Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2017

ng Russian Baptist congregations. He stated: ‘You know me. I am a Baptist. Now, then, I tell you that I have never laid eyes on an American in my life! ’ 33 This elicited smiles and laughter and produced a positive attitude on the part of the officials. At local level it was recognised that Russian Baptists were ‘our people’. Baptists did not become ‘ours’ through agreement with Communist ideas; as a rule none were Komsomol or Party 30 However, it is also true that a considerable part of them have emigrated to the economically prosperous Western countries, especially the USA, and live there now. A good many Russian Orthodox people have also emigrated to the West. 31 Testimony of former senior presbyter, V.V. Gorelov (INT, Los Angeles, California, USA, 2006). 32 See, for instance, Mitrokhin, Baptizm: Istoriya i Sovremennost ’, pp. 57-8. 33 Testimony of Baptist presbyter from Maikop, N.G. Man’ko (INT, Everett, Washington, USA, 2006). Prokhorov, Eastern Christian Self-Identification 31 members. But they were seen to share in general anti-Western feelings. 34 It is notable in this connection that those among the CCECB who appealed to Western public opinion for help did not enjoy the support of the majority of their brotherhood. 35 When deported from the Soviet Union, Georgi Vins began his famous press campaign in the USA in defence of persecuted Baptists in the USSR and in 1982 was even received by the President of the USA, Ronald Reagan. The leader of the CCECB, G.K. Kryuchkov, gave Vins a lecture, and in particular forbade him ‘going to presidents’. 36 In line with their somewhat emotional anti-Western feelings, Soviet Baptists often preferred to welcome Orthodox people and sometimes even Communists rather than Western evangelicals. A.T. Kharchenko, who was for many years a member of the Sukhumi community of CCECB and took an active part in ‘underground’ printing of evangelical literature, later said, ‘The Communist morality, in spite of its godlessness, was in a way higher than the Western, individualistic style of living, with its insensitivity to the life of the neighbour.’ 37 This kind of statement is not atypical, although other Baptists would not have gone so far. What they did have, however, was a feeling for sobornost [communalism] of the Russian Baptists. Because of their encouragement of the collective spirit, Communists (despite being oppressors of religion) were sometimes more native to the Baptist brotherhood and sisterhood, which was traditionally lived out in community. Russian Baptists certainly hoped for the religious liberty that was found in the West, yet at the same time the way this was expressed in the West was somewhat alien, owing to its individualistic basis. 38 A.V. Karev, the General Secretary of the AUCECB, who was tom between sympathy for the West and the East, nonetheless made his deepest feelings evident in 1957 in Bratsky Vestnik : .. .The inner, spiritual resour