Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ceived public forgiveness and acceptance 1 ne oe pe of these was G, I. Maiboroda, one of the two who had poner rani to previous congress. The unity commission , ad returned during the past three i ear’ ea that a total of 10,000 had returned since 1963.7 ee sae _ mi the revisions of the constitution were minor, yet the ene : sremenes of the delegates over against the pier . An attempt to restrict the participati at est participation of young people i i ey The ee commission was expanded to five member pees = See ck task of auditing the financial records of the ane eek . He suggested by the delegates. Another slight addition car interval between congresses to five years, which would have e effect of strengthening the power of the council 220 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il More New Faces Elected The leaders were worried what would happen in the elections. There was an intense power struggle because some of the old leaders were not ready to make room for new ones while there were nonchurch pressures to keep certain individuals in office. Many of the candidate members elected in 1966 had been office staff from Moscow, whose loyalties were distrusted, and this time their reelection proved impossible. Those that were elected naturally did not get equal support, but in spite of the external pressures, f the well-established leaders the negative votes registered against some 0 was striking. I. 1. Motorin, the longtime treasurer, whose visits in the constit- uency had often resulted in leadership shake-ups locally, received 108 nega- tive votes. He did, however, retain his seat on the council, but senior presbyter K. S. Veliseichik of Belorussia, who received 102 negative votes, lost his seat. Several others, such as S. P. Fadiukhin and N. N. Mel nikov, had many critics.” No one was ousted from the presidium, but three new faces appeared. d the deceased A. N. Kiriukhantsev as the Len- S, P. Fadiukhin replace ingrad representative and the presidium was increased to eleven members in order to make room for a Pentecostal representative, P. K. Shatrov, and for a Moscow insider, A. M. Bychkov. The latter also emerged, to the sur- prise of many, as one of the vice-presidents. The number of vice-presidents was increased to three. Even greater changes followed two years later when d Timchenko died. Alexei M. Bychkov became the new general Karev ani idkov and Andrei E. Klimenko promoted to vice- secretary with Michael Zh presidents. The council itself also experienced a gradual change. Nine of the twenty-five elected were new.™ Four members from the previous council had died, and these were replaced. Five others lost their seats, so that Be- lorussia had no representation on the council. The ousted representative for Central Asia was replaced. by his three successors, one as full member, another as candidate, and a third on the revision commission.” EN.