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

f. |. Noble, Bauerova, T. Noble and Parushev, The Ways of Orthodox Theology..., Chapter 4. 11° My grandmother, Lilija Onischenko, shared some of her memories of living under the Soviet oppressive regime. She said that in their church (in the Voronezh area), there were Sundays when people had gathered for a worship service, but no one was willing to start, and then, lead the service (the pastor, the deacons and all the preachers had been arrested by then). Then, someone from the congregation would come into the pulpit and start a service. In most cases, that person would be arrested the same evening. (Personal interview (Voronezh, 15.08.2007), available through the author). Cf. Keith G. Jones, “Baptists and Anabaptists revisited,” in Anthony R. Cross and Nicholas J. Wood, eds., Exploring Baptist Origins (Oxford, Regent’s Park, 2010). 111 See Petr Paviyuk, “Destructivnoie Naslediie Sovetskogo Proshlogo” [“Destructive Heritage of the Soviet Past”], in Beliakova and Sinichkin, 105 Let Legalizatsii Russkogo Baptisma, pp 40-45. See also Lina Andronoviene and Parush R. Parushev, who raise the issue of social responsibility, analysing the life of immigrant churches in the USA ("Church, State, and Culture: On the 82 under the Soviet regime, | will focus on one area of particular interest for this research — Christian education and preparation of preachers. Atheistic academia vs. baptistic spirituality None of the few educational programmes that Baptists and Evangelical Christians managed to start at the beginning of the 20" century could continue to operate after 1929. The government slightly changed its destructive policies in dealing with Christians during World War Il. This change was partly forced by Nazi attempts to win loyalty of the 112 population on occupied territories through allowing freedom of worship.~“ On the other hand, a change might be seen as recognition that brutal force did not achieve the desired results — many people kept their Christian faith. For Baptists and Evangelical Christians the change resulted in a merger into one union — the AUCECB in 1944 and the beginning of the publication of Bratskii Vestnik, the main, and, for most of the time, the only journal of the Baptist Union during the Soviet period.*"? It might be necessary to add a clarifying note that two independent unions of Baptists and of Evangelical Christians ceased to exist as a result of the persecution of the Soviet authorities in the 1930-s. In 1944, and with the permission of the communistic government that was seeking to control the country’s religious organisations, the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians — Baptists (AUCECB) was formed. The congress-consultation of the representatives of Evangelical Christians Complexities of Post-Soviet Evangelical Social Involvement," Theological Reflections. Euro- Asian Theological Journal 3 (2004), 161-213 (in Russian, English, and Lithuanian)).