Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

t,] ‘Aus der Geschichte der Mennoniten-Brudergemeinde Karaganda’, Aquila, 4 (1997),pp. 9- 15, 12. Rebirth in the Valley of Shadow 49 generally were not legalised ‘in view of [their] reactionary orientation’. 66 Baptists, Pentecostals, Old Believers, Adventists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses were also considered as extremely reactionary and antisocial. In December 1962, Klassen was sentenced to three years in a maximum- z:q security institution. 1 The church was left without its leader, but still gathered in homes in three different parts of the city. During the absence of Klassen, new people gained influence, and a different orientation of the church took place 69 resulting in a deep aversion towards Baptists. 70 In 1965, Klassen was released. Returning home, he resigned from his position as elder. A number of ordained preachers, including the former assistant elders Harder and Friesen, left the MB Church and joined the Baptists. In 1964, the more tolerant Brezhnev era began. In 1967, the MB Church in Karaganda obtained legal status as an autonomous church and in 1968 erected a church building. 71 It was not integrated into the system of the AUCECB nor the underground Council of Churches of the Evangelical Christian-Baptists (CCECB). In April 1959, a new team took on the leadership of the ECB Church in Karaganda. In August 1959, the Germans were allowed to conduct separate services. When, in 1965, Harder and Friesen returned from the MB Church, Harder was appointed leader of the German services, and Friesen managed to introduce the most significant Mennonite Church practices in the entire ECB Church. He designed an addendum 72 to the official Statutes released from the AUCECB and obliged the church workers to sign it. In this way, the Germans felt at home in the ECB Church. 66 Spravka o sektantakh-mennonitakh Karagandninskogo oblispolkoma ash/3 ot 12.11.1962 [Certificate of the Karaganda Oblast Executive Committee about Mennonite Sectarians], State Archive of the Karaganda Oblast, fund 1364, file 60, pp. 22-23 (electronic copy). 67 Spravka o sektantskikh organizatsiyakh, deyatel’nost’ kotorykh nosit kraine reaktsionnyi i antiobshchestvennyi kharakter (baptism, pyatidesyatniki, staroobryadtsy, mennonity, sekta adventisty sed’mogo dnya, iegovisty), 2.3.1962 [Certificate on Sectarian Organizations, Activity of which is Extremely Reactionary and Antisocial (Baptists, Pentecostals, Old Order Believers, Mennonites, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses)], ibid., file 59, pp. 47-50. 68 D. Klassen, Autobiography. 69 [V. Fast,] ‘Aus der Geschichte der Mennoniten-Brtidergemeinde Karaganda (Fortsetzung)’ Aquila, 4 (1998), pp. 9-17, 12. 70 H. Wolk, G. Wolk, Die Mennoniten Briidergemeinde in RuJSland 1925-1980 (Winnipeg: Christian Press, 1981), pp. 94-6. 71 Ibid., p. 14. 72 Addendum to the Statute of AUCECB. Papers of Emil Baumbach in possession of his son A. Baumbach, Fulda, Germany. 50