Introducing Sergei Riakhovsky

I finally made it back from my trip to Moscow where we had a weeklong series of meetings and guests. We had a meeting of our seminary's board of directors, followed by a meeting of the Russian overseers' council. On Wednesday, ETSM hosted the National Pastors Conference for all of our pastors in the Russian Church of God. It was the first pastors conference of this type in Russia since the denomination had undergone some major restructuring at the begining of the decade. Although I am still waiting for the final numbers, I estimate that we had about 80 pastors in attendance.

One of highlights of the week was having Sergei Riakhovsky in our seminary for at least some of the proceedings. Brother Sergei is the former overseer of our church in Russia and currently serves as honorary president of our movement. In addition to pastoring the Kovcheg Church of God, Riakhovsky serves as Chairman of the Russian United Fellowship of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals), an umbrella organization that represents several Pentecostal denominations in governmental affairs. Additionally, Riakhovsky was selected by Vladimir Putin to serve on the "President of Russian Federation's Council on Religious Affairs". He is also a member of Public Chamber of Russian Federation. Needless to say, it's nice if we have "one of our own" in such positions in Moscow.

Besides attending our school board meeting, Sergei also led a communion service during the last morning of the Pastors' Conference. It was a good way to conclude an eventful week.