F ive thousand seven hundred and seventeen. Translating a document of that size is no small feat. With a joint effort spanning countries—from Romania to the Ukraine to the United States—the translation of the COF into Russian took five months to complete, actualizing a vision that had been in place for years.
We worked at this to make sure that our Confession of Faith was translated correctly. The U. Finding someone to do the translation work was challenging, and it took years to initiate the process.
Although USMB has numerous Russian pastors, an extensive project such as this required more time than the pastors had to give. So, after years of asking various people to consider the project, at a March meeting, the U. BFL decided to take a more active role. The BFL approved a budget to hire someone to do the work, and a search for a translator commenced.
When the translation was completed—a process which took more than two months—the BFL sought to have the translation tested. Both pastors shared similar revisions to help the document better reflect Mennonite Brethren heritage and nuances. The current COF dates to The COF is a complete revision of earlier MB confessions of faith, including the confession, which is itself a revision of the document that was adopted in Russia and North America.
Following the dissolution of the General Conference in , the confession became jointly owned by the U. This version of the confession was used for the Russian translation. However, eight additional languages are spoken on any given Sunday in MB churches across the U. Morris says the next translation likely will be Amharic, the language used in many Ethiopian MB churches.
