MOSCOW METHODISTS VISIT CAPE

As a boy growing up in Russia, the Rev. Fydor Volkov imagined what Missouri was like through the writings of Mark Twain. But on Friday, Volkov said God finally let him see it for himself.

"Flying over St. Louis, I thought how all of this is so wonderful I couldn't have dreamed of it," said Volkov, a Methodist pastor from Moscow. "I thought about how God works everything out."

Volkov was in Cape Girardeau Saturday with the Rev. Dmitri Lee, district superintendent of the 26 Methodist churches in the Moscow region. The two are attending a conference for Russia's Methodist pastors in Cincinnati this week.

United States Methodists have been building ties with Russia through partnerships among churches since 1991, said the Rev. Ron Watts of Cape LaCroix United Methodist church. Together with churches in Kansas City and St. Louis, Watts' church financially supports a Russian Methodist church, he said. A sum of $9,000 is raised equally by the three churches to pay the salary and other expenses of a pastor in Moscow.

Volkov's church is not supported by Cape LaCroix. The pastor of that church was not able to travel to America this year, Watts said, so Volkov came instead.

Churches expanding

Russian Methodists became formally affiliated with each other in 1996, Lee said. About 80 churches are spread across Russia, but quick growth makes an exact number hard to determine, he said.

Only about 10 percent of churches have their own building. Most rent public facilities, which typically limits meetings to once a week, Lee said.

Volkov's church, which numbers about 30, had met in a school until they were ordered to move three years ago by municipal officials. It was the result of a law limiting the rights of religious organizations that had not been officially registered in Russia for at least 15 years.

Since then, Volkov's congregation of elderly women, university students and school children have met in his three-room apartment. His 645 square-foot apartment is barely big enough for a piano and a church service, but he said they manage.

The weekly services don't bother his neighbors, Volkov said.

"I've lived in my apartment for a long time," he said. "My neighbors know me, and they are patient."

By this summer, Volkov's church won't be in his apartment. Lee gave the church a place on his property to build a church building. Volkov's congregation and Christians from other churches helped build it.

Some of his church's members, ladies in their 70s, finished plastering interior walls, Volkov said.

The church still needs more, Lee said.

"That's why we are here," he said. "We want to build international ties, because when you come and visit our people, they don't feel so alone."

In a country where the Russian Orthodox Church is a quasi-government entity, it's easy for Methodists to feel alone, Lee said.

The Rev. John Rice of New McKendree United Methodist Church in Jackson, Mo., studied the photographs of Volkov's congregation. Leaning over a coffee table, he asked the Russian pastor to tell him about members of his congregation.

"I want to know about these people," he said.