Towards Understanding of the Practice of Proclamation: The Core Element of Russian Baptist Worship, Timofey Cheprasov, 2015

or presbyters, pastors, deacons, preachers. The two-year course included such disciplines as Doctrinal theology, Introduction into the Old and New Testaments, Homiletics”’, Exegesis, History of Christianity, History of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and others. During the period of 20 years (from the day it was opened) until the opening of Odessa Theological Seminary in The introduction of these documents and rules caused a split in the AUCECB and the appearance of the independent Baptist Union — the Council of Churches. In 1963, these by-laws were annulled, and at the AUCECB congress in 1966 the leadership of the union issued public repentance. Nevertheless, until the present moment, the relationship between the churches of the Baptist Union and the Council of Churches has not been fully healed. (/storiia Evangelskikh Khristian-Baptistov v SSSR [The History of the Evangelical Christians-baptists in the USSR] (Moscow, VSEKHB, 1989), pp 240-241). °° It might be necessary to reiterate that a very brief introduction of such an important event in the history of Russian Baptists as a split in the AUCECB of 1961 and the appearance of the CCECB was intentional. Due to the limitations of this work, | chose to trace the development of preaching in a group of Baptist churches that remained part of the AUCECB (and formed the RUECB in the post-Soviet Russia). The development of preaching in the communities of the CCECB, their publishing activities and ecclesial life deserve to be the focus of a separate research. °” Istoriia Evangelskikh Khristian-Baptistov v SSSR, Chapter 7. 38 According to A. Popov, Gomiletica [Homiletics], a textbook written for BCC was an adaptation of Prokhanov’s book, which in turn was an adaptation of C. H. Spurgeon’s book Lectures to my Students: a selection from addresses delivered to the students of The Pastors' College, Metropolitan Tabernacle, London, Passmore and Alabaster, 1876. (“The Evangelical Christians-Baptists...,” p 183). 108 1989, the BCC remained the only educational institution for the Baptist Union, with over 1000 students graduating through their programme.” 1971 brought another major change. A. Bychkov was elected as a General Secretary of the Baptist Union after the death of Karev. As A. Popov noted, The death of Karev meant a complete shift of generations among the ECB leaders. Pastors who had seen the evangelical revival of the 1920s, had survived the Great Purge,°° and had laid the foundation of the AUCECB, were now succeeded by ministers raised during the post-war period. The new board of the AUCECB consisted of leaders for whom the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists was the only form of the evangelical movement they knew. On the one hand, the new leaders venerated their ancestors as those who had succeeded in raising the brotherhood from ruins to relative prosperity twice, after the October Revolution and later after World War II. Thus they sho