Mission, Charity and Ecumenical Links in the Baltics: the RSKhD and Its Contacts with Lutheran Relief Organisations in the USSR

Abstract

The Russian Student Christian Movement (RSKhD), one of the leading Christian movements of the twentieth century, became the basis for a new Orthodox identity in the religious revival of Russian emigration in the 1920s. Recent studies have given this movement a clearer shape, focusing on the personalities of its participants, their missionary and educational work, and their international support for Russian emigrants. Our article focuses on the RSKhD in the Baltics, which remains an understudied part of the movement. This article highlights the RSKhD’s links with Protestant organisations assisting Christians in the USSR in the 1920s and 1930s, as well as the role of the mediator between Protestants and the RSKhD, Vladimir Fedorovich Buchholz, whose archival materials from the Estonian National Archives have remained largely unexplored. This study contributes to the understanding of Russian emigration and Estonian religious history through the lens of transnational religious influence.