Colonel V. A. Pashkov and the Late Nineteenth-Century Protestant Movement in Russia, Jan M. Surer, 1999

minated by the arrest and questioning of the visiting delegates. In June of that year Pashkov and Count Korf' refused to sign a pledge not to engage in any further preaching, participation in Bible- readings, or contact with other sects, and were banished as a result. 2 Well before Pashkov's exile, however, the beginnings of the government's efforts against the peasant practitioners of Stundism, Baptism, and Pashkovism became apparent. Sporadic clerical concern at the swift spread of Stundism from the late 1860's had led to some police supervision, harrassment, and short-lived arrests of leaders such as Ivan Ryaboshapka (arrested in 1867 and 1868). Brandenburg gives the date of the Stundists' first attempt at self-defense (a petition to the Governor-General of New Russia) as 1868. In 1873 Stundist leader Mikhail Ratushny petitioned the tsar in St. Petersburg. His petition included names of 61 fellow 2 Heier, p. 138; Stead, 367-71. According to Stead, Pashkov, Korf, and Princess Lieven proceeded with the conference despite the presentation in March of 1884 by General Orevsky, head of the political police under the Ministry of Internal Affairs, of a similar pledge not to preach, spread tracts, or receive the southern sectarians (Stead, p. 365). Following their banishment, the publications of Pashkov's society were also confiscated in St. Petersburg (Heier, pp. 139-40). 79 Stundists and said that 35 Stundists were then in prison. 3 An 1879 law allowed Baptists to preach and .to worship as they chose, but for decades it was uncertain whether Russian Baptists, as opposed to those of German descent, were included in these freedoms. 4 A subsequent law of May 1883 ended the classification of the sects that had been in place since 1842. Under the former system, sects were classified as less, more, or especially harmful. Their classification determined their members' rights. The Molokans and Dukhobors had merited the last category. 5 But the new law, with its reservation to the Minister of Internal Affairs of the right "to issue further regulations concerning these people in the light of local conditions and 'the' moral nature of the teaching and of the other characteristics of each sect,'" did not represent a gain for all sectarians. 6 Furthermore, it contained a stipulation against proselytization among the Orthodox, a charge that could easily be brought against the evangelical sectarians' missionary tendencies. Under this law, persecution intensified in the 1880's. The Stundists were declared "especially harmful" in 1894. As a result, their meetings were banned and their passports were marked. Employers of Stundists could be fined. They were denied funeral services and marriage registration, and 3 Brandenburg, pp. 76-78; 88. 4 Blane, p. 281. 5 Blane, pp. 280-82. 6 Blane, pp. 281-82. 80 many suffered imprisonment and exile. 7 Pashkov and his followers were among the targets of t