Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

(Baptists of the late Soviet period), only vaguely reminiscent of Western evangelical churches. For a long time the Communists artificially separated the Soviet Protestants from their Western co-religionists and subjected to persecution and discrimination any religious community in the Soviet Union. This inadvertently created the conditions under which the Orthodox and Evangelical Christians-Baptists - the representatives of the largest Christian denominations in the country - paradoxically were closer to each other. The most important differences between the Protestant West and the Orthodox East were already clearly visible in the ‘Protestant East’. The friendly and respectful relations - at all levels - among many representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church and evangelicals in the USSR in the Khrushchev and Brezhnev years, coupled with a specific foreign policy of the Soviet state, pushed the AUCECB 1 almost to a Slavophile, anti-Western position. This article explores some manifestations of this trend, particularly as reflected in Bratsky Vestnik [Fraternal Bulletin], the main official periodical of Soviet Baptists. Russian Orthodox and Baptists: greetings in Bratsky Vestnik During the 1960s to 1980s, Bratsky Vestnik regularly published Easter and Christmas greetings from Russian Orthodox Church leaders, as well as favourable messages in response on behalf of the AUCECB. There is no evidence to suggest that this was being done only formally; the greetings conveyed sincere mutual liking. The words of welcome, articles, and commentaries included in Bratsky Vestnik from Baptists outside the USSR decreased markedly, while the Russian Orthodox presence in Bratsky 1 All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, the official association of Baptist communities in the USSR (since 1944). 24 Journal of European Baptist Studies 17:1 (2017) Vestnik increased. In part this was due to the influence of the Soviet power, which pressurised Orthodox and Baptists to ‘struggle for peace’ together on the world stage. 2 At the same time the Communist influence should not be exaggerated, since the peak of brotherly trends in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Baptist communities came in the period of perestroika (religious freedom) in the Soviet Union, when the government already did not interfere in the affairs of the church and did not censor the Christian press. Reading the holiday messages in Bratsky Vestnik in the 1970s and 1980s, addressed to AUCECB, one can see a gradual development and strengthening of the Eastern hierarchical paradigm in the presentation of material. The greetings sent to the AUCECB at the major Christian festivals that were published in Bratsky Vestnik during the 1960s to 1980s followed a certain order: primacy was usually given to greetings from the Patriarch of All Russia, 3 then some Orthodox Metropolitans followed, 4 next some Russian Baptist ministe