A few decades after the establishment of the Baptist movement in Tsarist Russia, Pentecostalism, its Evangelical cousin, came to the Ukraine in the liberal years of the early twentieth century and built upon Baptist growth. The Pentecostal organization «Christians of the Evangelical Faith,» adherents of which were informally known as Voronaevtsy,1 was officially founded in 1926.2 They experienced just a few years of organized activity before Stalin’s repressive policies were introduced, Pentecostal worship became illegal, and the purges would claim the lives of countless church leaders. With the creation of the AUCECB in 1944 and an invitation extended to Pentecostalists to join this state-legitimized worship body, it appeared that the tide had turned for Pentecostal believers in the USSR. Soon, however, many who had joined the AUCECB withdrew their registration, and the Soviet Union witnessed a revival of unregistered Pentecostalists, albeit a clandestine revival carried out discretely so as to not attract3 attention.
During the course of the three plus decades following Stalin’s death, the «Christians of the Evangelical Faith» was the largest unregistered body of Pentecostalists in the USSR4 and endured most of the same types of persecutions the Reform Baptists experienced during those years — arrests, imprisonments, and other persecutions — though Pentecostalists were persecuted less severely. Soviet Pentecostalists chose two broad avenues of reaction in response to these repressions: some sought emigration to nations where they would be granted the freedom of religion, while others simply continued their worship activities, engaging in little to no protest at all.
Beginning in the early 60′s and gaining momentum in the mid 70′s, a sizeable segment of the unregistered Pentecostalists staged what would become a massive campaign to emigrate from the USSR for the purpose of seeking asylum in nations that would allow them to practice their religion. At the campaign’s peak in 1979, 30,000 Pentecostalists had renounced their Soviet citizenship and applied for emigration.5 Documents of appeal and protest proliferated among the would-be emigrants, ties with the Helsinki Watch Groups were forged, and a church Council to document grievances and organize congregations and individuals was formed in 1979 by those involved in the emigration campaign.6
From the available sources, successes for the two Pentecostalist factions to 1985 differ markedly. While there is evidence that those who chose to disregard prospects for challenging their regime in the «political» arena were increasing in numbers,7 those who pushed their regime’s limits in the emigration movement not only utterly failed to gain their goal of emigration, but suffered more casualties during the state’s countermovement against dissidents than those Pentecostalists not engaging in active protest. This decision of whether or not to participate in protest in an emigration campaign within the body of unregistered Pentecostalists, then, proves valuable to this study in that it helps to uncover the effect of protest on the success of an underground religious movement in the USSR.
Overall, however, Pentecostalists in general were in a much more tolerable position in the mid-80′s when compared with the Reform Baptists. The leadership of this Pentecostal body was much less centralized than that of the Reform Baptists, with individual congregations and adherents given much more autonomy to function according to their own will.8 The Pentecostalists engaged in no official printing operations at all during the life of the USSR, and only those seeking emigration engaged in any protest activities to speak of. It is these three factors that may explain why the Christians of the Evangelical Faith fared better during the State’s repressive countermovement against dissent in the 1970′s-80′s.
This chapter accounts for the relative successes and failures of the Pentecostalists in comparison to the Reform Baptists, and the successes of the non-protesting Pentecostalists in relation to those who participated in the emigration movement. Though a distinction between these two «branches» of Pentecostalism in somewhat artificial,9 it is the best means of determining which factors are associated with the underground churches’ successes and failures.10
Historiography
As with the study of the Reform Baptists, Ludmila Alexyeva’s Soviet Dissent and Walter Kolarz’ Religion in the Soviet Union provide essential information and commentary on the unregistered Pentecostalists. Kolarz’ study provides a detailed history of the Soviet Pentecostal movements to 1960, while Alexeyeva presents a comprehensive overview of the emigration movement and Pentecostal involvement with Soviet human rights activists. Soviet Evangelicals by Walter Sawatsky provides information Pentecostal worship, though he rarely distinguishes between Baptist and Pentecostal, registered or unregistered activities. One of the most important works to this study is Soviet Charismatics by William Fletcher, aptly published in 1985. In his book, Fletcher provides valuable facts on Pentecostalists in the USSR, and important insights on the movement and religion in the Soviet Union in an interesting format. The Radio Liberty Research Bulletin supplies essential information on select events during the anti-dissident campaign.
The most important primary source utilized in the current study is short work In Christ’s Footstep’s — Memoirs, the autobiographical account of Viktor Belykh (KGB agent — Boris Perchatkin’s comment), one of the movement’s top leaders. Belykh’s memoirs provide the only insight into the mind of a Pentecostal leader not involved with the emigration movement, and the only account of any central leader of the Christians of the Evangelical Faith. Two books written on a group of Pentecostalists that engaged in some dramatic episodes of protest served as important references to this chapter -The Siberian Seven, a narrative work based largely from interviews with the «seven,» and The Last Christian: The Release of the Siberian Seven written by Timofei Chmykhalov, himself one of the «seven». Further, this study offers new primary material in telephone conversations with Avgustina11 and Dina Vashchenko,12 Pentecostal emigres from the USSR, shed further light on areas ignored by the literature.
Factors Possibly Contributing to Church’s Successes and Failures Pentecostal History in Russia/USSR
Several trends in Russian/Soviet Pentecostal history contributed to Pentecostal successes from the death of Stalin to the mid-80′s. Though Pentecostalism made its first appearance in Russia decades after the Baptists, Pentecostalists too were successful in quickly attaining a critical mass of adherents.13 Around 1911 the first Pentecostal missionary traveled to Tsarist Russia via Helsinki,14 though considerable missionary successes were not seen until the arrival of Ivan Voronaev in the Ukraine in 1922. Recently converted to Pentecostalism in the United States, Voronaev felt compelled to return to his homeland and preach the Gospel there.15 His arrival coincided with the first revival period for non-Orthodox religions, when religious freedoms and the possibilities for growth were at the highest they had yet been and the highest they would be for decades to come.16 Thus, the Soviet Pentecostalists, as a group, escaped the cruelties of Tsarist repression that the Baptists were called upon to endure, which may account for at least a portion of their early successes.
Pentecostalists in the Soviet Union achieved a startlingly rapid growth during the 1920′s. Voronaev and some of his early, zealous converts began their ministry by worshipping within Baptist congregations and teaching those already converted to the Baptist faith. A significant number of Pentecostal believers was attained rather quickly as Pentecostalism drew away a considerable number of Baptists, whose theology was nearly identical to their own. The key difference between Baptist and Pentecostal theology, baptism by the Spirit made manifest by the speaking in tongues, or glossalalia, was apparently enough to cause many to choose Pentecostalism over Baptism. By 1926 Pentecostal successes in the Soviet Union were indeed impressive — there were already 17,000 Pentecostalists worshipping in 350 congregations, and the Church was officially organized with the formation of the «All-Ukrainian Council of Christians of the Evangelical Faith» headquartered in Odessa, Ukraine.17 A further boost to the movement was the 1939 annexation of a portion of Eastern Poland into the USSR and a sizable population of Pentecostalists along with it.18
The other significant element in Soviet Pentecostal history that led to the movement’s successes was the development of a unique «Pentecostal» identity. The state-sanctioned All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians — Baptists was formed in 1944, and all Pentecostalists in the USSR were subsequently invited to join. This unification with the AUCECB (KGB affiliate organization for protestants assigned to eventually, in 1980 to destroy faith in God among protestants — Boris Perchatkin’s comment), however, placed restrictions on a fundamental aspect of Pentecostal worship — the speaking in tongues during prayer meetings.19 Central Pentecostal leader Viktor Belykh (KGB agent — Boris Perchatkin’s comment) compared a Pentecostal union with the AUCECB with an attempt to mix oil and water; it was an impractical coalition that could not last long.20
In spite of the forbiddance of glossalalia, however, in 1944 alone around 400 Pentecostal congregations made up of a total of 1,000 believers joined with the AUCECB,21 though many chose to withdraw from their AUCECB affiliation after a short time. A significant number of Pentecostalists, therefore, came to prefer the costs of autonomous worship with its associated risks of an unregistered and illegal status to the regulated and constrained services of the AUCECB. It was after the joining and successive withdrawal from the AUCECB that the Soviet Pentecostal movement of the «Christians of the Evangelical Faith» gained post-Stalin momentum.22 By 1958, Pentecostal congregations were withdrawing from the AUCECB en masse, and new unregistered Pentecostal congregations concurrently sprung up in various places.23 Early and continued antagonism with the Baptists almost certainly led to the development of a distinct Pentecostal identity, which may have prevented more Pentecostalists from unification with the AUCECB, and ultimately contributed to a stronger independent Pentecostal movement.
Some aspects of Soviet Pentecostal history that had a deleterious effect on the movement include Stalin’s purges and the problem of disunity as a product of the issue of registration with the AUCECB. Just as the Baptists, Soviet Pentecostalists struggled to survive as nearly an entire generation of Pentecostal leaders perished in the camps during Stalin’s purges of the 30′s. Even the movement’s founder, Voronaev, was arrested in 1930 and presumably met his death there.24 During these years, many were executed without even a trial, and the sect remained officially banned from the 30′s to the 50′s.25 Again, the number of Soviet Pentecostalists willing to endure the severity of an illegal status was less than the actual number of Pentecostalists in the USSR, so in this respect the state partially succeeded in its tactic to «divide and conquer» those of the Pentecostal faith in their nation.
Components of the Church
Elements of the Soviet Pentecostal church, including its theology, church structure, leaders, members, and level of organization affected the movement’s success in different ways. Despite their similarities with the Reform Baptists, the ecclesiastical paradigm of the Soviet Pentecostalists developed rather differently from that of their Evangelical cohorts. If the Reform Baptist organization could be described as organized and systematized, the Soviet Pentecostal structure was decidedly loose and de-centralized.
Firstly, Fletcher mentions that there was no single Soviet Pentecostal theology, but that local congregations and even individuals played a role in determining certain points of doctrine due to an «emphasis on individualism.»26 27 In spite of the diversity of beliefs and practices exhibited by these believers, four basic principles were ostensibly embraced by the majority of unregistered Soviet Pentecostalists, namely: salvation, baptism by the Holy Spirit manifested by speaking in tongues, eschatology or the idea that mankind today is living in the last days, and healing.28 Other important points of doctrine for Soviet Pentecostalists were sanctification, the doctrine of the power and gifts of the Holy Spirit.29 Just as the Baptists, Pentecostalists in the Soviet Union considered the Bible to be the foremost authority concerning questions of doctrine. Church founding father Ivan Voronaev stated that «the Bible is the court which decides disputes where human judgment and intelligence are powerless.»30 Fletcher maintains that the emphasis on speaking in other tongues as a sign of being baptized of the Holy Spirit, or glossalalia, is the «single doctrine on which all Pentecostals in the USSR agree.»31 The rite of foot washing was common among Soviet Pentecostalists, as was fasting.32 One’s private spiritual life was of the utmost importance, and prayer constituted its central feature.33 Another shared belief with the Baptists was the «priesthood of the believer,» in which each person was responsible before God and no outside authority could dictate to one what is correct or incorrect. Thus, beliefs could vary widely not only from congregation to congregation, but from person to person.34
Pentecostal theology, though similar to that of the other Evangelicals, differed enough so as to affect the movement’s successes relative to that of the Reform Baptists. Soviet ideologues seem to have found even more inspiration for anti-religious propaganda in the Pentecostalists than in the Baptists. Pieces of anti-religious literature such as novels and short stories starring deranged Pentecostalists were not uncommon, likely due to glossalalia.35 A play entitled «The Dead God» condemned the Pentecostalists and their strange Diety.36 Further, somehow Soviet propagandists made a leap from accusing Pentecostalists of insanity and naivete to condemning them of gross acts of violence. Film was exploited as a means of warning the public against the alleged murderous rituals of Pentecostals. The climax of the film «Clouds over Borsk» occurred as a girl recently converted to the Pentecostal faith was crucified and nearly killed,37 and the supposed documentary «This Alarms Everyone» depicted the suicides and murder of children allegedly perpetrated by Pentecostalists.38
Pentecostalists in the USSR exhibited an even greater alienation from Soviet society than the Baptists. Fletcher explains this trend of «introverted withdrawal» from a secular society as a Pentecostal coping mechanism to guard against the onslaught of hostility they so frequently encountered outside their circles within the church.39 Soviet Pentecostalists refrained from participating in important Soviet holidays such as May 1 and the October Revolution Anniversary Day,40 and generally forbade their children from becoming Young Pioneers or members of the Komsomol (The Young Communist League).41 Many supported pacifism, though it was not forced upon the congregations.42 Abstinence from alcohol, tobacco, television, and other «worldly» media was also encouraged.43 In some cases, parents even withdrew their children from school in order to protect them not only from a curriculum designed to ingrain atheism into every child, but also from beatings and the mockery of children and teachers alike.44
The Pentecostal movement «Christians of the Evangelical Faith» was by far the least centralized religious body under consideration in this study. In response to state restrictions on the movement’s unification, central leaders appear to have preferred the comparative isolation of their congregations to the harsh persecution they would certainly encounter through a top-down leadership.45 Further, Pentecostalists in general were known for their emphasis on the near-autonomy of individual congregations. By all accounts, the most important leadership role in the Pentecostal faith was played by pastors, who led individual congregations. Pentecostal pastors were ordained at the hands of other pastors, and were responsible for «teaching . . .reading and interpreting the Scriptures, and exhorting [] followers to increased devotion.»46 Apparently almost as important to a congregation’s function were those who officiated in a myriad of other positions. During his discussion on leadership of unregistered Pentecostalists in the USSR, Fletcher names the callings of deacons and deaconesses, choirmasters,47 prophets and prophetesses, healers, and those with the gift of discernment.48 Women’s councils were not uncommon in the more populous congregations.49
In spite of the essential role of local leaders in the functioning of the Christians of the Evangelical Faith, the Church did have central governing body, though it is unclear how it operated, and how many individuals participated in it. Significantly, between 1953-1985 unregistered Pentecostalists appeared to exhibit a level of organization beyond the echelon of the congregation only during the religious revival following Stalin’s death. At this time, the church’s central leadership did much to facilitate church growth and success during such a vital period in its development. Secret Pentecostal congresses were held in Kharkov in 1956, and again in Tbilisi in 1960 provide evidence for vigorous centralized activity during these years.50 After release from exile in 1956, Belykh (that he was not KGB agent, but bacame it later — Boris Perchatkin’s comment) and other leaders traveled to visit many of the churches51 in order to preach to them and assess their situation.52 After Belykh was ordained into the top church leadership by two existing central church leaders,53 the three of them continued their travels to Moldova and Odessa to strengthen the congregations there.54 It seems likely, then, that without the impressive efforts of church leaders in ministering to the scattered congregations at this key time, the Christians of the Evangelical Faith may have had little, if any enduring unity.
Significantly, however, neither Belykh’s memoirs nor any of the other accessible sources refers to the titles of top church leaders. This leads one to believe that their functions were not seen as vitally important. When compared with the large amount of printed material on the leadership of the Soviet Reform Baptist movement as well as the AUCECB leadership, it becomes clear that these Pentecostalists were relatively less concerned with both the identity and pursuits of their central leaders.
Contrary to logic, it appears that such a de-emphasis on ecclesiology may have contributed to the overall success of the Pentecostal movement in the Soviet Union from the death of Stalin through the mid-1980′s as a decentralized movement is more difficult to disable with tactics designed to paralyze the central leaders. The disabling of a few central leaders would have a much less-pronounced effect on the functioning of Soviet Pentecostal congregations, and therefore the church at large. Though Pentecostal leaders became primary targets during Khrushchev’s campaign against religion, as did the Reform Baptist leaders, the loss of church-wide leaders to the vast system of labor camps and prisons was far less devastating to the operation of a church that had never emphasized their role.
Because of the relative emphasis on both individual and congregational autonomy, the Christians of the Evangelical Faith were organized into a loose church structure where individuals and congregations organized themselves in whatever manner they saw fit. Lacking the strong central leadership of the Reform Baptists, the unregistered Pentecostalists rarely sought to engage in inter-congregational activities, and church-wide samizdat or protest that so incensed the authorities. Therefore, it appears that not only did the free structure of the Soviet Pentecostal Church contribute to its success by «permit[ing] the movement to capitalize upon whatever organizational approaches were best suited to local conditions,»55 but it allowed the Church avoid some of the harsh state measures taken against the Reform Baptists. Though the unregistered Pentecostalists were highly persecuted for their religious activities in the Soviet Union, the Chronicle of Current Events, for example, includes far more accounts of repression against the Reform Baptists. It seems unlikely that the marked disparity in coverage in the Chronicle is completely a result of greater Reform Baptist population and/or communication with human rights activists.
In examining those Pentecostalists who joined the emigration movement and therefore participated in some sort of protest activities, it is apparent that those engaging in protest exhibited a greater degree of organization than those who did not. On 16 June 1979, 20 Pentecostal delegates from the Baltic republics, the Ukraine, Belarus, Central Russia, and Siberia gathered in a forest on the outskirts of Moscow to organize the Fraternal Council of Christians of the Evangelical Pentecostal Faith. It was their goal to unite the congregations in resisting the state’s anti-religious legislation, and to support those Pentecostalists desiring emigration.56 The formation of the Fraternal Council marks the first known intra-denominational event to take place among the unregistered Pentecostalists since the underground congress held in 1960. This is only one of many examples illustrating a greater church-wide organization of Pentecostal emigration activists relative to the rest of unregistered Pentecostal adherents.
Soviet Pentecostal and Baptist adherents were rather similar in their characteristics, which is not surprising given their related origin. Just as the Reform Baptists, unregistered Pentecostalists had to be prepared to endure great hardship and persecution for their faith, held low-paying jobs because of the lack of opportunity for them to receive a higher education, and generally had large families who were forced to subsist on little income. Children and adolescents were plentiful in the unregistered Pentecostal ranks not only due to the size of these Christians’ families, but because many young individuals joined the church in the 60′s, much to the dismay of the authorities. Further, parents persisted in providing religious instruction to their children.
Consider the Vashchenko family of Chernogorsk (Siberia), who had 13 children and suffered immensely because of their beliefs. Pyotr and Avgustina Vashchenko were two of the earliest Pentecostalists in their town, and helped found the congregation during the 50′s revival.57 One of their uncles, Andrei, was killed in a labor camp in 1966, presumably because of his faith.58 Pyotr was incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital in 1968 after attempting to gain an audience with American officials at the American Embassy in Moscow concerning his family’s desire to emigrate from the USSR.59 Avgustina was arrested and imprisoned for 2 years from 1968-70, leaving the children to be raised by extended family and church members for a time.60 Of the Vashchenko children, born from 1951 to 1974, each of the four oldest girls spent a few years in state boarding schools after being abducted from their family by state officials. Three of them escaped at different points, but were summarily returned to the state institutions.61 The oldest son, Sasha, was imprisoned for refusing military duty in 1977.62 All were routinely subject to beatings at school, and harassment and persecution at the hands of government officials. None in the family was able to make a good living. Pyotr worked in the coal mines,63 while Lidia, the oldest daughter, had the unenviable job of working at a hospital crematory.64 The Vashchenko’s became active in the emigration campaign very early on, and participated in the most incredible and high profile Pentecostal demonstrations carried out during the Soviet period, discussed later in this chapter.
Pentecostalists suffered more as a result of their beliefs than the Reform Baptists. From accounts in the Chronicle of Current Events, Soviet Pentecostalists were subject to punitive incarceration in psychiatric hospitals more often than those of other denominations, presumably because it was easy for the authorities to pin the singularity of glossalalia on insanity. In one extreme case, Pentecostalists Anna V. Chertkova spent at least five years65 imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital. Chertkova had spent years seeking a legal residence in Alma-Ata, even attempting to find shelter in hostels and hotels, but to no avail. She twice resorted to building a house of her own on the outskirts of town, but both times the construction was demolished by State bulldozers. Chertkova subsequently spent two winters living in a crude hut,66 but was threatened by city officials with internment in a psychiatric hospital if she didn’t abandon residence in Alma-Ata, which threats turned to reality.67 Another common charge levied against unregistered Pentecostalists was for refusing to swear the military oath and bear arms. Kolarz states that most Pentecostalists sought to avoid army service by «cunning»68 as opposed to open protest, though there were also cases of the latter. In May 1977 160 individuals from the Rivno oblast of Ukraine collectively refused military service.69
Because of both their loose organization and a belief in the «priesthood of the believers,» the Pentecostalists in the USSR were the most free to engage in the activities of their choice. With little input from central leaders on the operation of the church after the 50′s revival, it follows that Pentecostal pastors had the freedom to direct their congregations in the manner they thought best. Individual families and believers, too, took liberties not observed as obviously among Reform Baptist and True Adventist adherents. For example, the Vashchenko family previously portrayed and some others in their town of Chernogorsk made the early decision to campaign for their right to emigrate from the USSR for religious reasons. As early as 1963 these Pentecostalists began to participate in demonstrations in Moscow, which were carried out both independently and against the wishes of their pastor. In fact, the pastor in Chernogorsk, Pyotr Vashchenko’s uncle, labeled them as troublemakers and in the 60′s advised them not to worship with the Chernogorsk congregation anymore. Thus, the Vashchenko’s and a couple other Chernogorsk Pentecostalists were obliged to form their own congregation.70 In other locales in subsequent years, Pentecostal pastors would embrace emigration as a viable means of gaining their religious freedoms, and even rally their congregations to participate in the emigration movement.
Church Activities and Tactics to Continue Them
Unregistered Pentecostalists in the Soviet Union went to great lengths to participate in activities of an Evangelical nature. They had repudiated registration with the AUCECB precisely in order that they might fully express their faith through worship services and proselytizing, and their tactics of secrecy lent themselves relatively well to the continuation of these activities.
Besides the speaking in tongues, Pentecostal worship resembled Baptist worship in most respects. Both the giving of sermons and the employment of religious music were essential to any worship service.71 The emotional, often intense nature of Pentecostal worship, as well as the frequency of worship with other church members must have provided a safe haven for these persecuted believers. In the mid-1960′s anti-religious work Questions of Scientific Atheism, the author notes that many Pentecostalists would meet for 2-3 hours of worship «daily or at least three times a week», while others would congregate two times a day, «before work, usually 5-6 a.m., and after work, 8-10 p.m.»72 Though this may be an exaggeration of reality, it is apparent from other sources that frequent services were the norm for unregistered Pentecostalists. According to Belykh, exiled believers in the couple years following Stalin’s death held church services daily.73
Sawatsky, who provides a detailed description of Evangelical tactics to continue worship
beginning during Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign, does not distinguish between Reform Baptist and Pentecostal tactics. The only tactic that the Pentecostalists appear to have employed to a greater degree than Reform Baptists was secrecy in worship. In addition to holding services in remote outdoors locations such as the woods or in the apartment of members, Pentecostalists held meetings at unusual hours as well.74 In an attempt to discredit Pentecostal meetings, one champion of atheism described their secrecy as the following:
«Three times a week the Pentecostals gathered in the Salapev apartment. The largest meetings were on Sunday, when sectarians from other districts of the region came. They met in strict secrecy. The leaders did not wish even that the rank and file sectarians knew much about each other. They were prohibited from conversing among themselves, on grounds that ‘much speaking is a sin before God.’ They were prohibited from calling each other by given or family names, but only ‘spiritual brother’ and ‘spiritual sister.’»75
Another common motif found in anti-Pentecostal literature concerning their worship practices was that of «Pentecostalists… praying on a desolate beach… waiting for an ark filled with American dollars,» though the ideologues neglect to mention that remote places were usually the only locations available for peaceful worship.76
Another important Pentecostal tactic to insulate themselves from outside interference was the exercise of caution in opening their church services to unknown persons. Interested parties were obliged to study the scriptures and talk with church members for a period of time before they were permitted to attend prayer meetings.77 In this way, worship services were more effectively shielded from interference at the hands of the authorities. A final Pentecostal tactic to continue religious activities was worship with those of other denominations. Fletcher mentions the possibility that Reform Baptists, Christians of the Evangelical Faith, as well as Baptists and Pentecostalists worshipping within the legally sanctioned AUCECB may have been sympathetic to and possibly even involved with each other’s plights, though the extent of their co-involvement was not known.78
The net result of Soviet Pentecostalists’ secrecy tactics was less intrusion on the part of the state. Though unregistered Pentecostalists experienced their share of raids on worship services, accounts from the Chronicle indicate that they underwent the dispersion of significantly less religious services than did the Reform Baptists.
Unregistered Soviet Pentecostalists engaged in no less proselytizing than did the Reform Baptists, and also experienced impressive successes in this arena. Indeed, Kolarz attributes the continuation of the church through Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign to two key factors -missionary work carried out in Stalin’s labor camps that led many prisoners to convert to Pentecostalism, and the «deliberate migration»79 of Pentecostalists from place to place for the express purpose of exposing a greater number of Soviet citizens to the movement’s members and Gospel message.80 Belykh reaffirms that during the «Thaw,» the church grew in places of exile, and the harsh conditions didn’t prevent converts from joining. Baptisms were known to take place even in the frigid waters of ice holes.81 Further, Fletcher describes the success of Pentecostal «unobtrusive»82 proselytizing techniques that undoubtedly had been refined by Pentecostal leaders in the Stalinist camps.83 Lithuanian Catholic activists lauded Pentecostal missionary efforts,84 as they fostered «the apostolic spirit, which fears neither suffering nor death.»85
Though the Pentecostals placed a great emphasis on missionary efforts, they practiced caution in opening church membership to interested parties. Potential converts passed through a lengthy preparation period before they could be baptized.86 In this way, not only were converts more likely to adhere to their new faith, but the congregations were better protected from KGB infiltration. Those working to infiltrate had to work long and hard before they were granted access to the church network. In spite of this, however, infiltration was not uncommon.
Also relatively frequent was state propaganda directed against Pentecostal missionary efforts. For example, the defamatory work Piatidesiatniki featured the repentant words of several former Pentecostalists, including F. N. Miachin (KGB agent — Boris Perchatkin’s comment), who bemoaned his previous religious activity and the effects it had on others:
«My conscience troubles me when I think of the young men and girls whom I myself brought into the congregation.
Where are you now, blue-eyed Lida Guliuk? Do you still pay attention to sermons and seek consolation in them?
And where are you, Vanie Rybak and Tolia Kiseled? As before, do you sing psalms like:
‘I would leave this world without regret;
In it I have seen only lying and suffering.’
Or have you already awakened from the deep sleep, and do you gaily work on the new constructions of Siberia or the virgin lands of Kazakhstan?»87
Indeed, Alexeyeva attributes the unregistered Pentecostalists’ persecution primarily to their dedication to proselytizing.88 For instance, Latvian Pentecostal Teofil Kuma was arrested and sentenced to a labor camp in 1980 for distributing hundreds of religious leaflets at a school, a bus stop, and a park. He was later transferred to the Leningrad Psychiatric Hospital for his «seditious» activity.89 Like some other factors, then, missionary operations played a role both in church successes and defeats throughout the period between 1953 and 1985 and cannot be considered to significantly impact the churches’ status either way.
The Christians of the Evangelical Faith did not carry out any official printing operations. To be sure, Fletcher has described the church’s publication of samizdat literature at this time as «almost totally lacking» and their supply of religious literature «far from adequate.»90 The only known method of obtaining Bibles was to collaborate with the Reform Baptist Christianin publishing house — in exchange for Bibles, Pentecostalists supplied Baptist printers with supplies such as paper and material provisions.91 Though this deficiency in religious literature may initially appear to negatively impact the church’s successes, the opposite may actually be true. Reform Baptists suffered great casualties due to their underground printing operations — not only did tremendous resources go into the functioning of the Khristianin press, but those discovered to be associated with Baptist printing activities were duly punished. The Christians of the Evangelical Faith, on the other hand, were free from state raids on printing presses they didn’t even possess.
Protest
The attitude of unregistered Soviet Pentecostal leaders toward protest was incohesive both through the period of time under consideration and throughout the church at large. Though central church leaders once traveled to Moscow to converse with state officials on their unenviable position in the wake of Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign,92 there is no other episode in the available literature depicting central leaders’ support of protest. Certainly, the central Pentecostal leadership did not stir up the movement’s adherents to participate in any acts of protest as the Reform Baptist leadership did.
Conversely, there were some Pentecostal pastors who engaged in protest on a large-scale beginning in the 60′s, and with increasing regularity through the 70′s. Pastor Nikolai Goretoi was one of the movement’s leading advocates for emigration, and participated in the formation of the Fraternal Council to work in behalf of would-be emigrants. Rank-and-file Pentecostal emigration participants were no less dedicated to the cause than leaders of the emigration movement. Pentecostalist Vasily Patrushev explained the reasoning behind emigration activists’ protest in the following statement:
«We have no choice here: either we become criminals in the eyes of the government by refusing to submit to the Regulations on Registration and thereby observe the teachings of Christ, or we become criminals in the sight of God by submitting to the demands of the government. For us, believers living according to our conscience, the higher law is the law of God. We cannot become criminals before God.»93
Thus, Pentecostalists, as the Reform Baptists, viewed their protest not as political in any sense, but born of profoundly spiritual motives. Many, however, found it more prudent not to participate in protest activities.
In the domain of protest and «political» activity, the Soviet Pentecostalists will always be known for the massive emigration movement they engaged in. The movement had its origin in small pockets of believers like the Vashchenko family and others in Chernogorsk, and eventually included others in a myriad of locations throughout the empire, though it is not known if the Vashchenko’s inspired the massive movement or if the Jewish emigration movement served as a motivation.94 The Pentecostal movement to emigrate gained impetus with the Soviet State’s signing of the Helsinki Accords in 1975, and subsequent formation of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group that devoted significant resources to helping those Pentecostalists desirous to emigrate.95 In February of 1977, 1,000 Pentecostals joined the small movement, and by May of that year 1,700 believers including some Baptists had aligned themselves with the campaign to emigrate. By June the movement had grown to 3,500 persons, and by December of 1977, 10,000 believers had applied for exit visas in hopes of emigrating from the Soviet Union! The emigration movement continued to expand until there were 30,000 participants in 1979.96 97 Sometimes entire Pentecostal congregations applied to emigrate together.98
The great majority of Pentecostal acts of protest and written appeals dealt with the emigration issue. While those not participating in the campaign to emigrate quietly persisted in worshiping and raising their children according to their conscience, in the mid to late-70′s waves of protest activity carried out by would-be Pentecostal emigrants grew increasingly audible both to the Soviet authorities and to the West.
Pentecostalists in the Soviet Union staged some demonstrations between 1953 and 1985, and they were always the result of the initiative of individuals or groups rather than the church as a whole. Some were small, local disturbances, and unrelated to the emigration movement. For instance, in March 1957 a group of Pentecostalists in the city of Kherson arrived at an anti-religious lecture with the intent of wrecking the meeting as the Pentecostal group’s spokesman openly debated with the lecturer and began to speak in tongues in the middle of the meeting.99 Other demonstrations were more dramatic affairs that captured the attention of larger groups of people. All such demonstrations described in the sources for this work were carried out by those desirous to emigrate.
Undoubtedly one of the most spectacular incidents of protest staged by Soviet Pentecostalists occurred in January 1963 as 32 Chernogorsk Pentecostals stormed the American Embassy in Moscow, having traveled for days from Siberia. They presented American officials with a stack of petitions delineating their grievances against Soviet religious policy, and desperately pleaded for asylum.100 They urgently protested the loss of their children to the state, their children having been forcibly removed from their custody and sent to Soviet boarding schools. They presented letters written by these children, including letters from three children of the Vashchenko family -101 Valya (12 years), Tanya (8 years), and Petya (7 years), in which the children told of the persecution they were enduring for their faith, and Valya asked her parents to tell Khrushchev: «I don’t want to live anymore in the Soviet Union. I tell you I won’t study in a Godless school.»102 In spite of the mounting evidence to the U.S. government that gross incidents of religious repression were indeed occurring in the Soviet Union, these 32 individuals were not granted political asylum, but rather brusquely loaded onto buses by the Communist authorities and removed from the Embassy grounds.103 The persecution of these particular families increased significantly as a result of their participation in this demonstration.
Years later in 1978 eight individuals from the same town104 returned to Moscow to finish the business they had been prevented from completing in 1963. Members of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families, consisting of Pyotr and Avgustina Vashchenko and three of their children, Lilya,105 Lyubov’,106 and Lidya,107 and two members of the Chmykhalov family, Maria and her youngest son Timofei,108 rushed past the guards and took refuge in the American Embassy armed with stacks of grievances.109 The eighth member of the party, Ioann Vashchenko, was detained by guards and was seen by the others in custody of Soviet policemen who were assaulting him outside the gates of the embassy. As the seven were not granted active assistance from American officials and refused to leave the embassy until they received exit visas for fear of Soviet reprisal,110 these determined Pentecostalists began a residence in the American Embassy in a small basement room that was to last nearly five years.
Though the «Siberian Seven» were eventually allowed to emigrate to the United States in 1983 due to U.S. diplomatic intervention,111 this victory did not spread to the vast populace of Pentecostal adherents awaiting such an opportunity. Pentecostal demonstrations, just as those of the Reform Baptists, did not significantly impact the successes and defeats of the movement at large.
Another protest tactic commonly used among the Pentecostalists was the hunger strike.112 From imprisoned individuals to entire congregations, untold numbers of unregistered Pentecostalists staged hunger strikes in efforts to gain the authorities’ attention. In 1977 a group of potential emigrants became infuriated when the authorities withheld from them their invitations to emigrate113 after they had arrived from the United States. They organized a hunger strike, and after ten days the invitations were in their possession.114 115 On 11 November 1980, days before the start of the Madrid conference, a group of Pentecostalists 1,300 strong initiated a five-day hunger strike to draw even more attention to their desperate situation.116 Further, the Vashchenko’s may attribute their eventual emigration to the United States at least in part to a hunger strike held by Lidia and her mother Avgustina in the final weeks of their residence at the American Embassy.117 While the hunger strike contributed to occasional individual successes, just as with demonstrations, it did not drastically impact the Soviet Pentecostal cause.
Doubtless the most prolific type of Pentecostal protest was found in written form, and was, of course, authored by Pentecostalists involved in the emigration movement. The appeals, letters, and petitions that resulted from the intrepid emigration campaigners were many, and were addressed to Soviet government officials as well as foreign governments and institutions. In most cases, groups of potential emigrants wrote appeals in collective efforts to gain the concession to emigrate to any number of countries for religious reasons. Others drew up samizdat literature documenting their repression in an effort to nurture foreign sympathy for their cause. For example, in July 1980 the Fraternal Council of Christians of the Evangelical Faith published an almanac entitled The Red and the Black detailing the attempts of Pentecostalists to attain emigration, and the persecution they bore as a result of their efforts.118
Participants in the Pentecostal emigration movement made some attempts to appeal to their own government. In June 1977, 3,500 Pentecostalists vying for emigration, along with a few Baptists, petitioned Brezhnev and requested that he simplify emigration procedures, allow groups and congregations to emigrate together, cease the conscription of emigration applicants into the military and their early deployment into active duty, lower emigration fees for poor families, and lastly, that they be allowed to utilize funds donated by believers abroad.119 A delegation of five led by Nikolai Goretoi filed a petition with the USSR Supreme Soviet in 1977 requesting that all 520 members of the Starotitarovskaya congregation be allowed to emigrate.120
In May 1978 a group of Pentecostalists including Nikolai Goretoi signed an appeal to Brezhnev «in the name of all those who want to emigrate but have been refused exit visas» in which they elucidated their persecutions and their firm understanding that the refusal of their requests to emigrate was illegal.121 Further, upon the arrest of emigration activist and Fraternal Council leader Boris Perchatkin in August 1980, the remaining Fraternal Council members sent an appeal to Brezhnev questioning him concerning the future of their faith in the USSR. 122 Regrettably, the Pentecostalists did not receive replies to any of their appeals and inquiries to Soviet officials.
Relatively early in the emigration movement, Pentecostalists began to look to the West for help. In May 1974, nearly 200 Pentecostalists sent an appeal to President Richard Nixon pleading for help to emigrate.123 On 1 December 1 1976, the Helsinki Group introduced members of Pentecostal emigration councils to the Western press, to whom the lengthy volume of documents and an appeal to the Helsinki Accord signatories were summarily presented. The appeal requested permission to immigrate to their various nations.124 Ludmila Alexeyeva comments that many Pentecostalists were convinced that if they could communicate their persecutions and desires to emigrate to the West, sympathizers would surface and force the Soviet government to concede to their requests for emigration.125 The contacts formed with the Western media, as well as the significant attention their story received in the West appeared to encourage them in their efforts.126 Alexeyeva also remarks that the 1976 election of Jimmy Carter, a devout Baptist, as President of the United States was yet another indication to them that their efforts to emigrate would not remain fruitless, as «they hoped that under a Baptist president they would receive the kind of support from the United States that the Jewish emigration movement had received for many years.»127
In 1977 members of the Starotitarovskaya congregation signed an appeal to U.S. President Jimmy Carter requesting help to emigrate.128 In the summer of 1979 Boris Perchatkin and Timofei Prokopchik (KGB agent — Boris Perchatkin’s comment) of the Pentecostal Fraternal Council met with several U.S. Congressmen, including Senator Robert Dornen, urging them to work with the Soviet government on their behalf.129 Fraternal Council members appealed to President Carter in August 1980 and sent him a collective letter signed by 1,310 in which they asked him to intervene on their behalf and broadcast their plight,130 and gave their support of the U.S. Olympic Games boycott.131
The contacting of foreign institutions and governments did not begin with Carter’s election, however. In 1976 Nikolai Goretoi petitioned the World Council of Churches for their assistance in the emigration of his congregation of around 200 individuals.132 Pentecostalists appealed to both the United Nations Human Rights Committee and the Belgrade Conference for assistance in 1977.133 In June 1978 Goretoi coauthored a document sent to the UN Human Rights Council asking for their support against the repressions plaguing Soviet Pentecostals.134 In late 1983 when their situation was truly desperate, 70 Pentecostals from 17 families in Eastern Siberia involved in the emigration campaign penned a letter to parties in the West protesting the persecutions levied against them, and in which they threatened to start a graduated fast if conditions did not improve.135
Soviet Pentecostal efforts to petition Westerners for support did not go unheeded; beginning in the late 70′s foreign groups demonstrated their backing for the persecuted believers in a number of ways. Some answered the call to issue official invitations for emigration to Soviet Pentecostalists, so that several hundred potential emigrants received invitations by the mid-80′s.136 Foreign Pentecostalists began to give their support by writing letters, sending care packages with such items as clothing, and some Pentecostal tourists to the USSR even smuggled in literature. Other items illegally brought into the Soviet Union by tourists for the Pentecostalists were equipment for duplicating religious literature, religious films, and projectors with which to view them.137 In 1977 Swedish Pentecostalists Bengt-Gunnar Soreld and Nils-Erik Engstroem, representing an organization called the Slavic Mission, came to the Soviet Union by car as tourists and transported Bibles to their Soviet counterparts. They were detained by the authorities on their way out of the country, however, and a large stash of appeals penned by Pentecostalists working for emigration were found in their vehicle.138 In May 1980 foreign Pentecostalists founded a «Rights Protection Group» as well as a «Fund to Aid the Evangelical Christian Pentecostals of Russia.»139 Other groups such as Christian Solidarity International based in Switzerland, the Society of Americans for Vashchenko Emigration (SAVE), as well as protestors in the UK worked specifically on behalf of the safe emigration of the «Siberian Seven.»140
While the support from Western governments and Christians in giving aid and defending the rights of potential Pentecostal emigrants certainly was of benefit to some individuals, it was far less than hoped for and needed. In a letter written to U.S. President Carter, over 1,300 Soviet Pentecostalists expressed the concern that «either we do not hear [the West] or they believe the slander and attacks on us.»141 In the early 80′s statements made by the Vashchenko family expressed a developing disillusionment with the West as it was «indifferent to the fate of Protestants persecuted in the USSR.»142 Indeed, in spite of the support given by those in the West, Alexeyeva comments that the overall dismal Western response to the Pentecostal plight «made it easy [for the Soviet state] to terrorize the Pentecostalists,»143 as Western intervention «represented their only chance of success.»144
After the formation of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group in 1976, Pentecostalists desiring to emigrate were quick in initiating contact with the dissidents in an effort to step up their campaign. In 1976, the emigration councils at Starotitarovskaya and Nakhodka appealed to the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group for help in broadcasting their plight abroad. The Helsinki Group rapidly obliged, assisting the Pentecostals in compiling a 500-page collection of documents entitled «My People, Let Us Leave This Country.»145 On 1 December 1 1976, the Helsinki Group introduced members of Pentecostal emigration councils to the Western press and was instrumental in getting Pentecostal appeals into Western hands. Further, Moscow Helsinki Group member Lidia Voronina visited Pentecostal congregations in Nakhodka and Starotitarovskaya in 1976 to assess their situation by interviewing numerous individuals and families, and by attending their meetings.146 Pentecostalists involved in the emigration movement expounded upon their precarious situation through a letter addressed to the Belgrade Conference of the Helsinki Accords, facilitated by their human rights connections. In the letter, Pentecostalists blamed the state authorities for inciting the public to beat up religious believers such as Ivan Durov, who after a severe beating by policemen was rendered «a cripple for the rest of his life» as «his skull was broken and his kidneys were crushed. In the hospital he was intimidated with threats that if he did not leave the hospital he would be killed.»147
In 1980, just three years after the Belgrade Conference, Pentecostalists sent numerous letters to the Madrid conference of the implementation of the Helsinki Accords in protest of their treatment in the Soviet Union and petitioning the Helsinki signatory states to appeal to Soviet leaders in their behalf.148 Soviet Pentecostal emigrant Arkadi Polishchuk attended the Madrid conference in person to further facilitate their publicity.149 A spokesman of the Pentecostal emigration campaign delineated on 33 types of persecution to which they had been subject in a «Statement Requesting Help» that was included in the material Helsinki Watch Group members compiled for the Madrid Conference.150
Even during the repressive years of the early 80′s when dissidents of all persuasions were put down, Soviet human rights organizations did not abandon the Pentecostalists, and included them in a document on the freedom to emigrate for religious reasons.151 Some Pentecostalists, for their part, signed the appeals of the Christian Committee for the Defense of the Rights of Religious Believers in the USSR, as well as appeals of the Moscow Helsinki Watch Group. A few Pentecostalists signed letters defending arrested members of the Moscow Group, namely Orlov, Ginzburg, and Shcheransky. Bishop Nikolai Goretoi wrote a letter exhorting Christians everywhere to pray for those Moscow Helsinki Watch Group in custody of the Soviet State.152 Pentecostal leaders including Viktor Belykh, on the other hand, condemned collaboration with human rights activists, and urged church members to seek help from God rather than from «leftist forces.»153
The unregistered Pentecostalists provide the most valuable insights into the effects of engaging in protest on the overall success of a religious movement in the Soviet Union. In spite of a few individual success stories, the Pentecostal emigration movement was largely a failure to 1985, though during the 70′s it appeared to many as a promising venture. In 1976 as the authorities saw that the movement was gaining support among a greater number of Pentecostalists, reprisals against these believers, especially emigration activists,154 waned. Alexeyeva comments that no unregistered Pentecostalists were arrested, deprived of their parental rights, fined for participating in worship services, or interrogated by the KGB that year. In addition, there was a reduction in raids on their worship services.155
In 1976, Soviet authorities began to offer registration more freely to unregistered Pentecostal congregations as a concession, albeit a false concession, and many took advantage of this newfound opportunity to legally worship. Though 15 Pentecostal congregations were reportedly autonomously registered by 1970,156 by 1976, 55 congregations had taken advantage of the opportunity to register.157 The government also campaigned to register Pentecostal congregations under the premise of creating a «union of autonomous Pentecostalists» as a concession to mollify emigration activists,158 though the Soviet authorities began to force registration, and most congregations began to see it as a measure to subject them to the state, and refused.159 The harassment and persecution of those refusing to register became commonplace after 1976. For example, in 1982 Ivan Kovalenko, pastor of a congregations in the Donestk region, Ukraine, was sentenced to 5 years in labor camps plus 5 years of exile for refusing to register his congregation.160 By 1983, roughly 200 Pentecostal congregations were autonomously registered with the state, though the Soviet authorities interfered with their services by forbidding both glossalalia and the rite of foot washing.161
In addition to the deleterious effects of registering with the State on the greater Pentecostal movement brought on at least partially by the campaign to emigrate, by 1977 the persecution of Pentecostal emigration activists began to increase.162 In the winter of 1979 alone, seven leaders of the emigration movement including Nikolai Goretoi were arrested.163 In 1981, Goretoi was subject to imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital «treatment» with drugs for the insane.164 An article published in the newspaper Sovetskaya Kuban’ on 18 April 1978 and entitled ‘Bitter is the Bread of Foreign Lands’ accused Nikolai Goretoi of «repeatedly [going] to Moscow with the purpose of passing slanderous information to foreign representatives» and «incit[ing] believers to send slanderous statements to various departments.»165
Only those of the Vashchenko and Chmykhalov families who remained in Chernogorsk while their relatives staged the sit-in at the American Embassy, it appears, escaped the onslaught of persecution the emigration activists experienced during the state’s countermovement against dissidents.166 By 1980 the state was the sure winner in the tactical battle with Pentecostalists participating in the emigration movement, who expressed the hopelessness of their situation in a 1981 letter to U.S. President Ronald Reagan:
«Our appeals to international organizations has only succeeded in bringing the wrath of our own government down on our heads . . . They promise to settle the score with us once and for all as soon as the Madrid Conference has ended . . .»167
Thus, while demonstrating their determination to publicize their quandary, the protest of Pentecostalists in the campaign to emigrate did not lead to successes, and this not only because of their State’s determination to stifle dissent, but also to a lack of overarching Western support for the cause.
Conclusions
In spite of the harsh persecution of emigration activists, the unregistered Pentecostal movement generally had a hopeful future ahead of them in the mid-80′s, presumably due to the fact that at any time, at least 90% of church adherents were not involved in the emigration campaign. Fletcher concludes that Pentecostalism had proven itself to be a permanent fixture in Soviet society by 1985, as it had demonstrated itself to be compatible with the «emerging technological society»168 that was the Soviet Union. He claims that «there [was] no evidence that any measures, up to and including widespread executions [would] prove sufficient to eliminate Pentecostalism completely from the USSR.»169 Finally, Fletcher states that if the State would opt to ease its policy toward the sect at any point, «there [was] every reason to believe that the movement could begin an explosive expansion.»170 Alexeyeva, too, provides a positive outlook for unregistered Pentecostalists in the mid-80′s — in spite of the failure of the emigration movement, most were refusing registration, retaining their independence from the state, and continuing to proselytize.171
The unregistered Pentecostalists defeats resulted not only in their status as an illegal religion, however, but due to a handful of denomination-specific factors. Pentecostal theology lent itself well to the ridicule of Soviet anti-religious propagandists, which likely hampered their proselytizing efforts and church growth that may have otherwise resulted. Those engaged in the Pentecostal emigration campaign experienced significant defeats in that they not only failed to achieve their goal of emigrating to nations where they could freely worship, but they also incurred the state’s wrath against them. Factors that led to their persecution above that of those not involved in the emigration movement were: a positive attitude of both leader and member toward protest and involvement with human rights workers, and the production of samizdat documents of protest.
It is not known how the state persecution associated with the Pentecostal emigration movement affected the successes of the unregistered Pentecostal movement at large. It is possible that the «misbehavior» of the emigration activists prompted the state to be more lenient on the rest of the unregistered Pentecostalists. If this is the case, the failure of the emigration movement fostered the success of the overall Pentecostal movement to 1985 and should not be considered a failure at all.
1 Fletcher, Charismatics, 41
2 Kolarz, 332
3 Fletcher, Charismatics, 53
4 In 1977 there were between 200,000 and 250,000 unregistered Pentecostalists in the Soviet Union; RL 46/77, 1
5 Alexeyeva, 224-25
6 RL 274/79, 1
7 Fletcher, Charismatics, 160-162
8 Ibid., 153-154
5 Alexeyeva, 224-25
6 RL 274/79, 1
7 Fletcher, Charismatics, 160-162
8 Ibid., 153-154
9 It is not known if they themselves made this distinction
10 The Chronicle of Current Events even began to separate items on the persecution of Pentecostalists based on involvement with the emigration movement in 1977 (no. 44)
11 Another one of the «Siberian Seven»
12 One of Avgustina’s younger daughters who was not directly involved in the Embassy sit-in
13 William Fletcher points this out in Charismatics, 155-56
14 Kolarz, 332
15 Ibid.
16 Fletcher, Charismatics, 155-56
17 Kolarz, 332
18 Ibid.
19 Fletcher, Charismatics, 92-93
20 Belykh, 13
21 Beeson, D2
22 It is estimated that half of all Soviet Pentecostalists worshipped within the bounds of the AUCECB.
23 Fletcher, Charismatics, 94
24 A few accounts of Voronaev’s «recantation» from the faith appeared in newspaper articles in the 1960′s anti-religious campaign, but are considered both by his wife and the movement’s adherents as falsified (Fletcher, Charismatics, 45-47).
25 Chr 44, 158
26 Fletcher, Charismatics, 55
27 Ibid., 61
28 Ibid., 65
29 Ibid., 60-61
30 »Evangelist», no. 6-7 [1928], 14; in Fletcher, Charismatics, 57
31 Fletcher, Charismatics, 61
32 Ibid., 72
33 Ibid.
34 Ibid., 55
35 Ibid., 121
36 Kolarz, 337
37 Fletcher, Charismatics, 126
38 Ibid.
39 Ibid., 130
40 Kolarz, 336
41 Chr 44, 159
42 Fletcher, Charismatics, 114-15
44 Ibid., 111
44 Consider the case of the Khailo family, whose children were not only mocked and beaten, but some of them were forced to attend schools for the mentally retarded simply because of their religious faith (Chr 36, 201; Chr 48, 124127)
45 Fletcher, Charismatics, 55
46 Ibid., 68
47 Moskalenko, p. 179 in Fletcher, Charismatics, p. 68
48 Fletcher, Charismatics, 68
49 Ibid.
50 Ibid., 52-53
51 They went to such places as Kajerom, Moscow, Saratov, Novouzensk, the Donbass, Pyatikhatki, Zolotonosha, Kiev, the Zhitomirskii region, and L’vov. Belykh, 9
53 Bidash and Gorobets
54 Belykh, 29
55 Fletcher, Charismatics, 153-154
56 RL 274/79, 1
57 Pollock, 265
58 Ibid., 266
59 Ibid.
60 Ibid.
61 Ibid., 265-66
62 Ibid., 267
63 Ibid., 265
64 Ibid., 144
66 from 1973 to 1978
66 The climate in Alma-Ata (southern Kazakhstan) is not nearly as severe as it is in Russia.
67 Chr 48, 09-20
68 Kolarz, 336
69 Chr 46, 46
70 telephone conversation with Dina Vashchenko, 30 April 2004
71 Sawatsky, 94-110
72 Beeson, 113
73 Belykh, 27
74 Kolarz, 336
75 Golubovich, 142; in Fletcher, Charismatics, 130
76 Alexeyeva, 218
77 Fletcher, Charismatics, 69
78 Ibid., 95, 99
79 Kolarz, 334
80 Ibid.
82 Belykh, 27
82 Fletcher, Charismatics, 53 ^ Ibid.
84 Also praised are the missionary efforts of the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Seventh Day Adventists
85 CCChL, 1978, no. 28, 13; in Alexeyeva, 219
86 Fletcher, Charismatics, 69
87 Miachin, 56; in Fletcher, Charismatics, 123
88 Alexeyeva, 215
89 Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 21
90 Fletcher, Charismatics, 56
91 interview with Okhotin, 16 October 2003
92 Belykh, 29
93 Reports of Helsinki Accord Monitors, 1979, 22; in Alexeyeva, 216
94 In a telephone conversation with Avgustina Vashchenko on 1 May 2004, she stated that she and other emigration activists from Chernogorsk acted independent of any other Pentecostalists in the USSR. She had heard of Nikolai Goretoi, for example, but had never had any contact with him.
95 RL 274/79, 2
96 Alexeyeva, 224-25
97 Though the number of believers applying for emigration reached such an astounding proportion, it appears that only about 10% of Pentecostals were ever involved in the campaign (Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 22).
98 RL 274/79, 2
99 Kolarz, 337-38
100 Bourdeaux, Ferment, 17
101 these were the children of Gregory Vashchenko, brother of Pyotr Vashchenko
102 Newsweek, 28 January 1963, 45; in Fletcher, Charismatics, 131-32
103 Fletcher, Charismatics, 131
104 From two of the same families that participated in the above demonstration
105 21 years of age at the time
106 25 years
107 27 years
108 16 years
109 RL 233/80, 1
110 Ibid.
111 In 1983 U.S. diplomats assured the emigration of the Vashchenko’s as «one of the unwritten conditions for signing the Concluding Document of the Madrid Conference» (Alexeyeva, 231)
112 This was a common tactic for general dissidents in the USSR
113 Official invitations from individuals or organizations in receiving nations were documents required for emigration.
114 Alexeyeva, 223
115 Alexeyeva is quick to point out that this hunger strike was particularly well timed, as it occurred in the days before the Belgrade Conference of the Helsinki Accords in 1977, therefore the state was likely to have been especially sensitive to any potentially negative publicity at this time (Alexeyeva, 223).
116 Alekseyeva, 230
117 RL 56/82, 1
118 Chr 57, 66
119 Chr 46, 54-55
120 RL 46/77, 1
121 RL 380/79, 1
122 Alexeyeva, 229-230
123 RL 46/77, 2
124 Alexeyeva, 222
125 Ibid.
126 RL 46/77, 3
127 Alexeyeva, 224
128 RL 46/77, 1
129 Alexeyeva, 229
130 Ibid., 230
131 Fletcher, Charismatics, 137-38
132 Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 22
133 Chr 48, 138-39
134 RL 380/79, 1
135 Fletcher, Charismatics, 136
136 Alexeyeva, 227
137 Ibid.
138 Ibid.
139 RL 56/82, 4
140 Fletcher, Charismatics, 135
141 Alexeyeva, 230
142 Ibid., 231
143 Ibid., 230
144 Ibid., 228
145 Ibid., 221
146 RL 274/79, 2
147 Chr 47, 88-90
148 Alexeyeva, 230
149 Ibid., 227
150 RL 56/82, 3
151 Ibid.
152 Alexeyeva, 225
153 Ibid., 223
154 After the commencement of the Pentecostal emigration campaign, the persecution of Pentecostalists in Nakhodka, where the largest body of potential emigrants resided, declined significantly (Chr 44, 159).
155 Alexeyeva, 224
156 Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 21
157 Basket Three, Vol. XIV, 65
158 Alexeyeva, 224
159 Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 21
160 Ibid.
161 Ibid.
162 Chr 44, 158
163 Alexeyeva, 229
164 Bourdeaux, Religious Minorities, 22
165 Chr 49, 79
166 D. Vashchenko
167 Arkhiv samizdata, 6; in Alexeyeva, 230
168 Fletcher, Charismatics, 160
169 Ibid., 161
170 Ibid.
171 Alexeyeva, 231
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