Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

CECB, which included 100 representatives from churches throughout the Soviet Union, met in M. T. Shaptala’s church in Khartsyzsk (Rostov Oblast). Gennadi Kriuchkov did not dare attend the meeting but delivered a major report by means of a tape recording which he appeared to 276 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II have recorded in the forest.!! He was able to report that the Khristianin press had printed 350,000 copies of religious literature since 1971, that a Bi- ble course for young Christians was in preparation and affirmed that fi- nances were strictly supervised with no worker receiving more than 100 ru- bles a month. But then he moved into a long, personal attack on fellow council members S. G. Dubovoi and the Ukrainian evangelist Josef Bonda- renko, who had served on the council temporarily. He accused Dubovoi of having compromised himself with the KGB, reminded him of the suffering they had shared in prison and urged him to repent.!2 Rumors were soon cir- culating that Bondarenko had absconded with 50,000 rubles and had also compromised with the state. After all, how else was one to understand the fact that his name had been removed from the most-wanted-criminal list and he had been able to return to his home in Riga? The CCECB at first tried to keep the report from being publicized ex- cept to inform mission societies abroad not to trust Dubovoi and Bonda- renko, but the Underground Evangelism mission circulated a summary and soon AUCECB leaders were mentioning it in Bratskii Vestnik.!3 The fi- nancial charges against Josef Bondarenko turned out to be without founda- tion. Bondarenko agreed to a repentance and reconciliation but some felt his repentance had not been complete. Fortunately for his reputation, after a series of highly successful evangelistic campaigns in various Soviet cities, he was arrested in the summer of 1978 and given another three-year prison sentence, !4 Although Gennadi Kriuchkov presented the conflict as a case of trusted comrades having been snared by the KGB, other evidence reveals a basic disagreement on issues.!5 Bondarenko, for example, had come to the conclusion that the years of controversy between AUCECB and CCECB churches had led to much heartache and unchristian treatment of persons who were obviously born-again Christians but who did not think alike about their duties to the state. Bondarenko felt that fellowship and coopera- tion should be possible in those locations where AUCECB churches showed genuine fruits of the Spirit. Kriuchkov was afraid that anything but total loyalty to the CCECB leadership would threaten the existence of what he regarded as the true church, whereas Bondarenko and Dubovoi preferred placing greater emphasis on the regional unions and on the autonomy of the local church. In short, Kriuchkov’s broad authority was challenged and some reformers were wondering whether purity should always have