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

d particularly American) educational institutions allows to assume a high degree of borrowing and adapting of western materials to the realities of the post- revolutionary Russia.” 88 Vv. A Popov, “Otechestvenniaia Shkola Propovedi v Tserkvakh Evangelskikh Khristian-Baptistov” (“Indigenous School of Preaching in the Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”], in Traditsiia Podgotovki Sluzhitelei V Bratstve Evangelskikh Khristian-Baptistov, p 39. 8° Nagirniak, “Bibleiskiie Kursy Baptistov,” pp 103-114. °° A. Dementiev, Evangelskoie Dvizheniie v Primorie: 1898 - 1990 [Evangelical Movement in Primorie: 1898 - 1990] (Vladivostok, Russkii Ostrov, 2011), pp 63, 65. °! N. Potapova, “Vosproizvodstvo Kadrov Sluzhitelei Dalnevostochnikh Baptistskikh Tserkvei v Usloviiakh Sistemnogo Crizisa 1917-1922” [“Preparation of Ministers in Baptist Churches in the Far East in the Time of Crisis of 1917-1922”], in Traditsiia Podgotovki Sluzhitelei V Bratstve Evangelskikh Khristian-Baptistov, pp 74-92. 75 Now | would like to have a closer look at the work of Prokhanov, particularly in relation to his homiletical views. Prokhanov played an extremely important role in the baptistic movement in Russia at the beginning of the 20" century through the leadership position he held with the Evangelical Christians, through his publishing activity and especially through his countless efforts in developing Christian education in Russia.” Therefore, in order to understand a trajectory that preaching in Russian baptistic churches was taking, it would be helpful to explore Prokhanov’s views on preaching as they are reflected in a collection of essays Kratkoie Ucheniie o Propovedy.”* In this collection Prokhanov explains his passion for developing evangelical education in Russia, as a holistic alternative to the existing practices, There is hardly anybody who would deny that the religious condition of Russian people nowadays is tragic. It is true that people have gilded temples, pompous worship, famous pulpits, from which taught preachers proclaim sermons, created according to all the rules of homiletics — and even censored by the highest spiritual authorities, - yet, alas! All of that does not satisfy people’s needs. Why is it so? To this we can answer: first of all because of the inner state of the preachers and the people; because of the lack of the true faith, and subsequent absence of life and the power of the Spirit in these official sermons. Sermons proclaimed from official pulpits speak about rituals, about philosophy, they are full of polemics with other religions, yet they are silent about the most important thing — about living Christ, as a source of salvation and life... 2 The Bible courses, which Prokhanov directed in Leningrad (now St Petersburg), until his emigration from the USSR, were of particular importance, since a number of its graduates became teachers at the Bible Correspondent Courses (BCC)