Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

irable. Along with such local sources, fortunately, we have some scholarly books on general Baptist history in the Russian empire published in recent years.’ Russia experienced two revolutions in 1917. The February Revolution subverted the Russian monarchy, forcing the tsar to abdicate the throne. It was a time of great shock for the Russian Orthodox Church. ‘The tsarist autocracy had always been, during the thousand-year history of the Russian State, the most important source of support for Russian Orthodoxy. For Russian Baptists (as well as other Russian Protestants, Old Believers, Moslems, and so on), the February Revolution brought equality of rights with other citizens of the Russian empire independent of their religious convictions. The famous amnesty announced by the Provisional Govern- ment released all religious prisoners and exiles from their sentences.” When the Bolsheviks seized power in late 1917, they immediately began to perse- * S.N. Savinskii, Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov Ukrainy, Rossii, Belorussii, 2 vols. (St Petersburg: Bibliia dlia vsekh, 1999, 2001); Iu. Reshetnikov and S. Sannikov, Obzor istorii evangel’sko-baptistskogo bratstva v Ukraine (Odessa: Bogomyslie, 2000); A.I. Savin, Sovet- skoe gosudarstvo i evangel’skie tserkvi Sibiri v 1920-1941 gg.: dokumenty i materialy (Novosi- birsk: Posokh, 2004); N.N. Iarygin, Evangel’skoe dvizhenie v Volgo-Viatskom regione (Mos- cow: Akademicheskii proekt, 2004); K. Prokhorov, Bozhie i kesarevo (Omsk: Izdatel’skii dom “Nauka’, 2005); and others. 5 §.N. Savinskii, “Russko-Ukrainskii Baptizm v XX Veke’, in S.V. Sannikov (ed), Istoriia Baptizma: Sbornik, vyp. 1 (Odessa: Bogomyslie, 1996), pp. 375-376. 89 cute the Orthodox Church in Russia, which they considered a constitutive part of the tsarist regime. The new circumstances led to improved rela- tionships of Orthodox believers with those Christians whom until recently they had scornfully referred to only as “sectarians”. In the face of a strong common enemy, the majority of disagreements among different groups of Christians faded. But this unfortunately lasted only during times of struggle. The difficult current relationship between the Orthodox Church (again supported by the state) and Baptists in post-Soviet Russia demon- strates this clearly. Preconditions of the “Golden age” of Russian Baptists The general amnesty announced by the Russian Provisional Government in 1917 released also from their sentences many political prisoners such as Social Democrats and Bolsheviks. When the latter seized power in Russia, they were initially (until 1928) more or less favourably disposed towards the Evangelical Christians and Baptists.° The new Communist authorities regarded them, at least partly, as the Bolsheviks’ “companions-in-arms’” in the struggle against tsarism and the Orthodox Church. Of course, it was a questionable advantage, but it seems the Bolsheviks did not immediately