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

om Russian. Transliteration In this thesis | am using the established English spellings of common Russian names and terms, as found in common dictionaries. Other Cyrillic words are transliterated by the following system: A-A E-IE A-L C-Ss 4—CH 3-E 5-B 1K —ZH M-M T-T LUI—SH HO -1U B-V 3-Z H—N Y-U LL — SHCH A-IA [-G u-| O-O O-F b-” O-D n-| n—-P X—KH bl-Y E-E K-K P—R L1-TS b-’ INTRODUCTION The majority of Evangelical Christian-Baptist churches’ in Russia have one very distinctive feature — the role of preaching in the worship service. An average Baptist in Russia hears at least three sermons in one service of between 20 and 40 minutes (which when multiplied by four services per week gives the approximate amount of preaching done and heard in the majority of Baptist churches). Time-wise, about three quarters of a two-hour service are devoted to preaching the Word. Therefore, for all who either grew up in a Russian Baptist church or visited it, at least occasionally, the question ‘what is preaching?’ will be answered quickly — it is the Word of God. Further, ‘how does preaching happen?’ — a member of the church comes up into the pulpit, reads a passage from the Bible and then shares his” thoughts on it.’ Similarly the question ‘why preaching’ is also easily answered in the above mentioned communities — proclamation of the Word of God produces faith in its listeners. Such a response is an allusion to Romans 10:17, which in the Russian Synodal Translation says, ‘Faith is from hearing and hearing is from the Word of God.’ Traditionally this is used * Throughout this work the phrases “Russian Baptists,” “Russian Baptist churches,” etc. are the references to the communities and believers that are part of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB), which is the largest Baptist union in the Russian Federation. The history of the Union is traced from 30 April 1884 from the congress in Novo-Vasilievka, in Crimea. (Sergey N. Savinskii, [Istoriia Evangelskikh Khristian — Baptistov Ukraini, Rossii, Belorussii (1867- 1917) [The History of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists of the Ukraine, Russia, Belarus (1867- 1917)], Vol.1, (St. Petersburg, Bibliia Dlya Vsekh, 1999), p 200.) At present the Union consists of 1750 churches with approximately 90,000 members (For more information see the websites of RUECB: www.Baptist.org.ru and the European Baptist Federation (EBF): www.ebf.org). * Habitually, women are barred from preaching. However, in the past the official position of the Baptist Union allowed women to preach (e.g. Bratskii Vestnik [The Herald of the Brotherhood] (BV), Vol. 3, 1945). Although there was no official statement prohibiting women from preaching ministry, at the present time the idea of female preachers is opposed, as generally understood to be against the teaching of the Bible. For more on women in ministry see Chapter 3. Also Lina Andronoviene addresses the subject of wom