Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

3 (electronic copy), p. 10 . 15 [Yu.F. Kuksenko,] Nashi besedy. [Our Conversations] Interview with V.P. Ivanov, Manuscript (2002). J. Dyck’s personal archive, p. 17. 16 S.N. Savinskii, Istoriya evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov Ukrainy, Rossii, Belorussii: Chast’ II (1917- 1967) [History of the Evangelical Christians Baptists of Ukraine, Russia, Belorussia: Part II] (St. Petersburg: Bibliya dlya vsekh, 2001), p. 135. 17 Ibid., p. 133. Is D.V. Pospelovskii, Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v XX veke [The Russian Orthodox Church in the XX century] (Moscow: Respublika, 1995), pp. 187-188. 19 Vsesoyuznoe soveshchanie evangel’skikh khristian i baptistov v Moskve s 26 po 29 oktyabrya 1944 g. (Zapisi zasedanii). [All-Union Conference of Evangelical Christians and Baptists in Moscow 26-20 October 1944 (Session recordings)] Typewritten manuscript. Archive of AUCECB, file 11a, document 1 (electronic copy). 20 Pospelovskii, Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov’ v XX veke, p.l88f. Rebirth in the Valley of Shadow 41 September 1943 21 and July 1944 22 respectively. Their representatives were installed in all regions of the country, to serve as a front-desk institution of the state in matters of religion. To what extent the security services were involved in religious matters is unclear, but the fighters of the invisible front, as the KGB agents often referred to them, left traces on the battlefield against religion. 23 At least in the 1970s departments for combating religion existed in the regional branches of the KGB. 24 In reality politics was determined behind the scenes by the Central Committee of the Communist Party, as the former inspector of the Council for Religious Affairs, E. Tarasov, admitted. 25 Religious freedom was controlled using three different instruments: a very restrictive law, special permission for topics not regulated by the law, and legalisation of a church that could be granted or withdrawn without clearly defined reasons. The Law on Religious Organisations was issued in 1929, and, with minor changes, remained valid until the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. It defined a uniform structure of a religious organisation without making differences between a Baptist or Orthodox Church and a Mosque and without giving them the status of a legal body. Explicitly forbidden were ‘special meetings for children, youth, women, as well as prayer and other meetings’.“ For fellowship-oriented faith communities like Baptists, Evangelical Christians and Mennonites, these restrictions were especially hard. Over the years, however, the interpretation of the law changed, becoming more flexible especially after the disempowerment of Khrushchev in 1964 and after the Helsinki Agreement in 1975. Faith communities: Strategies of Survival Even under the described conditions, a remnant of believers remained. Not all of them could be shot, but almost all church leaders went through the circles of the Gulag hell;