History of Protestantism in Russia

The first Protestant communities on the territory of modern Russia were founded by traders and craftsmen from European countries, invited in 1524-1533. in the reign of Grand Duke Vasily III , a contemporary of Luther ^[2] .

In the period after the conclusion of a peace treaty between the Grand Duchy of Moscow and Sweden in 1524, merchants from Sweden, Denmark, and later from England and Holland, many of whom were Protestants, began to arrive in the country. Simultaneously with the merchants came "craftsmen", whom Vasily III specifically instructed to call for public service. Among them were pharmacists, painters, artisans, and mainly they were Protestants. All of them received the right to freely administer Anglican, Lutheran, and Reformed services in their homes ^[3] .

Later, in the reign of Ivan IV the Terrible , physicians, "gunners", "seekers of gold and silver", jewelers, artists and other specialists were invited, to which later the military were added. Specialists from Europe were invited, while assisting them in every possible way, Fedor Ioannovich , Boris Godunov (provided patronage to those who had fled to the Russian Kingdom from Europe due to religious wars), Mikhail Fedorovich (1613-1645) and Alexei Mikhailovich (1645-1676) ^[3] .

Despite their relative small numbers, Protestants already had a noticeable impact on the socio-economic development of Russia. Protestant merchants actively contributed to the establishment and development of trade and economic ties between Russia and Western Europe ^[4] .

Peter I carried out a fundamental reform of public administration in many respects on the basis of samples borrowed from Western European Protestant countries, while he actively invited highly qualified specialists from there. During the reign of Peter I, many experts in mathematics, chemistry, physics, as well as shipbuilders, ore prospectors, sailors, miners, and the military arrived in Russia ^[4] . During the XVIII century. 12 Protestant communities were formed in Petersburg alone: ​​three German, Lutheran , Swedish Lutheran , Finnish Lutheran , two multinational in cadet corps, Dutch Reformed , combined German Reformed and French Reformed , Anglican (Promenade des Anglais, 56) and the German "evangelical brothers". The total number of adult community members in St. Petersburg at the end of the century exceeded 6,000 ^[5] .

A significant number of Protestant Christians relocated to permanent residence in Russia to develop its southern and Volga lands during the reign of Catherine II (beginning in 1789), which provided visitors with significant benefits, exemption from military and civil service, and complete freedom of religion ^{[3 ]} . The farms created by them were distinguished by high marketability and agricultural production culture, beneficially influencing the economic development of the surrounding areas ^[4] .

In the period of XVIII - beginning of XX century. Protestants (mainly Lutherans and reformists) who accepted Russian citizenship, and their descendants, including those who converted to Orthodoxy, held high posts in government, in the army, in the Academy of Sciences, becoming part of the highest Russian nobility ^{[3] [4]} .

In the second half of the XIX century. in Russia, along with the old Russian forms of Christian sectarianism (Christians, Dukhobors, Molokans, etc.), various directions of the so-called evangelical Christianity begin to form: Baptists, evangelical Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, and at the beginning of the 20th century. and Christians of the gospel faith are Pentecostals. Being originally introduced by missionaries from Western European countries and America to the German colonies of the South of Russia and the Volga region (Baptism, Adventism) and partly into the high society of St. Petersburg (evangelical Christianity), they gradually spread among the indigenous (primarily rural) population, eventually mastering the urban environment ^[4] .

The first Russian and Ukrainian Protestant communities arose in the second half of the 19th century in several regions of the Russian Empire: in the south of Ukraine (in the Kherson, Yekaterinoslav and Kiev provinces), in the Transcaucasus, in St. Petersburg and in the territory of Left-Bank Ukraine (in the Tauride province) ^{[ 6]} .

In southern Ukraine, the evangelical revival, which began among the descendants of German colonists, later found its continuation among Ukrainian peasants. The first of them, having believed in 1858, began to preach in his village, where the first community of Ukrainian Stundists soon formed, which by 1867 already numbered 35 families. At first, the Stundists continued to consider themselves part of the Orthodox community: they attended church services, turned to Orthodox pastors to marry, baptize children and bury the dead. They held their meetings after the church service, read the New Testament at them, prayed and sang hymns from the collection “An Offer to Orthodox Christians”. The break with Orthodoxy occurred after the persecution began, often accompanied by confiscation of spiritual literature ^[6] . Stundism did not become the final form of evangelical awakening among Ukrainians. In 1867, already Baptist communities were organized, although at that time the founders themselves, being shtundists, were not yet baptized by faith. The beginning of the evangelical-Baptist movement in Ukraine is considered to be 1869, when the first Ukrainian was baptized by faith.

Evangelical revival in Transcaucasia began simultaneously with revival in the south of Ukraine, while it was independent of it and took place among the Molokans . In 1867, the first baptism of faith took place in Tiflis , which was adopted by the Molokan, which is considered to be the beginning of the spread of Baptism among the Molokans of the Caucasus and the North Caucasus and the year of the emergence of Russian-Ukrainian Baptism. During the first ten years, followers of the new teaching called themselves Christians baptized by faith, and only later they began to call themselves Baptists ^[6] .

The Gospel revival in St. Petersburg is connected with the missionary work of Lord Redstock , who arrived in the capital in the spring of 1874. As a result of his sermons in the houses of the Petersburg nobility, a number of representatives of the highest aristocratic society believed, including one of the richest noblemen of the Russian Guard, Colonel Vasily Pashkov , who became one of the continuers of the St. Petersburg awakening after Lord Redstock left the country ^[7] . Believing aristocrats gave both their strength and property to preach the Gospel. Their houses became the place of evangelistic gatherings attended by noble persons as well as students, servants and workers. There were up to a thousand listeners; many turned to God. During the St. Petersburg awakening, the “Society for the Promotion of Spiritual and Moral Reading” was founded, which carried out 12 editions of 200 titles of books and brochures of spiritual content, including for the first time in Russian by J. Banyan 's books “The Pilgrim's Journey” and “Spiritual War” , as well as The publication of the religious and moral journal Russian Worker has begun. Launches and sewing workshops for poor women, a canteen for students and workers, and the first shelter shelter in St. Petersburg were organized. Baptism by faith, associated with the St. Petersburg awakening, occurred in 1883, when several people received water baptism, including Vasily Pashkov ^{[6] [8]} .

Evangelical revival in the Tauride province , in the south of left-bank Ukraine, also took place among the Molokans. As a result of the sermons of Jacob Delyakov about the grace of God in Jesus Christ and justification by faith, the first community of the New Locals - evangelical Christians - “Zakharovites”, named after Zinovy ​​Danilovich Zakharov , who became its first leader in 1867, was formed. Since 1877, Baptist preachers began to attend Molokan communities in the Tauride province, as a result of which many Molokans were baptized by faith. Baptist communities in Molokan villages quickly increased numerically, and in the future, almost all evangelical Christians “Zakharovites” became part of them ^[6] .

The growing number of evangelical Christians, Baptists, Stundists, and representatives of other Protestant groups aroused concern among secular authorities and church leaders, as a result of which, during the period of KP Pobedonostsev’s activity as chief prosecutor , radical attempts were made to eradicate these religious movements ^[9] . Nevertheless, despite constant persecution by the tsarist administration and the Orthodox Church, the communities of evangelical Christians grew quantitatively and became more widespread in the country. Among the Russian followers of these new areas of Protestantism, a significant stratum of economically active people was well-off: well-to-do, prudent owners who aspired to introduce the latest agricultural methods and technologies, traders, small and medium-sized entrepreneurs. Their economic behavior was affected by the Protestant work ethic that they adopted, their attitude to labor and economic activity as a service to God ^[4] .

The years of the NEP and the first decade of Soviet rule were marked by significant quantitative growth and economic activity of the Baptist, Adventist and other Protestant communities (as well as the communities of Molokans, Tolstoyans), the participation of their representatives in many forms of small and medium business, the creation of economically strong communes, collective farms, co-operatives consisting of co-religionists. In this case, the communities were both an economic, settlement, and religious community, which made it possible to maintain labor discipline, unity and cohesion of the group.

At first, such "sectarian" communes received approval and support from the state and the Communist Party, since they saw, as was noted in the resolution of the XII Congress of the RCP (b), sprouts of communist relations. However, the "golden decade", as the leaders of the Protestant churches called it, soon ended. With the beginning of collectivization and open anti-religious persecution (1929), the activities of "sectarian" communes were suppressed. Throughout the rest of Soviet history, Protestant churches were brutally persecuted, losing leaders and the most active and educated believers, and in fact were in a state of survival. The policy of state atheism led not only to the limited extent the missionary and educational work of the Protestant communities, charitable and entrepreneurial activity was not allowed, but to the administrative and all kinds of illegal actions of the authorities and party bodies generally limited the very possibility of the presence of "sectarians" in various areas of public life, culture, the most prestigious types and levels of production; any possibility of their work in government bodies, election to public posts, and higher education was suppressed. In these conditions, the Protestant associations practically did not have the opportunity to exert a beneficial influence on the socio-economic development of the country, to grow the necessary personnel, to develop and present their social positions to society. There was no question of any social or economic activity of the Protestant churches ^[10] .

The change in state policy regarding religion and religious organizations, which began in the last years of the existence of Soviet power, during the period of “perestroika”, and legislatively enshrined in the adoption in 1990 of the union and Russian laws on freedom of conscience and religion, created a fundamentally new situation in the country, in which citizens received complete freedom of ideological and religious choice and expression, and religious organizations - freedom of the internal organization of religious life, their distribution in roucheniya and diverse forms vnekultovoy and non-religious activities in various areas of public life where they did not have access before. Protestant churches had to start life in new socio-political and economic conditions from scratch, rebuild church structures, develop missionary work, attract and re-cultivate a new generation of believers, able to adapt the activities of the churches to the conditions of democracy and market relations, taking into account the specifics of this and another in post-Soviet Russia.

Protestantism has always been distinguished by a high degree of adaptation to the most diverse social and political conditions, to various forms of state and social structure. This also manifested itself in the context of the political and socio-economic transformation of Russian society. The democratization of the social system, the transition to a market and the legislatively established situation of religious freedom created favorable conditions for the rapid revival and development of almost all areas of Protestantism. Protestant churches of the evangelical orientation (especially with the help of foreign co-religionists) took advantage of them especially actively. This found expression in an increase in the number of Protestant religious associations (organizations and groups registered and unregistered), in the rapid and significant increase in their number, in a change in their demographic characteristics (significant rejuvenation, a certain change in the gender composition in the direction of approaching all-Russian indicators).

There have been changes in the content and activity of the Protestant churches. If at first, in the early 90's, the main attention of the Protestant churches was aimed at legitimizing and organizational strengthening of their structures, at missionary work in various sectors of society, especially among young people, expansion of territories and spheres of their influence, then closer to the end 90s - early 2000s a prominent place in their activities began to occupy the tasks of forming the institution of leaders, primarily young people, cultivating an elite in their midst that could take its rightful place in various spheres of public life, and developing various areas of social service that were demanded by society ^[11] .

The new conditions made it possible to realize the organically inherent Protestantism as an "bourgeois variety of Christianity" interest in entrepreneurship. Essential features of Protestantism, such as a democratic internal structure and intra-community interpersonal relations, the cultivation of a Bible-based understanding of individual freedom and responsibility, contributed to the development of the entrepreneurial initiative of Russian Protestants.

However, at the very beginning, the pioneers of the Protestant business met with a number of difficulties - both common for most Russians who wanted to start their own business: limited or lack of start-up capital, lack of a proper and clear legislative base, bureaucracy and bribery of officials - and specific ones: the desire to run a business on honest Christian principles, it came into conflict with the need to bribe officials and build relations with gang racketeering. Nevertheless, in all Protestant churches there were enough people who were able to open and develop their business ^[12] .

The publication in 2000 of the “ Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church ” stimulated other religious organizations to develop and present to society their vision of these problems. Protestant churches of Russia actively joined in this work. The “Foundations of the social concept of the Russian United Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith” and the “Foundations of the social teachings of the Seventh-day Adventist Church of Christians” were developed and published.

In 2003, the Advisory Board of the Heads of Protestant Churches of Russia prepared and presented to the public the general “Social Position of the Protestant Churches of Russia”. The fundamental position of all the Protestant churches of Russia, set forth in the document and justifying their desire to actively participate in the processes of socio-economic development of the country, expresses their response to the often voiced in the press of a number of so-called traditional denominations and secular media and reproaches in the pro-Western position in some sections of society Protestant churches: “Love for the motherland. From the point of view of churches, love for the motherland is expressed primarily in activities aimed at improving the welfare of the country and society ... We value our historical and cultural heritage, which affirms enduring spiritual and moral values. Being a part of the people of Russia, we, through our constructive ministry, make a contribution to our common well-being ” ^[12] .

The main provisions regarding the possible contribution of the Protestants to the socio-economic development of Russia are set out in the sections of the above-mentioned concepts devoted to economics, labor and property. Most thoroughly these problems are considered in the “Fundamentals of the Social Doctrine of the HASD Church”. Naturally, the argumentation of all these points is based on the Bible. At the same time, a person, a person, his rights and needs are put to the forefront in assessing various economic processes: "A person is the focus and goal of all economic activity, therefore everything in it should be subordinated not to the" interests of production ", but to the needs of a person."

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• Spiritual Awakening in Russia
• Lord Redstock and Spiritual Awakening in Russia