Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

exclusively with our personal enemies but b no means with the enemies of society or government.”®® To help their ni ment, they were able to quote support from Dr. Walter Lewis general secretary of the Baptist World Alliance. During the war Lewis had sent them a letter lauding the patriotism of American Baptists and had declared that one should take up weapons in the battle with the enemy. Lewis’s let- ter was read into the minutes of the 1944 unity congress and the military sections of the letter were then quoted in a letter sent out to AUCECB churches. During World War II evangelicals had distinguished themselves at the front as loyal soldiers. How many did serve is not known but it was suffi- cient to convince the state of their loyalty. Evangelicals, like the Orthodox were rewarded with official permission to resume work as a national union of churches. Throughout the years Baptist leaders have proudly drawn attention to the fact that their members served in the war. Zhidkov lost three sons in the war. N. T. Tsunenko, full-time worker for Bratskii Vestnik in the 1950s returned from the front with four medals. Many other specific illustrations can be cited. Michael Orlov, who kept the Evangelical Christian union alive during its most difficult period, held patriotic rallies in the Moscow church during the war, wrote letters to believers in occupied zones, en- couraging them to side with the partisans, and helped to raise money for an ambulance plane for the Soviet army.®! Compared with the Orthodox Church donating and blessing arm tanks, the evangelicals’ donation of an ambulance plane suggests a nee restrained militarism, implying perhaps that vestiges of pacifism remained. The leaders’ loud affirmations in the postwar period, that AUCECB members were fully committed to fighting the enemy with weapons, suggest that the leadership was still trying to convince its membership. The AUCECB still reacts nervously to this question. In 1970 Assistant General Secretary Mitskevich found it necessary to reject pacifism rather 120 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il sharply in a six-page article. The article concluded by quoting the 1926 and 1927 loyalty statements of the Baptists, Evangelical Christians, and Pente- costals, and asserting that this was also the viewpoint of the Mennonites who had joined the AUCECB.® When North American Mennonites asked about pacifism in 1976, AUCECB spokesmen replied that their union considers nonresistance relevant in person-to-person relationships but it has nothing to do with politics or the nation. Further, the North Americans were advised that “you would be wise not to raise questions that have been forgotten.” i Although not easily documented, evidence suggests that there is still considerable pacifist sentiment at the grass-roots level.® Individual cases of conscientious objection have occurred. In recent years the state has responded in o