Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

hat has left a lasting impact on Baptist work in Estonia. Working with unique family archives and oral histories of Baptist contemporaries, as well as files of security police, Marko Grozdanov (Macedonia) investigates the life story of a Baptist leader. Avoiding hagiographic temptation, he offers, via his grandfather’s story, an exceptional perspective into the life of Baptists in the Balkans before and during Communist rule. This work is an excellent example of biography as an approach to theology. While looking at the life of a particular Baptist under extremely difficult conditions, Grozdanov is able to extend and connect a person’s story with the narrative of the larger Baptist community in Yugoslavia without sparing some of its darker moments. Johannes Dyck (Germany) skilfully links exceptional primary sources with a broad look at the story of the German speaking Mennonite Brethren, Baptist and Lutheran communities after their deportation from Europe to the Central Asian region of the Former Soviet Union at the beginning of World War II. He enquires into the strategies of survival of German faith communities under Stalin’s purges and severe persecutions before, during and after the war. He argues that a spiritual revival between Germans along Pietistic patterns of conversion and fellowship without denominational distinctions and the transformation of the fellowships into stable congregational structures held the keys to survival. The Revd Doc Dr Parush R Parushev Academic Dean, IBTS ‘She Worked Like a Man’ 5 ‘She Worked Like a Man 9 : Life and Ministry of Emilie Bertelson in Russia and Estonia until 1940 Introduction Emilie Johanna Bertelson (1884-1965) worked in St Petersburg and in Estonia as a missionary and evangelist and had a lasting impact on Estonian Baptist history. She is also known in the Swedish Baptist mission story. The majority of Bertelson’s life was spent in Estonia where she committed her energy to evangelism in Eastern Estonia, in the area near Lake Peipsi. However, her role in the Estonian Baptist story has been given little attention, partly because historical surveys in Estonian Baptist circles tend to focus on the role of men rather than women, and partly because Estonian Baptists still lack a comprehensive historical narrative. This essay aims to analyse the formative influences on Emilie Bertelson which helped her to develop into an outstanding spiritual worker among Estonian Baptists. Attention will also be paid to the methods of Bertelson’s missionary work and the results of her evangelism efforts. As a woman working in a male dominated ‘spiritual field’, in a patriarchal culture, Bertelson was an exceptional figure. Both Estonian Baptist identity, and even more the local culture in Eastern Estonia, partly penetrated by ‘Old Believers’ and Orthodox values, was reluctant to accept a woman in a church leadership role. Though in evangelical circles in the