Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

e, and fellow Pentecostals have come to recognize that he has sought to improve their position. It will be difficult to find a replacement for Nikolai A, Kolesnikov as senior presbyter for Kazakhstan. He is only 48 and projects a youthful vigor, especially in his fiery preaching. Like Logvinenko he began in Odessa where he was converted in 1952, began preaching, and was ordained presbyter in 1961. He completed the first Bible correspondence course and was elected senior presbyter for Kazakhstan in 1971, having served as assistant and de facto leader several years previously already. He now assumes the powerful position of AUCECB treasurer. The new leaders who are to move to Moscow still need to obtain residence permits which is a major difficulty. Andrei Klimenko only managed to obtain an apartment when a church member surrendered his and moved to another city. Moscow is an attractive city which means that leaders already living there will find it difficult to move. Their time as full- time employees of the AUCECB was not entered into their work logbook so they cannot hope for a large state pension were they to return to secular em- ployment. Fortunately, the AUCECB now provides a pension fund. Another factor making regular leadership changes difficult is the natural at- traction of the exercise of power. Yet the membership tends to grow suspicious, the longer an individual remains in high office, From the church members’ point of view, based on local experiences, they know that the state officials are constantly trying to force the church leaders to compromise. With each passing year the leaders will need to make many smaller compromises that do not seem important until they have been gradually bent, Such leaders, the members feel, the state would be happy to keep in office longer, whereas if a leader remains firmly loyal to the church, the authorities would exert pressure to have him replaced. This suspicion by the.membership places the leaders in a most unenviable position. ; New Frontiers After 1974 435 New Time of Troubles for the CCECB If the AUCECB projected growth and confidence, the CCECB could only envision a bleak future. Instead of freeing their general secretary and legalizing the union, the authorities had exchanged Georgi Vins and four Soviet dissidents for two Soviet spies kept in America. This eased the per- sonal physical suffering of Vins and his family, but it was a major blow to the CCECB. Their union had even less chance of getting legal recognition now and another capable leader had been rendered harmless through de- portation. The Samizdat network continued to function and there were small triumphs of faith to report but the primary news concerned a wave of renewed state repression. The new CCECB membership elected in 1976 still included 10 persons but not all were at liberty.42 Ivan Ia. Antonov-read the report at a meeting in December 1976, a function that should have b