Russian evangelicals hold a congress

Abstract

The over-riding impression for foreign observers attending the 41st All Union Congress of the Evangelical Christians and Baptists in Moscow, 11-13 December 1974, was one of spiritual triumph. The evangelical movement in Russia is obviously growing whether one measures it in terms of baptisms (12,000 in the last five years), total membership (announced at 5315,000), the building of churches (especially in the Caucasus and the Ukraine) or in terms of one very interesting statistic, namely,~)that 35 I of the 483 delegates had been Christians for less than ten years. The long report by the general secretary covered all aspects of Church life it seemed. The second class had graduated from the two-year Bible correspondence course. This now makes a total of 179 graduates. There had been successes in publishing. These were of course very small but did include the publication of a song book with musical notation for choirs (5,000 copies it is estimated), a calendar, and on the eve of the Congress they had taken delivery of 20,000 New Testaments with Psalms. On the final day one saw delegates coming to their seats carrying brown paper parcels containing their allotments. There were also more standard reports on contributors and their contributions to the bi-monthly periodical, Fraternal Herald. The number of copies per issue was raised by a thousand. Perhaps the 315 speeches by delegates were more interesting to hear. Many of these speakers were of course safe, non-controversial supporters of the status quo, but even they provided helpful information on local churches which is difficult to obtain elsewhere. Others offered slightly daring calls for more improvement. Several delegates spoke boldly and forcefully in favour of introducing music courses into the curriculum of the Bible correspondence course, and even more spokesmen urged that this course be opened up to choir directors and even lay leaders. Delegates frequently referred to the severe shortage of Christian literature, remarking also that they never saw the official journal, Fraternal Herald. Others made it clear that their expectations included more literature in their mother tongues, namely in Ukrainian, Latvian, Estonian or German. This is of course not a complaint against the Church leadership but more an appeal to keep pressing the State for more concessions. Although there is an explanation for this Congress being the 41st, the