Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

n he was nine and together with five siblings found himself out on the street. At age fifteen he received his first four-year prison sentence as a criminal. After serving in the war and being imprisoned, he was again ar- rested in 1946 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment for armed rob- bery. The next year he received an additional ten-year sentence for banditry in the prison camp. Finally in 1953. he was moved to a prison camp in Eastern Siberia, where he met N. P. Khrapov, who was then serving a twenty- to twenty-five-year sentence for his faith. Khrapov’s witness in the prison impressed him and Kozlov was converted. Released in the amnesty in 1954, he married and became active in-the-church. Seven years and five children later he was sentenced to five years’ exile in Eastern Siberia, but this time for his faith. From 1966 to 1969 he was again imprisoned and at the timeof this writing was in hiding from the authorities.5 Dissent Begins, 1960-1965 187 . From Orgkomitet to CCECB The initiative group, which first visited the AUCECB offices on August 13, 1961, claimed that they had been promised a reply but had received none. After they wrote again on August 23 without a reply, they decided to make a public appeal to all the churches. The short time they waited for the AUCECB to reply indicates that they expected no reply and that they expected to take the initiative further. The reformers immediately emphasized that they were not engaging in a power struggle and that if a congress would be called they would rest their labors and abide by the congress decision. Yet the progressive steps that the reformers took clearly demonstrate that they were following constitutionally approved procedures for forming a new society which would replace the AUCECB. In Feb- ruary, at an enlarged conference, a decision was taken to form an organiz- ing committee (Orgkomitet) which was entrusted with the preparatory work for an All-Union congress of ECB churches.6! The new Orgkomitet also made two other major decisions at its meet- ing on February 25, 1962. It produced a revised draft of the 1960 statute and announced a major decision concerning the antichurch activities of the AUCECB, The Orgkomitet accused the AUCECB of putting anti-evangel- ical documents into effect, of including only one third of the congregations in the union—only the registered ones, and of conducting “‘hostile activities against the convocation of an All-Union congress.’ As a result they warned that if the AUCECB members, as well as regional and local presbyters, persisted in their ways, they would be excommunicated from the church. The Orgkomitet announced a general day of fasting and prayer for May 6, 1962, and gave the AUCECB time to repent. Instead of repentance, the AUCEGB sent a letter to the churches on June 20, 1962, indicating that the Initsiationiki work was inspired by “the enemy of God's work.’ An enlarged confe