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

od which would naturally be eager to defend posses¬ sions and privileges, and might as naturally desire the restora¬ tion of the political system under which these had been gained and held. In dealing with the Orthodox Church the principle Divide et impera was freely applied. Dissentient groups of clergy, such as those forming the “ Living Church,” the “ Regeneration,” the “ Ancient Apostolic,” or the “ Labour Church,” were encouraged with a view to weakening the main body, whose Patriarch (Tikhon) had excommunicated all adherents of the Revolution, and whose priests in not a few cases frankly supported the “ Whites ” in the civil war against the “ Reds.” The details of the story do not here concern us ; we have directly to do with the relations between the new State and the Baptists. How were these affected by the action of the revolutionary Government? What was the Baptist reaction to the specific changes which it made? Baptists The answer is that at the outset, except on welcomed one point, Soviet legislation and administra- earlier Soviet tion commanded the general support of Baptists. The new Constitution separated Suppression of Church and State, thus giving effect to a Sunday Schools, principle which Baptists have held through all their history. It allowed freedom of propaganda either for or against religion, which again is an expression of their doctrine of liberty of conscience and per- 8 sonal responsibility to God. In respect of association and worship they were in general left undisturbed, and local difficulties arising through the action of minor officials were usually solved by an appeal to the central authorities. The single issue which gravely troubled them was the legal veto on Sunday schools. The law separating the school from the church forbade the carrying on of any school or class for the instruction in religion of any person below the age of eighteen years ; and a “ class ” was officially defined as a group of children exceeding three in number, if taught by any other than a parent of the children. Sunday schools were thus ended; and this provision bore harshly upon such bodies as Baptists and Mennonites, who regarded the religious training of the young as a solemn duty. That parents were free to teach their children did not meet the case; for the adult members of the churches had grown up under Tsarist condi¬ tions, and therefore few had received more than — at best — a bare minimum of elementary education. They depended on the church fellowship to give their children, through the Sunday school,