Oct 14, 2015
Kulakov secretly operated Adventist work in former Soviet Union
Russian church pioneer, Bible translator dies at 83
February 11, 2010
Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | ANN Staff
| COMMENT: With all the present discussion surrounding the activities of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, and the Vatican, it is certainly interesting to reflect upon the Protestant access in that part of the world. |
Mikhail P. Kulakov Sr., the first president of the Seventh-day Adventist Church's Euro-Asia region, and a pioneering Adventist leader who endured imprisonment in the former Soviet Union for his faith, died of brain cancer February 10 at his home in Highland, California. He was 83.
Once exiled as an enemy of the state, Kulakov in the 1980s was able to openly write in leading national Soviet publications on freedom of conscience, winning him respect from fellow believers, dissidents and human rights activists. He later helped to establish the country's first Adventist theological seminary.
"He taught us to dream big dreams, not to be afraid of trials and challenges," said his son Mikhail Kulakov Jr., who in Washington, D.C. coordinates the Russia-based Bible Translation Institute his father founded.
In his condolences to the Kulakov family, Pastor Jan Paulsen, Adventist world church president, referred to Kulakov as "a highly valued colleague of mine in the service of our church. We are honored to have had Pastor Kulakov serve the church in such an outstanding manner. He will long be remembered for that."
Born in Leningrad in 1927 to the family of an Adventist minister, who was laboring for conscience amidst state-enforced atheism, Kulakov endured persecution, relocation, and the periodic arrest of his father. After becoming the leader of underground worship services he, too, was arrested, and in 1945 sentenced to prison and hard labor. Upon his release in 1951, he was exiled to Kazakhstan.
Following his release in 1953, after the death of Stalin, Kulakov began an underground journal for ministers and established unofficial ministerial training courses. Throughout the next two decades, Kulakov endured several arrests on charges of defying the communist government, his son Peter said.
