He was co-founder of the Russian Branch of the International Association for Religious Freedom [4] (1992), founder of the Institute for Bible Translation in Zaoksky (Tula Region, Russia), an honorary board member of the Russian Bible Society [5], and the head of the Church of Seventh-day Adventists in the Soviet Union (1990—1992).

Kulakov's work on translating the Bible into modern Russian language has been lauded by biblical scholars, philologists, theologians and various representatives of Orthodox and Protestant churches in Russia.

In 1928, his family moved to the city of Tula (in Central Russia) when his father, Peter Stepanovich Kulakov, was sent there for pastoral ministry.

After the end of the exile the family moved to Samara and then to Maykop (Adygea, Russia) where they lived until the eve of the Second World War when they relocated to Ivanovo.

After serving six months in prison in Ivanovo, Kulakov was sentenced to five years in the corrective hard labor camps of the U.S.S.R.

In 1958, Kulakov was ordained as a minister and was elected head of the Seventh-day Adventist church organization that at the time existed unofficially in the republics of Central Asia, Kazakhstan and the Caucasus.

The president of the General Conference at the time, Robert Pearson, and other church leaders expressed great interest in the happenings of the Adventists in the Soviet Union.

In the years following the visit to the General Conference World Headquarters, Kulakov, driven by his passionate desire to see his beloved church united and vibrant, together with his colleagues in the Central Asian republics and in the Baltic republics, Belarus, Ukraine and Moldova, worked tirelessly to bring about the consolidation of the Seventh-day Adventist communities into one united family.

For the first time, after six decades of isolation and repression, the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the Soviet Union was represented at the World Congress .

In response to this request and on the recommendation of the President of the General Conference, Kulakov moved to Russia at the end of 1975 and settled in Tula.

However, the government authorities were slow to permit the establishment of the church organization which would be in full accord with the denominational Working Policy.

The complete re-unification of the splintered groups of Adventists in the Soviet Union was only achieved by the end of 1980, when Kulakov was able to negotiate permission for the official visit to the U.S.S.R. of the General Conference president Neal C.

Mikhail P. Kulakov (from the Russian Federation) and Nikolai A. Zhukalyuk (from the Ukraine) were elected as the coordinators of this advisory board.

[5] In the 1970s and 1980s Kulakov, as one of the influential religious leaders in the U.S.S.R., represented the Seventh-day Adventist Church at various public events in the U.S.S.R. and abroad at international conferences in defense of peace.

In the late 1980s, with the improving relationships between the Soviet Union and the United States, the idea of "public diplomacy" gained popularity as an effective means of removing tension in the world.

On September 26, 1990, Kulakov, along with the head of the Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II, was invited to the session of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. (highest legislative body).

So that the people of Russia could live a full life, filled with joy, with a sense of peace, and free from the fear that you will be silenced, oppressed and exterminated just because you desired to speak freely.

In 1992, Kulakov submitted his resignation as head of the Church in order to devote himself to translating the Bible into the modern Russian language.

[7] For some time, Kulakov combined this activity with his responsibility as the Secretary General of the Russian Branch of the International Association for Religious Freedom as well as teaching courses in homiletics at Zaoksky Theological Seminary.

In August 2001, Andrews University awarded Mikhail P. Kulakov a second honorary doctorate in theology for his contribution to the translation of the Scriptures.

[10] Though Kulakov lived the remainder of his life in California, he continued to visit Russia to conduct conferences and business meetings with the staff of his Bible Translation Institute at Zaoksky Theological Seminary.

[11] On the day of his death, the new Russian translation of the Pentateuch to which he devoted the last five years of his life was printed at Zaoksky.