Women's group sing in celebration of religious freedom at the festival in St.Petersburg, Russia.
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St Petersburg, what a beautiful city it is, and it was unfortunate that we had no time to visit it. Victor Vitko was the organizer of the Festival and the Symposium which preceded it. Experts came from Moscow and from the universities in St Petersburg, and the Festival received strong support from the City Council. It was an excellent symposium with 80 participants coming from Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova. Several Union Presidents came and expressed their wishes to have a Festival in their region or country. One day we should have a big meeting in Ukraine.
The presence of representatives from the City Council of St Petersburg and the office of the President of Russia, several university professors, the former Ombudsman of the Russian Federation Parliament, and Prof Oleg Mironov gave to this meeting a high level of authority.
On Sabbath the Festival in the main Seventh-day Adventist Church in St Petersburg was excellent too. Choirs, singers, musicians, and speeches alternated.
The church was full and the afternoon program gave us the privilege of hearing artists, musicians, and choirs for more than two hours. I was interviewed by an evangelical radio station, and a team from Hope Channel and Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) filmed the meetings. Russia is not the number one country for religious freedom, but such a festival would have been impossible 20 years ago. It was a great opportunity to publicly say “Thank You for religious freedom.”
Dr. John Graz
Director of the Department of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty,
General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists |
