Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

o ponder a Slavic evangelical future. When thinking about church unions and the authenticity of a Christian witness that depends on Christian unity, as opposed to the current frag- mentation, there is more “repositioning” to do. In contrast to most East European countries, in which a council of churches functioned during the socialist years, the closest device for inter-church relations in the Soviet Union was the common requirement to seek approval and recognition from a state Council for Religious Affairs. Even though earlier, Evangelical Christians, Baptists and Orthodox had all sought ties to fellow confes- sional bodies abroad and to the emerging ecumenical movement, this ended in 1947-48 with the beginning of the Cold War. When the Orthodox churches, the AUCECB and various churches in the Baltic and Caucasus joined the World Conference of Churches (WCC) in Delhi in 1961, this new relationship caused problems at home. The Soviet government used it to polish its international image as tolerant to religion, while it fact it * For a handy review of statistical studies, see Alexey D. Krindatch, “Patterns of Religious Change in Postsoviet Russia: Major Trends from 1998-2003", Religion, State & Society, vol. 32, no. 2 (June 2004), pp. 115-136; and Alexei D. Krindatch, “Religion in Postsoviet Ukraine as a Factor in Regional, Ethno-Cultural and Political Diversity’, Religion, State & Society, vol. 31, no. 1 (March 2003), pp. 37-73. 206 was launching a new initiative to crush the churches. And the churches found the international travel of their leaders suspect, and the limited news about Christianity outside the USSR did not encourage a desire for more serious inter-church relations. The AUCECB announced an International Department in 1963 that oversaw the exchanges of church delegations and the arrangements for acceptable leaders to attend WCC and Christian Peace Conference events. Throughout his years as head of the International Department, Aleksei Stoian never gained the trust of other leaders. Nor did his successor evoke much support, though the office and staff was retained by the post-1990 Russian ECB Union. At the same time, the pattern of visiting church delegations also declined in the West, particularly within American denominations, who become more inwardly focused with dras- tically reduced budgets. Central Asian ECB unions almost immediately withdrew from the WCC, and within a few years, the national ECB unions participated in only the European Baptist Federation (EBF) and to a modest extent the BWA.*! Pentecostal links shifted more to western mission socie- ties than to the Assemblies of God or other Pentecostal denominational bodies. In 1994, due to the large number of clashes between the confes- sions in the former Soviet Union, representatives of the major churches - Orthodox, ECB, Catholic, Old Believer, Lutheran and Adventist - met in Moscow for a weeklong forum on Christian Faith