Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ld be excommunicated. The letter to the churches requested the local congregations to submit names of individuals no longer worthy of their of- fice because of their cooperation with state authorities and to excommuni- cate them locally. Finally, at an expanded conference of the Orgkomitet held on June 23, 1962, the so-called “Protocoll No. 7” was approved, which announced the excommunication from office and from church membership of all AUCECB members as well as individual senior presbyters. The list of names totaled twenty-seven persons and the Orgkomitet promised to print supplements as the congregations sent in their decisions.4? This marks the point at which a schism in the Baptist ranks became irrevocable. Phase III: A Differentiated Policy Begins, 1963 With so many churches closed, by the fourth year of the campaign it became ‘evident that administrative measures, though readily measurable, had not: reduced religiosity. Now the first indication of a differentiated response to the religious groupings appeared. What had been regarded as unthinkable in 1960 actually happened in 1963. The AUCECB received permission to hold an extended conference of presbyters. Over 200 dele- gates arrived, and on the second day of the sessions, someone found the courage to propose that the conference be converted into a congress, and this was approved. Major business at the congress involved the rejection of the 1960 statute which now in retrospect was labeled “merely a proposal,” and the adoption of new statutes which went a long way toward incorporat- ing the changes proposed by the Orgkomitet. The Initsiativniki, however, could only send observers and they subsequently condemned it as a false congress.‘ Without doubt, AUCEGB leaders had been able to persuade state au- thorities to permit revision of the 1960 statutes even though such a revision meant that the statute itself would be violating existing law. Obedient Baptists would be given some extra-legal concessions in order to make it easier for the wavering church member to support the AUCECB. Even if the church statute was revised, the fundamental law with its restrictions remained in force, and in local instances, superseded the statutes as also local AUCECB churchmen were to discover. The major conclusion that Khrushchev and his associate Il'ichev seem to have drawn from the progress of the campaign so far was that the cam- paign should be intensified but made more sophisticated. L. F. Il'ichev had headed the party Central Committee department for propaganda and agitation for the Union republics from 1958 to 1961. Then he was ap- ‘remain undamaged.’ In order to attack the ideas the The Khrushchev Campaign Against Religion 143 pointed Central Committee secretary for ideological affairs and from 1962 headed the ideological commission.44 In November 1963 the ideological commission held an expanded session at which high-ranking officials from the en