wfn.org | Russian hymnal being developed by United Methodist pastor

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

Jan. 14 1999	Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-71B{023}

NOTE TO EDITORS: The spelling of S T Kimbrough Jr.'s name is correct - there
are no periods after S T.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - A United Methodist pastor from Moscow is in the
United States to fulfill a dream for her church: developing a Russian
hymnal.

The Rev. Ludmilia Garbuzova, pastor of 100-member First United Methodist
Church of Moscow, arrived in Nashville last September to be tutored by
editor Carlton R. Young in developing a Russian United Methodist Hymnal.
Young edited the denomination's 1964 and 1989 hymnals. Also consulting on
the project is S T Kimbrough Jr., a staff executive at the United Methodist
Board of Global Ministries. Kimbrough leads the Global Praise program, in
which Garbuzova has been involved.

Besides being a pastor, Garbuzova, 50, is a musician, composer and director
of the Moscow Youth Theatre of Sacred Music. She is in Nashville editing
music and translating text into Russian, and she plans to have a first
edition of the proposed hymnal ready for her annual conference session in
May.

Editing a hymnbook is no easy task, and it is even more of a challenge for
Garbuzova. Upon arriving in the United States on Sept. 24, she said, "I was
not able to speak or write any English, and I had never utilized a computer
until last month." She has taken some classes and is persevering through the
difficulties. "Sometimes my computer refuses to understand me ... but I
understand the importance of this work in the name of Jesus Christ," she
said.

The idea for a hymnal resulted from the lack of available worship music in
Russia, even though a great emergence of Christian music and text is under
way there, she said.

The United Methodist presence also has been growing in Russia since the end
of communism and the lifting of restrictions on church growth. At first, the
new congregations were singing in English, Garbuzova recalled.

"This was very strange to us," she said. "Every church was searching for the
new songs or they created their own."

In 1994, Garbuzova received a request from Kimbrough to do research on one
of the first Russian hymnals, Songs of Zion. The 180-page Russian-language
hymnbook was published in 1925 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for
use in Russian congregations in China. Many of the book's songs have been
recorded on CD by Garbuzova's church choir.

Russia's churches are singing churches, and the development of such a hymnal
would be "a happy marriage of Methodism's legacy and the Russian gift and
love of music," said Bishop Ruediger Minor, who heads the United Methodist
congregations there.

Most hymns among Protestants in Russia have been translated from English and
other languages. 
"We will continue to sing them," Minor said. "But we are happy about an
emerging indigenous Russian Christian music and texts. It is speaking from
and to the soul of Russian people in a special way."

While singing has been at the heart of  Methodist life, he said, "the hymns
have taught Christian truth in a very touching way. This is true for Russia,
too."

"Christians were always singing because a Christian song is first of all the
school of God's word," Garbuzova said. "... Song is something that unites
people in one whole church, which is the body of Jesus Christ."

She has about 800 hymns to consider for inclusion in the proposed book. The
final version will contain 300 songs, including pieces by Charles Wesley
that currently exist in Russian translation; hymns sung by United
Methodists, Baptists and Lutherans in Russia; and indigenous hymns. The book
will include both traditional and contemporary material.

Minor said producing the hymnal will take time because church leaders want
to get Russian United Methodists actively involved in the process.

"I hope that God will bless this new hymnal," he said, "and the churches
that will be using it to praise God, to lift up their souls, and to proclaim
and teach the great truth of the Christian faith."
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