Alexei M. Bychkov, who died 10 July 2015, served for two decades as general secretary of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB), the second-longest tenure of any leader in that post. With weakened voice and body following a stroke in 2011 (soon after his memoir* was published), in his final week he and his wife Zoya sang familiar hymns. His last whispered words were “Slava Bogu” (Praise God).
His life encompassed the years of state hostility to religion (1929-1989) and two challenging post-Soviet decades. Born in an Evangelical Christian Church family, converted in 1949, baptized in 1954, he was an active layman while working as a building engineer for 20 years. Having studied English, he translated material for his denomination’s Bible correspondence course when it was allowed, and wrote the theology lectures.
As general secretary of the AUCECB from 1970 to 1990 Bychkov had the unenviable task of steering between state pressure on the one hand and on the other hand breakaway dissidents in the Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists who opposed denominational compromises conceded in the early 1960s. Despite being the target of criticism by unregistered dissident Baptists, Bychkov’s role nevertheless gradually gained him respect, even from his opponents. In that context several eulogists’ remarks were apt: Pentecostal Bishop S.V. Riakhovsky called him a “magnificent spiritual diplomat who exuded peace,” and his Belarusian colleague, Alexander I. Firisiuk, summed up the Bychkov he knew as living according to two commandments of Christ – love God with everything you have, and your neighbor as yourself. The Bychkov I came to know manifested the skills of an administrator, negotiating the tricky terrain (as state persecution was gradually easing) to reach acceptable compromises.
After AUCECB restructuring in 1990 into republic-level unions under the umbrella of a Euro-Asiatic Union of Evangelical ChristiansBaptists, with a younger Ukrainian (Grigorii Komendant) elected executive president, Bychkov remained one of three vice-presidents for several years. Even when he had been set aside, and newer leaders struggled within the constraints of smaller, impoverished national unions, he did not show disappointment or personal hurt.
For many years Bychkov held various posts with the European Baptist Federation, the Baptist World Alliance, and the World Council of Churches. He also served 16 years as vice-president of the Russian Bible Society and president (1994-2007) and chair of the board (2007- 2015) of the OMS-founded Moscow Evangelical Christian Seminary.
During the years 1977-1993, as coordinator of the Russian Bible Commentary Project, I met with Bychkov and his Ukrainian colleague, the late Jakob Dukhonchenko, whenever we could. On one occasion I recall handing over a 250-page typed manuscript late in the evening after they spent all day in meetings. At breakfast the next morning before the next marathon, both men had clearly read every word and had used their blue pencils freely as we set about negotiating how best to stay true to the original texts, yet find more apt words and phrases. Their care for pastoral training, for the health of their churches was obvious.
At Bychkov’s funeral, Pentecostal Bishop Riakhovsky’s eulogy made reference to his union’s completion of a documentary film on the life of Alexei Bychkov stressing his faith in God. *Editor’s note: The citation for the memoir is: A. M. Bychkov, Moi zhiznennyi put’. Moscow: Otrazhenie, 2009. 662 pp. ISBN: 978-88983- 277-9.
Walter Sawatsky, emeritus professor, Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.