Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

n- gelsk in the north to Vladivostok in the Far East, there are isolated churches, most of them unregistered. In fact, the existence of many of these congregations is still unknown. In this region there are also churches that began after persons were converted through hearing a religious radio broadcast and the radio speaker remains their presbyter to the present day. This region is rich in natural resources and represents the frontier for Soviet industrial advance. In the Ural Mountain region and farther east throughout the vast Siberian expanse, new cities have sprung up in recent decades.* In very few of these are there churches, although the evangelicals have been more successful than the Orthodox in forming small fellowships. This is the new frontier for growth and expansion, for mission to people who are religious illiterates. Reform Baptists are well organized in Western Siberia and Northern 268 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il Kazakhstan. Unregistered Pentecostals began moving further east after 1956, and estimations of their strength are as high as several hundred thou- sand.55 But the AUCECB structure in this region is undeveloped. In 1974 Senior Presbyter E. N. Raevski received an assistant to help him administer a territory that covered over twenty million square kilometers.°¢ In Western Siberia, Senior Presbyter Konstantin Borodinov tried to visit the registered churches scattered throughout his vast region. Andrei Klimenko, who had been senior presbyter of nine oblasts on the other side of the Volga, was also overtaxed physically. Not only was there a problem of distance but for years the senior presbyter could not automatically travel where he wished. If he was not permitted to visit the unregistered congregations in Orenburg Ob- last, then other men had to try to provide some leadership when they came to visit their relatives. In recent years large numbers of churches have been registered in the Omsk and Tomsk regions and a senior presbyter for Omsk Oblast was finally appointed.®” Energetic and creative leadership has the potential to work wonders. In October 1978 Sergei Nikolaev gained the distinction of being elected the youngest senior presbyter in the union. He was only twenty-nine. He was a gifted musician and preacher who had been sponsored by the AUCECB for two years of study in England. With the death of M. I. Sorokin, Nikolaev succeeded him as senior presbyter for the Northwest region of the RSFSR, a region larger than West Germany. There were only twenty-six congrega- tions in his charge but they were widely scattered, travel being especially difficult in winter. Nikolaev set to work with a burst of energy and twelve months later reported that his charge had doubled to fifty-two congrega- tions. Twenty-two of these congregations he had literally discovered—their existence had been unknown or forgotten. Aided by a council of presbyters an