Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

but Gnida is a very different person. Gnida personifies the well-known Russian character trait—Chuvstvo (feeling). Already in 1956 he was working hard to bring the Pentecostals into the congregation in Aleksandriia (Kirovograd Oblast). He became senior presbyter of Kirovo- grad Oblast in 1967 and was elected to the AUCECB in 1969. A graduate of the Zaporozh’e Pedagogical Institute, he turned 60 in 1980. The election of V. E. Logvinenko (born 1925) as second vice-president of the AUCECB was followed in the summer of 1980 by his election as full senior presbyter for the RSFSR, replacing or relieving Klimenko of this responsibility. His election was somewhat surprising since till 1979 he had been serving as presbyter of the church in Odessa which is located in the Ukraine. But he is a Russian, of Evangelical Christian background, who en- joys much broader respect than this local base would have suggested. He was elected to the AUCECB in 1974 without a dissenting vote. He received a diploma as building engineer through evening school. Some observers think he can match Dukhonchenko in ability. In particular he appears to have the ability to inspire his colleagues to exercise their gifts, perhaps be- cause he appears content to leave the limelight to others. His two associates actually have broader leadership experience. Jacob Fast was born in 1929 in Alexanderwohl (Molotschna), experienced some of the resettlements of the German Mennonites, and came to Novosibirsk in 1949. Two years later he was converted and baptized and was ordained a deacon in 1962. By 1964 he was leading the German wing of the congrega- tion, yet working full time as an electric welder. In 1968 he became assistant senior presbyter of Western Siberia (till 1974), but also spent considerable time traveling throughout the Soviet Union to visit the German congrega- tions. First elected to the AUCECB in 1966 to represent the Mennonite Brethren, he was elected to the ten-member presidium in 1974. In fact, his new post as deputy senior presbyter for the RSFSR (which will bring him to Moscow) is also a Mennonite’ post. He is widely admired and loved and is an excellent preacher although he has not completed theological study. 434 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II Peter K. Shatrov (born 1928) was converted in 1946, baptized and be- came presbyter in a Pentecostal congregation which adhered to the Smorodintsy. In 1956 his group joined the Leningrad ECB church, where he became a preacher, In 1968 Ilia Ivanov brought him to Moscow where he became a full-time “Inspector of the AUCECB,” meaning that he was the staff representative for the Pentecostals, as Viktor Kriger had become for the Mennonites. The following year he was elected to the AUCECB and in 1974 to the presidium, having become by then the major Pentecostal spokesman. He lacks the charming manner of some of his associates, but ap- pears capabl