Vasily Pashkov, organizer of Evangelical Christians 1874-1884

· Evangelical Christians, Russian Empire

The name of Colonel Pashkov marks the beginning of an entirely new era in the religious life of Russia and its center — St. Petersburg: the start of a broad evangelical proclamation that prepared the way for the formation of the future St. Petersburg Church of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.

St. Petersburg was not merely the capital of Russia, but its European capital. Several years before the St. Petersburg awakening, there were not a few individual evangelical believers among the aristocracy who had been abroad — to England, France, Switzerland. Yet their conversion would have remained their private affair if God had not raised up for Himself a man from their midst — the richest man in Russia, a superb organizer, a man of broad views, educated and with a heart so devoted to the Lord that labor for Christ became the meaning and substance of his entire life. He experienced a deep and dramatic conversion to God in 1874 from the childlike, simple, and clear evangelical preaching and prayer of Lord Redstock, the “lord-apostle,” as the St. Petersburg believers affectionately called him.

A noble aristocrat, a lover of dancing, cards, hunting, the owner of estates in ten provinces of Russia and five palaces in St. Petersburg, plus another in Moscow — on that day he saw himself before the judgment throne of Almighty God, Who revealed to him the depths of evil in his heart, and he cried out to Christ for mercy and forgiveness. He received forgiveness, complete and instantaneous. He was then 42 years old, and he devoted all the powers of his mind, eloquence, and organizational talents to spreading the Gospel message of salvation for sinners through the shed blood of Jesus Christ. In a “Christian” country, this was a complete novelty. Modest Korf, Pashkov’s associate, who had been a devout Orthodox all his life, once said: “Never in my whole life has a single priest told me that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin.”

The St. Petersburg believers came to be called “Pashkovites.” With great zeal they began evangelical work along the main lines that Pashkov developed and outlined:

* The creation of the Society for the Encouragement of Spiritual and Moral Reading, which implied a publishing house for Christian literature, and it was able to rely on the labor of colporteurs — a movement that arose immediately after the peasant reform. Literature aimed at the most diverse readerships was translated and printed. This Christian literature was dispatched not piece by piece, but by the pood, and then distributed locally.

* For work among students, Pashkov set aside one of his palaces on the Vyborg side. There he organized a student canteen, served by believing sisters, who also decorated it with words from Scripture.

* Pashkov opened the door of his new, just-acquired palace (10 Kutuzov Embankment) for evangelical gatherings. The porter not only did not bar the way to outsiders, but actively invited them to the meeting.

An excerpt from a report by the Ober-Procurator of the Holy Synod (1880) stated:

“In the current year, the gatherings at Pashkov’s have already reached very considerable dimensions, which grow weekly. In addition to outings to cabmen’s yards, Pashkov once or twice a week opens the magnificent halls of his house for prayer meetings, to which all who wish come — from high society to the lowest worker. The halls are already too small for the meetings: last Sunday there were at least 1,500 people of all ranks there…”

In all of his estates, Pashkov organized communities, and in the summer the center of his activity shifted to the Russian provinces. He labored tirelessly. Here is what is written in another report: “The owner of the village of Vetoshkino and its hamlets in Sergach district, Colonel Pashkov, coming to his estate in the summer time, for three or four months, from 1876 has been engaged in reading the Gospel to the people with oral explanations; he has read both in settlements belonging to his estate and in other neighboring ones, up to ten in number; after each reading, and in the village of Vetoshkino continuously, booklets: the Gospel and various tracts and pictures were distributed to the people free of charge; many people gathered at the readings… in the village of Vetoshkino, Mr. Pashkov read daily in the morning from 10 o’clock at the hospital, and after noon from 3 o’clock at his house; during the fair he read several times and at different points…”

Truly, the spreading of the Good News was for Pashkov the work of his life; he thought about it constantly, finding ever new ways to reach the Russian people with the Gospel. Together with Korf, they visited taverns and doss-houses, and prison hospitals, and organized their own Christian hospital. He cared for the newly formed communities, helping them both spiritually and materially: he bought land on the Don for new communities, and in Sevastopol he organized workshops for those called “sectarians,” but they were his brethren. He invited believers who were landless peasants from other provinces to settle on his Orenburg estate.

When we speak of Pashkov, we must see him on the very crest of a great wave, which the All-Russian evangelical awakening truly was. A large contribution to it was made through the zealous labor of the aristocratic women N. F. Lieven, V. F. Gagarina, E. I. Chertkova, Y. D. Zasetskaya, who translated Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, the Bolshoi Theatre soloist A. I. Peikor, and the publisher of the magazine Russian Worker. Here also belongs the labor of the tireless colporteurs, first among whom must be named Yakov Delyakov, “the first forerunner of Christianity.” He, too, is mentioned in the memorandum of the Synod’s Ober-Procurator: “During the travels of Deleki (also Delyakov), whole settlements, abandoning urgent work, run out to meet him sometimes for 20 versts or more.” Among those who “ran out to meet him” were simple peasants from the Caucasian Molokans and Ukrainian Stundists, who received bales of Christian literature from Pashkov. Let us note the titles of these books: Come to Jesus Christ, What Is a Christian?, Heaven and Hell, Are You Reconciled to God?, The Way of Salvation, The Wedding Feast…

In the time of Pashkov, classes began in Sunday schools, Bible study groups; the social work of aristocratic women emerged — sewing workshops for poor women, a shelter for the homeless. And behind all these initiatives stood the majestic figure of God’s man, the simple and generous Pashkov, who always knew how to encourage and approve.

All his activity took place during the reign of Alexander II, the tsar — liberator of the peasants and reformer, the tsar who called the nation to turn to Scripture and asked for prayers for the victory of Russian arms in the Russo-Turkish war for the liberation of their Slav brethren in the Balkans. But, while to a certain extent consonant with the tsar’s aspirations, this activity aroused fierce hatred and resistance from the established church. In the evangelical preaching of salvation by faith they saw a danger to the very existence of ritual faith. The peasant reform had just passed, masses of people discovered spiritual needs, and the “evangelicals” went out to meet those needs. In Pashkov’s phenomenon, many factors coincided: a favorable historical time, reforms, spiritual hunger, and even patriotic enthusiasm during the liberation of the Slav brethren. In everything the action of the Holy Spirit is visible; otherwise, the gospel message could never have broken through either into the city of barracks and Decembrists, officers and officials, or into a Russia motionless in ritual slumber…

In April 1884, Pashkov, Korf, and Bobrinsky (a former minister of railways) decided to convene a Unification Congress of all evangelical movements. Three days later all delegates were arrested, all meetings closed. Pashkov was ordered never to set foot on Russian soil again. The period of the reign of Alexander III and the Ober-Procurator of the Synod Konstantin Pobedonostsev began. But the community they wanted to behead remained alive. It was taken over by Kergel, then Prokhanov, and now — already we, the uncounted multitudes of people devoted to the Lord, loving God’s Word.
Marina KARETNIKOVA

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