Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

and worship in the woods’. Gaertner went home and a few days later he baptised sixteen people by immersion - a baptism that took place “before many witnesses.’ '7 EC, vol. 2 (1848), p. 186. '8 EC, vol. 17 (March 1863), p. 128. 19 The same issue of Evangelical Christendom reported that Gottfried Alf, the leader of the Baptists in Poland, had been taken prisoner by the author- ities. This case was also reported to the Russian ambassador by the British Alliance. The first Baptist church in Poland was formed in a village near Warsaw, in the Russian part of Poland (the former Congress Poland), in 1861. Gottfried Alf, who was a German, a village teacher, and a member of the Lutheran Church, had earlier been baptised (in 1858) as part of a group of nine people who were converted through the work of German Baptists. Russian police began to look out for such baptismal services and on occasions arrested all who were at such events.” In 1864 Evangelical Christendom reported that members of the Baptist community in Poland, which then numbered four to five hundred, were leaving Poland for their own safety, migrating to western Ukraine.” In several issues of Evangel- ical Christendom in 1864 there were reports of Baptists being persecuted, but also of significant Baptist growth in Saxony, Poland and Russia. On behalf of the Baptist communities that were suffering persecution, J.H. Millard expressed thanks for the support being given by the Evangelical Alliance.” At this point Baptist churches in Russian territories were largely German speaking. Oncken went to St Petersburg in 1864, stayed five weeks and baptised eight people from the German-speaking evangelical community.” He also had an interview with a Count Sievers, representing the Russian Ministry of the Interior, who made it clear to Oncken that no converts to Baptist beliefs from the Orthodox Church would be allowed.” At that stage the German mission was in any case concentrating on Germans rather than on Slavic people. In response to Sievers, Oncken stressed Baptist belief in '9 EC, vol. 18 (January 1864), p. 51; cf. R.S. Latimer, Under Three Tsars: Liberty of Conscience in Russia, 1856-1909 (London: Morgan & Scott, 1909), pp. 89-90. For the church in Memel see Rita Lysenkaité, “Baptist Beginnings in the Baltic Countries: The Case of the Church in Memel” (unpublished MTh essay, International Baptist Theological Seminary, Prague, 2002). 0 EC, vol. 18 (January 1864), p. 51; M.S. Lesik, “The Baptists in Poland’, The Baptist Quar- terly [hereafter BQ], vol. 7 (April 1934), p. 81. 21 EC, vol. 18 (January 1864), p. 51; cf. A.W. Wardin, “Baptist Growth in Congress Poland’, BQ, vol. 39, no. 6 (2002), p. 298. 22 EC, vol. 18 (March 1864), p. 134; April 1864, p. 208. 3 C.T. Byford, The Soul of Russia (London: Kingsgate Press, 1914), pp. 341-342. 4 C.T. Byford, “The Movement in Russia’, in J.H. Rushbrooke (ed) The Baptist Movement in the Continent of Euro