Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ational activity of the Baptist union. Ivan Kargel joined in 1869; he later became fa- mous as the theological teacher and Bible commentator of the Baptists. In 1871 Vasili G. Pavlov joined—he subsequently became, in the words of Paul Steeves, the “patriarch” of the Russian Baptist Union. Also in 1871 Vo- ronin baptized Vasili V. Ivanov-Klyshnikov, who then organized the second Russian Baptist fellowship in Novo-Ivanovka (Flizavetpol’ province) and. later became secretary of the Russian Baptist Union.22 The movement in the Caucasus was specifically Baptist from the start because that is what Martin Kalweit said they were. A simultaneous movement in the Ukraine was less specifically Baptist and was able to develop more specifically Russian or Ukrainian coloration. The movement in the Ukraine came to be known as Stundism because it originated through the influence of German Mennonite and Lutheran colonists who held weekly hours (Stunde) of Bible study.28 These colonists were not permitted to proselytize but some. of their peasant workers or neighbors were influenced by them to initiate their own Bible studies. These Bible studies were prompted by a deep desire for a greater knowledge of the Scripture than the local Orthodox priest was able to offer and by the desire of literate peasants to read these truths for themselves. ' Some years ago the present Ukrainian senior presbyter, Jacob K. Dukhonchenko, stumbled upon a small train station named “Stunde.” Sus- pecting a story, he asked the local inhabitants why this strange name had been given to the station. Some of the older residents remembered that people called Stundists had formerly lived there. All they could remember about them was that they loved each other.?4 When they celebrated their seventieth anniversary in 1955, Dukhon- chenko’s predecessor had sketched the beginnings of the Stundist history for the same region along the Dnieper River. Peter I. Lysenko lived in the village of Sofievka, three kilometers away from the Mennonite village of Friedensfeld. Lysenko was impressed by the life and faith of the Men- nonites, noting that they often read the Bible and prayed. Without any 34 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il direct aid from the Mennonites, he began reading the gospel himself, even though he was only semiliterate. Soon he was converted. Many times he asked the Mennonites to baptize him, but they refused because it was for- bidden by law. Finally, about five years later in 1875, a well-known Men- nonite minister who had come to visit agreed to perform the baptism. Peter Lysenko’s father then threw Peter and. his.wife out of the parental home. But the Mennonites from Friedensfeld helped: Lysenko build his own small house. Regularly, Lysenko would walk along his village street shouting, “Repent and turn to the gospel.” A few curious ones followed him to his house, wher