Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ularly constituted “Synod of Bishops” did the same, mutatis mutandi, for the Orthodox Church. Opposition rapidly emerged in the Baptist community, which was spread thinly but widely throughout the republics of the Soviet Union. Initially an “Action Group” emerged, which called for an all-union congress to review these regulations. As the “initiators” of this demand, they were dubbed Initsiativniki, a name which caught on, and as they came overwhelmingly from the unregistered congregations, the name became more or less synon- ymous with the illegal communities. Their eventual official title became the Council of Evangelical Christian and Baptist Churches. The leaders of this movement were Aleksei Prokofev, Gennadii ” Michael Bourdeaux, Religious Ferment in Russia: Protestant Opposition to Soviet Religious Policy (London: Macmillan, 1968), pp. 190-210. * Bourdeaux, Religious Ferment in Russia, p. 20. 123 EE SST , Qa Kriuchkov and Georgii Vins, of whom the last became best known not only because of his tireless activity, but also because of his ability to organise and communicate with the outside world even when under conditions ef utmost duress on the part of the authorities. However, it was Prokof ev who at first attracted the most attention in the atheist press, so much so that some sources called the movement the Prokof evtsy. Reaction to the Demands The atheist press from time to time carried astonishingly detailed accounts of the movement.’ The leading atheist journal devoted a whole page to describing Prokof ev’s activities and gave an idea of the extent of his travel in his attempts to set up contacts with various like-minded Baptist groups: Punishment did not deter this opium-peddler. Prokof ev continued to develop his clandestine missionary activity, visiting various towns in the RSFSR, the Ukraine, Belorussia and Kazakhstan. He sent his sermons and letters containing evil aspersions against our system to all corners of the country, calling on Soviet citizens to renounce earthly blessings, to “repent of their sins” and to give up work for prayer."° Such articles carried news of the Baptist protest far and wide, including into the prisons, where leaders of the movement were being increasingly confined. (Georgii Vins once told the present author that he had first come across his name in an article attacking Baptists in the prison library). Meanwhile, the demands of the Reform Baptists (as they have often been called, though this is not a name they used of themselves) became more succinct. The Ukraine was the main stronghold of the Baptists, containing perhaps as many as half of the total in the whole USSR (counting registered and unregistered). A group of Baptists from Kiev under the leadership of Georgii Vins summed up the position of the Initsiativniki thus: The religious centre called the All-Union Council of Evan- gelical Christians and Baptists has not been elected by