Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

cipants provided the basis for sharing and mutual influence in a variety of church concerns.?2 A further development of this technique was a major meeting of European: Baptist leaders in Moscow in April 1979.78 Mennonites saw these official visits as only one aspect of a broad ap- proach to East/West relations. Official Soviet visitors were able to present their perspective to.a North American audience, but spokesmen for the Init- siationiki or the independent Mennonites (as well as articles by experts) were given a hearing in order to enable North American Mennonites to form a balanced picture. To foster personal contact and mutual enrichment many individuals, as well as several choirs, were encouraged to visit the So- viet Union and to report their experiences, Study tours have also been sponsored. For the Mennonites, relating to Soviet evangelicals via the AUCECB was only partially satisfactory. Most visitors therefore also attempted to express their concern about the status of the Mennonites (Kirchliche), urg- ing the Baptists to be more tolerant, or to help the Mennonites obtain legal recognition. Another point of concern was the inability to visit many of the areas where Mennonites live because these were still closed to foreign travel. There was also discomfort about a deepening relationship to the 380 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II AUCEGB while remaining unable to develop one with the CCECB.% North American Mennonite relations to Soviet evangelicals has largely been the responsibility of the Mennonite Central Committee, the relief and service agency of the Mennonite and Brethren in Christ churches in Canada and the United States. Following each trip, leaders met to share and evaluate experiences and to plan future steps. For a decade and a half after the Bender-Wiens trip, the general assumption was that it was better to keep silent about the persecution of believers. To say something in public would hurt the believers in the Soviet Union. That they wished to avoid. This argument was expressed most strongly by Mennonite families who had close relatives in the Soviet Union and who urged caution. The traditionally quietist Mennonite should not agitate but rather rely on prayer support and suffer quietly. As the prisoners’ list lengthened (it included many names of obviously Mennonite origin) and other harassments became public knowledge, as So- viet Reform Baptist resistance stiffened and their appeals for public support increased, the attitudes and advice of Mennonite leaders in the West began to change. The present writer was assigned to work with Michael Bourdeaux in his newly established Centre for the Study of Religion and Communism in 1973. This did not represent blanket endorsement of this organization, but it reflected the conviction that the collection and objective analysis of factual materials