• DOI:10.1080/09637498908431404
• Corpus ID: 140626649

A visit to German congregations in Central Asia

@article{Stricker1989AVT,
  title={A visit to German congregations in Central Asia},
  author={Gerd Stricker},
  journal={Religion in Communist Lands},
  year={1989},
  volume={17},
  pages={19-33}
}

• G. Stricker
• Published 1989
• History
• Religion in Communist Lands

In June 1987 I was a member of a group of 20 clergymen who visited German congregations in Soviet Central Asia. The trip was organised by the Pastoral College of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. Although we visited only three cities (Dushanbe, Alma-Ata and Karaganda) we were able to meet a wide variety of congregations. In Dushanbe we met Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists (belonging to the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and· Baptists); in Alma-Ata Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists (AUCECB), Church Mennonites (registered autonomously); in Karaganda Lutherans, Catholics, Baptists (AUCECB), Church Mennonites (registered autonomously), New Apostolic congregatIons (registered autonomously), and unregistered Baptists and Mennonites. It is impossible to make broad generalisations on the basis of the varied experience of the different congregations, although there were some common concerns. Notable was the almost universal fear expressed about the ignorance of German amongst young ethnic Germans. What happens in the future will depend on how the language question is resolved whether the ethnic Germans will succeed in growing into the new language, as is happening with the '! Baptists, whether they will succeed in preserving the language despite official shortcomings in teaching German, or whether German becomes stylised as a sacred language which young people no longer understand.