...Like cold water to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far away country...

GEORGI IS IMPRISONED

Dear friends,

Today my father, pastor of our church, was summoned to the court. He was charged with holding systematic religious meetings in his private home without permission from the local authorities. I should explain that in our country since 2002 churches can meet only in buildings registered as "religious". Our congregation meets in a building which formally belongs to my father as his private home. That's why our Sunday meetings are "illegal".

We expected that he will be found guilty. What we did not expect at all is the punishment for his "crime". The hearing took about an hour and a half. In an hour the judge announced the verdict - 10 days of imprisonment.

This was a real shock to all of us who were present (about 25 pastors and church members). This never happened since 1986 when the last religious prisoner was released from the Soviet prisons. My father is the first to be imprisoned for Christian faith in the former USSR since the fall of the Soviet empire.

After the announcement of the verdict we waited for about two hours when finally my father was given the court's decision in written form. From the court he was taken straight to the police station and from there to jail. I had just enough time to go home and bring him warm clothes and some food.

I will not see my father for the next 10 days. He will be released on March 13, about noon. But we will pray that the Lord may strengthen him and use this situation for His glory.

Please pray for my father and our church. Please let your friends know that persecutions against Christian faith in Belarus have begun. Pray that the Lord may protect religious freedom in our country.

I will be leading our church meeting next Sunday. I do not know whether police will come and try to stop our service, but we will continue to worship our Lord.

Slava,
Son of Georgi Viazovski imprisoned pastor of Reformed Baptist Church "Christ Covenant" in Minsk.

February 11, 2006

Dear Friend,

The brethren in Belarus need our help.

In recent months, and culminating in this last week the state police have cracked down on Evangelical churches in Minsk and throughout Belarus. Worship services have been interrupted, pastors have been charged with crimes, and evangelism has been forbidden. This is not an abstract problem: our dear friend Georgi Viazovski and his church, Christ Covenant Baptist, are among those caught in the web of persecution.

First of all they ask us to pray for them and then to write letters to the authorities in Belarus and intervene on their behalf. If letters seem futile or too much trouble, please remember, they curbed persecution during the Soviet era and with the LordÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s blessing, they will do the same in todayÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s Belarus. Belarus is calling out for help and they remember the impact of these letters from years past. By participating, your small effort can have a great influence for the Gospel.

Below you will find the names and addresses, along with the articles guaranteeing their religious freedom. Georgi asks us to write to each and every one of the listed authorities.

Please do what you can for our brethren and for the cause of Christ in their country. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions.

The need is urgent, so that your letters can be received before GeorgiÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s court date. God bless.

Michael Phillips, Pastor

Frequently Asked Questions

Click here for a list of Belarusian officials to write to.

Click here for English and Russian text to print on your envelope

Click here to the Constitution of Belarus

Click here for suggestions and samples of letters.

December 2005

Dear Friends,

In this season of loud Christmas advertising, we're happy to announce a wonderful gift has been quietly given to the Russian Church. Volume One of C.H. Spurgeon's magisterial The Treasury of David has been published and is now being distributed to pastors, teachers, and other Christian leaders in the former Soviet Union.

If you know the Treasury, you know it is an invaluable resource for understanding and preaching the Book of Psalms. If you'd like to see our edition of the book, go to our website at www.gracetorussia.com/Books/TOD.htm. If your English is better than your Russian, go to www.spurgeon.org/treasury/treasury.htm, and sample a page or two. You won't be disappointed.

We thank the Lord for maintaining our ministry all these years, and you, too, for the part you've played in it. We wish you every blessing in Jesus Christ.

Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!

Michael Phillips, Pastor

April 2005

As an oddity, Psalm 119 is, in the Russian Bible, Psalm 118. This is because the Russian Bible follows the Septuagint (or Greek Old Testament), which combines Psalms 9 and 10. So, if you ever want to amaze your friends with your arcane knowledge or win a bet, ask them, Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“What's the longest Psalm in the Russian Bible?Ã�’¢â‚¬Â Please send ten percent of any winnings to Grace to Russia!

Keep us in your prayers, and especially our readers. Remember: Russia has never had a Reformation. Yet.

April 2004

Dear Friends, Grace to Russia is about books and brethren. In the middle of March, the last volume of J.C. RyleÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s great work, Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, came off the press. We believe this is the finest devotional commentary in English and now, for the first time, Russians can read it in their mother tongue! Four years of hard work and prayer have gone into the books and we thank the LordÃ�’¢â‚¬â€and youÃ�’¢â‚¬â€for their publication.

The next book we hope to publish is another classic, The Golden Alphabet, a devotional commentary on Psalm 119 by C.H. Spurgeon. This book has been translated and is being edited. Spurgeon is a favorite in Russia and we believe this smaller work will do much to promote a love for GodÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s Word. This, we hope, will whet the Russian appetite for our next big undertaking, SpurgeonÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s Treasury of David, a huge commentary on Psalms with helpful hints for preaching them.

As for the brethren, a new brother is now working with us, and weÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢d like to introduce you to him. He is Evgueni Terekhin, a man from Omsk, Russia (way up in Siberia). For several years, he has worked for the Lutheran ChurchÃ�’¢â‚¬â€Missouri Synod and other Evangelical literature missions in Russia. He does quality work and faster than a speeding bullet. We are very grateful to have his partnership in our work, and we ask you to pray for him, his wife and their young daughter.

Our needs remain the same: we need wisdom in choosing good titles to publish, we need a healthy staff and able to work, we need readers hungry for Christian books, and most of all, we need the Holy Spirit to breathe upon the books and make them live. If the Lord leads you to support the work, we promise to put your donations to good use. We have no paid staff in the West and almost no overhead. Your offerings go to the work itself. We thank you for your interest and wish you every blessing in Jesus Christ.

February 2002 Newsletter

This month's newsletter explains the plight of evangelical churches in the former USSR. Georgi wrote the article for the Sword and Trowel Magazine, published by the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London. We hope it will stir and inform your prayers for the work of Grace To Russia.

The Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“SpiritÃ�’¢â‚¬Â of the Soviets Lives On

In the church organization of the CIS
By Georgi Viazovski

To understand the religious situation which developed after the fall of the Soviet Union, you must appreciate that Russians were never free in the sense understood by Western democracies. In the West, the sunset of the Middle Ages and the dawn of new freedoms came with the Reformation. This did not come to Russia.

Officially, peasants gained freedom in Russia in 1861, but the Russian Orthodox Church was not ready for such changes, as it was a feudal church.

However, although there was no reform, the Holy Spirit was at work in the hearts of some people, and in 1867 Nikita Voronin was baptized by the Lithuanian believer Martin Kalveit, marking the birthday of Baptists in Russia.

Subsequently there was an awakening, reaping a harvest of some 160,000 evangelical believers within thirty years, despite great persecution. But the persecutions of the Tsar were just a pale shadow of that which would come from the Communists.

Joseph Stalin enslaved peasants again, and began the elimination of believers. Communism brought feudalism to life in the form of new landlords Ã�’¢â‚¬â€œ collective farms. These had all the rights, and farmers had no freedom to move from their place. They could have cattle, but they had no land to cut grass from for them. In exchange for hard labor, the collective allowed one day each week for cutting grass for private cattle. Thus, in the 20th century, Communism brought in the system which had been destroyed in Western Europe 400 years previously.

Baptists, with their notions of religious autonomy, were the most dangerous religious group for the Soviet government, and they were persecuted more than other believers. The new religion was Leninism, and anyone who had a different point of view had to be persecuted even to death.

In 1929, the Communists produced the Law of Religious Cults, aimed at closing all churches over time. No children were to be allowed in churches. Work with young people was forbidden. Indeed, any evangelism was forbidden. Many other restrictive regulations were brought in, and if any church did not follow them, it had to be closed and the pastor imprisoned. Within a period of ten years all evangelical churches were closed and all ministers were either killed or imprisoned.

With the coming of the Second World War, Russia occupied the Baltic countries, West Belarus and West Ukraine Ã�’¢â‚¬â€œ the places of evangelical awakenings in the 1930Ã�’¢â‚¬â„¢s. However, the soviets had no time to eradicate all believers, because with two years the German armies occupied these territories.

In 1943, the Russians began negotiations with the American and British governments on the matter of opening a second front in France. However, to Western eyes StalinÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s regime was not much better than HitlerÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s and he therefore had to do something to show he was moving to Western standards of democracy. One of his changes involved the easing of burdens for believers.

In 1944, the Soviet government established a Religious Affairs Department to demonstrate to the Western World its readiness to make changes. However, this department was placed under the control of the KGB and was intended to control very strictly the life of churches. For this purpose the KGB had to find among the many imprisoned pastors, those who were ready to compromise with the regime.

In exchange for a relaxation of persecution, these pastors had to agree to prevent work with children and young people, and to keep baptisms within a low, prescribed limit. The Soviet government created the Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists to control local churches, and to correct those who failed to keep in line with their atheistic policy.

The KGB was thus very cunning in its activities, making it appear to the West as though the Union governed the churches, and not them. The Union had Episcopal power to change pastors in local churches, and to ensure that only those who were loyal to government policy could be leaders and pastors. The church was under tight control, but the West was duped into thinking that the situation was reasonably good.

There were, however, other groups of churches which would not submit to KGB oversight. These churches were bitterly persecuted right up to the fall of the Soviet system. In real terms, these churches were persecuted by the hands of supposed brethren, the compromised leaders and pastors of the government inspired denomination Ã�’¢â‚¬â€œ the Union of Evangelical Christians and Baptists (the Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“Baptist UnionÃ�’¢â‚¬Â).

The KGB controlled every step of these official churches and their leaders. Most attention was paid to the international department of the Union. The West had to be convinced that there was religious freedom in the USSR, and the international department made sure that the West did believe.

After the fall of Communism, the head of the foreign department of the State-organized Baptist Union became president of the Belarus Baptist Union! Neither he nor his colleagues even nominally repented of their former policy of compromise with the KGB. Not surprisingly, the ethos of the old Union survives in the new one.

Today, the Baptist Union of Belarus is chief among the three Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“persecutorsÃ�’¢â‚¬Â of independent reformed Baptist churches, the other two being the State and the Russian Orthodox Church. The character and scale of persecution is, of course, very different, but the spirit of domination and hostility remains.

The State is still convinced that it has the right to control the churchÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s life. The constitution guarantees freedom of religion only on paper. A decree of the president of Belarus declared all churches that did not agree to cooperate with the State to be destructive religious sects. It is true that there is at present no open persecution, but we think that this could begin to change after the presidential election in September.

The Russian Orthodox Church engages in hostile activities using the same non-sensical slanders that were used by the Soviet machine, even including the one that says we Baptists are dangerous sectarians who sacrifice our children.

However, the most significant hostile organization is the Baptist Union of Belarus. This constituency of churches does real harm. They particularly seem to hate three features of independent churches. First, they detest the notion of local church independence. Secondly, they abominate reformed doctrine generally. Thirdly, they particularly revile one doctrine Ã�’¢â‚¬â€œ the perseverance of the saints.

This writer can give many examples of Baptist Union antagonism from experience. I remember the coming of American missionaries to Minsk at the beginning of the 1990s. Their desire was to open a Bible school and seminary. Not all were entirely reformed in view point, but all believed very firmly in the perseverance of the saints. Their problem was that they could not register their Bible school and seminary except via the Baptist Union. The latter assured the missionaries that they held the same views, so the Americans invested substantial sums in colleges which became entirely Arminian, particularly emphasizing that born-again people could lose their salvation. The Baptist Union did not allow the donors to teach their doctrines. The head of the seminary was dismissed because he held reformed views.

Western donors do not always realize that all the colleges they support under the control of the Baptist Union regard one of their favorite doctrines to be heresy.

Every applicant to these Bible schools has to approve his loyalty to the Statement of Faith of the Baptist Union of Belarus, which is militantly Arminian. Those who believe in perseverance of the saints are not admitted to the Minsk schools. Students of these colleges who adopted reformed views have been refused their diplomas on graduation. For example, Pastor Anatoli Bylinovich came to the end of the course with excellent marks, but did not get a diploma. When he returned to his church in the Gomel region, and a Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“holy inquisitionÃ�’¢â‚¬Â came to the village with the task to oust the pastor. It was severely put to Anatoli that he should leave the region, and his support was, of course, cut off. (The support fund operated by the Union consists mostly of Western money, but it is in Arminian hands.) It did not matter to the Union that the church had prospered, and young people were gathering. Only Arminian workers may be supported by the fund. Happily, that pastor stayed in the area and continues to minister.

Five years ago in the new town of Gatovo a young believer named Vladimir Buckanov organized Bible classes. In two years these grew into a Sunday School of almost 100 children. But suddenly Pastor Vladimir fell into the so called Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“heresyÃ�’¢â‚¬Â of Calvinism. The Baptist Union published a prayer bulletin with a request to pray for heretic Vladimir Buckanov. Then the leaders of the Union began to visit the church, even bringing with them a new pastor to be appointed.

Their mistake was to imagine that the church would yield to them as a longer established Union congregation would have done. But this was a new congregation, with a biblical instinct for autonomy. It was not a Soviet-era church. It came as a great surprise for the leaders of the Union when the church rejected Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“higher authorityÃ�’¢â‚¬Â.

However, the Union did not stop there. A Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“holy inquisitionÃ�’¢â‚¬Â began to visit members of the church one by one at their homes, employing all kinds of lies against the heretical pastor. As a result the church lost more than half its Sunday School children, and a third of its members. The Union declared anathema on Vladimir Buckanov.

Krupki is another place where there is a reformed minister Ã�’¢â‚¬â€œ Pastor Michail Reckunov. The Union now threatens to cut off his support if he continues to teach Calvinism. In Slonim, Pastor Eliseev Maksim is in precisely the same position as Pastor Reckunov.

My own church in Minsk is entirely independent of the Baptist Union. Twice a year we hold reformed theological conferences attended by over 100 people. Last year I was summoned to an interview with leaders of the Baptist Union. The president, vice-president, and another officer, tried to persuade me to end these conferences. For two hours they pressed me to desist, and when I would not, they printed a defamatory article in the UnionÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s magazine. In true Soviet spirit they feel they should control everyone, and have no concept of independency.

Many of those attending the last conference told us that the regional representatives of the Union called them for interview and pressed them not to take part in the reformed meetings. One of the students of the Minsk Baptist Seminary told us that he had to choose either to continue to study in the seminary or to attend the reformed conference.

Readers may be amazed to hear that all the books published by the reformed publishing enterprise (Grace To Russia) operated at my church are condemned by the Union, including even those by C.H. Spurgeon and J.C. Ryle. The Union does not officially call Spurgeon a heretic (as they do Calvin) but books by Spurgeon which had been distributed among seminarians were collected by the authorities and burned!

We know that students at the seminary or the Baptist Union in Minsk (paid for by Western funds) are sympathetic to the doctrines of grace, but they are afraid of persecution. They are certainly forbidden to visit my church, ye we have secret disciples.

The Baptist Union of Belarus, and I am sure also the Unions of Russia and of the Ukraine, in this 21st century are not very different in spirit of animosity from the Roman Catholic Church of the 16th century. If it were possible for them to burn reformers one could almost imagine they would consider it. Russia is still in the Middle Ages in the religious area, and the Baptist Union is still, in a sense, Ã�’¢â‚¬Å“StalinÃ�’¢â‚¬â„¢s organizationÃ�’¢â‚¬Â. Governments change, and ruling parties change, but the disposition of the Baptist Union is the same, with many of the same people, and very much the same policy.