The Beginning of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith in the City of Mariupol
At present, there is no one left on earth who had any direct connection to or personally remembers that summer night in 1937, when the very first holy water baptism by faith took place, marking the beginning of the evangelical Christian church in the city of Mariupol. The last “long-living” member of the church who was personally present at it (and therefore can be considered an eyewitness and witness of this exceptionally important event) was Tatyana Evseevna Kiryuta.
As a long-standing member of the church (until her death several years ago), she recounted many times how this water baptism took place in 1937.
Today, no one needs to be told what the year 1937 means in the history of our country. It is a widely known fact that throughout the cruel history of the Soviet Union, this year is sadly memorable as the time of the most terrible repressions and persecutions. It would be wrong to say that it was a year only of horrific persecution against the church. It was a time of nationwide calamity and grief. Under the insanely spinning flywheel of repression in the name of a bloodthirsty and utopian idea of building a “new communist society,” where there was no place for Christianity, nor a Christian worldview, nor Christian values—which the Bible, the holy Scripture of Christians, declares on behalf of God Himself—multimillion victims fell, people who had the fortune or misfortune to be born and live in this country. It must be said that far from all of them were consciously consistent opponents of this satanic regime, and some were even its ardent supporters and admirers, but in that terrible meat grinder of the ceaselessly working ruthless guillotine of 1937, the powers that be, and the punitive repressive organs that loyally served them, no longer made much distinction as to who should be executed and who should be spared (even in the regime’s own interests!). And even now, 70 years later, as our people come to their senses, they continue to shudder inwardly at the realization of how madly the flower of the nation was cut down—bearers of the richest cultural and spiritual heritage passed down from fathers and grandfathers.
Against this grotesque backdrop of our people’s great calamity, the history of the church in the Soviet Union remains, from the perspective of secular historians, a blank spot, perhaps the least studied part of it. As for church historians, they, having a deeply Christian worldview, to which love for sinful people and forgiveness of their great and small sins is organically inherent, do not consider it their task or their goal to dwell too much and concentrate on the theme of the details of sophisticated persecutions against the church. In a Christianly wise manner, they limit themselves to the main declaration that through fire and the horror of persecution the Lord led His church by His great mercy, and “the gates of hell did not prevail against the Church,” that the Church is alive and continues its service to God and the world because her Creator and Head—the Lord Jesus Christ—is alive, and to Him alone belongs glory, honor, and worship.
Perhaps it will suffice to say that by 1937, in Mariupol there was already a small group of evangelical Christians who had come to Christ, believed and were saved, received baptism, and had previously been members of Pentecostal churches in other cities and villages of the former Soviet Union. Scattered by continuous persecution (and some of them were villagers who farmed, but in the course of the savage “collectivization” were left without land and their households), fleeing from total lawlessness and the tyranny of the authorities, unemployment and famine, they ended up in Mariupol by various routes. Mariupol, thanks to its industry and the natural wealth of the Azov Sea’s fish stocks, was at that time a fairly prosperous, warm southern Ukrainian city. Perhaps some of them thought that in this large industrial city it would be easier to get lost and escape persecution, but none of them renounced their faith; they were full of determination to continue serving Christ and not to give up. By those elusive, invisible, and incomprehensible to the world signs by which born-again Christians find and discern one another, in their new place of residence they were able to recognize each other, find one another, enter into contact with each other—and, at last, gather together for their joint services of prayer and worship to the Lord. This was partly helped by the fact that in Mariupol, on Karasevskaya Street, there was an active church of Evangelical Christian-Baptists, which they attended from time to time, satisfying their hunger and thirst for hearing the Word of God and the great need for fellowship with other Christians. However, they always had the dream and goal of establishing their own church based on their own doctrine—even if it were a church destined to have no legal status, no recognition from the authorities, no peace, nor even relative freedom to carry out its activities. From the very beginning it was clear that, unlike the 1920s (when churches of evangelical Christians still had the possibility to exist and operate legally), only one single path remained for them: to create an illegal church, an underground church, from its first day of existence—a persecuted church. In those conditions there was no other way, nor could there be.
Among this small group of believers, Ilya Demyanovich Malyuta stood out especially. He was born in 1893. His family originally came from Moldavia — they were Moldavians — but this family arrived in Mariupol from the Russian Far East back in 1935. Why they had moved from Moldavia to the Far East, and how long they had lived there — it was not possible to find out in detail. It is highly probable that the family was resettled from sunny Moldavia during the collectivization years to the uninhabited lands of the Far East. The only thing known for certain is that in the Far East they belonged to a church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith, and they moved to Mariupol because, through a prophetic word from the Lord, the will of God was revealed to them — God told them to move to this Ukrainian city, the existence of which they had not even suspected before. Several other believing families who belonged to the same church followed them from the Far East to Mariupol, including the relatives of the lame brother Anton Sikorsky with his sons Tikhon, Ivan, Nikolai, and his daughter Marfa.
Furthermore, from the Gulyaypole district of the Zaporizhia region, after the “dekulakization,” the family of Vasily Illarionovich Kiryuta was forced to move in search of work and bread, in particular his adult sons and daughters-in-law, including Nikita Vasilyevich and his wife Tatyana Evseyevna, who had been baptized in the faith back in 1925 in the Zaporizhia region. Mikhail Vasilyevich Kiryuta and his wife Polina Fedoseyevna were also members of the Mariupol church for many years. And Ignaty Ivanovich Tolmachev, after being released from his prison term in the early 1930s, likewise ended up in Mariupol.
Gradually finding one another, they not only began to gather together, but also preached the Word of God to the surrounding people of Mariupol. Of course, this could only be done in deep secrecy — from person to person, from heart to heart. By the summer of 1937, there was already a group of people who wanted to enter into covenant with the Lord through holy water baptism by faith. After instruction in the faith, a date for the baptism was set.
They gathered at night in a small house in the Haven district, where a newly converted sister named Ulyana lived. (Few knew her real surname then, and no one can name it today. She remained in people’s memory as Ulyasha Dolzhanskaya, but that is not a surname — “Dolzhanskaya” referred to those who, after the start of collectivization in the Kuban, moved from Krasnodar Krai across the sea to Mariupol. Most of them were from the Kuban village of Dolzhanskaya, located not far from Yeysk. A significant number of them settled in poor houses in the Haven, finding some kind of refuge in Mariupol after the savage repressions in the Kuban Cossack villages.) Some long-time residents of Mariupol’s Haven, with whom I had occasion to speak, still recall this sister as a modest woman of exceptional kindness, honesty, and friendliness.
Unfortunately, her little house, which stood right on the seashore, has not survived to this day due to the fact that the sea level rose somewhat in that place, and at least two rows of houses gradually ended up on the seafloor. However, it is absolutely certain that this house was located where Pervaya Ozernaya Street now meets the shore of the Sea of Azov.
Since any gatherings were categorically forbidden, and the entire city (like the whole country) was filled with regular, irregular, and freelance agents and informers of the NKVD (then the name of the KGB), this meeting took place in deep secrecy, and the windows were tightly curtained and covered with blankets so that “vigilant” neighbors could not suspect that a gathering unauthorized by the authorities was taking place in the house.
The believers worshipped the Lord with all their hearts, prayed, sang Christian hymns from memory (at that time collections of Christian songs were a great rarity and, as a rule, were copied by hand). After the reading of the Word of God, a sermon, and instruction, they went out with prayer to the seashore, where Ilya Demyanovich Malyuta performed the first water baptism. Later, he was for many years the shepherd, mentor, and teacher of the Mariupol Church of Christians of the Evangelical Faith, and he personally brought many into the community, which often gathered for its illegal meetings in his house in the Parkovy settlement at 35 Kladbishchenskaya Street. Today, this street near the Central Market is called Klinovaya — from the word “klin” (wedge), which evidently reflects its shape (not to be confused with Klenovaya Street, which is in another part of the city not far from the “Komsomolets” cinema).
A few years later, the war began. During the most terrible years of the German occupation, the community of Christians of the Evangelical Faith did not cease to exist — moreover, by God’s mercy, it obtained permission from the occupation authorities to conduct its services legally. A great tragedy of our people and a great crime of German fascism was the execution of Mariupol’s Jewish community in the fall of 1941, in an anti-tank trench near the Agrobaza. There, the bodies of innocently murdered old people, women, and children found their last earthly resting place. The echo of this tragedy can still be heard. Our church has repeatedly taken part in mourning events at the mass grave at the Agrobaza together with the Jewish community of Mariupol. Excerpts from the diary of Sara Gleykh, in which this former Moscow student, caught by the war in Mariupol and miraculously escaping death in the anti-tank trench, described the blood-curdling details of the truly inhuman destruction of the Jewish population in Mariupol, have been read many times in our church during services.
After the shooting of the Jewish community and the ongoing hunt for Jews, many people even tried not to pass by the empty synagogue building. It was probably an act of great civil courage that the Evangelical Christian church occupied this empty building, where for some time in 1941–1942 services were held, as if emphasizing that the lamp of worship to God—the God of Jews and Christians—had not gone out. (Currently, this old synagogue building, in agreement with the Jewish community, was purchased by the Seventh-day Adventist church, which now holds its services there.)
During the war, the church continued to grow numerically; according to eyewitnesses, it reached 350 members. During the war years, many people, turning to God as their only Savior and Protector, received Him into their hearts, begging God for forgiveness of sins. Currently, Alexandra Semyonovna Gerega is also a member of our church; she was baptized in an ice hole in freezing water in the winter of 1941 during the occupation. She has been a member of the church for 66 years now; her daughters Raisa Danilovna and Asya Danilovna have also served the Lord and followed Christ for many years. At 92 years old, Alexandra Semyonovna rejoices that her granddaughter Oksana continues her path of faith in serving Jesus Christ.
In the spring of 1941, the Limansky family moved to Mariupol. Vasily Petrovich Limansky was born in 1927 in the Omsk region. His parents were believers and belonged to a Pentecostal church. According to Vasily Limansky’s accounts, Polina Vasilyevna Kushnereva, a union evangelist, also labored in that church; she sometimes came from Odessa on assignment from Ivan Efimovich Voronaev, the chairman of the All-Ukrainian Union of Pentecostal Churches. Later this family lived in Labinsk, Krasnodar Krai, and in Taganrog. In 1942, Vasily Limansky was baptized in the same place where the first baptism took place near Sister Ulyana’s house. Old-timers in the Port district still remember that this was a favorite spot for baptisms by our church: even in winter, the brethren would cut a hole in the ice, lower a ladder into it, and perform baptisms, regardless of the severe frost.
In 1943, the church was forced to leave the synagogue building and hold its services in the Slobodka area in the private house of Stefan Kondratievich Tselina (current address: 22 Kotovsky Lane). Now in this house, which holds such important historical significance for our church, lives the elderly Troshin family—Fyodor Mikhailovich and Maria Semyonovna—who have been part of the church all their long lives. Stefan Tselina himself died on February 21, 1976, at the age of 82. (He was born in 1894.) Maria Semyonovna Troshina, having lived in this house for the last 40 years, told me that she used to see many long church benches stored in the attic of the Tselina house. And the door leading to the prayer room was beautiful, large, and wide…
Among those who became church members in those years and still continue their prayerful service in our church today is Lyubov Savelievna Malyuta, the wife of Yakov Ilyich, the son of the first pastor of our church. She was baptized and became a church member in 1945. A year later, after being demobilized from the Soviet Army, Mark Vasilyevich Naprienko joined the church (his daughter-in-law Elena Vasilyevna now serves as the church treasurer), and in 1948 two deeply pious sisters, who lived in the Port district not far from Mark Vasilyevich, also joined—they were known to everyone as the “Port sisters.” Now they—Alexandra Mitrofanovna and Anna Mitrofanovna Mulika—are already in eternity. Having lived a long and blessed life, leaving the kindest and brightest imprint in the memory of believers and non-believers who had the privilege of interacting with them, they left the earth to rest in eternity.
A group of church members in 1946. In the center: I.D. Malyuta.
There, in the house of Kondratiy Tselina and his wife Matryona (everyone called her Sister Motya), the church continued to gather relatively freely until 1948, when the targeted repressions, interrupted by the war, intensified again with the aim of destroying the church in the Soviet Union. During this period, the church was continuously led by Ilya Demyanovich Malyuta. Serving as deacons of the church, faithfully continuing the work of God’s church, were Matvey Ivanovich Kotelnikov (his daughter Valentina Matveyevna still remains a respected member of our church) and the aforementioned Ignatiy Ivanovich Tolmachev and Stefan Kondratievich Tselina. During the war, Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrovsky moved to Mariupol from western Ukraine; he was a capable preacher. He settled in the port district. Soon he was elected church secretary. Thanks to his accuracy and thoroughness, it is known that as of 1948 the church had a rather large number of members—701.
In early 1948, Mariupol was visited by brothers who were still young at the time, but whom the Lord would later destine to become leaders of the persecuted Pentecostal fellowship in the Soviet Union. These were Ivan Antonovich Levchuk and Viktor Ivanovich Belykh. The purpose of their visit and the main subject of their many hours of conversation with the Mariupol brothers was a very difficult question — the future of the fellowship of Evangelical Christians in the USSR. In March 1948, an underground congress took place in the city of Dneprodzerzhinsk, and the very fact that it was held under those conditions of a totalitarian state regime can be considered a great miracle of God. Brothers from Western Ukraine and Bukovina, representing Evangelical Christian churches from other parts of Ukraine, arrived at this congress by secret routes (Western Ukraine had been annexed to the USSR in 1939, and Bukovina — Chernivtsi Oblast — in 1940). At this congress, all the participants of which were arrested a few days later and, after many months of investigation, sentenced to terms of imprisonment from 10 to 25 years, it was decided to once again address the Soviet government on behalf of the churches with a request that the persecuted Church of Evangelical Christians be given the opportunity to obtain registration and legal status. The response of the Soviet authorities was harsh not only toward those who petitioned for registration on behalf of the churches, but also toward the local churches themselves. A circular message was sent to local Soviet authorities and to the heads of state security, the prosecutor’s office, and the militia, in which the Pentecostal church was designated a fanatical sect conducting savage rites and, for that reason, “not subject to registration” with Soviet authorities. (To this day, that wild lie still makes itself known in one form or another, and often continues to be spread with impunity by the unfortunate victims of communist propaganda.)
At that truly heroic 1948 congress, the brothers from Mariupol were not personally present. But it is known with certainty from the words of church secretary V.Ya. Petrovsky that the Mariupol church also gave Ivan Levchuk and Viktor Belykh its own statement to the government — its own petition for the registration of the church with the authorities.
In 1949, Ilya Demyanovich Malyuta was arrested allegedly for anti-Soviet propaganda (which is what preaching the Gospel to unbelievers was called at the time). He was sentenced to 25 years of deprivation of freedom. Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrovsky was thrown into prison together with him. At that time, Ignat Ivanovich Tolmachev was already 76 years old. On the day the state security officers arrived, old Tolmachev was repairing the roof of his little house in Gavan. When they ordered him to come down from the roof, he said that he had long been ready for arrest, that he had been expecting them for a long time, and that his bag with rusks was ready. Despite the desperate attempts of Tolmachev’s son, who was then an officer in the Soviet army, to save his elderly father from prison, Stalin’s court sentenced Tolmachev to 25 years of deprivation of freedom. At the trial, Ignat Ivanovich, in his characteristic manner with gentle humor, simply thanked the Soviet court for the sentence. When the surprised judge asked him why he was thanking him, Tolmachev said that the judges seemed to have extended his life, because, given his 76-year-old age, according to the sentence, he would have to sit in prison at least until he was 101. His humor went unheeded.
Ignat Tolmachev was released only after Stalin’s death in 1955. By then, he could no longer travel home on his own. The Mariupol brothers Mark Naprienko and Andrey Lukashov brought him home on a stretcher. At home in Gavan, he soon passed into eternity.
After Stalin’s death, the sentences of the other convicted brothers were also shortened — in that same year, 1955, Ilya Malyuta and Vladimir Petrovsky returned home, as did Stefan Tselina and Nikita Kiryuta. Almost at the same time, those who had been sentenced in 1948 to 10-year terms also returned: Nikolai Danilov (born 1918), Vasily Ustimenko (born 1924), and the brothers sentenced to the same 10-year terms in 1951: Vasily Stryuts (born 1896), Grigory Makarenko (born 1896), Fyodor Gavrilenko (born 1893), Alexander Vyrodov (born 1922).
Due to his age and health, Vladimir Yakovlevich Petrovsky could no longer carry out active ministry in the church. The church deacon, Matvey Ivanovich Kotelnikov, who had worked for many years as a carpenter at the Azovstal plant, contracted tuberculosis and died early, even before the repressions of 1949 and the following years. His daughter, Valentina Krivonos, who today is a member of our church, was 12 years old at that time. Eight months after Matvey Ivanovich’s death, his son Anatoly was born, who later, together with his family, was also a member of our church until they moved to the United States, where they now live. He never saw his father, but his heavenly Father cared for him all his life. It was there, in the state of Washington, that the earthly life of Anna Vasilyevna Kotelnikova, the wife of Matvey Ivanovich, also came to an end. She was a deaconess of our church for many years, laboring blessedly in suffering and patience for the Lord’s sake.
After the arrest of Ilya Demyanovich in 1949, the church presbyter became Pyotr Semyonovich Mishchenko — a man of truly extraordinary destiny.
According to some sources, he was born in 1874 (possibly 1884) into a Jewish family, but even before the 1917 revolution he was baptized in Orthodoxy. He received a higher education, actively participated in the revolution together with his wife, and later, when the Bolsheviks came to power, worked in the Cheka. His wife was a tall Jewish woman; they had no children. During a combat assignment, she was captured by White Cossacks with a weapon in her hands and was shot. After he became a widower, he married a second time; his wife, Anastasia Nikolaevna, was of Jewish and Greek descent.
Many details of his life are unknown; only the information that he worked as an engineer at a carriage factory in Mariupol in civilian service has been preserved. Exactly how and where he survived the war years is also unknown, but in 1946 or 1947 he joined the Church of Evangelical Christian Faith through holy water baptism and soon became a preacher and a member of the church council, assisting Ilya Demyanovich in the ministry. Pyotr Semenovich died in Mariupol in the late 1960s.
Another assistant of Ilya Demyanovich was Sidor Grigorievich Efimenko, who permanently lived on the Belosaraiskaya Spit, then lived in Osipenko near Berdyansk, but often came (sometimes for long periods) to Mariupol and actively participated in church affairs. (His son, who in his time was a Komsomol member and a fierce persecutor of his own father, later deeply repented and accepted Jesus Christ, was baptized by faith, and was also a member of our church on the Right Bank until his death.) Usually, when in Mariupol, Sidor Grigorievich stayed at the home of Marfa Sikorskaya, who lived at that time next to the Central Market at the address: 22 Ovrazhnaya Street. He labored throughout the city, including on the Left Bank.
In 1949, left without a recognized pastor, the Mariupol church withstood great pressure from the state, but not only did it not scatter, it even continued to grow numerically under the leadership of brothers Mishchenko and Efimenko—largely because believers from other cities willingly moved to Mariupol. Also dating to this time is the beginning of the active ministry in the church of Andrei Filippovich Lukashov, who gradually by 1951 became an assistant to Brother Mishchenko.
A.F. Lukashov was born on September 21, 1925, in the German settlement of Grintal, and later lived in Korntal—now a district of the small village of Zaporozhets, 10 km from the settlement of Telmanovo, the district center of Donetsk Oblast. Despite having a Russian surname, the family from which he came had German and Jewish roots. This is not at all surprising, considering that the Telmanovo area was a settlement of German colonists who had lived there from time immemorial. In childhood, Andrei Filippovich spoke German.
During collectivization, this prosperous family was completely ruined. The father was dekulakized, the mill confiscated, and all property in the house was taken. It was in those years that his aunt taught little Andrei the Lord’s Prayer, initiating his search for God.
At age 10, he found a Bible at his dekulakized grandfather’s home and began to read it. Even though his family did not belong to any church, at age 12 he became acquainted with the Baptist church. After serving in the army, in 1947 he began regularly attending the Baptist church in Bela Krinitsa near Novoazovsk. Having moved to Mariupol, he joined the Church of Evangelical Christian Faith (KhVE), then still led by Ilya Demyanovich Malyuta. Andrei Lukashov was baptized by faith by Ilya Demyanovich on the eve of Easter 1948 at that same well-known place—in the waters of the Sea of Azov next to the little house of Sister Ulyana. And a few years later, that little house went underwater…
While ministering during the imprisonment of the first pastor, laboring in God’s field together with brothers Mishchenko and Efimenko, Andrei Filippovich Lukashov in August 1957 was elected presbyter of the Mariupol church (in 1948 Mariupol had been renamed the city of Zhdanov on the occasion of the death of one of Stalin’s favorites, General A.A. Zhdanov).
In 1947, the Prudnikov family moved to Mariupol from Bryansk Oblast. Although they had an unbelieving father, both brothers—Ivan Gavrilovich (born in 1925) and Vasily Gavrilovich (born in 1928) Prudnikov—later became authoritative and respected ministers of the Gospel and pastors of churches. The believers greatly loved these esteemed brothers. In the 1950s, the families of Kirill Mironovich Fisenko (he settled on the Right Bank), Pavel Ivanovich Chernyshov, and the well-known Christian preacher and poet Ivan Semenovich Kharitonov, whose songs written in those years are still sung today, moved to Mariupol from the Krasnodar and Stavropol regions. Pyotr Nikolaevich Cherkashin and Vasily Kirillovich Fisenko, who had already been ordained as a presbyter in Fergana, moved to Mariupol from Central Asia, from the distant Fergana Valley. His wife was a native of Fergana. All these aforementioned brothers left a significant mark on the spiritual life of Mariupol as a whole, and on the history of the church in particular.
After the brief “Khrushchev Thaw” of 1955, persecution began again. As early as 1956, Vsevolod Tsypenko was thrown into prison for 8 years, then in 1958–1959 the Prudnikov brothers were imprisoned, charged with keeping Christian literature as engaging in anti-Soviet activity. After being released from prison, they became recognized presbyters of the church.
After freedom came, many secret things became open. By a miracle of God, I obtained access to the archives of the MVD, KGB, and the archive of the Supreme Bodies of Power and Administration of the USSR. While working with secret documents, I found quite a few very interesting documents that directly concern our Mariupol Church of Evangelical Christian Faith. In one of them, the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR, P. Vilkhovy, carefully following the directives of his center, wrote the following about the leading Mariupol brothers:
In our information dated September 20, 1956, No. 0268, we proposed that stricter punitive measures be applied to persons who, after returning from places of confinement, continue to lead a parasitic way of life, maliciously violate the legislation on religious cults, or, under the guise of religious propaganda, create unhealthy attitudes among believers toward the activities of government authorities.
It is characteristic to note that all these individuals, having arrived from places of imprisonment—active missionaries of Pentecostalism—were registered for permanent residence in such a large industrial center as the city of Zhdanov. It would be advisable to deprive those of them who continue their illegal missionary activity of the right to reside in the city of Zhdanov. So far, among the aforementioned major Pentecostal missionaries in Zhdanov, only one citizen, Tsypenko, has been arrested and tried—sentenced to 8 years.
The above-mentioned individuals, upon returning from imprisonment, did not take the path of an honest working life; they do not wish to become useful members of Soviet society, but continue, for the purpose of missionary work, to wander about the settlements, ignoring Soviet legislation on religious cults. It is inexpedient to allow such persons to continue residing in the Donbass.
A wave of new Khrushchev-era repressions struck the church in 1961. In Mariupol at that time, several public show trials were held, in which about 40 brothers—leaders of the Church of Evangelical Christian Faith—were tried, including the elderly deacon Sidor Grigorievich Efimenko, who served yet another 5 years in prison. Ivan Anastasovich Ruban was also imprisoned.
During this period, because of persecution, the Mariupol church could no longer gather in one place, nor could it preserve its organizational unity. Gradually, several large groups formed, which held their services separately in different parts of the city—on the Left Bank, in the Port area, in Mirny and the Ukraina settlement, and in other districts. Naturally, these groups elected their own leading brothers. On the Left Bank, the leading brothers were Nikolai Ivanovich Danilov, Pavel Konstantinovich Aiko, Ivan Anastasovich Ruban, Vasily Ivanovich and Ivan Ivanovich Ustimenko, Alexander Vasilievich Vyrodov, Vasily Petrovich Limansky, Ivan Gavrilovich and Vasily Gavrilovich Prudnikov, Viktor Ivanovich Yurchenko, Fyodor Ivanovich Pukhalsky, Vasily Mikhailovich Zhivago, and later—Anatoly Mikhailovich Katyuzhinsky, Nikolai Alexandrovich Sdobnikov, Vladimir Mikhailovich Kulyukin. In the factory district—Viktor Goryunov, Mikhail Ivanchenko, and Alexander Gudakov. On Azovkoltso—Vsevolod Fyodorovich Tsypenko and Alexander Andreevich Volkov. In the Mirny settlement—Ivan Semyonovich Kharitonov and Artyom Maksimovich Shcherbakov. In the port district—Vasily Dorofeevich and Semyon Dorofeevich Romanyuk, as well as Ivan Fyodorovich Zhelnovakov. In Kamensk and the “Zirka” state farm—Vasily Stryuts. Due to this manner of organization and ministry, these groups acquired their own individual characteristics—often determined by the personal qualities or vision of their leaders. Later, some of them took shape as independent churches. The Pentecostal churches existing in Mariupol today are not exactly alike in all respects, but they all have a common origin and a common root, going back to 1937, when the Church of Evangelical Christian Faith was formed.
In the central part of the city, the church continued to function under the leadership of Andrei Filippovich Lukashov and Kirill Mironovich Fisenko. According to the decision of the brothers (this brothers’ meeting took place in the home of Alexander Nikolaevich Sdobnikov on the Left Bank), they were ordained to presbytery ministry in the fall of 1960. The ordination was performed by the only Union evangelist who remained at liberty due to his advanced age—Ivan Iosifovich Slavik, who had been a close coworker of Ivan Voronaev in the All-Ukrainian Union of Churches of the Evangelical Christian Faith since 1926. Andrei Filippovich Lukashov became the senior pastor of the church.
It was precisely this church, under the leadership of Brother Lukashov, that at the time when, finally, through the prayers of saints all over the world, after the upheavals of the 1960s the Soviet Union saw some initial changes in the state’s attitude toward the church, succeeded in obtaining registration and the right to carry out legal activity. In 1974, the Mariupol church became one of the very first churches of the Evangelical Christian Faith to be registered in the USSR autonomously, as independent churches.
It is not surprising that after long decades of struggle for their rights, several waves of arrests and prison terms, not all believers could immediately believe that some initial changes had occurred in the state’s attitude toward the Pentecostal movement. Many believers viewed such registration with great wariness, or even open negativity. Yet the decades that have passed have convincingly demonstrated the wisdom of that decision in those circumstances. Over time, this brought about positive results.
In the 1980s, the presbyters Lev Mikhailovich Burenkov, Yuri Konstantinovich Konovalenko, and Ivan Methodievich Maistruk assisted the pastor in the church’s ministry. In May 1980, Vasily Stepanovich Goryunenko, Anatoly Andreevich Lukashov, Sergei Ivanovich Zhelnovakov, Semyon Fyodorovich Tikhonchuk, and Vladimir Ivanovich Franchuk were ordained to the deacon’s ministry. Youth work in the church during that period was successfully led by Pavel Ivanovich Zhelnovakov, and the choir singing by Leonty Ignatievich Radchenko and Pyotr Mikhailovich Shulik.
At the end of the 1960s and especially in the 1970s, when the first Pentecostal churches had already obtained autonomous registration, the movement of these churches toward unification into a church union intensified. Several such congresses were held—none of them, of course, was officially permitted by the authorities, but none of them, thank God, was disrupted. The first such congress was held in Zaporizhzhia in 1969 under the leadership of Pastor Pyotr Donets. At this congress, several churches of the Evangelical Christian Faith united into a union, which existed right up until the time of freedom. This union was never officially recognized by the authorities, yet the authorities were forced to reckon with it.
The second such congress took place in 1970 in Mariupol in a private house in Novoselovka, whose owner was Vasily Illarionovich Malyuta. About 300 people attended this congress – mainly representatives of churches from Ukraine and Moldova, but brothers from many churches in Russia and the Caucasus were also present. The congress was again held under the leadership of pastor from Zaporozhye Peter Donets. At this congress, the formation of the governing body of the church union – the Council of Presbyters – began. Andrey Filippovich Lukashov was elected its first chairman. Fedor Ananyevich Voznyuk – pastor of the church from Novaya Kakhovka, Kherson region – was elected secretary. Subsequently, the Council of Presbyters was headed by the respected and authoritative pastor Vladimir Ivanovich Ozeruga. In those years of my youth, I too had the privilege of being a staff member of the Council of Presbyters, which I consider a great privilege of my life. Indeed, it was a joy and a blessing from the Lord to work with Vladimir Ivanovich Ozeruga from Kiev, Peter Vladimirovich Serdichenko from Odessa, Vladimir Moiseevich Okara from Bataysk, Nikolay Vladimirovich Okara from Novocherkassk, Nazar Pavlovich Reshchikovets from Kharkov, Grigory Dmitrievich Tsybulsky from Batumi, Nikolay Alekseevich Gushchin from Bryansk, Viktor Ivanovich Panko from Minsk, Ivan Vasilyevich Mikhov from Moldova, and other distinguished and faithful brothers, long-time labourers in God’s field. Over the years, they also visited Mariupol. By the time perestroika began, there were 250 such churches belonging to the union of autonomously registered churches throughout the USSR. Some of them already had their own buildings.
As for the Mariupol church, initially it did not have and could not have its own building – even after it received registration. Meetings were held under the leadership of Andrey Filippovich in a private house belonging to Sister Olga Plokhushkina. This house was located not far from the tram depot in the Parkovy settlement, next to the Central Market. Up to 200 people would sometimes gather in this small house. The overcrowding was terrible, but believers rejoiced even in this. Some time later, in 1975, the church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists under the leadership of Pastor Alexander Fedorovich Rubashnev provided separate hours for worship services in its house of prayer on Karasevskaya Street (then called Kuindzhi Street). In this premises, the church held its services for 10 years, until the perestroika year 1985, when it received for temporary use (still temporary use then!) from the city authorities the building of an old dilapidated warehouse on the Right Bank at the address Grecheskaya, 232.
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