Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ult ceremonies which violate social order; Organizing and systematically conducting activities for teaching religion to under-age children in violation of established legislative rules. . . 5° For these violations, a sentence of up to three years could be given. It was apparent that this’ new legislation was directed particularly against the dissenters, especially Baptist dissenters, who were conducting an active program with children and distributing their Samizdat widely. This new pressure should be understood in light of a general state 148 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il policy against dissenters that was instituted and symbolized in the trial of Sinyavsky and Daniel in 1965 which received wide publicity in the West. The new Soviet leaders feared that Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization could lead to unrestrained dissent, therefore they opted for a maintenance of the status quo,®° As far as the Baptists are concerned, there were now clearer indications that the state was distinguishing between AUCECB and CCECB. In the June 1966 issue of Nauka i religiia came the first official account of the Baptists’ split, reporting on the Initsiativniki in detail. Shortly thereafter, two other publications quoted at length from Initsiativniki Samizdat and generally confirmed its accuracy.®! In many localities, after 1966 it once again became possible to apply for registration of local congregations. Beginning in 1967, Mennonite and Pentecostal congregations could register as autonomous churches. But for the Initsiativniki, in spite of the promises to the contrary, local acts of administrative abuse persisted. Without direct coordinated leadership by the CCEGCB, over 400 persons representing 130 congregations converged on the Kremlin in Moscow and conducted an unprecedented demonstration on May 16, 1966.® The demonstrators with their petitions were refused entrance and on the second day they were forcibly dispersed and many of them were arrested. A few days later, when CCECB leaders Georgi Vins and Mikhail Khorev arrived at the Central Committee building to inquire what was happening, they too were arrested. A wave of arrests followed. The year 1966 remains to the present day the peak period with 128 arrests, which also brought the total prisoner list to a high of 202. It continued to climb with additional arrests in 1967 and 1968, to a high of 240. After many of those arrested in 1966 completed their three years, the total number of prisoners remained steady at around 180 till 1975. But the renewed pressure helped to expand the dissident movement. In 1966 the Orthodox priests Nikolai Eshliman and Gleb Yakunin wrote a series of lengthy documents that appealed to the patriarch to free himself from state domination and accused the Council for Religious Affairs of chief responsibility for persecution of believers. A number of other Orthodox dissidents joined them, inc