Russian Evangelical Compassionate Ministries, 1905-1929 

Mary Raber

Compassionate ministry, defined as uncompensated service to people in need, was an organic part of Russian evangelical witness from the early days of the movement. It was an important way to proclaim and give evidence of a new life brought about by the gospel. Because of their relatively small numbers, comparative lack of wealth, numerous competing priorities, and minority status, Russian evangelicals never established large charitable institutions. Nor did their efforts to help people in need in the early 20th century last longer than a few years. Nevertheless, and in spite of active resistance on the part of Russian imperial and Soviet authorities, evangelicals sustained a consistent and coherent vision of compassionate ministry as part of their calling. 

The Pashkovites 

In the 1870s, English evangelical Lord Radstock influenced Pashkovites (named for their leader Col. V. A. Pashkov) in the direction of compassionate involvement, although many of them were already active in various forms of charitable work.1 Nevertheless, Radstock’s contribution was to invest their existing service with evangelical urgency. Thus, their previous work in prison visitation, as sisters of mercy, or teaching literacy to peasants on their own estates continued, but became the platform for preaching repentance and conversion, which they were convinced was the way to lasting social transformation. In the same way, the next generation of Pashkovites, after Col. Pashkov’s exile from Russia in 1884, also joined existing forms of compassionate ministry while filling them with evangelical content. Thus, Jenny de Mayer established a House of Industry on Sakhalin Island.2 Likewise, at a time when “people’s kindergartens” were fairly common, Iuliia Karpinskaia set up several in Kyiv with an evangelical emphasis.3 Meanwhile, as members of the movement suffered imprisonment and exile for their faith, especially during the 1890s, it became the task of those in freedom to help them spiritually and financially. Pashkovites and their spiritual descendents maintained an interest in compassionate ministry as it was practiced abroad by such figures as Thomas Barnardo (philanthropist and founder of numerous orphanages) and George Mueller (orphanage founder and evangelist), and by organizations such as the Salvation Army. 

The 1905 Act of Toleration 

The situation of Russian evangelicals improved rather suddenly in April 1905 when religious toleration was declared. Until April 1929, when the law “On Religious Associations” put an end to all religiously based activity beyond actual worship, evangelicals remained relatively free, although they continued to suffer intermittent arrests, harassment, fines, and the closure of their prayer houses, especially during World War I. They began many ambitious projects after 1905, including publishing, church construction, theological education, and the sending of missionaries. Amid all this activity, compassionate ministry remained a strong commitment. 

Three Forms of Compassionate Ministry 

It is possible to identify three major patterns of evangelical compassionate ministries during the period 1905-1929. First, evangelicals developed dedicated funds and institutions for the purpose of meeting the needs of their own community members, especially preachers and evangelists (1905-early 1920s); second, they carried on rescue ministry to transform the lives of the urban poor (about 1910- early 1920s); and third, they organized economic communities whose ultimate purpose was to eradicate poverty altogether (1919- late 1920s). Each of these basic trends is associated with different leaders of the movement. D. I. Mazaev, V. G. Pavlov, and V. V. Ivanov represent compassion practiced among evangelicals themselves; W. A. Fetler characterizes rescue ministry; and I. S. Prokhanov is distinguished by his vision for the potential of economic communities. The first two major streams of compassionate activity were separated from the third by the years 1914-1923, which were marked by war, revolution, and famine. During this time, evangelicals of necessity were called on to respond to human need on an unprecedented scale. They developed a new level of administrative sophistication to receive and channel a significant amount of famine aid sent from abroad. 

The Theological Basis for Compassionate Ministries

 Throughout the entire period of the so-called evangelical Golden Age (1905-29), Russian evangelicals were undergirded by the same basic set of assumptions. They taught that preaching the gospel was their primary calling, while assuming at the same time that the gospel had the power to eradicate human suffering. Convinced that their witness should consist of good works as well as words, evangelicals cultivated an attitude of concern and personal involvement in the needs of others, following the example of Christ. They taught that compassion was a basic element of their common Christian witness and the concern of all members of the community, regardless of their economic status or age. Generosity and simple living were encouraged, and their publications devoted a good deal of teaching to the proper Christian attitude toward money and giving. Compassionate models from the West were actively sought, particularly in the case of urban rescue ministry, which closely followed the example of the Salvation Army. However, Russian evangelicals also drew on their indigenous sectarian roots, especially the Molokans (who left the Orthodox Church in the 16th century), for the development of ministries within their own community. 

Support for Needy Church Workers and Orphans 

Except for W. A. Fetler, evangelical leaders of compassionate ministries were of Molokan background. To a certain extent, although they had intentionally separated themselves from certain aspects of that heritage, it may be said that leaders such as D. I. Mazaev, V. G. Pavlov, and V. V. Ivanov worked to instill a Molokan-type ethic of mutual support into the new Baptist community. Since the beginning of the evangelical movement, Stundists and others had routinely gathered funds dedicated for the  support of preachers and church members in need. In the post-1905 era it became possible to establish funds in a more formal way to provide aid within the community, and especially for preachers who were no longer capable of working, and their families. Another important element of post-1905 compassion was the organization of evangelical institutions to care for orphans and the elderly. In addition, as the movement grew, it was essential to teach newcomers the importance of good works and giving. While compassionate ministry within the believing community was important for survival in a rather hostile environment, it was also understood to be a means of outreach. If the gospel was the main source of hope for society, then it was essential first of all to support the people whose calling it was to preach. 

Urban Ministry

 Many changes came to Russia as the country industrialized. In particular, the urban population grew during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, creating a number of serious social problems. Evangelicals, notably W. A. Fetler, were inspired to attempt to reach the urban poor with the gospel by means of methods learned in England, according to the example of British Baptist C. H. Spurgeon, the Welsh Revival, and the Salvation Army. Fetler arrived in St. Petersburg in 1907 and from about 1910 began to hold night meetings. For a few months in 1914, the Russian Baptist church in the capital, Dom Evangeliia, served as a half-way house for men who wished to live their lives on the streets. 

Fetler and others helped the Salvation Army gain a foothold in Russia. As early as 1892 William Booth’s book, In Darkest England and the Way Out, appeared in Russian translation and made a strong impression.4 In 1913, S.V. Bulgakov published a two-volume Orthodox work, Nastol’naia kniga dlia sviashcheno-tserkovno-sluzhitelei [Handbook for Ministers of the Holy Church], that included a respectful assessment of Salvation Army work with alcoholics.5 Rescue ministry was considered an appropriate involvement for youth, who preached and sang in taverns and organized summer camps and events for slum children. Another aspect of rescuetype ministry was the involvement of evangelicals in the Russian temperance movement. Evangelicals approached alcoholism as a spiritual problem that could be overcome by surrendering one’s life to Christ.

Through World War, Revolution, and Civil War 

In 1914, with the beginning of World War I, drastic changes overtook the entire country. At first evangelicals joined their fellow citizens in setting up field hospitals, tending the wounded, and caring for refugees, but by 1916 many prayer houses had been closed and church leaders sent into exile. Nevertheless, various compassionate services were still carried on by evangelical youth in several places. Following the February Revolution in 1917, evangelicals revived their support of existing compassionate institutions and made plans for new ones. A ministry among soldiers developed into the Tent Mission, which sent teams of missionaries throughout towns and villages in Ukraine evangelizing, but also tending the sick. 

After the end of the Civil War, the Tent Mission succeeded in operating a home for orphans for a brief time. Throughout the years of revolution and war, evangelical compassionate institutions continued to function, but were shut down by about 1922. New challenges were created by the 1921-1923 famine, which both threatened the lives of evangelicals and involved them in local and international aid programs. Evangelical churches gave generously to famine relief and also set up their own structures to distribute large amounts of help from abroad. Some plans were made to extend relief projects into long-term development programs, but by the mid-1920s these hopes were extinguished. 

Evangelical Communal Farms 

The New Economic Policy (NEP) begun in 1921 signaled a pause in the Bolshevik Revolution when for a few years limited capitalism was tolerated. To rebuild agriculture, the government invited “sectarians,” including evangelicals, to form communes and also permitted the organization of collective labor enterprises to provide goods and services. Evangelicals entered readily into these efforts; indeed, in many ways they understood themselves to have anticipated Soviet trends because of the “communal” way of life they had been accustomed to practice for many years. In several tracts on the subject of communal living, I. S. Prokhanov outlined practical steps for the formation of economic communities and gave them a theological basis.6 

His interest was in replicating the life of the Jerusalem church described in the Book of Acts, which owned goods in common and saw to it that none of its members experienced physical need. Prokhanov apparently anticipated that living according to the ideal of the early church would lead to the eradication of poverty altogether. In an era when other forms of compassionate ministry were being restricted by the state, the formation of communes and labor collectives served as a substitute, both as a way of sustaining the community and as a means of witness. 

Russian evangelicals actually established their first agricultural communes prior to the advent of NEP. Almost immediately after the February Revolution, an agricultural colony with a shelter for children and the elderly was organized on the property of F. S. Savel’ev (1863-1947) near Moscow.7 In 1918 I.S. Prokhanov published a brochure, Evangel’skoehristianstvo i sotsial’nyi vopros [Evangelical Christianity and the Social Question], that outlined a pattern for the development of economic communities.8 By 1919 evangelicals were discussing the formation of communes at regional congresses, and the Gefsimaniia [Gethsemane] community in the Tver’ Region had already been organized.9 

It was headed by Ivan Pavlovich Beliaev, a peasant who had been forced underground in 1916 because of his evangelical beliefs. With the revolution he had become a member of the Council of Workers’ Deputies in Reval (presently Talinn, Estonia).10 Gefsimaniia took over a derelict estate directly from government authorities and quickly made significant improvements.11 By 1924 this commune worked 50 desiatiny (roughly 124 acres) and kept work horses, cattle, and sheep. Gefsimaniia members built an artesian well, an electrical station, and a bathhouse, and shared their agricultural machinery with neighboring peasants. The community had its own metalwork and carpentry shops, a smithy, and tailoring and shoemaking shops.12 On a visit to Gefsimaniia, Prokhanov observed the good spirit, noting that members were always singing  while they worked, and before and after meals.13 In fact, the community inspired Prokhanov, who wrote and translated hymns, to compose “Song of the First Christians.”14 

By 1921 when the People’s Commissariat for Agriculture, abbreviated as Narkomzem, invited sectarians and Old Believers to settle on newly nationalized lands,15 evangelicals responded with enthusiasm, although, as noted, they were already ahead of the program. Utrenniaia Zvezda [Morning Star], the second major Evangelical Christian commune, began in 1922 in the Tver’ Region. O. Iu. Redkina notes that a critical, anti-religious article about the community’s failure as a commune nevertheless admitted that Utrenniaia Zvezda worked 84 desiatiny (roughly 226 acres) and achieved better harvests than neighboring peasants.16 

In 1923 five families (a total of 45 persons) from Gefsimaniia formed a third major commune, Vifaniia, also in the Tver’ Region. By 1928 there were 108 members, 88 percent of whom were poor peasants and workers. An engineer, M. P. Shop-Mishich, described Vifaniia at length in a glowing 1928 report.17 The community raised cattle, sheep, pigs, chickens, geese, and turkeys, and operated leatherwork, carpentry, and machine shops, a windmill, and an oil press. Vifianiia also hosted a grade school and a library with 500 volumes. The community sold cattle and seed to local peasants and rented out its agricultural equipment.18 

O. Iu. Redkina has carried out an extensive assessment of the scores of agricultural communes and labor cooperatives that were set up across Soviet Russia by evangelicals during the 1920s. Hundreds more were organized by Old Believers, Tolstoyans, Orthodox, and other groups.19 V. A. Popov states that by 1924 the Baptist Union alone had formed 25 agricultural communes, each composed of about 25 family groups in 12 different regions.20 

Nevertheless, Stalin’s consolidation of power and the demise of NEP and its tolerance for small-scale capitalism spelled the end for evangelical agricultural communes. Vifaniia was handed over to a Communist collective in 1929 and renamed in honor of a Civil War hero.21 In September 1929 authorities forced Gefsimaniia to take in 11 additional poor families, assigned new leaders, and renamed the community.22 Evangelicals also lost control of Utrenniaia Zvezda in 1929, but a few sectarian communes survived into the 1930s.23 In self-preservation some communities migrated to Central Asia or Siberia, where the Soviet government was not yet in full control.24 

Evangelical Engagement with Society 

Compassionate ministry highlights Russian evangelicals’ expectation of change for the better. What is more, they anticipated that inner change was the catalyst for greater, not less, involvement in human society. Thus, their practice of compassionate ministry confirms the outward focus of their movement. Aleksei Sinichkin titled his book on Russian evangelicals Vse radi missii [All for the Sake of Mission]. 25 Prior to Stalin’s consolidation of power in the late 1920s, Russian evangelicals did not suffer from anything like a “fortress mentality.” They willingly entered into contact with the wider Russian society, as their involvement in the temperance movement, famine relief, and economic communities demonstrated. Moreover, at times they allowed seemingly important doctrinal points to be “trumped” by compassion. Thus, the Salvation Army was a valued ministry partner even though the Army did not administer sacraments (ordinances). In the same way, residents of the Dom Evangeliia halfway house in 1914 were not required to subscribe to a certain set of beliefs before they could benefit from the rehabilitation program. From the Pashkovite Movement until the end of the 1920s Russian evangelicals tended to emphasize engagement and action over theology. 

I. S. Prokhanov 

In addition, through the lens of compassionate ministry we see that Russian evangelicals exhibited a basically positive attitude to the world. I. S. Prokhanov’s autobiography is subtitled The Life of an Optimist in the Land of Pessimism. 26 Russian evangelicals expected inward transformation that would improve society. Their focus was not strictly on the joys of the world to come or on sustaining their own community, but on making everyday life worth living for everyone. 

Prokhanov’s lengthy 1928 article entitled “Chto nam delat’? [What Must We Do?]” underscores this evangelical emphasis. His title was drawn from John 6: 38 when the crowd asks Jesus, “What must we do (Russian: Chto nam delat’?) to do the works God requires?” However, it seems unlikely that anyone in the Soviet Union could have read the title without recalling V. I. Lenin’s political tract of 1902 entitled Chto delat’? [What Is to Be Done?], which in turn was taken from the title of Nikolai Chernyshevskii’s novel of the same name. In his article Prokhanov offered a series of answers for both unbelievers and believers to the question, “What are we to do?” For unbelievers the answer was to repent. For believers, as in The New, or Evangelical Life, Prokhanov again presented the answer to the question as found in the life of the Jerusalem church: devotion to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship with God and fellow believers, prayer, and evangelism (Acts 2:42-47; 4:33). 

Prokhanov outlined each of these tasks and then indicated a fifth point of activity: “The restructuring of labor and social life…on a new basis.”27 Again he repeated Acts 4:34, “There were none in need among them,” and Acts 4:32, “No one called anything his own; they owned everything in common.” Prokhanov depicted the Jerusalem church as an “island” in a “sea of need and injustice” and exulted, “What a miracle that congregation must have seemed to those around it!” He continued: “The task of the evangelical church in Russia is exactly the same.” No evangelical would deny that preaching was the essential task of the church, but according to Prokhanov’s article, preaching alone was not enough; instead, “Evangelical Christians must bring the gospel to life in such a way that there would be no needy among them.” Evangelical communities were to be “islands of well-being.”28 In short, economic communities were not to exist for self-aggrandizement, but as a witness by putting an end to need. 

Adaptability and Innovation in Outreach

 Also worth noting is the organic, intuitive nature of the compassionate activity of Russian evangelicalism. Pashkovites engaged in many forms of compassionate service by adapting existing ministries to evangelical purposes. It might be assumed that this was simply characteristic of upper-class people for whom charitable work was part of their lifestyle. Yet almost as soon as religious tolerance was declared in 1905, small offerings were spontaneously sent to the journal Khristianin by ordinary people who apparently expected that the new freedoms meant that evangelicals would now be starting compassionate institutions as a matter of course. Compassion was a natural part of their faith. 

Compassion also showed the essential adaptability of the movement. Challenging situations required challenging measures, and Russian evangelicals appeared to have accepted and even embraced innovations such as night meetings, halfway houses, agricultural communities, and famine committees— each appropriate to different circumstances—without question or complaint. Evangelicals also developed new organizational and administrative skills, willingly studying and appropriating foreign models. 

In this way, compassion highlights evangelicals’ worldwide connections for which they were sometimes punished as “foreign elements.” At the same time, it also points to their self-reliance. Evangelicals admired and identified with the compassionate work of their counterparts abroad, although they never enjoyed the social leverage, financial support, or respectability to attempt ministries such as that of George Mueller, Thomas Barnardo, or German humanitarian Friedrich von Bodelschwingh. However, the difficulty of their situation did not stop Russian evangelicals from engaging in compassionate ministry. Nor did they wait for foreigners to do the work. Russians intervened to bring the Salvation Army into their country, but they also carried out their own rescue ministries. They sought famine aid from abroad, but they also gathered their own resources to help their own people. 

Compassion was part of the mechanism that helped evangelicals develop and retain a sense of community even as their numbers grew. Through journal articles, reports, and editorials, especially in Baptist, mutual responsibility and concern were systematically cultivated. Evangelicals also used compassion to reinforce their legitimacy in the eyes of the state. During the early days of World War I, they transformed prayer houses into hospitals for the wounded in part because they wished to underline their loyalty. During the 1920s they formed agricultural communes and labor cooperatives for their own support, but also to demonstrate their usefulness as citizens. 

In summary, viewing Russian evangelicals through the lens of compassionate ministry allows us to see their complexity as outward-looking, adaptable evangelists who absorbed multiple influences and were also struggling for survival and legitimacy. Their activities were necessarily shaped by the relatively hostile context in which they lived. Perhaps they could be described as “evangelicals under stress,” who never attained the respectability and influence of their fellow believers abroad. At the same time, compassion was always a consistent and organic part of their outreach. Important changes took place among Russian evangelicals during the Soviet period. It was not possible to practice compassion in the same way that it had been done earlier. However, the natural gravitation of evangelicals toward compassionate ministry in postSoviet times suggests that the movement’s basically missionary orientation was never lost. 

Perestroika and the Reemergence of Compassionate Ministries 

The wave of compassionate activity that was ushered in with Gorbachev’s perestroika is striking. With little or no organic connection to compassionate ministries of the past, what were the motivating factors that inspired post-Soviet evangelicals to undertake ambitious projects such as setting up rehabilitation centers for alcoholics or shelters for street children? 

The following story is typical. During the early 1990s in Makiivka, a city in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine, a group of women gathered weekly for Bible study and prayer in a church-sponsored library near the central market. Often a little girl from the streets turned up at their meeting, one of the thousands of Ukrainian children whose families had become a casualty of the economic collapse that accompanied independence. The child, named Natasha, made a living for herself and her alcoholic mother by begging. Although she was at least eight years old, she had never learned her numbers sufficiently to be able to count the money she collected. She would ask the women at the Bible study to help her. Over time it occurred to them that something had to be done for this girl and others like her. The women prayed for about two years, and with the help of many volunteers from a number of churches and some assistance from abroad, established the Good Shepherd Shelter in 1996. For some years it functioned as the children’s shelter for Makiivka. Good Shepherd is now the name of a charitable fund made up of several compassionate projects. As of this writing, 30 children from the Good Shepherd Social Rehabilitation Center, “Our Home,” have moved to the Kyiv suburbs out of the way of military action in the Donetsk Region.

The spontaneous, yet thoughtful response of the women and the churches they represent has been replicated scores of times in the countries of the former Soviet Union as evangelicals have attempted to help children, the elderly, the disabled, and people suffering from addictions. Many of their efforts have proved unsustainable, but some have survived. Like their spiritual ancestors, they continue to see compassion as an integral part of proclaiming the gospel. 

Notes: 

1. For detailed treatments of the Pashkovite Movement, several excellent English-language sources are Sharyl Corrado, “The Philosophy of Ministry of Colonel Vasiliy Pashkov,” M.A. thesis (Wheaton Graduate School, 2000); Edmund Heier, Religious Schism in the Russian Aristocracy (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970); and Mark McCarthy, “Religious Conflict and Social Order,” Ph.D. diss. (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University, 2004). 
2.  Jenny E. de Mayer, Adventures with God in Freedom and in Bond (Toronto: Evangelical Publishers, 1948), 167-78. 
3.  S. E. Golovashchenko, comp., Istoriia evangel’skobaptistskogo dvizheniia v Ukraine, Materialy i dokumenty [History of the Evangelical-Baptist Movement in Ukraine, Materials and Documents] (Odessa: Bogomyslie, 1998), 121-22. 
4.  E. V. Ivanova and Zh. E. Ivanova, Zarubezhnyi opyt sotsial’noi raboty v ramkakh rossiyskoi blagotvoritel’nosti [Foreign Experience of Social Work in the Framework of Russian Charity] (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnaia Akademiia Informatizatsii, 2001), 62. 
5.  (Moscow: Moscow Patriarchate, 1993; first printed 1913), Vol. 2, 1598-1600. 
6. A good example is I. S. Prokhanov, “Novaia, ili evangel’skaia zhizn’ [The New, or Evangelical Life]” in V. Popov, comp., Novaia ili evangel’skaia zhizn’ (Moscow: Khristianskii tsentr “Logos,” 2009), 96-124. 
7. O. Iu. Redkina, Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religioznye trudovye kollektivy v 1917-i-1930-e gody na materialakh evropeiskoi chasti RSFSR [Agricultural Religious Labor Collectives from 1917 to the 1930s, Based on Materials from the European Part of the RSFSR] (Volgograd: Izdatel’stvo Volgogradskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, 2004), 83, 143-144, 161, 639; V. M. Khorev, “Istoriia Krasnovorotskogo dvizheniia: 1923-1951 [The History of the Krasnovorotskii Movement],” report presented 14 April 2013 in Tsaritsyno, Russia; http://rusbaptist. livejournal.com/64796.html. 
8.  Quoted extensively by V. A. Popov, “Evangel’skie trudovye arteli [Evangelical Labor Artels],” Bratskii vestnik, No. 2 (1990), 26-32.
9.  VSEKH-B, Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov v SSSR [History of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the USSR] (Moscow: VSEKh-B, 1989), 190.
10.  Tat’iana Nikol’skaia, Russkii protestantizm i gosudarstvennaia vlast’ v 1905-1991 godakh [Russian Protestantism and State Power, 1905-1991] (St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii Universitet, 2009), 70. 
11. Redkina, Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religionznye trudovye kolletivy, 165.
12.  Ibid., 377; Heather Coleman, Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005), 174-75.
13.  Prokhanov, “Novaia, ili evangel’skaia zhizn’,” 104. 
14.  I.S.P., “Pesnia pervo-khristian [Song of the First Christians],” Utrenniaia zvezda, Nos. 3-4-5 (MarchApril-May): 4. Concerning Prokhanov’s musical interest see I. S. Prokhanoff, In the Cauldron of Russia, 1869-1933 (New York: All-Russian Evangelical Christian Union, 1933), 144-48. 
15.  GARF, f. 1235, op. 58, d. 50, l. 235-236, “K sektantam i staroobriadtsam, zhivushchim v Rossii i za granitsei [To the Sectarians and Old Believers Living in Russia and Abroad]”, quoted by Iu. S. Grachev, Studencheskie gody: Povest’ o studencheskom khristianskom dvizhenii v Rossii [Student Years: A Story about the Student Christian Movement in Russia] (St. Petersburg: Bibliia dlia vsekh, 1997), 50.
16.  A. Nemkov, “Ne sumeli v svoiikh rukakh uderzhat’ [They Couldn’t Keep It in Their Own Hands],” Kollektivist, No. 3 (1928), 36-38, quoted by Redkina, Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religioznye trudovye kollektivy, 380.
17.  M. P. Shop-Mishich, “Vifaniia” [Bethany],” Khristianin, No. 7 (1928), 28-33. 
18.  Redkina, Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religioznye trudovye kollektivy , 378-79. 
19. Redkina provides extensive lists of labor collectives, their founders, geographical location, and sources of information in the several appendices of Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religioznye trudovye kollektivy.
20. V. A. Popov, “Khristianskie kommuny I. S. Prokhanova i gorod Solntsa [Christian Communes of I. S. Prokhanov and the City of the Sun]” in 105 let legalizatsii russkogo baptizma. Materialy mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii 5-7 aprelia 2011 goda, ed. N. A. Beliakova and A. V. Sinichkin (Moscow: RSEKh-B, 2011), 136. 
21.  Coleman, Russian Baptists, 217. 
22. Redkina, Sel’skokhoziaistvennye religioznye trudovye kollektivy, 572.
23.  Anatolii Arsen’evich Berezhnoi, “Byt’ souchastnikom Evangeliia, vospominaniia sluzhitelia evangelsko-baptistskogo bratstva [To Be a Participant in the Gospel, Recollections of a Minister of the Evangelical-Baptist Brotherhood],” Gost’, 6 (39) (2009), 6; Redkina, Sel’skokhoziastvennye religioznye trudovye kolektivy, 574.
24. Redkina, Sel’skokhoziastvennye religioznye trudovye kolektivy, 575, 584. 
25.  Irpen’, Ukraine: Assotsiatsiia “Dukhovnoe vozrozhdeniie,” 2011. 
26.  In the Cauldron of Russia, 1869-1933 (New York: All-Russian Evangelical Christian Union, 1933). 
27. I. S. Prokhanov, “Chto nam delat’? [What Must We Do?],” Khristianin, No. 1 (January 1928), 12.
28.  Ibid. 

Editor’s Note: See also Mary Raber, “Visible and Invisible: Observations on Social Service Ministries among Evangelicals in Ukraine since Independence” in Eastern European Baptist History: New Perspectives, ed. by Sharyl Corrado and Toivo Pilli. Prague: International Baptist Theological Seminary, 2007. 

Mary Raber, a native of St. Louis, Missouri, has spent 21 years in the former Soviet Union. Presently she is a service worker with Mennonite Mission Network based in Odessa, Ukraine, teaching church history and other subjects at Odessa Seminary and other theological schools in Ukraine, Russia, and Armenia. 

Edited excerpts published with permission from Mary Raber, “Ministries of Compassion among Russian Evangelicals, 1905-1929,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wales and International Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015.