Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

le partners for the Evangelical Christians. Unity must therefore be sought with that union now dominant in Russian Protestantism, namely the Russian Baptists. Gradually, therefore, Prokhanov and his associates were forced to capitulate to Baptist demands in the hope of attaining unity. Baptists on the other hand played the passive role in the unity attempt. In 1911, one of their leaders, S. P. Stepanov, had stated at a Baptist congress: “The Evangelical Christians have now accepted the Baptist teaching concerning elders, which not long before they had rejected as unacceptable. In any case, it is not necessary for us to go to them.’ Other Baptists shared this view, regarding themselves as the older union because they claimed 1884 as their official founding date whereas Evangelical Chris- tians had only formalized their union in 1909.12 The Baptist viewpoint was that there had been one union but that a split-away group under Prokhanov’s leadership later formed a competing union and immediately tried to claim equal rank with the former by propos- ing a union of the two bodies. Striving toward unity existed from the begin- ning but unity as expressed through a council structure was a newer phenomenon, where both sides were just beginning to organize. Confessions of faith were approved in 1906 and 1909 for Baptists and Evan- gelical Christians respectively, and a full constitution was approved only in 1910 for each of the two respective groups. No progress was made in unity for a decade. From 1909 to 1911 the jockeying for leadership of the Baptist Union between Dei Mazaev representing the “closed communion” Baptists and Vasili Pavlov of the more open wing prevented full participation of the Baptists in unity talks. '3 After 1911 political reaction meant new harassment of the evangelicals so that no national congress by either union was possible till the Revolution of 1917. Hence, neither union could get official endorsement from its membership on the unity issue. Following the February Revolution the Evangelical Christians again took the initiative. At their congress in 1917 they invited Baptist representatives to be present. A unity resolution was adopted in the presence of five Baptists, all of the latter representing the open Baptists. At an Evangelical Christian congress in 1919, with two Baptists present, a unity committee was set up. This unity committee met in January 1920 and named a ten-member All-Union Council consisting of 82 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il five Evangelical Christians and five Baptists."4 A joint journal called Bratskii Soiuz (Fraternal Union) was actually started. Later in the year both unions held congresses which intended to approve this union and it was hoped that the second half of the Evangelical Christian congress would become a union congress. The Baptists at their congress approved the decisions. But the strong