Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

e done what had been possible. What had they achieved? They had printed 10,000 copies of the Bible sane ceeceemen ie eee The Union Defended, 1963-1969 205 in 1957 and 15,000 copies of the songbook, but a new edition of the Bible was not yet possible. The journal Bratskii Vestnik had appeared regularly with a few exceptions; it emphasized peace, theological, and spiritual arti- cles for ministers and local church news to foster relationships between churches. They had started to collect data for a thorough history of the union, but Karev complained that there was no qualified historian to write it, a lament he and his successor have regularly repeated, But without ques- tion, the major emphasis in his report was on foreign relations, Karev did list the trips that Moscow leaders had made to various regions of the country but he was forced to apologize, that, because of the heavy work pressure in Moscow, including the receiving of 4,958 foreign guests between 1957 and 1963, as well as the numerous trips abroad, the presidium members were prevented from taking sufficient time to visit congregations. He promised to try harder, but it turned out to be a promise that had to be repeated regularly. This listing of achievements also included the statement that seven of their young men had studied abroad and five of them were now working full time for the AUCECB,"3 The thrust of this heavy attention to foreign relations seemed clear. Local critics should realize that fellow Baptists in Europe and around the world respected the AUCECB leaders and considered them important, They were no longer an insignificant sect but were now being taken seriously as members of the European Conference of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and other international organizations, F oreign representatives had also taken the effort to visit them. This was also a message to the governmental officials to remind them that the number of important friends of the Baptists abroad had increased. This discomfort,and feeling of inferiority about being a minority group helps account for their readiness to participate in Soviet ecumenical peace delegations, This congress set the pattern for subsequent ones where the general secretary's report was always followed by a financial report and a statement from the revision or auditing commission. The official account is almost ab- surd, since treasurer Ilia G. Ivanov forgot to mention any figures. His published report merely noted that in the early years there had been fi- nancial difficulties but the congregations had then begun to send in their contributions regularly. From these funds senior presbyters were paid regularly. Ivanov also acknowledged that in recent years money for travel abroad and for hosting foreign guests had become a significant item in the budget." The remainder of his report involved a didactic explanation about their banking procedures, and he announced tha