Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

frey C. Goldfarb, Beyond Glasnost: the Post-Totalitarian Mind (Chi- cago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). 193 _ ! I discuss elsewhere how a new generation of leaders who knew nothing but a culture of state atheism gained the grudging respect of state officials and of Soviet society as a whole.” Here I limit myself to a few key points of comparison. Orthodoxy was weak in structure traditionally, never devel- oping a strong parish structure, and it was weakened even further by its leaders loyalty declaration in 1927. Its theory of working with state power was based on a doctrine of Simfonia, according to which a believing ruler worked in partnership with the bishops for the good of church and society. That reality ended for Byzantium in 1453 and for Russia by 1721, but Orthodoxy had been unable to develop a doctrine of resistance to unjust rule. Instead, when the church as institution was in its darkest hour in 1927, acting Patriarch Aleksii I issued a declaration of comprehensive submis- -; sion to Soviet power.'* This remained the Orthodox position until at least 1990. Roman Catholics, notably in Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary resisted Marxist power as illegitimate. In hindsight, the mythology is wide- spread that the Roman Catholics were right — that by definition, Catholic Christians cannot work constructively in a society hostile to Christianity. Many Protestant groups, most notably the Czech Brethren, whose theology influenced leaders such as Ivan Prokhanov, Aleksandr Karev and Aleksei Bychkov, adopted the view that a believer is called to live in any social order, to “seek the welfare of the city” even when in exile.'* Hence their social doctrine was more flexible, even if systematic statements of social doctrine remained rare (and contested). Nevertheless, a careful review of statements about witness to society may be more instructive for present challenges than a dismissal of the Soviet past allows.” As early as 1991 Miroslav Volf applied a vivid remark by Jesus to the dangerous future for Evangelicals in Eastern Europe.’® We might assert, '2 Mostly extensively in the final third of Walter Sawatsky, Soviet Evangelicals since World War II (Kitchener, Ontario: Herald Press, 1981) (in Russian 1995). '3 Still a thorough and sensitive treatment of what was at stake is William C. Fletcher, A Study in Survival: the Church in Russia, 1927-1943 (New York: Macmillan, 1965). - 4 Karev and Bychkov were personally acquainted with Evangelical Church of Czech Breth- ren theologians Josef Hromadka and Jan M. Lochman who were publishing in this vein. '5T have in mind Aleksandr Karev’s much disputed article of 1969/70, “Khristianin i Rodina’, (Bratskii Vestnik, no. 3 (1970), pp. 48-54, discussed in more detail in Sawatsky, Soviet Evan- gelicals, pp. 113-115) because of its uncritical support of the state, but containing specific affirmations of the Christian's role in society, stated in