Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

inge des deutschen Baptismus, 3rd edn (Kassel: J.G. Oncken, 1958), pp. 167-190; “Pro- tokoly zasedanii Tiflisskoi baptistskoi obshchiny za 1879-85 gody i dva protokola (odin v proekte neokonchennii) za 1890 god’, in Aleksii, Materialy dlia istorii, pp. 610-611, 614. *° Waldemar Gutsche, Westliche Quellen des russischen Stundismus: Anfdnge der evange- lischen Bewegung in Russland, 2nd edn (Kassel: J.G. Oncken, 1957), p. 9. *7 S.N. Savinskii, Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov Ukrainy, Rossii, Belorussii (1867- 1917) [History of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Ukraine, Russia, and Belorussia (1867-1917)] (St Petersburg: Bibliia dlia vsekh, 1999), p. 126. *8 “Kratkiia pravila very khristian Evangel’skago veroispovedaniia, nazyvaemykh molokan- ami Donskago Tolka’, in Aleksii, Materialy dlia istorii, pp. 485-495. 43 Russian Brotherhood’, a document discovered by a police officer in 1873, hidden in Ratushnyi'ss home. Historians consider it the first known confes- sion of faith of the newly founded Baptist brotherhood.” The new faith, embedded in the context of a church, exhibited a clear indication of authenticity: new life. The Christianity of the non-Baptist churches was now believed to lead to eternal destruction. Considering the binding nature of the “Rules’, it is evident that repentance had become a necessary condition for acceptance into the “system” of the Baptist congre- gation. Repentance is by its nature less of a theological confession and more of a personal spiritual experience, making the criteria for admit- tance comprehensible for the whole congregation, and not just for church leaders. Combined with missionary zeal, repentance and conversion very soon became the centre of faith and measure of piety among Russian and Ukrainian Baptists. In the practice of baptism, the church as a system created very sharp boundaries, making unambiguous the difference between people inside the church borders and those outside. These boundaries were of such immen- sity that often they were mixed up with the system itself. For example, during the Reformation, the act of believer's baptism provided the name for the Anabaptist movement, but it took considerable time before it was recognised that an entirely new church structure stood behind the name.*! Even inside the movement itself, it took time for a self-image as a church to development. This was certainly also true of Baptists in South Russia. The Believer’s Church as Organised Fellowship The first baptisms in South Russia were soon followed by the organisa- tion of local congregations with their own members, presbyters* and evangelists. In the Ekaterinoslav region, congregations existed in one form or another since 1870.* The establishment of the first Baptist congrega- tions in the Odessa region is relatively well documented, and demonstrates *? “Pravila veroispovedaniia novoobrashchennogo Russkogo Bratstva’, in Aleksii, Materialy