Prayer request for the Gorbachevs

Many of our friends are aware that both Alexei and Tatiana Gorbachev, both of whom are faculty members at our seminary, are working on their Ph.D. at a prestigious university in Russia. Previous, I had made an appeal to our friends for their financial support - and with your help, the Lord has provided for them. (To learn more about the Gorbachevs, please read my blog entry here).

Alexei is looking the psychological aspects of spiritual and moral development; Tatiana is looking at the teacher's role in the process. By design, Tatiana will defend this spring (March/April) and Alexei in the summer

Since we made our appeal in February, some major reforms have taken place throughout the entire Russian higher education system. As a result, both Alexei and Tatiana (as well as all students in their cohort) had to take a fourth comprehensive exam. Yesterday, Alexei and Tatiana each passed their exams without any difficulties.

But a challenge arose on Monday during Tatiana's "pre-defense" or dissertation proposal defense. Part of the latest Russian reform required that Tatiana face a new doctoral committee. She was able to keep her doctoral mentor/advisor, but the remaining members of the committee were recently were assigned without any consultation by Tatiana or her advisor - nor were they familiar with her previous articles and work up to this point.

According to her advisor, she was well prepared and presented an excellent proposal. However, the other members of the newly appointed committee had problems with the subject of "spirituality". As it turns out, most of the professors at the university are agnostics or atheist. But there is the ever present pressure of the Orthodox church. One committee member asked,"Do you know what the Orthodox church calls Protestants? Heretics!"

To make a long story short, the committee delayed approving her topic. This is partly due to the new reforms that place much pressure on these committees; these committees do not want to have rejected proposals/dissertations from the centralized office in Moscow. And since "spirituality" is a relatively new field of study in Russian universities, the committee decided to take a week to review the situation. (Keep in mind, atheism was the official stance of the communist party that controlled all schools during the Soviet era.)

Here is the prayer request: Please pray for the members of Tatiana's dissertation committee and that they will decide in Tatiana's favor and allow a dissertation in Christian spirituality as it relates to moral development.