Pavlov, Pavel Vasilyevich (Baptist)

Pavel was born in Tiflis , in the family of one of the leaders of the Russian Baptists, Vasily Guryevich Pavlov . In 1887 and 1891, his father was twice subjected to a 4-year exile (for the first time - to Orenburg , the second time to the territory near Tiflis) for religious convictions, his wife and children followed him to both exile. In 1892, Pavel’s twelve-year-old sister, swimming in the river, drowned, and after three weeks her mother, two younger brothers and another sister died as a result of a cholera epidemic ^[1] . Of the entire family, only father and Paul remained ^[2] .

In 1895, Paul, together with his father, emigrated to Romania , where the father was offered service as a presbyter in the Russian-German community. There, in the city of Tulcea , he converted to a conscious faith , in 1897 he was baptized by his father and began his Christian ministry ^[3] .

In 1900, the father and son returned to Tiflis, where Paul entered the three-year legal courses, and in the local church he set about organizing the work of the choir ^[4] (in total, he led this choir for 13 years). Since 1905, Pavel and his father held musical and educational meetings in the premises of the Tiflis Artistic Society and the Nikitinsky Circus. In 1907 he married the chorus girl Vera (Belousova).

In 1913, Pavel Vasilyevich was transferred to Moscow for service (he worked at Stuken and Co.), becoming a member of the First Moscow ECB Church . Here, at the request of the presbyter of the church S.P. Stepanov, he began to organize a choir, “preferably the same as in Tiflis”.

In 1916, Pavel Vasilyevich was ordained to presbytery ministry, from 1918 he became the head of the Second Moscow ECB Church. At the same time, Pavel Vasilyevich was engaged in publishing and journalistic activities. After the February Revolution, he, together with Mikhail Danilovich Tymoshenko, resumed the publication of the confessional magazine Word of Truth (interrupted in 1914 in connection with the arrest and reference of Tymoshenko). The editors were located in the apartment of Pavel Vasilyevich in Degtyarny lane, it was always crowded here ^[5] .

In March 1917, at a meeting in the Large Auditorium of the Polytechnic Museum, Pavel Vasilyevich made a presentation entitled “The Political Requirements of Baptists”, later published as a program article in the very first issue of the Word of Truth magazine. Pointing to the democratic principles of Baptism , Pavlov wrote: “Baptists strive for socialism, but not for an aggressive one, built on declaring someone else’s property, but they teach that it is necessary to achieve such moral perfection in order not to consider anything earthly as its own. to his neighbors, if he needs something ” ^[6] . The key demands he put forward on behalf of Russian Baptists were:

• freedom of assembly, speech and press
• separation of church and state
• equality of all citizens regardless of faith and nationality
• freedom of worship and preaching for all religions that are not opposed to common morality and state
• the abolition of all laws punishing crimes against religion ^[7] .

In 1919–20, Pavel Vasilyevich, together with M. D. Timoshenko, V. G. Pavlov, and I. N. Shilov, reformed the management structure of the All-Russian Union of Baptists , introducing collegial management ^[8] . In 1920–24 he was elected to the board, and in 1923–24 he was its chairman ^[9] .

The Soviet authorities periodically attracted Pavel Vasilyevich as an expert in matters of exemption from military service on religious grounds, for example, thanks to him , VF Martsinkovsky was released from service ^[10] .

During the famine of the beginning of the 1920s, Pavel Vasilyevich was actively engaged in humanitarian activities, creating the “Department of Hunger Support” and initiating appeals for Christianity in Russia and in the West. The Baptists were able to attract Dr. Nansen's Mission, the Swedish Red Cross and the American Relief Administration to help the starving ^[4] .

In 1923, Pavel Vasilyevich headed the Russian delegation at the Third World Baptist Congress in Stockholm .

At the end of 1925, Pavel Vasilyevich asked for his release from work in the All-Russian Baptist Union, according to some historians, the reason for this was pressure from the GPU ^{[11] [4] [12]} . At the same time he continued to carry the ministry in the church.

He was arrested at his home on March 31, 1933. During the arrest, property was confiscated, the library was lost. At the same time, M.D. Timoshenko and I.G. Dovgalyuk were arrested in April; they were convicted in April by a Special Meeting at the OGPU College out of court for a 5-year term in the northern camps each ^[13] . During the investigation, Pavlov appeared as "the head of the counter-revolutionary group of sectarian preachers" and "the son of the manufacturer." He died on May 12, 1936 in the Arlyuk branch of Siblag in the Kemerovo Region , and was allegedly tortured by criminals ^[4] .

• Vins G. P. Timoshenko Mikhail Danilovich (1880-?) // They passed: website. - Alaska, 1990.
• E. P. P. V. Pavlov (on the centenary of his birth) // The Bratskiy Vestnik : Zhurnal. - M. , 1983. - № 5 . - pp . 53—57 .
• History of ECB in the USSR . - M .: VSEHB , 1989. - p. 624.
• Kovalenko L., E. Pavlov, Pavel Vasilyevich. // Cloud of Christ witnesses for the peoples of Russia in the XIX — XX centuries. 3rd edition. - Kiev: Center for Christian Cooperation, 2006. - p . 156-159 .
• Martsinkovsky V. f . Notes believer. From the history of the religious movement in Russia (1917-1923) . - Prague : Tiskem "Legiografie", 1929.
• Mitrokhin L.N. Baptism: Past and Present (philosophical and sociological essays). - SPb. : RHGI , 1997. - 480 p. - 2500 copies - ISBN 5-88812-037-5 .
• Pavlov, P.V. Political Requirements of Baptists // Word of Truth : Journal. - 1917. - № 1 . - p . 3-4 .
• Popov V. Pavel Pavlov - Defender of Spiritual Freedom // Voice of Truth: Journal. - 2004. - № 2 (53) . Archived March 7, 2018.