Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

e in the Provinces 257 necessary for his assistants to visit the congregations while Andreev issued directives from Kiev and periodically called provincial senior presbyters to Kiev for consultation. There were usually twenty-three or twenty-five senior presbyters under his jurisdiction who were usually appointed by Moscow, but Andreev made the actual decisions. Sometimes, as, for example, in Lvov, in 1954, he removed the entire leadership and brought in others from elsewhere and enforced their acceptance.’ The oblasts varied in size; some senior presbyters were responsible for thirty churches, while others had 150 churches. Generally speaking, he maintained the closest ties with the nearby oblasts such as Kiev, Dnepropetrovsk, and Zaporozh’e, and, as a result, it was these senior presbyters who eventually succeeded him. From 1948 to 1956 A. I. Mitskevich (also of Evangelical Christian stock) served as his deputy, making many visits throughout the Ukraine. Mitskevich was generally appreciated.° He then moved to Moscow, and his place was taken by N. N. Melnikov, who had provided strong leadership for fifty-seven churches in Dnepropetrovsk Oblast. There were many Pente- costals in this region, and Mel nikov had been fairly successful in bringing them into the union and maintaining cooperation with Pentecostal leaders in his region. One of these, G. G. Ponurko, succeeded him as oblast senior presbyter.!° Officially, Mel’nikov served only as senior presbyter for the entire Ukraine from 1966 until 1974, when he was forced into retirement. But he had placed his stamp on the Ukrainian organization for a period of eighteen years. In the end, delegates voted to dismiss him and successfully pushed through the election of a relatively inexperienced but highly ad- mired younger man named Jacob K. Dukhonchenko. Melnikov had come to be disliked for his authoritarian ways and his sharp defense of the AUCECB against the CCECB, but it would be unfair to include him among those chirch officials whose loyalty to the church.was in question. When he finally became senior presbyter in his own right, a presbyter council of six persons was created to assist him. These were I. Ia. Tatarchenko and I. Ja. Kaliuzhnyi, who became his deputies, while F. R. Astakhov, D. D. Shapovalov, and N. V. Kuzmenko (the latter representing Pentecostals) became assistant senior presbyters, and young M. V. Mel'nik served as full-time secretary.'! These divided the responsibilities, and in the first years Melnikov often called all, the senior presbyters. together. for consultation, but by 1969 his new deputy, I. S. Gnida, complained that Me nikov had stopped this again. ; Another structural strength for the Uleinian organization was.that it had its own treasury for conducting Ukrainian affairs. At the congress in 258 | Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II 1974, treasurer Mitskevich complained that some re