Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

uring, the war given by Michael Orlov, a speech by Zhidkov on the theological ‘foundations for unity, and the history of unity attempts by N. A. Levindanto. Then came the great moment when secretary Karev read the joint resolution whereby the congress vowed “to put fully into the past all former disagreements, and to create out of two unions, the Union of Evangelical Christians and the Union of Baptists, one union: The Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists with an All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians and Baptists as its leading organ and do- miciled in the city of Moscow.’’°° The vote was unanimous and was followed by joyful weeping and embracing. Karev then proceeded to read and explain the statutes of the new union. This was followed by a communion | service. In 1920 the unity committee had proposed two alternative forms of union, One was a unification (soedinenie) of the two bodies, who would probably retain some form of separate identity. The second alternative was a complete fusion (slianie) which would henceforth erase all distinctions A New Evangelical Union . 89 between Baptists and Evangelical Christians. In 1944 the word “fusion” predominated. As long as it was to remain a fusion of Baptists and Evange- lical Christians only, complete fusion seemed possible.*° As always, the statute for the new union was a careful compromise, but in its sections on dogmatic practice it adopted Baptist views with only slight modifications. That meant, for example, that all congregations of the union “‘as much as possible have ordained presbyters and deacons in accordance with the word of God: Titus 1:5; Acts 6:1-6; and I Tim. 3:1.”4! Point 8 of the statute further specified that baptism, communion, and marriage must be performed by ordained presbyters only. A qualifier, however, allowed that if no ordained presbyters were present, these activities could be performed by unordained members of the congregation, but only if so charged by the congregation. It could not be merely the decision of an indi- vidual. On the troublesome point of laying on of hands, the statute declared that baptism and marriage performed with or without laying on of hands had equal validity. But in order to establish a common practice the statute recommended to churches to employ the laying on of hands at baptismal and marriage services but to interpret this action as a form of festive prayer for blessing. A further liberalizing qualifier suggested that for baptismal classes numbering more than two persons, simply raising the hands over the assembled candidates while pronouncing a prayer was equivalent to laying on of hands. The final point of the statute illustrated how petty the disagreements must have been. As a compromise solution, the statute stated that the Lord’s Supper could be conducted either by breaking the bread into many little pieces or by breaking it into two or three larger pieces’for distribution. It