Journal of European Baptist Studies, Volume 7, No. 3, 2007

9 See Klimenko, Anfange, pp. 62-64. Penetration of the Baptists into the Russian Empire of the Nineteenth Century 45 personally? Was it so much on the spur of the moment when probably Tsimball was also baptized with a linen gown as the others? By the way, Unger left the same day for his home. At least Pritzkau could not be charged with illegally baptizing a Ukrainian, which could mean exile to Siberia. Whatever the circumstances, Tsimbal’s baptism led to a chain of baptisms that helped to establish the Stundo-Baptist movement among Ukrainians. Tsimbal soon baptized three others and then twenty-one more. One of Tsimbal’s candidates in 1870 was Ivan G. Ryaboshapka, who in turn in 1871 baptized Mikhail T. Ratushnyi of Ossnovo. Both Ryaboshapka and Ratushnyi became noted leaders in the new movment. Caucasus The migration in 1861 of Martin K. Kalweit (1833-1918) 1,800 miles from Congress Poland to the area of Tiflis (today Tbilisi in the country of Georgia), resulted, unforeseen at the time, in a significant projection of Baptist witness into the Caucasus. Kalweit was a German of Lithuanian extraction but born a Russian subject in Kovno Province near the Russian- German border. He was baptized in 1858 at Ickschen near Ragnit in East Prussia, not far from the Russian border. Ickschen was then a mission station of the great mission church at Memel. Kalweit arrived with his wife and two sisters, weary and poor, receiving a rather indifferent reception TO from his wealthy relatives. Kalweit felt very isolated and almost abandoned, even at first fearing the Russian people. He nevertheless established a time for worship. Some years later in July 1869 he wrote that his little group now numbered eleven with the addition of two newly baptized, including a Russian who was blind from infancy. In the services both German and Russian were used in word and song. But of great importance for the furtherance of the Baptist work in the Caucasus was Kalweit’s baptism, on 20 August 1867 (o.s.) in Tiflis of Nikita I. Voronin (1840—1905), a Molokan who was searching the scripture and wanted to be baptized. The Molokans were a native Russian sect that rejected the sacraments of the Orthodox Church. Voronin began preaching among his fellow Molokans and by 1871 had a group of ten. 30 For Kalweit’s early life and his arrival and early activity in the Tiflis area, see Baptist , August, 1908, pp. 20-22; Missionsblatt, October, 1868, p. 160, and September, 1869, pp. 129-32; Baptist Missionary Magazine, January, 1870, pp. 19-21; and Der Wahrheitszeuge, May 15, 1884, p. 109. 46 Journal of European Baptist Studies Kalweit’s group began to break up at this time and joined the Voronin body. 31 The Baptist work in the Caucasus recruited other outstanding converts who became leading evangelists. One was Ivan (Johann) V. Kargel, baptized in 1869 by Voronin, who, as already noted, became a German Baptist pastor in St.