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

erally. Moreover, it was considered as the only authoritative book for Christians to live by. Such an approach inevitably placed the roots of the Russian baptistic primary theology and ecclesiology in the nest of the Orthodox Church, absorbing its notions of holiness, repentance, importance of prayer, and believing community. At the same time, such immediacy in relation to the Scripture, brought different (from that of the Orthodox Church) understanding of authority and spirituality, 6 Apart from making important decisions related to the life of the union, the delegates appointed Johann Wieler as a president of the union. At this stage, growing links to German, English and later American Baptists played an important role in shaping the structure of the congregations, and in developing their common theological stance. (For more information on these important themes see Prokhanov, V Kotle Rossii, chapter 5; Puzynin, The Tradition of the Gospel Christians; Coleman, Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, Chapter 1). ?7 Lawrence Klippenste, “Russian Evangelicalism Revisited: Ivan Kargel and the Founding of the Russian Baptist Union”, in Baptist History and Heritage (April, 1992), pp 43-46. 57 thus causing this initially revisionist movement within the Orthodox Church to separate and look elsewhere for assistance as it continued to grow and develop. 3.2 Biblical interpretation This brings me to the question of biblical interpretation amongst various baptistic groups in Russia. In recent years the subject of Russian baptistic hermeneutics received a substantial amount of scholarly attention. Among them are Miriam R. Kuznetsova’s PhD dissertation “Early Russian Evangelicals (1974-1929): Historical Background and Hermeneutical Tendencies Based on |.V. Kargel’s Written Heritage”; Andrey Puzynin’s book The Tradition of the Gospel Christians: A Study of Their Identity and Theology During the Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet Periods; A. Popov’s PhD dissertation “The Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Soviet Union as Hermeneutical Community: Examining the Identity of the All-Union Council of the ECB (AUCECB) Through the Way the Bible Was Used in its Publications”; and Gregory L Nichols, The Development of Russian Evangelical Spirituality: A Study of Ivan V Kargel (1849-1937) (Oregon, Pickwick, 2011). All of them deal with various aspects of biblical interpretation in Russian baptistic churches. | have already touched upon the practices of reading the Bible among the Stundists and addressed a number of important Orthodox concepts that produced a significant impact on the way Baptists in Russia understood and practiced their faith. hi Now | would like to focus primarily on “western influences,” on some of the most significant convictions that were shaped with the help of German and English evangelical Christians. Baptists Baptists were the only group within the Russian baptistic movement tha