LEONID MIKHOVICH

 An abridged extract from the author’s 2021 Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam doctoral thesis with the above title

Traditional worship in Russianspeaking Baptist churches is rarely analyzed from historical and theological perspectives, especially by Russian-speaking Baptists themselves. My own interest in this topic and position as a researcher should be clarified at the outset, as my upbringing, age, education, and ministry all affect my view. I grew up in a Baptist home in Soviet-era Belarus and have been visiting Baptist churches since my childhood. Our first family trips were aimed at attending worship services in remote villages. There, as children and teenagers, we could put our gifts into practice by reciting poems, participating in music ministry, and preaching our first sermons. During the Soviet era, attending the worship of Evangelical churches1 —including illegal gatherings—and  participating in them, determined the identity and way of life of a believer to a much greater extent than nowadays. I am also interested in researching traditional worship as a Baptist minister—I take part in the planning and conducting of such worship, and I preach on a regular basis. This subject is also of particular importance to me as one of the leaders of the Belarusian Baptist Union and the rector of its seminary. 

In this case, “traditional worship” refers to the typically two-hour sermon- and hymn-based worship which has dominated in Belarusian Baptist churches for the last century or so. Among its prominent characteristics are two to four sermons, three or four congregational songs using the hymnal Pesn’ Vozrozhdeniia [Russian: Song of Revival], piano and choir, and communal prayer open to all church members. Belarusian Baptists do not use the definition “traditional” themselves, and such a traditional form does not have the status of mandatory law for churches. For that reason, the presence, number, and sequence of certain components may vary somewhat in different churches at different times. However, they are united by similar “deep structures” of worship and a stable set of values and characteristics. 

In most churches—especially those with a well-established form of gathering— getting together is called a bogosluzhenie [Russian: “divine service”], which is analogous to the German word Gottesdienst. This also reflects the Russian Synodal translation of the Bible, where the term “divine service” is used four times: Jeremiah 52:18; Romans 9:4; Hebrews 9:1, and Hebrews 9:6. 

Due to close relationships between Russian-speaking Baptist churches during their formation, a similar type of worship was common across the former Soviet Union. Such congregations in Russia, Ukraine, Latvia, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, and other republics followed—and many still follow—the same pattern, with only slight modifications. It is therefore possible to use the term “Russian-speaking Baptist worship” as a synonym for traditional worship in those contexts. Furthermore, many Russian-speaking churches in the United States and other countries also worship in this “traditional” way. 

Given the lack of a more established status for the Belarusian language and Belarusian national identity, however, one cannot point to a specifically “Belarusian” type of Baptist worship. As it stands today, the character of public Baptist worship in Belarus has been influenced more by regional ties than by national identity. Meetings in southwestern Belarus, for example, are somewhat closer in spirit to meetings in northwestern Ukraine, where there is more in common than with churches in the north of Belarus.

The vast majority of Baptist churches in Belarus belong to the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Belarus (UECBB), which as of 2018 had 252 member churches. I have visited more than 100 of these, and on about 70 of those occasions I observed worship, took notes and photographs, and studied the worship space. Several times during my research, I also visited two large and influential independent churches in the southwestern city of Brest, namely the Church at 61/1 Fortechnaia Street and Christmas Church, in addition to four “unregistered” churches.2 The principal time-frame of my research was 2008–17. My guiding question has been: How is implicit theology related to understandings of established Baptist worship in Belarus? Or, to be more specific: How have historical, political, religious, and theological contexts influenced this particular type of worship? 

Historical background

Evangelical Christianity reached Belarus from several geographical sources. A seminal book on the history of Evangelical Christian-Baptist churches in the former Soviet Union identifies four primary ones: southern Ukraine, Siberia, Germany and Austria, and the United States.3 My analysis demonstrates that while the Evangelical movement in Belarus indeed emerged from several sources, it was also marked by spontaneity. 

From the mid-19th century, poor peasants began to move from Belarus to southern Ukraine in search of employment. After being introduced to the Gospel there, some were converted and began to preach to their neighbors and relatives upon returning home, thus establishing the first communities in southeastern Belarus. One such peasant was Dmitry Sementsov. Encountering Baptists in southern Ukraine, he joined them there in the city of Odesa [Odessa]. In 1877 he returned to Belarus, where he gathered a group of Evangelicals and established a church in his village of Usokhi, Gomel Region, in 1879. By 1885 this group had grown to 95 members. The influence of a southern Ukrainian source has also been detected in other villages in Gomel Region, as well as parts of neighboring Mogilev Region. By 1905 there were at least two more Baptist churches on that territory, comprising around 500 members (including children) by early 1906. Northern Belarus experienced other influences, namely from the Baltic region and the neighboring Russian region of Pskov. 

The planting of churches increased considerably during and after the First World War. Returning refugees and prisoners-of-war contributed to this ministry. One was Luka Gladky, who came to faith in Austria in 1914. When he returned home, he was thought to be deranged because he read a New Testament that he had brought back with him, abstained from alcohol and tobacco, and was bold enough to remove all icons from the walls. Eventually his mother and sisters joined his faith, and a home church was founded in Otradnoe, a village near Soligorsk in Minsk Region. Gladky then founded the church in the nearby village of Lesovnia.4 

Another connection may be traced to the United States, where some Belarusians also went in search of employment. Converted in the United States, they started to share their faith on return to their homeland. One was Afanasy Gurin of Selishche village, near the city of Pinsk in Brest Region. When Gurin was asked about his conversion, he reportedly replied: “While I was staying in America, I went to a sectarian school, where I learned to read and write and also learned the sectarian doctrine, which was the reason for my joining the sect.”5 (Here, the terms “sectarian” and “sect” are attributable to the Orthodox missionary who recorded the conversation with Gurin, for Evangelical Christians did not use such terms.) 

The Evangelical movement also spread to what is now Belarus from areas now in modern-day Poland. For example, Lukash Dzekuts’-Malei (1888-1955)—a renowned Belarusian public figure, pastor, and preacher who translated the New Testament into Belarusian—moved to Brest after being converted in the Polish city of Białystok. There, he encountered Evangelicals and was baptized by German Baptists in 1912.6 Dzekuts’-Malei actively ministered in and around Brest, and his church had over 800 members by 1926. Within a few years, 19 Evangelical churches were planted in Brest Region, with services held at another 70 locations. By 1937 the Baptist Union centered in Brest had 85 churches, 275 affiliates, and 13,800 believers. 

Here in western Belarus—which was part of Poland after 1921—the Evangelical movement developed later than in eastern Belarus, but it proved to be especially effective at church planting. This was despite the fact that Poland directed efforts towards quenching the movement via its local administrations and police. Since the majority of its books were printed in Russian, the Protestant movement was considered to be “undesirable for Polish statehood.”7 The authorities could forbid believers from teaching choir singing, distributing religious literature among church members, and teaching people religion. Nevertheless, Evangelicals on Polish territory managed to carry out dynamic missionary activity, organize Bible and choir director courses, and distribute Bibles and New Testaments, because they had more freedom than their fellow believers in the eastern— then Soviet—part of Belarus. Thus, from 1922-29, their followers increased eightfold to 7,865. Baptist churches in Belarus today still enjoy the fruit of this activity—the town of Kobryn, for example, has the largest Baptist house of prayer in the country. 

the service of God’s children. We drove all night and at dawn came into the city. At 10 a.m., brothers and sisters as well as visitors gathered from all the neighborhoods of Brest, and the house was filled. The meeting was opened by singing “I Hear Thy Voice” and prayer. Brother Dzekuts’-Malei read from the prophecy of Isaiah 12, and instructed brothers and sisters. Two brothers then shared about Christ. The meeting ended at 12 o’clock. After the meeting, four people gave their hearts to the Lord.10

Active opposition from the state, the official Orthodox Church, fellow villagers, and even close relatives by no means prevented conversions to Evangelical Christianity. On the contrary, it contributed to a distinct expression of indigenous faith culture conveyed, for example, in the minor key of many worship tunes. For, as Pavel Pavlov, one of the leaders of the Baptist Union, claimed, an exotic plant from overseas would not have survived on Russian soil.11 Instead, the RussianUkrainian-Belarusian Evangelical community, starting from individual communities in the first period of its existence (1867- 1917) and having survived two periods of severe persecution in the 1890s and 1920-30s, grew by more than 200,000 members. 

The growth of the Evangelical movement in Belarus demonstrates Baptists’ flexibility, as they adapted forms and content in order to implement Baptist beliefs and practices within their own culture and to create distinct Belarusian/ Russian churches. Evangelical leaders were evidently aware of the problem of adaptation. They wondered how a revival with an English character in St. Petersburg could become a revival in the broader Russian-speaking environment. Such questions included doctrinal and social issues, in addition to patterns of worship. 

Prokhanov viewed the Evangelical movement as a national reformist movement and argued that the Evangelical Church was equivalent to the restored early Christian Church in its teaching. Just as Prokhanov addressed broader societal and cultural issues, Dzekuts’-Malei’s work encompassed a variety of cultural, linguistic, and educational aspects. He helped found the cultural society Belaruskaia hatka and translated the New Testament into the Belarusian language. With his fellow workers, he taught not just about Christianity but also general subjects, and organized shelters and nursing homes. In this manner Dzekuts’-Malei wished to introduce the Gospel into everyday life and to promote Baptist faith and practice as a potential national religion of Belarus. However, contextualization required time and effort. It had taken several decades, for example, before Eastern Slavic Protestantism learned to write indigenous hymns and for the influence of Western hymnal literature to diminish. 

Yet it is important to note that, while the new Evangelicals emphasized independence and originality, they did not reject the experience or help of Western believers, whose way of thinking about worship still became a model for many churches. The process of adopting Western ideas was not always smooth, however, and it was accompanied by failures as well as successes. In this regard, it is interesting to note how the borrowing of Western hymns by Russian-speaking churches was assessed in different Slavic Evangelical contexts. Princess Sophia Liven (1880-1964), an active Evangelical Christian, addressed the practice of some educated representatives of the upper class in St. Petersburg of translating hymns into Russian. She believed that “the new living church was in need of spiritual hymns… but as for the tunes—they were primitive in regard to music, and were somewhat alien to the Russian ear, as they were an exact repetition of the English ones.”12 

The issue of contextualization again became fresh after the fall of the Iron Curtain, when Western forms and practices were reintroduced into Russian-speaking churches. The links between various Western churches and Evangelical ChristianBaptist churches in Belarus have encountered similar tensions. Many Baptist believers would express their discomfort with new forms of praying—such as being seated rather than standing or kneeling, as has been their custom—or being asked to pray in small groups of people, rather than as a whole congregation. Some believers are offended by humor in a sermon, by laughter and applause in the house of prayer, and by lack of respect shown to the Bible as a book. 

It is hard to imagine a study of worship without an analysis of liturgical texts. Yet there are few items directly associated with traditional Baptist worship in Belarus: namely, the Bible, hymnal(s), and collections of poetry. There are neither prayer books nor written texts and directions, including for Communion, funerals, weddings, ordinations, and baptisms. There are some other useful items that have indirect relation to worship services, however. Bratskii Vestnik [Fraternal Messenger] magazine is an indispensable resource for the study and analysis of Russian-speaking Baptist worship, as it was the only legal Baptist magazine published bi-monthly from 1945 to 1993. (In 2005, the publication was relaunched as a press organ of the Euro-Asian Federation of the Unions of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.) In the Soviet era this publication united churches and smaller groups of believers, and in the absence of other theological resources or means of communication it is difficult to overstate its role.

The leadership of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB) considered “proper formation” of church members “both from the spiritual and civil point of view” to be the main objective of the magazine.13 Bratskii Vestnik covered various aspects of church life, published sermons, articles for Christian edification, commentaries on biblical texts, information about how the leaders of the Union and its regional units visited churches, as well as what decisions the Union made. Many communities practiced communal reading of the magazine, such as reading it aloud before the start of a worship service. Nevertheless, it was an official publication controlled by the Soviet authorities, and so a considerable amount of information on church life was avoided, especially regarding the forced closure of churches, arrests, and the activity of unregistered churches. Yet in the almost complete absence of other literature or information sources, its spiritual influence was still felt far beyond Moscow. To provide a personal example, my brothers and I used Bratskii Vestnik to prepare our sermons when we were only teenagers, making use of “Meditations for Preachers” by Aleksandr Karev, who was chief editor of the magazine, as well as AUCECB General Secretary, from 1944 until his death in 1971. 

Orthodox influences

The religious—and particularly Orthodox—context has played an important role in the formation of traditional Baptist worship in Belarus. Obvious examples are services dedicated to events in the life of Christ, such as the Baptism of the Lord, the Meeting of the Lord (held on 15 February to commemorate the Presentation of Christ in the Temple— Luke 2:22-38) or the Transfiguration. Annunciation Day draws attention to Mary, but she is presented not as an intercessor, patron, or Mother of God, but as a model of humility and obedience to God’s will who still needs salvation. 

Christmas celebrations also reflect the Orthodox context. The 21st century has seen the transition of most Belarusian Baptist churches to celebrating Christmas in line with the West on 25 December. However, many continue to celebrate Christmas for a second time on 7 January [Editor’s note: when many Eastern Orthodox celebrate Christmas] and use this “Second Christmas” primarily for evangelism. “First Christmas” is rather for internal church use and an awareness of unity with Evangelicals in foreign countries. The content of both Christmas worship services is generally the same. Yet in January, to take Golgotha Church in Minsk as an example, the worship service has an evangelistic focus and there is a call to repentance. In other churches—including at two other Minsk churches, Light of the Gospel and Bethlehem—there may be evening theater performances for non-Christian audiences. 

The secular New Year celebration is a special period dedicated to being alert, even though the numerous Christmas events and concerns do not always allow concentration on prayer. Committed church members still try to attend all worship services—meaning that, during a period of 16 days, one could visit up to 20 services. However, this is the only time of the year when there is such a large number of meetings. This results from the “two” Christmases as well as New Year between them, and the fact that Sunday services are never canceled, regardless of the days of the week on which Christmas and New Year fall.

The schedule of the Church at 61/1 Fortechnaia Street in Brest offers a typical example of the 2012-13 holiday season in a large church: 

23 December (Sunday) – morning and evening services. 

24 December (Monday) – evening service on “Western” Christmas Eve. 

25 December (Tuesday) – morning and evening services on Christmas Day. 26 December (Wednesday) – morning and evening services on the second day of Christmas. 

27 December (Thursday) – regular weekly prayer service. 

30 December (Sunday) – morning and evening services. 

31 December (Monday) – a New Year’s Eve evening service.

 1 January (Tuesday) – a New Year daytime service. 

2-4 January (Wednesday to Friday) – prayer services every evening. 

6 January (Sunday) – morning and evening services on “Orthodox” Christmas. 

7 January (Monday) – morning and evening services continuing Christmas celebrations. 

Although services during the Easter season are less frequent, there still may be eight services over the nine days from Palm Sunday to Easter Monday. The importance of Easter is also reflected by the length of the season. While Christmas motifs are gone in a week or two, Easter is remembered for 40 days in many churches. Here, worship also reflects Orthodox context. On Easter Day itself, besides the singing of the Paschal troparion by the congregation [“Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!], ministers greet participants with the words “Christ is risen!” This is usually repeated three times, the congregation responding “He is risen indeed!” on each occasion. Worship services begin in this manner until Ascension. Orthodox origins and surroundings, perhaps in combination with national specifics, also account for Baptist restraint and reverence—especially in prayer—and the demonstration of respect to the worship location. In particular, kneeling during prayer is practiced in traditional Baptist worship services, although in recent times people may also stand during the service. Prayer in the sitting position would not be considered appropriate at a traditional meeting. 

Singing is another bridge leading to the permeation of Orthodox theology and worship character into traditional Baptist communities. As far back as the 1860s, some Evangelical Christians who had split from Orthodoxy continued to sing Orthodox devotional songs before their own hymns were written.14 A favorite hymn of Evangelical believers remains “Strashno bushuet zhiteiskoe more” (“The Sea of Life Is Terribly Raging”), written in the 19th century by Ivan Kulzhinsky, an Orthodox school teacher in Chernigov, Ukraine. The author’s ad hoc examination in early 2008 of the repertoires of the first choir of Light of the Gospel Church in Minsk revealed that a third of the hymns regularly sung in worship there were the work of Orthodox authors. The Baptist style of performance, however, tends to be more classical and vivacious compared to the style of singing of the same hymns by the Orthodox. 

Another key point is the way in which Baptists use general terms for baptism, the Lord’s supper, marriage, dedication of children, ordination, consecration of a house of prayer, and prayer over the sick. These are referred to as “church acts,” but the terms “sacred rites,” “commandments,” and even “sacraments” are also in use, pointing to Orthodox influence. Thus, it is not uncommon for a preacher—when praying over the bread before communion—to ask, “O Lord, bless this sacrament,” or for a believer to pray for the “holy sacrament of Eucharist.” (Adopted in 2003, The Doctrine of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists’ Faith in Belarus names baptism and the breaking of the bread as the Lord’s commandments, while the other “rites”—marriage, dedication of children, ordination, consecration of a house of prayer, and prayer over the sick— are considered to be “church acts.” It is noteworthy that seven are listed, suggesting a parallel with the seven sacraments of the Orthodox Church.). 

Another significant area of influence concerns special prayers for the needs of believers. As in the Orthodox Church, these play an important role in the Baptist worship service. In small churches, believers name their prayer requests aloud, whereas in larger churches, worshippers send notes listing their requests to the pastor before or during the service. While this practice resembles prayer in Orthodox churches, the Orthodox have established a set of rules for writing and submitting prayer notes; for example, these notes should not contain a person’s last name or patronymic, title, rank, or degree of relation. 

Finally, there are echoes of Orthodox practice in the tradition of decorating houses of prayer with biblical texts, which goes back to the very beginning of the Evangelical movement in Belarus, when worship services were held in believers’ homes. Even today, in the “red corner” (the corner of the sitting room opposite the entrance and between the windows, where there would be a cross and/or an icon in an Orthodox household), elderly Christians often display the text: “God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth” [John 4:24]—a clear indication of the disapproval of the Orthodox practice of icon veneration. It would be much easier to place a framed Scripture on a wall but—located in this particular corner—the reference to worshipping in spirit and in truth explains the absence of an icon. 

Such artifacts, however, may also gain an “iconic” value in themselves. Baptists’ zeal in filling their houses or apartments with Scriptures could possibly explain a recommendation in Bratskii Vestnik that “in the home of a Christian everything should contribute to spiritual joy and glory to the Lord. There should be no more than two or three Scriptures in austere frames, bookshelves with good books, and some reproductions of paintings on religious topics or landscapes, etc.”15 

While Baptists in Belarus built their theology on the denial of Orthodox forms, their worship thus has continued to reflect some of the spirit and character of Orthodoxy

Notes: 

1. I explore “Baptist” worship, but the terms “Evangelical Christians,” “Evangelical believers,” and “Evangelicals” are also used. They refer not only to Baptists but to the various Evangelical Protestant groups which existed in the Russian Empire and later on Soviet territory until October 1944, when the All-Union Council of Evangelical ChristiansBaptists (AUCECB) was established. After the Second World War, the term “Evangelicals” thus generally came to mean Baptists, or Baptists and Pentecostals. The latter were forced to join the AUCECB in August 1945 on condition that they abandoned speaking in tongues and foot washing in worship. They left the AUCECB once they were able to form their own Union again in 1989. 

Meanwhile, the term “Evangelical Christians”—with emphasis on the capital “E”—can refer to a specific group of churches in Russia and the USSR which established their own “All-Russian Union of Evangelical Christians” in St. Petersburg in 1909 and merged with the Baptists in 1944. In Belarus, however, “Evangelical Christians/believers” and “Baptists” are often used interchangeably, and “Evangelical Christians-Baptists” (ECB) and “Baptists” are also used as synonyms.

2. There are around 25 Baptist churches in Belarus which are registered with the state authorities but do not belong to larger formal church organizations. In 2015 there were also 73 unregistered churches belonging to the independent Council of Churches movement of Russian-speaking Baptists, which dates back to 1961. 
3.  Istoriia evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov v SSSR, Moscow: Izdanie Vsesoiuznogo soveta evangel’skikh khristian-baptistov, 1989, 380-91. 
4. A.L. Gladkii and A.I. Firisiuk, “80 let razluk i vstrech,” Krynitsa Zhytstsia, no. 2 (2007), 18-21.
5. A record of missionary trips by an Orthodox diocesan missionary to the Pinsk and Mozyr uyezds, National Historical Archives of Belarus, f. 136, op. 1, spr. 38344, 1. 
6. Leonid Kovalenko (ed.), Oblako svidetelei Khristovykh, Kyiv: Tsentr Khristianskogo Sotrudnichestva, 1997, 161. On Dzekuts-Malei’s life and ministry see A.I. Bokun (ed.), Lukash Dzekuts’-Malei i belaruskiia peraklady Biblii, Brest:Al’ternat’va, 2011. 
7. T.V. Lisovskaia, “Deiatel’nost’ protestantskikh obshchin i organizatsii v Zapadnoi Belarusi v 1921-1939 gg.,” Vesnik Grodzenskaga dziarzhaunaga universiteta imia Ianki Kupaly, series 1, vol. 2 (67), 2008, 81.
8. V.A. Popov, I.S. Prokhanov, Stranitsy zhizni, St. Petersburg: Bibliia dlia vsekh, 1996. See also Prokhanov’s autobiography, V kotle Rossii, Chicago: World Fellowship of Slavic Evangelical Christians, 1992.
9. J. Hay Colligan, “White Russia—A Visitor’s Impression,” The Times, 7 September 1926, quoted in Gai Pikarda [Guy Picarda], Niabesnae polymia. Pratestantskaia tsarkva belaruski natsyianal’ny rukh na pachatku XX stagoddzia, Minsk: Knigazbor, 2006, 15.
10.  S. Pekun, “Luka Nikolaevich Dzekuts-Malei: zhizn’ i sluzhenie,” Krynitsa Zhytstsia, no. 2, 2000, 9.
11.  P. V. Pavlov, “Doklad na 3-m Vsemirnom kongresse baptistov v Stokgolme, Shvetsiia, 6.7.1923,” in Leonid Kovalenko (ed.), Oblako svidetelei Khristovykh, Kyiv: Tsentr Khristianskogo Sotrudnichestva, 1997, 219.
12. S.P. Liven, Dukhovnoe probuzhdenie v Rossii. Vospominaniia kniazhny S.P. Liven, Chicago: Slavic Gospel Press, 1989, 16.
13.  Bratskii Vestnik, no. 3 (1969), 65. 
14. L.I. Kharlov, “Iz istorii muzikal’no-pevcheskogo sluzheniia nashego bratstva,” Bratskii Vestnik, no. 6 (1981), 46. 
15. А.R. [partly anonymous], “Khristianin v bytu,” Bratskii Vestnik, no. 5 (1977), 65.

Leonid Mikhovich is president of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in Belarus and rector of its Minsk Theological Seminary.