Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

ed by Oncken, had established a Baptist church in the city in 1874. By 1882 there were nearly five hundred members in fifty centres. Fifteen Baptists in the small Promontor group were imprisoned in 1882; Baptist prayer meet- ings were broken up and one member, a lady of seventy, was thrown up in the air like a ball, while others were stamped on. In some cases Baptists were being arrested, fined and imprisoned at the instigation of Reformed Church pastors. Lutheran pastors also made things difficult for Baptists. In one instance a Baptist mother had refused to have her child baptised, and 8 Latimer, Under Three Tsars, p. 221. * Report of the Evangelical Alliance Executive Council, 1891, p. 20; 1893, p. 11; Executive Council Minutes, 4 July 1889. Annual Reports of the Evangelical Alliance are held with the Executive Council Minutes at the Evangelical Alliance offices in London. EC, vol. 40 (August 1886), p. 243; vol. 44 (April 1890), pp. 113-115. 28 ea EE eee the child later died. She was allegedly kept away from the corpse by two policemen, while the local Lutheran pastor conducted - against her will - a Lutheran funeral.*' These details were sent by the British Alliance to the King of Hungary. A proposal was brought to the Hungarian Parliament that the Minister of Public Worship and Education prepare a law on religious liberty, but one speaker argued that while the followers of Heinrich Meyer should have freedom to hold meetings, they could not be recognised as a church. “I have a great respect for cabinet-makers, and also for agricul- tural labourers’, he stated, “but I do not consider them fitted to found and conduct churches”.” Just as in Russia, national or “territorial” churches did not wish Baptists to have equal rights. The anxiety felt by the national churches about the growth of Baptists was not unfounded. In 1891 the Orthodox Congress convened by Pobedo- nostsev said that fifteen years before there had been hardly one Protestant in the entire Orthodox Archbishopric of Kiev, but now “there is hardly a village free from the heresy”. This was with reference to Stundism and in particular to Baptist belief and practice. “In some places hundreds of fami- lies are infected by it’, the Congress was told. The bishops were said to be doing their best to destroy the heresy, but it was seen as increasing.” No doubt there was a measure of exaggeration in this, since a sense of alarm would give credibility to the Orthodox campaign. But the Baptist presence was significant. In 1893 it was suggested that 3,250 Stundists were in prison or in exile. Following this news, John Clifford, one of the leading English Baptists, who would be prominent a decade later in the formation of the Baptist World Alliance, became involved. Supported by British Evangelical Alliance Secretary A.J. Arnold, Clifford successfully moved a motion at the Baptist Union Assembly affirming the efforts of the Evangelical Allianc