Memorandum 'On the Revival in the Activity of Pentecostal Groups (Based on Materials of the Council's Commissioners for 1956)' No. 313
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19 March 1957
Secret
Believing Christians of the Evangelical Faith (CEF), or the so-called
“Pentecostals,” united with the Evangelical Christians-Baptists (ECB) in August 1945
and became part of their All-Union Council — the AUCECB.
The terms of the union were defined by a special agreement
concluded in August 1945 in Moscow between the All-Union Council of
Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB) and the Pentecostals.
The agreement was signed on behalf of the Pentecostals by their prominent
leaders — Ponomarchuk, Bidash, and Panko.
On the basis of this agreement, Pentecostal religious societies
locally began to merge with ECB societies. However, the process of
unification dragged on almost everywhere.
In Ukraine, for example, where Pentecostalism is most
widespread, the unification process, although largely completed in
1947–1948, was not fully finished even by the end of 1955.
This is explained by the fact that the union met with opposition from certain
local Pentecostal leaders. Pentecostals who did not join the ECB societies
split into small groups. Their activity was conspiratorial, outwardly
hardly noticeable, and encompassed a significantly smaller number of believers than
before the signing of the Moscow August Agreement.
Such unmerged Pentecostal groups in the Ukrainian SSR alone
numbered more than 200 as of 1 January 1956, with about 8,000 believers in them.
The activities of these groups were studied by the local Commissioners of the Council
using the means available to them and were covered in informational reports and separate
communications to the Council for Religious Cults and to leading regional and
republican organizations.
In 1956, the activity of the Pentecostal groups noticeably
intensified. Their activism increased, and forms of religious activity
prohibited by Soviet legislation on cults were resumed. They abandoned
conspiracy in their work and began to operate openly.
The number of Pentecostal groups operating on an ad‑hoc basis
sharply increased in 1956. For example, in Ukraine there appeared around
600 Pentecostal groups with up to 12,000 believers. At that time, a
roughly similar picture, though on a smaller scale, emerged in the territory of
Belorussia and in certain regions of the RSFSR, as well as in Kirghizia,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Moldavia, and the Caucasus. Everywhere in 1956
there was an open manifestation of active Pentecostal activity and an increase in the
number of Pentecostal groups functioning on an ad‑hoc basis.
What, then, are the reasons for this active outburst that manifested itself
in the activity of the Pentecostals?
There are several such reasons, the principal ones being the following:
- Incorrect implementation in certain localities of the AUCECB’s line
toward the Pentecostals who had joined the ECB societies after the
Moscow August Agreement. - Intensified agitational and organizational work by the CEF activist
core to draw Pentecostals out of the ECB societies with the aim of
creating their own independent Pentecostal centre separate from the
AUCECB, which became especially noticeable after the return in 1956
from places of confinement of former Pentecostal leaders (Bidash,
Levchuk, Misyura, Taranenko, Belykh, and others).
The process of mass local unification of Pentecostals with the ECB, which began in 1945 after the conclusion of the August agreement, was subsequently severely hindered by the not entirely correct line of the AUCECB toward the Pentecostals, which was carried out locally by the leaders of ECB societies. Instead of continuing to work toward the further rapprochement of Pentecostals who had joined the ECB societies, some leaders and preachers of ECB societies kept sharply criticizing the dogmatic foundations of the Pentecostals and their doctrine, which helped stir up hostility against former Pentecostals who had become members of ECB societies. Former Pentecostals were artificially blocked from leadership in the societies and from preaching, and their religious feelings were infringed in every way. All this weakened the unification process and caused murmuring and discontent among the united Pentecostals. Because of this murmuring and voicing of discontent, Pentecostals began to be expelled (excommunicated) from ECB societies, and former Pentecostal clergy were removed from their duties as ministers of worship. This led to an increase in the numerical strength of Pentecostal groups formed from believers of the Evangelical Faith who had not previously joined the union and who were operating covertly.
This is what one of the prominent former Pentecostal bishops in Byelorussia, Kasperovich, wrote about this in early 1957: “In 1945, during the unification of the ECB and the Pentecostals, I joined the union and worked as a presbyter of the Pinsk community and carried out the registration of communities in the former Pinsk region. In 1948, I was removed from the ministry I held, and I went over to the side of the illegal communities that had not joined the union and those that had left it, where I have worked until now.”
During a conversation with the Commissioner of the Council in Kharkov region, Comrade Slavnov, the Pentecostal leader Zybin declared: “We do not recognize the unification, because it happened on the basis of deception. The ECB seized power and began to persecute the Pentecostal leaders.”
The prominent former Pentecostal leader Ponomarchuk declared that Pentecostals in ECB societies are “squeezed,” not allowed into leadership or into diaconal or presbyteral ministry. It is clear that such a line by the AUCECB could not contribute to peacemaking between Pentecostals and the ECB. In 1956, former ministers of worship and leaders of Pentecostal religious associations who arrived from places of imprisonment took advantage of this circumstance. The former spiritual head of the Southern Union of Pentecostals — Bishop Bidash Afanasy Ivanovich — upon his release from imprisonment in 1956 immediately launched activities to revive Pentecostalism. While still on his way from the camps to his homeland in the town of Pyatikhatka, Dnepropetrovsk region, Bidash stopped in Moscow, appeared before the Council for Religious Cults, and submitted an application for the registration of an independent Union of Pentecostals. This request of Bidash was rejected. However, disregarding this refusal, Bidash in a short time gathered around him an active group, mainly from among former Pentecostal ministers of worship released from places of imprisonment.
Thus, in Ukraine he was joined by — Litovka I.A., Savgirya, Kotlyar A.K., Ryzhkov (Kirovograd region); Vernadsky V.E., Gula A.I., Kuzmich P. (Khmelnitsky region); Luchinets (Odessa region); Fomenko (Zaporozhye region); Belykh (Cherkassy region); Gubanov, Levchuk, Boiko (Nikolaev region); K. I. Kanus, Misyura, M. K. Seredin, I. N. Rybalka, Podtsubny (Dnepropetrovsk region); Romanenko (Nikolaev region); K. M. Voshchilo, A. R. Vovk, Korkosenko, Kholik and Vyazhevich (Crimean region); Klochko, Tsapenko, P. U. Orlov (Stanislav region); Zybin, Kachalov (Kharkov region).
In Byelorussia: Minsk region — Kasperovich, Boris Zelberg, S. V. Benya and Tsiunchuk. Brest region — N. M. Kosnikovich and others. Molodechno region — P. Volodko, K. S. Sidorenko, P. K. Yaruk and others. Novogrudok region — I. B. Yankovsky and others.
In Moldavia — Formuzala and others.
In Kirghizia — Kononenkov and others.
Lithuanian SSR — A. Skoben, A. P. Matsevilo, Tushvanene, Stai Vintsins.
In Moscow region — Makarov, Marin, Lagunov, Sizov and others. Active supporters of Bidash also appeared in many other places in the Soviet Union, such as Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, etc.
In the town of Pyatikhatka, where Bidash permanently resides, he essentially created something like a Pentecostal headquarters, the so-called “Spiritual Center of Christians of Evangelical Faith.” Bidash’s closest assistants became: Marin, Kruzhko, Shepel, Levchuk, Poddubny, Viktor Belykh, and Romanenko, but in fact the entire undertaking was directed by Levchuk and Belykh, who, using Bidash as a figurehead, steered all the work, agitating among former Pentecostals to leave the ECB societies and calling on them to organize independent groups, demanding their registration and the creation of an independent center of Pentecostals. Bidash and his active group held their own meetings for this purpose in various places (in Pyatikhatka, Dnepropetrovsk, Rezekne and Vilyaka (Latvia), Kharkov, Novoselitsy, Vilnius, etc.). All this was done conspiratorially. For example, at a meeting in Kharkov held on August 15, 1956, the following Pentecostal leaders were present: Luchinets (Odessa), M. I. Murza (Rovno region), Zybin (Kharkov), Korkosenko (Simferopol), Kachalov (Kharkov region), K. S. Klochko (Stalino), N. E. Lunin (Makeyevka), I. T. Melnik (Khartsyzsk), G. G. Pakhomov (Gorlovka). This meeting was attended by representatives of Pentecostals residing in the RSFSR and the Moldavian SSR.
Comrade Kostandoglo, Commissioner of the Council, reports that the well-known Pentecostal leader But visited the town of Gorodishche. At a closed meeting, the question of organizing a separate group (center) of Pentecostalism in Ukraine under the leadership of Bidash was discussed. The spiritual center of the KhVE, actually created for a time, issued a “proclamation” and distributed it in many places among its believers. In this proclamation to all Pentecostals, an orientation is given: leave the EHB societies, and send applications for independent registration of Pentecostal groups and their spiritual center to the Council for Religious Cults Affairs, its local Commissioners, and to government bodies.
In one of their “documents,” Bidash and Levchuk write: “Having thoroughly discussed the dogmas of our faith in the city of Pyatikhatki, the brothers undertook to deliver them to all points of our country.” As a result of the “work” carried out by Pentecostals who arrived after being released from places of confinement, a large number of applications and petitions for the independent registration of Pentecostal societies and their center began to arrive at the Council and its local Commissioners. It should be noted that all these applications are stereotyped, written in the same language. In 1956 alone, the Council received more than one hundred such applications from Pentecostal groups, compared to eight applications received in 1955.
Receiving well-founded refusals of registration of Pentecostal groups from the Council through its local Commissioners, Pentecostals, as a rule, began to send their petitions to the highest government and party bodies—to the Council of Ministers of the USSR addressed to Comrade Bulganin, to the Central Committee of the CPSU addressed to Comrade Khrushchev, to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR addressed to Comrade Voroshilov. In these cases, the Pentecostals complain in their applications that they are not being registered not only by regional, territorial, or republican authorities, but also by the Council for Religious Cults Affairs, declaring that the Council likewise violates the legislation on cults, the Constitution of the USSR, and Comrade Khrushchev’s instructions. Thus, a group of Pentecostals from the city of Alexandria in the Kirovograd region, in a complaint addressed to Comrade Bulganin, states that the Council for Religious Cults Affairs refused to register them and asks that instructions be given to register them. A group of Pentecostals in the village of Tinnoye, Rivne region, in its application addressed to Comrade Khrushchev, also asks that instructions be given to register them. A group of Pentecostals in the city of Odessa, in its application to Comrade Khrushchev, complains about the Council for Religious Cults Affairs, then about the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR and the regional MGB administration, and asks that instructions be given to register them. A group of Pentecostals in the village of Khvoyevo, Minsk region, addressing its application to Comrade Khrushchev, complains that they are being refused the return of their former prayer building and the registration of their society.
A group of Pentecostals in the city of Kharkov, sending its applications to Comrades Voroshilov, Korotchenko, Bulganin, and Khrushchev, asks for permission to register them separately from the EHB.
The list of such applications could be continued. In any case, it can be said that Bidash and Levchuk kept their word, and their “brothers,” having undertaken to deliver the Pentecostal dogmas to all points of our country where Pentecostals live, carried it out. Applications from Pentecostals for their registration came to the Council not only from Ukraine, Belarus, and regions of the RSFSR, but also from Moldavia, the Caucasus, Kirghizia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, the Komi ASSR, and Turkmenia; in short, from almost all corners of our country.
Receiving well-founded refusals for independent registration, groups of Pentecostals nevertheless did not cease their activity but continued on a de facto basis, employing impermissible forms. At prayer meetings of Pentecostal groups, “prophecy,” the preaching of the “dogma” not to take up arms, and speaking in unknown tongues are permitted, which in places leads not only to mental but also to physical crippling of individual believers. Pentecostals attract young people to direct participation in worship, allow young people to preach, organize the participation of special youth string orchestras in services, youth evenings, and other activities aimed at alienating young people from participation in public life.
In a conversation with the Commissioner of the Council for the Minsk region, one of the former Pentecostal bishops, now renouncing Pentecostalism, said that at the end of 1956 he visited some Pentecostal groups operating on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR and studied the activity of Pentecostals in the Bryansk and Oryol regions, where Pentecostals at prayer meetings go as far as not only mental but also physical crippling of people. The leader of the Pentecostal group, citizen Zalutsky from the city of Smela, preaches the “dogma” not to take up arms.
Comrade Dril, Commissioner of the Council for the Lviv region, reports: “There are cases when members of Pentecostal groups refuse to serve when conscripted into the Soviet Army. In other Pentecostal groups there is forbidden or unauthorized literature printed on duplicating machines.” Reports of the presence of unauthorized literature have been received from the Krasnodar Territory.
Comrade Yarovoy, Commissioner of the Council under the Kemerovo Regional Executive Committee, reports: “The Pentecostal group in the city of Kemerovo is led by citizen Lidia Mitskevich, born in 1928, who works as a nurse. Her entire group consists of young people aged 23–25. Members of this group do not participate at all in social and political life at their places of work, do not attend theaters, movies, libraries, clubs, etc., considering this a great sin.”
The Council’s authorized representative for the Crimean region, Comrade Rudakov, speaking of the revival of the Pentecostals, writes: “One of the reasons for this phenomenon is the work carried out by Pentecostals who have returned from labor camps. They have made a bid for the youth. At prayer meetings, speaking under the guise of prophets, they incite believers to violate the existing legislation on cults.”
Further, Comrade Rudakov writes: “In Simferopol, the number of Pentecostals amounts to up to 200 people. Among them are many young people. The presbyter Korkosenko himself was born in 1932. This group has a well-chosen youth choir, a string orchestra, a staff of reciters; they hold special youth evenings.” But the Pentecostals have developed their work not only among young people in general, but even among university students. For example, third-year student of the Kharkov Engineering and Economics Institute, M. I. Alekseenko, was recruited by the Pentecostals and belonged to their group. Sixth-year student of the Kharkov Medical Institute, Inna Mikhailovna Khriplovaya, born in 1933, a member of the Komsomol, and also sixth-year student of the same institute, Anna Leontyevna Naumenko, were also recruited by the Pentecostals and belonged to their group.
On December 12, 1956, in a conversation with the authorized representative, the leaders of the Pentecostals in the city of Simferopol, Korkosenko and Glyshev, declared: “The old men have gone crazy with the Baptists, but we, the young ones, have taken the Word of God and will move it forward. We young people have come to replace the old men.”
The authorized representative for the Minsk region, Comrade Sazonov, reports: “Under the influence of preachers, a religious group of Pentecostals was formed in the village of Dyya, Cherven District. The believers of this group, on the grounds of religious convictions, stopped going to work on the collective farm and, under the pretext of Great Lent, did not take any food for more than ten days. All the property of the members of this group was given away to outsiders, as they awaited the second coming of Christ and the Last Judgment.”
Similar facts are reported by some regional authorized representatives in Ukraine as well. For example, the authorized representative for the Kiev region, Comrade Oleynikov, writes: “The activity of the Pentecostals, as is known, outwardly manifests itself in that they carry out propaganda for all their coreligionists to leave the ECB societies, for the creation of their own independent union and its registration; they also preach about the imminent onset of the ‘end of the world’ and about the ‘second coming of Christ.’”
In the city of Prokopyevsk, the Pentecostal preacher, citizen Pugach, speaking at prayer meetings with sermons, makes anti-Soviet statements, works to separate believers from participation in public life, and takes active measures to attract new persons into the sect, especially from among the youth.
The Council’s authorized representative in the Kirovograd region, Comrade Bondarenko, reports that the leaders of the Kirovograd group of Pentecostals, citizens Lisovsky, Ryzhkov, and Babiy, after having been refused registration, declared that “in the USSR we have complained everywhere and to everyone and we are refused; then we will write to the United Nations Organization.” Bidash, in a conversation with the senior presbyter of the ECB for the Dnepropetrovsk region, declared: “You do what the Soviet power dictates to you, but we do what the Holy Spirit tells us.”
One of the leaders of the Pentecostals in the Odessa region, citizen A. G. Kolomiets, in a conversation with the Baptists, says: “You are paper Christians, doing only what the government permits you, but we are freer than you and do what we want.”
Many “prophets” appeared among the Pentecostals in Alma-Ata. Here, in their group, there were several “prophetesses,” including: Pelageya Fyodorovna Zakharenko, Polya Botsenko, Lida Medvedeva, Rakovskaya, Efremova, and others. All of them engaged in “prophecy.” The “prophetess” Bogdanova, for example, claimed that “the people must leave Alma-Ata before May 1, 1956, for Alma-Ata will collapse.” In other places, “prophets” speak of war and “predict” its onset.
The relative, temporary “success” in the “activities” of Bidash and his supporters is caused not only by the fact that the leaders of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists pursued a wrong line towards the Pentecostals who had joined them, but also by the circumstance that Bidash and those standing behind him—Levchuk, Romanenko, Podtsubny, Belykh, Formuzala and others—in their agitational and organizational work used deception and lies, telling believers that the question of separate registration of Pentecostal groups and a Pentecostal center would be resolved by the government, “one just needs to persistently strive for it.” This aspect played no small part in the revival of Pentecostal activity. On this question, the Council’s authorized representative for the Moldavian SSR, Comrade Kolesnik, reports: “Formuzala does not confine himself to putting together communities of Pentecostals but also creates ‘twenties,’ elects executive bodies and appoints presbyters, while instilling in them that ‘the government has already permitted the registration of CEF communities and the organization of their center.’”
The authorized representative for the Dnepropetrovsk region, Comrade Zuev, reports: “a Pentecostal from Dnepropetrovsk, K. I. Kanus, when he learned that the organization of their center had been refused, said that they ‘Pentecostals’ had been led into error by Bidash, who gave them hope that the Union of Pentecostals would be registered.”
In a conversation with the authorized representative for the Chernovtsy region, Comrade Stakhovsky, the Pentecostals declared that they expected a government decree on the registration of Pentecostal groups.
The Council’s authorized representative for the Stavropol Territory, Comrade Bulatov, reports that Bidash led his supporters into error by spreading a rumor about the supposedly imminent organization of the Union of CEF.
One of the Pentecostals, on February 26, 1957, told the Council’s authorized representative for the Rovno region: “We were given hope by Bidash that the union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith would be permitted by the government and that Pentecostal societies would be registered.”
In light of all the foregoing, and in order to counteract the harmful anti‑state activities of the Pentecostals, the AUCECB was given the opportunity to carry out work among Pentecostal groups of believers with the aim of reuniting them with registered ECB congregations. For this purpose, the AUCECB enlisted certain prominent leaders from among former Pentecostals who had declared their readiness to implement the August agreement. Those leaders included Kasperovich, But, Ponurko, Marin, and others. As a result of the explanatory work carried out among Pentecostal believers, the submission of registration requests by Pentecostal groups has almost ceased at the present time, and both their activity and activism have, in the majority of cases, sharply declined. In the Ukrainian SSR alone, a significant number of Pentecostals have re‑entered ECB congregations as a result of the work done. For example, in the ECB congregation in Pyatikhatka, where Pentecostal influence had been strong, at the present time, as written by the deputy senior presbyter of the AUCECB for Ukraine, Melnikov: “the spiritual condition of the church is quite satisfactory. As a result of the work carried out to acquaint believers with the appeals of the AUCECB to all CEC, another 17 persons from among former CEC who had not been in unity before have joined the church recently. The situation of some former CEC who separated from ECB congregations is at present of a wait‑and‑see nature. The majority of them are willing to return to the church. There are no further cases of people leaving the church.”
Much the same situation exists in the Dneprodzerzhinsk ECB congregation and in a number of others.
In Kazakhstan, the former Pentecostal leader Marin, S.I., on assignment from the AUCECB, carried out work to unite the Pentecostals with the ECB.
As a result of his work in Alma‑Ata, Karaganda, and Chimkent, a portion of the Pentecostals joined the ECB. But here, too, some Pentecostals are in a wait‑and‑see position and have significantly reduced their activities. The same picture is seen in Krasnodar Krai.
Conclusion
One of the reasons for the revival among the Pentecostals, as has already been noted above, is the not‑entirely‑correct line of the AUCECB toward those Pentecostals who joined and toward the activities of former Pentecostal leaders who returned from places of confinement. But it should also be noted that the “work” carried out by Bidash and his supporters among the Pentecostals was far from being noticed in good time everywhere by the Council’s plenipotentiaries, and only after this revival had assumed significant proportions did the plenipotentiaries focus their attention on it and begin accordingly to inform the Council. For example, in Ukraine, the Council’s plenipotentiaries Comrades Kiryuta, Zuev, Slavnov, and others initially did not report sufficiently in their information the activities of former religious ministers, in particular, Bidash, Kruzhko, Belykh, Levchuk, Poddubny, Kucherenko, and others. But after their attention was drawn to this, they began to treat this matter with the due seriousness and attention. However, by that time Bidash and the others had already managed to carry out specific organizational measures among the CEC in many places and had stirred up among them a high level of religious activism.
At the present time, thanks to the measures taken, the activities of the Pentecostals have begun to decline in many places. This has also been facilitated by the explanations carried out by the AUCECB and, under its leadership, by some former Pentecostal leaders. However, the Council and its plenipotentiaries should carefully monitor the explanations being carried out by the AUCECB among Pentecostal believers, not allowing them to gain large scope, and not allowing the AUCECB to use this explanatory work for the purpose of strengthening and intensifying the activities of ECB congregations.
In addition, within the next two to three months, the organized carrying out of this work by the AUCECB on a large scale should be stopped. Furthermore, the AUCECB should be advised that henceforth, in each individual case, the Council should be informed before sending AUCECB representatives to the localities to conduct explanatory work among the Pentecostals, and the Council’s sectarian department should regulate these trips in accordance with the circumstances that have arisen.
It should also be noted that at present, differences and dissension have appeared among the Pentecostal leaders themselves. A portion of the leaders, realizing their hopeless position, are going over to the side of the AUCECB and are actively assisting it (Marin, But, Kasperovich, Ponurko, Ponomarchuk, and others). A portion of them are for the time being adopting a wait‑and‑see position (Poddubny and others), and finally, a portion continue to be stubborn, refusing unification with the AUCECB. Among these last, various Pentecostal trends are becoming apparent, such as the rejection of all holidays (Romanenko) — Pentecostal‑Zionists and others.
Proceeding from the above, to propose that all plenipotentiaries of the Council intensify their monitoring of the activities of Pentecostal groups, systematically informing the Council, oblast, and republican organizations. Taking into account the summarized material set forth in this memorandum, to prepare a draft circular letter for the Council’s plenipotentiaries.
Compiled by
A.A. Murkhuzov, Senior Inspector of the Council
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