Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

cow programmes, and seminaries linked with those organisations lent their faculty and accreditation. The indigenous Svet Evangeliia [Light of the Gospel] mission established a missionary training school in Donetsk, Ukraine, in 1991, then added a three-year theology programme, renaming itself Donetsk Christian Univer- sity (DCU) to signal its vision and intent.” DCU initially sought to attract students from the CCECB, AUCECB and Avtonomnyi church bodies, though its central leadership had its roots in the Avtonomnyi churches.”° As part of the shift to a three-year programme for pastoral training, DCU negotiated official understandings with the Ukrainian ECB Union and with the recently organised Association of Avtonomnyi ECB Churches in Ukraine headed by Nikolai Velichko, also naming their representatives to its board.”” Logos mission, formed in the mid-1980s by Soviet German emigrants in Germany, had been pursuing a vision for more systematic theological education by extension, then shifted to establishing a Bible college in St Petersburg, soon re-organising and registering as St Peters- burg Christian University (SPCU). At first hoping to offer quality seminary education for youth who would then find their place in ministry, it quickly became obvious that good pastors are not trained in schools alone (prima- ?° Much of the extensive literature in English assessing the theological education initiatives is listed in my paper “Educators for Mission and the Western Missionaries’, in Peter F. Pen- ner (ed), Theological Education as Mission (Schwarzenfeld: Neufeld Verlag, 2005), pp. 215- 246. *° | have chosen to use “avtonomnyi” (Russian cognate of the English autonomous) because during most of the period under discussion, the label served as shorthand for the former CCECB member churches, which had quickly grown larger in membership than the CCECB. In 2004 the major association of avtonomnyi churches (Ukraine and southeast Russia) renamed themselves “nezavisimyi” (independent), a slight de-Sovietisation in meaning. 7 By 2003 there was a crisis, a conflict in leadership style and philosophy. Following a shake- up, the new DCU board became more representative of supporting churches than an advi- sory group to the president, as earlier. 201 rily by foreign professors), but need the practical supervision of respected pastors in the church community. SPCU turned to the Russian ECB Union for assistance, and its president Petr Konovalchik soon became chair of the board, which also included representatives from supporting missions from abroad.” As Mark Elliott noted in 1994,” at least forty schools had sprung up within the evangelical community of the former Soviet Union, of uneven quality, structure and financial foundation. But the concern for serious Bible study, for quality theological training for pastors was stronger than among the numerous Orthodox schools that were also springing up, also often with