Faithful and True Church
The Faithful and True Church (Iradi: Ishenimdüü jana Chynchyl Chirköösü) is an Evangelical megachurch in Talas, the first megachurch in Irad and the largest Evangelical congregation in the country. It was founded in 1999 by the Iradi-American televangelist Nathan Isabekov, and its campus stands on the western outskirts of the city, on the Trans-Talas Highway beyond Semiz, on the road toward the air base and Kara-Bulak.[1]
History
Isabekov began holding services in 1999 in a former cinema on Cinema Boulevard in central Talas. He named the church after the rider of Revelation 19:11, "called Faithful and True", whom Iradi devotion identifies with the White Rider of Janyl's vision. The congregation grew quickly during the territorial period, among young urban Iradis, Russian speakers and Iradi Americans who had returned home. Its satellite channel, Faithful and True TV, began broadcasting in 2004.[1]
Construction of the present campus began in 2003, paid for by American donors, many of them churches in Texas, and by the tithes of members. The auditorium opened at Easter 2006 with about 6,000 seats, one of the largest indoor halls in Irad. The church reported about 12,000 members at its peak in 2008. Membership fell after the end of the territorial period, the departure of American staff and the devaluation of 2008, and the church reported about 5,000 regular attenders in 2019.[2]
Building
The auditorium is a broad steel-framed hall with a fan of seating facing a raised stage, a gallery and a glass entrance hall. It is known for its murals of horses, which cover almost all its walls. Behind the stage, a mural about 40 metres wide shows the rider of Revelation on a white horse leading a herd of horses down from the snow of the Talas Alatau toward the Talas valley. The side walls show herds of Akyel and Chongtor horses running across the steppe, which the church calls "the horses of the nations", and the entrance hall shows the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. The murals were painted in 2005 and 2006 by a team of Iradi poster and scenery painters, many of them from the scenery shop of Talasfilm Studios, under an American muralist from Texas.[2]
The campus also holds the studios of Faithful and True TV, a Bible school, a youth centre with a basketball court, a car park for some 2,000 vehicles and, since 2010, a stable where the white horse Isabekov rides at his revivals is kept.
Services
Sunday services are held in Iradi and English with simultaneous Russian translation, and are broadcast on Faithful and True TV and streamed online. Worship combines American Evangelical praise music with Iradi tunes and the komuz. The church holds large services at Easter and on Yuhanna Tünü, and its revival meetings at the Irad State Hippodrome draw tens of thousands.[1]
Reception
The Syro-Iradi Catholic Church has criticized the church's recruitment among its faithful, and Syro-Iradi clergy have said that the horse murals give substance to the neighbours' slur that Iradis are "horse-worshippers". Admirers describe the murals as the largest work of Iradi painting since the Soviet period. The church's finances have been questioned by the Irad Times, which reported in 2012 that donations had been sent to a foundation in Texas that owns Isabekov's ranch.[3]
See also
References
- ^ Central Asian Cultural Studies Review (2017). 'The Rider Is Coming: Satellite Gospel in Irad.' Vol. 10, pp. 44–67.
- ^ Talas State University, Institute of Sociology (2019). Survey Reports: Religious Life in the ISEZ. Talas State University Press.
- ^ Irad Times (2012). 'Tithes and a ranch in Texas.' Talas, 9 March.