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

hat had indigenous Orthodox roots and theology, were able to offer “an updated”, more relevant version of the church, providing people with moral guidance, down-to-earth understandable spirituality, and a community where everyone could take an active role in prayer, reading the Bible (which also included preaching) and worship.** °° Ibid., p 103. °° For a similar analysis of the roots of the non-Orthodox religious movements at the end of the 19" century, see Margaritov, Istoriia Russkikh Misticheskikh i Ratsionalisticheskikh Sect. He argued that the major reasons for the spread of these ‘sects’ were lack of religious knowledge among the Russian people and yet their search for the spiritual truth, the clergy’s failure to offer spiritual and moral guidance to the people, and the Bible that was given to the people (pp 85-86, 147-148). ® Perhaps it is worth noting that this zeal for the simplistic reading of the Bible and a strong conviction that God spoke to his people through preaching of every brother or sister in Christ has often led to various extremes in both the interpretation of the Bible and in communal 28 Conclusion Let me draw a brief conclusion. In this chapter | have attempted to map the nature of the Great Reforms of the second half of the 19" century in the Russian Empire. The reforms resulted in a shaken and transformed society with more open and freer thinking, yet at the same time a society that was deeply divided at all levels — economic, social and spiritual. Unfortunately, the Orthodox Church at this turning point of Russian history was not able to provide either moral or spiritual guidance for its people. Partly this inability was compensated for by the Bible being translated into the contemporary Russian language and made widely available for people, who started to read it in private, but more frequently in small home-groups. Such grass-roots communitarian reading and lay preaching (interpretation and application) of the Bible resulted in a very distinct life style, which emphasized the need to lead a holy and pious life, and certain convictions about faith, which enabled lay people to take on the roles traditionally only available to the clergy (particularly biblical interpretation). All of this was considered as threatening to the Church and therefore to the state; thus causing persecution and eventual dissent of these groups from the Orthodox Church, ultimately bringing about the formation of a new denomination. Therefore, it is possible to speak about the practice of reading the Bible in a community and preaching, understood as retelling, simplistic interpretation with immediate application of the biblical stories as an initial formative force that helped to single out and to establish the Russian Baptist movement. Certainly, these are not the only components that resulted in the appearance and the spread of Russian Baptists. | have mentioned only a few, omitting