Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

(chairman), A. L. Andreev (vice-chairman), A. V. Karey (treasurer), I. S. Kapalygin (secretary), and M. A. Orlov. Following Zhidkov’s arrest in 1937, only Andreev and Orlov remained at liberty, Orlov assuming chairmanship of the union in January 1938. Orlov managed to maintain church services in the one remaining Moscow church throughout the war. For the short period 1938-40 at least, the Evangelical Christian Union also did not function.” The Stalinist persecution was much more pervasive than merely to decimate the leadership. Local presbyters were arrested and charged with violating the law of cults, or for being kulaks, or for having maintained friendships abroad regarded as traitorous and were given prison sentences, With the presbyters gone, it was easy to close the church buildings, In 1929 the six-day week was introduced, which meant that every day five sixths of the working population worked while one sixth rested. It was only in 1940 that the seven-day week with Sunday free was reintroduced.7” Even then, 48 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War I! although many of the recently converted capitulated and left the church, religious activity did not cease entirely, In the midst of this some bold evan- gelicals told the antireligious propagandists: “We start our work where you stop. You work in clubs and meetings, but we work in the streets outside the clubs and after the meetings.”’8 Some leaders escaped arrest by going into hiding, and these managed to conduct secret services, Generally speaking, however, closure was the order of the day. In the spring of 1980, 12 Baptist ministers in Leningrad were arrested and all but one of the churches were confiscated. Five of six Baptist churches in Moscow were confiscated. One minister fleeing via Harbin in 1930 esti- mated that 40 percent of the full-time workers had been arrested or had fled, and that 60 percent of the churches had been closed. In 1936 the remaining Baptist building was confiscated; that left only one functioning Evangelical Christian congregation in Moscow. Believers who dared began attending here, a phenomenon characteristic of other parts of the country where either only a Baptist or an Evangelical Christian meetinghouse still remained open. By now it meant everything simply to be able to pray and read the Word together with other Christians; their denominational affilia- tion had no significance any longer.” Wartime Activity Fortunately for all religions, ironic as it may sound, the war preserved them from total extinction. It provided them with the possibility of demonstrating their loyalty and value to the defense of the Soviet Union and Stalin rewarded them by granting them new freedoms but without the corresponding legal protection. The two leaders not in prison, Orlov and Andreev, visited churches during the war and helped them become rees- tablished as conditions i