Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

. President Ilia G. Ivanov then wrote such a letter following which two more discussions were held, .on October 29 and December 4, 1969; Only four persons were present at-all four unity talks,” which helps account for the problems and illustrates the importance of ne- gotiating styles and personal egos. At these. last two sessions, there were sharper clashes between the old leadership (Ivanov, Karev, and Motorin) and the reformers Kriuchkov and Vins. But once again both sides handed Reunification Rejected, 1964-1974 233 each other suggested repentance statements which the other refused to sign. !8 It was apparent that the AUCECB hoped its concessions plus a pub- licized statement on repentance would now lead to reconciliation, whereas the CCECB leaders viewed the talks primarily as an opportunity to accept a statement of surrender. In addition, the talks were beset with numerous other problems. The reports reveal that on both sides there were moderates and hard-liners whose differences made negotiation difficult.!® Both sides were also negotiating under duress. Immediately after the first two sessions, S. T. Golev was brought to trial and sentenced.2° Throughout the dis- cussions the reformers could never forget that some of their key leaders were imprisoned and they dare not leave them in the lurch. On the other side, there was both delegate and state pressure to bring the CCECB back into the fold, but not at the cost of a total surrender. The Moscow head of- fice as a place of meeting was itself a problem because of the listening ears. No one completely trusted anyone because, too often, a Judas had been dis- covered on both sides. What Kind of Unity? The unity talks and subsequent printed exchanges made clear a more fundamental problem, namely, that the two sides were talking about two different concepts of church unity. A year later the CCECB summarized what it meant by declaring that “you cannot be in union with the AUCECB and in union with God at the same time.’’%! Already in a letter of September 22, 1962, they had declared that they were for unity in Christ and for unity with all saints, which included unity of all the ECB churches, even unity for the whole church of Christ, but “we are against unity with apostates, we are against unity with sinners.’ That meant a visible church whose members were prepared to make a judgment on the integrity of their fellows.23 Kriuchkov also developed the argument that, whereas the indi- vidual. Christian as citizen must be subordinate to the state, the Bible nowhere declares that the church must subordinate itself to the state. The AUCECB repeatedly stressed unity as the primary concern but meant by this a structural unity. Soon it became apparent that structural unity must also mean uniformity, official disclaimers notwithstanding.*4 They felt that unity was a predominant emphasis in the New Testament, and they felt it was imperative that the ev