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

rs¬ burg, and soon afterwards Pashkoff and Korff were exiled. In 1888 Ivan S. Prokhanoff came to the city, and speedily gained a position of leadership. Two years later he left for a period of study abroad, in the Baptist College at Bristol, England, and in the Universities of Berlin and Paris. He returned to St. Petersburg as an engineer and assistant pro¬ fessor; but his chief interest was in his religious work. He devoted his considerable literary gifts to the issue of periodi-‘ cals, and a hymn-book which included many of his own compositions ; and he proved an efficient organiser. In 1908 Prokhanoff founded the “ Union of Evangelical Christians,” which from that time cultivated relations with Baptists outside the land. The movement had at last found a name, which its leader stoutly defended as preferable for use in Russia.^ The Revolution of 1917 was carried through by the Communist Party with Lenin as its Clash with supreme leader. It is easy to understand that State Church, any fundamental change from the conditions of Tsarist Russia, by whomsoever undertaken, must have involved conflict with the Orthodox Church. From the days of Peter the Great that Church had been, in form as well as in fact, directly controlled by the State. It could without unfairness be described as a branch of the Civil Service. For wealth, power, prestige, and promotion, the clergy depended upon the Autocracy. Subservience to the Romanoff dynasty, involving the acceptance of an unen- ^ Prokhanoff regarded “ Baptist ” as the correct description of his position for use abroad, and he served for a period as a vice-president of the Baptist World Alliance. In the U.S.S.R, the identity was fully understood : I have repeatedly heard members of his group described by Soviet officials as “ Baptists.” During the early years of Soviet rule the two Unions took steps towards fusion, but unfortunate inci¬ dents frustrated a widespread desire. 6 lightened and anti-democratic outlook, characterised the Church as an institution. It is true that some individuals had come to acknowledge the need of change. The “ Living Church ” has often been derided as a product of Bolshevism, but it represented the re-emergence of an earlier effort for reform which found public expression during the brief period of “ freedom ’* in 1905. There were priests in the Durna who supported advanced legislation, but en masse the clergy and many laymen were solid for the Imperial regime. Few tolerably radical reforms would have been acceptable to them.” ^ The liberation of the people