Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

tes. He was thankful, he told the delegates for one more chance to speak to them. He had begged God to let him live long enough so that once more he could beg the congress members to for- give him for his part in issuing the 1960 statute and letter of instructions, Three weeks later Jacob Zhidkov died, a bad conscience eased,? But this sense of wrongdoing had not been readily apparent initially. Once Aleksei Prokofiev and Gennadi Kriuchkov had _ personally presented their letter of protest in August 1961, the dissent and subsequent division within local congregations spread rapidly. The Moscow leadership at first acted as if this was an “embarrassment” that one did not talk about. Through the pages of Bratskii Vestnik and the speeches of their representa- tives abroad they tried their best to Project an image of normalcy. Just when The Union Defended, 1963-1969 201 the state campaign against the churches was at its worst, Russian Baptist visits abroad intensified. The AUCEGB leaders even took the trouble to at- tend provincial Baptist conventions in Canada.3 These trips abroad also reflected rapidly. expanding official contacts with other national and international religious bodies. In. 1958 the AUCECB joined the European Baptist Federation as well as the Christian Peace Conference and also sent its representatives to the Congress of Eu- ropean Churches. After 1960, its representatives began participating more regularly in the executive committee meetings of the Baptist World Alliance. Shortly after the Orgkomitet excommunicated the Moscow leadership, Jacob Zhidkov and Alexei Stoian traveled to Paris and officially requested membership in the World Council of Churches. Beginning in 1960, especially after Stoian returned from studies in England, a small coterie: of AUCECB-appointed officials began attending an almost in- numerable series of international gatherings. The young and unknown Alexei Stoian became one of the most regular AUCECB representatives,‘ This image of normalcy also extended to the regular reports from local churches. These reports had usually consisted of excerpts from the quarterly reports of senior presbyters, which listed the churches they had visited, the names of presbyters, and often included a brief statement rating the spiritual condition of the congregation and indicating whether it was adher- ing to Moscow directives. Between 1961 and 1963, these reports gave little indication that a split was taking place and that many congregations had been closed. The careful reader would have noticed that the number of local presbyters who were being replaced without any reason given had increased. Similarly, there were references to several local churches being fused into one or a congregation having succeeded in finding another build- ing after the landlord refused to renew the contract for unknown reasons, Careful readers also noticed that fewer than half of the senior presb