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How Indigenous Was the Baptist Movement in the Russian Empire?

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How Indigenous Was the Baptist Movement in the Russian Empire? How Indigenous Was the Baptist Movement in the Russian Empire? Albert W. WARDIN, Nashville, USA © A.W. Wardin, Jr., 2009 n reviewing a religious movement, the question often arises: IHow indigenous is it? Such a question often produces intense debate. Some researchers stress the contribution of the foreign missionary as against others who stress the role of native person nel, divorcing a movement from all Western or imperialistic as sociations. In a recent issue of the International Bulletin of Mis sionary Research, Jeffrey Cox, who has written on British mis sionary history, has come to the conclusion: «Yet Third World Christian churches are neither independent of Western influenc es nor purely indigenous; in historical terms, they are hybrid, the results of a dialectical relationship between missionaries and non Western Christians.»[1] What about Baptists in Russia? From the start, Baptists have Albert W. Wardin is professor emeritus of been attacked for being a foreign import, incompatible with the history at Belmont culture of the country and a threat to society. N. I. Petrov, in his University in Nashville, article, «Novyya svedeniya o shtundisme,» wrote: Tennessee, where he taught 26 years, and a former …in the beginning of the 70s missionaries of Baptism were president of the Southern deliberately sent out from Hamburg to the German Kherson Baptist Historical Society. colonies; they find there fortuitously Ukrainian workers—people He is author or editor of for a long time already isolated from the family and society with various historical works, the church [—] without difficulty they master them and turn them including Baptists around into an instrument of spreading their heresy among the people, the World: A Comprehensive never having had knowledge of the heresy.[2] Handbook (1995). Dr. Wardin is a lifelong One of the chief proponents of rejecting the indigenous char Baptist. His grandparents acter of the evangelical movement or Stundism in Russia is Al came from Baptist families exii Dorodnitsyn, a Russian Orthodox antisectarian missionary, who migrated to the United States from East Prussia in Germany and the [1] Jeffrey Cox, “What I Have Learned About Missions from Writing The British Ukraine. Missionary Enterprise Since 1700,” International Bulletin of Missionary Research, XXXII/2, (April, 2008): 8687. [2] Trudy Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii, No. 3 (1887): 383. Theological Reflections #10, 2009 167 Albert Wardin later a bishop and rector of Kazan Reli became the state church of Byzantium or gious Academy, a collector of official doc the Eastern Roman Empire and later entered uments, and writer of a number of works Russia. Russian Orthodoxy itself is a on Stundism and Baptists. His 1903 foreign implantation, along with other work, Yuzhno Russkii Neobaptism», izvest Christian groups that have entered the nyi pod» imenem» shtundy (SouthRussian Russian state. Neobaptism, known by the name Stun Second, the Baptist movement itself da), first of all identifies the Baptist move has had a varied history. One might start ment with continental Anabaptism, in four hundred years ago with John Smyth, cluding its revolutionary manifestation in an Englishman living in The Nether Munster, Germany—an old falsehood. He lands, but his movement of General Bap rejects the thesis that Ukrainian tists soon transported itself to England. Stundism arose from the German colonies Another segment of the Baptist denomi in Russia but insists it is a product of Ger nation, Particular Baptists, began in En man Baptist missionaries from abroad. He gland but soon spread to Wales and Ire wrote at a time of intense Germanopho land. Both movements reached America. bia, a fear of Germans and Germany that Finally, in the early nineteenth century was also directed against the German col Baptists arrived on the European conti onists in Russia. In such a climate, Ortho nent. Although Johann Oncken, the fa dox writers, upholding Russian autocra ther of the continental European Baptist cy and Orthodoxy as the only legitimate movement, was Germanborn, in his religion for native Russians/Ukrainians, younger years he lived in the British Isles stressed the German ties with Stundism or where he learned English. In Hamburg, the Baptists, thereby discrediting both in Germany, he joined an English Reformed the eyes of the populace. But can such a Church. In his missionary work, the word position be sustained? soon circulated about a «new English faith»[3] 1. Dispersion of Religious Bodies Mikhail Timoshenko, a Russian Bap tist leader, in his 1911 article, «Baptisty i Before one considers these contentions, one ikh» protivniki» (Baptists and their ad should first of all consider some other versaries), declared, «The Baptist move factors. First, from its beginning among ment is not foreign but clearly interna Aramaicspeaking Jews in Jerusalem, tional. For as all people on the earth need Christianity has remarkably flowed from bread, water and air, so also all need spir one foreign culture to another. It spread to itual nourishment.»[4] Baptists are not a Hellenistic Jews and then to Greekspeaking cult with their own special revelation. It Gentiles. In the West it reached Latin is a movement that tries to approximate speaking peoples and later Germanic, Celtic, the faith and life of the apostolic church and English peoples. In the East it spread and to proclaim to all in any nation the to Armenians and Copts in Egypt and gospel of Jesus Christ. But all religious movements come in a cultural garb. And [3] Hans Luckey, Johann Gerhard Oncken und die so the question still remains—how indig Anfange des deutschen Baptismus, (Kassel: J. G. Oncken, 1934), 7071. enous to Russia was the Baptist move [4] Baptist, No. 9 (1911): 69. ment? 168 Áîãîñëîâñêèå ðàçìûøëåíèÿ #10, 2009 How Indigenous was the Baptist Movementin the Russian Empire? 2. Stundism meters northeast of Odessa, became an Years before Baptists appeared in the other important Stundist center. Ivan G. Russian Empire, other Protestants such as Ryaboshapka (1831–1900), who lived Lutherans and Reformed had already ar nearby, also from German Stundist influ rived some centuries before, settling not ence and reading the Scripture, became a [5] only in towns but especially as German believer and a Stundist leader. colonists in southern Russia. Stundism, a Besides the influence of German pietistic movement stressing personal re Stundism, indigenous elements within ligious experience and holy living, took Ukrainian society also pushed the first root among the German colonists. Ukrainian believers towards Stundism. Stundism came from the German word, Of first importance was the circulation of «Stunde,» meaning «hour.» Stundists, led the Scripture. For some years the British by the laity, gathered for an hour or more and Foreign Bible Society, although un for prayer, Bible reading, and singing. der restriction, circulated various transla German Stundism was primarily a move tions of the Bible, including Russian. In ment within the established Lutheran 1861 the Holy Synod of the Orthodox and Reformed churches. Their adherents, Church produced its own Russian version by and large, were not separatists but re of the four Gospels and in the following mained in their own parish churches, at year the complete New Testament. The [6] tending services and observing the sacra Old Testament would come later. ments, including infant baptism. Another factor was the emancipation German Stundism influenced neigh of the serfs in 1861. Even though emanci boring Ukrainian villages. The Reformed pation did not meet the full expectations parish of Rohrbach, northeast of Odessa, of the peasant masses, it nevertheless was with its pastor, Karl Bonekemper, was an a significant turning point in Russian so important Stundist center, even attract ciety. Peasants were no longer tied to the ing neighboring Orthodox peasants to land and were free to move. With econom their meetings. One such peasant was ic emancipation came also an emancipa Mikhail T. Ratushnyi (ca. 1830–1915), tion of the mind; new ideas were possible who, from Stundist influence and reading and literacy became a more attainable the Scripture for himself, became an evan goal. gelical believer at the beginning of the A third factor was the vulnerable po 1860s. As a Stundist leader, he led his fol sition of the Orthodox Church, the estab lowers to break with the Orthodox lished church for the native Slavic peoples Church and in time accept Baptist prin of the nation. On the one hand, the ciples. church was powerful, protected by laws Because of the influence of Ephraim that forbade heresy and the proselytism of Pritzkau and his son Johann, the German its adherents. On the other hand, it was colony of AltDanzig, a number of kilo failing to meet many of the religious needs of the population. Although able to ad minister the rites of the church, priests [5] Quarterly Review (July 1874): 56. were often poorly trained, possessing lit [6] William Canton, A History of the British and Foreign Bible Society (London: John Murray, 1904 tle biblical knowledge, and frequently 1910), III, 34064. lived on no higher a moral level than their Theological Reflections #10, 2009 169 Albert Wardin own parishioners with their addiction to helped to create among the Orthodox a drink and other vices. Priests conducted critical attitude toward the Orthodox the liturgy in Old Church Slavonic, a lan faith but that few Ukrainians became guage the masses did not understand, and pure Lutherans or pure Reformed. On the their lack of preaching left the people with other hand, he stated that Russian little or no biblical understanding of the Stundism borrowed more from various Christian faith. Piety was centered on the Protestant sects, including the Baptists. rites of the church that included the sac He felt that Russian Stundism took the raments, worship before icons, relics, and greater part of its Protestant teaching in special fasts and holy days.
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