Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

rchate announced: the unprecedented fact that the best-known of these apostates, Professor Osipov, and four others had been excommuni- cated.27 Also on February 16, 1960, Patriarch Alexei (or more likely his speech writer Metropolitan Nikolai) attempted a mild protest. Speaking at a peace conference in: the Kremlin, he expressed firm support for the Soviet peace program but also drew major attention to the fact that the church had played a vital role in Russian history. Then toward the end of the speech he noted that the church. was being: attacked and denounced and promised The Khrushchev Campaign Against Religion 139 firmly that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.’”28 Five days later G. G. Karpov, chairman of the Council for Russian Orthodox Church Affairs, was dismissed for. having cooperated with the church and was replaced by V. A. Kuroedov.2° By June 1960, Metropolitan Nikolai himself was forced to resign as head of the foreign department, the Moscow vicar Bishop Pimen (later patriarch) took over administration of the patriarchate and by Sep- tember Nikolai was under house. arrest. On September 13 he died after an unexplained illness. The much-less-influential Baptist leaders watched these events and ap- parently decided that resistance would be futile. During the summer of 1960, they produced a revision of their church statutes which, they later explained, brought it into line with the 1929 legislation on religion. This statute was sent to the churches and an accompanying “Letter of Instruc- tion” to senior presbyters clearly indicated that this statute was binding and advised senior presbyters how it was to be enforced. Until recently only excerpts of this letter have been published but the most vital part, quoted already in 1966, by atheist scholars, helps to explain why the Baptist membership quickly labeled it an “anti-evangelical document.” The letter stated, among other things: In the past, due to insufficient knowledge of Soviet legislation on cults, certain of our congregations ‘have violated it. There have been occasions ‘of baptizing persons younger than 18 years, giving material aid from the congregation’s treasury, holding biblical and other meetings of a spe- cialist character, permitting declamations of poetry, there were excur-. sions for believing youth, financial accounts for mutual aid were created, meetings for preachers and for training choir leaders were held... . All this must now be eliminated in our congregations and our activities must be conducted in agreement with existing legislation.3! The directives that were to evoke the greatest concern were the prohibition against children attending services, and the reference to “unhealthy missionary tendencies.” As the letter explained, “the chief goal of religious services at the present time is not the attraction of new members but satis- faction of the spiritual needs of believers.”32 * Much of this c