Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

a witness to the nurses and patients around her, remaining close to the Pashkov family until her death.® Count Aleksei Bobrinskii, the former Minister of Transportation, and Princess Natalie Lieven [Natal’ia Liven], also invited outcasts into their homes, and continued to do so well after Pashkovism had passed its peak. The Lieven palace served as a gathering place for lower class believers as well as aristocrats, and British evangelical teacher Jessie Penn-Lewis noted in 1897 that the princess and her coachmen worshipped together.’ When the young Nihilist Nikolai Gorinovich was attacked with sulphuric acid in 1877 and left for dead, blind and burnt beyond recognition, Count Bobrinskii took him into his home. Pashkov had visited Gorinovich in the hospital and after hearing his story, asked him, “Do you wish to hear about my Saviour?” While Gorinovich found it arrogant of him to speak of my, rather than our, saviour, Pashkov’s words about a Jesus who had forgiven his sin and filled his heart with love made an impression. Pashkov again asked if Gorinovich believed. As Gorinovich explained, “I answered ‘yes, and from that moment, I had no more doubts. I understood that I had found something that I had never had; I understood that while I could no longer see the light of the sun, I had found the True light.’° Taken into the Bobrinskii home to recover, despite his disfigurement, the young man ® See “Interesting Incident of the Lord’s Work in Russia’, in copybook “No. 2” (orange paper inserted in the back of copybook), in the personal archive of Andrew Semenchuk, San Diego, California, USA. Copybooks “No. 1” (in Russian) and “No. 2” (in English), in the Semenchuk personal archive, contain contemporary handwritten accounts of Pashkovite and other pre-revolutionary Russian evangelical ministries. * Jessie Penn-Lewis, “Reminiscences of My Visit to Russia’, The Friend of Russia, no. 6 (June 1921), p. 10. '0(N.E. Gorinovich], On liubit’ menia (Gal’bstalt’: tipografiia G.Ia. Brauna, n.d.), pp. 3, 5. 56 married a believer. Pashkovite aristocrat Ada von Krusenstjerna met him in Berlin years later with his wife and two children, where he was learning to weave baskets. “I am happy’, he told her, “that I can return to my home- land and teach other blind people the handiwork that I am learning, and tell them about a Jesus who can help them, too, in their troubles.”"’ Despite the stigma of Gorinovichs revolutionary past, physical disfigurement, and social class, Count Korff also remained in contact with him for years after his own banishment to Europe. Prison Visitation Pashkov and his followers also frequently visited prisons. ACERS to Pastor Dalton, For years, the hours which were formerly devoted to sleep have been spent in visiting the abodes of criminals. And this work has been done in such an unpretending way that scarcely anyone would think of recognising in the gentle and kindly Bible-reader who