their congregations felt no loyalty to the synod and that its decisions would not be binding for them.

Why enter a contractual agreement with the state, congregations wonder. In their experience, the state used every agreement to control the church. Why should this new state be different? There were heated discussions in the Alma-Ata synod between the separatists who would have no part of an organized, legally approved church structure and the representatives of the Kazakhian government who had to learn that they could not interrupt the discussion whenever they saw fit but had to wait their turn.

Many people were reluctant to attend the opening event of the synod. Heinrich Rathke, a former bishop in the Evangelical Church of Germany and organizer of the synod, had deliberately rented a big music hall, seat of the Kazakhian Philharmonic Orchestra and home of the only organ in Kazakhstan. He had brought with him a famous and renowned church musician from Germany, Neithard Bethke, to give a public concert with organ music by Bach, Bethke and Reger. Many delegates had qualms about entering the music hall, a secular building belonging to the government that had persecuted them for so long. Why enter the "seat of the devil"?

Nevertheless, the hall was filled with nearly 2000 people: the 180 delegates to the synod along with Russian and Kazakhian friends of music. Unbeknown to the delegates, Neithard Bethke had planned because of the special event to intersperse his normal concert program with four hymns cherished by the Lutherans: "Praise to the Lord" (Grosser Gott, wir loben dich), "Now thank we all our God" (Nun danket alle Gott), "Jesus still lead on" (Jesu, geh voran) and "Lord, take my hand and lead me" (So nimm denn meine Hände). He also had planted a few "conspirators" among the crowd---people who knew that the hymns were coming and were prepared to start singing at the right time. As Neithard  Bethke started in with the first hymn there was a moment of amazement and incredulity. Then the delegates all suddenly got up, began to sing, loud and clear, as a single voice. They put into their singing all the humiliation and suffering of their past lives; they grasped hold of their new freedom; they were proud to be in the open, without having to hide any more. Tears came to their eyes but not only to theirs: many Russians and others in the audience caught the sentiment of that moment and wept with them. So also did bishop Kalnins, bishop Rathke and the organist Bethke himself. It was a moment no one is able to describe: Because of the at this place absolutely unusual spirituel organ music from Neithard Bethke, like a musical sermon,  suddenly the heaven of our God father opened for a moment and all listeners were lightened with the fire of the holy spirit the christians believe in. No one, who took part at this concert in the philharmonic hall of Alma Ata will forget this moment lifelong.

It is allowed to add, that Neithard Bethke appeared already less than one year later again, conducting with really marvellous artistic results  at the same place in the philharmonic hall of Alma Ata the Philharmonic Orchestra with compositions of Richard Strauss (“Till Eulenspiegels Lustige Streiche”), Brahms (“Concerto for violin and orchestra” in d major), and the famous and most difficult “Firebird” from Igor Stravinsky.

Quelle: gefunden im Internet am 27. Mai 2007 unter dem Stichwort Neithard Bethke