Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

t to open the door for the Church Mennonites failed, and the 1966 statute restored the immer- sion clause, S. P. Fadiukhin prefacing his speech on unity with a sharp assertion that “one baptism’’ does not only mean to baptize only once, but it also means that there should be only one form of baptism, namely, im- mersion.*® The 1978 appeal to Mennonite Brethren stated explicitly that baptism “must be performed by immersion.’’5° The 1964 circular letter helped in some localities, but in general it remained a dead letter. In Dzhetisai (Uzbekistan), for example, Mennonites and Mennonite Brethren worshiped together till David Regier moved there in 1957. He insisted that Mennonites must first be rebaptized by immer- sion, denied communion to those who refused, and a split resulted. When the Moscow letter arrived in 1964, he moderated his stance, but two separate churches remained. Elsewhere the letter never arrived, at least the members never heard about it, and the solutions reached were not always pleasant. One man, who had attended Baptist services for twenty years, was never permitted to take communion, and the local leadership even refused his deathbed wish for communion. In another city individual Baptists and Mennonite Brethren were too afraid of possible prison or fines to offer their own house as a place of worship for the unregistered congregation. A Men- nonite invited them to meet in his house, but on communion Sunday he was asked to leave his own house so they could conduct communion without him! Generally speaking, however, in those places where large in- dependent congregations of Mennonite Brethren and Mennonites 284 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il developed, relations gradually improved, so that there are regular pulpit ex- changes, but the baptismal question remains insoluble.®! The Mennonites benefited from the new state policy that fostered au- tonomous registration. In 1967, Heinrich Heese and Elder Hans Penner personally traveled to Moscow and obtained permission from the Council for Religious Affairs to register several churches in Kirgizia as autonomous Mennonite congregations. This included the submission of a Mennonite confession of faith, although minus the pacifist clauses. Some of these con- gregations then received permission (often through state pressure) to share use of the registered Baptist building. In some cases these churches received verbal permission to conduct their activities but without the security of a signed document to prove their registration? But a union of Mennonites has not yet become possible. These registered congregations do maintain informal communication links and managed to consult together to send an official representative to the Mennonite World Conference in 1978.58 This recent progress in relationship to the state has strengthened the sense of being Mennonite. Ironically, however, Russian Mennonites are th