Seventh-day Adventist world church president Pastor Jan Paulsen and his wife, Kari, received an enthusiastic welcome at Mocscow's Sheremetyevo airport on February 16. The Paulsen's are visiting in part to inaugurate celebrations of 120 years of the Adventist movement in Russia.

Leaders of church's Euro-Asia region, including president Artur Stele, secretary Michael Kaminsky, and treasurer Bill Biaggi were among those who greeted the Paulsens.

Among the anniversary celebrations will be a ceremony at Zaokski Adventist University, the dedication of a new Adventist church to the south of Moscow; a celebration of the fifteenth anniversary of the Euro-Asia church region, as well as working meetings with leaders of West Russia church area, presidents of other Euro-Asia church regions and meetings with departmental directors the regional church administration.

During his visit to Moscow, Dr. Paulsen will meet with Alexander Sokolov, the Russian Federation's Minister of Culture as well as with the Administration of the President of Russian Federation.

Russia was the first non-Protestant Christian country entered by the church, where an Adventist minister went in 1886 and started the first Adventist church in Berdy-Bulat in the Crimea. The Seventh-day Adventists formed a Russian church organization in 1909, despite active government opposition. The church structure was largely destroyed during the Soviet period. Then, after World War II, the All-Union Council of Seventh-Day Adventists was established. The formal church administration was inactive from 1960 until 1990, when it became part of the Euro-Asia Division of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists. [Editors: Valery Ivanov and Christian B. Schaeffler for ANN/APD]