KestonKeston NewsletterNewsletter No. 21, 2015

© Keston College

Michael Bourdeaux sits between Fr & Iraida, Fr Gleb’s wife, , June 1988

Fr Gleb Yakunin Conscience of the Russian Church

by Michael Bourdeaux

The origins of Keston are closely In 1965, Fr Gleb was a young priest bound to the life of Fr Gleb Yakunin, serving in a church in the Moscow who died last Christmas Day, aged 80. region. Energetic, organised and fierce- When I was a student in Moscow (1959 ly protective of his church, Fr Gleb -1960), I began to hear about a new period of persecution which Nikita Also in this issue: Khrushchev was unleashing on the Russian Orthodox Church – indeed, on The Moscow Patriarchate & Persecuted all believers. It was not, then, a misno- Christians in the Middle East ...... p.5 mer to refer to the ‘Church of Silence’. Is Keston a ‘human rights’ Group? . . . p.17 That such a name soon became the Evangelicals in Soviet Society ...... p.26 opposite of the truth was due in no Home News ...... p.42 small measure to Fr Gleb Yakunin.

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015

began to learn of the savagery of the deed, the church punished the priests persecution, particularly in the provinc- for their actions and have never apolo- es. Believers were coming to Moscow gised for their shameful conduct. bearing petitions to the Soviet govern- ment. Smuggled out, this information re- sounded around the world and undoubtedly persuaded Khrush- chev’s successors to discontin- ue the church closures. Receiv- ing a copy of this extensive information was one of the key factors which persuaded me to give up the parish work in which I was then involved and to found what would eventually be called Keston College in 1969. For me, what the two priests had written was inspira- Fr Gleb Yakunin © Keston College tional, but the world at large was too involved with the hopes With a fellow-priest, Fr Nikolai Eshli- that the USSR was becoming a better man, Fr Gleb became known as some- place and did not want to hear the re- one who would act on this information verse side of the picture. I knew there from around the regions. The two had to be follow-up to these letters and weaved this information systematically began collecting every scrap of infor- into two lengthy and detailed open let- mation which came my way – a little ters, one to the Soviet government, the easier in the aftermath to the publication other calling on Patriarch Alexi I, head of my first book, Opium of the People , of the Russian Orthodox Church, to be which first documented the persecution more active in protecting it. They fur- in English. nished hundreds of examples and wrote: Fr Gleb Yakunin, however, became an ‘The mass closure of churches, a isolated figure. Those who had stood campaign instigated from above, has with him largely abandoned him. The created an atmosphere of anti- punishment meted out to him came not religious fanaticism which has led to from the KGB, but from Patriarch Alexi the barbaric destruction of a large (doubtless at the state’s instigation), number of superb and unique works who barred him from exercising his of art.’ priesthood. However, for those in the West who wanted to see a better Russia, To this day, these documents remain an one without religious persecution, Fr unsurpassed record of a shameful peri- Gleb became an inspirational figure. In od in Russian history, not least because Keston’s annals, his name continued to senior clerics sought to conceal the appear frequently. persecution. Curiously, even now when the Moscow Patriarchate is free to pub- In 1976 another letter he wrote led to lish what it wants, they have not written one of the most scandalous episodes in any detailed account of this period and the history of the World Council of the opposition to the persecution. In- Churches (WCC). In the early 1970s the

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 2

Soviet authorities were systematically sent abroad, to be systematically col- imprisoning , including reli- lected and many published by Keston. gious leaders. The previous year the The KGB arrested him on 1 November Soviet government had co-signed the 1979. At his trial, the sentence was ten Helsinki Accords, years, five to be served in which gave the coun- a camp, the rest in exile. tries of Europe and Eight years into this, with North America the right at the to monitor each others’ height of his perestroika human rights perfor- policy, he was released. mance. Fr Gleb Yaku- nin, now in his forties, As a child, Gleb had been responded by establish- severely disadvantaged: ing a Christian Commit- his father came from an tee for the Defence of aristocratic background Believers’ Rights. and died of starvation Many Christians and during World War II, the Jewish community when the boy was ten. collaborated with him, Gleb inherited something sending information of his father’s musical which he systematically Fr Gleb as a during talent and learned the collected. the Soviet period clarinet and the saxo- © Keston College phone. His mother incul- He sent an appeal to the cated the Christian faith in Fifth General Assembly of the WCC in him, but he abandoned it when he was Nairobi, begging the worldwide ecu- 15, only to rediscover it while a biolo- menical fellowship to act on behalf of gy student in Irkutsk, , under the the persecuted church. The African influence of his contemporary, Alexan- editors of the Assembly’s daily news- der Men’, who was to become the lead- paper, unaware of the censorship which ing theologian of the Russian Orthodox the Russian delegates exercised over Church until his murder in 1990. the Assembly’s agenda, caused a furore by printing the text of Yakunin’s ap- Fr Gleb’s life followed a different peal. A rushed resolution expressed course. Whereas Fr Men’ graduated solidarity with the persecuted, but, from the Leningrad Theological Semi- reacting in horror, the organisers forced nary and developed a low-profile the Assembly to rescind it, promising teaching ministry, concentrating on a to instate a full inquiry into the facts small inner circle of disciples (until which Yakunin had presented – but of becoming a national figure during the course later Communist pressure pre- Gorbachev reforms), Yakunin was vented this from happening. always more confrontational. He at- tended the Moscow Theological Semi- Wrongly believing that he now had nary, but did not stay the course. He world Christian opinion behind him, had borrowed a book by the philoso- Yakunin increased his efforts. His ener- pher Berdyaev from the library when gy was prodigious. He collected more the KGB came to extirpate such works than 400 samizdat appeals, totalling from the shelves; Yakunin refused to some 3,000 pages, from the whole give it up, saying he had lost it, after religious spectrum, most of which he which he was expelled. He went on to

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 3

study privately, secured his ordination that controlled the life of the church , and served in a church near Moscow. incontrovertible evidence that exposed the collaboration of church leaders with The struggle for religious freedom the KGB, including that of the new remained at the top of his agenda until Patriarch, Alexi II. He was not permit- his arrest in 1979. From jail he smug- ted to take photocopies, but made hand- gled out letters, particularly asserting written notes, which he subsequently his legal right to keep his Bible which copied and passed to Keston’s Jane had been confiscated. Ultimately Gor- Ellis, who published them in our jour- bachev sought to correct the mistakes nal RCL . This was a bridge too far for of the past by releasing imprisoned the Moscow Patriarchate, which dissidents, including Fr Gleb in 1987. wrought vengeance on him by defrock- ing him, on the grounds that clergy 1988 was a remarkable year, with the were not permitted to stand for election nationwide celebrations marking the to political office. There was hypocrisy millennium of the conversion of an- in this, as the previous Patriarch, cient Rus’ in 988. During these June Pimen, had been a member of the Su- weeks Fr Gleb and his wife, Iraida, preme Soviet of the USSR, and his whom he had married in 1961, held successor would be a Deputy also. open house for religious dissidents, inviting foreign Christian leaders in As the Moscow Patriarchate regained Moscow for the events to visit his flat its leading position in Russian society, and learn the real truth about the perse- Fr Gleb’s influence declined, but he cution of the past 60 years, not the continued to subject the leading hier- sanitised version as presented by the archs of the Russian Orthodox Church Moscow Patriarchate. Meeting him to his scrutiny. Late in life he became face to face for the first time, after hav- the severest critic of the new ing written about him for more than 20 ‘symphony’ of church and state as years, was a humbling experience for established between President Putin me. and the current Patriarch, Kirill. He supported the feminist group Pussy Fr Gleb at this point might have ex- Riot when they demonstrated against pected a triumphal reinstatement into this symbiosis and received a jail sen- the ranks of the Russian church, or an tence. He became a priest in the inde- award of the Nobel peace prize, but pendent Ukrainian Orthodox Church, neither was forthcoming. Ill-advisedly, later transferring to the uncanonical the church failed to find a role for him. Apostolic Orthodox Church. Had it done so, this would have ab- sorbed some of his considerable ener- Mental toughness predominated in his gies. By contrast, he began to follow a personal relationships, but he relaxed more overtly political line and was with friends and, when able to travel in elected to the Duma representing the 1989, enjoyed playing truant from a Democratic Russia party. He headed a conference in Manila to go white-water short-lived commission investigating rafting with me. Here was a man freed KGB infiltration into the life of the from constraint, excellent company and church. This gave him brief but restrict- revelling in his freedom. Ten years ed access to the state archives. Here he later were jointly honoured on the found in the records of the Council for same day in Vilnius by the award of a Religious Affairs, the government body Lithuanian ‘knighthood’.

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 4

Keston AGM Talks

The Moscow Patriarchate and the Persecuted Church in the Middle East

by John Eibner

The genesis of this talk goes back to a conversation that I had in June 2013 with the former Presi- dent of Lebanon, Amine Gema- yel, while motoring up the M40 to a conference at St Antony’s, Oxford. In January 2011, just as the first phase of the so-called ‘Arab Spring’ was getting under- way in Tunisia, Gemayel de- clared to the international media that ‘Massacres are taking place for no reason and without any justification against Christians. It St Mary’s Greek Catholic Church in is only because they are Chris- Yabroud, Syria, desecrated in 2014 by the Islamist tians. What is happening to Jabhat al-Nusra & the Islamic Front Christians is a genocide.’ 1 Ge- mayel’s assessment was echoed within gaining little political traction in the a week by then French President Nicho- West, have been vindicated by subse- las Sarkozy who stated ‘We cannot quent events, especially in Syria and accept and thereby facilitate what looks Iraq. more and more like a particularly per- verse programme of cleansing in the During that M40 conversation, Amine Middle East, religious cleansing.’ 2 Gemayel shared with me a small ray of hope on the international front. This Gemayel’s and Sarkozy’s strong lan- elder Maronite Christian statesman had guage about anti-Christian crimes the impression that the Russians, hav- against humanity was prompted by ing close historic connections with the massacres of Christians in churches in region’s Orthodox churches, were well Baghdad and Alexandria. 3 These states- aware of the existential threat facing the men recognised that these acts of terror Christians in the Middle East, and had in Iraq and Egypt were not isolated undertaken some constructive initia- criminal incidents, but were instead part tives to address the crisis facing Chris- of an insidious pattern of anti-Christian tian civilization in the Orient. I had violence that ran in tandem with con- some personal grounds for taking this temporary political trends, one manifes- message seriously. As a result of my tation of which were the ‘Arab Spring’ visits to Nagorno Karabakh in the early demonstrations. Their warnings, while 1990s, I was aware that Russia, under

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 5

Yeltsin, had played a crucial role in The Moscow Patriarchate sounded the bringing about a suspension of the reli- alarm about the persecution of Chris- gious and ethnic cleansing in and tians in the very early days of the ‘Arab around Karabakh in 1993, thereby pre- Spring’ uprisings, when these were still serving the presence of Armenian frequently referred to in the media as Christians in their ancient homeland. the ‘Facebook’ Revolution. In May Without the constructive role of Russia, 2011, the Holy Synod adopted a docu- it is reasonable to assume that today ment on Christophobia, which high- Karabakh would be for all practical lighted severe persecution leading to purposes an Armenian Christian-free the ‘mass emigration of Christians from zone, like the Azerbaidzhani cities of countries in which they have lived for Baku and Sumgait. So I followed up centuries’, citing Iraq and Egypt by on President Gemayel’s lead, and was name. 5 The church’s activity to combat surprised at what I discovered: the once Christophobia in the Middle East is persecuted Russian Orthodox Church executed under the direction of (ROC), now free from the shackles of Metropolian Hilarion of Volokolamsk, militant atheistic Communism, was Chairman of the Patriarchate’s Depart- campaigning vigorously on behalf of ment for External Church Relations the existentially threatened Christians (DECR). of the Middle East, and doing so with- out much recognition in the West. Perhaps the most detailed and compre- hensive document presenting the Patri- The Moscow Patriarchate uses this archate’s perspective on the existential freedom in three ways. Firstly, it eases crisis facing Middle East Christians is the isolation of the Middle East’s an interview given by Metropolitan churches, most of which, apart from Hilarion in April 2014 to RIA- Rome-related communions, have only Novosti. 6 In it, Hilarion draws together weak links with churches in the West. all the main themes of the issue that are It does so through its institutional rela- found scattered in a host of statements. tions with regional Orthodox Churches The 48 year-old Metropolitan, holding and through fellowship with ecumeni- a DPhil from Oxford, is no fossilised cal partners. Secondly, the ROC raises relic of the Soviet past. He is at ease in funds for humanitarian assistance for the western world and communicates displaced Middle East Christians and effectively with it. 7 In this interview he their non-Christian neighbours. It re- declared: ‘At present in the Middle East ported having raised 1.3 million dollars there is unprecedented persecution of from Russian parishes in the summer of Christians.’ To make clear that he is not 2013 for such aid. These funds were talking simply about social and legal transferred to the bank account of the disabilities, Hilarion, like Gemayel and Damascus-based Orthodox Church of Sarkozy, uses the strongest possible Antioch. 4 Lastly, the Moscow Patriar- language. Christians in some parts of chate vigorously undertakes advocacy the region, he said, are in the midst of a actions as a part of dialogue with the ‘real genocide’. Middle Eastern Chris- Russian government, with members of tians, he reported, are witnessing the the international community, its ecu- desecration and destruction of church menical partners, and representatives of buildings, the kidnapping and execution other faiths, especially Islam. With a of priests and laity, and the bombard- view to creating awareness and mobi- ment of their neighbourhoods. Many lising opinion, the Patriarchate keeps are confronted with a stark choice of the issue alive in the Russian media. either paying tribute or leaving their Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 6

homes, while the price of failure to do In stark contrast to the dire situation of either of the above is death. Fearing Christians in Syria, Iraq, and Libya – all that it is the considered goal of extrem- of which have been the subject of Amer- ists to ‘banish Christians from their ican regime change policies – Metropoli- homes by terror or physical elimina- tan Hilarion found a more hopeful situa- tion’, Middle Eastern Christians, Hilari- tion in Egypt – a country that has recent- on laments, often ‘have to escape to ly undergone an authoritarian counter- other countries’. There is now, he says, ‘a mass exodus of Christians from the Middle East’.

At the time of the RIA/Novosti inter- view, Metropolitan Hilarion viewed Christians in Syria, who then made up about 10% of the country’s population, as the most endangered Christian com- munity in the region. There, he re- ports, ‘various armed bands are at work, systematically eliminating Christians and people of other religious Dr John Eibner (left) talking to Amine Gemayel, communities’. According to the fig- former President of Lebanon ures in his possession, over 1,000 revolution. He wanted the world to Christians have been killed, about 100 know that Christians are not persecuted churches and monasteries have been by the government of General Sisi, as damaged, and over 600,000 Christians opposed to that of his Muslim Brother- have had to flee their homes, with most hood predecessor, Mohammed Morsi; finding refuge abroad. and that the counter-revolution in Egypt had greatly improved the climate for The existential crisis facing Christians in Christian-Muslim relations. But despite Iraq is now scarcely less grave than in this positive development, Hilarion not- Syria. Metropolitan Hilarion estimated ed that ‘adherents of Islamic radical that the Iraqi Christian population, which parties’ – contrary to the will of the Sisi numbered about 1.5 million before the government – ‘continue committing overthrow of Saddam Hussein, had sub- attacks’. sequently decreased by more than one million. But since the Metropolitan’s I cannot vouch for all the statistics pre- interview, hundreds of thousands of sented by Metropolitan Hilarion, but the additional Christians and Yezidis have broad strokes of the picture he paints been forced to flee their homes as a re- correspond to what I have observed dur- sult of the Islamic State’s conquest of ing many visits to the region. Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and surrounding parts of Nineveh Province. The Moscow Patriarchate also addresses Metropolitan Hilarion also chose to the causes of the current wave of perse- highlight Libya. He noted that ‘a great cution. Metropolitan Hilarion chooses part of its small Christian community … his words carefully when speaking about had to flee the country’, while ‘those its religious character. He has good rea- who have remained, mostly Egyptian son to address this issue gingerly. 15% Copts, are subjected to regular attacks, or more of Russia’s population is Mus- often with [a] lethal end’. lim, and much of its southern underbelly

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 7

borders Muslim majority states. Moreo- gime change policy, he continued, took ver, as a result of the involvement of no account of the historic and religious Saudi Arabia in support of Islamic re- traditions that were the basis of rela- bels, the potentially contagious Chechen tions between the different religious wars of the 1990s came close to being communities. The result of western internationalised and taking on a danger- policy was, in Hilarion’s view, ‘the ous pan-Islamic character. Thus, in his aggravation of internal controversies’, RIA-Novosti interview, Metropolitan and the ‘encouragement of extremists Hilarion spoke in accordance with the and terrorists to flock to these countries ROC’s tradition of respectful relations from other regions of the world’. with conservative, established Islamic authority and institutions. He therefore In addition to its sins of commission, did not hammer repeatedly the Islamic he also accused the West of a grave sin nail, but laid the blame more generally of omission – i.e. refusing to support at the feet of ‘religious extremism’. But the persecuted Middle East Christians, he did note that crowds of excited Mus- thereby leaving them with no option lims, chanting Islamic slogans, attack but to spend the rest of their lives as Christian churches immediately follow- displaced people, many in foreign ex- ing the imam’s Friday sermon. The ide- ile. The Maronites of Syria and Leba- ology that drives anti-Christian agita- non, Hilarion said, were particularly tion, Hilarion observed, emanates from disappointed in France, which had what he identified as ‘influential forces historically ‘protected’ them, but now in the Gulf’. While he chose not to name refused to do so. I assume that the Met- names, Hilarion clearly meant Washing- ropolitan singled out France because it ton’s rich and influential regional allies was French insistence on the protection – Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and of Catholic holy sites in Palestine in the Kuwait. mid-19 th century – protection not from the Islamic Ottoman rulers, but from Metropolitan Hilarion was much more the local Orthodox religious authorities direct in drawing attention to the exter- – that sparked the events leading to nal political forces that have created Russia’s humiliation in the Crimean conditions for what he calls the ‘full War. In contrast to the western powers, scale persecution’ of the Church in the Russia, Hilarion claimed ‘has remained Middle East. He was not slow in point- the only defender of the Christian pres- ing the finger at the US and its Europe- ence in the region’, one on which an allies for destabilising the Middle ‘many Christians remaining in [the] East. They did so by playing a decisive “hotbeds” have set their hopes’. role in the overthrow of the rulers of Iraq, Libya, and Egypt, while attempt- I do not find, however, any Middle East ing to do the same in Syria. There the Christians who expect Russia, on its attempt is still a catastrophic work in own, to intervene militarily to protect progress. These American efforts, Hi- them. All understand that Russia is no larion bewailed, were accompanied by longer a super-power and its influence rhetoric about building western-style and presence in the region is greatly democracy, while in reality, he reduced compared to Soviet times. But claimed, ‘force and revolution’ were that does not mean that many do not the western powers’ chosen instru- entertain some hope that Russia might ments for reshaping the Middle East’s miraculously prove to be a catalyst for political landscape. Washington’s re- changing the dynamics of post-Cold

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 8

War international relations which have military commitments to the Syrian contributed so powerfully to create government, they would have been left conditions for widespread religious completely unprotected from the cleansing in the Middle East. In Egypt, crowds who were chanting ‘Alawites to for example, Coptic opinion was great- the grave, and Christians to Beirut’ ly encouraged when Sisi met Putin in during the early days of the ‘Arab summer 2014 in the Black Sea on Spring’. board the guided missile cruiser Mos- kva and struck a set of military and I was in Iraq twice in the summer 2014 economic deals. following the Islamic State’s conquest of Mosul and surrounding Christian I was twice in Syria in 2013, and found and Yezidi villages. There, I encoun- anti-American and pro-Russian pas- tered a severely traumatised Iraqi sions within the Christian community Christian community. As I wrote fol- even stronger than in Egypt. For all its lowing my return in a blog for The grave faults, the Assad regime has for Tablet, the Iraqi Christian community decades been the protector of Syria’s has lost faith in the ability of the gov- religious minority communities. Presi- ernment in Baghdad, the Kurdish re- dent Obama acknowledged this to a gional authority in Erbil, and the US delegation of visiting Middle Eastern and its allies, to protect them from the bishops in an off-the-record encounter Islamic state and other extremists. 10 in September 2014. 8 For the past two Some of my Iraqi Christian contacts, years, Washington, together with its including those who worked together Sunni regional allies – principally Sau- with the American armed forces in di Arabia, Qatar and Turkey – have Operation Iraq Freedom, now look been supporting anti-Christian Islamist back wistfully to the days before the militias in the effort to achieve regime American-led invasion and occupation change in Syria, much as the US did in in 2003, when Russia was the main ally the 1980s to drive the Soviets out of of the Iraqi state. Under the tyrannical Afghanistan. 9 Turkey, a NATO mem- rule of Saddam Hussein, violent anti- ber and candidate for EU membership, Christian Islamist fanaticism found no has become the principal gateway for place in public life. Syria-bound jihadists. I have found in the Middle East that When Christians are displaced by the persecuted Christians view the US and conflict, they will either seek protection its western allies very differently from abroad or in parts of Syria that are still the hopeful, expectant way that perse- controlled by the Syrian government, cuted Christians in the Soviet bloc did. such as Tartus. Russia’s last Mediterra- The American human rights agenda, in nean naval base is located in there. The practice, does not appear to them to displaced whom I encountered in Tar- address their main concern – survival tus – Christians, Alawites and Sunni as Christians in their own ancient Muslims – take comfort in the close homelands. Moreover, many see Wash- proximity of the Russian naval pres- ington allied regionally not with demo- ence. They do so in the belief that this cratic forces, but with the very powers Russian military asset results in the that ideologically and financially fuel protection of the surrounding area. anti-Christian persecution. It is old- There is, moreover, widespread belief fashioned protection, not new-fangled within the Syrian Christian community and often toothless human rights jargon that had Russia failed to honour its that interests them. Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 9

While Middle East Christians tend to agreed in 1944 to ease the policy of view the West as immensely rich and persecution and end the Patriarchate’s free, they also tend to see it as a post- total isolation from the outside world, Christian, deconstructionist society; one external relations were first resumed in which Christianity appears to have a with the Orthodox Patriarchates of Al- bleak future, one that has no real inter- exandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. 11 est in them. The post-Soviet Russian With the Soviet Union enjoying at the state, on the other hand, increasingly very least respectful relations with strives to demonstrate Christian creden- some key Middle Eastern states during tials, by being openly supportive of the the Cold War, the Moscow Patriarchate ROC and its traditional values. Western had better opportunities to develop liberalism has yet to make its mark on external relations there than in the Middle Eastern Christians, and con- West. The Soviet leadership’s desire vince them that it can guarantee their that the ROC should have high visibil- survival. The Moscow Patriarchate ity in its ‘peace movement’ also created offers a policy to prevent the disappear- many opportunities for the Moscow ance of Christian communities in the Patriarchate to interact with Middle Middle East and calls for the creation of East churches after decades of isolation. a mechanism for the protection of the region’s religious minorities – a mecha- But it is not the Soviet era that the cur- nism under the control of the world rent leadership of the Moscow Patriar- community, and not under the control chate sees as a model; it is the late Im- of one superpower. It furthermore urg- perial era. 12 As Moscow’s power ex- es the most developed powers to pro- panded and that of the Ottoman Empire vide economic aid to the region condi- contracted in the 18 th and 19 th centuries, tional on the protection of religious Imperial Russia and its Orthodox minorities, and the termination of sup- Church increasingly assumed the spe- port for religious extremist groups. cial role of protector of the conquered Orthodox peoples. In the Levant, the Why has the Moscow Patriarchate ROC also assumed the role of protector placed such a strong emphasis on pre- of Orthodox pilgrims and the holy sites vention of the de-Christianisation of the that they visited. With that function in Middle East? When I put this question mind, the Russian Ecclesiastical Mis- to a member of the Patriarchate’s sion was established in Jerusalem in DECR in 2014, I was told that it can be 1847 as an outreach organ of the inferred from the Council of Bishops’ Church. Its head was appointed by the 2013 statement in ‘support of our broth- Holy Synod. ers – Christians in the Middle East’ that the Moscow Patriarchate identifies the In 1882, to reverse what was perceived ‘whole of Christianity as parts of by the Russian leadership as preponder- Christ’s body and as brothers’. When ate British and French influence in the asked for more substance, my interlocu- Middle East, Alexander III sanctioned, tor did not appeal to a well-developed with the agreement of the Holy Synod, theological position, nor to international the establishment in St Petersburg of human rights and religious liberty in- the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society struments, but to the tradition of the (IOPS). It was not an initiative of the ROC. Even in Soviet times, I was told, Moscow Patriarchate; rather it arose the Moscow Patriarchate and the from the activities of modern and well- churches of the Middle East tried to be educated members of the laity. Part of mutually supportive. After Stalin its power derived from the freedom it Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 10

had from the ecclesiastical authorities played a crucial role in reorienting the as a lay organisation. The first Presi- Orthodox of the Levant away from dent of the Society was the Tsar’s Constantinople and towards Russia. brother, the Grand Duke Sergei, a mili- With the Orthodox representing a large tary man with strong religious convic- element within the Christian population tions, whose record includes both su- of the Levant, the rise of Russian influ- pervising the expulsion of Jews from ence through the IOPS was signifi- Moscow in the early 1890s and patron- cant. 15 The Bolshevik Revolution put ising many worthy humanitarian and an end to the work of the IOPS, as well cultural endeavours. 13 The Society’s as Russian engagement with the Middle officially declared goals were ‘to East, until the post-World War II era. strengthen Orthodoxy in the Holy Land, to help Russian visitors traveling to the With both the Moscow Patriarchate and Holy Land, to publish news about the the Russian state looking to the late Holy Land, and to promulgate it to Imperial era as a model for Russian Russians.’ 14 While the Society enjoyed regeneration in the post-Soviet world, it Imperial patronage, it was financed, at should not come as a surprise that the first, exclusively from private sources, Patriarchate’s policy regarding Middle and was not under the jurisdiction of East Christians is in harmony with the either the Foreign Ministry or the Holy foreign policy of the Kremlin. After Synod. This 19 th century Russian starting out in the early 1990s on an NGO, as it would be called today, Atlanticist footing, the post-Soviet Rus- quickly became a force to be reckoned sian leadership has moved steadily in with. It attracted strong support from the direction of its historic tradition of the upper echelons of Russian society, authoritarianism and Orthodoxy. Con- with local branches established across stantinianism has returned. It fills a the country. Its success eventually at- potentially destabilising ideological tracted financial support from the Rus- void that was left by the collapse of sian government, and a change of Communism and by the failure of the byelaws which enabled the Tsar to ap- secular Atlanticist experiment to secure point the Society’s Vice-President and Russia’s role as a Great Power. It fur- council members representing the For- thermore provides the Moscow Patriar- eign Ministry and the Holy Synod. chate with possibilities for bolstering its status as a Great Religious Power. From In the Levant, the IOPS was the catalyst the point of view of the Moscow Patri- for the Orthodox renewal that enabled archate, the new Constantinian arrange- Orthodoxy to start to compete with the ment precludes the ideological void success enjoyed by the modern Catholic being filled by a post-Judeo-Christian, and Protestant institutions supported by pagan ideology, such as Communism, the French, British and Americans. National Socialism, or western materi- This Orthodox renewal witnessed the alism, or the religious-based ideology growth of schools and teacher training, of Islamism. church restoration, medical facilities, archaeological exploration, and facili- My former Keston colleague, John ties for pilgrimages. One of the lasting Anderson, ably analysed in 2007 the achievements of the IOPS was to em- main characteristics of this process in power, through education, the Arab an enlightening article, tellingly enti- clergy and laity who had long been tled, ‘Putin and the Russian Orthodox marginalised by the Greek ecclesiastical Church: Asymmetric Symphonia’. 16 superiors. This exercise in soft power More recently, Professor Robert Blitt Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 11

John Eibner in a Christian cemetery vandalised by Jihadi rebels in Homs

identified the complex and well devel- some of the time. The New York Times oped institutional connections that link suggests likewise: in 2013 it reported the Moscow Patriarchate with the Rus- that Metropolitan Hilarion had persuad- sian state regarding foreign policy. A ed Putin to throw his weight behind the growing global network of institutions policy to promote the protection of now functions as an instrument of the Middle Eastern Christians, while the soft power of the church-state alliance. then Prime Minister was angling for The Foreign Ministry’s Concept of the support from the ROC in his bid to Foreign Policy of the Russian Federa- regain the Presidency. 18 President Putin tion provides a framework for close, should be pleased with the performance mutually supportive political collabora- of the Church. It created for him a rare tion. This policy document declares the public relations success with the New state’s willingness to ‘interact with the York Times . But at a higher level, this ROC and other main confessions of the kind of collaboration with the church country’ and emphasises the develop- provides his foreign policy with a mor- ment of soft power abroad, based on al legitimacy that Washington strives to institutions promoting Russian culture undermine as the Cold War climate and spiritual values. 17 returns to chill Russo-American rela- tions. While some may assume that the old, Soviet-built, one-way transmission The vigour with which the Russian system, running from the Kremlin di- state pursues the Hilarion-inspired rectly to the Danilov Monastery is still policy stands in stark contrast to the operational, the title of Blitt’s paper reluctance of Washington to address ‘Russia’s “Orthodox” Foreign Policy: the issue of religious cleansing in the The Growing Influence of the ROC in Middle East. Putin’s policy also ena- Shaping Russia’s Policies Abroad’ bles Russia to cultivate closer relations suggests that the transmission belt with the Christian communities of the moves in the opposite direction at least Middle East, especially those that feel Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 12

alienated by Washington. As the Bei- wanting, is reflected in its leadership. rut-based political observer Nasser The IOPS authorities appointed a polit- Chararah notes in a perceptive article in ical heavyweight as President. Their al-Monitor , Russia strives to create a choice was Colonel General Sergei ‘backbone of Christian minorities with Vadimovich Stepashin who had held a which it may ally’, using Lebanon, host of top government jobs in post- with its significant Orthodox popula- tion as its ‘launch pad’, and it does so to counter Washington’s alliance with Sunni political Islam. 19

While the Moscow Patriarchate con- sults directly with the Russian Foreign Ministry, there is a third institution in the mix. Borrowing directly from the 19 th century model, the state has re- vived the IOPS which joins the Mos- cow Patriarchate and the Foreign Min- Sergei Stepashin istry as the third member of an institu- tional triumvirate which bears responsi- Soviet Russia: Director of the FSB, bility for formulating and executing Justice Minister, Interior Minister, and Orthodox policy on the Middle East. Prime Minister, and, most recently, Unlike the old IOPS, the origins of the head of the powerful Federal Audit new version do not appear to be a man- Chamber. As the Soviet system was ifestation of civil society. According to collapsing, Stepashin undertook sensi- Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, it was tive missions regarding the Nagorno conceived and headed in the 1990s by Karabakh conflict. Afterwards he two Russian diplomats. Under their played a major role in crafting and leadership, the organisation was legally executing Moscow’s response to the registered in 1992 under its historic revolts in Chechnya. Lavrov spoke name, and acquired NGO consultative euphorically about Stepashin upon his status at the UN. 20 Since 2012, the election as Chairman of the IOPS, de- IOPS has been housed at 3 Zabelina claring: ‘With a leader of such calibre, Street in Moscow. This historic build- we are capable of achieving any- ing was restored with state assistance, thing.’ 22 At the IOPS’s first conference, and has been made available to the Stepashin identified its role in promot- IOPS for five years free of charge. The ing Russia’s Middle East policy: Patriarch dedicated it at the end of 2012 in the presence of the Foreign Minis- ‘The Society should be seen as a ter. 21 powerful civil force in Russia, ca- pable of uniting the nation spiritual- By 2007, the new IOPS, with Patriarch ly around fundamental, clear and Kirill as Chairman of the ‘Honorary age-long Christian values. Today Members Committee’ and Foreign the Society is Russia’s reliable spir- Minister Lavrov as an ‘Honorary Mem- itual and moral outpost in the Holy ber’, was ready to assume a high public Land […] It is a powerful intellec- profile. The importance the Kremlin tual, patriotic, spiritual, humanitari- attached to the IOPS as an instrument an and social force acting in com- of Russian soft power in a region where mon with national interests together more heavy duty instruments were with the ROC and as an effective Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 13

mechanism of humanitarian influ- statesmen and political spectators. But ence in the Middles East […]’ 23 they are of little interest to the millions of Christians in the Middle East whose Stepashin is supported by IOPS Deputy survival in their homelands is currently Chairman Elena Agapova who appears under threat. They are looking, with to function as the IOPS’s chief operat- increasing desperation, for help and ing officer. Like her boss, she has a especially for a credible protector. This background in the Soviet military: she is a role that Washington is loathe to once served as Deputy Editor of Red play, notwithstanding its post-Cold Star , the Soviet army newspaper. Dur- War political, military and economic ing the 1990s she was the press spokes- ascendancy in the region. The vital man for Defence Minister Pavel Gra- interests of the US and its NATO allies chev, and, as such, bore onerous re- are bound up with power configura- tions that promote intolerant Islamic agendas, not with existentially threat- ened Christian communities.

The Moscow Patriarchate and the IOPS provide welcome humanitarian aid and moral support. They also use language in their advocacy activities that is in harmony with the thinking and the spirit of most Christians in the region. But, as non-state actors with- Elena Agapova out powers of coercion, they are not in a position to provide protection. They sponsibility for making the Chechen can only act as catalysts for effective war and Grachev’s controversial poli- political action in conjunction with cies acceptable to the Russian public. powers within the international state Within the IOPS, Agapova heads a system, as the Vatican did in collabora- relatively new department called The tion with the US to help end the Cold Public Centre for the Protection of War and free Eastern Europe from Christians in the Middle East and North Soviet domination. But the Russian Africa. She describes it as the research Federation, the natural ally of the Mos- and advocacy organ of the Society. cow Patriarchate and the IOPS, is too weak to don the mantle of a protector The advocacy efforts of the Patriar- of Middle Eastern Christians as did the chate, the IOPS and the Foreign Minis- 19 th century Tsars. Since the end of the try reached a crescendo in September Cold War, the loss of Russian influence 2013 when all three institutions – join- in the Middle East mirrors the Krem- ing many others throughout the world, lin’s diminished stature in Eastern Eu- including the Vatican and CSI – pulled rope. Washington-led regime change out all stops in the effort to persuade policies have effectively shut Russia President Obama not to launch cruise out of Iraq and Libya, while imposing a missile strikes against Syria. heavy price on its continuing relations with the Syrian government. The ab- To what extent the IOPS is a genuine sence of any sign that Russia is strong reflection of Russian civil society, and enough to restore stability to the Mid- how autonomous the Moscow Patriar- dle East and implement the kind of chate is, are questions of interest to policy recommendations made by Met- Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 14

ropolitan Hilarion is a source of great issues like Iran and Afghanistan’. The despondency amongst the region’s prevention of a 30 Years’ War in the Christians. Middle East and the preservation of the region’s religious pluralism ought to be Pessimism is not unwarranted. The 30 among them, just as human rights and Years’ War prophecy for the Middle religious liberty were central to the East made by former CIA Director and Helsinki process in Europe. Secretary for Defence Leon Panetta is a realistic prospect. The vulnerable Jane Ellis concluded her important Christians and other religious minori- book on the ROC with these visionary ties of the region are not likely to sur- words: vive three decades of religious vio- lence. Order can only be restored, as ‘Whatever the political situation, and happened to conclude the 30 Years’ whatever the vicissitudes it has to War, by some kind of Great Power face, it is clear that the spiritual agreement. Russia, although in decline, vitality of the ROC is undimmed remains one of the Great Powers. Har- […] We must expect that the largest vard Professor Joseph Nye recently national church in the world will highlighted the need for cooperation continue to be a shining example of with Russia, stating: the power of the Christian faith to inspire people to overcome unprec- ‘Designing and implementing a edented persecution and suffer- strategy that contains Putin’s be- ing.’ 25 haviour while maintaining long- term engagement with Russia is one Jane’s expectation shows signs of being of the most important challenges fulfilled in the Middle East. The once facing the international community severely persecuted ROC is indeed a today.’ 24 source of inspiration for Christians in the Middle East as they strive to over- This former Assistant Secretary of come unprecedented persecution and State for Defence and Chairman of the suffering. This Church’s acts of soli- National Intelligence Council then darity with the existentially threatened identified a set of global issues that Christians of the Middle East represent require long-term Russo-American a challenge to the secularised West and cooperation, such as ‘nuclear security, its churches. Are the western churches non-proliferation, anti-terrorism, the capable of joining the ROC as a source exploitation of the Arctic and regional of such inspiration?

1. ‘Ex-Lebanon Leader: Christians Target of Genocide’, CBS News/AP, 3 January, 2011. 2. ‘Nicholas Sarkozy Says Christians in the Middle East are Victims of “Religious Cleans- ing”’, Daily Telegraph , 7 January, 2011. 3. ‘Church Attack Seen as Strike at Iraq’s Core’, New York Times , 1 November, 2010. http:// www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 ‘Fatal Bomb Hits a Church in Egypt’, New York Times , 1 January, 2011. http:// www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/middleeast/02egypt.html 4. ‘Russian Orthodox Church sends money to Patriarchate of Antioch to help people affected by armed conflict in Syria’, The Russian Orthodox Church, DECR, 7 August, 2013, https://mospat.ru/en/2013/08/07/news89829/ . 5. ‘Russian Orthodox Church Holy Synod’s Statement on Growing Manifestations of Chris- tianophibia in the World’, The Russian Orthodox Church, DECR, 30 May, 2011. https:// mospat.ru/en/2011/05/30/news42347/ .

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 15

6. ‘Metropolitan Hilarion: Persecution against Christians is Unprecendented’, The Russian Orthodox Church, DECR, 29 April, 2014, https://mospat.ru/en/2014/04/29/news101927/ . 7. A sign of this was the helpfulness of his staff in providing background information for this talk, and their readiness to engage in dialogue. 8. Obama: Assad ‘Protected’ Christians in Syria, Al-Akhbar English , 12 September, 2014. A participant in the meeting with President Obama confirmed to me the accuracy of this report. 9. Vice-President Joe Biden acknowledged this reality during a public Q & A session imme- diately following his speech at Harvard University on 2 October 2014. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrXkm4FImvc&feature=youtu.be&t=1h33m29s 10. John Eibner, ‘Christians and Yezidis: Unwanted Guests in their own Country’, The Tablet Online , 12 September, 2014. http://www.thetablet.co.uk/blogs/1/435/0/christians-and- yazidis-in-iraq-unwanted-guests-in-their-own-country . 11. Fr David Shupletsov, ‘The Revival of Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Orthodox Church of Alexandria in 1945’ ( Возрождение отношений Русской Православной Церкви с Александрийской Православной Церковью в 1945 году ), 23 June, 2014. http://www.pravoslavie.ru/arhiv/71662.htm. 12. Paul Goble, Russia : Analysis from Washington. Primakov’s 19 th Century Model, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 9 August, 1998. 13. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duke_Sergei_Alexandrovich_of_Russia 14. Revd Hanna Kildani, Modern Christianity in the Holy Land , Bloomington, 2010, chapter 3; http://mansaf.org/En-Greek-Society.htm 15. Elie Kedourie, ‘Religion and Politics’, published in The Chatham House Version and other Middle-Eastern Studies , London, 1970, pp. 328-331. 16. John Anderson, ‘Putin and the Russian Orthodox Church: Asymmetric Symphonia?’ Jour- nal of International Affairs , Fall/Winter 2007, Vol. 61, No. 1, pp. 185-201. 17. ‘Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation’, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Approved by President V. Putin on 12 February, 2013. (unofficial translation). http://www.mid.ru/ brp_4.nsf/0/76389FEC168189ED44257B2E0039B16D 18. ‘Russian Church is a Strong Voice Opposing Intervention in Syria’, New York Times , 31 May, 2013. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/europe/russian-church-opposes- syrian-intervention.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2& 19. Nasser Chararah, ‘In Lebanon, Moscow Supports Political Christian Orthodoxy’, Al- Monitor, 24 December, 2012. http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2012/al-monitor/ russia-orthodoxy-lebanon.html . 20. Speech by Sergei Lavrov at the Report-back Election Meeting of the IOPS on the Occasion of the Election of Sergei Stepashin as Chairman of the IOPS (14 June, 2007), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 18 June, 2007. http://www.mid.ru/ brp_4.nsf/0/2421D380D54C90AFC32572FF002F8945 21. ‘Patriarch Dedicated IOPS’s New Building in Moscow’, Interfax , 30 November, 2012. 22. Speech by Sergei Lavrov at the Report-back Election Meeting of the IOPS on the Occasion of the Election of Sergei Stepashin as Chairman of the IOPS (14 June, 2007), Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, 18 June, 2007. http://www.mid.ru/ brp_4.nsf/0/2421D380D54C90AFC32572FF002F8945 23. ‘Patriarch Kirill Speaks at the 1st Conference of the IOPS’, Moscow Patriarchate, DECR, 10 June 2010. https://mospat.ru/en/2010/06/10/news20328/ 24. Joseph S. Nye, ‘A Western Strategy for a Declining Russia’, 3 September 2014. http:// www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/joseph-s--nye-wants-to-deter-russia-without- isolating-it 25. Jane Ellis, The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History, London, 1985. p. 454.

Dr John Eibner has worked as the CEO of Christian Solidarity International (USA) for 25 years and has served as its representative at the UN. He has fre- quently briefed policy makers at the White House and the State Department.

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 16

The Birth of the Last Utopia: Is Keston Really a ‘human rights’ Group?

by Mark Hurst

In the context of the Cold War, some NGOs are readily and easily defined as human rights groups. Amnesty Interna- tional, for example, made their name campaigning explicitly for prisoners of conscience, a term that they coined. Amnesty have become the archetypal human rights group and dominate con- temporary discourse on human rights issues. The Campaign Against Psychi- atric Abuse (CAPA) and the Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry (also known as the 35s) also fall naturally into this definition. Their activism against the abuses of the Soviet authori- ties, through an array of public demon- strations puts them neatly into the posi- Mark Hurst addresses Keston tion of an activist group. Keston on the members at 2014 AGM other hand is more difficult to define. Whilst it was clearly working in the Somewhat surprisingly, the history of field of human rights, there is a ques- human rights is a relatively new aca- tion about whether it ought to be con- demic discipline. In the introductory sidered as a human rights group, some- comments to an edited volume pub- thing that is complicated by recent lished in 2014 on human rights in the developments in the academic study of 1970s, it was noted that ‘a mere decade the history of human rights. ago, no historians were working on human rights in any time period.’ 1 The study of the impact of human Mark Mazower has linked this in- rights in the Cold War is a discipline creased interest directly to the collapse which has blossomed rapidly in recent of the Soviet Union and the dramatic years. Historians have gradually turned change in international relations in their attention to the role of human 1991, noting that ‘the recent upsurge of rights in the 20 th century, asking in- interest in the history of human rights creasingly critical questions about the must surely be seen as one of the more role that it has played in society, do- productive intellectual consequences of mestic politics, and foreign affairs. the ending of the Cold War.’ 2 Much of this literature points towards a ‘Human Rights Revolution’ in the The history of human rights was argua- 1970s, where human rights became an bly ‘born’ in 2007 following the publi- increasingly salient political issue in cation of a book by the US academic international relations. Lynn Hunt entitled Inventing Human Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 17

Rights. 3 Hunt’s background is as an fluential scholars on the history of hu- historian of the French Revolution, man rights, publishing broadly on this noted for her work on the study of gen- issue in recent years. This book was a der, so this book marked a new avenue bombshell within the field, shaking up of research. Hunt argues that the empa- many of the orthodox views on the thetic literature of the Enlightenment subject, and has led to a number of new period opened up a new period of hu- research avenues. Moyn argued that we man history, where the treatment of need to look explicitly at the 1970s as a individuals became an increasingly period where human rights were born important consideration. This is quite a as a salient political concept; where shift from the previously predominant human rights violations around the focus on nationhood and monarchy as world gained political traction, persuad- areas of power and influence. Hunt ing governments to take action. This is identifies the necessary shift in individ- particularly important in the context of ual perceptions in order for this transi- the Cold War. The collapse of détente tion to take place: lead to pressure on both superpowers to reassert their moral position, in a con- ‘I believe that social and political flict outside of ideological and military changes – in this case, human rights considerations. Human rights as a con- – come about because many indi- cept became a useful tool in this reas- viduals had similar experiences, not sertion, focusing on the seemingly apo- because they all inhabited the same litical notion of rights to position each social context but because through superpower as superior to its opponent. their interactions with each other Moyn argues that this shift occurred and with their reading and viewing, because the notion of human rights they actually created a new social became a ‘last utopia’ where other uto- context…For human rights to be- pian ideologies (Communism and Capi- come self-evident, ordinary people talism) came under threat and no longer had to have new understandings that seemed convincing. This last utopia is came from new kinds of feelings.’ 4 not quite an ‘end of history’, as Francis Fukuyama claimed at the end of the It was through the cultural enlighten- Cold War, but an ideology which ment that people began to experience gained its popularity because it was the potential for a new social context, seen as an unsurpassable option, a kind one that was hinged on individual rights of final ideology for humankind. 5 Moyn and concerns. Implicit within this work addressed this concern explicitly in his is a challenge to some of the traditional work, noting that, ‘[if human rights] are literature on rights, which looks back to found wanting, another utopia can arise ancient Greece and Rome for the birth in the future, just as human rights once of a rights discourse. Indeed, one of the emerged on the ruins of their predeces- most important issues raised in the sors. Human rights were born as the last recent literature on human rights is the utopia, but one day another may ap- argument that it is a modern concept, pear.’ 6 Moyn’s ‘last utopia’ of human which owes more to the Cold War than rights is an intriguing argument, and to Plato, John Locke, or Voltaire. one that goes some way to explain the sacrifices of activists in the Cold War. The challenge posed by Hunt was ad- dressed in 2010 by Samuel Moyn’s The A challenging question for historians to Last Utopia: Human Rights in History . address is what motivates an activist to Moyn has become one of the most in- devote their life to an issue, often one Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 18

which goes against the tide of public Alongside the moral and ideological thought. This is a particularly poignant positioning of human rights, the struc- issue in the wake of the Hungarian ture and function of activist organisa- uprising of 1956, and the Prague Spring tions is another aspect of human rights in 1968, where human rights become which has been put under the lens in particularly compelling from an intel- recent years, most effectively by Ste- lectual and moral position as previous phen Hopgood’s The Endtimes of Hu- utopias were crumbling. As Moyn puts man Rights . This book is a refreshing it, ‘over the course of the 1970s, the sideways glance at the ‘business’ of moral world of Westerners shifted, human rights, offering a critical view of opening a space for the sort of utopian- recent developments. Hopgood argues ism that coalesced in an international for two different conceptions of human human rights movement that had never rights: existed before.’ 7 This assertion is backed by Jan Eckel who has noted: • human rights – the pure, moral struggle for the protection of ‘human rights in the 1970s appear as individual liberties a multifaceted promise of moral • Human Rights – the machin- renewal that in view of the profound ery that has arisen around changes in the structure of national human rights NGOs and activ- and international politics come to be ists. seen as increasingly attractive, both ideologically and strategically. This is an essential distinction to make Their essential attractiveness lay in when assessing human rights organisa- the fact that human rights seemed to tions, and is something that readily provide a way of responding to the applies to a number of groups in the failure of older political projects, of second half of the 20 th century. Fund- transcending the logic of the Cold raising, and the sheer survival of organ- War, of basing political action on a isations often became the prerogative of moral foundation, and of reaching a human rights groups, rather than the vantage point that supposedly was 8 struggle for which they were formed in above politics.’ the first place. As Hopgood notes, ‘many international NGOs are now so If we follow the argument put forward big, with large staffs who have signifi- by Moyn and supported by Eckel, cant salary and pension entitlements which is essentially that human rights that they are locked in to this model. as a concept became salient in the Money is essential, and its acquisition 1970s because of the decline of other from the public and institutional fun- utopian concepts, certain questions ders, not participation, is now the need to be asked of human rights them- mechanism for activism.’ 9 This is a selves. How apolitical are human pressure that Keston’s members are rights? How much does this concept only too aware of. influence individual activists? Should we link the ideological rise of this ‘last Hopgood’s argument raises questions utopia’ to the rise of human rights about the apolitical nature of human groups working for ? rights, namely how these organisations These are difficult questions, which tell use powerful and popular political con- us much about the developing position cepts, like the struggle for persecuted of Keston and other groups working in prisoners of conscience. This is an im- similar areas in the Cold War. Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 19

portant question to consider when they Keys develops some of Moyn’s argu- are utilised by organisations in fund- ments about the notion of human rights raising activities. Given that human being born as a salient issue in the mid- rights formed a substantial part of the 1970s. Rather intriguingly, she argues ideological conflict between the super- that the pivotal figure in human rights powers in the Cold War, they are per- politics in the US was not President haps more helpfully seen as a deeply Carter, who was noted for his shift in political concept since they were used foreign policy towards human rights as a weapon to apply pressure. This issues in the late 1970s. Nor does she undoubtedly carries through to contem- point toward Henry ‘Scoop’ Jackson or porary politics, with human rights be- Charles Vanik, co-sponsors of the ing used by a number of political actors ‘Jackson-Vanik amendment’ to the to exert influence. One only has to 1974 Trade Act which linked US eco- think of recent rhetoric surrounding the nomic policy towards the Soviet Union European Court of Human Rights, and to the free emigration of the refuseniks , discussions about the development of a Soviet Jews who were prevented from British Bill of Rights to see this in ac- immigrating to Israel by the Soviet tion. authorities. Instead, Keys highlights the US diplomat Henry Kissinger as play- The moral dimension played by human ing ‘the pivotal role in moving human rights in the Cold War is a theme which rights from the sidelines to the centre of has been discussed by a variety of American diplomacy.’ 12 Despite Kis- scholars. In Reclaiming American Vir- singer’s pragmatic approach to human tue , Barbara Keys argues that human rights issues and his attempts to keep rights were utilised in US foreign poli- the concept out of US foreign policy, it cy from the mid-1970s onwards in an is clear that he was aware of its politi- attempt to reposition America as a mor- cal power, a concept that was picked up al and just nation in the wake of the by . Moyn has noted that Vietnam War. 10 Keys nods towards the ‘Jimmy Carter, elected president of the use of human rights as a political weap- United States in the fall of 1976, almost on in the Cold War, and one that helped wandered into using the language [of to re-establish American prestige after human rights]. He barely mentioned the debacle of Vietnam. She notes: human rights during his campaign, so that when he announced his commit- ‘human rights were far more im- ment to human rights on the steps of portant than a slogan, and they had the Capitol when he was inaugurated in relevance far beyond purely diplo- January 1977, a months-long debate matic concerns. They helped rede- was sparked.’ 13 fine American to Americans, for they were about American identity Keys’ work reasserts the impact that even more than they were about human rights in a foreign policy setting foreign policy. They emerged from could have on a nation’s moral identity a struggle for the soul of a country, and positioning. Her focus on the US is for principles to define not only apparent for the clear impact that it had America’s international behaviour there, but the ripples of this change but its character in a world shaped affected Britain, most explicitly in the by new power relations – above all foreign policy of Margaret Thatcher. by its loss in the Vietnam War and all the soul-searching that en- These recent developments in the his- tailed.’ 11 torical literature have led scholars to Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 20

the compelling argument that the in line with broader issues of imperial- 1970s was a period of revolution in ism from the early 20 th century? The international relations, namely the concept of human rights was all but human rights revolution. Human rights ignored at these trials, which have as a concept progressed from having become entrenched in the public marginal political traction in the 1950s memory as a process to hold the lead- and 1960s to become a salient political ers of Nazi Germany to account for issue with great clout during the mid- their war crimes. Perhaps this memory 1970s. The impact of this revolution is is subtly different from the actual aim clear in the difference between the of these trials? The same question can international reception of József Mind- be asked of the 1948 Universal Decla- szenty and Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, ration of Human Rights itself. Should , Anatoly Shcha- this founding document of human ransky and countless others from the rights as we know them be considered 1970s onwards. more critically, and was it really the birth of modern human rights? If so, Whilst convincing, Moyn’s argument why are events that we would recog- outlining the birth of human rights as a nise as major human rights violations salient political concept in the mid- which occurred around the world in the 1970s does raise a number of very 1950s and 1960s very rarely described intriguing questions. Should we con- as such? Mark Mazower has noted that sider the Holocaust, one of the gravest ‘the 1948 Declaration of Human and most brutal attacks on humanity in Rights…was little more than decora- contemporary history, as a human tion – a substitute for a real legally rights violation? The discourses used binding commitment and a retreat from to describe human rights did not exist the minority rights regime of the inter- in the 1940s as we know them now, war era.’ 15 These are all challenging and there is an argument that the Holo- questions, both intellectually and mor- caust has been manipulated as a human ally, being addressed by scholars in rights event to assert the need to de- this field at present. So where does fend ‘the last utopia’. This is not to Keston fit in all of these issues? These take anything away from the barbarity differing issues impact on the way we and horror of these events, but to pose can assess Keston’s work through four critical questions about their reception. major prisms: motivation, finance, the Have these atrocities been manipulated academic nature of Keston’s work, and to assert the need to support human Keston’s positon in the Cold War. rights as a political concept? Stephen Hopgood has put this rather astutely, Religious belief without question noting that ‘Once a regime is accused played and continues to play a substan- of genocide, and its leaders by associa- tial part in the motivation of Keston as tion with the Nazis are labelled “evil”, an organisation. Michael Bourdeaux’s there is no room for compromise. The visit to Moscow on a British Council whole conflict takes place in a kind of Cultural exchange can easily be read as sacred space where moral absolutes a religious pilgrimage, particularly clash, a place “without history and with his revelatory meeting with without politics”.’ 14 Ukrainian women wishing to call for assistance from the West for their What about the Nuremberg War plight. In my conversations with Mi- Crimes trials after the Second World chael about this event, he described War? Should we position these more this chance meeting as both ‘a total and Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 21

utter coincidence’ and ‘the way of the one can see how effective this can be in hand of God’. 16 This religious motiva- practice. Amnesty now operates as a tion is also clear throughout Keston’s pressure group with a very glossy exte- publications: an article in Keston News rior, focusing on publicity and influ- Service (KNS ) dated 10 July 1980, for ence rather than campaigns in support example, calls a Keston visit to the of prisoners of conscience. The central Soviet Union a ‘religious pilgrimage’. ethos which united Amnesty in the Issues of Frontier carry this dimension 1960s has shifted into a business-type even more explicitly, listing calls for model. This can be seen clearly in in- prayer, and religious iconography ternal Amnesty reports from the 1980s throughout – something that sets them on the issue of funding, which are apart from Keston’s academic publica- striking for their lack of empathy. The tion, Religion in Communist Lands . 1983 report Development of Amnesty International Including National Sec- The religious dimension to Keston’s tions and Fundraising explicitly asks activism became particularly important the questions: for the organisation in difficult times. Much like Amnesty’s reliance on the What do we sell? unknown prisoners of conscience, this What is our product? religious dimension was an integral Who is our customer? part of Keston’s ethos, something that What is our sales force? held the organisation together. This is one of the major areas where Keston is These questions correlate with Hop- different from other human rights or- good’s concerns about human rights. ganisations in this period. There is no This is where Amnesty began to shift mention of human rights in Keston’s to become a group more concerned major publications in the 1970s, and about their financial circumstances discussion of ‘liberty’ and ‘freedom’ is than about the centrality of their origi- always with direct reference to religion nal ethos. It is interesting that all suc- itself, not the broader terminology of cessful human rights groups have un- rights. This is not to suggest that Kes- dergone this transition at some point ton was not concerned with these following the revolution of the 1970s. broader issues, but that its focus was Human rights activism today is more explicitly on the religious dimension. concerned with fundraising and cam- It can be argued that broader human paigns to attain influence, than with rights and religious freedom are one explicit efforts to support prisoners of and the same, with freedom of con- conscience. Perhaps this indicates a science and belief being an integral shift within public activism, with peo- human right, but it is worth distinguish- ple more willing to sign an online peti- ing slightly between the two in order to tion or set up a direct debit than stand assess Keston’s position at this time. on a street corner for hours on end.

Whilst it might seem crude, one of the Finance has often been a sore point in most defining characteristics of a mod- Keston’s history. In the context of the ern human rights organisation is its Cold War, the source of funding for capability to engage in wide reaching organisations such as Keston came and effective fundraising campaigns. under scrutiny, particularly in the wake Consider the glossy campaigns often of the Encounter affair. Encounter , a run by Amnesty International where monthly literary journal, was discov-

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 22

ered to have been funded by the Con- disrepair into the headquarters of a gress for Cultural Freedom, a CIA research organisation is something funded organisation set up to assert which involved considerable financial ‘soft power’ against the Soviet Union investment. With this substantial infra- through unwitting middlemen. Accusa- structure there was potential for Keston tions of funding from ‘dirty’ sources to shift its attention towards fundraising was particularly harmful for organisa- and business-like practices, especially tions active in this period, and could following the collapse of the Soviet have jeopardised the entire work of any Union. That Keston did not follow group. these avenues suggests that it Keston’s modus is more in tune operandi finan- with the moral cially can be or ethical defi- described as nition of hu- short to medium man rights as term, devoting outlined by finance on via- Hopgood. At ble campaigns the end of the and publica- Cold War, tions. Financial Keston’s deci- considerations sion to focus for the longer term Old postcard of the school building in on the ethos of the seemingly fell by the Keston village purchased in 1974 group’s founda- wayside owing to the tion, rather than on need to focus on contemporary issues. establishing long-term funding security, One only need read through editions of goes some way to explain its difficul- Religion in Communist Lands to see the ties in the 1990s and beyond. It also financial concerns throughout Keston’s indicates the contemporary nature of history. Editions of the journal from Keston’s work, focusing on the preser- 1976 describe Keston’s financial posi- vation of an archive and the funding of tion as being on a ‘knife edge’, and in academic work in line with its founding the early 1980s several editions of the ethos, rather than on engaging in broad journal were restricted owing to finan- fundraising or publicity campaigns. cial constraints. Only two issues were published in 1981, and three each year Academic considerations are a clear between 1982 and 1987, clearly in an part of Keston’s history. All iterations attempt to save money. Indeed, one gets of the organisation’s name carry a sense a sense of genuine financial struggle of the academy, telling of its position throughout Keston’s output in the and purpose. The four founding mem- 1980s, highlighting the group’s diffi- bers of Keston relied on their academic culties. reputation, especially so in the case of Peter Reddaway and Leonard Schapiro, Yet despite this, the acquisition and academics at the London School of development of the old school in the Economics and Political Science. The village of Keston which gave the group construction of an archive, arguably the its name is indicative of a long term major part of Keston’s legacy for future strategy. The ambitious project of con- generations of scholars working on verting a school building in a state of religion in Communist countries, is

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 23

undoubtedly an academic pursuit. The Iron Curtain’. During the Cold War, fact that this archive is now housed at Keston did its utmost to collate accu- Baylor University is telling of its schol- rate information about religious belief arly merit, and of the academic creden- in the Soviet Union and Eastern Eu- tials and concerns behind its collection. rope, and to distribute this material to those in positions of influence. Indeed, Despite this academic position, activist the scope and quality of material ob- concerns also drove Keston, especially tained by Keston, which is now held at the desire to assist those behind the Baylor, is testament to the efforts of its Iron Curtain, something which can be researchers, and the reputation that it seen in Keston’s publications. In the held. However, without the ideological first edition of KNS , published in May conflict of the Cold War, and the 1974, Bourdeaux wrote that its produc- broader acceptance of human rights tion should be a ‘ samizdat experience’. politics as a major part of US foreign This is a rather odd term to use for an policy from the mid-1970s onwards, outright academic group, and perhaps Keston would not have had the impact indicative of an activist element. Whilst that it did. it neatly refers to the ‘hot off the press’ nature of KNS , it suggests an empathy As a result, Keston should be seen as with dissident practices, perhaps even Cold Warriors, albeit unconscious ones an attempt to participate in them. Affil- concerned primarily with distributing iations to organisations such as Aid to the latest information about the perse- the Russian Churches also suggest that cuted believer behind the Iron Curtain. beneath the academic exterior of Kes- This is not to say that it was concerned ton, there was a beating heart of activ- with the overthrow of Communism, or ism. This all points to the tension that that its aims were not noble and moral- exists in the very ethos of Keston’s ly correct. It is essential, however, to purpose: was it a group formed to doc- state that the claim to be a non-political ument impartially the position of reli- organisation during the period when gious belief in the Soviet Union or did human rights were becoming one of the it collate information in an attempt to most politicised concepts in interna- persuade governments, organisations, tional relations simply does not stand and individuals in Britain and further up. The same can be said of other or- afield to change their approach to the ganisations reporting on issues of Sovi- Soviet authorities? Given the motiva- et dissent in this period. Moyn has tions behind its work, a group like Kes- argued that ‘[Amnesty] traded on its ton could not be fully impartial, espe- powerful claims to be above and be- cially given the extreme nature of the yond politics. This claim to transcend- religious persecution conducted by the ence was, indeed, Benenson’s principal Communist regimes in the Soviet Un- innovation.’ 17 Whilst it may appear ion and Eastern Europe. apolitical, human rights concerns were made political by the actions of govern- In the context of the Cold War, seem- ments, NGOs, individual activists, and ingly apolitical concepts doubtless had dissidents in the Soviet Union and East- political consequences. This issue is ern Europe. addressed on Keston’s website, which states that the group is a ‘non-political The question of whether or not Keston organisation, which simply gathered should be considered a human rights the true facts about religion behind the organisation is complex. Much depends

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 24

on the definition of human rights, support dissidents, or to report on their which is in itself a fluid term. Lasse situation, was unaffected by this politi- Heerten puts this neatly stating that cal shift. The salience of human rights ‘The meaning of human rights is never as a political issue in international rela- clear-cut; human rights as a conceptual tions, and the decision by the authori- vehicle can accommodate divergent ties in the US to embrace human rights ideas.’ 18 This is further complicated by as a ‘weapon’ with which to attack the the political circumstances present Soviet Union gave Keston a powerful during the Cold War. Whilst Keston’s platform for highlighting the position of ethos is about more than a concern for religion in the Soviet bloc. Whilst it is the protection of human rights in the clear that Keston was not motivated by Soviet bloc, this was undoubtedly a human rights concerns and, as such, concern for many involved with the should not be considered as a human organisation. What is clear, is that the rights organisation, without the human human rights revolution of the 1970s rights revolution of the 1970s, its ef- had a great impact on Keston and how forts would not have received so much it functioned. No group working to attention.

1. S. Moyn, ‘The Return of the Prodigal: The 1970s as a turning point in Human Rights History’ in J. Eckel and S. Moyn (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s (Philadelphia, 2014), p. 13. 2. M. Mazower, ‘The End of Civilisation and the Rise of Human Rights: The Mid- Twentieth-Century Disjuncture’, in S. L. Hoffman (ed.), Human Rights in the Twenti- eth Century (Cambridge, 2011), p. 29. 3. L. Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History (London, 2007). 4. ibid ., p. 34. 5. F. Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London, 1992). 6. S. Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History, (London 2010) p. 10. 7. ibid., p. 1. 8. J. Eckel, ‘The Rebirth of Politics from the Spirit of Morality: Explaining the Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s’, in J. Eckel and S. Moyn (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s (Philadelphia, 2014), p. 227. 9. S. Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights (New York, 2013), p. 105. 10. B. Keys, Reclaiming American Virtue: The Human Rights Revolution of the 1970s (London, 2014). 11. ibid., p. 3. 12. ibid., p.153. 13. Moyn, ‘The Return of the Prodigal’, p. 9. 14. Hopgood, The Endtimes of Human Rights , p. 55. 15. Mazower, ‘The End of Civilisation and the Rise of Human Rights’, p. 41. 16. M. Hurst, British Human Rights Organisations and Soviet Dissent, 1965-1985 (PhD Thesis, University of Kent), p. 218. 17. Moyn, The Last Utopia , p. 132. 18. Lasse Heerten, ‘The Dystopia of Postcolonial Catastrophe: Self Determination, the Biafran War of Secession, and the 1970s Human Rights Moment’ in J. Eckel and S. Moyn (eds.), The Breakthrough: Human Rights in the 1970s (Philadelphia, 2014), p. 16.

Dr Mark Hurst teaches British, Russian and European history from the Enlight- enment to the modern day at the University of Kent. His doctoral research on the British response to the Soviet dissident movement will be published as a book entitled British Human Rights Organisations and Soviet Dissent, 1965-1985 .

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 25

The Evangelical Church in Soviet Society: Dialectics of Adaptation and Reform

by Mykhailo Cherenkov

needs to be a broader view which considers the relations between the AUCECB and CCECB as a type of dialectic between different models for the church. In a sense, they really formed a single ‘brotherhood’, which took differ- ent forms. Documents from that period convey both a sense of unity and the pain of separation, both attempts at dialogue and acknowledgment of incompatible views, as well as hints of their Mykhailo Cherenkov working in the Keston Center complementarity. at Baylor University

When analysing trends in the life of The Keston Archive is a unique collec- post-Soviet evangelical churches, it is tion of materials 1 relating to the life and difficult to escape the sense that what is survival of churches in Soviet society. hampering their full development and Most of the documents and publica- complete transition are the mistakes tions are united by one theme – the and unlearned lessons of the Soviet dialectic of the dominant and subdomi- past. To this day, they have no bal- nant, the official and oppositional, the anced social teaching and missiology; state-recognised and catacomb forms of this exposes them to unprincipled op- religion, the processes of adaptation portunism or stubborn isolationism. To and reform within the conditions which this day, fraternal relations between the prevailed in Soviet society. successors of the AUCECB (All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians- Methodological dualism Baptists) and the CCECB (Council of Churches of Evangelical Christians- This type of methodological structure Baptists) have not been restored. is supported by the views presented in [Members of the CCECB during the the works of the Soviet specialist on Soviet period were often called the religion, Alexandr Klibanov, and the Initsiativniki, i.e. members of the Init- post-Soviet specialist on culture siativnaya gruppa, the Action Group Alexandr Etkind. These studies (and formed in 1961 to demand reforms. other monographs which complement Ed .] History is still used as a tool for Keston’s collection of samizdat and casting blame upon others and justify- other documents) occupy a place of ing one's own actions. honour on the bookshelves of the Kes- ton Archive, and serve as valuable Leaving to others the issue of historical reference works for visiting scholars. truth and justice, I believe that there For Klibanov, the evolution of sects

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 26

was motivated by a rational decision to tionary, ‘of the majority’ and ‘of the adapt to the modernisation of society minority’. The first of these was repre- and to struggle for a place in a chang- sented by the AUCECB, the second by ing world. 2 This view is similar to the CCECB. According to the analysis Heather Coleman’s thesis about the of another scholar, Ernst Troeltsch, alternative attitude to society of Evan- who established a typology of church- gelical Christians, and about the com- sects, the following can be stated: the petition and parallel activity 3 of Com- AUCECB aimed to grow from a sect munists and Christians who, each in into a church at the cost of concessions their own way, tried to establish them- to the state and society; the CCECB selves and secure a place within their moved in the opposite direction, to- particular version of the future. Etkind, wards the roots of persecuted Christi- however, saw as typical the anti-social anity in order to renew the spirit of the response with the progressive develop- dissenting minority and to preserve the ment of ‘sects’ taking the form of a church as a sect, in the sense of a conscious and uncompromising exodus closed ‘holy remnant’ standing in op- from society into a small group of the position to the world. elect. 4 This kind of radicalism was not for everyone; indeed one Evangelical Two images of the church – two pic- Christian asked, ‘Why don't you live tures of the world like everyone else? Look at the Ortho- dox and the AUCECB: they are rolling The official church considered compro- in gold and travelling all over the mise with the world to be a necessary world. Why must we, then, place our evil and even the greatest instrument heads on the block?’ 5 For the career- for good. The AUCECB leaders were minded, sectarianism was dangerous, ready to preserve the church at any subversive, revolutionary. Indeed, most cost, accepting as inevitable the coun- believers had no use for radicalism. try's movement towards socialism and the construction of a non-religious Such methodological dualism, howev- society. For them, the greatest sin was er, is an oversimplification. As Mi- disobedience to the authorities, and, chael Bourdeaux pointed out, it was compared to this crime, denunciation precisely the anti-social radicalism of of one's brothers and the destruction of the Protestants which paradoxically communities were seen as collateral made them a dynamic social force. 6 damage, or even as useful methods for Moreover, local congregations lived maintaining discipline and establishing their own, often double life (official ‘order’. façade and safe sheltered under- ground), and did not always carry out As a church, the AUCECB could not the instructions of their leaders. allow itself any kind of personal ‘parallel reality’, nor did it regard this A careful examination of the Keston as necessary. It turned to the authorities Archive's materials has only confirmed for permission on any issues that arose. my initial intuition about the heuristic Spiritual literature was printed in the approaches of Klibanov and Etkind as state printing houses; there was censor- methodological guides when working ship; KGB agents were ubiquitous. The with original sources. These two ap- church was firmly embedded in the proaches may tentatively be called, socialist way of life. Self-criticism, respectively, modernist and radically repentance, revival and reforms were conservative, conformist and revolu- perceived as a threat to stability. A Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 27

registered church existed insofar as the siativniki movement was concerned state permitted it to exist – as the fa- with the mystical, true and unseen çade of humanity, constitutional order church. It aimed to create a renewed and religious freedom. It cannot be community in the spirit of the apostolic said that the AUCECB leaders did not church. Thus, when Iosif Bondarenko, understand their difficult position and an evangelist for the CCECB, was their unworthy role as the legal repre- asked in court ‘Do you consider your- sentatives of a dying religion. But they self to be a youth leader?’ he replied: justified their concessions when re- ‘We are completely democratic, we calling Stalin's repressions. have no personality cult. Christ alone is our leader.’ 7 In contrast to their registered brethren, the ‘separated’ ones (the Initsiativniki) At the same time, the Initsiativniki did proceeded from the following assump- not retreat into the catacombs, nor did tions in their relationship to the world: they hide from the government. Rather, the entire outside world was mired in they did what they could to erect a line sin; you should serve God – it was not of defence. The usual steps taken for worth working for Satan (the state); you outer protection were: petitions to the should not try to gain recognition in government concerning the arbitrariness ‘their’ society; loyalty to God, not suc- of local authorities; appeals to the inter- cess, was what mattered; the refor- national community; quotations on mation of the church would continue ‘humane’ Soviet legislation; references without interruption through sanctifica- to the ‘benign’ Lenin; public debates on tion; you could not change society; the atheism as a ‘scientific outlook’; peti- best of all options was guerilla evange- tions against segregation at school and lism. Thus, instead of integrating with work; acts of disobedience; the targeted society, they proposed building a wall; education of children in a Christian rather than ‘standing in the breach’ they spirit; and non -participation in volun- proposed creating an insurmountable tary associations and activities. In the barrier between the church and the debate on the right to existence, two world. The key objective was not to types of argument were employed: a influence the outside world, but self positive one (‘We're just like everybody defence – the preservation of one's per- else,’ ‘Our rights are secured by the sonal holiness. The unregistered church Constitution’) 8 and a negative one in a totalitarian climate created its par- (‘We’re not like you, so just leave us allel social reality, with the following alone,’ ‘We’ll only be trouble for you, features: fellowship as social organisa- so let us go abroad’ 9). Most often they tion; parallel channels of communica- avoided argument and simply accepted tion; sacrifice and the cult of heroes; the repression as natural and inevitable: ability to mobilise quickly and effi- ‘We are not of the world, so the world ciently; a distinctive subculture; maxi- will always persecute us.’ mum involvement of each member; the ability to replace another; solidarity; Thus, Soviet evangelicals when de- asceticism; simplicity; sacrifice; secre- ciding between the AUCECB and cy; discipline of the underground; will- CCECB made a choice between dif- ingness and ability to live and serve in ferent views of the world, one realis- an environment of secrecy and constant tic, the other idealistic, one official, danger. There was nothing ‘official’ the other oppositional, and, corre- either in relation to the ‘outside world’ spondingly, they made a choice be- or within the church’s life. The Init- tween different conceptions of the Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 28

Mykhailo Cherenkov (right) with Walter Sawatsky (Professor of Church History & Mis- sion at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary until his retirement) by the graves of Pastor Georgi Vins & his wife Nadezhda, & that of his mother Lydia Vins

church and its mission in the world. ‘Atheism recognises only one form The difference between these ap- of separation of church and state: proaches is evident also in the atti- formal separation from the consti- tude to the state, society and educa- tutional façade and full adherence tion. to its reverse. There is only one way to legalise the church, and that My hypothesis is that the AUCECB is through its rejection of Christ and the CCECB could exist only in and his Gospel, so that the life of tandem; their characteristic differ- the church might be governed by ences unfolded as binary oppositions. the directives of atheists and anti- To use Soviet terminology, in ‘unity evangelical laws on cults.’ 10 and the struggle of opposites’, in the relation between the silent majority To those who were separated from it, and the revolutionary minority a spe- the state was a repressive apparatus in cific evangelical culture took shape. the service of atheism which func- tioned not for the freedom of its citi- Attitudes to the state zens; rather, it worked against their freedom. CCECB Secretary Georgi The attitude of CCECB believers to the Vins stated that non-registered church- state was wary; in civil matters it was es recognised the state, but did not law-abiding, and in spiritual it mani- submit to it in matters of conscience fested radical opposition. In the words and church life. 11 Vins was convicted, of Gennadi Kryuchkov: nevertheless, for violating the law and for anti-state activities:

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 29

‘Acting as Secretary of the so-called The official position of the AUCECB illegal Council of Baptist Churches, was steadfastly loyalist and was ex- he [Vins] started on the path of non pressed – without excessive diplomacy -fulfilment of the legislation on and theological justification – in the religious cults, and organised an writings of A.V. Karev: illegal publication. G.P. Vins or- ganised the activities of the Coun- ‘Like Everest towering above all the cil, directing it to violate the laws other mountain peaks, so towered our greatest sociolo- gist-humanist, Vladi- mir Ilich Lenin. Lenin not only deeply sym- pathised with the dis- advantaged masses of peasants and workers, he also developed an ingenious plan for their liberation from the yoke of exploita- tion and poverty. Lenin's name is also connected with the Grave in Donetsk of Senior Presbyter Tatarchenko, famous appearance of the “Decree on the Sepa- among Ukrainian Baptists & imprisoned for his faith during ration of Church and the Soviet period State”, which put an end to religious dis- on the separation of church and crimination [...] The once despised state and the school from the “sectarian-Baptists” were placed on church, and to disseminate fabrica- an equal footing with the once priv- tions defaming the Soviet state and ileged Orthodox Church.’14 social order.’ 12 This same approach was expressed His family could not obtain the text of more diplomatically several years later his sentence, according to Lydia Vins, by AUCECB General Secretary A.M. Georgi’s mother: Bychkov:

‘The City Court refused to ‘We must gratefully acknowledge grant us a transcript of the sen- that the Council for Religious Af- tence. Moreover, Judge Tyshel did fairs and the local authorities are all not hold back on threats and gross highly attentive to the needs of insults, calling us (our family) ene- believers […] We see in this the mies of the people, a “gang”. He genuine implementation of the declared that we needed the sen- envisaged fundamental law of the tence transcript so that we could country – under the new Constitu- pass it on to the CIA.’ 13 tion, the guarantee of the rights of believers who are citizens of the To government officials believers were USSR to freedom of confession not just a relic of the past – they were and the fulfilment of the religious CIA agents, ‘enemies of the people’. needs of believers.’ 15 Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 30

Thus, if for the ‘separatists’ (the Init- provide genuine religious freedom; siativniki) the state was a punitive or- and give young believers the free- gan of militant atheism, then for the dom to receive an education.’ 16 ‘registered’, it was a protector and ben- efactor, a guarantor of stability. Young people were on the ideological front line. Letters of recantation written Adaptation or protection by former young believers conveyed not so much their personal feelings as the As society was not independent within a way the state tried to present believers totalitarian system but controlled by the to the public: state, the attitude of Christians towards society followed from their attitude to ‘There are no newspapers or Soviet the state, while society’s view of them books in the houses of believers, was dictated by government propaganda. and they don't watch television. It's If the ‘registered’ were perceived by true, there is a radio. But it is only society as strange but harmless ele- turned on when programmes from ments, then the ‘separatists’ were alien abroad are being broadcast. Other elements and dangerous enemies. programmes are forbidden – they are sinful. How many “You must- The Initsiativniki issued requests and n't,” “it’s not allowed”, “it's a sin” – demands that their civil rights be ob- these prohibitive words accompa- served even within ‘socialist law’: nied me from the time I was a child. It was as if they locked me in a ‘At a time when throughout our citadel surrounded by a high fence, country active preparations are isolated from the world outside. underway for the 100 th Anniversary Thus, I grew up like stunted worm- of the Birth of V.I. Lenin, and the wood in a waterless desert, separat- triumph of Leninist norms and prin- ed from life which like the sea ciples in all spheres of life are being splashed and seethed beyond the proclaimed, in the city of Odessa walls of my house. […] I have yet more storm clouds have gath- stepped out onto the wide road of ered unleashing the persecution and life. Right now the train is taking harassment perpetrated by the mili- me to a military unit. In a few days, tant fanatic-atheists against believ- I will be a soldier, a defender of my ers […] Our Christian young people great Fatherland.’ 17 are deprived of the right of assem- bly, we are unable to walk freely in The AUCECB positioned itself differ- the street because the crowds of ently calling for openness and friend- unbelieving young hooligans attack ship with socialist society. But the us (constant beatings). We are una- relationship between the registered ble to get higher education and in church and atheist society was not re- addition to all this, all kinds of libel ciprocal, symmetrical. Society retained are directed at us in the press. […] its antipathy. In 1979, AUCECB Gen- We know that you are unable to re- eral Secretary A.M. Bychkov openly educate believers and therefore acknowledged these problems, while want to destroy them. We ask you: retaining unflappable optimism: find our friends innocent; guarantee a normal life for believers and cease ‘Our Constitution guarantees free- the poisoning of society against us; dom of religion. However, society

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 31

is dominated by the view that reli- the CCECB leadership adopted a radi- gion is a relic of the past. They call cally different view. They preached us ministers of “outgoing ideas” […] about the imminent end of the world, Our hope cannot be determined by executions, court cases when loyalty factors such as the nature of society, whether it is friendly or hostile to God’s church. Our hope rises like a beacon above the raging sea of histo- ry […] In socialist countries enough room has been preserved for the activities of churches. We see our- selves as an integral part of society. Our experience indicates that the active participation of Christians in the general work helps to dispel distrust towards Christians.’ 18

He also showed that among the dele- gates at the 42nd All-Union ECB Con- gress, 49 people were awarded orders and medals, and that annual donations by ECB churches to the peace fund exceeded 200,000 roubles. All this was only the small visible part of the church’s capitulation to the govern- ment. For the official church, society was seen as the natural medium for life, Michael Bourdeaux with Mykhailo to which the faithful needed to adapt as Cherenkov beside Iffley parish church, Oxford soon as possible; but for the unofficial church, it was an alien environment would be more important than from which to defend yourself. knowledge and success: ‘In a little while we will need neither Bibles, nor Con- Pastors’ training cordances, neither clothes nor shoes, nor what the world values as we shall be- Having grown weary of the ‘excesses’ hold Him, Christ, as He is.’ 20 To the of the uneducated, and therefore uncon- ‘separatists’ the correspondence courses trollable Initsiativniki , the authorities in were a means of educating pseudo- 1968 allowed the AUCECB to establish Christians who would be obedient to the Bible correspondence courses aimed at atheist authorities: providing the church with qualified pastors and leaders, and the State with ‘The AUCECB rushed to open the properly educated potential employees. Bible courses so that promising Already by 1975, the AUCECB newslet- young people capable of service ter was reporting on the successes of the would be educated in a spirit of sub- correspondence courses and on the hun- mission to illegal instructions […] dreds of graduates who moved on to AUCECB General Secretary A.M. become young, educated pastors. 19 Bychkov, alluding to the objectives of the Bible courses, said: “Servants While the correspondence courses of- of the Lord must have a lofty sense fered graduates the prospect of a career, of citizenship, knowledge of the Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 32

Issues addressed by the AUCECB educational policy were presented by A.M. Bychkov at the 42nd All-Union ECB Congress in 1979:

‘Our Bible corre- spondence courses, which we initiated in 1968, have continued efforts towards the theological training of ministers for ser- 2006: Mykhailo Cherenkov leads a discussion in Moscow vice in the ECB Un- on the future of Evangelicals ion, as well as in autonomous and existing legal provisions on cults. unregistered religious communities Our Bible courses are designed to and groups. […] This is greatly meet these objectives. […] Some helping our fellowship to improve forget that every believer is obliged evangelical work in the regions, to to carry out […] the legislation on educate pastors and laity, to cults” ( Bratstky Vestnik , No. 5, strengthen the unity of our fellow- 1972, pp. 65-66). What outrageous ship, as well as to prevent divergent robbery! Young people who might strains of doctrine.’ 23 serve God are being made to serve His enemies!’ 21 Against the institutionalisation of theo- logical education by the AUCECB, Init- According to Kryuchkov's memoirs siativniki leaders appeared uneducated. any candidate for theological education Yet the latter were able to turn this into a had to be interviewed by the KGB even virtue. When Khorev was on trial he during the early Khrushchev years: calmly handled questions about his ‘religious education’: ‘This was in 1956. I was 30 years old. In order to be sent abroad for ‘Expert Bible courses, AUCECB General : (Zykovetz-Trashchenko, Secretatry A.V. Karev suggested to PhD) Tell me, defendant, where did me that I write my autobiography you obtain your religious educa- and gave me as a sample a folder tion? Khorev containing the autobiographies of : I was educated at Christ's students who had applied for the feet, with the Gospel in my hands. courses […] Soon I was taken to the Expert : Do you think that your edu- KGB. I rejected all sorts of pro- cation is sufficient to make you posals for cooperation and, after a understand your actions? Perhaps long conversation, I was told: you broke the law because you “There is no point being afraid of lacked education and did not under- us. Without us among those who stand the policy of the Party and the serve the church, you wouldn't be government? 22 Khorev : I always acted consciously able to do a thing!”’ 24 and with clear understanding.’ Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 33

The attitude of the ‘separatists’ to edu- ‘God heard the perennial prayers of cation and theology followed from the His people about freedom to preach tenets of ‘evangelical simplicity’ and the the Gospel in our country and has ‘impending end of the world’, the pri- given us a situation in which with macy of practical love over dogmatic His help we can carry out this great knowledge. This attitude was expressed commission. You and I live in a well in an article by Vladimir Mart- historical period when the Lord has, sinkovsky which was published in the perhaps for the last time, presented journal Vestnik spaseniya (later repub- us with the opportunity to proclaim lished in Vestnik istiny 25 ): the Gospel on earth […] it is vitally urgent to teach people how to talk ‘Christianity is the love of Christ; about Christ to sinners, how to call not the thought of love, not memo- to repentance.’ 28 ries of a former love, but that very first love itself […] Let us remem- Bible courses and training for preach- ber not only our first personal en- ers and missionaries were organised by thusiastic Christian faith, but the the CCECB within a ‘programme of faith of the early church [...] independence’: Dogmas, forms, ideas were not the centre, the soul, the sacred passion ‘Bible courses have been established of this love but it was Christ Him- 26 by the CCECB on the spur of the self.’ moment against a backdrop of per- secution. This ministry has aimed For most believers education as a route to fulfil the spiritual needs of God's to social mobility or as preparation for people. The spirit of Christ's free- church ministry was closed. In re- dom has always reigned here. The- sponse to the need for trained CCECB se courses have never been a matter leaders, Gennadi Kryuchkov an- of bargaining with outsiders […] In nounced in 1976 the launch of Bible the years of freedom this ministry courses: was also protected from the influ- ence of western theology, and the ‘These will not be Bible courses in CCECB took upon itself the spiritu- the usual sense, but we hope with al responsibility for training pas- God's help to provide more litera- tors.’ 29 ture than is provided by even the standard Bible courses and gradual- If for the CCECB, theological education ly to offer all that is needed for six 27 was part of its programme of subjects.’ ‘independence’ and ‘freedom from cen- sorship’, then for the official church, the In 1977, an article entitled ‘Pursue Bible courses became a symbol of coop- Righteousness’ by N.G. Baturin, anoth- eration with and dependence on the er CCECB leader, was published in government. For the unregistered Vestnik istiny (No 4) and for the first church, the main aim of Bible courses time criticised the deficiencies of theo- was to train pastors for their own com- logical education and the Baptist munity; for the registered churches it church’s lack of seminaries and theo- was to develop cultured, educated logical colleges. Ten years later he ‘ministers of religion’ who were loyal to returned to the subject of education, the state. and associated it with mission:

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 34

Mission in an atheist society the only time the CCECB allowed itself a kind of ‘missiological liberal- For both the CCECB and the ism’ in one of its publications. AUCECB, questions about mission remained secondary for a long time, CCECB mission was focused primarily since both were faced with problems of on its own communities or on large survival – one faced constant repres- youth ‘gatherings’. 34 By the end of the sion, the other was constrained by the 1970s new forms of evangelism were state. For both missions were banned. adopted:

By 1965 the CCECB had already set ‘All across our country, it has long up a Department of Evangelists. Ac- been a tradition to hold youth gath- cording to reports, it appears that from erings on public holidays […] At that time hundreds of families set off to them, as a rule, calls for repentance serve as missionaries in distant areas, are always heard, because these such as the Far North of the USSR, the youth gatherings attract many non- Urals and Central Asia. 30 All this was believers, including those who carried out in complete secrecy (the persecute Christians. But Christian records were kept by the local church- youth ministry is not limited to es). Only in 1972 did the CCECB pub- such relatively rare gatherings […] lish information about missionary work At the end of last year in one of the in one of its samizdat publications communities of our fellowship, under the headline ‘News from Mis- cards were distributed on which sionary Fields’ with a report about an were written the names of villages international conference on the evange- where there were no believers, no lisation of students in Dallas (a Cam- divine services. After lengthy devo- pus Crusade mission), with information tional preparation, groups of young about the ministry of the Gideons, people and individual preachers about student missions in European were sent to these villages […] to universities, and also about the Jesus call at all the houses, urging all who Movement. 31 The following year a call desired to hear the Gospel mes- to young people to go on a mission to sage.’ 35 areas where the Gospel was unknown was published for the first time in a Mission then expanded to include pris- Baptist samizdat periodical. 32 ons, the local authorities and law- enforcement agencies. 36 When a judge In 1976, the CCECB’s publication asked Khorev whether he knew that Vestnik istiny published an article on religious services could only be organ- the success of the Jesus Movement, ised in specially designated places he citing the work of Billy Graham and replied: ‘One can preach anywhere! I materials from Christianity Today .33 am ready to preach even behind barbed The article was the first discussion of wire!’ 37 Trials were turned into places the specifics of working with young where the accused could witness to their people for whom Jesus was the ‘first faith. During a trial in Odessa, on 2-7 hippie’ and a ‘revolutionary hero’, and February 1967, the accused G.G. Bo- for whom it was worth ‘building a rushko in his final speech said: bridge over the chasm that separates young people from the church’; ‘As I was studying natural science, ‘changing the methods’ employed by the religious question appeared the church were advocated. This was before me in a whole new light. I Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 35

saw that the greatest scholarly pil- there is also no genuine evangelism. lars of science […] were sincere Every form of missionary activity believers. So I finally decided to by nominal Christianity is only an answer for myself the question: “Is imitation of true evangelism. Each there a God or not?” i.e. “To be or new generation of Christians must not to be a believer?” At this time I live through its own experience of read the Bible a lot, and through spiritual awakening, otherwise it much doubt I arrived at belief in will not be capable of spreading the God. My atheism, my unbelief was word to its own generation in the based on ignorance of the Bible.’ 38 world and in the sleeping church.’ 41

At her trial V.I. Alekseeva said: The position of the AUCECB on the church and mission in an atheist society ‘I thank God that today, on the day was expressed by A.V. Karev: of my spiritual birth, I have been counted worthy to sit in the dock. ‘The aim of Christianity in relation Citizen Judges, if faith in God has to atheism is not to confront but to brought me happiness and filled my create an atmosphere of dialogue heart to overflowing, then how can I with atheism. The Christian church not tell others about this. Further- is not a fortress with high walls more the Constitution guarantees erected to make it unassailable to freedom of conscience.’ 39 opponents. No, Christ’s church is a dwelling place, open to all. The Ya.N. Krivoi said in his defence speech: programme of socialist atheism includes matters which have not ‘We have a law about freedom of sufficiently concerned the Christian conscience, and it's against the law churches – social equality, racial to encroach upon a person's con- discrimination, exploitation of man science. Based on the laws of our by man, the fight against hunger, country, I have not committed any against the threat of war and nuclear crime before either society, or the destruction, and many other prob- state. And if I am to suffer as a lems facing humanity. […] it is not Christian, I am ready to bear chains. surprising that suffering humanity, I have been a Christian now for 40 disillusioned with Christianity, has years, and you will neither re- been drawn to confronting today’s educate me nor break me with any serious social problems which cry threats.’ 40 out for a solution.’ 42

A view of mission was presented by We see in the approach to mission of Vladimir Zinchenko, a young CCECB the AUCECB and CCECB the same leader in a Vestnik istiny article: opposing views as those on the state, society and education. One advocated ‘Genuine evangelism is not a theo- the social orientation of ministry, the logical course, it is not a religious other stressed the importance of integri- lecture and it is not a trendy Chris- ty, ‘staying firm’. For the AUCECB tian craze. Evangelism is the natural mission had to fit in with their frame- revealing of Christ dwelling within work of loyalty to the state and society, us, the warm breath of life of the while for the CCECB, the gospel had to awakened church. There, where remain ‘untainted’ with no societal role. there is no spiritual awakening, The anti-Soviet revolutionary minority Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 36

and the toothless assimilated pro-Soviet ical Christians-Baptists to promote majority were equally paralysed in their dialogue and evangelisation. From missionary activity: the one – too far this flows the other objectives of a removed from society to serve it – the union: not administrative leadership, other – too close to it to be distin- guishable from it and to offer it a valid alternative. Both the one and the other ended up as hostages to the Soviet system.

The unity of opposites?

To compare the forms and patterns of the registered and unregistered churches leads back to the question about whether these positions were really incompatible or irreconcila- ble. Towards the end of the Soviet era in October 1988 three leaders of evangelical churches which did Left to right: Dr Grigori Komendant, not belong to the AUCECB, called President of the Ukrainian Union of ECB Associ- for repentance for past sins in or- ations, 1990-2006, & Mykhailo Cherenkov der to restore unity to the church’s mission, without insisting on uniformity but support for the churches and the or joint leadership: cause of the Gospel. The structure of the union should also be based on ‘In connection with the creation of the priesthood of all the people. favourable external conditions and This means there would be no hier- other factors, the spiritual life of the archical structure.’ 43 people of God at a local level is steadily undergoing renewal. In This appeal remained unheard, as was many communities, especially the ‘Appeal of Christian Ecumenists’ among the younger members we drawn up on the margins of the are witnessing a marked increase in AUCECB in 1972 which stated: preaching the Gospel […] The AUCECB is not keeping up with ‘We can unite within our congrega- the changes taking place at a local tions, but once and for all we reject level, it is unable to lead and guide schismatic isolation, recognising evangelism in the right direction; that divisions within the Universal indeed it is holding it back. This is Church are only an external necessi- its nature; it cannot act in any other ty while at the same time it pre- way […] Not one of the existing serves its quest for inner unity. We unions can unify; on the contrary, are not creating a new church, we they are constantly struggling, each want to be peacemakers in the to expand its influence on the fel- “good and ancient” Church of lowship, which deepens the divi- Christ.’ 44 sion. We are not proposing yet an- other alliance. We do not propose to Today's examination of past models of reform or restore existing alliances. the church and its survival strategies is We propose a union of all Evangel- not the result of mere curiosity. Totali- Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 37

tarianism is not a thing of the past, but essential that these conceptions be manifests itself in new forms. As we overcome if we want to live in a have seen before, the evangelical humane society. Those with au- churches today are under pressure from thority and power can easily drive the state and the dominant church. any group into a corner, to the pe- Some people choose the politics of riphery of life, they can marginalise compromise, to adapt and to integrate; them while themselves exuding others choose rupture, separation, war religious snobbery, and then shak- with the world. The church’s experi- ing a finger at them, accuse them of ence of survival in the Soviet period narrowness, alienation from nation- can be a useful pattern for nonconform- al history.’ 45 ity, dissidence, freedom in the face of fear. To study the history of the Unfortunately the development of church’s divisions and the unsuccessful church alliances after the collapse of dialogue between different evangelical the USSR has not followed a path of de strands can be a good basis for address- -marginalisation, cultural constructive- ing mistakes and renewing relations. ness, theological analysis, historical re- evaluation, but a path of quantitative At the end of the Soviet era, attempts and political competition, further isola- were made to overcome Soviet and anti tion one from another and adaptation to -Soviet isolationism. The emergence an unregulated market and immature into a world that was neither Soviet nor democracy (as before some adapted by anti-Soviet, but something new, could integrating with the new order, and have widened and deepened the cultural others retreated even further into isola- field, theological knowledge and dia- tion). logue between traditions. An editorial in the revived Prokhanov journal, After the newly-acquired freedom, the Khristianin , published the policy state- official church started talking too soon ments of a group of new evangelical about entering society, forgetting the leaders: lessons of marginalisation under totali- tarianism, the Soviet traumas and the ‘Protestantism has not had time to enduring enmity between radical and develop its own culture in Russia, it modernist approaches. This hasty, naive has not had time to produce its own socialisation made the church vulnera- theologians, writers, scientists and ble: nobody wanted to lose any of the philosophers. Moreover, it has not ground gained, so everyone was ready even had time to recognise the need to make deals, trade in their principles. for this, as it limits itself to the sim- No less damaging has been the continu- plest, even primitive, understanding ing isolation of ‘sectarian’ groups – self of Christianity – with a defensive -sufficient ‘in principle’, beset with and conservative approach to spir- internal problems, and indifferent to the itual life. Russian Protestants were world and to mission in the world. The not only physically persecuted in religious life of the church has been the past; to this day they are regard- impoverished by both organised con- ed as “sectarians”. The reasons for formity and by radical isolationism. this attitude reside deep within our social history, in the conceptions An important lesson of Soviet history is formed by the Orthodox Church as the natural complementarity of the two the dominant, state religion. It is images of the church – the ‘official’

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 38

and the oppositional, the radical and the of the minority) and the ‘broad’ path modernist, the public and the clandes- (the path of the majority) are always tine, the path of the majority, and the interdependent. In the light of this path of the minority. No one from natural order and complementarity, the within these strands could see this, significance of church reformation unlike Fr Gleb Yakunin. 46 This dialec- (lauded by the ‘separatists’ and secretly tic between the different images of the dreamed about by the ‘registered’) can church provides the necessary dynamic be understood differently – it lies not in for the church’s development as a schism, in separation from the majority, whole. They complement each other in retreat from the world but rather in and are interdependent. For the majori- the renewal of a unified church and the ty the natural response to social chal- rebirth in it of such a variety of views lenge has been adaptation, while only a so as to make it impossible to control minority has turned to radicalisation or from outside. It is a pity that neither the isolation. This ‘sociology’ is applicable AUCECB nor the CCECB understood not only when comparing the two ori- this and thus failed to discover a fruit- entations, but it also ‘works’ within ful synergy and to win freedom from both; thus, the ‘narrow’ path (the path the Soviet past.

1. The most valuable documents are open letters, internal church correspondence, ap- peals and petitions, minutes of meetings and judicial proceedings, and also the Bap- tist samizdat. Keston Archive references are given in the footnotes. 2. ‘The new tactics of sectarian leaders ...were expressed as a formal recognition of the Soviet system, and were correspondingly reflected in a kind of “reconciliation” with Soviet reality. This was a tactic of accommodation replete with Christian-Socialist demagogy’ from Klibanov, A.I., Religious Sectarianism and Modernity . (Moscow: Nauka, 1969), 9. 3. This approach is described by Heather Coleman: ‘Just as their descendants would discover in the Brezhnev era, so evangelicals in the first three decades of the 20 th century found that their private spiritual experiences forced them willy-nilly into a public challenge to the political and cultural structures of their society. Evangelical ideas served at once to help believers to make sense of the cultural dislocations aris- ing from rapid modernisation and to articulate a place for themselves in the emerging society. Conversion to the Baptist faith served as motivation for demanding and living out an alternate vision of society to that sponsored by the Russian state’ in Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929 . (Bloomington and Indianapo- lis: University Press, 2005), 222. 4. ‘Sects are a special aspect of Russian history, its cultural underbelly and religious underground ... In Russia, religious dissent acquired an unusually radical character. It gave rise to unique ideas and modes of life, but never managed to enter into the main body of the culture. […] They [sects] all evolved in a clash between national tradi- tion and western influence’ in Etkind, A., Khlyst: Sekty, literatura i revolyutsiya (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 1998), 3. 5. Open Letter by Lydia Kryuchkova, August 1974. SU/Ini 74. 6. ‘Whether or not the attempt of Prokofiev and his supporters to purify and revitalise the ECB Church is ultimately successful, they may have triggered off an urge for reform which will sweep through all the Christian churches of the Soviet Union. If this should happen everywhere with such determination as has been shown in the ECB Church, Christianity may yet prove itself to be one of the most dynamic forces in the future evolution of Soviet society’ in Michael Bourdeaux, Religious Ferment in Russia. Protestant Opposition to Soviet Religious Policy . (London: MacMil- lan,1968), 189. Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 39

7. The trial of N.P. Shevchenko and I.D. Bondarenko. General overview of the trial. SU/ Ini/Docs 1962 Undated 8. ‘We would have kept silent had we known that we are not given any rights by law. However, there are words in the law on the freedom of religious expression, and in his Socialism and Religion V.I. Lenin wrote: “Religion must be of no concern to the state.”’ (Open Letter, Perm, 20 May, 1974, ECB). ‘Dear Leonid Ilich […] at con- gresses one thing is decided and approved by you, while what we are experiencing is, in fact, quite different. All manner of insults and the persecution of believers are not stopped; rather, they are increased, although we live in a free state, with an ad- vanced social order which guarantees freedom of conscience and religion’ (Open Letter, November 1973, Kiselevsk, ECB). 9. ‘We flee from tyranny and violence, from hard labour in Soviet camps. We run from the insults directed at our conscience, from intellectual depravity to which we have been demonically subjected for nearly 60 years …’ (31 May, 1979, ‘Statement to the UN from 45 Believers, Christians of Evangelical Faith [Pentecostals] and ECB’, Su/ pen 11/8). 10. Kryuchkov, G.K. ‘20 let po puti vozrozhdeniya’, Vestnik istiny , 1981, 3-4 (75-76), 13. 11. Georgi Vins explained that the church he headed rejected state control over church affairs, but recognised the Soviet state as such and did not resist it. However his church did not observe the state’s ban on religious work among children and young people because it wanted to stay true to the missionary command of the Gospel. (‘Vins says it: The Future belongs to Christians’, Church of England Newspaper , 28 September, 1979, 2.) 12. Obvinitel’noe zaklyuchenie po delu Vinsa Georgiya Petrovicha, Kiev, 1975. / USSR/ Ini 1/75 13. To the Amnesty Commission on International Human Rights from Lydia Makhailov- na Vins, 26 March, 1975. 14. Karev, A., Rozhdenie novogo mira [Birth of a New World]// A. Karev, Izbrannye stat’i . (Moscow: AUCECB, 1977), 168-179. 15. Progress Report from the AUCECB 42nd All-Union Congress of the ECB (General Secretary of the AUCECB A.M. Bychkov), Moscow, 18-20 December , 1979 SU/ Bap. 16. 13 May, 1969 Appeal from the Young Believers of Odessa and the Oblasts. SU/Ini . 17. ‘Solntse svetit vsem’, Kazakhstanskaya pravda , August-September1975, 3. 18. Progress Report from the AUCECB 42nd All-Union Congress of the ECB (General Secretary of the AUCECB A.M. Bychkov), Moscow, 18-20 December, 1979. 19. ‘More than ten young superintendents and nearly 200 pastors were recently selected to serve in different republics and regions of the Soviet Union. Many of them are graduates of the two-year Bible courses of the AUCECB’ (SU 12 Bap 20 Infor- mation bulletin 28/10/75). 20. Open Letter. ‘Khristianam vsego mira!’ [‘To Christians throughout the World!’] 7 June, 1974 SU/Ini. 21. ‘Vopros registratsii i sud’ba spaseniya’ [‘The Registration Issue and the Fate of Salvation’] Vestnik istiny , 1984, 1, 2-6. 22. Kryuchkov, G.K., ‘20 let po puti vozrozhdeniya’ Vestnik istiny , 1981, 3-4 (75-76), 7. 23. Progress Report from the AUCECB 42nd All-Union Congress of the ECB (General Secretary of the AUCECB A.M. Bychkov), Moscow: 18-20 December, 1979. 24. The trial of the Evangelist M.I. Khorev of the ECB Council of Churches (Moscow). Brief notes. 1966. 25. Martsinkovsky, V., ‘Pervaya lyubov’ Vestnik istiny, 1976.1 (63). 26. Martsinkovsky, V. ‘Khristos gryadushchii’ Vestnik spaseniya , 1967, 4 (20),12-16. 27. Kryuchkov, G.K., ‘Slovo otcheta.’ Vestnik istiny , 1976, 3-4 (55-56). 15. 28. Baturin, N.G., ‘Idite... nauchite...krestite’ Vestnik istiny , 1988, No. 2, 2-3.

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 40

29. ‘Programma – nezavisimost’ Vestnik istiny , 2011, No. 3, 33. 30. ibid., loc. cit. 31. ‘Vesti s polei missii’ Vestnik spaseniya , 1972, 1 (37), 36-38. 32. Smith, O., ‘Pismena i yazyki, vse eshche ne dostignutye Evangeliem’ Vestnik spaseniya , 1972, 2 (38), 27. 33. ‘Kharakternye priznaki “Iisus dvizheniya”’ Vestnik istiny , 1976, 1 (63), 16-19. 34. As Fr Gleb Yakunin observed, ‘In recent years, the Initsiativniki have begun organis- ing prayer meetings in major cities around the country (Rostov, Odessa), which believers from all over the country have been attending. At these meetings, dozens of young people are turning to God, receiving baptism, joining the community of be- lievers. Thus, hundreds of new converts are stepping forward in place of their arrest- ed brethren in the faith.’ (G. Yakunin, ‘O sovremennom polozhenii russkoi pra- voslavnoi tserkvi i o perspektivakh religioznogo vozrozhdeniya Rossii’ [The Current Situation of the ROC and Prospects for a Religious Revival in Russia.] SSSR: Vnu- trennie protivorechiya [Internal Contradictions]. Issue 3. Ed. . New York: 1982, 191.) 35. ‘Blagovestvuyushchaya molodezh’ Vestnik istiny , 1978, 1 (61), 29 36. ‘Russian people were “tired of atheism” and beginning to look for God again. There were Christians even among policemen and officers of the KGB and the Russian Secret Service.’ (‘Vins says it: The Future Belongs to Christians’ Church of England Newspaper , 28 September, 1979, 2.) 37. The trial of the Evangelist M.I. Khorev of the ECB Council of Churches (Moscow). Brief notes. 1966. 38. The Judicial Proceedings against the ECB Believers in the City of Odessa, 2-7 Feb- ruary, 1967, 112-113. 39. ibid., 122. 40. ibid., 104-105. 41. Zinchenko, V.P. ‘Podlinnoe blagovestie’ [‘Genuine Evangelism’] Vestnik Istiny , 1990, No.1, 2-3 42. Karev, A. ‘Chelovek i evangelie v ateisticheskom okruzhenii’ [‘Man and the Gospel in an Atheistic Environment’] in Karev, A., Izbrannye stat'i . Moscow: AUCECB, 1977, 70-173. 43. Kuksenko, Yu.F., Shaptala, M.T., Shumeiko, F.A. ‘Bratskoe predlozhenie ot slu- zhitelei nezavisimykh Tserkvei ECB’ [‘A Fraternal Offer from the Pastors of the ECB Independent Churches’] 17 October, 1988. 44. Prizyv khristian-ekumenistov, 1972 [Appeal of Christian Ecumenists] 1972 / USSR/ Bap 22. 45. ‘Vozrozhdennyi i novyi’ [‘The Reborn and New’] Khristianin , 1990, No. 1, 2-3. 46. ‘Within the church’s structure there are two communicating entities, built in a simi- lar fashion – two church bodies: the official one registered by the state and the unof- ficial, unregistered one. This dynamic structure allows the church to withstand the most severe pressure from the government, because pressure on the official part of the church only reinforces and strengthens the unregistered church" (G. Yakunin, ‘O sovremennom polozhenii russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi i o perspektivakh religioznogo vozrozhdeniya Rossii’ [‘The Current Situation of the ROC and Prospects for a Reli- gious Revival in Russia’] USSR: Vnutrennie protivorechiya [Internal Contradic- tions] Issue 3. Ed. Valery Chalidze. New York, 1982, 191.)

Dr Mykhailo Cherenkov was Provost of the Donetsk Christian University in Eastern Ukraine 2011-2013 and now works for Mission Eurasia. He is a professor at the Catholic University in Lviv and was awarded a scholarship in 2014 by Keston Institute to work in the Keston Center at Baylor.

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 41

Home News

Keston’s AGM will be held on Satur- day 7 November 2015 at the Royal Foundation of St Katharine, Butcher Row, London E14 8DS. The Chair- man looks forward to seeing Keston members and hopes as many as possi- ble will be able to attend.

Close contact with the Keston Center at Baylor has been maintained: Mi- chael Bourdeaux spent a few days working in the Keston Archive in December 2014 and was able to at- Keston Center Advisory Board meeting (27 tend the Keston Center’s Advisory February, 2015). Left to right: Dr Steve Gard- Board meeting on 3 December at ner (chairman), Xenia Dennen & Larisa Seago (archivist) with Raquel Gibson (in background) which Baylor’s President, Ken Starr, seconded to the Keston Center from the greeted Michael and made an im- Department of Museum Studies. promptu speech on the importance he attaches to religious liberty and the work at Baylor with Holocaust Studies, contribution Keston has made to it. In which command massive support wher- his report Michael drew attention to the ever they are undertaken. Like these on-going work of the Encyclopaedia the Keston Archive, he observed, team, stating that this fieldwork provid- speaks out to the world: ‘Never ed – even from a secular point of view again!’ (referring to the failed experi- – a unique insight, probably unparal- ment in social engineering, the exclu- leled elsewhere – into some aspects of sion of God from human affairs). Russia’s regions. Keston, he said, was conscious of the fact This year the Chair- that Russia now has a man visited Baylor for higher profile in the a Keston Center Advi- world media (for all sory Board meeting on the wrong reasons) 27 February and on than it has had for the previous day gave many years and that a public lecture about the time was ripe to Keston’s history and fulfil Keston UK’s its defence of perse- plans for presenting cuted Christians in the Dr Wallace Daniel & Xenia Dennen the kernel of the Ency- USSR which was clopaedia work in English in a one- followed by a panel discussion. Dr volume print edition. He also men- Wallace Daniel, a panel member (he tioned that the articles he had written helped engineer the transfer of the Ar- had been an attempt to keep the name chive to Baylor) spoke about Fr Gleb of Keston alive in the media. Later, at Yakunin, while Dr Steve Gardner, the an informal meeting Michael com- Advisory Board chairman, discussed mended the remarkable progress with the Russian Orthodox Church’s view of the Archive and compared Keston’s democracy. During the Advisory Board

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 42

meeting, the Director, Kathy Hillman, reported that 12,049 items had been catalogued as well as 14 audio tapes, while 100 boxes of material still awaited sorting. All issues of the Keston News Service had been digit- ised as well as 3,054 pages of Keston material. The digitising centre at Bay- lor now has a high-speed scanner which can scan 99 pages per minute!

Since the Chairman’s report to the The team in Sharya: (left to right) Fr Vitali Syshev, 2014 AGM, the Encyclopaedia team Fr Alexandr, Xenia Dennen, Roman Lunkin, Sergei have taken part in three field trips – to Filatov & Fr Dmitri Stepanov Kaliningrad in November, to Kostroma on the Volga in ans and had come from January this year and to Central Asia to settle in Kalmykia in March. Kaliningrad after the Second World War, had In Kaliningrad the team now emigrated to Germa- interviewed the city’s Ro- ny so not many Lutherans man Catholic priest, Rus- remained in the oblast . sian Orthodox leaders and Some of the fine former many Protestants. They Lutheran churches on talked to members of the territory which had once only Lutheran parish in the been part of East Prussia, city; almost 90% of Soviet Entrance to the Ipatiev were now used by the Germans who were Luther- Monastery, Kostroma Russian Orthodox: the team were struck by the gothic-style iconostasis in the Church of St Nicholas which had been con- structed to blend in with the church’s architecture. Before perestroika there had been no Russian Orthodox parish in the Kaliningrad oblast , so many Orthodox believers had found church- es to attend in neighbouring Lithuania. Highlights of the field trip to the Ko- stroma oblast included a somewhat hair-raising drive for 700km along nearly impassable snow-covered roads to a small town called Sharya, where the team interviewed a group of Ortho- dox clergy who ran a youth centre and social work programme. Another memorable encounter was with Fr Pyotr Andrianov, the Abbot of the Ipatiev Monastery which overlooks the Xenia Dennen outside Volga on the edge of Kostroma. The St Nicholas, Kaliningrad monastery was there, he said, ‘to help Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 43

Patrons Christians dedicate their life to God and neighbour… it is a place of self-denial, Dr Rowan Williams a brotherhood where the ideal of Chris- The Archbishop of Westminster tian life can be embodied.’ Kalmykia, The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain West of the Caspian Sea, was a great The Moderator of the Free Churches contrast to European Russia. It is one The Archbishop of Glasgow of the three Buddhist areas in the Rus- The Archbishop of Thyateira & Great Britain sian Federation, and although the team Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia were told that about 20% of the popula- tion were Russian Orthodox, these they 28 years in the until his release found were mostly Russians, not Kal- in 1957. Elistaev’s parents had been myks. On their field trip to Elista, the born in Siberia and knew nothing about Buddhism, but his grandmother had observed rituals and meditated every evening, he said. When his father had died the family had carried out all the correct rituals but in secret, at night. Further information on the religious situation in the area was provided by Basan Zakharov whom Roman Lunkin had contacted through Facebook! He

The main Buddhist temple in Elista capital, in 2012 the Encyclopaedia team had visited the main Buddhist temple and learned about official Buddhism Left to right: Roman Lunkin, Xenia Dennen, which follows the Tibetan tradition, but Basan Zakharov & Sergei Filatov this time they wanted to find out about unofficial Buddhist groups. Bator Elis- headed a group of young people who taev, a Kalmyk intellectual who had were followers of a pagan pre-Buddhist studied in the early 1990s at the Bud- philosophy called Tengrianstvo, which, dhist temple in St Petersburg, ran one Zakharov claimed, was at the root of such unofficial group. His first teacher, Kalmyk culture: ‘ Tengrianstvo is the he related, had been one of the few philosophy of the future; it is about remaining Buddhist monks who had harmony with oneself, with others, with resisted Soviet pressure to marry and the environment – one day it needs to live a secular working life; he had spent spread throughout the world.’

Keston Institute PO Box 752, Oxford OX1 9QF [email protected] www.keston.org.uk

Keston Newsletter No 21, 2015 44