Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

more important was a special expanded session of the AUCECB plenum, meeting in September 1964, which devoted major time to the unity question. Specially invited participants included former Initsiationiki supporters or waverers who now confirmed that their return to the AUCECB would be permanent, One young preacher who had supported the Orgkomitet, V. F. Vasilenko, was appointed senior presbyter for Vin- nitsa Oblast.* The Union Defended, 1963-1969 211 The Perfect Congress—1966 Even though the Moscow leaders constantly proclaimed that by replacing the 1960 statute, the reasons for the split had disappeared, sup- port for the Orgkomitet continued to grow, Growth peaked in 1966 and is the best confirmation of the fact that the additional concessions offered at the 1966 congress persuaded so many to return to the old union.%4 One participant in later years remembered this as the perfect congress because it was the most democratic and the most open of the three he at- tended. As usual, even before the regional conferences met to discuss the congress agenda and to elect the delegates, secret police agents knocked on the doors of influential believers and discussed the candidacy of delegates with them. In spite of the strong pressure to elect “safe” delegates, many re- gional conferences dared elect enough outspoken persons to ensure that congregational complaints would be heard in faraway Moscow. The 8,127 persons participating in sixty-four such regional conferences elected 478 delegates with full voting rights and an additional 233 delegates who had the right to address the assembly though not to vote. An additional 315 guests produced a total assembly. of 1,026, which was more than twice the size of the 450 who gathered in 1963, Regrettably, a list of delegates was not published this time, making it impossible to determine whether it was suffi- ciently representative geographically, 3 The eighty-one-year-old President Zhidkov gave a brief welcome and reappeared again for a short sad farewell speech, but this marked the end of his leadership. Three weeks later, he died. Even more so than in 1963, this was Alexander Karev’s congress, which he again dominated with his major report, his preaching and spirit. Most of the morning and afternoon was spent listening to his report. Listening to the report: delegates sensed the broad spiritual concerns Karev communicated. First he spoke about the general makeup of the de- nomination and stressed that it was both a multinational and a multide- nominational union. Another special characteristic was that they were unac- quainted with theological discussion and had remained unexposed to modernism. In a brief reference to Statistics, he pointed out that the frequently used figure of 500,000 was too high—an estimated 250,000 baptized believers was closer to the truth. He underlined the fact that their statistics were only estimates. He noted that for a long time