© 2016 Sergey Litvinov and Anton Miroshnichenko
© 2016 International Urantia Association (IUA)
¶ Becoming Friends & Loving Each Other
9 to 11 September, 2016
The first meeting of Russian speaking readers of The Urantia Book was held 9 – 11 September, 2016 at the Novahoff Hotel in Nicholas Uryupino Village near Moscow. This conference was initiated and skilfully organized by Tamila Ragimova from Medellin, Colombia. Twenty five readers attended hailing from Russia, Finland, the Ukraine and the USA.
On the first day over dinner, each of those present spoke about his or her path to finding The Urantia Book. Presentations were given in the mornings, then after lunch we broke up into smaller discussion groups.
To give you an idea of the subjects discussed, following is a list of the titles of the presentations and workshops:
Presentations
- Spirituality of human and spiritual brotherhood of man, by Yury Koposov
- I welcome my brothers and sisters, by Oleg Andreev
- About The Urantia Book and its teachings, by Vitaly Kondratyev, read by Pavel Beschastniy
- The sense of life is in adaptation, by Sergey Litvinov
- Urantia, the legend of the blue blood, by Sergey Chupin
- Religious and spiritual growth in a human life, by Alexander Suchich
- Science and Spirituality, by Tamila Rahimova
- Problems in the formation of personal religious experience, by Vitaly Kondratyev, read by Ekaterina Aleksandrova
- Apocalypse, by EijaSeppanen-Bolotinski
- Urantia Association International, by Anton Miroshnichenko
- Cosmology of The Urantia Book, by Sergey Chupin
- The life of Jesus as an example for mankind, by Tamila Ragimova
- Speech on further steps and organization of the second meeting in Russia, by Sergey Litvinov
Workshops
- Thought Adjusters
- The world, society and civilization
- Saving the potential of eternal life
- Spiritual development
- Paradise – the ultimaton core, problems of velocities in The Urantia Book
- John the Baptist
All questions were initially addressed to a group of panellists who expressed their own point of view, then followed a general discussion during which everyone had a chance to express their positions on all the issues discussed.
In the evenings around the fireplace room of the Hotel Novahoff we held small and pleasant conversations on a variety of topics, which ended with relaxing sing-a-longs accompanied by dry red wine.
There was an active exchange of views on the various approaches to studying The Urantia Book. During this discussion, the idea to consolidate the efforts of people interested in promoting The Urantia Book in Russia emerged. Also the ideas of creating a new website and the formation of an organization for Urantia Book readers in Russia were discussed.
On Saturday night we enjoyed a wonderful banquet in a warm, fun and friendly atmosphere followed by lively dancing and singing. During the banquet, all participants expressed their gratitude and appreciation to Tamila Ragimova for all her work in preparing and organizing the event.
On the last day after breakfast we held a discussion about future joint projects and a proposal to hold another conference next year. It was suggested we hold it in St. Petersburg and invite other readers of The Urantia Book who do not speak Russian.
A copy of The Urantia Book was signed and donated to the library of the Novahoff Hotel before we all said our goodbyes and departed the conference.
Materials presented at the conference are published in Russian at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0B_L9kH3d6qVGTERySGFSYks0Yjg?usp=sharing
_This report was prepared by Sergey Litvinov and Anton Miroshnichenko. We used photos taken by various conference participants._The full range of photos can be viewed at: http://350ukraine.livejournal.com/photo/album/1535?page=1