Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

etween Hitler and Stalin. The countries were again occupied by the Soviet Union in 1989 and initial purges were carried out, including persecution of Baptists.7° In 1940 A. L. Andreev called on the Latvian Baptists, who greeted him with suspi- cious questions. They were surprised a short time later to receive a letter from Andreev to the effect that the union in Moscow had considered their application to join the union and had accepted them. The Latvians had made no such request and were doubly puzzled since Andreev had not even talked about the subject during his visit. They simply ignored the letter. After the second Soviet “liberation” of Latvia, the approaches were less crude and once the union had been achieved, leading individuals began to develop an appreciation of each other even if national differences remained,7! The AUCECB met with the Estonian and Latvian delegations separately. The official report emphasized that the discussion had focused on points of clarification but that there had been no differences. The result was that Evangelical Christian and Baptist churches in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania joined the AUCECB “and were fused with it into one family and one brotherhood.” Structurally this meant that the AUCECB was expanded from eight to twelve persons, thereby allowing for one Pente- costal representative, one from Latvia and one from Estonia. The op- portunity was also utilized to add Ilia G. Ivanov, who was simply identified as a permanent co-worker in Moscow, to the council.”8 In addition, the All- Union Council decided to appoint N. A. Levindanto as AUCECB pleni- potentiary for the Baltic region with permanent residence in Riga. Levin- danto acted as organizer and made sure that churches adhered to the AU- CECB statutes. ; The Baltic evangelicals had had no choice but to accept the offer of union. Since then they have tried to make the best of it. Since the Latvian and Estonian languages are not spoken in Moscow (even Levindanto was limited to a translator), Baltic evangelicals sought to maintain friendly rela- tions with Moscow and with Levindanto, yet attempted to pursue.a path locally which was more to their liking. In Estonia Johannes Lipstok, a highly respected leader, became the senior presbyter and managed to main- tain the respect of the AUCECB leadership, as well as Baptists from abroad who met him. Several key Latvian leaders had emigrated during the war but. Professor Johannes Ris declared that he was prepared to meet the So- A New Evangelical Union 97 viets. He refused to accept responsibilities as senior presbyter for the re- public, however. Several different persons filled the office in short suc- cession, and it was a decade before stability was established.”4 Less significant though adding color to the AUCECB was the assimila- tion of several other groups. Thanks to the efforts of Il’ia Ivanov, 88 evangel- ical churches in Moldavia numbering 3,086 membe