ECB Church on Narodniy Prospekt (Vladivostok)

The evangelical-Baptist community of Vladivostok received permission from the city authorities to conduct legal services in 1912. Its first presbyter was Joseph Antonovich Vakhnik. Even before the revolution, the community was divided into two: the community of evangelical Christians and the community of Baptists . I.A. Vakhnik led the community of evangelical Christians, and Yefim Vikentievich Zabudsky became the Baptist presbyter. Divine services were held under the supervision of the city police — vowels and unofficial ones.

Both communities experienced rapid growth after the 1917 revolution. The presbyter of the Vladivostok Baptist community and the editor of the Baptist magazine " Evangelist " Robert Andreevich Fetler wrote about this phenomenon: "The experiences of recent years, unexpected, unusual, shocked all the bases on which we used to rely and showed, <...> we need something more than that deeper than treaties between peoples, and in someone stronger than rulers and statesmen, we need a spiritual awakening, a revival of life, and resurrection ” ^[1] .

The church was part of the Far Eastern Baptist Union .

In the early 1920s, each community published its own magazine - “ Word and Life ” ^[2] - evangelical Christians and “ Evangelist ” ^[3] . Each published additional literature. Church members were actively engaged in missionary work. Under the communities there were string and brass bands, choirs. Literary and biblical youth evenings were held. Christian artels and cooperatives began to appear in Vladivostok. For example, Baptist Kolotiy created the Primorye cooperative cooperative, where more than 30 people worked. And women organized themselves in the sewing cooperative “Needle” ^[4] .

In 1920-1928, in Vladivostok, there was the CFE ( Far Eastern Division of the All-Russian Union of Evangelical Christians ), which coordinated the religious life of evangelical Christians throughout the Far Eastern region.

Since 1929, Soviet power intensified the anti-religious struggle. Along with the intensification of anti-religious propaganda, the authorities began to more often apply repressions against the most active Christians. In addition, various administrative barriers to the legal activity of churches were widely practiced. As a result, in 1935 the Baptist community, and in 1937 the community of evangelical Christians ceased to exist legally.

The peak of the persecution occurred during the period of the Great Terror . In accordance with the secret operational order of the NKVD No. 00447, the elders, deacons, preachers, choir regents were declared “anti-Soviet elements” and repressed. The names of 38 members of the Vladivostok churches are known, which in 1929-1938 were subjected to repression in connection with their religious beliefs. Of these, 22 were executed by shooting, three more are reliably known that they died in prison. The list is given in the book by Andrei Dementiev "Aven-Jezer" ^[5] .

During the war years in Vladivostok, evangelical Christians and Baptists united and began to conduct joint services. At first, the services were held in secret, in small groups, but since 1945 the Vladivostok ECB Church began to attempt legalization by sending appropriate petitions to the authorities. They were denied for 19 years. Only in 1964 the church was registered.

In the 1950s, the church acquired the House of Prayer. In 1959, with the beginning of the Khrushchev anti-religious campaign , the House of Prayer was illegally demolished by a bulldozer by order of the city administration. For several years after this, the church held its services in the open air on the ruins of the house of worship. The city authorities did not allow to restore it. During this period, trial trials were conducted over believers, they were fired from their jobs. The persecution of “sectarians” was unleashed in newspapers, cinema, and television, which had just appeared in Vladivostok.

From the collective letter of believers to the Commissioner for Religious Cults at the Regional Executive Committee, December 1962:

 

Liturgy of the Vladivostok Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists on the ruins of the House of Prayer, illegally demolished by the city authorities in 1959.

“At present, we are forced to conduct worship services in the open air, we are cold in the cold, and most of us are elderly and disabled. Children throw stones at us, and on December 9, 1962, representatives of a television studio, without showing us any permission for this and without asking our consent, a camera was installed on a neighboring barn and a photo was taken. When LF F. Shestovsky was selected by our community member in order to convey to you as a fact of violation, he was taken to the first police station in Vladivostok on December 11, 1962 ” ^[6] .

NOTE. Later, for an attempt to prevent local television operators from filming the service for the production of the next "anti-sectarian" revelatory film, three believers, Shestovskaya, Moskvich and Tkachenko, were sentenced "for hooliganism" to imprisonment - each for 1 year.

The Khrushchev anti-religious campaign led to the fact that some believers decided to fundamentally ignore Soviet legislation on religion. Therefore, in 1964–66, the church experienced an extremely painful division into the community of “registered” and the community of “unregistered” ECB. In 1965, another House of Prayer was acquired. He went to the registered community, which is now the Central Church of the ECB.

In 1976, the House of Prayer came under demolition in connection with the construction of a new microdistrict, and instead the authorities provided the second floor of the building on Narodny Prospekt 2. The church still uses this room. In the 1990s, a new spacious House of Prayer was added to the two-story building. Now the main services of the Central Church are held in it, and in the old building there is a library, rooms for studying the Bible and Christian parenting.

In post-perestroika time, three more new ECB churches were formed in Vladivostok, so the historical church began to call itself “Central”.

The main worship service in the church begins every Sunday at 10 a.m. Additional services are held in the second half of Sunday and on weekdays.

The church has a library with spiritual literature, which, among other things, contains pre-revolutionary editions of the Bible, handwritten ECB magazines from the time of Soviet persecution and other rarities.

There is also a Sunday school for children at the church. Church members are engaged in missionary work in the territory of the region, preaching the gospel in prisons and camps, charity , and participate in various confessional conferences. In the summer, the Central Church, together with other churches, organizes Christian recreation camps.

The presbyter (shepherd) of the church is Alexander Viktorovich Agapov.

Deacon - Joseph Romanovich Tyutyunnik

Soviet law forbade religious organizations to own their property. In this regard, the two-story building provided to the ECB communities (second floor) and Seventh-day Adventists (first floor) in 1976 (in exchange for previously purchased donations from believers and donated to the municipality) continued to be on the balance sheet of the Vladivostok administration. Legally, it was framed as a free rental.

At the end of 2011, in accordance with the Federal Law ФЗ-327 “On Transfer of State-owned or Municipal Property of Religious Purpose to Religious Organizations” that entered into force, the ECB and ASD communities appealed to the Vladivostok administration with a request to transfer the premises they occupied into the ownership of the communities .

In response, letters came from the administration demanding that the premises be cleaned as soon as possible. Vladivostok Mayor Igor Pushkaryov wrote about this in his blog: “I want to state my position regarding the building on 2a Narodniy Prospekt, which is occupied by the Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and the Church of Seventh-day Adventist Christians. Both religious organizations have been using this municipal building for free for many years. Based on an agreement on gratuitous use. The contract expired, and now I want to return this building back to the ownership of the city. Either city services will be placed here, now forced to rent private buildings for money, or transfer them to children, under the municipal art school ” ^[7] ).

In response, the ECB community appealed to the Pervorechensky District Court of Vladivostok, which agreed with its arguments and ordered the city administration to transfer the disputed premises into the ownership of the community. This decision was confirmed by the appeal court of the regional court.

However, instead of transferring the premises, the city hall appealed to the Arbitration Court. She demanded that the lease agreement of 1996 (which prolonged the effect of the old agreement) be declared unlawful and oblige the Baptists to vacate the premises ^[8] ). The arbitration court refused the administration of Vladivostok. This decision was confirmed by the cassation instance.

Believers themselves regarded the conflict with the city hall as religious persecution. “The unequal treatment of various religious associations contradicts the constitutional principle of the equality of religious associations before the law and is nothing more than discrimination on the basis of their attitude to religion,” the Vladivostok Baptists wrote to Igor Pushkarev in an open letter ^[9] ).

Currently, by a court decision, the second floor of the controversial building is registered as a property of the ECB community. The trial was accompanied by a large number of publications in various media. Most media sided with believers. The Vladivostok administration suffered reputational losses.

• Association of Churches of the ECB Primorsky Krai
• ECB Church "Good News" Vladivostok

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• Blushtein V.M. In the footsteps of Christ. - Printcorp, 2001.
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• Murygina E. A. Baptist communities in the multiconfessional structure of the Russian Far East in the second half of the 19th and 30s XX centuries .. - Far East. state humanitarian. un-t - Khabarovsk, 2008.
• Team of authors. The history of the ECB in the USSR . - M .: VSEKhB publishing house, 1989 .-- S. 624.
• Potapova N.V. - Reproduction of cadres of ministers of the Far Eastern Baptist churches in the context of the systemic crisis of 1917-1922. Collection of articles “The tradition of training ministers in the brotherhood of evangelical Christian Baptists. History and Prospects ”, Moscow, 2013, ISBN 978-5-9902083-8-4 S.74-92
• Dudarenok S. M. - Baptist and Gospel leaders of the Russian Far East during the Civil War and foreign intervention. Collection of articles “The tradition of training ministers in the brotherhood of evangelical Christian Baptists. History and prospects ”, Moscow, 2013, ISBN 978-5-9902083-8-4 S.120-137

• History of the ECB - a web-based repository of research and materials on the history of the ECB in Russia
• Website of the ECB
• Over 300 people gathered to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Baptist Church in Vladivostok
• The ECB Church in Vladivostok defended its rights to the cassation building