Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ut twenty-five hymns, we desired to visit neighbouring villages to serve God with our singing. Evan- gelists Petr V. Trushchelev and Ivan I. Gavrikov, who also wished to visit churches and groups in the district, invited us join them. Having joyfully agreed, we set out. The trip lasted for one month, beginning on 24 December 1925, and visited twelve villages. God was with us, and we saw His work in the repentance of ten souls.... In each place, as well as evangelistic services, we also had prayer services, where there was repent- ance and confession of faults. In the city of Petropavlovsk, we had an agape-feast. Though we had travelled about 430 kilo- metres, we were not tired and felt of good cheer ... knowing that our toil is not in vain in the Lord.” *3 “Pis’mo iz Omska’, Baptist, no. 9 (1928), p. 9. *4 Istoriia vozniknoveniia i rosta, p. 8. °° Istoriia Kostanaiskoi tserkvi EKhB (Kostanai, Kazakhstan, 1996), p. 3. *6 Istoriia Petropavlovskoi tserkvi EKhB, p. 4. 7 G, Murchich, “Rabota khora’, Baptist, no. 5-6 (March 1926), p. 29. 98 In the 1920s, the Russian Evangelical Christians and Baptists attempted many times to unite into one alliance, but they were unsuccessful because of many ambitions of their leaders. It is ironic that only Iosif Stalin was able to reconcile the brethren in 1944, with the establishment of the official All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. Russian evangelicals welcomed the majority of changes introduced by the Communists to the former Russian empire, hoping to vivify them by the Gospel spirit. The early 1920s was characterised by the illusion of freedom for total evan- gelism of the population of the USSR. The seventh Congress of the Evan- gelical Christians in 1920 encouraged members of the Union to preach the Gospel to all Soviet citizens, and to send missionaries to China and India.** Ivan Prokhanov, the leader of the Evangelical Christians, maintained many contacts with other Christian denominations, especially with the “Living Church” [Zhivaia Tserkov’] movement” of the Russian Orthodox Church.” In 1926-27, Prokhanov made plans to establish a new town, Evangel’sk (i.e., Gospel-town), somewhere in Siberia, where he hoped to realise his dream of Christian socialism, with the ideas of collective work and common property. It appears to be a combination of the old Anabaptist idea of the “holy city” New Jerusalem on Earth with the old communist utopia of the “City of the Sun” after the fashion of Sir Thomas More. However this project was already unrealisable in the atmosphere of Stalin’s approaching terror. In early 1928 Prokhanov left the USSR and founded his Worldwide Union of Evangelical Christians in the West. The End of the Period of Relative Liberty The relative religious freedom for evangelicals in the USSR ended in 1928- 29. Communist authorities were disturbed by the evident growth of the Soviet evangelical movement, especially among yo