Seventh-Day Adventists

HISTORY

The relationship of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church with the Volga Germans is different from that of the Lutheran and Catholic colonists because it is not represented in Russia before the emigration. Rather, new converts in America sent tracts about the denomination back to their relatives and friends in Russia which laid the groundwork for the establishment of Seventh-Day congregations in Russia. Copies of Die Stimme der Wahrheit (Voice of Truth), an American Adventist magazine for German immigrants, first reached German settlements on the Volga in 1879.

Conrad Laubhan, an emigrant from Shcherbakovka living in Lehigh, Kansas, returned to Russia in 1886 for twelve years to serve as a leader in the rapid spread of the movement. A well-known Adventist preacher, Ludwig R. Conradi, and Gerhard Perk, a young Mennonite in the Ukraine who had adopted the Adventist faith, made a missionary tour around the Crimea, southern Ukraine, the Volga German area, and the northern Caucasus preaching and baptizing converts.

Resources

Johnson, D. R. (1996). Adventism on the Northwestern frontier. Berrien Springs, Mich.: Oronoko Books.

Sources

Heinz, Daniel. "Origin and Growth of the Adventists in Russia: A Historical Survey." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia 10:4 (Winter 1987): 39-43.

Reimche, Adaline Werner. "The Organization of the First German Seventh-Day Adventist Church in America and Its Influence." Journal of the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia (Spring 1987): 15-18.

Sapiets, Marite. "One Hundred Years of Adventism in Russia and the Soviet Union." Religion, State and Society 12:3 (Winter 1984): 256-273.

Seventh Day Adventist Encyclopedia, Washington: Revew and Herald, 1966.