Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

the unusual (for Soviet people) title ‘Christian Life in the Soviet Union: Freedom of Faith’. Having, no doubt, been briefed by his Russian Baptist hosts, he wrote: It is said that Russian Baptists are not allowed to have Sunday schools. In fact Sunday schools have never been a part of Russian tradition... The Russians always thought that sharing their faith with a younger generation was a mission of the Christian family. The number of young people admitted to church membership offers reliable evidence of the impact of the Christian family. We can learn from them... In a Communist society, the Baptist witness... has reached its present considerable magnitude in Russia. Over the same period, we Christians of Western Europe... fell into decay. 20 The well-known idea that the spiritual life of Russian Baptists was somehow deeper, richer, and more perfect than the experience of their Western brethren is only superficially connected with Communist propaganda and, indeed, with Baptists. In fact this idea is many hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. It reflects the eternal confrontation between the East and the West. Some astute foreigners who visited Russia in different historical epochs felt this mystical religious spirit, which was only indirectly related to a Christian denomination. Here, for example, is the opinion of one of the leaders of the Christian Peace Conference, Pastor N. Vikromazing, published in Bratsky Vestnik in 1974: I was moved to the very bottom of my soul by the people’s devotion at your church. Their prayers and singing are still ringing in my ears... Such religious piety, as that which I saw in the Soviet Union among both the Baptists and Russian Orthodox people, is uncommon in the world of today 21 The author quite rightly noticed here the general Eastern Christian spirit, expressed in a special reverence for God in the communities of Russian Baptist and Orthodox parishes. This commonality was not always obvious 19 For example, the famous Orthodox theologian A. Schmemann wrote about this (in connection with the Orthodox understanding of Baptismal symbolism): ‘If facing the West... means facing Satan and his darkness, turning to the East signifies the conversion of man to the Paradise which was planted in the East, his conversion to Christ, the light of the world’. (A. Schmemann, Of Water and the Spirit: A Liturgical Study of Baptism (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1974), p. 30). For comparison, some anti-Western ideas in the tradition of Russian-Ukrainian Baptists: ‘They turned not to the Lord but gazed to the West... forgotten that the star heralded the birth of the Saviour, was seen in the east .’ (Unpublished memoirs by B. Zdorovtsev, famous preacher of CCECB from Kharkov, Ukraine). 20 A. MacRae, ‘Khristianskaya Zhizn’ v Sovetskom Soyuze: Religioznaya Svoboda’ [Christian Life in the Soviet Union: Freedom of Faith], BV, no. 5 (1972), pp. 13-14. 21 ‘Nam Pishut’