43rd day - August 20: Conversation with Sup. and surprising Ev. Village church in Iza

We almost missed the appointment with Pastor Maria on Saturday morning, as I was engrossed in conversation with the church inspector of Nesvady, Milan. We arrived a few minutes late, but that didn't diminish the following 5 hours. Pastor Maria - who returned from vacation late at night - took a lot of time to answer my various questions. She is not only the pastor of the church congregation, but also serves as the 'senior' of the large deanery (church district) Nitra. This position is comparable to the superintendent in our system.

In addition to the usual pastoral work on site, she has many administrative tasks to fulfill. This includes accounting for collections and similar administrative tasks. Furthermore, she also has 'control' over the pastors, she has to mediate in conflicts and tries to set new accents by organizing something like a district church gathering with some colleagues. She talked about the elaborate organization for this day, the conversion of the church financial system, and the laborious explanation of it in the individual communities under her supervision. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Slovakia also faces major challenges in the medium term. This applies in particular to the small rural communities if they want to continue to have their own pastor. Overall, it was a very interesting conversation because I was able to get a small insight into the internal structures and problems. Of course, I also talked about my work and our structures and found that, compared to the communities in Slovakia, we are doing quite well both financially and in terms of staff.

In the afternoon, the rain finally stopped, which had been falling all the time. I continued cycling to my last stop in Slovakia, to the district town of Komarno, right on the border with Hungary, and the associated village community on the banks of the Danube, Iza, which I comfortably reached on the super smooth Danube cycle path. Thanks to Milan, I was already expected there by the responsible sexton Helena. She told me to make myself comfortable in the community house and she would come back after an hour with a soup. I used the remaining time for a ride to the nearby Danube riverbank in Iza and took a 'proof photo'.

In Iza, I was surprised by a modern village church with a magnificent colorful altar painting in the style of Marc Chagall. Unfortunately, due to a recent bereavement in the family of the responsible pastor, a conversation was not possible. Since the church service in the village of Iza only takes place 'only' on the 2nd and 4th Sunday of the month, Helena invited me to ride with her to the church service in Komarno, which I gladly accepted, as continuous rain was forecasted for Sunday.

After a total of 12 days, I have completely crossed Slovakia from north to south and had very interesting encounters and conversations along the way. In the evening, I did extensive research on the Evangelical Lutheran communities in Hungary - my next country - and was curious about the substitute pastor, who is also an employee in the bishop's office in Slovakia.