Please note: Many of these articles appeared in the name of the Russian Evangelical Alliance - a few even in another name. The authorising body is always listed at the end of the piece.
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The Woes of Success
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Are Russian rehabilitation efforts “too successful”?
M o s c o w -- When visiting Baptist, Charismatic and Pentecostal congregations in Western Siberia, one will usually see an entire row of silent men between the ages of 20 and 50 without women or children. These are ex-addicts and ex-convicts who have found (or are finding) their way to Christ. It is reported that virtually all Baptist congregations in Western Siberia are involved in this work.
Rehabilitation centres allied with the Charismatic „Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith” (ROSKhVE) reported of 12.000 long-term “success stories” during the period from 1995 to 2005. If one includes the Baptists and Pentecostals, the total number of such converts for that period should top 20.000. (The ROSKhVE church umbrella has a membership of over 300.000.) ROSKhVE presently represents 350 rehab centres throughout Russia. Its centres can care simultaneously for 7.000 clients.
The St. Petersburg-based, Baptist “Dobry Samaryatin” (Good Samaritan) rehab ministry reports that in one area of Novosibirsk region alone, 600 of its clients have kicked the habit of drugs or alcohol and are now living completely sober lives. During the summer of 2008 in St. Petersburg region, 13 graduates of their programme married. St. Petersburg’s Mikhail Nevolin clams in the evangelical magazine “Mirt”: “Today, no sphere of Protestant social service enjoys nearly as much success as the work with drug addicts.”
Yet in response to this mounting success, Nevolin warns in the “Mirt” article from 30 January 2010 that “every coin has a flipside”. This influx of new converts is “remaking the social composition” of Protestant congregations. People released from jail or recovering from substance abuse have time on their hands. “Many of them are lonely and have no chance of obtaining a job, so they can devote more time to church life than others.” Nevolin hastens to add that ex-addicts are extremely welcome in Protestant circles, yet they are threatening to destroy the diversity of the flock. “Ideally, congregations should reflect the social composition of society in general.” He agrees that congregations targeting specific social groups do have their place, but they should be the exception and not the rule.
Nevolin fears a snow-ball effect resulting from this wave of new converts. Diversity is destroyed not only by an influx of new believers, but also by the ensuing flight of “ordinary folks who have never been associated with (former) drug addicts and criminals”. A congregation gets replaced rather than being increased. Where are the converts from the middle class, the writer asks. “Do they need the Gospel less than others?” He is hereby pointing to a quandary as old as Christendom itself. When inviting people to Christ, it is usually not the most desirable candidates, the successful and moneyed classes, who are first to accept the invitation.
Mikhail Nevolin notes the same “danger” within seminaries and Bible schools. Due to the lack of potential students, schools teaching theology are in no position to be selective in their choice of students. General speaking, he states: “Our young people are in no hurry to become pastors, missionaries or theologians”. This is undoubtedly linked to the scarcity of paid positions for graduates. Nevertheless, ex-convicts and drug addicts are as a rule eager to study theology. They tend not to have concrete plans for their lives and are more willing to adjust. They are less demanding, geographically more mobile and less hampered by family considerations. (But also less likely to emigrate.) Nevolin adds: “Those prepared to study are also supplied with food and living quarters.”
Somewhat akin to David Wilkerson’s “Teen Challenge” movement, the Charismatic, Krasnodar-based “Izhod” (Exit or Exodus) ministry has begun planting congregations which consist primarily of former addicts graduated from its rehab programme. These young congregations are known for their hierarchical, untraditional style rooted in the drug culture. They tend to prove the position stated by Professor Vladimir Lazarev of Moscow’s „Russian Academy of Natural Sciences“: “Narcotic addiction is more than just a morbid passion. It is also a way of life, a subculture with specific symbols, a language, values and norms of behaviour.”
The numbers in general
Russian academics describe substance abuse as one of the three greatest dangers facing modern civilization – the other two being atomic warfare and ecological calamity. Past reports have listed from two to four million of Russia’s 142 million citizens as suffering from drug addiction. This would amount at the very most to 2,8% of its population. A study from 2008 reports only 2,5 million addicts, 30.000 of whom die annually. Roughly 18% of them seek help in rehabilitation centres – about 500 of these centres are run by Protestants.
Protestant rehab programmes are known for their lack of medical expertise and medication. Clients are instead supplied with heavy dosages of Bible, prayer, confession and fellowship – beginning usually from day one. The largest Protestant ministry to addicts - the Charismatic “Novaya Zhizn” (New Life) ministry - has a centre with nearly 400 clients in Kingisepp region very near the Estonian border. Yet the typical centre has 15 or 20 clients and is located in a private dwelling in a distant village. Great stress is placed on empathy and the personal relationship with the client; all of Good Samaritan’s nearly 40 centres are headed by former addicts. Therapy programmes usually take from six months to a year; the longest ones can require a stay of two to three years. Good Samaritan reports that roughly half of those coming leave the therapy programme prematurely. Yet 60% of those graduating from the programme succeed in making a complete and long-term break with substance abuse. This adds up to a success rate of 30% among those who initially began treatment. Christian sources claim that state-run institutions in the East and West relying heavily on medication for drug withdrawal have long-term success rates to the order of 2%.
The stay at a Protestant rehab centre is usually free-of-charge to the client. ROSKhVE’s head, Bishop Sergey Ryakhovsky, states that 90% of programme costs are covered by the missions and churches themselves. A modest percentage of costs are recovered by the physical labour of clients on-location. State aid does occur on occasion, but can generally be described as minimal. Ryakhovsky reports that church-sponsored efforts usually occur despite, and not in cooperation with, local authorities.
The efforts of these anti-drug programmes are not limited to rehabilitation centres. Anti-drug activists are bad for business, and an Izhod worker in the south of Moscow recently lost teeth and suffered a fractured jaw when passing out invitation cards to addicts waiting to purchase illegal drugs. After ROSKhVE protested about a drugstore at Petrovsko-Razumovskaya metro station in the north of the city which was concocting ever-new poisons for Russia’s youth, municipal authorities shuttered the lucrative enterprise.
Non-Protestant reactions to these anti-drug efforts reach all across the map. A secular specialist has labelled the work at New Life’s centre in Kingisepp region “on par with the results of the very best Russian centres for addiction treatment”. New Life-Director Sergey Matevosyan was even called to the Kremlin in October 2005 and ceremonially presented with a medal by then-President Vladimir Putin. But two years later, a priest heading an Orthodox rehab centre in St. Petersburg, Maxim Pletnev, claimed that Protestant rehab centres were simply replacing one addiction with another. “They may be saving people from drugs,” he conceded. “But these people then display a dependency on the sect very similar to narcotic dependency.”
In the first two decades since communism, the politically-minded Moscow Patriarchate has initially addressed the top of Russia’s society – the successful and moneyed classes. This prioritization has given Protestants considerable room to serve the bottom fringe of society, especially in non-European Russia. (Yet Professor Lazarev calls it a stereotype to assume that substance abusers stem from the lower echelons of society and from dysfunctional families.)
Does, as Pletnev implies, the danger of indoctrination exist among Protestant efforts? Is a specificworldview being forced upon desperate people against their actual will? Does a kind of brain-washing occur? At what point is a client in danger of losing his or her personal will? Must the whole package be accepted, or can a person successfully graduate from a Protestant programme while still remaining Orthodox, Muslim, or atheistic? Are rehab centres often co-responsible when clients break off therapy prematurely? Dr. Alexander Negrov, Rector of “St. Petersburg Christian University”, reports on a worrisome tendency to use non-stop, marathon Bible reading as a remedy for temptation. Little research has been done on the theological content of Protestant therapy programmes. If funding were available, then Negrov would like to start.
Addresses:
New Life: www.newliferus.ru
Good Samaritan www.narcostop.org (has English)
Exodus (Izhod) ucxod.ru
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 29 December 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-30, 1.421 words, 1.942 keystrokes and spaces.
Moscow’s Russian-American Institute Confronted with Major Obstacles
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RAI has dropped its programme of undergraduate studies
M o s c o w -- The educational flagship of North American mainstream evangelicalism in Russia had landed on a sandbar and may be stranding. The heady dream of a Christian liberal-arts university initially proposed by Soviet-Russian educators visiting the US in 1990 is taking a serious beating. After a meeting of the Board of Trustees in Chicago, Moscow’s “Russian-American Institute” (RAI) announced on 19 November that it will be dropping its undergraduate (there is no graduate) studies programme. RAI is describing the change as a “refocusing” and “restructuring”, yet only an English-language programme as well as several courses in counselling, social work and ethics will initially remain. Stress will now be placed on non-degree, short-term evening courses. In a public statement on 15 December, RAI-Vice President Vladimir Obrovets asked the school’s local friends to propose courses that would be of particular interest and help to believers - RAI remains committed to serving Russia’s Christian community. Peter Smirnov, the institute’s Director of Student Development, pointed out that courses will now need to be funded almost strictly by their participants: “Students will value that which they will be required to pay.”
The school year had begun with 80 students in September – down from 160 two years previously. Only the dozen or so graduating before Summer 2011 will be able to continue now and complete their studies at RAI. The institute is helping interested students transfer to a successful sister school: the English-language, 650-student “LCC International University” located on the other side of the political and cultural divide in Klaipeda/Lithuania. Full-time, local staff has been reduced to 10; Dr. David Broersma, the school’s dedicated, long-time Provost, resigned as of 16 December. Most of RAI’s magnificent new building will be rented out to outside firms. A fitness centre has already moved into its expansive, brand-new gymnasium.
RAI-leadership fears government accreditation, which ran out in December 2008, may never be renewed. This makes the institution dramatically less attractive to prospective students. In its statement of 19 November, RAI implied that the demographic downturn has led to private schools competing with public ones for Russia’s few available students – and the government clearly desires preferential treatment for its own. Protestant seminaries are also hit hard by the lack of students. RAI’s President, Dr. John Bernbaum, stated in a letter: “The key issue are the decisions of the Putin-Medvedev government to protect public universities at the expense of small private schools. They are eliminating tax benefits and making an already uneven playing field even more lopsided. The changing of requirements by the Russian Ministry of Education makes a legal re-accreditation of small institutes impossible.”
Yet Russia’s three other Protestant institutions aspiring to be liberal arts universities soldier on. None of them enjoy government accreditation; 20-year-old “St. Petersburg Christian University “ is accredited internationally by the “University of Wales”. Krasnodar’s “Kuban Evangelical Christian University”, which was founded in 1992, claims 550 students – the majority of them in extension programmes. “Zaoksky Adventist University” in Tula region south of Moscow is known for its expansive campus and well-structured programme.
Unnamed sources report that RAI is also burdened with heavy North American debt. At its dedication on 27 May 2010, RAI’s imposing glass-and-brick centre at 40 Menzhinskogo Street in north-central Moscow was called the most beautiful and representative structure in all of Russian Protestantism. RAI-leadership refuses to disclose actual costs, but one source cites a cost overrun of 460% accrued during the nine-year-long construction period. The cost explosion was due perhaps most of all to location: Moscow is one of the world’s most expensive cities. RAI weathered at least 15 street demonstrations at its construction site, a barrage of negative reports in the media and bureaucratic hurdles during the years of construction. Will it also weather North American debt? Fundraiser par excellence John Bernbaum states unequivocally: “Construction debt was not a major factor in the decision to suspend the undergraduate program.“
In view of RAI’s long-term struggles, critical voices remain. Though often lambasted by Russian media as a “Baptist” institution, a number of its leading spokespersons, like President Bernbaum, are in fact Reformed. Indeed, RAI might be in better shape if it actually were Baptist. Though approving of the actual goal, one long-time observer calls it a mistake for RAI to attempt to relate equally to all of Russia’s Christian denominations. These include dissident Orthodox and the very-official Moscow Patriarchate. “In a sadly-divided and highly-stratified religious setting, one is forced to choose sides. One cannot be allied with both Charismatics and the Orthodox.”
“RAI is a victim of improper strategies,” a Baptist leader claims. “They should have identified themselves clearly as Protestant. If they would be unabashedly Protestant, then local Protestant support would be stronger. It was also a big mistake to drop ‘Christian’ from its name.” Until 2009, the institution had been known as “Russian-American Christian University” – or “Institute” in Russian. An unrepentant John Bernbaum assures: “We will continue to work with all Christians who are followers of Jesus Christ.”
RAI does not have a close working relationship with other Russian Christian universities and is presently somewhat alone in its struggle. Indeed, the institute is accused of being much more American than Russian. Its President admits that the demise of the undergraduate programme was also caused by “a lack of support for quality Christian higher education by Russians themselves. Russia-based support is and has been minimal and, in a global recession, American support cannot sustain itself without a corresponding match by Russians.”
A Russian Baptist journalist explained: “We have no tradition of liberal arts Christian education. It is not clear to students why they should study business in a Christian setting if they can get higher-quality instruction in a government institution.” He added: “Partnership with RAI (founded in 1995) has not yet happened. Their dream is so grand, far bigger than our own resources and capabilities.” The matter can be brought into perspective by citing the fact that continental Western Europe also has virtually no liberal-arts based Protestant universities.
RAI is one of 70 foreign learning institutions in 24 countries affiliated with the Washington D.C.-based “Council for Christian Colleges and Universities” (CCCU). The same connection is true for a semester-long Russian studies programme for North American students which has been operating at “Nizhny Novgorod State University” 440 km east of Moscow. The sadness of the hour is compounded by the total shut-down of this second CCCU project in December 2010. Though the dearth of student applications is given as the reason, 600 North Americans have participated in this programme since 1994. Countless positive relationships between Russians and young North American believers resulted – even marriages. Programme founder, Slavic Studies specialist and Kansas native Harley Wagler will continue on in Nizhny Novgorod for an interim period as part-time lecturer at the host university.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 22 December 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-29, 1.131 words, 7.518 keystrokes and spaces.
The Need to Coordinate Efforts
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The concerns of the Evangelical Alliance are alive in Kemerovo/Siberia
M o s c o w – The concerns of the Evangelical Alliance have been alive in the city of Kemerovo for no less than 10 years. That’s what three representatives from the German and Russian Evangelical Alliances discovered when they visited this West Siberian coal town 3.600 km (2.218 miles) east of Moscow on 19 and 20 November. On the occasion of their visit, 12 representatives from the Pentecostal, Charismatic, Adventist and Baptist churches gathered in the largest congregation belonging to the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”. Vitaly Bak, Senior Pastor of this congregation and head of the interconfessional “Pastors’ Council”, reported that this group has been meeting regularly for the past four years. “It is important that we coordinate our efforts”, he explained. Though Baptists have been present in this city for 95 years, relations with local Orthodox and communal officials remain troubled. After bringing construction materials valued at 15.000 euros ($19.500) onto a building site intended for a small conference centre last summer, a municipal order decreed that the project be dropped.
„We evangelicals get on well with each other,“ Pastor Bak assured. He added that interconfessional gatherings are occurring quarterly at which congregations and confessions are invited to introduce themselves – even Roman Catholics have participated. Private, interconfessional gatherings among pastors, to which their spouses are invited, are also taking place at Christmas. “Not only our pastors should get to know each other,” Bak explained. Unregistered Baptists and scattered Charismatic cells are the only Protestants not taking part in this interconfessional dialogue. That contrasts strongly with Novosibirsk, where most Baptist congregations are opposed to any cooperation with Charismatics and Pentecostals.
In Kemerovo, lay members often don’t listen well to their pastors and consequently hamper the work of the Evangelical Alliance. Many are bent on evangelisation and cannot stop even when meeting up with other evangelicals. So sheep stealing remains a common occurrence – an irritant not only for the Orthodox. These lay missionaries tend to major on fringe issues: the issue of baptism for Baptists, the Sabbath among Adventists and the Holy Spirit among Pentecostals and Charismatics. In Kemerovo, Ulrich Materne (Wittenberge), the German Alliance’s representative for Eastern Europe, kept repeating: “We must point to the centre - and that centre is Christ.”
As during Soviet times, travelling preachers remain capable of wreaking havoc with the best-laid plans of local pastors. That occurred recently when a preacher from Armenia visited his fellow countrymen within Kemerovo’s Baptist and Pentecostal congregations and for the time being brought an abrupt end to inter-congregational peace
In Moscow
Before flying to Kemerovo, Materne and Dr. Vladimir Ryagusov (Krasnodar), the Russian Evangelical Alliance’s unsalaried President, visited church leaders in Moscow. They were especially encouraged by meetings with the Methodist Bishop Hans Växby and the youthful Dietrich Brauer, Provisional Bishop of the “Evangelical-Lutheran Church of European Russia” (ELCER). He has held this position only since last summer.
The Russian Alliance’s upcoming annual conference promises to offer a colourful denominational mix: It is to take place in Moscow on 17 and 18 March 2011. The topic will be “The Contribution of Evangelical Christians to Contemporary Russian Society” – all are invited.
The Russian-language prayer booklet for the next, world-wide Alliance Prayer Week, which will take place from 9 to 16 January 2011, is to be sent out within the next number of days. Those needing copies can contact the Alliance’s English-speaking office manager in Moscow: the Methodist Svetlana Pochtovik (+7 916 152 8089 or „rea@pochta.ru“). It will soon also be possible to download and print the prayer booklet from the Alliance’s webpage: see “www.rea.org.ru”. Most Russian-language pages on this website are now complete – the English- and German-language pages are still under construction.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 27 November 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-28, 601 words, 4.052 keystrokes and spaces.
Unity Remains the Goal
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Lutheran developments in the West of the former Soviet Union
Report
M o s c o w – The neediness of the “Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Republic of Belarus” was apparent at a celebratory church service in Polotsk in the north-eastern section of the country on 12 September. At the outset of Communion, Richardas Dokshas, a Lithuanian clergyman from Vilnius, explained to the three or four native pastors where they needed to stand and included the cue, that they should wait until the end of Communion before themselves partaking of the bread and wine. Even the Bishop of this roughly eight-congregation-strong church, Vladimir Meyerson of Bobruisk, is not a trained theologian. The situation would probably be no better in the ex-German Russian enclave of Kaliningrad/Königsberg if its Lutherans would have needed to do without the countless visitors from Germany during the past two decades.
Perhaps the only Lutheran graduate of a theological school residing in Belarus does not belong to this denomination. It is the youthful Vladimir Tatarnikov - pastor in the large, St. Petersburg-based “Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Central Asia” (ELCROS, „www.elkras.ru“). He pastors the German-founded congregation with church building in Grodno as well as a small gathering in Vitebsk on the other - Eastern - end of the country.
Present developments on the much-visited turf of Kaliningrad region (once German East Prussia) offer little cause for optimism. The number of persons participating in church services is decreasing; the staff at Kaliningrad church headquarters has been largely replaced. In September, Alexander Maibach, a layperson who had over many years proven his talent for working with the young, emigrated to Germany along with his extended family.
Very recently, an emergent „Russian Orthodox Church“ is pushing to obtain ownership of 15 former Evangelical and Catholic churches in the Kaliningrad enclave. The historic churches in Druzhba (Allenburg), Vladimirovo (Tharau) and Slavsk (Heinrichswalde) have already been transferred to its ownership. The final verdict remains out on the partially-renovated churches in Gvardeyskoye (Mühlhausen), Marino (Arnau) und Turgenyevo (Gross Legitten). All of these involve the past labour and finances of German supporters and foundations. All are regarded as East Prussian cultural monuments – only rarely (except for Druzhba) do they intersect with the work of the small, neighbouring Lutheran congregations. Baptists have been struggling since 1994 to obtain access to their one-time chapel, now used by secular firms, in Yantarny (Palmnicken). A new development for the entire Russian Federation is the (provisional) joint Baptist-Orthodox usage of an Orthodox church. The edifice in Lipetsk was returned to the Orthodox after being restored by the Baptists. One would think that this model is applicable elsewhere.
Regarding church affairs
Kaliningrad region enjoys a rare luxury: All of its roughly 45 Lutheran congregations belong to the same denomination. All are part of ELCROS’ regional division – the “Evangelical-Lutheran Church of European Russia” (ELCER). Thanks to the influence of the conservative and sacramentalist-oriented „Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod“, virtually all Belarusian congregations abandoned ELCROS around the turn of the millennium. Their current union, the afore-mentioned “Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church” („byluther.org“), is supported by Missouri and an even more conservative denomination: the “Wisconsin Evangelical-Lutheran Synod”.
Russia alone has four Lutheran denominations – but the US has at least twice that number. The “Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Ingria in Russia” (ELCIR „www.elci.ru“), which is supported by Finnish and Estonian churches, came into being in 1992. The other two denominations are the “Siberian Evangelical-Lutheran Church” (“www.lutheran.ru”), which is based in Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk, and the largely-isolated “Evangelical-Lutheran Church of the Augsburg Confession in Russia” (“www.luther.ru”) formed in 2007. The creation of both denominations is due largely to the existence of two potent and vocal personalities: Bishop Vsevolod Lytkin in Akademgorodok und Church President Vladimir Pudov in Moscow. Lytkin has apparently succeeded in his attempt to create Russia’s most conservative and confessionalist Lutheran denomination. Yet Pudov’s church is concerned about proving its patriotism and freedom from ethnic constrictions. A creedal paper published by this church states for ex.: “Military service is the citizens’ sacred calling.” Pudov himself worked for the KGB during the 1980s. That is one reason why the break-up of one of their church services by heavily-armed police in Kaluga on 28 February 2010 can only be understood as a grave misunderstanding. Police reported that their intention had been to break up a terrorist organisation.
Lytkin’s church has roughly 20 congregations; Pudov’s may have as many as 10. The Ingria church reports that it has 15.000 members and 75 congregations. ELCROS is reported to have 120 congregations. Using the same ratio as used by Ingria, this would result in a membership of 24.000. Yet the actual number of members might exceed 40.000.
ELCROS is also not theologically unified within its own ranks. Nearly simultaneous with the restoration of the steeple of Moscow’s massive St. Peter-and-Paul Cathedral this past summer, Dietrich Brauer began his service as ELCER’s Provisional Bishop. Brauer, who moved from Gussev (Gumbinnen) in the Kaliningrad enclave to Moscow in order to take on the position, describes ELCROS as consisting largely of three different movements. The pietistic, “Brethren” tradition of backroom gatherings is confronted by a high-church tradition preferring enormous churches with pealing bells and flashy organs. The now aging, frequently German-speaking and laity-led “Brethren” congregations had survived for decades in the Siberian underground. Yet the young appear most attracted by the unique acoustic and visual options offered by the imposing church structures in major cities such as Petersburg, Moscow and Samara/Volga. These youthful adherents of “high-church” religion think in sacramental and confessional terms similar to those of the Missouri Synod and the German “Independent Evangelical-Lutheran Church” (SELK). A third, smaller grouping could be described as theologically “liberal” and is most obvious there where church representatives from Germany are still active: St. Petersburg and the nearby seminary of Novosaratovka, Kaliningrad region and Vladivostok. But the pietistic, Brethren movement also has strong German support: see for ex. the work of the Marburger (Saratov) and Liebenzeller (Yekaterinburg) missions as well as the Puschendorf diaconic fellowship (Kaliningrad region).
The present Archbishop, August Kruse (born 1941), is a leading spokesman of the Brethren movement. He replacing the German citizen Edmund Ratz as Archbishop in September 2009 is one expression of ELCROS’ desire to be represented by its own native leaders. Dietrich Brauer’s (born 1983) election as ELCER’s Provisional Bishop is an additional indication of this trend. Brauer is also no advocate of a high-church and strongly confessionalist movement. He reports that a joint ELCROS-ELCIR (Ingria) committee formed under Lutheran World Federation auspices will foster the converging of these two churches. ELCIR’s confessionalist and separatist orientation already has many followers within ELCROS. The „Luteranskie Vesti“ news service is already produced jointly. Brauer predicts: “Perhaps we will have a joint seminary within the next 15 years.” Its two seminaries are already suffering – as are nearly all of Russia’s Protestant seminaries – from a lack of students. The Provisional Bishop states clearly: “It of course remains our goal to form a single Lutheran church in Russia.”
The issue of women’s ordination promises to remain a never-ending one. Already in 1994, the current Lutheran Archbishop of Latvia, Janis Vanags, had campaigned for the position with the assurance that he would not be ordaining women. Archbishop Kruse is also strongly opposed to such ordinations. Yet the Moscow’s Provisional Bishop supports the opposite position – his own spouse, Tatyana Petrenko, is an ordained theologian. Yet she has no concrete pastoral role in Moscow. Otto Schaude (born 1944) has been Bishop of the world’s largest Lutheran church in territorial terms – the Omsk-based “Evangelical-Lutheran Church in the Urals, Siberia and the Far East” – since October 2010. Though he enjoys pietism’s highest credentials as long-time chairman of South Germany’s „Altpietistischer Gemeinschaftsverband Württemberg“, he strongly supports the retention of women’s ordination. This results in the fact that only certain bishops are available to celebrate ordination services for women. The West’s supporting churches, such as Germany’s EKD and SELK as well as the Missouri Synod, have not been above the withholding and granting of funding based on the recipient’s position regarding the ordination of women. Over 20 women are serving as pastors in ELCROS; nearly all other female pastors on Russian soil are to be found within Charismatic and Methodist circles.
The retired but respected 80-year-old Siegfried Springer (from Bad Sooden-Allendorf/Germany) remains on-call for fire alarms in critical conflicts. He was the ELCER’s Bishop until 2007 and is visiting Moscow during the present week.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 16 November 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-27, 1.386 words, 9.471 keystrokes and spaces.
Flying in Below the Radar
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Russian Protestants and the problem of finances
Commentary
M o s c o w -- After a meeting with 60 youth in Moscow two years ago, John Riley, an Arizona-based worker for „Crown Financial Ministries”, concluded that the Baptist youth of Russia are also caught up in the spirit of materialism and consumerism. “All of them wanted iPhones and automobiles, all of them were after the good life demonstrated to them by the new rich.” In an interview at Moscow Theological Seminary on 15 October 2010, he reported that Western-style advertising has been hugely successful in creating artificial need among Russians.
Phil LaBarbera, a second Arizonian who taught at the Crown seminar in Moscow, believes Russians may be even more eager to demonstrate their wealth than are US-Americans. “Yet those in America or Russia who want to show their wealth most often don’t have it. They portray themselves as something they really are not. But I also know extremely wealthy people back home who walk around in jeans and T-shirts. They can do so because there identity is in Christ, and not in their possessions.”
Anatoly Musiyenko, a Crown staff member based in Kiev, added that most pastors are not in a position to teach the young on issues of consumption. Their own finances are often as disordered and unplanned as those of their parishioners. They too struggle with unpaid debt. Leaders have not yet begun teaching on the Biblical principles of finance – such temptations were much smaller during the high-cash and low-merchandise, “forced savings” conditions of the communist era.
LaBarbera noted that Russian Baptists have in their teaching created strong barriers against substance abuse and sexual license. Yet the temptation of materialism “flies under the radar” of Baptist mores. They are “afraid of talking with authority about something they themselves have not yet mastered”. Nevertheless, financial practices form a major portion of our Christian witness. Defaulting on loans or going bankrupt is a very negative testimony to the watching world.
The Crown ministry is no friend of the world’s money lenders. Loans – even for a business endeavour – should be accepted only if sufficient private cushion is available. “Never buy now because of a planned increase in income,” LaBarbera admonished. “Never endanger your family.” Unpaid debt can be a form of slavery, greatly hampering the happiness of Christian families. He suggested: “If you want to buy something costing over $100, pray about it with your spouse and then wait 30 days.” Personal loans are especially sinister, for they make longed-for consumer goods immediately accessible.
Crown Financial Ministries accepts no loans and acts only after sufficient donations have been collected. This makes them largely independent of the up-and-down cycles of a capitalist economy. Its website (“www.crown.org” or “www.crown.org.ua” in Russian) states: “Crown believes that one of the ways God can give direction is through the provision (or withholding) of funds.” Accepting loans can distort God’s plans for realising our hopes.
The speakers noted that Rick Warren’s “Saddleback Church” in California also stresses freedom from debt: His congregation constructed its first church building only after it had attained a membership of 15.000. Citing the fact that the ancient church had thrived in the catacombs of Rome, it was not easy for the guests to accept the necessity of quick church construction in Eastern Europe. John Riley warned: “Satan may use your excitement about a new building to misuse you later in ways you would never have imagined.”
Listeners protested that the political conditions in Russia are very different: Baptists are usually regarded as sectarian. Cases exist in which churches have been built for congregations consisting of less than 15 members. In Belarus for ex., religious worship outside of a building registered for church usage is officially prohibited.
One very international issue discussed on 15 October was the matter of corruption. Phil LaBarbera noted in a conversation that a father does not sin when he gives a bribe for access to medical treatment for his sick daughter. “That man is no more of a sinner than a slave is for being a slave to his master. Being forced to give a bribe due to oppression is not sin. But giving a bribe to create a comfortable shortcut for yourself is very questionable.” In addition, accepting payment or a salary for a service which exceeds the actual value of the service rendered is highly problematic. Usually, the person paying is doing so in hopes of obtaining a special favour – that the recipient be silent about something questionable for ex.. Such cases are clear instances of bribery.
LaBarbera added that our responsibility for probing into the source of donations we receive is limited. If it is clear to him that a donation stems from the lottery, he will return it to the donor. The same is true for a fake donation given only to avoid taxes. “Some things are always wrong.” Yet if a very wealthy Russian Christian pays someone an appropriate price for a service rendered, the person paid does not need to feel guilty, for he does not know the actual source of that money. God is the one who judges the thoughts and intents of the heart. “We dare not put ourselves in his place.” One size does not fit all – much giving and receiving can only be judged by the specific situation in which it occurs. After his conversion, Zacchaeus donated funds that he had earned in an evil and unjust way. “Who can say that a donor’s heart has not been changed? No human in a church can make that call.”
Giving should be done responsibly, yet we also have only a limited responsibility to probe into the outcome of our donations, for the donor’s blessing occurs at the very moment the donation passes from donor to recipient. Riley asked: “If I give a homeless man $5, am I then morally required to follow him around for 30 days to make sure he does’t buy vodka?” Yet in a clear case, when a person smells of alcohol, one should buy that person bread instead. Riley complained that many Russian believers use the suspicion of misuse as an excuse to give nothing at all to panhandlers. They thereby miss out on the opportunity of a great blessing for themselves. The primary issue is or own generosity, the Crown team insisted. The blessing is always greater for the giver; it’s the donor’s salvation that is involved when a donation is given.
Generosity is the key
Generous giving is a lifestyle, John Riley insisted. “Generosity will change your attitude to your poverty. It can be very addictive. It takes the focus off ourselves.” He criticised the “Prosperity Gospel” as a distortion, for it assumes that the blessings of God in return will be of a material nature. “Most of the reward will be in peace and joy.”
He also criticised “reactionary giving” – giving as a response to specific needs – as short-term in nature. After an intensive program to fund a specific project - the building of a new structure for the church for ex. - giving will return to its former, low level. Yet a pastor’s teaching of generosity has long-term results and makes the formulation of reliable church budgets possible. “Simply teach the truth,” he insisted. “God will water the congregation as the pastor teaches generosity. “
Despite the danger of legalism, Riley views the tithe as a basic element of Christian life. Refusing to tithe means one is not trusting God to provide. Attitude is also vital. “We always have an attitude of scarcity in the church,” he reported, “but that is not God’s way. His way is one of joy and celebration.” In the Bible, tithes were brought to the altar as an expression of joy and celebration. That celebration occured within the community of the congregation.
Riley decries the rapid growth of parachurch organisations, for he sees them as having destroyed the sacred community of the local church as a decision-making body. Local church councils no longer have the power to decide on how best to support local and international needs – parachurch organisations have taken over the task. Or more precisely: The donor no longer trusts his local church to decide over the usage of the funds he donates. He/she makes that decision alone in the privacy of his own home and then donates money to the parachurch organisation of choice.
Designated giving – donating to a specific cause determined by the giver - is another expression of the movement away from congregation-centered decision-making. Designated giving usurps the power of the local community to decide on the proper usage of donations. Riley does not rule out giving to parachurch organisations, but it should occur beyond and over the tithe. The tithe belongs to and should be celebrated in the local church community. The Arizonan consequently believes missionaries should be asking church boards – not individuals – for funding.
Elders and church boards are also of vital importance to the spiritual well-being of pastors and organisational leaders. “Leaders must always receive council from a board or from trusted individuals. One person alone making decisions on large amounts of money makes him an open field for the attacks of Satan. Many, many pastors in the US have been caught up in corruption by not following the guidelines of clear accountability.”
How rich are Russia’s Protestants?
At what level of income can the Protestants of Russia afford to become a giving church? When can it be expected to donate more to foreign causes than it receives from foreign sources? Russia places 71st on the Human Development Index for 192 countries; Belarus is at position 68. Brazil, which has donated to mission causes in Russia, is located at position 75; Ukraine is at 85.
That question is virtually unanswerable. But the real issue is not the material wealth of a given church, but rather its generosity. How willing is a church to give of itself in every way to others? Crown insists that large amounts of potential funding remain untapped within the Christian church. Its studies suggest that giving increases 72% after Crown has done a teaching series in a congregation: “It simply pays to teach the truth.” Riley claimed that two out of three church members in the US still do not contribute any funding:
The root parachurch organisations forming Crown Financial Ministries, a Georgia-based ministry focusing on the teaching of Biblical financial practices, were founded in 1976 and 1985. The merged organisation received its present name in 2000. Crown now has 80 full-time staff and is active in roughly 85 countries. Its Ukrainian branch is headed by Anatoly Musiyenko; Anatoly Stepanov is active in Moscow and Viktor Bozhenko in Volgograd. Yelena Prokopovich is responsible for Belarus.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 22 October 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-26, 1.777 words, 10.721 keystrokes and spaces.
Good News Church Attains Double Digits
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Rick Renner still active in Moscow
A Report
M o s c o w -- It was a Baptist woman who first pointed me to the existence of “Rick Renner Ministries”. Six years ago, I asked her which Moscow church she would recommend to a searching young lady from a completely secular background. But I was not so reckless as to send the young woman there – I sent myself instead. My initial impression was that this ministry is a total transplant from Oklahoma, the home state of Tulsa-born Rick Renner (born 1958). Where else in Russia can one find a Protestant organisation offering hard rock and performance dancing plus beauty tips and fashion shows for the ladies?
But is it just to dismiss Rick Renner and his “Good News Church” as strictly foreign? The Charismatic movement has obviously struck a chord in the hearts of some Russians. Though it celebrated only its 10th birthday on 12 September, Renner’s 3.000-member congregation qualifies as Moscow’s second-largest Protestant gathering. Matts-Ola Ishoel’s “Word of Life Bible Center”, which stems from the Swedish Charismatic movement of Ulf Ekman, has over 3.500 members. Except for the sermon by Renner and a three-minute slot for speaking in tongues, nearly everything presented at Good News Church is in Russian.
The Charismatic movement of Russia may have as many as 400.000 adult adherents – most of them gathered within ROSKhVE, the “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith.” (This union is not to be confused with the traditional Pentecostal “Russian Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith”, out of which it arouse in the 1990s.) ROSKhVE is above all a legal entity for negotiations with the state. It cannot be described as a church, for it is divided into diverse groups, each having its own leading personalities. Renner is part of a “Good News” association claiming to unite 700 congregations within the region of the former USSR, yet the association operates within Russia under the broad umbrella of ROSKhVE. The continuing access of the Renner family to Russian visas can well be attributed to the diplomatic skills and connections of ROSKhVE-Bishop Sergey Ryakhovsky.
Good News Church may qualify as Charismatic, yet the assumed spontaneity is carefully orchestrated. The frequent commands from up front include: “stand up”, “sit down”, “clap” and “greet your neighbour”. The service on 5 September included Renner’s command: “Ask your neighbours how you can pray for them!” Since the complete stranger next to me could have been an emissary from the Taliban, we both chose to remain silent.
But how does the Charismatic movement connect with the Russian psyche? Good News Church’s loud, precision presentation of music and dance reminds one more of a Red Square parade than of the incense-spiced melancholy of a serene, candle-lit Orthodox service. At least both Orthodox and Charismatics appear rooted in the traditional Russian preference for the irrational, for mysticism and magic. “Pray this prayer seven times, and then God will . . . “ has been a typical Russian folk approach to Christian faith. In Charismatic terms, that is expressed for ex. as: “Pay your tithe and God will . . .” If you do “A”, “B” will follow. Think too of the mystical power of icons, relics and holy water – Charismatics use handkerchiefs.
The Charismatic call to the Gospel is very direct. It is fuelled by the burning expectation that God will act. “God just gave me a word of prophecy,” claimed Renner in the September service. Charismatics are not known for their modesty: The deeds of God and the misdeeds of humankind are clearly named. The cessationist and dispensationalist theology of many Russian Baptist congregations approaches faith from the opposite end. Cessationism claims that the miraculous gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased after the founding of the 1st-century church. Such a mind-based theology appealing strictly to the Biblical text offers the comforting, intellectual assurance that one has been saved for all of eternity. The Charismatic faith is much more immediate and direct; it’s for those who relish excitement and high-level adrenaline.
One secret of Charismatic material success must surely be its effective preaching of the tithe. On 5 September there were three offerings, the first one was, as usual, preceded by a pep talk on the tithe. In that brief sermon, Renner assured that refusing to pay the tithe was “robbing God”. The only possible conclusion of his talk was that listeners were robbing God if they did not pay their tithes to Rick Renner Ministries. Yet this tithe is in the end painless, for it is more of a business investment than a selfless sacrifice. Charismatics stress that God will repay one manifold for a tithe. God is loyal and true and an investment in Him will perform better than any stock market. For the Charismatic “Prosperity Gospel”, the accumulation of wealth is proof for the validity of a given ministry. Except for Charismatics and Adventists, few Russian Protestants preach tithing.
An additional source of income is the strong market for self-help Christian literature. Good News Church markets a wide variety of books, most of which are translations from the English. In a video on the Internet, Renner confirms that the storied evangelist Kenneth Copeland has been a strong financial supporter of the Moscow effort from the beginning and lauds Copeland for his copious Christian stewardship (see www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOTaMI7TVG0). Copeland, who has repeatedly been under US-government scrutiny for tax evasion, owns an airport at Ft. Worth/Texas and, as of 2007, two executive jets. One of them is a Cessna Citation X valued at 20 million dollars. Rick Renner Ministries runs the Moscow offices of another multi-millionaire Charismatic: Joyce Meyer of Missouri.
Renner, who began his European ministry in Riga in 1991, now also heads a three-year-old, 1.200-member congregation in Kiev. He proved his political savvy by steering clear of political landmines during the period of heightened political tensions between Moscow and Kiev prior to the election of Viktor Yanukovich. Renner has sharply criticised Sunday Adelaja, the Nigerian-board head of what is claimed to be Europe’s largest congregation: Kiev’s “Embassy of God” which once had perhaps 25.000 members. Adelaja, who was accused of major financial irregularities in late 2008, has also claimed to be a father of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution”.
Critical Questions
Judged by a showing of hands at the September service, less than 10% of “Good News Church’s” members have been believers for as long as 10 years. This seems to indicate that the vast majority of members came from a secular background. But the lack of long-term believers very likely also indicates that a person converted at Good News will not stay for as long as a decade. Charismatics are known for strong turnovers, for a constant coming-and-going. Baptists and the Orthodox should probably not be complaining about proselytism – many persons converted in Charismatic circles will still end up as members of the Orthodox or Baptist faiths.
Departures are due in part to the fact that Charismatics offer their followers a finished, cut-and-dried package. Issues of leadership and church ministry are already decided. At least on the level of the public Sunday service, the regular church member is required to do nothing more than donate funds. And sadly, in addition, many are disappointed that the promises they have been given remain unfulfilled. Intimacy within the congregation seems weak. A US-author writes: Leaders are “gunning for success rather than intimacy with their sheep”. Most attendees at Good News do not appear to know each other.
Space is always at a premium in Moscow, and the Good News Church has been announcing the construction of its new edifice for years. In his preaching, Renner has compared it to Solomon’s temple. That extremely expensive and politically-complicated effort has apparently fallen on hard times. For five months now, the entire congregation has been meeting in a small congress hall on the eastern edge of the city. Its diminutive size has forced the expansion from two to four Sunday services. Renner admits that the completion of their new building is at least several years away.
Rick Renner and his wife Denise, both are described as the congregation’s “senior pastors”, do not engage in inter-confessional relations. Several years ago, the requests of a Lutheran bishop for a get-acquainted visit went unanswered. Due to this lack of correction from other church quarters, Charismatics tend to offer wide zones for “theological creativity” and heresy. Renner carries the title of “Apostle” – far beyond that of a simple “Bishop”. That office is rejected by some Charismatic groups such as Moscow’s “Tushino Evangelical Church”.
Characteristics worthy of consideration
In late August in a mid-sized Baptist church west of Moscow, a pastor admitted in his sermon that he possessed neither computer nor email address. Due to the possibility of negative influences from society, he concluded it was better to remain so. Renner’s sermon on 5 September began with a greeting for the TV and Internet audiences. Rick Renner Ministries understands the power of media. Its webpages are thoroughly professional in appearance; the precision-orchestrated church services and sermons are thoroughly prepared and ready for broadcast. Here there is no room for the prayers of sobbing grandmothers and the recitation of homespun poetry so prevalent in the Russian Baptist tradition. At Good News Church, most people can only help shape their cell group at home or work behind the scenes at church. Yet in return, they get a professionally-produced worship “product” worthy of serious listening.
Attendance is not recommended for those preferring privacy and anonymity. Papers and pens are in circulation and an attendee can expect to have been relieved of name and address within the first hour. Email and mobile phones keep members and cell groups connected in a hopelessly overcrowded city.
I am ambivalent as to whether the traditional Baptist or the Charismatic form of church service is better. Both offer major strengths and weaknesses.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 15 September 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
A release of the Russian Evangelical Alliance. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of Alliance leadership. Release #10-25, 1.631 words, 10.183 keystrokes and spaces.
Retaining Purity of Faith
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RUECB-President Alexey Smirnov speaks out on the past and present
Report
M o s c o w -- Alexey Vassilevich Smirnov, new President of the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christian-Baptists” (RUECB), grew up in a house in which the rooms kept getting bigger and bigger. Smirnov was born in 1955 – the same year his father, Vassily Yakovlevich Smirnov, built a dwelling for his wife and their seven surviving children in the industrial town of Dedovsk, 38 km north-west of Moscow. The evolving floor plan was due to the fact that the building was also used as a church. As early as 1956, the house had room for as many as 100 worshippers. “My childhood was happy,” reports Rev. Smirnov, “for I was born into a Christian family. The problems only began when my father and his older brothers became very active in the evangelical movement.”
When Stalin permitted the re-opening of Moscow’s “Central Baptist Church” in 1943, his communist government intended that it remain the sole Protestant church anywhere near the vicinity of Moscow. But the believers had other intentions, and as early as 1947 Smirnov’s father began to hold prayer meetings in near-by Dedovsk.
Tensions with the state came to a head in 1961 when five leading brethren, including Smirnov’s father, were sentenced to prison terms in Siberia. A gathering so near to Moscow had been a painful thorn in the flesh of the KGB. The state made the court proceedings as public as possible by holding them in Dedovsk’s biggest House of Culture. Alexey Smirnov reports: “Serious anti-Baptist propaganda was about - Baptists were said to be American spies, they ate children, etc. So the entire square in front of the House of Culture was packed with people prior to the proceedings. When our leaders were led through the crowd to the House, it was only the protection of the militia which kept them from getting lynched.” In 1964, the government suddenly discovered that the jailings were unconstitutional and released all five. Yet none of the confiscated church property was returned. Nearly half a century later, this congregation was permitted to hold a Christmas service in the very same room in which its leaders had once been sentenced.
Two years after the release of its leaders, the Dedovsk congregation split. A part remained with the state-registered “All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”; the other group, to which Smirnov’s parents belonged, joined the 1961-founded, unregistered and underground “Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”. “The split went right through the middle of our families,” he recounts. “We were all related and we children continued to play with each other.” One of his uncles remained a superintendent (Starshy Presbyter) in the registered union. He concludes: „From the time of the split in 1966 until 1987, our Dedovsk congregation was in a state of continual persecution.”
In April 1987, just after Mikhail Gorbachev dropped a bombshell announcing the freeing of all prisoners of conscience, Smirnov and a small group began to evangelise on the Arbat - Moscow’s primary pedestrian zone. By 1991, the group had developed a strategy for planting congregations along the east-west rail line heading through Dedovsk in the direction of Riga/Latvia. Believers were soon meeting in 11 locations. The community has always stressed work among children: Today, it has the “Rucheyok” children’s camp further out on the rail line near Rumyantsevo as well as children’s and youth work in a Dedovsk House of Culture.
Strangely, the unregistered “Council of Churches”, to which this Dedovsk community belonged, demanded they stop evangelising immediately. Smirnov explains: The Council “felt that true freedom hat not arrived, that our actions were only pouring water onto the mill wheels of the communist authorities and thereby helping to deceive the world community”. But the group refused to stop evangelising and was consequently expelled. In 1993, the group chose the name “Association of Brethren Churches” (ABC), under which it registered with the state four years later. Today, it consists of nearly 20 congregations. Despite its name, the ABC is a church within the Baptist tradition – not the Brethren one.
Now, not unlike some other Russian cities, Dedovsk sports four “flavours” of Baptist - with none of them belonging to the largest and best-known RUECB. Yet Alexey Smirnov calls Dedovsk a “centre of Baptist life”. The unregistered congregation stemming from the split of 1966 still has 150 mostly elderly members; the more dynamic congregation of Alexey Smirnov and Peter Rumachik has roughly 250 in attendance. The congregation which had remained with the registered All-Union Council in 1966 also joined the ABC. A fourth congregation, founded in 1995, also belongs to the ABC. Smirnov explains: “We all have different styles, but we have a single theology. We do have various approaches to worship.
The Public Council
Alexey Smirnov, who headed the ABC and its predecessor community for three consecutive three-year terms beginning in 1991, was a leading spokesman of the movement for cordial relations with the RUECB and other Baptist groups. “Our position began to develop gradually after 1990,” he recalls. “There was nothing sudden or spontaneous about it.” During the 1990s, six of its pastors were educated at the RUECB’s theological school in Moscow.
When Moscow’s “Public Council” was formed in 2006, Alexey Smirnov and Yuri Sipko, then President of the RUECB, were two of the leaders who pushed most for its founding. Today, approximately 10 Baptist-style denominations as well as mission societies and organisations
gather under its wide umbrella. “We have not attempted to form a kind of super union,” Smirnov assures. “The basis of our unity is a common theology and Baptist principles,” and the Public Council’s role is to reflect and support that unity. Institutional unity is not one of its objectives. Yet Alexey Smirnov does not want to exclude the possibility that the ABC might yet officially join the ranks of the RUECB. “I am no longer a member of the ABC’s leadership team,” he explains. “I’m only pastor in a congregation belonging to the ABC. But I see no insurmountable problems which would keep us from joining.”
Undoubtedly, Yuri Sipko was appreciative of Alexey Smirnov’s attempts to foster greater unity, to gather together the different “pieces of Baptist”. This was one reason why Sipko asked him to join the RUECB-team. In 2006, Smirnov moved into the RUECB’s Moscow headquarters to head up its new department for the care of pastors.
Smirnov does not limit the call for Baptist unity to the Russian world. He stresses that the movement in Russia is “part of the world evangelical movement of Baptists. We do not separate ourselves from the basic theological positions of all Baptists. We may differ on practical issues when interpreting Scripture, but as Baptists we remain part of a single whole. When we appreciate each other’s dignity and qualities, then we are also able to begin addressing each other’s mistakes. If that can occur, then it will indeed be a precious form of cooperation.” He continues: Russian Baptists “must though on the other hand remember after 70 years of captivity that Christianity consists of much more than just Russian Christianity. Some developments elsewhere do not please us, but they help us to understand that God is truly sovereign. It is he who determines who his children are – not we. That realisation helps us to view the Christian world more broadly.”
After many decades of mere survival in a hostile world, of being alien and not belonging, Alexey Smirnov believes Baptists no longer regard themselves as second-class citizens. Their attributes, gathered during the many years of suffering, can now serve as a positive light to Russian society and the world in general. Being forced to live apart from society has allowed Russian Baptists to remain true to their principles, to retain a „purity of faith which remains the special feature of Russian Baptism up to the present”. In a free society, church and society are forced to relate, and the church feels obliged to make compromises in order to achieve common understandings. “But the Russian church can through its example prove the need to stand up for one’s convictions and faith.” Smirnov believes Baptists consequently represent “the best segment of Russian society in every respect: personal life, morality, work, family and in its relations with the state”. He describes Evangelical Christians-Baptists as “patriots”; if the government obeys its own constitution, “then we indeed are the nation’s best citizens”.
Pastor Smirnov believes evangelicals must honour the Orthodox for their role in bringing Christianity to Russia. In the last century, all Christians suffered jointly: “They too sat in prison for their beliefs.” But he regrets that the state decided after 1990 to determine which Christian faith was the proper one. On the issue of moral values he sees complete agreement between Baptists and Orthodox. When there are theological differences, the two sides should sit down, “take the Bible into their hands and dialogue in a brotherly spirit”. He attributes past antagonism to “ignorance on both sides” and concludes by stating: “It is my desire that all who call themselves Christian might truly become believers.”
Personal matters
Alexey Smirnov has a modest, calm and low-key style. He stresses that he never actively sought a position in church leadership. “I never even planned to be a pastor,” he insists. “I only wished to serve the Lord and fulfil his will. I never tried to get myself elected into leadership positions, but others kept voting me in.”
As the RUECB’s head since last March 24, Smirnov is proving to be a very busy man. But the pastor is no stranger to “busyness”. When his first wife died in March 1998 after a six-year illness, he was left with six sons born between 1979 and 1992, a secular job and his church tasks. A year-and-a-half later he married Inna Nikolayevna (Smirnova). She’s obviously a courageous woman with trust in God - through her marriage she became not only a wife, but also a mother to many. She also serves as her husband’s most avid prayer supporter and aid.
Dr. William Yoder
Department for External Church Relations, RUECB
Moscow, 03 September 2010
A release of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. Release #10-24, 1.674 words, 10.283 keystrokes and spaces.
Brown versus Green?
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Russian Protestant leader is embroiled in a struggle over trees and ideology
Commentary
M o s c o w -- On 15 July, a major Protestant-owned firm, “Teplotekhnik”, began tree clearance in Khimki Forest just outside north-central Moscow. The firm has until 1 September to cut a 43-kilometre-long, up to 100-meter-wide swath through the forest. Forty-thousand trees are to be felled; detractors claim that 90% of Khimki Forest will be destroyed. But this is no simple collection of trees: In the last five years, Khimki has become a leading Russian symbol of the ecological and ideological struggle between the state and grass-roots movements much like Gorleben in Germany or Three Mile Island in the USA. The stretch through Khimki is part of a much-needed, new toll way running between Moscow and St. Petersburg.
This struggle has pitted Greenpeace, the dissident daily “Novaya Gazeta” (the paper of the assassinated Anna Politkovskaya), the politician Garry Kasparov, the Russian “Solidarnost”, the radio station “Echo Moskvy”, the “Leftist Front”, the pro-Stalinist “National Bolshevist Party” (“Limonovtsy”) and the rock star Shevchuk against the ruling elite: the Kremlin, the Khimki city council - and Alexander Semchenko. Semchenko, sole proprietor of the “Teplotekhnik” heating and construction firm, has served as Bishop of the small, 26-congregation-strong “Union of Churches of Evangelical Christians” since 2008.
Since 15 July, “low-intensity warfare” in the Forest and in front of Khimki city hall has seen a motley array of masked anarchists, journalists and convinced Greens squaring off against football hooligans, self-proclaimed neo-Nazis and the OMON security police. A street demonstration by the Kremlin-sponsored “Young Guard” organisation sported banners describing the dissenters as “pseudo-ecologists” and “psychopaths”. A dissident-sponsored demonstration displayed placards with statements such as: “Protect the Russian forest from fascists”. On 26 July, the paper “Vremya” entitled its report: “Brown versus Green”.
Obviously, Protestant support for Goliath versus David has the makings of a PR-disaster. Media have bestowed Alexander Semchenko with titles such as “Bishop-Lumberjack”; his mixture of theology and business has resulted in a portrayal of Protestants as profit-hungry upstarts and opportunists. Without disrupting the service, a group of protestors plus media picketed Semchenko’s personal church “Na Shelepikhe” on 25 July. After disputing with an unpleasantly-surprised Bishop after the service, picketers concluded that he must be “in dire need of funding” in order to participate in such an “anti-ecological and corrupt project”. They promised to collect funds to benefit the Bishop’s financial survival. Semchenko has vehemently denied the claim that he threatened the picketers with jail during the dispute. Yet he did clearly state: “We will take you to court and win. That will cost you some real money and you will have nothing to show for this adventure.”
Public Protestant criticism of Semchenko’s actions has been very modest. Citing damage to the Protestant image as well as the scandals and corruption associated with the highly-lucrative Khimki project, a virtually-anonymous “Letter of the Young Christians of Moscow” asks Semchenko to withdraw from the project. Yet the claim by Islam-expert Roman Silyantyev that the forest conflict could lead to a “destabilisation of interconfessional relationships in the country” is very likely an overstatement. Neither Muslim nor Orthodox leadership will be defending the ecologists against the Russian government. More convincing is Silyantsev’s claim that this controversy “does not lend itself at all to the strengthening of a positive image of evangelical Christians and Protestant churches”.
In stark contrast, Semchenko’s forest contract is interpreted as a PR-success by the Charismatic Sergey Ryakhovsky, Bishop of the 2.000-congregation-strong, loosely-structured “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith” (ROSChVE in Russian). “At last, a Protestant representative known for his social service and involvement in business has received a major government contract,” he stated. “For me, this indicates that Protestants have entered regular life; it’s most pleasing that society has accepted them as normal businesspeople.” Ryakhovsky stressed that matters affecting the environment need to be decided by courts and the appropriate government authorities. Alexander Semchenko argues strongly in terms of Romans 13: Christians must work honestly and diligently; ecologists must also obey and submit to the decrees of government authority, “as long as they do not conflict with our faith”.
Both Semchenko and his associate Ryakhovsky come done strongly on the side of law-and-order – the catch in this instance is the fact that the city government of Khimki is neither lawful nor orderly. In recent years, at least three journalists who reportedly negatively on developments in Khimki have been severely beaten – no suspects have yet been apprehended. The “young Moscow Christians” mentioned above also cite the case of the Khimki journalist Mikhail Bekhetov. Nearly beaten to death in November 2008, he lost a leg, three fingers, and may remain brain-damaged for the remainder of his life.
Semchenko and his supporters would reply that their allegiance is to federal authorities – not to the local politicians in Khimki. But one could ask whether it is indeed an honour to assist a government in carrying out a very dirty and compromised task. Why would the government pick precisely a Protestant firm for such a dubious job? Ryakhovsky, Semchenko and the Adventist Bishop Vassily Stolyar are the only Protestant members of the prestigious “Council for the Cooperation with Religious Organisations at the Seat of the Russian President”,
Alexander Semchenko’s claim that the protestors in Khimki do not care about ecology is undoubtedly partially correct. As is also evident in the annual anarchist youth riots of Germany, the movement’s radical fringe appears most interested in, as he stated, “noise and scandal”. Obviously, a movement most concerned about ecology would need to start at a much earlier phase by pressing for alternative transport policies. The destruction of forests cannot be stopped as long as people buy an increasing number of cars. As long as a nation’s citizens insist on individual, motorised traffic, the destruction of large segments of God’s good nature will remain unavoidable. Comparing photos of the North American countryside of 1950 with those of today will illustrate the dramatic and negative, automobile-inspired transformation of a landscape.
Alexander Semchenko
Alexander Semchenko (born 1948) grew up in Moscow’s historic “Central Baptist Church”. Thanks to his underground “samizdat” work, his career as a publisher began with a stint behind bars in 1982. But his monthly “Protestant”, which was founded in 1989, initially took off like a rocket and peaked with a circulation of 170.000. Though no longer a paper of the “Russian Union of Evangelical-Christians Baptists” (RUECB), it remains with its circulation of 12.000 Russia’s highest-quality Protestant journal. It was Semchenko’s metamorphosis from dissident publisher and youth leader to multi-millionaire businessman and philanthropist which has made most of his church work possible.
Since breaking with the RUECB in February 2008 and becoming an “Evangelical-Christian”, Semchenko has placed greater effort into the creation of new, parallel organisations. Attractive jobs and higher salaries have made it possible for him to woo leading members of other churches into his camp. His “Protestant” Internet news service now rivals the Charismatic, Kiev-based “Invictory” service; his ”All-Russian Union of Evangelical Christians” (VSEKh – in Russian) is a kind of second “Public Council” hoping to unite Baptist-oriented denominations under one umbrella. But VSEKh could also be seen as a second Russian Evangelical Alliance. Semchenko’s efforts remain popular among the young. His loud-and-lively Moscow Easter concerts present a happy picture of Russian Protestantism very different from the stodgy stereotypes of the Soviet era.
Since 2008, Semchenko is also present in North America: His largely English-language, Dallas-Texas-based periodical “The Protestant America” addresses the continent’s growing Russian-evangelical émigré community (see www.protestant-press.com). The Achilles’ heel of his organisation – besides his ties to the Russia state - remains the fact that the vast majority of funding stems from only one mortal and aging individual.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 18 August 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-23, 1.268 words, 8.618 keystrokes and spaces.
Baptists are also Victims of the Present Russian Fires
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An appeal from Voronesh region
M o s c o w -- After abnormally high temperatures had ruined most of the crops, over 800 fires destroyed houses, factories and farms throughout Central and Western Russia in late July. A detailed report has reached Baptist headquarters in Moscow from the region of Voronesh, which is located 490 km southeast of the Russian capital. The local Baptist Ivan Galitsyn reports that as of 10 August, 307 houses had been destroyed in Voronesh district alone. According to him, the most serious fires occurred in the county of Verkhny Mamon 180 km southeast of Voronesh. This area is located just south of the city of Pavlovsk and 70 km north of the Ukrainian border.
Galitsyn writes that temperatures were hovering around 40 C (102 F) on 28 July when fires erupted at midday in the village of Gorokhovka. Heat and wind quickly carried the flames to the neighbouring village of Olkhovatka, covering the nine kilometres (5,6 miles) in as little as 15 minutes. When the winds suddenly turned, the fires returned to Gorokhovka and destroyed additional housing there. In all, 30 dwellings were burned in Gorokhovka. The destruction of 120 more in Olkhovatka occurred within a 45-minute period. These 120 dwellings included seven belonging to Baptist families; Olkhovatka’s Baptist meeting place was spared.
Galitsyn reports that “the believers in Voronesh and Voronesh region have not remained untouched by the need and are doing all they can to aid the suffering within the Olkhovatka congregation and the village in general. “
Pastor Ruvim Voloshin, responsible for humanitarian affairs for the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Moscow, reports: “The government has promised a lot, but we cannot wait for that help to kick in. We have gathered money among our believers, are looking for school clothes for the children, buying food and coal and making other preparations for the winter.” For the present, these destitute families are living with friends or relatives in the vicinity. Galitsyn confirms that construction materials are on location and that building sites are being patrolled by video camera, just as President Vladimir Putin had promised.
Persons wishing to donate funds for these fire victims are invited to contact our Baptist offices in Moscow. Email is always the best way to start.
Department for External Church Relations, RUECB
Moscow, 15 August 2010
A release of the Department for External Church Relations of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. It is informational in character and does not express a sole, official position of RUECB-leadership. Release #10-22, 371 words, 2.298 keystrokes and spaces.
Baptists are a Part of Russia and Ukraine
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In Odessa Patriarch Kirill reported on the Baptists
M o s c o w -- During celebrations at the Odessa Opera and Ballet Theatre on 22 July, Kirill I. (Gundyayev), the “Patriarch of Moscow and All of Russia” (or Rus), devoted a full paragraph of his speech to the Baptist faith. Baptists were the only non-Orthodox Christian faith mentioned in the speech; this highly-festive occasion in Odessa’s world-famous theatre would have offered the Moscow Patriarchate a first-rate opportunity to mention and celebrate only itself.
The Patriarch stressed the Slavic character of the Russian and Ukrainian Baptist movement, distancing himself from the traditional, century-old claim that Baptists are undercover, fifth-column outposts of the West. Kirill reported on how he once responded to a long conversation with Baptists by stating: “Listen, brethren, you are exceedingly Orthodox Baptists! In all that you say, you sound just like us Orthodox.” One of the Baptists responded: “But how could it be otherwise? All of us are living in an Orthodox country.” The Patriarch added: “That really is how it is. Baptists remain Baptists with their own special doctrines and Protestant theology, but they cannot extricate themselves from the general stream of history. Therefore, much which divides us Orthodox from the Protestant world also divides Baptists living in an Orthodox environment from the Protestant world.”
In his speech, the Patriarch spoke of two major dangers threatening the growth of international understanding: nationalism and multiculturalism. The Orthodox believe multiculturalism places Christianity on an equal plane with all other religions. As indicators, Kirill mentioned the occasional banning of crosses or Christmas trees. He concluded: “The creation of a multinational, multireligious society purged of its religious elements will result in an atheistic, non-religious society willing to tolerate the existence of religion only among its least-enlightened members. We have gone through all of this before.” He described attempts to either internationalise people or to force them to live within a ghetto as equally harmful.
Kirill’s programmatic speech in Odessa was maked by caution and moderation. He stated for ex.: “If you hear from the mouth of a pastor of the need to fight or build walls, then this indicates clearly that the person to whom you are listening is not really a pastor. A pastor can preach only the following: “Peace to all. May the peace of Christ be among you. Learn to get along with each other.’” The church dare not become an ideological appendage; it may never instigate “hatred, rage and aggression.”
Essentially, the Moscow Patriarchate is committed to creating an East European Christian consensus to the right of Western Europe’s ethical consensus. Responding to the Odessa speech, Vitaly Vlasenko, Director of External Church Relations for the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists” (RUECB) added: “We have similar views on non-traditional sexual orientations and abortion. We highly respect the work of women in church life, but we also support the Orthodox position on the role of women in church leadership. We are united with the Orthodox in their call for the highest of moral and ethical values in society. After all, these views are not only Orthodox – they are above all Biblical. They represent basic values which should unite all Christians.”
The Department Director pointed out that Russian Baptists use the Russian Synodal Bible published by the Orthodox in 1876: “We all pray, preach and worship with this version.” This is one example of how “Orthodoxy has influenced the development of the Russian evangelical movement”. Vlasenko knows Kirill well from dozens of conversations held prior to his election as Patriarch in early 2009 and explained: “In Odessa, the Patriarch spoke out of respect not only for our own Baptist position. What is true for us, is also true for many other of Russia’s evangelicals. We as Baptists do not want to be sorted out and divided from other evangelicals.”
Pastor Vlasenko, who just returned from the “World Baptist Alliance” convention in Hawaii, hastened to add that allegiance to the nation of Russia dare not be understood as separation from the world’s remaining 110 million Baptists. In Russia, evangelism as well as respect for the human rights and religious freedom of all will remain treasured Baptist values. He requested of the world community to recall that the Baptists of the former Soviet Union stem from a highly-unique setting. Slavic Baptists were persecuted for over a century as Western Baptists were enjoying ever-increasing amounts of recognition and acceptance.
An additional factor is the obvious truth that avoiding the majority faith is not an option in settings involving a mighty, historic Christian church,. Ignoring the Orthodox until that point of time at which they become evangelical is illusory. Vlasenko concluded: “Thriving in the present demands that an understanding with the majority be achieved.”
Less than 1% of Russia’s 146 million citizens are Protestants.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 15 August 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-21, 786 words, 5.033 keystrokes and spaces.
The Primary Gift is Love
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Protestant Delegation visits ravaged Kyrgyzstan
M o s c o w -- A sense of unity and love between the Protestant believers of Kyrgyzstan was the overriding impression made on a Russian, three-man/woman reporter team during its three-day visit to that strife-torn country. “The true God unites;” the Protestants concluded. After their return to Moscow on 27 June, they reported: Despite all the destruction the citizens of southern Kyrgyzstan are presently forced to endure, “the primary gift that God has presented to his children in this situation is love.” Though the Baptist Union of Kyrgyzstan does not belong to international Baptist agencies such as the “Baptist World Alliance” (BWA), it naturally expressed great gratitude for the monetary gifts brought by the team of reporters. Their gift included funds from the BWA and European Baptist Federation as well as from the Baptist Unions of Germany and Russia.
After its visit in Osh and Jalal-Abad, the team reported that even though official channels only speak of 250 deaths, the number of injured runs into the thousands. Alone in the picturesque ancient city of Osh – legends claim that it was given its name by King Solomon – 1.500 houses were destroyed. Hospitals were overfilled; unsanitary water and food are causing near epidemics. Uzbeks, afraid to leave the tight boundaries of their own ethnic quarters, are forced to do without food and medication. Following the Muslim custom of burying their dead on the day of death, many Uzbeks were forced to inter relatives in their own backyards.
Protestants were also astonished and amazed by the amount of protection their Heavenly Father had given. None of the region’s 300-400 Protestants were reported killed or injured; not even one of their dwellings was seriously damaged. The team reported that on one street in Osh every house had been destroyed except one – the house of a Protestant family. As was to be seen on Moscow’s “Protestant” website, the attractive Protestant church building in Jalal-Abad suffered nothing more than a broken window.
The team was also full of praise for the 3.000-member Kyrgyz Union and its President, the Russian-German Genrikh (Heinrich) Foth, which “accurately and intelligently” distributed humanitarian aid. When funds arrived, church members would fan out into affected areas and ask precisely what was needed most. Only then were the needed goods purchased.
The team from Moscow was also shocked by the apparently almost instantaneous reversal in the behaviour of fellow human beings. They wrote: “One of the most senseless and horrible facts is that people have been killing others solely due to the fact that they had another ethnicity. And yet until yesterday these people had lived together peacefully as friendly neighbours.”
Team member Irina Mitrofanova, Director of Sunday School Work for the Russian Union of Evangelical-Christians Baptists, assured that she would very willingly return to Kazakhstan to distribute the funds promised by world Baptist circles, but not yet delivered by the end of June. I have seen how they do it in Kyrgyzstan and “am confident that all aid given will reach the needy”. Winter is also approaching and many issues still need to be solved in order for most to survive. As a born educator, Irina Mitrofanova is also concerned about the religious education and well-being of southern Kyrgyzstan’s many children.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 8 July 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-19, 534 words, 3.339 keystrokes and spaces.
God Finishes What He Starts
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Baptist home for the aged in Belarus officially dedicated
M o s c o w / K o b r i n – No government or Orthodox dignitaries were present on 26 June - but 52 guests from Missouri/USA were - as hundreds of Kobrin Baptists celebrated the opening of Belarus’ first privately-run home for the aged. Most of the costs for the magnificent “Baptist House of Mercy” with one- and two-bed rooms for 54 residents were footed by them – supporters of a network of Baptist retirement homes in Missouri. Amazingly, the reconstructed and enlarged building on the grounds of the Baptist-owned “Zhemchuzhinka” (Little Pearl) children’s camp at Imenin just north of Kobrin cost no more than $500.000 US – excluding material gifts mostly from West European sources.
Despite the grand building with room for 54 residents, the driving force behind the project, the building contractor Stepan Trubchik (Kobrin), stressed that the start-up would be extremely modest: “We will start with one, two or three Baptist guests. We’re beginning from zero – we have no professional experience in working with the elderly.” Residents from other sources would be exceedingly risky at the outset – Belarusian Baptists will need to serve as the initial guinea pigs. There is also no immediate solution for the high costs of care for the elderly; the home will not be able to accept more residents than the extent of its funding. Ivan Hrytsiuta, Deputy Director of Zhemchuzhinka, believes the majority of daily operating costs can be covered with the residents’ modest pensions.
Others are less optimistic, but the home’s Director, the Baptist barrister Leonid Petruchik (Brest), believes the first residents will be arriving in August. “The gas has not yet been connected,” he admitted. “So we still have no heat.” Government and Baptist Union documentation is also incomplete. Thanks to the children’s health camps being held next door, a doctor and nurses are already on the property.
For now, residents will be arriving on a trial basis. Not all possible clients are convinced they will enjoy living there and initially residents may be coming only for several days or weeks. Hrytsiuta added that Belarusian law does not allow them to take on residents initially for more than a six-month period. But if the stay is successful, that period can be extended indefinitely.
Stepan Trubchik, who still suffers from the effects of a serious neck operation earlier this year, appears to enjoy the unqualified trust of his long-time friends from Missouri. The building contractor cannot feed 5.000 with five fish, but he can, according to an American friend who was along for the Kobrin festivities, “turn one dollar into three”. Thanks to low-cost and volunteer labour as well as excellent connections with suppliers, the Baptists of Belarus can achieve tremendous “bang per buck” with Western donations. The wooden beds were donated by the Russian-German “Friedensbote” mission from Meinerzhagen/Germany; the equally-attractive quilts on them were created by the Baptist women of Missouri. Some items are still lacking: Who for ex. would be able to donate silverware, plates and hardware for the kitchen?
How it all began
In 1990, the Southern Baptist Convention of Missouri began an official partnership with what soon became known as the Baptist Union of Belarus. The construction of Kobrin’s new Baptist church – its 1.400 seats probably make it Europe’s largest Baptist church structure – and the opening of the Zhemchuzhinka children’s camp in 1995 both occurred during the official Union-to-Union relationship. That partnership was to be of limited duration and after several short extensions, the partnership was finally terminated in 2002.
Yet not all those who had been heavily involved in Belarus were capable or willing to pull up stakes and begin projects elsewhere. The creation of the independent, Jefferson City/Missouri-based “Future Leadership Foundation” (FLF) was one result of the unwillingness to drop Belarus. In 2005, FLF-President Roger Hatfield asked Steven Jones, the President of “Missouri Baptist Home” (MBH), if his organisation would be willing to help create one of Eastern Europe’s very first Christian homes for the elderly. MBH-leadership agreed and began to gather funding for the construction of the Kobrin centre in 2006.
A common trait of Missouri Baptists: Their service organisations are interconnected and no organisation is involved solely in one type of activity. MBH for ex. has helped fund a retirement home for pastors – and the printing of Bibles - in China. FLF is supporting the Baptist seminary in Minsk/Belarus. FLF is also involved in the 1976-founded “Crown Financial Ministries”, which train individual Christians and organisations globally on how best to apply Christian principles to their private and business finances.
In his short sermon at the dedication service in Kobrin’s church; Belarusian Union President Viktor Krutko noted, that the Good Samaritan had returned a second time to pay for the costs accrued at the inn. But the guests assured repeatedly that they were involved in Kobrin “for the long-run”. Steven Jones of The Baptist Home affirmed: “God also finishes what he starts.” MBH is committed to helping Baptist House of Mercy-personnel receive the necessary nursing, housing and bookkeeping training they will need. It has even begun an endowment to help cover the on-going, future costs of the home in Kobrin.
The guests assured that they hoped the Kobrin model would prove to be “contagious” and a multiplier throughout Central and Eastern Europe. They confirmed their readiness to support other projects elsewhere – also in Russia. Yet Kobrin is to remain the centre and “mother hen” of Missouri Baptist efforts in Europe. “We are not just into housing care,” Jones explained. “Home care is also an option. We are into churches reaching out to assist an aging humanity, wherever that may be.”
The camp and home in Kobrin remain the sole property of the Belarusian Baptist Union. Missouri wants to be only one helper among others and intends to play only a supportive and advisory role. It wants its efforts to be understood as a Christian, no-strings-attached love for all of humankind. Missouri would be happy if also Orthodox circles were involved in any future efforts.
Regarding the fact that general US-Belarusian relations are poor, Jones added that “we are not interested in politics. We are not here to confront or conflict with others. We are here to cooperate and provide help and humanitarian aid in the name of Christ.” Stefan Trubchik reported that government approval for the work of the camp and the new home remains clear: “We have no real government barriers.” But the church is very much on its own in financial terms.
Zhemchuzhinka has been doing agricultural work on its property in hopes of improving its income.
Soon Baptist House residents will be awakened early by the aroma of baking bread: A bakery with seven employees and material assistance from Germany is to open next door in August or September. Trubchik is already thinking of further projects: A centre on the property offering massage, water and many other forms of physical therapy to the general public for a fee would also be a helpful source of income. Dental equipment has been in use for a number of years.
The situation in Eastern Europe
The first Protestant-owned home for the aged in the lands of the former USSR may well have been the “Tabita” home begun by the Reformed group “Holland-Help “ in Iabiona/Moldova in 2000. Russia’s first Protestant-owned home for the elderly is the 24-bed Lutheran “Carl-Blum-Haus” opened near Gussev in the Kaliningrad (Königsberg) enclave in 2006. Kobrin is a third home – the first one in Belarus. Trubchik reports that the Belarusian Orthodox run a type of sanitorium; all other of the few homes for the elderly in this nation of nearly 9,5 million are government-run.
A photo of the Kobrin home can be found under: “www.thebaptisthome.com/bhomhome.html”; it can be reached under „kobrincamp@mail.ru". The “Future Leadership Foundation” has the address: “www.flfmissions.org”.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 5 July 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-18, 1.284 words, 8.030 keystrokes and spaces.
Mennonites are Strongest in Siberia
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On the „Omsk Brotherhood“ and other topics
M o s c o w – Someone wandering through a pristine village like Mirolyubovka, 80 km west of the West Siberian city of Omsk, could think that he/she was in Paraguay or Mexico. Little girls in pigtails and long dresses run about; one speaks and laughs in Low German (Plattdeutsch). One gets to hear their surnames if one asks: Reimer, Klassen, Wiens, Wiebe, Schellenberg and Sawatsky. Village life is centred around agriculture: Church services often only begin after the milking is done at 10 p.m. The churches involved are the Mennonite-Brethren – a split off the “Church Mennonites” (called General-Conference Mennonites in the USA) which occurred in the southern Ukrainian region of Zaporozhe in 1860. The first Mennonites of Dutch and Prussian origin had arrived in Ukraine in 1789; after 1890 groups of them moved onward to Western Siberia and neighbouring Kazakhstan. The forced deportation of Germans eastward in August 1941 brought many more Mennonites to the region; others did not arrive until the 1950s.
Most of these Mennonites are gathered in a regional association known since 1996 as the “Omsk Brotherhood”. This organisation’s roots go back as far as 1907; its re-founding in 1957 occurred after three decades of serious persecution. Its lay historian, Peter Epp from Isilkul on the border with Kazakhstan, reports that the organisation had consisted almost strictly of Germans in 1987; a fifth of them though were Baptists. Virtually all of these ethnic-German Baptists have since then emigrated.
Today the Brotherhood consists of roughly 950 baptised women and 450 baptised men – it had been 2.306 in 1987. Surprisingly few of these Mennonites have left for Germany since then – only around half. Perestroika brought with it the beginning of active mission among non-Germans; today the lay preachers preach primarily in Russian. The brotherhood had no church buildings of its own prior to Gorbachev – today it enjoys 17 new chapels and 36 more redone from former private quarters. A “prayer chapel” with more than 200 seats meeting the expectations even of an upscale West German audience is nearing completion in the village of Putchkovo. The informed report that relatives and friends in Germany supplied the required funds. “Patriarch” for most of these congregations is 1929-born Nikolai Dikman (or Dieckmann) from Marionovka, who was forced to spend the years 1951-56 in the mining Gulag of Vorkuta.
A congregation of Church Mennonites located in Solntsevka just north of Isilkul boasted 130 baptised members and 160 children in 2008. That makes it the largest Mennonite congregation in the region of the former USSR. Other small congregations of Church Mennonites are located in Nieudachino to the east of Omsk and in Novosibirsk. None of these belong to the Omsk Brotherhood. In Solntsevka, church elder Philipp Friesen, a retired shepherd and farmer, remains the stalwart force behind the movement for staying home. But his congregation has nevertheless not been totally immune to Western influences: For more than 70 years it has propagated the teaching of universal salvation. Contacts to the Swabian conference centre “Langensteinbacher Höhe“, which is famous for espousing this theology, exist. That teaching has heightened tensions – one hears that a wedding in Solntsevka reaching across inner-Mennonite borders is unthinkable.
Further congregations of Mennonite origin are located around Slavgorod (Altai Region southeast of Omsk) as well as in Shutshinsk near Karaganda/Kazakhstan. The same is true for four or five mission stations in the region of Orenburg/Urals supported by emigrated Church Mennonites in Bielefeld/Germany. Yet it would now be difficult to describe these congregations as German or Mennonite. Alexander Weiss (born 1964), pastor of the still-unregistered “International Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists” (ICCECB) in Slavgorod, does not hesitate to affirm his Mennonite roots. He explains: “When we were allowed to restart church life in the 1950s, there were only grandmothers still around who knew anything about our Mennonite past. But they were afraid to talk.” Only in the 1950s was the old Mennonite identity able to resurface.
But generally speaking, the borders between Mennonite-Brethren and Baptists have become blurred. From Baptists the Mennonite-Brethren had taken over baptism by immersion. It is claimed that the pietistic teachings of Johann Gerhard Oncken (1800-1884), founder of the German Baptist movement and missionary to Russia, contributed - along with the struggle for farmland - to the Mennonite split of 1860. The process of assimilation was expedited by the fact that roughly half of the USSR’s Mennonite congregations joined the “All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists” after 1966 in order to become officially registered.
Even the surnames of the present Presidents of the Baptist Unions of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reveal their Mennonite roots: Franz Tissen (or Thiessen) and Genrikh (or Heinrich) Foth respectively. The German-Russian Canadian Viktor Hamm, a „Billy Graham Evangelistic Association“-sponsored evangelist highly-popular in Eastern Europe, is a member of the Mennonite-Brethren. Even the martyred father of Georgi Vins (or Wiens) (1928-1998), who was himself General-Secretary of the USSR’s unregistered Baptists until deported in 1979, was a Mennonite-Brethren missionary from Canada.
Working from Germany, mission societies with Mennonite roots such as „Bibel-Mission“, „Friedensstimme“, „Hoffnungsstrahl“ und „Janz-Team“ continue to influence events in Russia. One of the two founders of the mission “Light in the East”, Jakob Kroeker (1872-1948), was a Ukrainian Mennonite. Around 10% of the 2,2 Mio. Russian-Germans now living in Germany are of Mennonite descent. (At the outset of WW I, the number of baptised Mennonites in Russia had peaked at 120.000.)
Even today, the small flock of Mennonites to the west of Omsk reflects the pacifism, pietism, Arminianism and separatism prevalent within the historic Russian Baptist movement. One could consequently claim that these Mennonites remain closer to the theological heritage of Russian Baptists than those new, heavily-Calvinistic groups from North America which have been active in Russian Baptist circles since 1990.
Yet despite this theological proximity, one cannot maintain that current relations between Mennonites and Baptists in the villages of Siberia are harmonious. Insiders attribute this to an unwanted, forced competition. Nearly all Mennonite and Baptist congregations to the west of Omsk (also Slavgorod) are unregistered, non-legal entities. This means that church buildings remain officially the property of private individuals. If the owner of a church property decides to transfer his allegiance to another denomination, only his conscience can keep him from taking the church property with him. So in certain instances, Mennonites could accuse unregistered Baptists not only of sheep-stealing (proselytism), but also of property theft.
North American Mennonites – and a Closing Commentary
The North American relief agency „Mennonite Central Commttee“ was active in the Soviet Union as early as 1920. After 1955 it belonged to delegations which frequently visited congregations throughout the USSR. During the Cold War, MCC was involved along with the Quakers and some Brethren denominations (Church of the Brethren for ex.) in attempts to foster understanding between the rival world blocs.
After 1990 MCC belonged to the large cloud of Western missions and agencies setting up shop in Moscow. There it rented space at the historic Central Baptist Church not far from the Kremlin. Yet the competition between missions and soaring living costs forced this organisation to reconsider: In 1998, MCC transferred its office for the former Soviet Union to Zaporozhe/Ukraine. For Mennonites that location was in a territory of major historical significance – but it was also remote. Thanks to the offspring of Ukrainian Mennonites from Canada, roughly five small church plants have occurred in this vicinity. Yet number-wise they cannot compete with the 2.000 Mennonites (including children) of Western Siberia.
Canadians with Ukrainian roots have – largely without the aid of their mission societies – organised church and humanitarian efforts around Zaporozhe. It can no longer be considered impossible that a similar interest group might be formed for Western Siberia. That would have the support of some, for the 220-year history of Mennonites on Russian soil makes them – after the Lutherans – the second-most “traditional” of all of Russia’s Protestant denominations. Not all regard the time as too late to reconnect to that heritage. Somewhat within this context, Canadian Mennonites sponsored an initial history symposium in Omsk on 2 to 4 June.
Walter Willms, a large-scale Mennonite farmer from British Columbia, has begun to invest In the village of Apollonovka to the west of Omsk. A large farm and grain mill are active; a bakery is nearing completion. As in the wilderness of Paraguay, a “Mennonite” road grader is bringing the public roads of the area up to par. That machine is a donation from British Columbia, shipped over by container.
Could a revised model of the Mennonite and Protestant settling and “colonisation” of Russia in 1789 prove to be an alternative to the expensive and frequently ineffective “mission tourism” of today? Such “tourism” consists of whirlwind tours lasting somewhere between five days and five years. The invitation already exists: In a Moscow meeting with Neville Callam, General-Secretary of the Baptist World Alliance, in Moscow on 17 June 2008, Alexander Torshin, Vice-Chairman of the Council of the Russian Federation, called on Western Protestants to replant the wide expanses of Russia. Perhaps such an endeavour would not be hampered by the fact that Harry Giesbrecht, a Mennonite construction contractor from Winnipeg, is said to be a long-time friend of Vladimir Putin. But one should guard against undue enthusiasm: An initial goal could be the resettling of 200 Protestants. That would be 0,1% of the persons with Mennonite roots who moved to Germany in recent decades.
After 125 years of relative prosperity, the Russian experiment suffered total shipwreck for settlers of German origin during and after WW I. Assuming that all involved parties have learned from their past transgressions, a future experiment could be of significantly longer duration. The first settlers have already returned.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 29 June 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-17, 1.605 words, 10.535 keystrokes and spaces.
Helping Russia Solve its Demographic Crisis
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Russians can successfully adopt Russian children
M o s c o w -- North American Christians are willing to help Russian parents turn around their country’s demographic crisis. Professor Lanny Endicott, head of the Social Work department at the primarily-Charismatic “Oral Roberts University” in Tulsa/Oklahoma, believes more of Russia’s social and factual orphans could find homes within Russia. In a conversation at Moscow’s “Russian-American Institute” on 28 May, the professor suggested that programmes be put in place which encourage Russian couples to adopt and take care of their country’s parent-less on location. Endicott’s involvement in the “Indian Child Welfare” programme in Oklahoma, which helps native Indian families adopt Indian orphans, has shown him the importance of not separating children from their roots.
The USA has over the past two decades been a major recipient of Russian children: Only China and Ethiopia permitted a greater number of orphans to be sent there. Though US-adoptions of Russian children have dropped significantly over the past five years (down from 5.878 in 2004 to 1.586 in 2009), around 750.000 minors remain “without parental care” in Russia. Only a third of these are cared for in public institutions.
A slight population increase was registered for 2009 – the first one in 15 years. But Russian birth rates remain low and death rates – especially among men – high. Following a peak of nearly 149 mill. in 1991, and despite massive immigration from the Central Asian republics, population was hovering just below 142 mill. in early 2010.
The Problem
Dr. Endicott reported that in Russia as many as 80% of the relationships between adopted children and their new parents fail. In the US that number, though still uncomfortably high, is significantly lower. “The real issue is a lack of resources,” he contended. “Children do get adopted in Russia, but the resources to help these families – information on parenting skills, education and health care – are usually not available. So the objective in Russia must be not only to find homes, but to provide a support system for families who have taken on these children. Families need to help families deal with adopted children. Orphaned children need a lot of special attention – they have more physical and mental health problems than others.”
Families could even be offered a financial stipend to defray some of the costs of their new child. As an alternative, lobbying work could be done to encourage the government to plough the money it saves from having fewer children in orphanages back into the families who have had the courage to adopt.
The professor reported in Moscow that the churches in some regions of Oklahoma have adopted, as a starter, a one-church, one-child programme. The objective is that the families of a congregation eventually adopt more than just one child. He spoke of one large Russian congregation in St. Petersburg in which families have already adopted over 100 children.
According to Endicott, an initial step would be to find a geographical region in which potential parents could network to share and council on their experiences. Such families and networks would need to be coached by trained mentors. He suggests that native-Russian “trainers be trained” not only by him, but also by an international children’s agency with which he co-operates in Oklahoma. He regards it as ideal if Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant congregations within a given region coalition to support adopted children and their parents.
The professor from Oklahoma suggests that Vladimir might be a possible initial pilot region. Endicott has already taught short-term on three occasions for the “Russian-American Institute” and has developed a number of church and government contacts in Vladimir region, located 200 km east of Moscow. Endicott would like to co-operate with the 2008-founded “Orphan’s Tree” (see “orphanstree.org”), which dedicates itself to working with older orphans in Moscow region. Its founder, George Steiner, is also associated with the Colorado-based “Children’s HomeChest” organisation.
Being a professor at heart, Endicott cannot imagine carrying out such a project without the gathering of data. He stated: “So often we lose the value of what we have done if we don’t develop good data research. Otherwise, our work is anecdotal – it consists solely of stories.” He would prefer to gather systemised information from parents and even the children after an initial six months for a total period of up to three years.
The entire project would have a great overarching and “superordinate” goal, the professor added. It would give both church and state a common agenda, allowing them to drop their individual concerns for the sake of a larger and higher good. He regards this as a possible win-win situation for all parties involved.
Professor Endicott would welcome the suggestions of others. His address is: “lendicott@oru.edu”.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 14 June 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-16, 773 words, 4.891 keystrokes and spaces.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters”
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Dedication of the Russian-American Institute’s new Moscow building increases hopes for inter-confessional understanding
Commentary
M o s c o w -- After nine years of major toil and stress, the new building of Moscow’s “Russian-American Institute” (RAI) was dedicated on 27 May. The modernistic, four-story, glass and light-flooded structure at 40 Menzhinskogo Street in the north of the city also sports an attractive location: It is located on the edge of a park near the “Babushkinskaya” metro station. The Moscow news service “Protestant” is calling it the most beautiful and representative building in all of Russian Protestantism. In a short speech at the dedication, Vladimir Platonov, the Chair of Moscow’s City Council and a long-time supporter of RAI, compared it to Moscow’s much-larger, rebuilt Christ-the-Saviour-Cathedral. The resurrected cathedral in the centre of the city has become the flagship and primary drawing card of Russian Orthodoxy. RAI’s new centre is also one of the few buildings in the Russian capital totally accessible to the handicapped.
RAI’s President, the Wheaton/Maryland- and Moscow-based Dr. John Bernbaum, insisted at the dedication that God is the true hero of this building project. If that is true, then Bernbaum runs a close second. It may not be an exaggeration to call the team headed by Bernbaum a monument to the perseverance of the human spirit. In a frequently-corrupt city with perhaps the world’s highest real-estate prices and a project victimised by soaring prices, the President attained his goal of raising sufficient funds in an America rapidly losing interest in Russia. And that without government funding. Yet the exact size of this miracle may never be known: Bernbaum is keeping the total costs under wraps. A site outside of Moscow, see for ex. the impressive Seventh-Day Adventist campus at Zaoksky southeast of the city, would have entailed lower financial – and political – costs.
Dr. David Broersma, Chair of RAI’s Faculty Council and long-time instructor at the institution, stated at the graduation ceremony on 28 May: “One thing that attracted me to the vision was that it seemed so impossible. We knew from the beginning that it would not happen unless God intervened. Looking back over the past 14 years, I see that the vision was more impossible than I had ever imagined. It has taken more endurance than any of us thought we had. We had problems with insane red tape, protestors and financial pressures that almost finished us off. God has worked miracles on our behalf.” The idea of a Christian, liberal-arts university in Moscow was born among major Russian educators during a visit to Christian universities in North America in 1990.
Recent history
The roof feel in on RAI, then still known in English as the “Russian-American Christian University”, when its five-year license ran out in December 2008 and all instruction came to an abrupt halt. It was then meeting at its fourth location since 1995, a Charismatic church in Tushino in northwestern Moscow. A license to teach was re-granted in December 2009, allowing the institute to restart instruction in January. But in January, after the smoke had cleared, only a fraction of the students and part-time Russian faculty remained. Enrolment had dropped from 160 to 60.
Instruction is to begin full-steam in September. Once the enrolment goal of 400 is reached, the school will need to reclaim its third floor - the top two floors were rented out to outside firms immediately after completion of the new building. RAI has no dorms, but the administration continues to aid students in their search for affordable housing. A similar institution, Lithuania’s
„LCC International University“, has 650 students. Yet it exists in a much more agreeable political setting on the other side of Europe’s new East-West divide.
When accreditation, which existed from 2003 to 2008, returns, remains anybody’s guess. Faculty members point out that accreditation can be applied retroactively. If it were granted for ex. in March of 2011, it could be extended backwards to include courses taught since September 2010. The school’s seven partners in the U.S., which include Calvin, Gordon, Taylor and Wheaton, continue to accept as credit courses and degrees completed at RAI. RAI’s present majors are Business & Economics, Social Work and Literature & Linguistics (Philology). Though having dropped the word “Christian” from its name, RAI continues to restrict acceptance to professing Christians.
Completion of its impressive building is not the sole reason for cautious optimism regarding the future of RAI. Several educators and city politicians, including Platonov, have staked their reputations on the success of RAI. At the dedication, a word of greeting from the youthful and dynamic Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev), since early 2009 head of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Department of External Church Relations, was read. It began with the greeting that has endeared him to the Protestants of Russia: “Dear Brothers and Sisters”. His successor in this position, the present Patriarch Kirill, was less enamoured with RAI. Bernbaum reported that, thanks to an invitation from Hilarion, US-academics will be coming short-term to teach leading Orthodox theological students. They will likely also be teaching at RAI. RAI’s administration is going to some lengths to extend the hand of friendship to its detractors in the immediate neighbourhood. Playground equipment has been set up; RAI’s large, still-uncompleted gym will also be open for neighbourhood use.
In her address at the dedication, Irina Raber, the Prefect of Moscow’s Northeastern District, reported that she lives only five minutes on foot from the new edifice. She promised: “If any problems arise, rest assured that it will be easy for me to get involved.” Even closer, about 40 meters from the new building, is a monument with an Orthodox cross and an icon of St. George, the protector of Russia. It was placed there in 2007. The plaque states that the memorial is dedicated to “protection from the enemies of the Russian soil”. Ironically, Vladimir Platonov presented the very same icon to Bernbaum at the school’s dedication. Roughly 15 public protests were held at the site in the years following the begin of construction in 2006.
Continuing weaknesses
RAI is dedicated to serving Russian Christians from all three Christian – including the Catholic - traditions. That makes it a square peg in a round hole and helps explain its mild support within all three of these traditions. RAI remains a foreign entity and a local sense of ownership still needs to grow. The Protestant church most evident at the dedication and graduation was the Charismatic “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith” (ROSKhVE), the Protestant church umbrella least-popular among Orthodox circles. Its representatives spoke at both events; a Vice-President of the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists” spoke briefly at graduation.
Russia has other church entities targeting all three confessional traditions: These include the “Russian Bible Society” and the “Christian Inter-Confessional Advisory Committee for the CIS-Countries and Baltics” (CIAC). The difference is that the Russian Orthodox Church is “first among equals” within CIAC. North American Protestants have taken on that role within RAI. Four of the 16 members of RAI’s Board of Directors are Russians; only one of them, the Moscow lawyer Katya Smyslova, is Orthodox. But RAI does not intend to proselytise and supports the concept of believers growing in faith within their own respective Christian traditions. Bernbaum stated: “One of our goals is religious freedom and respect for one another’s religious tradition.”
RAI is tied to the top end of public life: the business and political elite. In contrast, a school such as “St. Petersburg Christian University” has few top-level contacts and significantly less funding. The two institutions tend to orbit in different circles; but St. Petersburg has a stronger, local Protestant church base. Perhaps that makes St. Petersburg better-suited to weather the political storms between East and West.
RAI is one over 70 learning institutions in 24 countries affiliated with the Washington D.C.-based, mainstream-evangelical “Council for Christian Colleges and Universities” (CCCU). The same is true for a semester-long Russian study programme for North American students at Nizhny Novgorod State Technical University. Due to a drop in demand, this programme is scheduled to close its doors at the end of 2010. It has been lead since its inception in 1994 by the Kansan Mennonite Harley Wagler. But John Bernbaum, a Reformed believer, intends to bring North American students to RAI for interim periods to study alongside Russians. This should help fill the holes left by the closing of the associated programme in Nizny.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 03 June 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-15, 1.382 words, 8.870 keystrokes and spaces.
Russian Baptists are Not Iconoclasts
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Baptist Director for External Relations supports the retention of Lenin statues
M o s c o w – The statements of Russian Baptist leadership are not iconoclastic. Following the dynamiting of a Lenin statute, Vitaly Vlasenko, the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”’ (RUECB) Director for External Church Relations, stated in a report on 22 April: “I think monuments should remain in place, even if they represent ideologies and leaders different from our own. We need to honour our past irregardless of its negative aspects.“
On the night of 31 March-1 April, a meter-long hole had been blown into the back of a massive Lenin statue in front of St. Peterburg’s Finlandsky rail terminal. Very soon thereafter, a clandestine “patriotic” group calling itself the “Zalesky Combat Flying Squad” claimed responsibility. Within 20 days, the statue – except for its base – had been restored at a cost of six million roubles (167.000 euros or $200.000) to the Russian taxpayer. The report on the Russian Baptist website (www.baptist.org.ru) claimed that the US government would have reacted differently. In the USA, the government is reluctant to use tax monies for highly-controversial causes – such as abortion.
The Director conceded that Lenin’s legacy awakens contradictory emotions in him. Lenin helped destroy the Russian church and intelligentsia and was to no small degree responsible for the outbreak of a major civil war. Yet Russians do not have the freedom to ignore their own history. Lenin memorials will “always remind us of very hard times in our history”.
Yuri Sipko, RUECB-President until March, spoke out repeatedly in favour of giving the embalmed remains of Lenin displayed in a mausoleum on Red Square a proper burial. Rev. Vlasenko agrees, assuring thereby that his argumentation on Lenin “goes only so far”. It should never be used to support the reappearance of memorials to Stalin.
“Dear Brothers and Sisters”
An Easter Message from Russia’s Communist Party
In an event totally unrelated to the above, Communist party leader Gennady Zyuganov released a word of greeting to Russia’s Orthodox at Easter on 4 April. Addressing the faithful of “Holy Rus” as “Brothers and Sisters”, he lauded their church for reminding the nation “not to forget its lofty calling” during the “present, dark times”. He described “labour, justice, equality, brotherhood and truth” as grand values and goals underlying both the Christian faith and the Communist worldview.
Zyuganov concluded: “I believe that through joint efforts we can revive and raise up Rus anew.”
“Rus” (or “Kievan Rus”) is a historical, mystical term for the medieval union of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The Russian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate sees “Rus”, and not just Russia, as its own canonical territory.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 20 May 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-14, 424 words, 2.699 keystrokes and spaces.
A Trusting Relationship is in the Offing
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Russian-German gives a hopeful word of greeting at this year’s conference of the German „Federation of Evangelical-Free Churches“
K a s s e l – Delegates at the German „Federation of Evangelical-Free Churches’“ (BEFG) annual conference in Kassel on 6 June heartily embraced a word of greeting given by Pastor Heinrich Derksen. Derksen is Rector of “Bibelseminar Bonn”, a school supported primarily by “Aussiedler” - ethnic Germans from the former Soviet Union. His greeting was interpreted as a possible breakthrough in relations between them and native German Baptists. He stated for ex.: “The initially reserved meetings between Aussiedler and BEFG-leadership have recently been transformed into a trusting relationship.” Klaus Rösler, Chief Editor of “European Baptist Press Service”, wrote: “His statement was for me the highlight of the entire conference.”
In his short speech, Derksen assured that ethnic-German believers from the East were in Germany not strictly because of its higher standard-of-living. “Aussiedler did not come to Germany only in order to have a better life. They have also come to help transform this country spiritually.” Currently, 2,5 million Germans from the former Soviet Union are residing in Germany; the Baptists among them see the evangelisation of other Russian-Germans as their foremost missionary calling.
But Aussiedler are still faced with considerable hurdles if they are ever to become native in Germany. “In the past, Aussiedler have unnecessarily isolated and distanced themselves from other Christians and society in general,” the Rector confessed. “Russian-Germans are in need of a new perception. Perhaps we will in time be able to overcome our existence on the fringe of German society.” In view of the theological shortcomings of Russian-German congregations, Derksen described the task of his school as one of “coming to grips with our theology and history. They need to be clearly formulated and discussed. Only then can we understand ourselves and also be understood by others. We live our theology, but we have not yet formulated it in words.”
Derksen reported that Germany has 450 Russian-German congregations within the Baptist and Mennonite traditions. As many as 120.000 persons attend their worship services. Yet he lamented that Aussiedler have not taken seriously Christ’s command to express unity, “so that the world might believe”: “I must confess to our great shame that we have not taken to heart this holy and spiritual concern.” In the past 30 years, “a good dozen church unions have arisen, and there is not a trace of solidarity between them! And fully half of these congregations are completely independent and do not belong to any of these unions. That’s where the Baptist Federation is a great role model for us.” The BEFG, which has 83.285 baptised members, is significantly larger than any of the individual Russian-German church unions.
In order to accelerate the process of rapprochement, the guest suggested that cherished stereotypes be cast aside. “May I ask that you not automatically exclude Russian-Germans from your circles and not resort to clichés when censuring them? Not all of us are home schoolers, not all of our women always wear dresses and braids. Not all of us drive Mercedes and have big houses.” He continued: “Aussiedler are in the middle of a major transformation process. We need to learn together and from each other.”
BEFG-President Hartmut Riemenschneider has contributed significantly to the present process of rapprochement. The Rector announced that Riemenschneider will be speaking at a joint Southern Baptist-Aussiedler conference scheduled for early June in Lemgo/Westphalia. Derksen reported that the conference is supported by the “progressive”, third wing of the Aussiedler-Baptist movement.
A delegation headed by Pastor Riemenschneider attended the major Russian Baptist conference in Moscow in late March. The President also has family reasons for caring about the East: His own spouse is also an Aussiedler.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 14 May 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-13, 600 words, 3.873 keystrokes and spaces.
„We are Experiencing a Time of Blessing“
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Reports on Central Asia in Moscow
M o s c o w – „We are experiencing a time of blessing,“ concluded Rev. Genrich (Heinrich) Foth, President of the persecuted Baptist Union of Kyrgyzstan, at this year’s 53rd session of the “Euro-Asian Federation of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”. The event was held at Moscow Theological Seminary from 22-24 April. “We have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but we know, what we are called to do”, he continued. “We are experiencing wonderful opportunities to proclaim the Gospel.”
The Protestants of the five Central Asian states once belonging to the Soviet Union share a similar fate. They all suffer persecution at the hands of Muslim governments seeking to emulate the models of Iran and Saudi Arabia. “Mosques are sprouting like mushrooms,” Pastor Foth reported. According to him, Kyrgyzstan’s 150 Protestant chapels are confronted with an increasing number of mosques – presently approximately 3.000. “We feel the pressure of Muslims from all corners.” A number of church leaders, including Vassily Korobov from the Turkmen Baptist Union, are no longer permitted foreign travel. The three Uzbek Baptists sentenced to heavy fines in 2009 (Pavel Peichev, Dimitry Pitirimov and Yelena Kurbatova) are barred from leaving their country for three years.
In several countries, vists by guests in residential high-rises are watched closely. A guest from Turkmenistan reported that even private discussions at home around the coffee table can irk the police. Persons participating in such gatherings are consequently trained to make all suspicious objects (e.g. Bibles) disappear when the doorbell is rung. “It’s much worse than during Soviet times,” the guest concluded.
The import of Christian literature has become nearly impossible and the erasing of hard drives and flash sticks at border crossings, commonplace. “I keep seeing terrific Christian literature here in Russia,” a guest from Uzbekistan reported. “But how can I get it back to my country?” In most cases, work among children and youth is only unofficially possible.
Uzbekistan, for one, also produces highly-defamatory, anti-Protestant propaganda. National TV repeatedly sends a report on a converted, ex-Muslim woman, who, after being killed in a road accident, could not be buried in a Muslim cemetery. In the end, she was reportedly left behind in an open field as fodder for jackals. The report’s commentator concludes: “This will happen to every Muslim who changes his faith.” A second programme shows the country’s leading Baptists interspersed with scenes of Charismatics in a state of ecstasy. In no way are the two groups distinguished from each other.
In view of their common context, Franz Tissen of Saran, the President of the Kazakh Baptist Union, intends to hold a conference in May for workers from all five countries. One-hundred-fifty are expected to attend. Only a few weeks later, regional conferences reaching as many as 7.000 active believers are to take place in these countries. This is to occur despite significant political instability – for ex. the border between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan is still closed.
Repressive measures differ though in execution and intensity. Without bothering with proper legislation, the Uzbek government launched a series of anti-Protestant court cases in early 2009. But in Kyrgyzstan, an official legal framework containing draconian measures intending to crush proselytism was passed in January of last year. However, Genrikh Foth reported that law enforcement has since then been too occupied with weightier matters to concern itself with small-and-struggling Protestant communities. “Presidential elections took place in June 2009, so we were able to enjoy freedom until July. Then vacation time began and we had peace into September. Then the political opposition raised its head and the state was once again occupied elsewhere.” This unrest was of longer duration and finally led to the overthrow of the Kurmanbek Bakiyev-led government on 7 April 2010. In Moscow, Rev. Foth reported: “Following the unrests, we went into the hospitals, supplied the injured with food packages and testified to hospital staff. We are even more active in evangelism than previously.” Children’s camps are planned. “It will be a good year.”
Nevertheless, Kyrgyz Protestants are not particularly optimistic regarding the new, Roza Otunbayeva-led government. “They’re lacking a clear concept,” Foth maintained. “The old government leaders had only wanted to line their own pockets. We have no clear indication yet that the new government will be doing anything differently.”
An Uzbek guest reported taking his cues directly from the Apostle Paul in Acts 18:9: “Do not be afraid; keep on speaking, do not be silent.” Public evangelism is forbidden, but speaking with colleagues on the job can hardly be stopped. “Our situation is complicated, but we want always to be there where we should be.”
The church deacon from Turkmenistan assured that his church had adjusted to the new conditions and kept up its work. “That is my fatherland, and we will manage also under these new conditions.” Only 400 Baptists are still living in small, far-flung clusters throughout the country. A traveling preacher is faced with significant logistic difficulties when attempting to visit his flock.
The above guest from Uzbekistan reported with great satisfaction that the recent wave of repression has lead to a closing of the ranks between registered and unregistered Baptists. “Earlier we were always fighting with each other. But now we are on the receiving end of the same repression. What hits them, hits us, too. The government is no longer distinguishing between us.”
Yet the chasm between them and Charismatic circles has as a rule not been overcome. Non-Charismatics continue to feel that Charismatics insist on retaining their traditional style irregardless of local government and cultural considerations. When Genrich Foth was asked about the number of Kyrgyz Protestants, he cited the number 10.000 – without including Charismatics.
What can Christians with much more comfortable lives do to support these churches? The guests gathered in Moscow agreed that notes of protest or concern directed at the governments in question are welcome. Both the state and the Christians themselves need to understand that friends and supporters in other countries are not forgetting them. Visits from foreigners are also very welcome – the results from letters and visits are similar.
The host for this conference, the Euro-Asian Federation, could be described as a surviving remnant of the „All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists“, which unravelled in 1991. Many miss the old, broad and comprehensive structures – especially those in the tiny Unions of Central Asia. Until recently, one mused about the possibility of closing down this Federation. Yet the needs of these small unions have led Moscow and Kiev to reconsider. In addition, a lively, international, Russian-language Baptist youth work has sprung up under Federation auspices during the past three years.
This Federation’s Secretary is the Moscow-based Rev. Yuri Apatov; its current President is Vyacheslav Nesturuk (Kiev), President of Ukraine’s largest Baptist Union. Being that only two of the region’s five unions (Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) belong to Prague’s “European Baptist Federation”, the Euro-Asian Federation remains a necessary platform for dialogue between former members of the enormous, Soviet-era church union. Further information can be found under: „www.e-af.org“.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 30 April 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-12, 1.155 words, 7.524 keystrokes and spaces.
A Church Building within 57 Hours
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The Bible Mission gets serious in the former USSR
Report
M o s c o w – In the Baptist church of Orsha/Belarus on Easter Day, 4 April, the Russian-German Paul Hagelgans seemed to take on airs of the Prophet Amos as he invited the congregation to attend a worship service in a non-existent “house of prayer”. He announced that the service would take place on Saturday evening, 10 April at 18,00 hrs in the neighbouring village of Yakubovo. His team got to work Monday early; 57 hours of labour later, on 10 April at 11,45 hours, the chapel was ready for its opening service. Nearly all of the work had been done by a gang of 14 men from the large Hagelgans clan in Germany. Yet only a few of those were professional construction workers. Paul Hagelgans’ spouse, Katharina, explained: “We usually reckon with two weeks for the building shell, but we had scheduling difficulties and needed to get the job done in record time.” If everything is in place, three to four weeks are usually needed to complete a church project of this nature. Husband Paul is Field Director for “Bibel-Mission” (Bible Mission), headquartered in Niedernberg near Frankfurt/Main in Germany.
The Bible Mission’s model constructs in four stages: This stage, the erection of the building shell with roof, was stage two. The hosting congregation in Yakubovo had been expected, as is usually the case, to do a major amount of preliminary work. It had needed to take care of real estate issues, complete all legal formalities and pour the foundation. Stage three refers to the interior fittings: doors, windows, sanitary equipment, electricity and heat. The final stage involves exterior work and landscaping. No prefab units or heavy machinery are used. All construction materials are purchased locally.
The Bible Mission developed its own construction plans; the architect is a friend of the mission. Hagelgans assured that the plans would “of course” be shared with other groups. The internal measurements of the building are 6 x 12 meters (19,69 x 39,38 feet) and offers room for as many as 100 persons in the main sanctuary. About a fourth of the building consists of space for the toilets, a heating room and an extra room over the toilets.
The Field Director explained the concept as follows: „If a congregation has achieved a membership of 100, then it should be able to construct a building on its own steam. Consequently, this concept is directed towards congregations numbering from 30 to 50 persons. Such a group is too large to meet in private quarters and too small to finance its own building.” The group in Yakubovo numbers 30. The large concrete blocks used for the walls can be easily cut if and when the building needs expansion.
This concept assumes that the building shell and interior work will cost no more than $27.000. “We never pay labour costs,” Hagelgans assured. “Final external work will also need to be covered by the congregation or other outside helpers.” In Yakubovo, a second team from Germany will finish the interior work (stage three). The Bible Mission usually donates $27.000 for the construction of such a chapel. One strong financial partner is the Virginia-based „International Cooperating Ministries“ (ICM), which is specialised on church construction globally. ICM covers roughly 60% of the building costs. The Bible Mission’s Lydia Wiebe wrote: “Costs vary according to the country and situation, and we have no set price for a complete house. But if someone has further questions regarding costs, we will be happy to answer.”
The Bible Mission has built nine of these chapels during the past two years, for ex. in Siberia, Moldova and Central Asia. It 2010 it intends to build 15 chapels, 10 of them according to the plans used in Yakubovo. This mission constructs only buildings of worship; they also need to be located on the territory of the former USSR.
Hagelgans stressed that his Bible Mission is not open to any and all construction efforts. “It must be a congregation with clear Bible teaching,” he insisted. “It must be concerned about evangelism and not only about helping itself. The church must promote peace. We do not aid congregations which live in enmity with others.”
After the final touches, the congregation is expected to produce a twice-annual report for three years on developments within its ministry. “We care about evangelism and house groups. It is our goal to do more than merely construct a church building – we want to be involved in spreading the Gospel. We also work closely with the Baptist Unions.”
It is no coincidence that the Bible Mission has focused its intentions on a modest, standardised chapel. It has been involved in church construction for approx. 15 years and has seen more than once how churches and organisations have wasted significant amounts of cash. Hagelgans explained: “We used to help on all kinds of projects. But we also experienced how many projects came to a halt – sometimes after $250.000 or even more had been invested. We would therefore rather be involved in many small projects than in a single large one. If the people want something fancy – be our guest. But they’ll need to do it without us. We want to help those willing to accept our conditions.”
Rapid construction also has major financial advantages. If a structure is built over a period of two or three years, one can expect costs to explode – due in part to inflation.
The Bible Mission, which was founded by émigrés from the Soviet Union in 1984, now has a staff of 22 in its German headquarters and another 89 full-time workers at six outposts. These outposts are spread between Almaty and Omsk in the East and Moldova (Chisinau) and Minsk in the West. Kiev and Moscow are located in-between. In 1999, this Mission opened a US-branch based in Wichita/Kansas: The „Bible Mission International“ presently has a staff of two. See „www.biblemission.org“ for further information in English. The German phone number is: +49 6028 / 80 70-0.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 22 April 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-11, 992 words, 5.896 keystrokes and spaces.
Getting Airborne Safely
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Christians care about general aviation in Russia
Report
M o s c o w -- Dwayne King really cares about the Gospel - but he cares about other things, too. Those “other things” include general aviation – non-government, small-plane air transport. Even after nearly 20 years of trying, the 67-year-old pilot and pastor remains convinced that general aviation will play a major role in the economic development of Russia. All start-ups are small, and King’s flight agency, “Kingdom Air Corps”, has finally been able to help to ship a plane from Seattle/Washington to the Far Eastern Russian city of Khabarovsk. There its licensing and certification are now being processed. The plane, a Cessna 150 two-seater trainer, is owned by the Khabarovsk businessman and aviation enthusiast Anatoly Danielov. Danielov owns a private air strip and even constructed his own plane, a Piper Super Cub.
The hard realties of Russian aviation have led King to conclude that general aviation in Russia must be carried out almost strictly by native pilots. Consequently, King has been training Russians at his air base and school at King Ranch, 80 miles from Anchorage/Alaska. Of the 100 pilots he has trained there since 2000 in seat-of-the-pants, wilderness flying, five of them are from Russia. One of those five is Anatoly Danielov. Another close associate is Konstantin Rudoi, a physicist at the Far Eastern State Transportation University in Khabarovsk. This university partners with University of Alaska Anchorage. King also relates to the Aeroflot flight training school in Khabarovsk.
“We want to encourage and support aviation enthusiasts”, King explained by phone from the U.S. “We want to help them learn to fly in a safe, legal and responsible way.” The pastor reports that many Russian enthusiasts believe they know how to fly solely on the basis of pilot game software and the Internet. “Many accidents have resulted from the lack of training and this has given general aviation a bad name in Russia.”
The barriers to general aviation in Russia are formidable. In a conversation in Moscow, Pastor King reported: “The biggest problems in getting off the ground are bureaucratic. The skies of Eastern Russia are closed to general aviation. We can only fly in very limited, controlled areas. In the Far East, every flight needs to be dispatched. And to be dispatched, you need to pay the weatherman, the plane guard, aircraft maintenance and airport staff, the radio communicator, etc. Flying a small plane from Alaska to Khabarovsk costs at least $10.000.” Moscow region, in contrast, does offer a considerable amount of (very expensive) general aviation.
Anatoly Danielov is less diplomatic. He recently wrote in the magazine “Gran”: “Eighty years ago, during the time of hunger and despair, the Soviet government opened the first aero club in Khabarovsk. They gave the money to buy the planes and for many decades supported people who wanted to fly. And it was absolutely free. That was the time of dreamers and heroes, and we know that heroes don't live long. They were followed by cowards and the fearful, who composed hundreds of laws and regulations. They said it's for our own good or, even better, for the good of the country. They have employed thousands of supervisors keen to see the laws enforced, but they don't care about people. They don't see the sky, they don't need it.”
The pastor has only been able to make 16 trips in small planes between Alaska and Russia during the course of the past 19 years. King reports that he personally made one of the first missionary flights to Russia. That was for the transport of missionaries from Nome/Alaska to the Russian Far East on 1 September 1991. Missionary aviation societies are still able to make infrequent flights between Alaska and Russia. These include “SOAR International”, “MARC” (Missionary Aviation Repair Center) and “Samaritan’s Purse”. Until recently, “Missionary Aviation Fellowship” maintained an office in Moscow for logistical support – not directly for aviation. They are now moving the majority of their efforts to Siberia. King’s “Kingdom Air Corps” (kingdomaircorps.org) is not a part of the Farmington/Michigan-based “Send International” mission, but the two do have close contact.
Despite the major obstacles, King is convinced that his efforts are “worth the bother”. “Small aircraft piloted by Russians are the best and most economic means of serving a roadless region twice the size of the US’ lower 48 states.” King notes that the heavy Soviet-era helicopters used in the Russian North cost $1.500 per hour to rent and burn 100 gallons (379 litres) of fuel per hour. A cheaper option, reindeer, have an over-the-ground speed of four km per hour! Danielov was bowled over by his initial visit to Alaska as King’s guest. He reported in “Gran”, that in Alaska light aviation appears as important as the car. Both men are convinced that light aviation is by far the best option for the economic development of the Russian North and Far East. The model has proven itself in Alaska – and Alaska has a terrain and climate very similar to the Russian Arctic. King adds that change will only occur once sufficient political will on the part of the politically powerful has accumulated. Only then, on the coattails of a massive opening to general aviation, will church-sponsored aviation become a reality.
Pastor King, who began flying at age 20 and has flown over 45 types of aircraft, became a missionary pilot in Alaska in 1968. He has also been active as an evangelist, residing full-time in Khabarovsk from 1993-2000. Now he frequently commutes on commercial flights between Alaska and Khabarovsk via South Korea.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 22 April 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-10, 917 words, 5.609 keystrokes and spaces.
The Debate is Over
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Alexei Smirnov new President of the Russian Baptist Union
M o s c o w – The matter is finally official: At the 33rd Congress of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB) in Moscow on 24 March, Pastor Alexei Vasilevich Smirnov was elected to succeed Yuri Sipko as President. Smirnov had garnered the vote of 326 of the congress’ 432 delegates (75%); 71 delegates cast a dissenting vote. A heated debate immediately prior to the vote revolved around two concerns: the fact that the Union’s Council had presented only a single presidential candidate as well as the recognition that Smirnov remains unknown to large portions of RUECB membership.
Smirnov’s lack of notoriety is due to the fact that he has served and headed the tiny, 17-congregation-strong “Association of Brethren Congregations” (ABC) concentrated in Dedovsk on the Western outskirts of Moscow. That group grew out of the unregistered, underground Baptist movement which had split off from the official “All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists” in 1961. Smirnov’s father was among the many who thereafter spent time in prison. According to the ABC’s own description, the Dedovsk community was forced out of the unregistered movement 30 years later due to its commitment to evangelisation and inter-denominational relations. The ABC’s church-planting efforts grew to include “Rucheyok” (Little Creek), a campground to the west of Dedovsk. The camp made headlines when it landed on the receiving end of major state-bureaucratic repression during and following the national RUECB-convention there in August 2008. Despite its name, the ABC is not a church with historic, denominationally-Brethren roots.
Though formally outside the RUECB, the ABC could be described as its closest ally. The ABC was a founding member of the “Public Council”, an umbrella organisation of 10 denominations within the Baptist tradition, in 2006. Smirnov has served as its head since February 2009. Rev. Smirnov had joined RUECB-headquarters in November 2006 as head of its newly-formed Pastoral Department. That department has recently begun innovative programmes offering counselling services to Baptist pastors mired in personal crises.
Aleksey Smirnov, born in Dedovsk on 24 May 1955, is an auto mechanic by trade. His theological training is limited mostly to correspondence courses offered by Moscow’s Baptist Bible institute. Both he and Yuri Sipko are autodidacts and speak only Russian. In a private conversation at the Moscow convention, Smirnov’s wife of 32 years, Inna Nikolayevna Smirnova, stressed that her husband is an eager learner. It was the repression of the Soviet era and family commitments which prevented him from receiving academic training. The couple has six sons aged between 17 and 31 years.
Regarding the issue of democracy: At the last session of the Union’s Council in Moscow on 19 November, the Council had reached the decision to propose only Smirnov as the successor to Sipko. Some weeks thereafter, the matter of democratic practice surfaced on the Internet. In a recent Internet-forum, the Ukrainian Sergey Rakhuba, the Chicago-based Senior Vice-President of „Peter Deyneka Russian Ministries”, chided the Council for its democratic deficiencies. He conceded that Smirnov was a worthy candidate: “But the deliberate rejection of any alternative approach to elections will keep the system from taking a courageous and strategically proper step towards progressive future development.” The election process for the new President of the Belarusian Baptist Union in Minsk on 20 March had offered the assembled delegates a choice between two candidates.
The Union Council meets twice annually and consists of the Union’s 57 superintendents (also called “bishops”). The congress, for which roughly 800 pesons gathered in Moscow’s Izmailovo Hotel, convenes every four years to elect the Union’s leadership and discuss major business.
Other members of the team
Only hours after Smirnov’s election, Evegeny Yurevich Bakhmutsky became the RUECB’s new Senior Vice-President. The 33-year-old Bakhmutsky, who grew up in Kemerovo/Siberia, was educated as an economist and manager and graduated from the Baptist seminary in Akademgorodok near Novosibirsk. He very successfully managed the Union’s youth programme during the past seven years. He succeeds Dr. Peter Mitskevich as Senior Vice-President. Mitskevich, Rector of “Moscow Theological Seminary”, remains a Vice-President along with Ruvim Voloshin, the RUECB’s Mission Director. All three Vice-Presidents were elected (or re-elected) by the delegates without the option of alternative candidates.
Bakhmutsky associates closely with the Illinois-based, non-denominational “Slavic Gospel Association” (SGA), which has been the RUECB’s official representative to the English-speaking world since 1997. He is also head pastor of Moscow’s recently-formed “Russian Bible Church”. This initiative, which is still meeting at Baptist headquarters, is one of numerous attempts by Baptist leaders to plant new congregations bereft of the cultural baggage usually associated with the Russian Baptist movement. Protestant subcultures are understandably uncomfortable to persons of secular or Orthodox orientation. The Baptist transition to a more urban and intellectual stance will obviously lead to a certain distance between the generatons.
In North America, the name “Bible Church” is used heavily by congregations fundamentalist and independent-non-denominational in orientation. Many of them belong to organisations such as the “Independent Fundamental Churches of America” (IFCA International). IFCA’s partners include SGA and the RUECB (see “www.ifca.org”).
The Future
One speaker at the Congress’ outset on 23 March reported on the fears “native” Baptists felt of falling victim to foreign influence after the political gates opened in 1991. Later that evening, several speakers proclaimed that the danger of foreign theological influence had been successfully repulsed. The claim of successful repulsion was also made by a North American Calvinist – the spokesman for a movement never native to Russian Baptists prior to 1991.
In his brief closing sermon two days later, Alexei Smirnow spoke of the children of Israel circling through the desert rather than moving decisively forward. It was clear from other statements, that he is committed to making his Union more visible in Russian society. “Our stress must be on the creation of healthy, evangelical-Baptist churches,” he stated in an interview. “Such churches will be able to influence society. Churches need to understand themselves as God’s blessing to society.”
Yuri Sipko, who served as Union President for eight years and had been a Vice-President for eight more prior to that, was a gifted, charismatic preacher and communicator. He was noted for his often temperamental and courageous statements on government and society. Observers believe President Smirnov will be more team-oriented. He stated in an interview after his election: “I believe our position on relations with the state and all other outside forces needs to be formed within a team of leaders.” Sipko apologised at the end of his lengthy report on opening evening for being less than organised. Smirnov, who is quieter and more cautious in style, is reputed to be an excellent manager and strategist. Sipko’s future church role has not yet been announced - he turned 57 in February.
Among the more than 250 guests at the congress were prominent representatives from the Russian Baptist diaspora in the USA’s Pacific Northwest including Yuri Sipko’s oldest brother, Alexander. Russian-Germans from Germany were barely evident. The largest West European delegation was a six-member group from Germany’s “Federation of Evangelical Free Churches” headed by Union President Hartmut Riemenschneider. The Didcot-based Baptist World Alliance President David Coffey and the European Baptist Federation’s Prague-based General-Secretary Tony Peck also attended.
The RUECB, Russia's largest, unified Protestant church, represents approximately 78.000 adult members in 1.750 congregations and groups.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 28 March 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-08, 1.203 words, 8.089 keystrokes and spaces.
Why squelch a useful discussion?
Here are two responses to the press release of 28 March on the election of Alexey Smirnov as new President of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. --wy
I don't understand what the problem is re one candidate vs two candidates for an election. If we believe that God has a person for a position then a search committee rightly selected must be entrusted with the responsibility to find the person whom they believe God is calling to that position. Putting more than one name on a ballot paper to make it look like a 'real choice' runs the risk of a division if a vote is close and allows people to think that the Christian Church is a democracy which it isn't - it is a theocracy! we come to seek the mind of Christ.
So our Russian brothers and sisters do not need to feel it inappropriate about having one nomination for President. We in the Baptist Union of Scotland only had one name put into the public domain for our new national leader who will take up office on 1 April. There have been no complaints from Scottish Baptists about a lack of choice!
I also note the ref to the Slavic Gospel Association. We work with them in Scotland. In the UK they are certainly an excellent Christian mission and I regard their work highly. They brought a Romanian pastor to speak at our church four weeks ago. We had a great time of fellowship. Their main contact person in Serbia (where I will be next week), for example, is Dane Vidovic, the excellent leader of the largest Baptist body in that country.
Rev. Brian Talbot
Scotland, 29 March 2010
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While I share many of your concerns about unhealthy foreign influence in the ECB, I don't think it is historically sound to state "a North American Calvinist - the spokesman for a movement never native to Russian Baptists prior to 1991."
While North American Calvinism is non-native, the same cannot be said for the theology of Oncken, Pavlov and Odintsov, as expressed in the Hamburg Baptist Confession of 1847, translated and printed into Russian in the BAPTIST magazine in 1906 and reprinted in 1928.
A 'Calvinist' understanding of the atonement and election, while a minority view, does have a place in the evangelical tradition in Russia alongside the more commonly held Anabaptist-Wesleyan Arminian theology.
Rev. Russell Phillips
Novosibirsk, 29 March 2010
The Same, but Different
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Viktor Krutko new President of the Belarusian Baptist Union
M o s c o w -- Chairs revolved in Minsk’s large “Bethlehem Baptist Church” as Viktor Nikodimovich Krutko was elected President of the Belarusian Baptist Union on 20 March. More than a two-thirds majority of the assembled 289 delegates voted for him to succeed Nikolay Vassilovich Sinkovets as the Union’s President. Krutko had served as the Union’s General-Secretary since 2002; Sinkovets had been its President since that same year. Now, Sinkovets will serve as General-Secretary – the two leaders are essentially trading seats. Vice-President remains Josef Rachkovsky. Prior to 2002, Krutko himself had served as Vice-President.
Dmitry Lazuta, who has successfully planted three thriving Minsk congregations consisting primarily of younger persons with non-Baptist backgrounds, is enthusiastic about Krutko’s election. In a conversation he stated: “I expect a greater openness for churches such as ours which use a contemporary style of worship. We reckon with greater acceptance as regular, normal congregations.” But he hastened to add that Pastor Sinkovets himself has always been supportive. Leonid Demidchik, a pastor in Orsha, also described both Krutko and Sinkovets as cherished and respected leaders admired by all generations.
Lazuta is cautiously optimistic regarding the future of church-state relations. “It’s a kind of intuition I have,” he stated. “Even though it is sometimes just two steps forward, one step back.” Nikolay Sinkovets reported at the election assembly on a meeting with state officials responsible for relations with religious denominations on 11 March at Minsk’s “Government House”. On that occasion, the government appealed also to Protestants for help in overcoming the serious social issues – substance abuse and the breakdown of family life – facing society.
Leonid Mikhovich, Rector of the Baptist Union’s seminary in Minsk, sees the election as a clear vote for continuity. Regarding government relations, he stated in an interview: “We will be continuing our past policy. If changes occur, then they will be initiated by the government side.” He expressed the wish of Baptists that the government become more lenient in permitting services to be held outside of church buildings in those locations where a structure is not available. Such services are for the present officially illegal.
Viktor Krutko was born on 18 June 1953 and grew up in Vileysky region near Minsk. He studied theology for three years at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, graduating in 1992. He served thereafter as Superintendent (or “Bishop” - Starshy Presbyter) of Minsk district and became head pastor of the Bethlehem congregation in 2002 – a capacity in which he still serves. Rev. Krutko is married to Nina, the couple has a married daughter and recently became grandparents.
The “Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Republic of Belarus” has 13.500 members gathered in 290 congregations. Besides a relatively strong presence of the "International Union of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists" with nearly 4.000 members within the country, a sprinkling of autonomous Baptist congregations also exists. This IUCECB was known during Soviet times as the “underground church”; its congregations remain unregistered up to the present. Roughly 100.000 (1%) of the country’s 9.8 million citizens are Protestants.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 23 March 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-07, 499 words, 3.329 keystrokes and spaces.
No Alternative to Dialogue
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10th National Prayer Breakfast held in Moscow
M o s c o w -- Kind things were said about both Protestants and Orthodox at Russia’s 10th Anniversary Prayer Breakfast in Moscow’s top-notch “President-Hotel” on 16 March. Sergey Ryakhovsky, Bishop of Russia’s largest Protestant church umbrella, the Charismatic “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith”, (ROSKhVE), is regarded by not a few conservative Orthodox as their greatest church adversary. Yet at this 10th Breakfast since 1995, he assured that only the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) “can lead the process of spiritual revival in Russia”. Educating and instilling moral values in the young was the topic of this Breakfast, and Ryakhovsky called on all Christian confessions “to create Sunday schools on a massive scale”. The Bishop notes a revival within Orthodox circles: „They are moving out of their churches and going to the people. But Protestants also need to change: They too need to leave their houses of prayer and approach the people.”
At the close of the event, Alexander Borisov, a co-worker of the murdered Alexander Men and a long-time Orthodox supporter of inter-confessional cooperation, was presented with an award for his work as head of the Russian Bible Society. “Thanks to God, in our Bible Society people from different confessions have been working together to publish Bibles for 20 years!” he exclaimed. Protestants noted in their laudatio that Father Borisov had been a courageous spokesman of inter-confessional solidarity even during Soviet times. He and another Orthodox speaker addressed the assembled as “brothers and sisters”.
Praise from government quarters was also available in abundance. Sergey Melnikov from the Russian Federation’s Presidential Administration assured for ex. that Protestants are an “irremovable part of Russia’s social and political map”.
But spirits were dampened by the premature departure of the youthful Alexander Vasyutin from the ROC’s Department for External Church Relations. After a one-year hiatus, the Moscow Patriarchate had agreed to send an official representative to the Breakfast. In his short speech near the outset of the meeting, Vasyutin assured that the moral vacuum among the young could only be filled “by the joint efforts of religious organisations, government authorities and all of society in general”. But he added that the imported, Western values of liberalism and pluralism “have not produced answers for our society and continue to negatively influence the upcoming generation”.
A following speaker, Rabbi Yitzhak Kogan of Moscow’s Bronnaya Synagogue, championed precisely the democratic values of tolerance and plurality as the basis for a successful Russian society. When the Pentecostal pastor Viktor Filyk (Murmansk) plead for a retainment of the secular school as a means of maintaining social peace, Father Vasyutin chose to exit the meeting for good. Filyk had stated: “It is important that secular schools retain their secular character.” His comments were motivated by the fear that strong discrepancies between that which children hear in school and at home can lead to traumatic relationships between parents and their children.
Also in other respects, this 10th Prayer Breakfast was a study in contrasts. In one of his last functions as President of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RUECB), Pastor Yuri Sipko presented an award to Alexander Soldatov, Chief Editor of the “Portal-Credo” dissident Orthodox news service, for independent and objective reporting. A moved Alexander Soldatov responded that his reporters “frequently work under life-threatening conditions”. Religious discrimination is on the increase by the month, he maintained, and will lead to his service being forced to transfer to a completely new Internet format after 1 April. “Our destiny is in the hands of God,” the editor stated. The professional choir responded also to this award with a traditional tune wishing the recipient 100 years of continued service. Not many minutes before, Bishop Ryakhovsky had praised Russian President Dimitry Medvedev for having “a highly spiritual approach” in leading his country.
In contrast to last year, virtually all wings of the Protestant movement were among the 400 participants. Inner-Protestant relations have improved. All three Protestant members of the “Council for Cooperation with Religious Organisations at the Seat of the Russian President” (Ryakhovsky, the Evangelical-Christian businessman Alexander Semchenko and the Adventist President Vassily Stolyar) were present. None of the three had attended a year ago. For the first time, the representatives of at least five African embassies were present along with diplomats from the USA, Hungary and Finland.
After the event, Baptist pastor Vitaly Vlasenko, Board Chairman of the National Prayer Breakfast Foundation and Director of the RUECB’s Department for External Church Relations, explained: “When all of us are together, differences are bound to surface. We Protestants along with the Catholic and Orthodox stress differing aspects of Russian achievements and failures. That is why our dialogue is vital. We have no alternative other than to carry on and strive to improve our chances of spiritual unity.”
Vlasenko noted that 11 prayer breakfasts are to take place this year in Russia. An important regional one is scheduled for Konstantinovsky Palace in St. Petersburg on 18 May.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 19 March 2010
National Prayer Breakfast Foundation
Release #10-06, 818 words, 5.401 keystrokes and spaces.
All persons mentioned reside in Moscow unless stated otherwise.
Our Behaviour Must Reflect Christ
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7th Annual Conference of the Russian Evangelical Alliance in Moscow
M o s c o w -- „Our words, our behaviour and character must reflect Christ. That will make it possible for us to succeed in our dialogue with the Orthodox.” That was the opinion of the Adventist theology professor Yevgeny Zaitsev (Zaoksky/Tula region), expressed at the 7th annual conference of the Russian Evangelical Alliance (REA) in Moscow’s Pentecostal "Blagiye Vesti" (Godd News) church on 3 March. He supported his view with an incident which occurred in Tula region a year ago. After the missions department of the local Orthodox eparchy had placed a defamatory and highly-questionable article in the press, a three-man Adventist delegation paid the Archbishop a visit. After a quick look at the text, the church leader apologised. He also saw to it that a correction appeared in the regional press. The professor concluded: “This shows that we can expect a positive response if we act in a Christian manner. Had we gone to the courts, we would have landed on a dead-end -street.” An aggressive response to aggressive behaviour will only increase tensions.
The one-day conference did not skirt the major difficulties involving inter-church relationships. It was stated that most Orthodox clergy in the country’s vast expanses do not see any necessity for a clarifying conversation between the large and the tiny. According to the Adventist Vice-President Oleg Goncharov (Klimovsk), it has been local politicians and media who have been pouring oil onto the fire. Priests and the mission departments of regional eparchies have seen to it that negative reports on Christians from other denominations appear in the media.
In another lecture, the retired religion specialist Yuri Zuyev pointed to the significant differences in world view between Orthodox and Protestant groups. In Russia, a patriarchal, vertically-structured culture geared towards solidarity and collectivism confronts the Western understanding of democracy and individual self-realisation. “According to Orthodox belief, every division and difference within society is a sign of illness. Healing consists of overcoming the contradictions and re-establishing unity.” Precisely these social contradictions – the illness – are eternalised by the presence of Western missionaries. Zuyev expressed it in the following words: “The desire for a strong hand, protection and traditional values does not support the concept of dialogue with Protestants.”
The recently-appeared „non-traditional“ faiths are regarded not least of all as the unhappy remnants of a bygone, traumatic era – the mishappen experiment of forming a Western-style society in the 1990s. An agreement with Protestant missionaries is complicated further by the fact that they cannot permit their activity to be limited by national or ethnic boundaries.
Numerous speakers pointed out that Orthodox leadership is clearly interested in a limited cooperation with Protestants. Zuyev quoted the deceased Patriarch Alexei II.: “Contact with those of differing faith is important not only for them, but also for us. It is not possible to live in complete isolation.” The professor continued with a text from the Archbishops’ Council of 2000, which stated that the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was called to develop its contacts with other denominations “in the spirit of fraternal co-operation with the goal of coordinating matters of public concern”. Charity, culture and the joint struggle for moral values are realms in which co-operation would be welcome. The Council’s statement closes with the note, that its willingness is “coupled to the condition that proselytism is rejected.” Obviously, Orthodox circles can accept Protestant contributions only as supplement to their own. Proselytism on the other hand is a kind of destruction, for it replaces Orthodoxy with Protestantism.
Both large wings of the church contain positive aspects, assured Zuyev. They can therefore supplement each other in a helpful way. In an recent attack Yuri Sipko’s on globalisation – Sipko called it a precursor of the Antichrist – the professor recognised a strong overlapping with Orthodox positions. Sipko is President of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. But Zuyev added that middle- and lower-level clergy attempt to avoid dialogue with Protestants and that top leadership is not eager to incite a conflict with them on the matter. Top Orthodox leadership cannot accept a dialogue with the non-Orthodox that would lead to a loss of power for themselves.
The Adventist Zaitsev mentioned the massive contradictions facing Russian society. Despite major church efforts, Russia may be the only country on earth in which the number of abortions exceeds the number of live births. According to his numbers, only 8,5% of those Russians claiming to be Orthodox believe in a life after death. Such deficits could – according to Zaitsev - be reduced through the joint efforts of the various denominations.
Conference participants were convinced that intolerance can only be treated with enlightenment. Professor Zaitsev quoted the Russian writer Nikolai Leskov (1831-1895): „Holy Russia (Rus) may be baptised, but it has not been enlightened.“ REA-head Vladimir Ryaguzov (Krasnodar) assured that Protestants could confront the general lack of knowledge jointly with the Orthodox. The Russian Bible Society, which was represented at the conference, was mentioned as one instance in which Protestants and Orthodox have already contributed jointly to the enlightenment of the Russian people on the basis of the Bible.
On occasion, the conference became very practical. Dr. Ryaguzov appealed for greater fantasy in responding to the Orthodox challenge. One Orthodox participant, a one-time Pentecostal, claimed that joint youth concerts would have good chances of being a hit. “But where can one find Protestant musicians with challenging texts?” he asked. According to him, shallow praise music will not meet the expectations of Orthodox listeners.
Despite the participation of individual Orthodox believers, the Moscow Patriarchate’s official delegation did not appear. Yet the conference’s closing statement remained resolute: “We are hoping for their participation at future conferences.” At least 32 representatives of organisations and churches were present at the year’s Moscow conference.
A regional conference took place afterward in Nizhny Novgorod on 5 and 6 March – the number of participants there reached 45. The topic was entitled “Our Father”; a great deal of praying occurred. “The concept of the Alliance is alive in Nizhny,” concluded Ulrich Materne (Wittenberge), East European consultant for the German Evangelical Alliance. “Even if events do not always occur under the official name of the Alliance.” Indeed, the Alliance appears frequently more alive in the regions than in Moscow.
The national Alliances of the 1846 in London founded Evangelical Alliance are today gathered in the European and World Evangelical Alliances. Its US-partner is the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE).
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 9 March 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-05, 1.060 words, 7.019 keystrokes and spaces.
Faith Can Unite Us
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A conversation with Moscow’s Archimandrite Zacchaeus
M o s c o w -- Can Protestants do mission in Russia without giving Orthodox the impression they are proselytising? “I hope so,” responded the US-American priest Archimandrite Zacchaeus, head of Moscow’s “Church of St. Catherine the Great Martyr in-the-Fields” parish. He sees joint work on humanitarian projects as a way to strengthen inter-confessional ties. “By working together to feed the hungry, we can bear witness to the love that we preach about every Sunday. By our example, we can demonstrate the bond of love and understanding between us and our Protestant brothers and sisters. We have mistaken faith in ourselves for faith in God. But if it really is God in whom we place our faith, then that faith will unite us.” During 2007, his congregation had cooperated with a soup kitchen sponsored by the Presbyterian pastor Bob Bronkema and his “Moscow Protestant Chaplaincy”.
Zacchaus was asked in the interview whether the Moscow Patriarachate’s definition of canonical territory left any room for Western Protestants to do mission in Russia. “We have to concede there is freedom of religion in Russia,” he responded. “That means, Russia is open territory. We Orthodox have to realise that we are constantly called ourselves to be a missionary church – here and in North America. So if we fear foreign missionaries, it is only because we are not doing a proper job of missionizing ourselves.”
The Archimandrite continued: “There have been very positive meetings in the recent past between Archbishop Hilarion and representatives of the Protestant community. That is something very, very good, because we must be open to understanding one another. And through that we will be able to overcome past difficulties and conflicts. There have been instances in which Protestants sought to missionize not only non-believers, but also the Orthodox. We must dialogue openly about this, for that is unfair and a major part of our problem with Protestant missionaries. If they were preaching to those who have never heard the Gospel, then that is one issue. But if they are preaching to those who just walked out of an Orthodox church, then that’s extremely irresponsible.”
The 1971-born Zacchaeus (Wood) is in essence the Orthodox Church in America’s (OCA) ambassador to the Moscow Patriarchate, responsible to Metropolitan Jonah (Paffhausen) in Washington/D.C. St. Catherine’s functions as the OCA’s “embassy” to Russia. But St. Catherine’s is also a typical Moscow parish – 99% of its parishioners are Muscovites. The priest reported that if there are Orthodox Christians working in the US-embassy, they tend to choose St. Catherine’s as their temporary spiritual home. He stated: “This year, we have four from the embassy and others from American businesses. Some years we have more Americans here, other years not even one. The stable part of our community is the Russians.” An English-language mass takes place at the church monthly (see also “www.st-catherine.ru”.)
Zacchaeus, who grew up Orthodox in Spring Valley/NY as the son of a Scottish-Irish father and a Belarusian mother, strives to make his parish a place of gathering for many peoples. “That is one of my major missions”, he stated, “to bring people from various backgrounds, faiths and nationalities together.” Such opportunities were signicantly increased by the merger of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA) – also called Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOA) – with the Moscow Patriarchate in 2007. The ROCA sees itself as a Russian church; the OCA understands itself to be a church of many peoples residing in North America. Wood reported that the rejoining of the two, once-estranged churches has greatly increased his contacts with ROCA clergy: “It is now a rarity if a visiting clergyman from the ROCA does not stop by St. Catherine’s. It has happened that we have three churches – ROC, OCA, ROCA - leading one service and joining in common prayer. We are not ROCA, but many who come here on Wednesdays for our weekly service honoring Saint John (Maximovitch), are. We have a part of his holy relics in an icon donated to us. He was once a saint of the ROCA, but now of the entire ROC. He is now seen as a truly American saint.” When Saint John of Shanghai and San Francisco (1896-1966) served in China from 1934 to 1949, he was the only Russian hierarch there who did not submit to the authority of the Moscow-based ROC. He was canonised a saint by the ROCA in 1994 and is – since 2008 – venerated by all churches in full communion with the ROC.
Unique about St. Catherine’s are the bells located in the church courtyard at Bolshaya Ordynka, 60/2. They were presented to the church by a US firm and a foundation to commemorate the victims of the attacks on 11 September 2001. Archimandrite Zacchaeus explained: “Terrorist attacks are continuing, so we have broadened the scope of our service to include Beslan and all other victims of terrorism around the world. So (at the yearly service) on 9/11, we have ambassadors from 15 to 20 nations here. When there has been an attack in their area, they come. We are the only place in Moscow that hosts such a service, and this is something very positive for us. It is an honor to be able to do this.”
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 27 February 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-04, 866 words, 5.214 keystrokes and spaces.
Note: A lengthier version of this interview appears in the February 2010 issue of “East-West Church & Ministry Report”.
Joining that Which Jesus is Doing in Russia
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On the Quaker presence in Moscow
Report
M o s c o w -- Thanks largely to the efforts of the Society of Friends – or “Quakers”, the peace church presence on Russian soil remains. The closure of Mennonite Central Committee’s Moscow offices in 2000 had led some to assume that the witness of North America’s pacifist, “historic peace churches” (Quaker, Mennonite, Church of the Brethren) had come to an end. That witness had been restarted in the mid-1950s when delegations from these denominations began with regular visits to the Soviet Union. (Small Mennonite communities stemming from immigration to the Russian empire after 1780 remain in Western Siberia.)
“Friends House Moscow”, which was founded in 1994 and now calls Shosse Entusiastov 31/38 its home, remains active as an NGO committed to social and humanitarian causes. (See “fhm.quaker.org”.) In addition, two small groups of Moscow Quakers are meeting. Interested individuals or groups are active in Kazan, Lipetsk, Elektrostal (near Moscow) and Barnaul – also in the Baltics, Minsk, Tbilisi and Ukraine. Yet total Quaker membership within Russia numbers less than 50, with 20 of them in Moscow. Worldwide, they number less than 400.000.
Quakers were among the earliest to champion individual rights and civil society. They have in recent times been instrumental in the founding of groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace. They have always counteracted their modest numbers by seeking dialogue with the powerful. Russian Quakers point out that their church has a long history of involvement in Russia, actively opposing serfdom during the 19th century. Already the founder of the movement, the Englishman George Fox (1624-1691), wrote a letter to Tsar Aleksey Mikhailovich in 1654. Their fame in Russia was due not least of all to Czar Alexander I (1777-1825), who is sometimes described as an evangelical. He had become enamoured with the Quakers during his 1814 visit to London. Quakers are mentioned in Alexander Pushkin’s novel “Eugene Onegin” of 1823. Leo Tolstoy’s daughter-in-law, Olga Tolstaya-Voyekova (1858-1936), joined the Quakers in 1924.
Quakerism has practiced equality of the sexes since the days of George Fox. In the Russian context, they were regarded by some members of the intelligentsia as a liberating alternative to the Orthodox church. Quakers stress an egalitarian and non-hierarchical approach; an official pastoral role was not instituted until late in the 19th century.
Quakers were also involved in Russian agricultural and economic matters. Between 1818 and 1832, the Quaker family Wheeler succeeded in draining large areas of swamp in the vicinity of St. Petersburg. A small Quaker cemetery at Shushary remains as a reminder of that feat. Driven by concerns for humanitarian relief and peace, Quakers were able to maintain an office in Moscow from 1923 to 1931. Their office was possibly the very last Western NGO operating in Moscow during the Stalinist period.
Though Quaker work on Russian penal reform goes back as far as 1819, they are presently refused access to prisons. (Which is possible in Ukraine.) Yet surprisingly enough, despite being involved with Russia’s conscientious objectors, they also work with units of the Russian army in Moscow and Lipetsk. Along with the other two peace churches, Quakers are stressing peaceful conflict resolution world-wide. Sergei Grushko, Director of Moscow Friends House and head of its “Alternatives to Violence Project” (AVP), describes it as its primary practical project. It teaches communication skills in every-day situations with the intent of reducing violence within the military - as well as in schools and other social groupings. Friends House is striving to open an AVP programme in South Ossetia; a small effort is already in place in Grosny.
Other Quaker social programmes in Russia presently include a hospice for the dying in Yaroslavl, aid for young people leaving orphanages to live on their own and for the children of migrants. Programmes are also aiding foster children and their new parents to become better accustomed to each other as well as a programme for children suffering from cancer.
Spiritual concerns
The spiritual arm of Quaker work was restarted in 1991 with Moscow worship meetings in the living quarters of the now-deceased history professor Tatiana Pavlova. They presently meet in a downtown basement room on Sunday evenings. At their “meeting for worship”, there are no religious trappings other than a candle, no sermon and usually no music. The meeting on the evening I was there began with five in attendance. It ended an hour later with nearly 15. The hour was spent in silent meditation except for the reading of several Scriptures. The second group, which meets bi-weekly, could be described as a discussion group.
The stress is on dialogue. Johan Maurer, a US-American from Oregon residing and teaching in Elektrostal, describes his strategy as: “Finding out what Jesus is doing in Russia - and joining in.” That joining also intends to involve the constituency for Maurer’s work in the US Pacific Northwest. Becoming neighbours to the neighbours in Elektrostal is a way for him and his wife Judy to become rooted in Russia. Regarding his work as a language instructor, he states: “We want to find ways to bring a redemptive message into the classroom. We have a special message to give, but we do not proselytise.”
The Quaker belief in the “inward light”, in “that of God” within each individual, lends itself strongly to dialogue. It makes the convictions of every person worthy of consideration. But the belief that the Holy Spirit speaks directly to each individual has led Quakers at times to go beyond the teaching of “sola scriptura”. If God speaks to each person, then it indeed becomes difficult to claim that I am speaking at the behest of the Holy Spirit - and the other person is not. At this point, Friends’ teaching on corporate discernment is crucial.
Can a Quaker also be a Muslim – which is the case of their partner in Grosny? Quaker teaching became increasingly broad during the last century. Maurer concedes that it is no longer clear to all Quakers whether they are a Christian community, or rather an inter-religious order driven by a common concern for peace and social justice. Many Russian Quakers also regard themselves as Orthodox. Maurer, an evangelical believer, states: “I think anyone who maintains that Christianity is not necessarily a part of Quakerism, is wrong.” But he adds: “I am only useful in Russia if I do not police the movement. I am here to win people for Christ – I cannot do both. I want to work warmly with anyone who claims to be a Quaker, but my accountability is to a group in the US which is biblically-grounded.” Maurer is a member of the “Evangelical Friends Church International”(EFCI) branch of Quakerism. He dreams of a Quaker churches gathering in Moscow – something more substantial than simple ecumenical discussion groups.
Maurer admits that a church community with little structure and no sacraments (no baptism, communion nor church calendar) lacks the sensuality so common to Slavic worship. He sees it as a possible impediment to the growth of the Quaker movement in Russia – or, more positively, an invitation to merge the simplicity of traditional Quaker worship with the depth and directness of Russian spirituality. But the weakness of the Quaker movement is also its strength: The absence of outward forms also opens it for dialogue with a very diverse community of human beings.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 23 February 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-03, 1.209 words, 7.475 keystrokes and spaces.
Baptists - a Dear Christian Sect
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Is Alexander Dvorkin experiencing a change of heart?
Commentary
M o s c o w -- In an interview first published in the December issue of the Protestant paper “Christianin”, Alexander Dvorkin, Russia’s most prominent “cult specialist” and “favourite enemy” of Russian Protestantism, conceded that Baptists had played a significant role in his initial conversion. Soon after emigrating from the Soviet Union as a 21-year-old hippy and dissident in March 1977, Russian Baptists in Italy presented him and a friend with their first Bibles and Christian literature. One brochure contained a simple prayer for someone wishing to accept Christ: “In you, o God, I do not believe, but I want to believe. Give me faith in you.” In the States roughly a year later, it dawned on him that his prayer had been answered. He adds in the above interview that his closest friend, an Orthodox home-schooler now residing in Texas, had once been a Baptist.
Dvorkin has been known for his emotional and confrontational attacks on groups whom he regards as dangerous. In his brochures, the activist accused Krishna, Jehovah’s Witnesses and Moonies of various crimes while labelling them "gangsters, Satanists and charlatans”. The sociologist Sergey Filatov reported on the “hate and slander spouting forth from Dvorkin”. His detractors accuse him of keeping alive the anti-sectarian hysteria of the Communist era.
After accusing Sergey Ryakhovsky, Bishop of the Charismatic “Associated Russian Union of Christians of Evangelical-Pentecostal Faith” (ROSKhVE) on national TV of preparing a Ukrainian-style “Orange Revolution” on Russian soil, the Bishop took Dvorkin to court. In the case, which was finally decided in Dvorkin’s favour in May 2007, the two adversaries accused each other of sowing national discord and essentially being undercover agents for US-American interests. Dvorkin, who returned to Russia at the end of 1991, had acquired a US-passport in 1984 and now enjoys double citizenship.
Many of Dvorkin’s statements can be interpreted as anti-Western. He has been taken to court for decrying Moscow’s human-rights “Helsinki Watch Group” as a front for the Scientology movement. Typical for contemporary Russia conservatives, he reports in the interview with “Christianin” on the “catastrophical rapidity with which America is destroying itself through the dictatorship of political correctness”.
Two of Dvorkin’s closest associates are West-European Lutherans and highly controversial in their own right. His 1993-founded “Centre for Religion Research of the Holy Irenaeus of Lyons” was reportedly patterned after Denmark’s “International Dialogue Centre” headed by Johannes Aagaard. Another close cohort is Berlin’s anti-cult activist Thomas Gandow.
Despite strong support from the deceased Patriarch Alexey II., Dr. Dvorkin’s work has been largely dismissed by serious Russian academia. His often inflammatory speeches and writings, his inflated curriculum vitae and self-designation as “Professor”, have damaged his academic reputation.
Dvorkin’s passion in matters of the sects is undoubtedly related to his own biography. Prior to his baptism as an Orthodox believer in 1980, he had gathered considerable experience with the occult and with the Krishna movement. As a profound searcher without religious background, the young Russian emigrant had himself initially been highly-vulnerable “conversion material” for Western cults.
The year 2009
It could be maintained that Russia’s leading cult activist reached the pinnacle of his acclaim in 2009. At its annual conference in St. Petersburg in May, Dvorkin was elected a Vice-President of the “European Federation of Centres for Research and Information on Sectarianism” (FECRIS). More importantly, he had been named Chairman of the Russian Justice Department’s new “Commission for the Implementation of State Expertise on Religious Science” a month before. This and proposed new, anti-missionary legislation led to a major outcry among the non-Orthodox and resulted in formation of the “Inquisition – No!” protest movement. Yet, at the height of his “success”, there are indications that this activist’s bellicosity is breaking down.
Even before the interview with “Christianin”, Dvorkin had begun to distinguish clearly between “classical” and “totalitarian, destructive” sects. The Russian “Wikipedia” quotes him describing Baptists as a “dear Christian sect”. He assures Baptists that he does not intend to offend. He maintains that “sect” as a neutral term, an unavoidable “classical term used in the sociology of religion”. In the above interview, he also includes traditional, Russian Pentecostals among the “classical” sects. Yet the Neo-Pentecostals (Charismatics), Jehovah’s Witnesses, Mormons, Krishna and Scientology all belong in the category of “destructive”. He thereby describes Adventists and some Pentecostal groups as borderline cases, located in transition between “totalitarian” and “classic”. According to him now, state intervention is only needed in dealing with the destructive cults. In the interview he states: We and the Baptists “can argue harshly, but religious freedom includes the freedom to dispute. Government should not determine where truth is located in these discussions. We can resolve these matters ourselves.”
Yet Dvorkin’s change of heart is likely much more than a simple mellowing with age. After the Moscow Patriarchate dropped cooperation with the “World Council of Churches’” “Conference of European Churches” (CEC), it immediately turned its attention in October 2008 to reviving the “Christian Inter-Confessional Advisory Committee for the CIS-Countries and Baltics”. The CIAC had been dormant since early 2002. The regional CIAC, considerably less diverse than the all-European CEC, will require much stronger Orthodox cooperation with the Protestant denominations of Russia.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Moscow, 9 February 2010
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-02, 850 words, 5.785 keystrokes and spaces.
All persons mentioned reside in or near Moscow.
A note regarding the report on Alexander Dvorkin from 9 February: In my conversations since then with Professor Dvorkin, he has maintained that his thinking is not in a process of transition. He says he always has pointed out the existence of fundamental differences between Baptists and “third-wave” Neo-Charismatics. In addition, he notes that the title “Professor” was bestown on him by the deceased Patriarch Alexey II. I apologise for all inaccuracies.. –wy
Russia’s Confessions are Closer to Each Other
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Conclusions of a worship service during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity
M o s c o w – Thanks to the lack of liberalism, the Christian confessions of Russia are closer to each other than are the Christian confessions of the West. That was one conclusion drawn by speakers on 20 January at the central worship service commemorating this year’s “Week of Prayer for Christian Unity” in Moscow’s “Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary”. Father Igor Kovalevski, the hosting dignitary and Secretary-General of Russia’s Conference of Catholic Bishops, stated: “In my opinion, the Christian churches of Russia are already unified on the fundamental issues of morality. It is the appearance of more liberal confessions in the West that has deepened divisions.”
Father Igor Vyzhanov, Secretary in the Moscow Patriarchate’s “Department of External Church Relations”, forecast additional confessional divisions and attributed them to the “radical liberalism” some Western churches are demonstrating on the issues of abortion, euthanasia, sexuality and the family. Russia is retaining that which Europe has lost. Dimitry Lotov, Pastor of Moscow’s Lutheran “St. Peter and Paul Cathedral”, assured that the Christians of Russia bear witness to the steadfastness of faith, which “is being lost so rapidly in Europe”.
Cooperation on issues of morality is seen as one primary expression of Christian unity in Russia. Father Vyzhanov, the Orthodox representative, appealed to Christians to “speak with one voice on the issue of fundamental Biblical precepts”. During the week, which ran from 18 to 25 January, denominational cooperation on social and humanitarian projects, on issues of education, culture and the media were also mentioned. A joint, first-ever Baptist and Orthodox children’s celebration in Moscow on 10 January had featured family values. At an ecumenical roundtable on 21 January, the Orthodox deacon Sergey Starokadomsky pointed out that the greater Catholic and Protestant experience in social service could be of major help to his denomination. Concerning the present-day state of his church he conceded: “The Orthodox file on charitable service has not yet been dearchived.” Irina Mitrofanova, “Director for Work with Sunday Schools” in the “Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists”, reported: “We presently have massive possibilities for joint work with children and youth.”
In general, the roundtable on 21 January delved heavily into recent history. One Orthodox layperson lauded the “major aid” Catholic and Protestant organisations had offered in making the rebirth of the Russian Orthodox Church possible: “The Orthodox will not be forgetting that help.” The Orthodox artist and lecturer Lilya Ratner reported nostalgically on a joint Finnish-Protestant and Russian-Orthodox effort during the Volga mission of 1992: There was not any kind of “Protestant proselytism”, she insisted. “We simply taught ourselves how to speak with others about Christ.”
The prayer service on 20 January had concluded with music from a local Charismatic choir. That had occurred not for the first time in this Catholic cathedral, yet it indeed does remain a seldom occurrence in Russia.
Unfinished agenda
The Russian Orthodox Church no longer supports joint, mutual praying with the non-Orthodox. Igor Kovalevski alluded to this in his sermon on 20 January by noting that prayers at the interconfessional service in his cathedral were simultaneous – but not joint. “We prayed for unity, but we all prayed in differing fashions.”
Yet a case can be made for the claim that ecumenical relations are slowly improving. The disturbing, anti-proselytization draft legislation introduced by the Russian Ministry of Justice on 12 October 2009 still appears far removed from passage in its original form. The Justice Ministry’s Alexander Dvorkin, an avowed cult specialist and the priest most famous for the defamation of religious groups not belonging to the Moscow Patriarchate of the Orthodox faith, had amiable and encouraging meetings with Protestants in late 2009. After more than a decade of tensions, an agreement has been reached between the Orthodox and Baptist churches in Lipetsk, south-western Russia. The Baptists will be receiving a centrally-located, former heating plant as compensation for their repairs on the Orthodox church they will be needing to vacate. Moscow’s “Slavic Legal Centre” reports that the stern reprimand dished out to Novosibirsk’s Charismatic “Church of the Covenant” last September for allegedly illegal activates was withdrawn by the regional court on 20 January. The Centre states that most such malpractices of justice have been due to the “incompetence of judicial department staff on matters in the religious realm.”
A larger gathering of the resuscitated Orthodox-Catholic-Protestant “Christian Inter-Confessional Advisory Committee for the CIS-Countries and Baltics” (CIAC) is scheduled for Moscow on 4 February.
William Yoder, Ph.D.
Press service of the Russian Evangelical Alliance
Release #10-01, 733 words, 4.881 keystrokes and spaces.
All persons mentioned reside in or near Moscow.
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