Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

arrived by mail and was not confiscated. Arder sent this literature to German speaking evangelicals in Siberia and Central Asia and developed many personal contacts with “underground believers’.'’* Before he moved to Latvia in 1973, Gennadii Kriuchkov, one of the Russian Reform Baptist key leaders, lived secretly in Estonia for some time.’” This was probably unknown to the Estonian ECB union leaders. However, issues of “under- ground work” could not be entirely avoided even at presbyters’ council meetings. In April 1977 the Senior Presbyter informed the presbyters’ council that an underground printing press had been found in Ivangorod, the Russian twin city to Estonian Narva, just east of the Estonian border, and a search took place in the home of one Narva ECB church member."® In 1982, the KGB organised searches in several church members’ homes in Narva, and found literature published by the Council of Churches of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists (CCECB),”” the organisational body of the Reform Baptists. The Estonian Evangelical Christians-Baptists who helped in the “under- ground work’ in the 1970s were sympathetic to the commitment of under- ground believers and to the suffering endured by many non-registered churches in the Soviet Union. Supporting the “dissident” movement was a way of expressing their own criticism of the atheistic system. This was a radical means of reafhirming some important facets of traditional Esto- nian Baptist identity: that the Bible and other Christian literature must be available to those interested in Christian message; that the state should not interfere in matters of religious conscience; and that Christian education of children and youth is not an option but a responsibility of the church. ' Arpad Arder, Kus on Arpadi kuningas: elu eesmdargi otsingud [Where is Arpad's King: Searching for a Goal in Life] (Tallinn: Logos, 1992), pp. 110, 118. 'S Pentti Heinila, Erittdin salainen [Top Secret] (Helsinki: Uusi Tie, 1995), p. 477. '© Minutes of the presbyters’ council meeting, no. 47 (5 April 1977). Presbiiterite noukogu protokollid 1969-1985 [Minutes of the presbyters’ council 1969-1985], PNProt1969-1985, Archive of the UECBE. '7 Minutes of the presbyters’ council meeting, no. 85 (17 March 1982). PNProt1969-1985, Archive of the UECBE. 146 Nevertheless, in most cases, members of Estonian ECB churches chose less risky methods of resisting state pressure on their life and identity. For example, resistance to ideological pressure was expressed through attempts to offer informal theological training despite its prohibition, and to organise semi-illegal discussion groups in which the way of thinking clearly differed from the “unifying” Soviet mindset. Study sessions were held in various towns. For example, a group of young men from Tartu and the surrounding area gathered regularly from 1973-1978. According to lecture notes by Uudu Rips, a former presbyter in V6ru in s