Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929

4. The Baptist Challenge

4 The Baptist Challenge Although the official classification of the shtundists as a “most dangerous sect” lapsed with the declaration of religious toleration of 1905, the notion of danger nevertheless continued to pervade discussions in government and church circles of the rapid rise of the Baptists. The Baptists’ vibrant activity seemed to threaten not just the national identity of the Russian state but also the very conception of society and power that imperial institutions embodied . Baptist associational life in particular attracted widespread attention. The 1905 Revolution had forced into the open the question of the relationship between the institutions of the autocracy and the Russian population. To both their opponents within the church and state, and their champions among the intelligentsia, discussions of the Baptist phenomenon provided a means for debating the emergence of civil society and its challenges to the traditional order. While liberals and the Left may have applauded these developments , for officials in the Ministry of the Interior the Baptist movement represented a facet of the problem of the rights and roles of the citizen in the state. At the same time, as the Orthodox Church wrestled with redefining the position of the laity in the church polity, the Baptists’ participatory model also loomed large. The Baptist organizing “storm” that Vasilii Ivanov described after 1905 took place against a backdrop of rising government hostility, a resurgence 67 Coleman, Russian Baptists 2/7/05 12:03 PM Page 67 of the Orthodox anti-sectarian mission, and popular violence. The Baptists disrupted traditional social, religious, and political relationships. The responses of the state, the state church, ordinary villagers, and members of educated society to the Baptists’ activities reveal the complicated process of making sense of the ideas enunciated in 1905. By 1908 and 1909 the missionary and organizational work of those first revolutionary years was beginning to coalesce as new congregations were formed, the evangelical press expanded, and communities founded youth groups, Sunday schools, and other institutions . This efflorescence coincided with the onset of a period of political retrenchment for the Russian autocracy, after the radical Second Duma was dissolved and a more restrictive electoral law introduced on 3 June 1907. Almost immediately, for example, the government launched a rather successful campaign to destroy the trade unions—an ominous development for other public organizations.1 However, the Octobrist leadership in the conservative Third Duma was officially committed to enacting the freedom of religion proclaimed in the October Manifesto of 1905, and so the issue of the rights of religious minorities remained open to debate, at least until the defeat of the Duma’s legislative proposals in late 1909 and 1910. This was also a period of restored confidence and strident conservatism for the national church: on the ground, 1908 saw the first coordinated steps to respond to the religious challenges unleashed in 1905; meanwhile, in the corridors of power in St. Petersburg, the voice of the Holy Synod in defense of the traditional prerogatives of the Orthodox faith reasserted its influence. Opinion makers on the Left and the Right entered the fray to debate the significance of Baptist successes and struggles as markers in the evolving political and cultural situation. This contest of perceptions was colored by the concrete background of popular violence against evangelicals in the villages. For in the village, too, the converts were perceived as dangerous—to traditional family, social, religious, and political relationships. The disorder arising from Baptists’ experiments in forging new kinds of religious communities helped to keep on the national agenda questions about the basic instincts of “the Russian people,” about the suitability to Russians of the pluralist social model implied in the promises of 1905, and the general political and social implications of religious change. government policies and perceptions Several government agencies had dealings with religious sectarians. Primary responsibility lay with the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Initially, this was the dominion of its Department of General Affairs. In 1909, the affairs of sectarians and Old Believers were transferred to the ministry’s Department of Spiritual Affairs of Foreign Confessions.2 Also involved with sectarian issues were the Department of Police (another division of the Ministry of Internal Affairs) and, for appeals of the decisions of local courts, the Ministry the most dangerous sect 68 Coleman, Russian Baptists 2/7/05 12:03 PM Page 68 of Justice and the Senate. The...