Zhidkov, Yakov Ivanovich

Yakov Ivanovich was born on the Volga, in the town of Dubovka , near Tsaritsyn, in a believing family. His father, Ivan Ivanovich, was the head of the Bible Society warehouse, and his father's stepfather was a missionary among the Molokans, Yakov Delyakovich Delyakov ^[1] .

At the age of seventeen, Ya. I. Zhidkov believed, and a year later, in 1903, he received holy water baptism in the St. Petersburg community of evangelical Christians . Here he became close to I.S. Prokhanov , with whom he successfully collaborated for many years.

He studied at various schools, including the agricultural school of the famous religious figure Neplyuev N.N. in the Chernigov province , as well as at the Samara secondary agricultural school. After that, he took past accounting courses and went to work in accounting. His first job was the Westinghouse brake plant, where his father worked, as well as I. S. Prokhanov ^[1] .

Yakov Ivanovich was engaged in self-education (for example, he studied English at the Westinghouse factory) and also listened to sermons and lectures by I.S. Prokhanov , I.V. Kargel , P.N. Nikolai , V.V. Khlopov, etc.

Yakov Ivanovich was engaged in youth ministry, participated in the choir of the St. Petersburg community of evangelical Christians ; worked for some time with V. A. Fetler and I. V. Kargel , and then with I. S. Prokhanov, with whom he was first secretary, and then the closest collaborator for publishing the Christian journal and other publications; helped him in conducting preaching courses, in organizing and conducting almost all congresses of evangelical Christians , starting from the first in 1908 and ending with the tenth congress in 1926 ^[1] .

In 1913, Yakov Ivanovich returned to Dubovka and then to nearby Tsaritsyn (future Stalingrad , then Volgograd ). There he joined the church ministry, while simultaneously working on cooperation. In 1917, Ya. I. Zhidkov headed the Church of Evangelical Christians in Tsaritsyno, and after the joint congress of evangelical Christians and Baptists held in 1920, he participated in a joint work of believers of two evangelical movements in the Lower Volga region .

In 1922, at the plenum of ALL in Moscow, he was ordained to serve as a presbyter. In 1924, Ya. I. Zhidkov was a member of the Plenum of ALL in Leningrad . The participants in the plenum invited him to work in the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians as deputy chairman of the council.

With his participation, Bibles, New Testaments, Symphonies, Compilations of spiritual songs with and without notes were published in large print runs.

In 1928, after I.S. Prokhanov left the country, Y. I. Zhidkov became chairman of the Union of Evangelical Christians (officially - since 1931), in 1932 he moved to Moscow with the office of the union.

From 1938 to 1942 he was in custody . He served his term in Kolyma .

His son, Mikhail Yakovlevich Zhidkov, recalls the return of his father from prison:

"In the forty-second year, my father returned. He and Karev returned ... Muscovites. But the first months they were not allowed to go to the pulpit. No performance, just as an ordinary. Then after six months, it seems, it will be more accurate several months, on the occasion of Trinity and Karev "Alexander Vasilievich and my father entered the department and started. Their first speech was, you know a lot of tears. My father began to cry, as I have now, and he took to the department . "

At a meeting of evangelical Christians and Baptists in 1944, Y. I. Zhidkov became chairman of the united Union . This work he did until the end of his life.

In 1954, Yakov Ivanovich first went abroad with a group of leaders of the Soviet ECB to meet with the Baptists and Quakers of Sweden, England and the USA, which took place in Sweden.

The following year, at the World Baptist Congress in London, Ya. I. Zhidkov was elected vice president of the World Baptist Union , and at the congress in Rio de Janeiro in 1960 he was re-elected to this post.

At the beginning of the Christian peacekeeping movement, Yakov Ivanovich joined the Advisory Committee of the Christian Peace Conference in Prague in 1958. He also participated in a meeting of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches in Paris in 1962.

Ya. I. Zhidkov owns numerous articles published in various spiritual journals.

In 1908, Yakov Ivanovich married the daughter of one of the pioneers of the Baptist movement in Russia, Sozont Evtikhievich Kapustinsky - Pelageya Sozontovna. Six sons and one daughter were born. Four of the six sons of Zhidkov fought during the Great Patriotic War, three of them died at the front ^[1] .