Charles Rodenbough

Separated at Birth Charles Rodenbough

Between 1993 and 2005 the author worked in Russia, Tajikistan, and Belarus for extended periods with different humanitarian projects through American Protestant denominations, chiefly Presbyterian and Methodist, and the Russian Orthodox (Department of Education and Catechism, PIMEN, and Metropolitan Fileret of Belarus. This study of his experiences in travel and negotiations on these projects that involved: women's work in the church, departments of education, medical resources, relief distribution systems, inter-church dialogue, Orthodox study for Protestants, agricultural programs, building restoration, Moslem issues in Central Asia, Russian charity programs, Ecumenical programs between US and Russia, Freedom of Conscience legislation. The author discusses his personal Faith journey as an American layman as he enmeshed himself in the study of Orthodoxy and Russian history within the rapidly changing period of perestroika. He perceives a spiritual impulse for dialogue at the beginning of the 3rd Millenniu