Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 9, Number 2, January 2009

ess began to hold worship services, using both German and Russian. On August 20, 1867 (o.s.), Kalweit baptised Nikita I. Voronin (1840-1905), the first Russian Baptist convert, a Molokan who was searching the Scripture and sought baptism. Molokans were a native Russian sect that rejected all sacraments, including also those of the Orthodox Church. Voronin preached among his fellow Molokans, gathering a group that numbered seven or eight in 1870. In the 1870s Kalweit’s group will break up and join the Voronin body. This work produced outstanding leaders, including Vasilii Pavlov and Vasilii V. Ivanov, as well as Ivan (Johann) V. Kargel, a Turkish subject who later became naturalised. Although Pavlov, Ivanov, and Kargel went to Hamburg and met with Oncken, yet the work in the Caucasus in its origins and leadership was indigenous. 10 German Baptists did not relate to the Orthodox population in the Ukraine until after the stundist movement had started. If anything, Ukrainian stundists will reach out to Baptists rather than Baptists reaching out to them. Baptist influence among Ukrainian stundists did not take root until 1869-1870. Until then Ukrainian stundists knew little if anything about Baptists. The year 1869, however, will be a banner year for Baptist penetration. In June of that year a large baptism was held in Alt-Danzig, which included the baptism of Efim Tsimbal, a Ukrainian believer, who surreptitiously but illegally was immersed by Abraham Unger, who was 10 For information on the Kalweit and Voronin groups, see Missionsblatt, October, 1868, p. 160, and September 1869, pp. 129-32; Baptist Missionary Magazine, January, 1870, pp. 19-21; Baptist, 1927, no. 5, pp. 13-14, and Bratskii vestnik. 1957, no. 28. How Indigenous was the Baptist Movement in the Russian Empire? 35 invited to officiate. Before the end of 1869 Tsimbal will immerse Ryaboshapka, and Ryaboshapka in 1871 will immerse Ratushnyi. 11 In 1869 Johann Wieler will accompany Oncken to Odessa where he will remain, beginning a German-speaking church. But more important, he developed a close relationship with Ratushnyi and other stundists who were looking for help. With his relations with both Mennonite Brethren and German Baptists and his competency in both the German and Russian languages, he was in a strategic position to lead them. He counselled them to withdraw entirely from the Orthodox Church and form their own congregations. In 1870 he drew up Pravila veroispovedaniya novoobrashchennago Russago Bratsva (Regulations of the Confession of the Newly Converted Russian Brotherhood). It was a confessional statement of ten articles in conformity with the confession of the German Baptist Union but shortened and not an exact translation of it. 12 Even though the Russian authorities were greatly adverse to the acceptance by stundists of Baptist principles, in the face of persecution Ratushnyi and Ryaboshapka carried forth as Stundo-Ba