Baptistic Theologies, 2009

lead initially to Urmia in Persia where American Protestant missionaries began work with Nestorians in 1834 with the initial intent to improve the indigenous Assyrian Church. A generation later, in 1862, a graduate of their mission school. Kasha Yakub (Priest Yakub), began work among Nestorians in Tiflis, Transcaucasia. 14 A year later, after learning some Russian, he began his work among Molokans and Orthodox Christians. He then relocated to Odessa from where, as a mobile trader, he travelled to Russian villages. Four years later he was in trouble with the police because of the seduction of Orthodox believers. In 1867, he started to work with Molokans. 15 They were regarded as a sect and were allowed to change their faith more easily. Later, Kasha Yakub became a Baptist and entered into Russian Baptist history as the blessed Evangelist Yakov Delyakovich Delyakov. Russian Baptist historiography paid little attention to the fact that Delyakov was not working alone. It was known that, in South Russia, other preachers with a Persian background and documents issued by a Presbyterian mission were at work. 16 Seventeen years later, in 1884, he reported that there were about twenty congregations of Evangelical Molokans in nine provinces. Considering the difficulties of work with Molokans, it was a phenomenal result for one person! 17 On the other hand, the Pashkov Papers, available at IBTS and at the University of Birmingham, show that other people worked among Evangelical Molokans, such as the Armenian Ambartsum Ambartsumov or Avraam Amirkhanyants, a graduate of the Basel Mission and an admirer of Methodism. 18 At this point, questions are appropriate. Who coordinated their work? The Basel Mission? Or the Presbyterian Mission? Or Melville? Or a joint committee? From where did the coordination come? From abroad or from inside the country? To what extent were the native Russians involved? Delyakov himself makes a casual mention of brethren who assigned new responsibilities for him. On the other hand, he accepts direct financial aid 13 M. Zirinsky, ‘American Presbyterian Missionaries at Urmia During the Great War’, p. 4, www.jaas.org/edocs/vl2nl/zirinsky.pdf, accessed 1 st Nov. 2008. 14 A.W. Wardin, Jr., Evangelical Sectarianism in the Russian Empire and the USSR: A Bibliographic Guide (ATLA Bibliographic Series, 36: Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 1995), p. 150. 15 Ya.D. Delyakov, Letter to V.A. Pashkov, 7.2.1884, Pashkov Papers, 2/8/39. 16 Pritzkau, Geschichte, pp. 49-50. 17 IBTS Library. Catalogue access at www.ibts.eu. 18 Avr. Amirkhan’yants, Letter to V.A. Pashkov, 4.12.188, Pashkov Papers, 2/2/404. Revival and Baptist Beginnings in Russia 19 from Pashkov. Who were those brethren? These questions are still not answered but show the diversity of the revival. Fortunately, the work with non-Orthodox did not attract much attention and remained unnoticed by the Orthodox experts. They usually regarde