Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ally as possible? Theological Leadership The twenty-five-year period from 1980-2005 involved a transition to a new generation of leadership, but also a new approach to leadership. After 1945 the central officers of the church unions and the primary teachers of the small correspondence courses had been the leaders. During the era 1963-1985, the powers and influence of the senior presbyters and pres- byter councils in the regions and republics had grown, overseeing local leadership elections, funding, and establishment of regional policies and emphases. ‘Yet especially in the area of theological leadership, a process of decentralisation was evident after 1980. Participation in the corre- spondence school remained steady, with the majority of senior presbyters completing its limited programme, allowing them to lead more substan- tive in-service training seminars in their regions. In the final years of the AUCECEB, the theological department sought means to foster theological reflection, including sponsoring students studying abroad and organising theme-based theology conferences. A commission worked through a new confession of faith.** There was much talk of finally getting permission to establish the seminary for which a fund had been established in 1905. By 1990 it had still not happened. Some blamed this on the authorities, still unwilling to make available suitable property near Moscow, and others, including several impatient leaders within the Baptist World Alliance, felt that leaders in Moscow were too concerned with maintaining control. In the end, the able Sergei Sannikov, already holding a doctorate in peda- gogy but lacking theological training, initiated a two-year programme in Odessa, also at the instigation of Baptist leaders from abroad. Soon facili- ties near Kiev were built as an effort to open a seminary for Ukrainians (Odessa started as a Euro-Asiatic school). Gradually also the younger leader of the Moscow Correspondence programme, Aleksandr Kozynko, who had studied for two years at the Baptist seminary in Buckow (GDR), was able to open the Moscow Baptist Theological Seminary, renting a floor in 24 The key leaders were Aleksei Bychkov, Iakov Dukhonchenko and Mikhail Zhidkov, work- ing with younger men who soon played leadership roles in the emerging seminaries in Kiev, Odessa and Moscow. 200 ——_ eC ee ee eee the new building of the Russian ECB Union. Both Sannikov and Kozynko, while in effect competing for students and for support, were personally committed to a pastoral training programme accountable to the church unions. How were they to sustain that vision in the face of an economic collapse which had led to the drying up of funds from the churches, to say nothing of students themselves? The answer lay in securing major financial support from the West. Slavic Gospel Association and the Northern and American Baptist denominations, respectively, supported the Odessa and Mos