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

ible depended on the revelation of the Holy Spirit," and the listeners were expected to make their own sense of what the preacher proclaimed. After 1969, there was a period of seventeen years (until 1986) before the next article on preaching appeared in the BV. In order to understand such an apparent gap in dealing with an important issue, it would be helpful to address some of the matters the AUCECB had to deal, both within its churches and outside of them. The sixties turned out to be turbulent years for the Baptist union. The approval of the controversial by-laws and the Instructional letter to senior presbyters in 1959 was the opening of a Pandora’s box.”? As Karev said at the Congress of the Baptist Union in >4 See previous discussion on exegesis in post-war Baptist communities. °° Under the pressure of the Soviet authorities, in 1959 the council of the AUCECB adopted two divisive documents, “Polozheniie o Soyuze Evangelskikh Khristian — Baptistov v SSSR” (“The By-Laws of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in USSR”] and “Instruktivnoie Pismo Starshim Presviteram” [“Instructional Letter to Senior Presbyters”]. Although these regulations, imposed by the Soviet authorities, clearly attempted to restrict the growth in local churches, they were approved and sent out to local churches. Some of the most controversial points were as follows: (1) local churches were excluded from the election of the members of the General Council of AUCECB, (2) prohibition to the Superintendents (Senior Presbyters) to participate in worship services on their visits to churches, (3) suggestion to restrict baptisms for people under 30 years of age, (4) effectively a ban on evangelism and call to repentance during worship services, (5) prohibition for individual Christians to participate in any religious activity outside of the registered church premises, and (6) rejection of people who were baptised by pastors/evangelists not recognised by the AUCECB. 107 1961, ‘The storm that started in August 1961 surpassed all previous expectations.’ The split in the union, the dissent of hundreds of churches and thousands of believers caused a significant shortage of qualified pastors and preachers.°° Several newly appointed senior presbyters lacked both theological training and experience in church ministry. There was a growing number of churches with problems caused by senior presbyters abusing power, doctrinal dissidence and various other worrying issues.”” The leadership of the AUCECB saw part of the solution in offering theological education and ministerial training to its pastors and lay members. In 1964, the leadership of the Baptist Union applied for permission to publish 10,000 Bibles and to open BCC, which was granted. Thus, the first educational institution of AUCECB began to operate in February 1968. Most of the 100 students that were enrolled into the programme had various roles in their churches — seni