Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

at new registration applications be submitted with an “accompanying letter.” With this letter the local congregation declared its affiliation with the CCECB. The letter cited recent statements by the chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs, Vladimir Kuroedev himself, which promised that “the Soviet state does not keep any record of citizens according to: their religious affiliation.” In their warning they quoted extensively some official legal publications to prove that the CRA The Movement Toward Autonomy 275 and its newly established local commissions were maintaining systematic card files of local church activity and demanded detailed reports of local clergy which, they said, “literally turn executives of the congregations and ministers into state informers.’”7 Since detailed information about church activity appeared to be the prerequisite for AUCECB-affiliated congregations to keep their registra- tion, this was positive proof for the reformers that the AUCECB churches were continuing their ties with the world. The CCECB advised its member churches to follow “the principle of open relations and closed. membership.” That meant that in all negotiations with the state, at least two or three persons representing the congregation must take part and should report fully to the brotherhood. The latter must make all its decisions in a closed session where no state officials or informers could take part. Still further, they advised the congregations not to conduct their services in a prayer house belonging to a registered AUCECB congregation (a phenomenon prevalent in the Baltic) because the CCECB presbyter could be arrested at any time, and then the leaderless congregation might fall prey to the AUCECB, which “may lead them along the path of apostasy from God’s commandments.’® The relations between the two unions had obviously worsened. One reason was the continuing number of Reform Baptist individuals and even congregations that returned to the AUCECB. The AUCECB claimed that 10,000 had returned between 1963 and 1969, and subsequently they have claimed that on an average 1,000 returned annually. Bychkov did ac- knowledge at the 1974 congress that during the previous four years the CCECB membership had increased by 1,000 although the number of con- gregations had declined by six, to make a total of 452. But the reaction of the delegates suggested to this observer that Bychkov’s estimate of 18,000 was too low to be credible. There was definite attrition which the CCECB recognized and responded to in 1976. In order to inform their many young» people who had been converted and had joined after 1960, they reprinted the letters of August 1961 addressed to the AUCECB and to all ECB con- gregations which had spelled out the reasons for the split. In spite of these efforts, a major split within CCECB leadership ranks became public during the summer of 1976. On May 22 an expanded meet- ing of the C