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Volume 20, No. 2

New Strategies for Church Planting in Romania

Vasile A. Talos

Editor’s note: The first portion of this article was published in the previous issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 20 (Winter 2012): 11-13.

Emanuel Pentecostal Church of Galati

In 1994, Mihai Dumitrascu, senior pastor of Temple Pentecostal Church in Galati, decided to plant a new church in the center of Galati, a city with almost 400,000 people but very few evangelical Christians. In 1996, Pastor Dumitrascu visited Trinity Christian Centre in Singapore where he was exposed to a cell-church vision. In August 1998, he wrote a vision statement, a strategy, and a whole philosophy for a new type of church. He was heavily influenced by the theological training he received through Bible Education by Extension (BEE) and by the cell-church approach discovered in Singapore. (Jodie Dillow, a Ph.D. from Dallas Theological Seminary, founded BEE to provide training for church leaders in Eastern Europe through clandestine, non-formal instruction.) Not long after Pastor Dumitrascu shared his vision with his church of about 600 members and a Sunday regular attendance of about 1,000 people, the assistant pastor took the responsibility of the mother church and became its senior minister. Unfortunately, the idea of starting a new Pentecostal church in Galati was perceived as an attempt to split the existing church.

Pastor Dumitrascu’s first step was to start several BEE small group Bible studies within the mother church. A core of 40 people from Temple Pentecostal Church followed Dumitrascu in his endeavor to plant a new church with a totally different philosophy of ministry. Thus, on 14 March 1999, Emanuel Church held its first worship service in the Athenaeum Hall in “Casa de Cultura a Sindicatelor.”

During the next six months Pastor Dumitrascu welcomed other members from Temple Pentecostal Church who embraced the new vision. About 120 people transferred from the mother church to Emanuel. Today Emanuel has its own church building and facilities for children, youth, women, and other ministries. In 2004 the church had 220 members and averaged 350 in Sunday morning worship.

Vision

Pastor Dumitrascu and other church leaders envision Emanuel Church as a biblical training center for discipleship. Their goal is “to evangelize the downtown area of the city using relevant methods, to help Christians mature within small groups, and to equip them to minister and plant new churches in the city, county, and throughout the southeastern part of Romania.”

Discipleship Strategy

Pastor Dumitrascu and Emanuel’s leadership team concentrate on helping people grow in character, knowledge, and abilities. They follow a BEE model of training built around Jesus’ four imperatives:

Come and See! (John 1:39-4:46)1.

Come and Follow Me! (Matthew 4:18-22; Mark 2. 1:16-20)

Come and Be With Me! (Mark 3:13-14; Luke 3. 6:13)

Abide in Me, Go and Make Disciples! (Matthew 4. 28:19-20)

Ecclesiastical Structures

Emanuel Church functions through two types of small groups: open and closed. An open small group usually has four to fourteen persons including the leader, one apprentice, at least one spiritual parent, believers, new converts, and unsaved people. Open small groups, which meet every Sunday night in homes, focus on evangelism, shepherding and feeding people, and teaching the basics of Christianity. When the open small group is first established, people are free to enter or leave at any time. When the group reaches 14 persons, the group divides into two.

The first stage involves open small groups in Sunday morning and Wednesday night worship services and in children’s Sunday school. It also includes weekly youth meetings and special events. Children and youth meetings function as micro churches employing seeker-sensitive worship based on contemporary Christian music, drama, and relevant preaching. On a regular basis the church emphasizes personal evangelism, small group evangelism, and special evangelistic events.

The second stage takes place in closed small groups that offer a proper environment for genuine discipleship. Once a closed group starts, no additional persons are accepted. Each member of a closed small group signs a specific covenant. Closed small groups place high expectations on their members including time devoted to prayer, Bible study, evangelism, and accountability to the group. Usually 60 to 70 percent of church members are involved in closed small groups.

Leadership

The third stage of Emanuel’s strategy includes the selection of believers who demonstrate godly character, faithfulness, and spiritual gifts. It relies heavily upon BEE courses designed to develop disciple makers. Emanuel Church leaders want at least one third of their church members to be involved in this demanding level of discipleship.

The fourth stage represents the highest level of training for those who are called to be ministers in Emanuel Church. At this stage, people participate in BEE’s Advanced Theological Studies as well as in closed small groups.

In conclusion, Emanuel Church attempts to contextualize the gospel and to apply the strategy and vision of BEE. Thus, this church has characteristics of two forms of congregational life: the school-type church and the cell church. It is unusual for a Romanian Pentecostal church to focus on teaching and discipling people.

Vox Domini Church of Timisoara

Vox Domini Church emerged from the evangelical student movement of the 1980s in the city of Timisoara, the city where the Romanian Revolution began on 15 December 1989. The slogan of those days was: “Today in Timisoara; tomorrow throughout the country!”

Para-Church Background

Vox Domini Church leaders’ vision was for their church model to be multiplied across Romania through the ministry of the students trained in the University of Timisoara. Gelu-Paul Faina was an important leader of the evangelical student movement in Timisoara. After he completed his theological studies in the United States, his goal was to establish a training center church, mainly for students.

For several years, Gelu-Paul and other evangelical student leaders followed Campus Crusade strategies and methods. Later, they attended a leadership program conducted by BEE which convinced them of the importance of the local church. As a result, Gelu-Paul and his colleagues became more involved in serving Bethel Baptist Church. After the 1989 Revolution, in order to evangelize and disciple university students, they followed a three-step strategy. First, they employed Campus Crusade methods by organizing evangelistic small group meetings on the university campus. Second, they invited seeker students to attend the mid-week youth worship service at Bethel Church. These were seeker-friendly worship services with contemporary Christian music and relevant preaching. Third, they tried to attract student converts to Bethel’s Sunday worship services. However, the difference between the two worship services and some leadership issues led Gelu-Paul and his team to start a new church. Thus, Gelu-Paul and about 30 other people launched Vox Domini Church on 21 November 1998. Soon this new church became known as the students’ church. In addition to Campus Crusade and BEE, Vox Domini has had close ties with other Western groups including the Willow Creek Association, North Point Community Church (Atlanta, GA), and Ambassadors for Christ International.

Vision

The name of Vox Domini Church (the Lord’s Voice) symbolizes the congregation’s determination to listen only to the Lord’s teaching and not to Baptist tradition. They envisioned the church as a dynamic, relevant community of mature Christians able to communicate God’s word through “a warmer, closer, gentler, and more thoughtful approach.” Vox Domini Church’s mission is to make disciples and leaders among the young middle class generation in Timisoara and all the way to the ends of the earth. Its goal is to glorify God and expand His kingdom through evangelism, discipleship, worship, leadership formation, counseling, and social and political involvement of church members according to their calling and spiritual gifts (http://www.voxdomini.ro/site/home page).

Church Structures

Vox Domini Church worships together every other Sunday. On alternate Sundays members meet in homes in small congregations of about 40 people each in order to learn how to apply the previous sermon in an interactive way. The church follows an inductive Bible study approach in its preaching, studying one book of the Bible at a time. During the week people meet in small groups of three to fifteen people for discipleship or leadership training. They follow a topical Bible study approach related to participants’ specific needs and interests. Usually people are encouraged to move from Christian life basics to deeper understanding and knowledge.

In 2005, Vox Domini Church had 227 baptized members. Together with regular attendees they averaged more than 350 people in worship services held every other Sunday. Today they have two Sunday worship services on alternating Sundays. Once a month they celebrate the Lord’s Supper on Sunday afternoon. During this time people share their testimonies and participate in celebration according to their abilities and spiritual gifts.

Local Mission

Vox Domini Church organizes special events throughout the year. In summer they have picnics, retreats, camps, and other such activities. The church is also involved in several social and evangelistic ministries in Timisoara. Approximately 90 percent of new converts come through student retreats and camps. Vox Domini also organizes nationwide conferences on topics such as marriage, child rearing, family issues, church growth, and leadership.

Vox Domini Church resembles a Ric Warren-style purpose-driven church. The church philosophy, ministries, programs, Bible studies, preaching, or any other activities must follow a certain purpose. The most-asked question is: Why? If they do not have a proper answer to that question, they quit investing their time, efforts, and resources. In their view, the traditional way of preaching three times a week alienates people. People are constantly told what to do, but they do not know why, nor how to do it. For this reason pastors preach once every other Sunday with the congregation reflecting on practical applications of the message.

Second, Vox Domini is a highly demanding church. Half its members do volunteer work at least 10 hours a week besides attending a small group, house church, and worship service. Leaders are expected to volunteer at least 15 hours a week. Their principle is that members should not only attend church but should be involved in its ministries. The main aim of the church is to enable every member to become a leader.

Third, Vox Domini tends to be a highly entrepreneurial and closely managed institution. The church is highly structured with five departments (worship, discipleship and leadership training, evangelism and missions, pastoral care and counseling, and administration and finances) and nine age-related categories. At the same time, the church functions in small groups, in home congregations, as well as through its Sunday worship services. A continuous and complex evaluation related to church life, mission, and ministries takes place within and between each department.

Fourth, Vox Domini embodies a composite of many church growth principles from flourishing North American and West European congregations. The church’s leaders have departed from traditional Romanian Baptist churches and from Campus Crusade parachurch strategy. However, they attempt to apply in their local church several Campus Crusade principles and methods. While Vox Domini represents an innovative and relevant church for students, its approach might not have a strong appeal to the majority of Romanian people and churches.

In short, each of these three churches may be characterized as follows: Braila Baptist Church focuses on reaching lost people mainly through ministering at a felt needs level and developing social care programs. Otherwise, the church is still very traditional in worship and structures. Emanuel Church in Galati focuses on discipling people through an elaborate program of small group discipleship. The church functions as a school-type church. Finally,Vox Domini Church in Timisoara focuses mainly on training Christian student leaders. It is a highly entrepreneurial and closely managed church.

Edited excerpts published with permission from Vasile Alexandru Talos, “Church in the Apostolic Spirit: A Strategy for Building Indigenous Apostolic Congregations in the Cultural Context of Eastern Orthodox and Post-Communist Romania,” Doctor of Missiology dissertation, Asbury Theological Seminary, 2008.

Vasile Alexandru Talos is pastor of Good News Baptist Church, Bucharest, Romania.

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Volume 20, No. 2

The Roma (Gypsy) Pentecostal Movement in Bulgaria

Mirovlav Atanasov Atanasov

Editor’s note: The following article is based in part upon interviews with Bulgarian Roma (Gypsy) pastors, laity, and Pentecostal and non-Pentecostal outside observers. The Association of Roma Pastors, Churches, and Fellowships helped to coordinate the research. For reasons of space, Atanasov’s brief but complimentary treatment of Baptist and Seventh-day Adventist outreach and church planting among Bulgarian Roma (pp. 122-27; 252; 303-04; 327; 333) has not been included.

Religious Receptivity in Times of Upheaval

A substantial turning of Roma in Bulgaria to Pentecostal Christianity took place in the years after the fall of Communism. Most Roma churches were started in the 1990s: “They were being planted and grew everywhere, like mushrooms.”1 An important reason for this explosive growth was the total political, economic, and cultural transition in the country—from one-party totalitarian rule and socialist economics to democratic pluralism and an open market. During such times of major worldview shifts, people undergo great stress and their receptivity toward religious influences is very high. “Major economic changes, such as unemployment, underemployment, runaway inflation…and plant closings have all shaken people’s false securities and opened them to the gospel.”2 These changes affected everyone, but especially Roma, as their marginal status and economic insecurity intensified greatly. Another important factor in Pentecostal growth among Roma in the 1990s was the new freedom which allowed mass evangelism to take place. Bulgarians were hungry to fill the spiritual void created by years of Marxist atheism.

Roma Pentecostal Numbers

Estimating the exact number of Roma Pentecostal believers and churches in Bulgaria is a difficult task. The approximate number of Roma churches of all denominations in Bulgaria is between 700 and 800. The majority are Pentecostal in worship and beliefs, while no more than 100 are spread among the Baptist, Methodist, Congregational, and Seventh-day Adventist denominations. The number of Roma Pentecostal preachers, ordained elders, and deacons is over 600.

Three Pentecostal Denominations

Roma Pentecostals, accounting for the majority of Roma Evangelicals in Bulgaria, belong primarily to three denominations: the Union of Evangelical Pentecostal Churches (Pentecostal Union), the Bulgarian Church of God, and the United Churches of God. Smaller Pentecostal fellowships include the Christian Church Zion and independent and unregistered groups that have a high Roma constituency. The Presbyterian Union of Bulgaria, founded more recently, also counts in its ranks Roma who are mostly Pentecostal in worship. Roma Pentecostal churches exist in most Roma communities throughout Bulgaria. It is hard to find a city or a village mahala (ghetto) without Roma believers.

The Bulgarian Church of God has been especially successful in reaching Roma for several reasons. First, its visionary leader, Pavel Ignatov, made Roma ministry a denominational priority. Second, the Church of God, having just recently come out of persecution, lacked stringent structural limitations. That made it more flexible and effective in accommodating the growing Roma movement in its fold. The Pentecostal Union, which was officially established in 1928, has had more organizational impediments, including a limit on the number of churches in one vicinity, and a more complicated process of pastoral ordination. As a result, a great number of newer Roma churches joined either the Bulgarian Church of God or its spinoff, the United Churches of God, which gave great autonomy to local congregations. In both of these denominations Roma are now in the majority.

Still, it should be noted that the largest Protestant denomination in Bulgaria, the Pentecostal Union, has also had a powerful ministry among Roma. Chairman of the Union Rev. Victor Virchev explains:

With their hospitality and emotionalism…[Roma] bring freshness to evangelical churches. Before 1990 we had mostly mixed churches: there were some Roma churches, but they were not officially registered. After the changes in the country, Roma desired to start their own churches in the mahali. One third of the churches in the Pentecostal Union are Roma, which have about 7-8 thousand members. We also have thousands of Roma in mixed churches led by ethnic Bulgarian pastors.3

Strength of the Roma Christian Movement

Rare is the Roma who is not aware of Christian faith. The Association of Roma Pastors estimates that Roma Pentecostal believers in Bulgaria number approximately 50,000. This is a conservative estimate which most likely refers to regular Roma churchgoers. The number of Roma who self-identify as Protestants is several times higher. The Roma Christian movement has become a significant force in Bulgaria, even to the point of political parties becoming interested in courting its leaders for votes.

In her research Milena Benovska-Sabkova interviewed 22 Roma who were: active, even inveterate churchgoers. It would have been simplistic and untrue if we had presented the massive attendance at Protestant churches as a sort of “fad.” Religious values have seriously been accepted by about half of those converted to Protestantism….The devotion for Protestant churches has gained great momentum and has become impressively widespread among Roma. According to sociological surveys of 1994, the share of Roma affected by the activities of Protestant churches ranged between 12 and 15 percent.4 The fact that out of 22 persons interviewed, only three have not been affected by the conversion [process] testifies that in 2002 it has been much more sweeping than in 1992-1994.5

The Roma Move from Orthodoxy to Pentecostalism

Roma have lost their interest in the Orthodox Church because they do not experience it as their own church. Several reasons for this movement of Roma from Orthodoxy to Pentecostalism may be given.

1. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church, with its liturgical conservatism and nationalistic attitude, has largely neglected or rejected Roma. Orthodox priests have often been unwilling to offer Gypsies spiritual services, while criticizing Evangelicals for doing so. Orthodox have often accused evangelical churches of luring people into their ranks through humanitarian aid and other enticements. I have two questions in response: Why has the Orthodox Church not been active in delivering aid to poor Roma communities? Is it not the mission of the Christian Church to help the poor and needy in this world?

2. The Orthodox liturgy is difficult for Roma to understand. They may observe and enjoy the rituals and ceremonies, but they experience greater freedom to express their emotions in Pentecostal churches.6

3. The massive conversion of Roma to Pentecostal Christianity in Bulgaria has caused many to lose interest in Orthodoxy. Pentecostal Roma churches are located in the mahali, Roma pastors preach there, and believers sing Roma worship songs. Roma pastors visit people who are in the hospital, fellowship with alcoholics and the hurting, and care and pray for them in a personal way.

Roma Pentecostal worship involves indigenous cultural expressions which help to contextualize Christian faith in the mahali. At the same time, given the low rate of literacy among Roma, oral teaching is critical in discipleship. A cliché often heard in Bulgarian evangelical circles is that “Roma are easily set on fire, but their fire is also easily extinguished.” Therefore, Roma need to become not just converts, but also disciples. Pentecostals overcome the hurdle that literacy poses to discipleship by means of music, simple preaching involving illustrations and storytelling, and close personal relationships among believers.

More Reasons for Roma Pentecostal Growth

A variety of other factors help explain the growth of Pentecostalism among Roma in Bulgaria. Dire economic and social circumstances certainly play a role. Marginalized groups in a society are often the earliest converts of a religious movement.7 They are more open because they seek belonging and a way to escape from the harsh realities of life. The flourishing of the Roma Pentecostal movement gives evidence to this fact.

Roma Pastor Salcho Salchev from Preushtitsa explains: God loves us more because we are poorer, yet joyful. We are victims of injustices. From our youth we have had low self-esteem, feeling defenseless and rejected by society. Many of our Roma people are poor, but find refuge and a haven in the church. God gives them strength to keep struggling.8

Roma are the most marginal group, the outcastes, the social lepers, of Bulgarian society, much as they are all over Europe. This low social position makes Roma feel inferior as a group. Yet from its beginning during the days of the Roman Empire, Christianity has appealed to many because it removes barriers of race, gender, age, and social status. This gospel of emancipation is a primary reason for Pentecostal growth among Roma in Bulgaria. ♦

Notes:

1 Salcho Salchev interview, 30 July 2006.

2 George Hunter III, To Spread the Power (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1987), 80.

3 Victor Virchev interview, 2006.

4 Ilona Tomova, The Gypsies in the Transition Period (Sofia: IMIR Press, 1995), 341.

5 Milena Benovska-Sabkova, “I Am a Pure Gypsy: The Roma Individuality in the Distorted Mirror of Group Stereotypes” in The Ethnobarometer Working Paper Series, 2003, pp. 81-83, www.ethnobarometer.org.

6 Lom Church Sinai Church Journal, 2006.

7 Lewis Rambo, Understanding Religious Conversion (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 33-36; 80.

8 Salchev interview.

Editor’s note: The concluding portion of this article will be published in the next issue of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 20 (Summer 2012).

Edited excerpt published with permission from Miroslav Atanasov Atanasov, Gypsy Pentecostals: The Growth of the Pentecostal Movement among the Roma in Bulgaria and Its Revitalization of Their Communities (Lexington, KY: Emeth Press, 2010).

Miroslav Atanasov Atanasov is a lecturer at the Bulgarian Evangelical Theological Institute, Sofia, Bulgaria.

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Volume 20, No. 2

Persecution of Christians in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Union

Mark R. Elliott

Eastern-Rite Catholics

At the beginning of the 20th century, tsarist Russia banned or restricted all expressions of Christianity other than Russian Orthodoxy, the privileged state church. Among the Christian communions with no legal existence was Eastern-Rite Catholicism (worshipping according to the Orthodox liturgy and served by a married priesthood, while submitting to the authority of the pope in Rome). Pejoratively called the Uniate Church by Russians, it had been suppressed throughout most of the empire in 1839 and as well in the former Austrian Kholm District in 1875 (Elliott 1985: 212).

Protestants

Tsarist Russia also denied a legal existence to Stundists—Slavic Evangelicals hailing originally from Ukraine, who were named for the prayer hour (stunde) they borrowed from their German Mennonite mentors. Authorities came to label as Stundists any Protestants they chose to harass or arrest. Other Evangelicals facing concerted state and Orthodox opposition included Slavic converts to Baptist faith (originating in the Caucasus and Ukraine), followers of Protestant convert Colonel Vasilii Pashkov, known as Pashkovites, and later, as Evangelical Christians (originating in St. Petersburg), Methodists, and Seventh-day Adventists (Sawatsky 1981: 34).

Roman Catholics

In 1900 Latin-Rite Roman Catholics, predominantly Poles, Belorussians, and Lithuanians in Russia’s western borderlands, had a legal existence but were being subjected to heavy-handed state policies of russification. In the 19th century thousands of Poles who had opposed tsarist rule had been deported to Siberia, giving Catholicism an unintended presence east of the Urals (Chaplitskii and Osipova 2000: lxi).

Old Believers

Working in tandem, the Russian state and its state church imposed numerous restrictions on another Christian community, the Old Believers. Also known as Raskolniki (Schismatics), they had rejected changes in the Orthodox liturgy and in the rendering of icons imposed by Patriarch Nikon in the late 17th century. By 1900 state executions, imprisonments, and harsh discriminatory taxation, countered by Old Believer flight, self-immolations, and predictions of the Apocalypse, had long since given way to a patchwork of bureaucratic carrots and sticks that nevertheless failed to cow this intransigent and increasingly prosperous religious opposition (Beeson 1982: 91; Robson 1995: 14-40).

German Protestants

As of 1900 German Baptists, German Mennonite colonists, and Lutherans, also mostly German in origin, came the closest to tolerated, non-Orthodox churches. However, they, as well, were subject to various bureaucratic impediments, and the latter were legally confined to the Baltic region and certain larger cities of the empire. In every case, non-Orthodox churches were legally proscribed from accepting converts from Russian Orthodoxy.

Orthodox and State Opposition to Religious Pluralism

An ideological amalgam of xenophobia, nationalism, and Orthodox triumphalism served as the justification for the wide array of measures taken by the Russian state against non-Orthodox Christians—and other faiths as well. Nicholas II, the last Russian tsar (1896-1917), and his reactionary advisor, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Oberprokurator of the Russian Orthodox Holy Synod (1880-1905), personified the ingrained intolerance of the Russian state and its state church. Both men were passionately ethnocentric and anti-Semitic, fearing that non-Orthodox expressions of faith would undermine the viability of the Russian realm. Difficulties faced by Evangelicals under the procuracy of Pobedonostsev included discrimination in employment, disruption of worship, inability to buy or lease land for prayer houses, fines, beatings, prejudicial passport identification as “Stundist,” lack of state recognition of “stundist” marriages, deprivation of parental rights, exile abroad, and arrest and deportation to the Transcaucasus and Siberia (Brandenburg 1974: 123 and 125; Hefly 1979: 227; Sawatsky 1981: 35-36).

In 1884, Alexander III had personally ordered the banishment abroad of Colonel Pashkov. Another prominent Evangelical in the capital, Ivan Prokhanov, eluded Russian police by fleeing abroad in 1895. Prior to 1917 Baptist preacher Feodor Kostronin spent nine years in prison and 16 years in exile, while Vasili Ivanov-Klyshnikov (later, secretary of the Baptist Union) was arrested 31 times and exiled twice (Brandenburg 1974: 130).

The Edict of Toleration

The 1905 Russian Revolution brought a momentary reprieve to non-Orthodox via Nicholas II’s Edict of Toleration (April 1905). For the first time in Russian history all citizens of the empire were granted freedom of conscience, including the legal right to leave the Orthodox fold for another church. However, once the immediate threat to his throne passed, Nicholas II gradually reneged on his own 1905 October Manifesto with its provisions for representative government and civil liberties, including freedom of religion. Evangelicals suffered increasing harassment and discrimination, including censorship, limitations on youth work, and a requirement for police permission for Protestant meetings (frequently denied). An anti-Protestant climate fostered by the state, the state church, and the state-influenced press led to extra-legal repression, namely, mob actions, sometimes fomented by priests, leading to injuries and deaths (Brandendburg 1974:152; Sawatsky 1981: 36). Only the inefficiencies of an inept bureaucracy spread over 11 time zones saved Evangelicals and other non-Orthodox believers from more systematic persecution.

World War I

The coming of World War I brought new trials to Evangelicals who were correctly accused of pacifist leanings but incorrectly accused of pro-German sympathies. Wartime authorities subjected evangelical services to police surveillance, closed meeting houses, and arrested and deported pastors. The president of the Baptist Union went into hiding in Central Asia while Evangelical Christian leader Ivan Prokhanov faced trial in 1916, but was acquitted. Russian German Baptist pastors Walter Jack and Karl Fullbrandt were exiled to Siberia and northern European Russia, while William Fetler was deported abroad (Brandenburg 1974: 150, 157-58, 173).

On the eve of the revolutionary upheavals of 1917, it should be noted as well that the favored Russian Orthodox Church also suffered its own crippling disabilities. From Peter the Great to Nicholas II the state church languished in velvet chains imposed upon it by a Holy Synod that was forced to function as a branch of government. Its civilian oberprokurators—even including military generals—thwarted all attempts at internal church reform and renewal.

Communist victories in the October 1917 Revolution and the Russian Civil War (1918-21) brought to power a determinedly atheist regime that would be responsible for the most comprehensive and deadliest persecution of Christianity—and of all religions—in history to that date. Dwarfing in size, intensity, and thoroughness the intermittent persecutions of the Roman Empire, the Soviet anti-religious campaign of 1917-1989 appears to have been surpassed in lethal consequences by only one other, that of Communist China from 1949

The Soviet Assault on Orthodoxy

The Russian Orthodox Church, perceived by the new Marxist state to be a major source of opposition, was subjected to an especially unrelenting assault during the first two decades of Soviet power. The 54,147 Orthodox churches and 25,593 chapels as of 1914 were reduced to between 100 and 300 by August 1939 (Beglov 2008: 68; Davis 2003: 12-13; Ellis 1986: 4 and 14; Emel’ianov 2004: 3; Hefly 1979: 270; Newton 1990: 83; Pospielovsky 1988: 66; Tsypin 1994: 107). By 1939 Moscow had only 15 to 20 functioning parishes from over 600; Leningrad, five from 401; Tambov, two from 110; and the Kiev Diocese, two from 1,600 (Davis 2003: 12-13; Pospielovsky 1988: 66; Tsypin 1994: 107).

Of 1,025 Orthodox monasteries and nunneries functioning in 1914, with some 95,000 monks, nuns, and novices, not a single one remained open in 1929 (Beeson 1982: 58; Davis 2003: 164 and 166; Emel’ianov 2004: 3; Shkarovskii 1999: 67; Stroyen 1962: 9). Likewise, from 1914 to 1939, all 57 Orthodox seminaries and four theological academies were suppressed (Beeson 1982: 58; Shkarovskii 1999: 67). In addition, by 1939 Soviet authorities had closed or nationalized 37,528 Orthodox parochial schools, all 1,131 of its homes for the aged, and all 291 of its hospitals (Beeson 1982: 58).

Of roughly 300 Orthodox bishops in 1914, less than 20 were alive by 1943. Only four bishops enjoyed some degree of liberty, while living in fear of imminent arrest or worse (Davis 2003: 11 and 64; Hefly 1979: 27; Zugger 2001: 247). Of some 51,000 priests in 1914, no more than 300 to 400 were still serving parishes in 1939 (Beeson 1982: 58; Davis, 2003: 129). Of the 1,000 plus priests in the vicinity of St. Petersburg in 1917, only 15 were free to conduct services in the renamed Leningrad Region in 1937. German forces advancing through Ukraine in 1941 found only two remaining Orthodox priests in two open churches in the Kiev Diocese, down from 1,435 priests in 1917 (Davis 2003: 11 and13).

Orthodoxy’s staggering institutional and human losses must also, of necessity, be calculated in terms of arrests, executions, and forced labor terms, with mortality rates in confinement as high as 85 percent (Pospielovsky 1984: 177). Patriarch Aleksei II estimated that by the late 1930s Russia’s Communist government was responsible for the deaths of some 80,000 Orthodox clergy, monks, and nuns (Davis 2003: 11; Hefly 1979: 270). Executions of priests in 1918-19 and 1930-31 alone have been estimated at over 15,000 and 5,000 respectively, not counting deaths in prisons and labor camps (Emel’ianov 2004: 2-3). In addition, the number of Orthodox parishioners who perished for their faith in the interwar decades must have run at least into the hundreds of thousands (Shkarovskii 1999: 93).

The Soviet Assault on Catholicism

Before World War I the population of tsarist Russia included over five million Roman Catholics, with the heaviest concentrations in western Ukraine, partitioned Poland, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Latvia (Chaplitskii and Osipova 2000: xxii; Zugger 2001: 21-22, 36, 42, 45, and 264). Wartime territorial losses saw Russia shorn of sizeable portions of its western frontier with its large Catholic populations, such that by 1917 the new Soviet state was home to a much-reduced 1.4 million Catholics. Unwavering Kremlin hostility toward the Vatican and fear of fifth columnists in its vulnerable western borderlands led to the nearly complete institutional demise of Catholicism on Soviet territory in two decades. Communist repression reduced the number of functioning Catholic churches from 980 in 1917 to two showcase parishes in Moscow and Leningrad in 1939 (Beeson 1982: 23; Solchanyk and Hvat 1990: 53). Likewise, the number of priests fell drastically from 912 in 1917 to two in August 1939. By 1934, Soviet Russia had not a single serving Catholic bishop, from 21 in 1917, not a single functioning parochial school or social institution, from 300 to 500 in 1917, and no functioning seminaries, of the four previously in operation (Beeson 1982: 123; Hefly 1979: 232). ♦

References:

Beeson, Trevor. Discretion and Valour; Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe. Rev. ed. London: Collins, 1982.

Beglov, Aleksei. V poiskakh “bezgreshnykh katakom.” Tserkovnoe podpol’e v SSSR [In Search of “Sinless Catacombs.” The Underground Church in the USSR]. Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Sovet Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi “Arefa,” 2008.

Brandenburg, Hans. The Meek and the Mighty; The Emergence of the Evangelical Movement in Russia. London: Mowbrays, 1974.

Chaplitskii, Bronislav and Irina Osipova. Kniga Pamiati: Martirolog Katolicheskoi Tserkvi v SSSR [Book of Memorials: The Martyrdom of the Catholic Church in the USSR]. Moscow: Serebrianye Niti, 2000.

Davis, Nathaniel. A Long Walk to Church; A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy. 2nd. ed. Boulder, CO: Westview, 2003.

Elliott, Mark R.. “Uniates.” Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet History. Vol. 40, 1985.

Ellis, Jane. The Russian Orthodox Church: Triumphalism and Defensiveness. New York: St. Martins Press, 1996.

Emel’ianov, N.E. Otsenka statistiki gonenii na Russkuiu Pravoslavnuiu Tserkov’ (1917-1952 gody) [Evaluation of Statistics of Persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1917-1952], http://www.goldentime.ru/nbk_31.htm; 2004.

Hefly, James C. and Marti Hefly. By Their Blood; Christian Martyrs of the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1979.

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Editor’s note: The concluding sections of this article will be published in the next two issues of the East-West Church and Ministry Report 20 (Summer 2012) and (Fall 2012).

Reprinted with permission from Sorrow and Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom, ed. by William Taylor, Tonica van der Meer, and Reg Reimer (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2012).

Mark R. Elliott is editor of the East-West Church and Ministry Report, Asbury University, Wilmore, Kentucky.

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Volume 20, No. 2

are well-disposed toward Evangelicals, many other nominal, nationalistic, and ecclesiologically exclusivist Orthodox are quite belligerent toward Evangelicals. In such cases, an Evangelical apologia may well be met initially with incredulity and/or scorn. However, I would suggest it would be well for Russian Evangelicals to persevere, recognizing that in their understanding of the gospel they have a distinct contribution to make in spreading the gospel in Russia. In the words of the Apostle Paul, “We commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God” (II Corinthians 4:2).What is at stake is a full hearing for the gospel as lived out by Christians of diverse traditions. ♦

Notes:

1 66.9 percent, Operation World, 2009.

2 Fond “Obshchestvennoe Mnenie,” January-February 2010.

3 I owe this particular insight to Andrey Chernyak of the Orthodox Parish of SS. Cosma and Damian, Moscow.

4 Evangelical Alliance (UK), Evangelicalism and the Orthodox Church (Carlisle, England: Paternoster, 2001).

5 Russian television recently broadcast a several-part drama on this subject entitled “Schism.”

6 Mark R. Elliott, “Persecution of Christians in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet and Post-Soviet Union” in Sorrow and Blood: Christian Mission in Contexts of Suffering, Persecution and Martyrdom, ed. by William Taylor et al. (Pasadena, CA: William Carey Library, 2012).

Russell Phillips is a British pastor serving under the leadership of Russian Evangelical Christian-Baptist churches, Novosibirsk, Russia.