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

nd confession of Christ as their Saviour. Stundists insisted that the Bible, being the Word of God contained everything that was needed for salvation. Every Christian was given God’s grace that enabled him/her to read and understand the Bible. *® Rozhdestvenskii provides a thorough analysis of Stundist and Baptist teaching from an Orthodox perspective. He points to the use of the Bible as a sole book, which these groups considered authoritative (rejecting the Orthodox Tradition). Attempts to build their worship practices solely on biblical foundation widened the gap between the non-conformists and the Orthodoxy. Understanding prayer as a Spirit-led activity, caused their rejection of pre-recorded prayers and books of prayers. In a similar way ministry (of all sorts, including preaching and teaching) was seen as a task of every 3 This argument about illiteracy of many baptistic preachers isn’t applicable to many followers of Pashkov, who were highly educated nobles. However, most of them did not receive any formal theological training, thus their main hermeneutical approach, literal interpretation, was the same. “ The fact that baptistic Christians insisted on the necessity of individual reading and interpretation of the Bible, as well as rejection of the Tradition of the Orthodox Church has always been condemned by the Orthodox writers and clergy (e.g. |. Aiazov, O Slove Bozhiem Ili Ob Istochnikakh Khristianskogo Veroucheniia (V Oblicheniie Russkikh Sectantov) [About the Word of God or About the Sources of Christian Doctrine (In Denunciation of Russian Sectarians)] (St Petersburg, 1914)). Even today, the question of who has the right to read and interpret the Scripture remains a divisive issue between these Christian traditions. * van A. Kushnev, Nemetskiie Very [German Faiths] (Orel, Tipographia A.A. Logunova, 1916), p 11. 16 Ibid., p 25. Cf. Aiazov wrote about Stundists’ heavy reliance on the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in matters of biblical interpretation, thus rejecting any need of theological training (O Slove Bozhiem, p 57). 53 Christian rather than a chosen few (priests in the Orthodox Church). Conversion, repentance and expectations of Christ’s return became prominent themes in the teaching of these new churches.” Finally, a lot of Stundist and Baptist preaching contained criticism of the Orthodox Church, its worship practices (such as veneration of icons, observation of traditions, and others), and Orthodox priests, whose life was seen as contradictory to the teaching of Christ.’® Ivan S. Prokhanov’’ wrote in his autobiography, In the Orthodox Church they only had pompous rituals, where the priests took part as hirelings. People did not understand anything that was part of the worship service. And only the Bible, which they accepted was precious for people, as it taught Christians... and they organised their meetings with simple faith and knowledge of Christ. “Where