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

abour camps or prisons in the remote areas of the USSR to serve terms of 10, 15 or 25 years. Many thousands were killed for their religious work. Their families lost their homes, could not find employment, and were therefore left without means for survival.’°” There is no accurate number of how many people suffered as a result of Stalin’s repressions. Various sources suggest different figures of imprisoned and murdered 16 Prokhanov’s dream of building “Evangelsk”, a large city in Siberia, populated primarily by evangelical Christians and governed by God’s law, is only one example of the high hopes, big dreams and aspirations of the leadership of Russia’s Evangelical Christians (Prokhanov, V Kotle Rossii, pp 225; Cf. V. Popov, “Khristianskiie Komunni |. S. Prokhanova | Gorod Solntsa” [“Christian Communes of |. S. Prokhanov and the City of Sun”], in Beliakova and Sinichkin, 105 Let Legalizatsii Russkogo, pp 135-138). 1°? Brokhanov, V Kotle Rossii, pp 246-249. 81 Soviet citizens (estimates vary from 790,000 sentenced to death and over 4,000,000 given prison terms as the lowest estimate, to almost 20 million murdered and nearly 35 108 million sentenced to long imprisonment). © Christians were among the groups targeted by the State oppressive machine and the numbers of those who suffered for their faith were very high. According to A. Pereligin, in 1917 in Russia there were over 141 000 Orthodox priests. By 1941 over 140 000 were arrested, sentenced to long imprisonment or killed.*°? A majority of Baptist pastors and active members shared the fate of their Orthodox colleagues. *”° The intensity of persecutions for Christians (and other people) lessened during World War II. Millions were released and rehabilitated (many posthumously) after Stalin’s death. However, oppression of some sort continued all through the Soviet period. It was inevitable, therefore, that the communistic era would leave multiple marks and scars on the Baptist movement in Russia and other former Soviet republics — heavy and complex heritage that Christians were to deal with after the collapse of the USSR.""* Without even trying to address a wide spectrum of issues Baptists had to face 108 Eg. V. Zemskii, “GULAG (Istoriko-Sotsialnii Aspekt)” [“GULAG (historical-sociological aspect)”], in Sotsiologicheskiie Issledovaniia [Sociological Studies], Vol. 6 and 7, 1991; E. Bacon The Gulag at War: Stalin's Forced Labour System in the Light of the Archives, (N.Y., New York University Press, 1994); E. Applebaum, Gulag: Pautina Bolshogo Terrora [Gulag: The Web of Great Terror] (Moscow, Moskovskaia Shkola Politicheskikh Issledovanii [Moscow School of Political Research], 2006). 108K. Pereligin, “Orlovskaia Eparkhiia v 1943-1945” [“Orlov Eparchy in 1943-1945”], in N. Makarov, ed., /storii Russkoi Provintsii: Sbornik Statei [Narratives of Russian Province: Collection of Articles] (St. Petersburg, Bibliopolis, 2006), p 343. C