Baptists in the U.S.S.R. Some Facts and Hopes, J. H. Rushbrook, 1943

are these people that have within the past few months caught the attention of the world? „ , Already in Tsarist days there existed in Russia Tsardom: two organised groups, known respectively as Two Groups. the “ Union of Baptists ” and the “ Union of Evangelical Christians.” The difference of name was due to independent origin, and to years of separated activity. Both Unions, however, were known abroad as Baptist ; both became members of the Baptist World Alliance, and both have been represented in its Executive Gommittee. Shortly after the establishment of the Soviet Government they expressed their essential unity of outlook by accepting a common declaration of faith and order, and since the Nazi invasion they have in a joint appeal addressed the Baptists of all lands as their “ co-religionists.” These bodies include, as far as is known, the whole of the Baptists of the U.S.S.R. An outline of their early history will cast light upon the duality of organisation. The beginnings of the Russian Baptist movement^ are traceable to religious awakenings, during the latter half of the 1860’s, in certain southern regions, Transcaucasia and Ukrainia. In Transcaucasian "Tiflis lived a merchant named Nikita Voronin, a leader of the Molokan community. The subject of bap¬ tism had come up for discussion among the Molokans, and Voronin gave himself to a study of the New Testament teaching on the matter. The result was a profound spiritual experience — his religion had hitherto been merely an element of his inheritance — and a change of outlook which led him to desire baptism as a believer. He was ignorant of the existence of such people as Baptists ; and only after his convictions had taken form did he learn from a German artisan that they were shared by thousands and even millions in other lands. Around Nikita Voronin, who was baptised on the 20th August, 1867, there gathered a small group to form in 1868 the earliest Russian Baptist church. It steadily grew. In 1871 two young men, 2 This pamphlet ignores the non-Slav races of the Tsarist Empire. Among Letts, Esthonians, and German settlers there were thousands of Baptists before the Revolution. Mennonites and certain other “ sectarians ” also share some of their convictions. 4 A Southern Movement: the ** Union of Baptists.*^ V. G. PavlofF and V. V. Ivanoff-Klishnikoff, joined its ranks ; these proved eager evangelists, who were destined to exercise a powerful influence on the development of the movement. (Both lived to see the end of the Tsarist regime.) Meanwhile in Ukrainia the “