Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

rganisation of Baptist congregations in southern Russia, genuine Stundist/Pietist fellowship did not diminish, but became the driving force in the Baptist movement. The congregational structure of these churches integrated the strength found in fellowship, giving it a binding nature and using it as a regulating force. The newly converted believers, who were to be known as Baptists, did not need to use trial and error to search for the best structure. The path towards this structure had been prepared for them by their brethren of Mennonite origin, who had remained in the free-church tradition since the Reformation. Community structures change slowly. The Russian and Ukrainian Baptists have maintained their congregational structure for over a century. 50 Due to their congregational structure, their steadfastness has been preserved throughout times of trial and long periods of suffering and victory. Johannes Dyck is a student in the MTh program in Baptist and Anabap- tist Studies at the International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague, Czech Republic. He is an ordained preacher in the Mennonite Brethren Church in Lemgo, Germany, and was a member of the Historical Committee of the All- Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the USSR from 1981- 1988. 51 The Gospel in Society: Pashkovite Social Outreach in Late Imperial Russia Sharyl Corrado enerally written within a paradigm of denominational history, litera- ture on Baptists and Evangelical Christians in the Russian Empire and early Soviet Union has tended to emphasise the institution of the church and focus on leading figures and events, including congresses, the opening (and closing) of churches, baptisms and the ordination of leaders. Until recently this has been true as well for literature on Orthodoxy, as well as Lutherans, Catholics and the so-called Russian “sectarians’, although popular religion and “lived religious experience” have recently gained the attention of scholars.’ Rather than viewing faith from above - church doctrine, structure, leadership and policies - this paper seeks to investigate how faith was experienced and expressed from the “bottom up” by both participants and observers. Rather than looking at the doctrines and poli- cies of church authorities, I focus on the evangelical faith as practiced by participants in the Pashkovite revival among the St Petersburg high society of the late 1800s. Social outreach - reaching into the community with the message of the Gospel, often with actions more than words - was a defining characteristic of Pashkovism. While the well-attended salon meetings of Lord Radstock served as catalysts, it was through establishment of schools, ' Examples of important recent books about popular Orthodoxy in pre-revolutionary Rus- sia include Nadieszda Kizenko, A Prodigal St: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian Peo- ple (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press