OCA representatives visit Russian Bible Society’s Moscow headquarters

OCA representatives visit Russian Bible Society's Moscow headquarters
Fathers Zacchaeus and John Reeves review Chuvash translation of the Bible at Moscow’s RBS headquarters.

MOSCOW, RUSSIA [OCA]—Archimandrite Zacchaeus, Representative of the Orthodox Church in America to the Moscow Patriarchate, and Archpriest John Reeves, a member of the OCA’s Metropolitan Council and Chairman of its Charity Committee, met with Mr. Anatoly A Rudenko, Director of the Russian Bible Society, at his office here on Monday, June 21, 2010.

Mr. Rudenko reported that 7,000 copies of the complete text of the Bible, translated into the Chuvash language, had been published recently, with 5,000 copies of the text slated for distribution to parishes and institutions in the Diocese of of Cheboksary and Chuvashia [www.eparh-chb.ru].

Locatead in the center of the European part of Russia some 650 kilometers east of Moscow, the Chuvash Republic has a total population of 1.35 million people, some 65 percent of whom are of Chuvash origin. About one quarter of the population is made up of ethnic Russians.

According to a news release posted on the web site of the OCA’s Representation Church of Saint Catherine [www.st-catherine.ru], the OCA assisted in the project through the “Bibles For Russia” fund, made possible by the US Department of Defense [www.oca.org/news/1732]. “After receiving a detailed report of the Chuvash Bible project, Father John Reeves expressed his satisfaction in the way the funds from the OCA were utilized and thanked Anatoly Aleksandrovich for carefully following the guidelines set when the funds were first transferred,” the release notes.

Fathers Zacchaeus and John toured the Society’s headquarters and bookstore, which makes available Scripture in a variety of languages and formats.