Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

[Our Letters], BV, no. 4 (1974), pp. 79-80. Prokhorov, Eastern Christian Self-Identification 29 to the internal observer in the USSR. Later, Dr M. Elliott wrote about it in this way: Slavic Christianity, in both its Orthodox and Evangelical expressions, strongly emphasizes God's awesomeness, majesty, and holiness... Whereas Western Evangelicals sing ‘What a friend we have in Jesus’, Slavic Christians more often see their Maker as Master and Judge... Christians of all confessions in the West, more commonly than in the East, stress the understanding of God over the mystery of God... It also strikes me that Eastern Orthodox and Slavic Evangelicals have a more sacramental understanding of faith than is typical for Western Evangelicals. 22 In the eyes of the majority of the population of the Soviet Union, Orthodoxy seemed a much more traditionally Russian faith by comparison with the Baptist form of Christianity. Indeed it was often denied that the latter had any Russian-ness at all. It is notable that some Russian Orthodox and Communist commentators used the same vocabulary in condemning Soviet Baptists for choosing ‘alien’ beliefs. 23 On occasions the response within the AUCECB was to agree with this charge. 24 However, the general body of Russian Baptist authors utterly opposed such an approach to the issue of their identity. 25 Some apologists of the Russian Baptists pointed out to the representatives of the Orthodox the Greek origins of their beliefs, 26 and to the Soviet propagandists of the Communist Party the German roots of Marxism. 27 There was, however, a strong tendency among the Orthodox and the Baptists to consider their beliefs to be either native Russian or simply ‘the faith given by God’. 28 The Pochvenniki [lit. return to the soil] of nineteenth-century Orthodoxy had their followers among Russian Baptists who found only indirect relationships between their community and the West. Some saw their beliefs as ‘a mixing of the [Russian] Orthodox and Molokan doctrines’, so that they were not considered as bearers of Western teaching. 29 22 M. Elliott, ‘Eastern Orthodox and Slavic Evangelicals: What Sets Them Both Apart From Western Evangelicals’, East-West Church & Ministry’ Report, vol. 3, no. 4 (1995), p. 15. 23 See a review of the theme: L. Mitrokhin, Baptizm: Istoriya i Sovremennost ’ [The Baptists: The History and the Present] (SPb.: Russky Khristiansky Gumanitarny Institut, 1997), pp. 21-9, 57-8. 24 See, for instance, A. Karev, ‘Russkoe Evangel’sko-Baptistskoe Dvizhenie’ [The Russian Evangelical- Baptist Movement], in Nastol 'naya Kniga Presvitera [The Handbook for Presbyters] (M.: AUCECB, 1982), pp. 155-75. 25 See, for instance, A. Bychkov, ‘Stoletie Ob”edinitel’nykh S”ezdov’ [The Centenary of the Unifying Councils], BV, no. 6 (1984), pp. 44-7; M. Karetnikova, ‘Russkoe Bogoiskatel’stvo’ [Russian God-seeking], Al’manakh po Istorii Russkogo Baptizma, vol. I (1999), pp. 3-84; S. Sa