Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

t be under the influence of the Baptists.” Mazaev, born into a poor Molokan family, was baptized in 1885, and in 1887 took over leadership from Johan- nes Wieler. He remained president of this gradually developing Baptist Union till 1920, except for 1909-11. He died on May 20, 1922, in Siberia, though he had lived most of his life in Rostov-on-Don.7 The other major figure in the unity struggle was Ivan S. Prokhanov (1869-1935).8 He was baptized in 1887 and worked with Baptist groups initially. Within two years he was in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), where he completed an engineering course. After 1901 he worked as engineer for Westinghouse and spent evenings and weekends in the many and varied church activities which another person would have found possible only as a full-time activity. From 1895 to 1898 Prokhanov was abroad studying theology at the Baptist Stokes Croft College and the New Congregational College in Bristol. However, he graduated from the theological faculty of the University of Berlin. He also took in theological lectures at the University of Paris, as well as in Hamburg. This not only meant that Prok- hanov became fluent in the major world languages but this heterogeneous education turned him into a supporter of the Evangelical Alliance. After 1901 his activities in St. Petersburg were devoted to fostering the develop- ment of small evangelical groups, the founding of the Russian Christian Youth Movement (where Jacob Zhidkov and Alexander Karev began their church careers), involvement in the Raduga press, publication of the journal Khristianin, and finally in 1909 the founding of the Evangelical Christian Union. If Dei Mazaev was the unquestioned leader of the Baptists, Ivan Prok- hanov was by 1909 the unchallenged leader of the Evangelical Christians. Especially during the period 1906-1909 Prokhanov had great visions of a union embracing all Russian Protestants through which he hoped to effect a Reformation in Russia. In his repeated calls for union during this period he ignored dogmatic differences by leaving them to the jurisdiction of local congregations and instead called for unity on essentials and freedom on secondary issues. This was the approach of the Evangelical Alliance move- ment in Western Europe also.® But the New Molokans walked out of the 1907 conference due to irre- concilable differences with the Baptists on the baptism question. They were a smal] group of several hundred living on the Lower Volga who had been spiritually renewed through the preaching of Jacob Deliakov. Deliakov, of Presbyterian origin, emphasized child baptism. The New Molokans had A New Evangelical Union 81 taken the name “ Evangelical Christians.” !° Other groupings, including Prok- hanov’s own Evangelical Christian Union, thereafter failed to gain as broad support nationally as he had hoped so that by 1911 he had to recognize that outside of the Baptists, there remained no realistic possib