View source for Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia

{{Infobox Christian denomination
| name = Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia
| image = ELCROS-logo.png
| imagewidth = 120px
| caption = Logo of the ELCROS
| main_classification = [[Protestant]]
| orientation = [[Lutheran]]
| polity = Episcopal
| founder =
| founded_date = 1999
| founded_place = [[St. Petersburg]]
| separated_from =
| leader/moderator =
| leader = Archbishop Dietrich Brauer
| parent = 
| merger =
| separations =
| fellowships =
| associations = [[Lutheran World Federation|LWF]], [[Conference of European Churches|CCE]]
| area = [[Former Soviet Union]]
| hospitals =
| nursing_homes =
| aid =
| congregations = 400
| members = 70,000
| ministers =
| missionaries =
| temples =
| primary_schools =
| secondary_schools =
| tertiary =
| website = {{URL|http://www.elkras.ru}}
| footnotes =
}}

[[File:Lutheran St. Peter and Paul Cathedral Moscow service.jpg|thumb|Archbishop Dietrich Brauer giving the blessing at a service in Moscow Lutheran cathedral.]]
The '''Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia''' ({{lang-ru|Евангелическо-лютеранская церковь в России, Украине, в Казахстане и Средней Азии}}), also known as the '''Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and the Other States''' (ELCROS),<ref name="Stricker">{{cite journal | title = Lutheranism in Russia and the Soviet Union: another response to Filatov and Stepina | journal = Religion, State and Society | year = 2004 | first = Stricker | last = Gerd | volume = 32 | issue = 3 | pages = 247–260| id =   | doi=10.1080/0963749042000252205}}<!--| accessdate = 2011-12-17 --></ref> is a [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] [[Christian denomination|denomination]] that itself comprises seven regional Lutheran denominations in [[Belarus]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Kyrgyzstan]], [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]], and [[Uzbekistan]] as well as individual congregations in [[Azerbaijan]], [[Tajikistan]], and [[Turkmenistan]].<ref name='KALME-ELCROS'>{{cite web | url = http://www.kalme.net/kirchen-struktur-ru.html?L=1 | title = ELCROS: Structure of ELCROS | accessdate = 2011-12-17 | work = Member Churches | publisher = Communication Committee of Lutheran Minority Churches in Europe}}</ref> Established in its current form in 1999, ELCROS currently has about 70,000 members<ref>[http://www.lutheranworld.org/sites/default/files/LWI-Statistics-2013-EN.pdf The Lutheran World Federation – 2013 Membership Figures] Lutheran World</ref> in more than 400 congregations<ref name='ELCA-ELCROS'>{{cite web | url = http://www.elca.org/Who-We-Are/Our-Three-Expressions/Churchwide-Organization/Global-Mission/Where-We-Work/Europe-Middle-East/Russia.aspx | title = ELCA Companions in Russia and Other States | accessdate = 2011-12-17 | work = Global Mission | publisher = Evangelical Lutheran Church in America}}</ref> within its jurisdiction.

The constituent dioceses of ELCROS were mostly founded as German Lutheran denominations. However, the church now worships extensively in the Russian language with around 30% of its members being ethnically Russian.<ref>Statistics at [http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew11203.html East West Report].</ref>

The current [[archbishop]] of ELCROS is the Most Rev. Dietrich Brauer.

==History==
Lutheranism had established itself in the [[State of the Teutonic Order|Teutonic states]] of the [[Baltics]] and [[Ingria]] in the early years of the [[Protestant Reformation|Reformation]].<ref name="Stricker" /> [[Ivan the Terrible]] invited German artisans and professionals to help modernize Russian institutions, bringing Lutherans into Russia proper.

===Early history===
The first church consecrated for Lutheran use in [[Moscow]], [[St. Michael's Lutheran Church, Moscow|St. Michael's Church]], was completed in 1576.<ref name='GRHS'>{{cite web | url = http://www.grhs.org/heritage/lutheran-churches_drefs.pdf | title = The Lutheran Church in Russia, with special emphasis on Ukraine: Intertwined with the history of Russia | accessdate = 2011-12-17 | last = Drefs | first = R. Rueben | work = Heritage Review | publisher = Germans from Russia Heritage Society}}</ref> By the end of the 17th century, German Lutherans were spread throughout Russia, primarily among the military garrisons.<ref name="GRHS" /><ref name='EWCR-Sorokina'>{{cite journal | title = Lutherans in Russia | journal = East-West Church & Ministry Report | year = 2003 | first = Valeria | last = Sorokina | volume = 11 | issue = 2| id =   | url = http://www.eastwestreport.org/articles/ew11203.html | accessdate = 2011-12-17}}</ref>

As a result of the [[Great Northern War]], the former [[Sweden|Swedish]] provinces of [[Livonia]] and [[Estonia]], with their large Lutheran populations, were ceded to Russia. To gain the support of the Baltic nobility, the Lutheran churches were granted freedom of dogma, liturgy and administration by [[Peter the Great]].<ref name="GRHS" /> [[Catherine the Great]]'s policy of populating frontier areas of the Russian Empire with immigrants further increased the number of German Lutherans in Russia.<ref name="GRHS" /><ref name='EWCR-Sorokina' />

Despite the de facto recognition of Lutheranism in Russia, it was still considered a foreign faith, with restrictions on proseltytization placed to limit the expansion of the faith to non-Russian nationalities only<ref name="EWCR-Sorokina" /> and secular oversight being placed under the Main Administration for Ecclesiastical Affairs of Foreign Faiths.<ref name="GRHS" />

===Official establishment===
In 1832, de jure recognition was granted to the Lutheran Church and the '''Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia''' (ELCR) ({{lang-de|Evangelisch Lutherische Kirche in Russland}}) was established uniting Lutheran and [[Calvinism|Reformed]] congregations<ref name='KALME-ELCROS-2'>{{cite web | url = http://www.kalme.net/kurzgeschichte-ru.html?L=0 | title = Die Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche in Russland, der Ukraine, in Kasachstan und Mittelasien: Kurzgeschichte | accessdate = 2011-12-17 | publisher = Communication Committee of Lutheran Minority Churches in Europe | language = German}}</ref> in the administrative regions of Russia proper, and the [[Congress Poland|Kingdom of Poland]]<ref name="GRHS" /> with the [[Czar of Russia|Czar]] as the Supreme Bishop.<ref name="Stricker" /> The ELCR was granted the status of a [[State Church]] for minorities whose properties and leadership would be funded and salaried by the state.<ref name="GRHS" />

In 1905, full religious freedom was granted with an [[Edict of toleration]] and Lutheran churches were finally allowed to conduct services and their liturgy in the [[Russian language]]. By 1914, the Lutheran church in Russia proper itself had grown to include 1,828 congregations comprising 3,660,000 members of various nationalities.<ref name='Stricker-2'>{{cite journal | title = The Problems of Theological Education: The Experience of Lutheran Institutions in the CIS. | journal = Religion in Eastern Europe | year = 2001 | first = Stricker | last = Gerd | volume = 21 | pages = 1–19| id =   | url = http://www.georgefox.edu/academics/undergrad/departments/soc-swk/ree/Stricker_The%20Problems_June%202001.pdf | format = PDF | accessdate = 2011-12-17}}</ref>

===The First World War and the early Soviet era===
With Russia's joining of the [[First World War]] on the side of [[Triple Entente]] against the [[German Empire]], a policy of mass deportation of the German minorities in Russia was implemented. As a significant number of Russia's Lutherans were German or German-speaking, this severely affected the Lutheran church.<ref name="GRHS" />

The [[Russian Revolution]] of 1917 and the end of the First World War in 1918 also brought tremendous changes to the Lutheran church. The former Russian territories of [[Estonia]], [[Finland]], [[Latvia]], [[Lithuania]], and [[Poland]], with large Lutheran populations, gained independence.<ref name="EWCR-Sorokina" /> In December 1917, schools and seminaries were nationalized; by 1918, this extended to all properties of the church, including church buildings. By 1921, religious instruction to persons under the age of 18 was banned.<ref name="Stricker-2" />

The deportation policies of the Tsarist era was continued in some areas, bolstered by the participation of whole German-speaking communities on the side of the [[White movement|White Russians]] against the [[Bolsheviks]] in the [[Russian Civil War]].<ref name="GRHS" />

In 1924, the remaining clergy of the ELCR met in a General Synod in Moscow to re-organise the church. The reorganised ELCR was put under the supervision of two elected bishops, [[Artur Malmgren]] of Leningrad and [[Theophil Meyer]] of Moscow. Despite approval of a new constitution for the Lutheran church in 1924 by the new Bolshevik government, the [[Collective farming|collectivization]] policies of [[Joseph Stalin]] in 1928 scattered the population, and official anti-religion campaigns intensified in the 1930s under the authority of the 1929 Law on Religion resulting in the incarceration of pastors in deportation camps and, in some cases, their executions.<ref name="EWCR-Sorokina" /><ref name="Stricker-2" />

In 1936, Bishop Malmgren left Russia for Germany; by 1937, the ELCR had ceased to exist as an organized body.<ref name="GRHS" />

===Second World War and the post war period===
The Second World War brought another upheaval to the Lutheran communities. Mass deportations of Germans from European Russia to Soviet Asia and Siberia occurring prior to the [[Operation Barbarossa|German invasion of Russia]] had the net result of decimating religious life among the German-speaking Lutherans, as no religious services were allowed in the deportation regions.<ref name="Stricker-2" /> The only exception was a Lutheran church in [[Astana|Tselinograd]] that was established by [[Eugen Bachmann]] in 1957 and granted registration the same year.<ref name='Matchett'>{{cite journal | title = German Lutherans in the Soviet Union | journal = Religion in Communist Lands | year = 1973 | first = Matchett | last = Kathleen | volume = 1 | issue = 6 | pages = 13–16| id = | url = http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/01-6_13.pdf | format = PDF | accessdate = 2011-12-17}}</ref>

The remaining Lutherans survived the collapse of the ELCR by joining existing ''Brethren communities'' ({{lang-de|Bruedergemeinden}}), in which leadership and pastoral care was given by laypeople. Such ''Brethren communities'', heavily influenced by [[Pietism]], had been in existence since the 19th century but had managed to survive the persecutions of the Soviet state due to their fluid structure. In 1955, three ELCR pastors who had survived the concentration camps and deportations visited the underground ''Brethren congregations'' in the deportation regions in attempts to regularize the administration of the churches, but they were in most cases unsuccessful<ref name="Stricker-2" />

The Soviet annexation of the [[Baltic states]] in 1944 also brought back a significant Lutheran population and the various Lutheran Churches that were established in these territories were allowed to function with the [[Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia]] registered in 1940 and the [[Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church]] in 1949, although they, too, were targets of repression and controls.<ref name="Stricker" />

It was only in the post-Stalin era in the 1960s that Lutheran congregations in the deportation areas were finally allowed to register, with the first two being registered in [[Siberia]] in 1965.<ref name="EWCR-Sorokina" /> The Rev. [[Harald Kalnins]] from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia ([[Riga]]), sponsored by the [[Lutheran World Federation]], was granted permission to visit them periodically from 1969.<ref name="Stricker-2" /><ref name="Credo">{{cite news |script-title=ru:Кризис и возрождение лютеранства. Некоторые замечания из новейшей истории нашего вероисповедания: феномен "Единой евангелическо-лютеранской церкви России" |author=Епископ Йозеф Барон |url=http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=lib&id=2158 |newspaper=Credo.ru |date=March 18, 2008 |accessdate=December 26, 2011 |language=Russian}}</ref>

===Late Soviet and immediate post-Soviet era===
In 1980, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia appointed Kalnins as superintendent of the German Lutherans in Russia<ref name="Stricker" /><ref name="Credo" /> and, with the advent of [[Perestroika]] in the Soviet Union, officially installed as the Bishop in 1988 of the re-organised '''German Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Soviet Union'''<ref name="Stricker-2" /> with the blessings of the Lutheran Archbishop of Riga.<ref name="Credo" /> This allowed the reorganising of congregations and formal seminary training.

With the [[dissolution of the Soviet Union]] in 1991, the church became known as the '''Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia and the Other States''' and between 1992 and 1994, [[synod]]s were organised in European Russia, [[Siberia]], [[Ukraine]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Uzbekistan]] and [[Kyrgyzstan]].<ref name="KALME-ELCROS" /> In 1994, the first General Synod was held in [[St. Petersburg]], and [[Georg Kretschmar]] was elected to succeed Kalnins as bishop. At the second General Synod in 1999, the title of the Bishop was changed to Archbishop.<ref name="KALME-ELCROS-2" />

===Contemporary developments===
With the passing of Russia's 1997 [[Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Associations]], the Church was again re-registered in 1999 as the '''Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia'''.<ref name="KALME-ELCROS-2" /> Despite the German origin of the Lutheran church in Russia, the demographics had shifted to include an increasing number of other nationalities, with reports of up to 30% of the members in Central Asia being [[Russian people|Russian]]s.<ref name="EWCR-Sorokina" /> A new seminary was also established in 1997 in Novosaratovka near [[St. Petersburg]].

==Structure==
[[File:Lutheran St. Peter and Paul Cathedral Moscow.jpg|thumb|St Peter & St Paul Cathedral, Moscow, is the diocesan cathedral of the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in European Russia, a constituent diocese of ELCROS.]]
Ecclesiastical authority is vested in the office of the Archbishop, whose nominal seat is the [[Lutheran Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul|Church of St Peter and St Paul]] in St Petersburg. The Archbishop and the bishops of the regional Lutheran denominations within ELCROS form an Episcopal Council.

The main governing body of ELCROS is the General Synod, which meets every five years, while executive authority is vested with the Church Synod. The Church Synod is chaired by the General [[Consistory (Protestantism)|Consistory]], headed by the Archbishop, and the Synod further comprises two members from the Episcopal Council and the Presidium of the General Synod.

===Regional churches===
The church is further divided into seven regional Lutheran denominations in [[Belarus]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], [[Kazakhstan]], [[Kyrgyzstan]], [[Russia]], [[Ukraine]], and [[Uzbekistan]], as well as individual congregations in [[Azerbaijan]], [[Tajikistan]], and [[Turkmenistan]].<ref name="KALME-ELCROS" /> These were formerly independent churches, and still retain their autonomy, but since 1999 they have been united as constituent dioceses of ELCROS.

* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in European Russia (''[[European Russia]]'')
** Bishop's seat: St Peter and St Paul Cathedral, Moscow
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church of the Urals, Siberia and the Far East (''[[Asian Russia]]'')
* German Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Ukraine
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Kazakhstan
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Kyrgyz Republic (''[[Kyrgyzstan]]'')
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Uzbekistan
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Georgia
* Union of Evangelical-Lutheran Church Congregations in Belarus
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Azerbaijan
* Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Dushanbe (''[[Tajikistan]]'')

===Archbishop of ELCROS===
[[File:Bishop Dietrich Brauer.JPG|thumb|Archbishop Dietrich Brauer, the primate of ELCROS.]]
The Archbishop is the [[Primate (bishop)|Primate]] of ELCROS, the chairman of the General Synod, the president of the Episcopal Council, and head of the St Petersburg-based consistory.

The current Archbishop is Dietrich Brauer, who is both the first native Russian archbishop, and also the youngest archbishop in ELCROS history.<ref name=presmiss>{{cite web |url=https://www.presbyterianmission.org/story/russian-lutheran-archbishop-visits-us/ |title=Russian Lutheran archbishop visits US |publisher=Presbyterian Mission Agency |accessdate=16 December 2016 |archiveurl= |archivedate= |deadurl=no}}</ref> Ordained in the Evangelical-Lutheran Church in European Russia (ELCER), Brauer became a parish pastor in Kaliningrad. On 10 March 2011 he was elected Bishop of the ELCER and installed at the diocesan cathedral in Moscow. Just a year and a half later, on 18 September 2012, and still aged just 29, he was elected Archbishop of ELCROS at the church's General Synod in St Petersburg.<ref name= presmiss/> He continues his ministry in Moscow, as well as functioning throughout ELCROS as primate.

;Senior Bishops (until 1999)
* 1988-1994 - Rt Rev Harald Kalnins
* 1994-1999 - Rt Rev Dr Georg Kretschmar

;Archbishops (from 1999)
* 1999-2004 - Rt Rev Dr Georg Kretschmar
* 2004-2009 - Most Rev Dr Edmund Ratz
* 2009–2012 - Most Rev August Genrikhovich Kruse<ref name='ELCROS-August'>{{cite web | url = http://www.elkras.ru/elc/kto_est_kto_v_elc/personalii/arhiepiskop_elc_avgust_kruze.jdx | script-title=ru:Архиепископ ЕЛЦ с 2009 года Август Крузе | accessdate = 2011-12-17 | publisher = Evangelical Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia | language = Russian}}</ref>
* 2012–present - Most Rev Dietrich Brauer<ref name= presmiss/>

==Affiliations==
The church participates actively in [[ecumenism|ecumenical]] work through its affiliation with the [[Lutheran World Federation]] and the [[Conference of European Churches]].

==See also==
{{Portal|Lutheranism}}
* [[Christianity in Azerbaijan]]
* [[Christianity in Belarus]]
* [[Christianity in Georgia (country)]]
* [[Christianity in Kazakhstan]]
* [[Christianity in Kyrgyzstan]]
* [[Christianity in Tajikistan]]
* [[Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria]]
* [[Protestantism in Russia]]
* [[Protestantism in Turkmenistan]]
* [[Protestantism in Ukraine]]

==References==
{{reflist|35em}}

==External links==
* {{Official website|http://www.elkras.ru}}
* [http://www.firstlutheranchurch.ru/ Official Website of lutherans in North Caucasus, Russia]

{{Lutheran World Federation Churches}}

[[Category:Christianity in Azerbaijan]]
[[Category:Christianity in Belarus]]
[[Category:Christianity in Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Christianity in Kazakhstan]]
[[Category:Christianity in Kyrgyzstan]]
[[Category:Protestantism in Russia]]
[[Category:Christianity in Tajikistan]]
[[Category:Christianity in Turkmenistan]]
[[Category:Christianity in Uzbekistan]]
[[Category:Lutheranism in Asia]]
[[Category:Lutheranism in Europe]]
[[Category:Lutheran World Federation members]]
[[Category:Protestantism in Ukraine]]
[[Category:History of Christianity in Russia]]