Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

iuchkov and the others were in prison. He reported that since 1966 they had had only one meeting with the Council of Religious Affairs and had immediately reported to the church on this through the journal, Bratskii Listok. Two meetings had been held with the AUCECB in April and May 1969, and Shaptala also noted that the shortcomings of certain local presbyters had been reported to their local congregations for appropriate action. Gennadi Kriuchkov as elected chairman then reported on the brief pe- riod from May to December 1969, which was primarily a report on the latest unity talks. The congress then took a unanimous decision to reject the invitation to attend the AUCECB congress because they were invited without voting rights. . The third point on the agenda concerned relations to the AUCECB, but this was quickly covered by the decision not to attend the congress. Subsequent declarations from the CCECB not only repeated their convic- tion that the Moscow leadership had not changed, but also warned local churches to avoid all ties with the AUCECB. But the Tula conference tried to clarify the misunderstanding in the general public, which seemed to 244 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il think that the CCECB was opposed to registration. Six congregations registered by the state were represented at the conference. The conference body also approved a declaration to the churches which urged all congregations to apply for registration on the basis of a new declaration form prepared by the CCECB leadership.5* A year later the CCECB issued a position statement which declared that almost all of their congregations had submitted registration requests to the authorities, and the council itself had submitted the minutes of the Tula conference plus a list of the elected members to the state organs. “Is there a lawyer who can, after all this, call the activities of the Council of Churches and the ECB congregations illegal?” they asked.’ They went on to state that recently they had said little about persecutions even though these were continuing and had taken other practical steps to regulate relations with the authorities, such as notifying them where meetings of the brethren would take place. The elections also reflected a sense of hope. All members of the pre- vious council were reelected except $. Kh. Tsurkan and A. §. Goncharov, who refused reelection for reasons of age and health. Three of these council members (J. Ia. Antonov, D. V. Miniakov, and S. T. Golev) were still in prison. Following the election, Gennadi Kriuchkov then proposed that two other persons who had been elected temporarily earlier should be elected to the council. The congress then approved the election of M. T. Shaptala and P. V. Rumachik.58 With great optimism the congress dispatched a letter to Premier Kosygin in which they reported the names of those elected (except the three i