Academic literature on the topic 'Lutheran Church, Missions'

Abstract The recent interest in the social history of the Cold War has given rise to many narratives of expulsions and migrations in world Christianity. This article focuses on the transformation of several Lutheran missions from sojourning in the wilderness of China’s maritime frontiers into becoming vital pastoral and welfare service providers in British Hong Kong. While licking their wounds after their reluctant exodus to Hong Kong following the Chinese Communist Revolution (1949), the Lutherans employed the triple mission of feeding refugees, saving souls, and planting churches, clinics, and schools to help the distressed population. They mobilized their global and local church networks to secure financial, medical and human resources for crisis management—resources that the British colonial government lacked. Its multilayered operation of relief programs exhibited the organizational capacity of Lutherans to assist stricken communities in Cold War Hong Kong.

To Speak for the Mission: Metaphors and Rhetorical Strategies in Mission Booklets Published by Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen 1897–1921 This paper analyzes metaphors and rhetorical patterns in mission booklets published by, and circulated within, Evangeliska Fosterlands-Stiftelsen, a missionary movement that was (and remains) a part of Svenska kyrkan (known until recently as the Lutheran Church of Sweden). The booklets were an attempt to promote Lutheran missions in East Africa, Central India and among sailors. This paper focuses on booklets concerned with the mission in India, and examines different forms of argumentation present in these publications, using the terms ethos, pathos and logos, the three modes of persuasion discussed by Aristotle. The booklets rely heavily on pathos, especially when dealing with the day-to-day work of the missionaries, while logos is mainly reserved for presenting the mission’s project from the perspective of the homeland. Through the use of recurrent metaphors, the Christian faith is associated with light, life and freedom, while ”the heathens” are associated with darkness, weakness and captivity.

Under the Communist regime in Ethiopia, 1974-1991, the evangelical churches were subject to severe persecution, with more than 3,000 church buildings closed and pastors imprisoned, tortured, and killed. In this situation a group of missionaries was asked by the leadership of the Lutheran church to pass on information to the Lutheran World Federation. This was a politically charged request and, therefore, a risky undertaking. At the same time the harassment of the churches constituted serious breaches of human rights. This article explores the dilemmas of conscience of the missionaries and how the dilemmas were solved. At the same time, the article sheds light on dilemmas of missions and churches, locally and internationally, in relation to brutal dictatorships. It also shows how a church is forced from a position of critical engagement in society to submission and silence.

The arrival of the Protestant immigrants on Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf's Saxony estate in 1722 must be understood as one of the most significant events in the history of Protestant missions. Heirs of an ancient Czech church which dated back to pre-Reformation times, they attracted Zinzendorf's attention to such an extent that he blended his own Lutheran-Pietist understanding of Christianity with the convictions of the immigrants and became one of the greatest pioneers of Protestant world missions. His missions outreach to the Native North Americans (Shekomeko 1740) supplied him with the raw material that would give shape to his own incarnational missiology.

Until the 19th century, women were not considered suitable for mission work. However, when Leipzig mission started its work in India, it came to the realization that to reach Indian women with the Gospel, women missionaries were needed. Soon, other German mission societies that sent missionaries to China, Indonesia and Africa also came to the same conclusion, opening the doors for ministry for the first women from Vidzeme (Livland). Baltic-German Hildegard Prozell, from Jaunmārupe, was sent in 1896 through Leipzig to India and Lilija Otilija Grīviņa, (in German Grihwin, Griwing, Griewing) from Riga, were sent in 1913 through Liebenzell to China. Each of these societies had different theological understandings about mission. Leipzig was based on the traditional Lutheran understanding of ministry and tried to create a universal Lutheran church worldwide, including in the mission fields. Liebenzell was the German branch of China Inland Mission, which was considered a “faith” mission that was more open to co-working with others. This impacted the way the mission societies selected their candidates, prepared them (a few months for Leipzig, 3–4 years for Liebenzell with male and female candidates training together), and sent them on the missions (solid salary for Prozell, not so with Grīviņa). Both missionaries had to learn the local languages and pass language exams. They both served as teachers, did evangelism with local women, and had to be administrators and local health care specialists. Prozell was the first to establish women’s work in Mayavaram, while Grīviņa was the first to take Chinese women to a local evangelism outreach (together with other teaching staff of the Hunan Bible Institute). Prozell, being a Baltic-German, received extensive support from her home church. Since her ministry took place before World War I, there are plenty of publications about her ministry in both Latvian and German newspapers in Riga. Grīviņa came from a humble background, going with almost no support, and as her ministry in China happened during WWI, there were almost no publications about her work. Both women have been equally forgotten in Latvian church history and deserve to be remembered.

First a Man - then a Christian. Grundtvig and Missonary ActivityBy K.E. BuggeThe aim of this paper is to clarify Grundtvig’s ideas on missionary activity in the socalled »heathen parts«. The point of departure is taken in a brief presentation of the poem »Man first - and then a Christian« (1838), an often quoted text, whenever this theme is discussed. The most extensive among earlier studies on the subject is the book published by Georg Thaning: »The Grundtvigian Movement and the Mission among Heathen« (1922). The author provides valuable insights also into Grundtvig’s ideas, but has, of course, not been able to utilize more recent studies.On the background of the revival movement of the late 18th and early 19th century, The Danish Missionary Society was established in 1821. In the Lutheran churches such activity was generally deemed to be unnecessary. According to the Holy Scripture, so it was argued, the heathen already had a »natural« knowledge of God, and the word of God had been preached to the ends of the earth in the times of the Apostles. Nevertheless, it was considered a matter of course that a Christian sovereign had the duty to ensure that non-Christian citizens of his domain were offered the possibility of conversion to the one and true faith. In the double-monarchy Denmark-Norway such non-Christian populations were the Lapplanders of Northern Norway, the Inuits in Greenland, the black slaves in Danish West India and finally the native populations of the Danish colonies in West Africa and East India. Under the influence of Pietism missionary, activity was initiated by the Danish state in South India (1706), Northern Norway (1716), and Greenland (1721).In Grundtvig’s home the general attitude towards missionary work among the heathen seems to have reflected traditional Lutheranism. Nevertheless, one of Grundtvig’s elder brothers, Jacob Grundtvig, volunteered to become a missionary in Greenland.Due to incidental circumstances he was instead sent to the Danish colony in West Africa, where he died after less than one year of service. He was succeeded by his brother Niels Grundtvig, who likewise died within a year. During the period when Jacob Grundtvig prepared himself for the journey to Greenland, we can imagine that his family spent many an hour discussing his future conditions. It is probable that on these occasions his father consulted his copy of the the report on the Greenland mission published by Hans Egede in 1737. It is a fact that Grundtvig imbibed a deep admiration for Hans Egede early in his life. In his extensive poem »Roskilde Rhyme« (1812, published 1814), the theme of which is the history of Christianity in Denmark, Grundtvig inserted more than 70 lines on the Greenland mission. Egede’s achievements are here described in close connection with the missionary work of Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg in Tranquebar, South India, as integral parts of the same journey towards the celestial Jerusalem.In Grundtvig’s famous publication »The Church’s Retort« (1825) he describes the church as an historical fact from the days of the Apostles to our days. This historical church is at the same time a universal entity, carrying the potential of becoming the church of all humanity - if not before, then at the end of the world. A few years later, in a contribution to the periodical .Theological Monthly., he applies this historicaluniversal perspective on missionary acticity in earlier times and in the present. The main features of this stance may be summarized in the following points:1. Grundtvig rejects the Orthodox-Lutheran line of thought and underscores the Biblical view: That before the end of time the Gospel must be preached out into all comers of the world.2. Our Lutheran, Biblically founded faith must not lead to inactivity in this field.3. Correctly understood, missionary activity is a continuance of the acts of the Apostles.4. The Holy Spirit is the intrinsic dynamic power in the extension of the Christian faith.5. The practical procedure in this extension work must never be compulsion or stealth, but the preaching of the word and the free, uninhibited decision of the listeners.We find here a total reversion of the Orthodox-Lutheran way of rejection in principle, but acceptance in practice. Grundtvig accepts the principle: That missionary activity is a legitimate and necessary Christian undertaking. The same activity has, however, both historically and in our days, been marred by unacceptable practices, on which he reacts with forceful rejection. To this position Grundtvig adhered for the rest of his life.Already in 1826, Grundtvig withdrew from the controversy arising from the publication of his .Retort.. The public dispute was, however, continued with great energy by the gifted young academic, Jacob Christian Lindberg. During the 1830s a weekly paper, edited by Lindberg, .Nordisk Kirke-Tidende., i.e. Nordic Church Tidings, became Grundtvig’s main channel of communication with the public. All through the years of its publication (1833-41), this paper, of which Grundtvig was also an avid reader, brought numerous articles and reports on missionary activity. Among the reasons for this editorial practice we find some personal motives. Quite a few of Grundtvig’s and Lindberg’s friends were board members of the Danish Missionary Society. Furthermore, one of Lindberg’s former students, Christen Christensen Østergaard was appointed a missionary in Greenland.In the present paper the articles dealing with missionary activity are extensively reported and quoted as far as the years 1833-38 are concerned, and the effects on Grundtvig of this incessant .bombardment. of information on missionary activity are summarized. Generally speaking, it was gratifying for Grundtvig to witness ho w many of his ideas on missionary activity were reflected in these contributions. Furthermore, Lindberg’s regular reports on the progress of C.C. Østergaard in Greenland has continuously reminded Grundtvig of the admired Hans Egede.Among the immediate effects the genesis of the poem »First the man - then the Christian« must be mentioned. As already observed by Kaj Thaning, Grundtvig has read an article in the issue of Nordic Church Tidings, dated, January 8th, 1838, written by the Orthodox-Lutheran, German theologian Heinrich Møller on the relationship between human nature and true Christianity. Grundtvig has, it seems, written his poem in protest against Møller’s assertion: That true humanness is expressed in acceptance of man’s fundamental sinfulness. Against this negative position Grundtvig holds forth the positive Johannine formulations: To be »of the truth« and to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. Grundtvig has seen a connection between Møller’s negative view of human nature and a perverted missionary practice. In the third stanza of his poem Grundtvig therefore inserted some critical remarks, clearly inspired by his reading of Nordic Church Tidings.Other immediate effects are seen in the way in which, in his sermons from these years, Grundtvig meticulously elaborates on the Biblical argumentation in favour of missionary activity. In this context he combines passages form the Old and New Testament - often in an ingenious, original manner. Finally must be mentioned the way in which Grundtvig, in his hymn writing from the middle of the 1830s, more often than hitherto recognized, interposes stanzas dealing with the preaching of the Gospel to heathen populations.Turning from general observations and a study of immediate impact, the paper considers the effects, which become apparent in a longer perspective. In this respect Grundtvig’s interpretation of the seven churches mentioned in chapters 2-3 of the Book of Revelation is of crucial importance. According to Grundtvig, they symbolize seven stages in the historical development of Christianity, i.e. the churches of the Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans, the English, the Germans and the »Nordic« people. The seventh and last church will reveal itself sometime in the future.This vision, which Grundtvig expounds for the first time in 1810, emerges in his writings from time to time all through his life. The most impressive literary monument describing the vision is his great poem, »The Pleiades of Christendom« from 1856-60.In 1845 he becomes convinced that the arrival of the sixth stage is revealed in the breakthrough of a new and vigourous hymn-singing in the church of Vartov. As late as the spring of 1863 Grundtvig voices a contented optimism in a church-historical lecture, where the Danish missions to Greenland and to Tranquebar in South India are characterized as .signs of life and good omens.. Grundtvig here refers back to his above-mentioned »Roskilde Rhyme« (1812, 1814), where he had offered a spiritual interpretation of the names of persons and localities involved in the process. He had then observed that the colony founded in Greenland by Hans Egede was called »Good Hope«, a highly symbolic name. And the church built by the missionaries in Tranquebar was called »Church of the New Jerusalem«, a name explicitly referring to the Book of Revelation, and thus welding together his great vision and his view on missionary activity. After Denmark’s humiliating defeat in the Danish-German war of 1864, the optimism faded away. Grundtvig seems to have concluded that the days of the sixth and .Nordic. church had come to an end, and the era of the seventh church was about to commence. In accordance with his poem on »The Pleiades« etc. he localizes this final church in India.In Grundtvig’s total view missionary activity was the dynamism that bound his vision together into an integrated process. Through the activity of »Denmark’s apostle«, Ansgar, another admired mis-sionary, the universal church had become a locally rooted reality. Through the missions of Hans Egede and Ziegenbalg the Gospel was carried out to the ends of the earth. The local Danish church thus contributed significantly to the proliferation of a universal church. In the development of this view, Grundtvig was inspired as well as provoked by his regular reading of Nordic Church Tidings in the 1830s.

The German and Swedish Lutheran Mission was a major and pioneering Protestant mission society that started its mission work in Tamil Nadu. The Halle Danish, Leipzig mission, and Church of Sweden mission societies had a larger mission field in Tamil Nadu. Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Christians are intimately associated with the German Lutheran Mission and Swedish Mission. The first German Lutheran missionaries, Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, came to India in 1706. From then on, many Lutheran missionaries came to Tamil Nadu. Afterwards Tamil Nadu became a thriving Christian center for decades, with a strong Christian congregation, church, and several institutions. The majority of these Christians are descendants of Dalits (former untouchable Paraiyars) and Kallars who embraced Christianity. From a life of near slavery, poverty, illiteracy, oppression, and indignity, conversion to Christianity transformed the lives of these people. Tamil Evangelical Lutheran Dalits and Kallars found liberation and have made significant progress because of the Christian missionaries of the Church of the German and Swedish Mission. Both the German and Swedish Mission offered the Gospel of a new religion to not only the subaltern people but also the possibility of secular salvation. The history of Lutherans needs to be understood as a part of Christian subaltern history (Analysing the Indian mission history from the native perspective). My paper will mainly focus on Tamil Lutheran Dalit and Kallar Christians. In this paper, I propose to elucidate the role of German and Swedish Lutheran missionaries in the social, economic, educational, and spiritual life of Tamil Lutheran Dalits and Kallars. Due to the page limit, I am going to mainly focus on Swedish Mission and Kallar Lutheran Christians.

Abstract This article examines the survival strategies of Lutheran dissenters in the eighteenth-century Dutch Cape Colony. The Cape Colony was officially a Reformed settlement during the rule of the Dutch East India Company (V.O.C.) but also had a significant Lutheran community. Until the Lutherans received recognition in 1780, part of the community chose to uphold their faith in secret. The survival of Lutheranism in the Cape Colony was due to the efforts of a group of Cape Lutheran activists and the support network they established with ministers of the Danish-Halle Mission, the Francke Foundations, the Moravian Church and the Lutheran Church in Amsterdam.

AbstractThis essay focuses on the evangelism of charismatic American Lutheran churches in Minneapolis/St. Paul by Merina Malagasy Lutheran pastors affiliated with the Fifohazana movement of Madagascar. By analyzing healing services led by one Malagasy revivalist, I argue that we may better understand how American Lutherans and Malagasy Lutherans are renegotiating the meaning of global Lutheranism while ‘reenchanting’ the body as a central interface of religious engagement. My main concern is to investigate how parallel framings of the healing services constitute a subtle traffic in representational forms that rework images of the global church.

AbstractThis article examines the historical and theological foundations of Lutheran doctrines of the ministry of word and sacrament in the Reformation and the Confessional documents and how this inheritance was transposed to the American context. Against this background, it considers the debates on ministerial issues that surrounded the founding of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the challenges with regard to ministry and mission that face Lutherans in America today as a result of fresh immigration and tensions between the local and the wider church.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Sydney, 2008.
Title from title screen (viewed July 29, 2009) Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the Department of Anthropology, Faculty of Arts. Bibliography: leaves 369-398. Also available in print form.

AbstractThis is the story of a community hub in an independent South Australian faith-based school. The aim of this community hub is to address multi-generational disadvantage with an agile approach that is personalised to the needs of local families. While co-located infrastructure exists—comprising a school, church, kindergarten, public sector children’s centre, opportunity shop, community shed and emergency housing—there is a need to promote connections within and beyond this infrastructure through a dedicated community hub space. To address this need, in 2020 we prepared an architectural design concept for a welcoming community space located at the intersection of school, church, and kindergarten, providing a physical structure to ‘wrap around’ the existing personal services. This space has yet to be built but will ensure the community hub can help people develop the capacity to change their own lives. The ethos, culture, and approach that has been adopted for this community hub is based on the ‘Family Zone’ model developed by Lutheran Care. The vision for this hub has wellbeing as the focus which resonates with the shared values and mission of school, care agency and church. In this chapter we, the school’s principal and the architect who developed the architectural design, reflect on the school community’s journey. The common theme is that it takes time to build cooperative relationships, connections, and trust. ‘You are welcome’ and developing a sense of belonging is at the heart of developing this community hub.

In 1947, the Church of South India brought together Anglicans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans and Congregationalists. Since then, other churches have come together to form united churches in South Asian countries. Today the CSI is 4 million strong, within 15,000 congregations in 24 dioceses. The Church of North India (CNI) is a union of six churches and is spread out over northern, eastern, western, and mid-India. They grew from a sense of freedom from European institutions, a post-colonial fervour, and a global ecumenical movement. The Church of Pakistan, is the second largest church in the country after the Roman Catholic Church, called to unity in correspondence with the nationalistic movement in India. The Church of Bangladesh took shape through the Liberation War in 1971 uniting Anglicans and Presbyterians under the Church of Bangladesh. However, Christians from united churches are the most persecuted minorities. Christian fundamentalist groups from the USA and South Korea run public programmes against local faiths as part of their proclamation of the gospel. United churches must still address wage disparities, dependence on foreign donations, and following-up on education and social development in mission fields.

Abstract Jakob Spener did not consider himself a reformer in the tradition of Luther and Calvin. He did not intend to establish a sect in competition with other Protestant churches, and he never formally severed his ties with the Lutheran church in Germany. But his collegia piatatus gathered in homes during the week, enjoying an atmosphere of warmth and community that was far more conducive to an emphasis upon Christian experience in daily life than was the foreboding air of the European cathedrals. These meetings, however, were viewed with suspicion by both civil and ecclesiastical author ities, who were aware of the dissent of the Moravians, Mennonites, and other Anabaptist groups elsewhere on the continent. Already troubled by the continuing Catholic presence, Germany did not need additional conflicts at home, and so, while no actual persecution of the kind associated with the Inquisition was instituted, pressure was brought to bear upon the Pietists to keep them from straying too far from the orthodox fold. One of the measures taken was the closing of several universities to persons espousing Pietist con victions. In response, the Pietists opened their own university at Halle in 1694, and out of this institution grew the first Protestant missionary agency, the Danish-Halle Mission. One of the first graduates of Halle University, Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), introduced pietistic concepts to a group of Anabaptist refugees he had permitted to build a town on his property. From this group he recruited the first members of what became the Moravian Missionary Society.

The article is dedicated to one of the most prominent and versatile personalities of the library sector in Latvia – the pastor and bibliophile Gustavs Šaurums (1883–1952). From 1934 to 1938, he managed the Riga City Library, the oldest library in Latvia (today – part of the Academic Library of the University of Latvia), during which time he started the identification and bibliography of Latvian ancient printed works stored at the foreign libraries. As a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia (for 38 years, from 1914 to 1952), he was also the editor of several religious press publications, an active researcher and populariser of Latvian religious and cultural history. In 1914, his first book “Iekšējā misija” (“Inner Mission”), was published in Riga, in which he explained the inner mission as voluntary Christian charity and education work to various groups of society and emphasized its importance in strengthening the church and Christian faith. Being the pastor of the Umurga and Ārciems parishes from 1920 to 1934, he also started publishing himself: he compiled and published not only parish calendars and reports, but also his own books (nine in total). The most notable among them is Šaurums’s monograph “Tērbatas Universitāte, 1632–1932” (University of Dorpat, 1632–1932), as it contains the first comprehensive overview of the university’s history over three hundred years. In 1933, Šaurums also begun the compilation, publication and distribution of the religious literature series “Rakstu Avots” (“Source of Writings”) in order to limit the spread of “harmful”, valueless literature. The series was financed by annual payments from subscribers, which ensured the publication of 12 small print works (books or pictures) per year. Although the series did not gain as much popularity as hoped, it nevertheless was a visible and stable segment in the literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Latvia. Šaurums continued his work as a pastor even during the years of Soviet and Nazi occupation. The study shows that his attitude towards non-democratic political regimes was conformist: loyalty was shown, apparently with the hope that it would provide better conditions for the church’s survival in difficult times. Šaurums’s private library is considered particularly valuable, – he collected Latvian and Baltic German literature from his early youth, paying particular attention to obtaining periodicals. According to the testimonies of contemporaries, Šaurums’s library contained more than 20,000 books, calendars, sets of magazines and newspapers. After the owner’s demise, they ended up in the collections of the National Library of Latvia and the Academic Library of the University of Latvia.

In addition to musical and religious aspects, singing hymns contains human and divine relations when sung in an evangelical Lutheran church context. From Christopher Small’s concept of “musicking” the author has developed the concept of “hymnicking” connected to the phenomenon of singing hymns and the possibilities of aesthetic and existential experience through the musical performance, the place, the time and the sound, and everybody contributing to this action. As in musicking, hymnicking involves exploring, confirming, and celebrating the relationships between sound and people, as well as the relationship to the Triune God, to Christians who celebrate divine service all over the world, to Christians who lived before them and to those who come after. In a church, there may also be rituals, art, symbolism, acoustics, and light that promote the experience of singing hymns, as an integrated part of hymnicking. The correspondence between the person, the music, and all other factors is decisive for the existential experience. Furthermore, the transcending function of singing hymns can extend beyond the religious experience. This can also be related to Gadamer’s description of Spiel, when the being of the work of art and the act of worship meet in the performance itself – in the game and play. The aim of this article is to highlight various aspects of the hymn’s potential, including awareness of the fact that music is not only a means for the church’s mission, but also an end in itself.

In 1796 the peasant Hans Nielsen Hauge (1771–1824) had a profound religious experience that transformed his life. The following years he crisscrossed Norway as a lay preacher. His message was according to the pietistic ideals for repentance and conversion. His works led to an influential revivalism that left a theological and organizational imprint on the lay movements that evolved within the Lutheran state church (the Church of Norway) in the 19th and 20th centuries. This article analyses the historical and theological conditions for Hauge’s mission with special regard to the pietistic doctrine of the Ordo Salutis. It reviews the concept of Ordo Salutis according to the textbook by the court priest E. Pontoppidan, Sandhed til Gudfrygtighed (1737), that was compulsory teaching materials to all Norwegians in schools and in church preparing for confirmation for approximately 150 years. The article studies how the former understanding Ordo Salutis is continued and changed on new terms in three significant revivals: the revival of the 1850s with prof. G. Johnson, the revival in the first half of the 1900s with prof. O. Hallesby, and the revival of the 1880s that in Scandinavia commonly is called “new evangelical” and broke with the pattern of Ordo Salutis by focusing on instant conversion.

When the lay preacher Hans Nielsen Hauge travelled around the country in the early 1800s, he not only preached a religious message. Inspired by Lutheran ideas, he also showed a strong interest in economics. At Fennefoss in the south of Setesdal, Hauge initated building a mill for production of cloth paper. From 1805 to 1813 this mill supplied paper to government agencies as well as the private sector. As ‘Haugians’, workers at the mill had a dual agenda: business and mission. They lived in a collective where their days were divided into sessions for work and prayer. On Sundays they could speak to people outside the church, and in the evenings they held religious meetings for locals. Their paper production was important for as long as it lasted, and the waterfall area continued to be used by industry even after the paper production was relocated to Kristiansand.

This year marks the 190th birthday of the famous Swiss architect of Italian origin A.I. Bernardazzi, who is also known for creating various historic buildings in Ukraine, Bessarabia and Poland. Archival documents were an evidence of the beginning of architectural career of Bernardazzi, when the Bessarabian Road and Construction Commission appointed him as the technician for urban planning of Akkerman and Bendery in 1853 and also for building some bridges and causeways in those districts. He took part in the organization of the third market in the Forest Square in Kishinev in September of 1855. This was the first mission of his creativity in Kishinev. Alexander Bernardazzi executed his duty as municipal architect from 1856 to 1878 having taken the place of another architect Luca Zaushkevich. All his subsequent monumental buildings became the best examples of European architecture by their style, shape, and quality. . In Bessarabia, he participated in the design and construction of many buildings such as the temporal theatre, the Lutheran school, the railway station, the Greek Church, the Manuk-Bei’s palace, etc. As for Kishinev, the architect Bernardazzi performed the beautification of paving many streets, the construction of urban water supply and the cast-iron railing in the city park. Also, he participated in many architects’ meetings where he submitted interesting reports referring to the theater, some windows, fire safety of buildings and so on. After his arrival to Odessa in 1878, Alexander Bernardazzi continued to participate in designing social and civil buildings in Bessarabia. For his enormous creative contribution to urban development, he was appreciated with the title of honorable citizen of Kishinev and appointed member of the Bessarabian department of the Imperial Russian Technical Society.