Leadership, communication, and conflicts among evangelicals: analysis of relations in religious communities in the late USSR

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article examines one aspect of the life of the evangelical communities of the USSR (Baptists and Pentecostals) which found themselves gathered into a single prayer space, as a result of state religious policy that aimed to neutralize and unify them. The authors explore the internal history of this association. Forced to unite under pressure from the Stalinist regime (indeed, Pentecostals were declared an unacceptable movement by the authorities and experienced particular discrimination), the leaders of both denominations hoped, as a result of the August Accord of 1945, to receive certain benefits: the Baptists aimed to neutralize the Pentecostals’ proselytizing, while the Pentecostals hoped for convenient opportunities to preach at Baptist gatherings. Within congregations, the “victims” of political repressions and discrimination on the part of the leadership of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists could be perceived as either “wolves in sheep’s clothing” who stole “Baptist sheep,” or as true “spiritual Christians.” Drawing on oral histories and archival documents, including unique evidence for popular religion in the postwar period such as letters and memoirs, the authors analyze the argumentation of “ordinary” believers who encountered the ecstatic practices of the Pentecostals, which either frightened or delighted them, and their consequent behavioural strategies.