Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, 2007

on and Civil War affected only the unions superstructure in Russia, which broke into several local unions. The structure of the congregations remained unchanged from the 1870s into the 1920s. According to Waldemar Gutsche, an active Baptist worker in the 1920s, the practice of church leadership in Ukrainian and Russian Baptist congregations most of all resembles the order in the Mennonite Brethren church. The presbyter together with preachers, deacons and experienced brethren, all of them elected by the congregation, constitutes the brethren council, which discusses and together with the congregation decides all questions of spiritual and practical life. There are very few presbyters and preachers who are fully paid by the congrega- tion, but a lot more union or regional itinerant preachers, who spend two months on the road and one month at home. These itinerant preachers were ordained and often were equal in rights with presbyters. They were very effective when settling difficult topics in churches. In their home churches, their role was less significant.” During the partial restoration of Baptist life after the catastrophe of Stalinist repression in the 1930s, the congregational structure as well as the union work was re-established. Evidently a strongly centralised church structure was considered by the government to be the best means to apply regulatory mechanisms. Yet even this reduction of congregational autonomy positively influenced church life.** During the post-Stalin thaw, ** Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov v SSSR, pp. 155-158. *”’ Gutsche, Westliche Quellen, p. 129. *® Beeson, Discretion and Valour, pp. 97-98. 48 fellowship as the foundation of congregational life helped to integrate new believers and old ones who returned from prison. At the same time, tenden- cies toward fellowship caused conflicts with existing church leaders”? who had adapted themselves to the restrictions of the times. Establishment of centralised control over a large system consisting of a many satellite systems with their own degrees of freedom is a difficult undertaking. The next wave of oppression after 1958 only confirmed this. Church Structure and Oppression under Khrushchev During the late 1950s, Khrushchevs church policy took shape, and the entire Baptist structure on all levels - from union leadership to ordinary church members - was exposed to immense pressure. It seemed that reli- gion had been made the sole ideological enemy of Soviet society. A deci- sion of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of 16 March 1961 delegated to regional authorities the responsibility for fighting against religion. In this way, local congregations and individuals became the focus of oppres- sion. Every level of Baptist structures fought for survival, sometimes at the expense of neighbouring parts of the structure. As a result, the All- Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB) in Dec