A pastoral center of the German Lutheran Church that was closed down by the totalitarian atheistic regime in 1938 reopened in southern Ukrainian Odesa on 21 September 2002. On the same day, the sculpture of St. Paul, the church building and the organ were also consecrated.
The ambassador of Germany to Ukraine, Oleksandr Sorokin, president of the Black Sea Christian Center “Mission for Sailors,” and representatives of the Roman and Greek Catholic churches, the Ukrainian Orthodox Church-Kyivan Patriarchate, and the United Methodist Church took part in the festivities. “From the first days of the foundation of the Black Sea Christian Center, the German Lutheran Church has worked together with us closely and made every effort to improve the situation of maritime employees in this Black Sea city [Odesa]. Thanks to the support of German Lutherans, we managed to work effectively. I truly hope that their church will also experience a renewal,” stressed Sorokin. The ambassador of Germany to Ukraine expressed his hope that the municipal authorities in Odesa will provide substantial help to renew the building of the Church of St. Paul, which was almost utterly destroyed by the communist regime. The number of communities of the German Lutheran Church in Odesa has recently increased by ten times, and the number of believers has grown by 200.
Source: www.radiosvoboda.org