Fantastic Beginnings
Page 2
Light in the darkness
The Orthodox officials were able to suppress internal dissent, but when it came to external influences — that was another matter. In the 18th and 19th centuries, many Germans were invited by Empress Catherine II and subsequent Tsars, to settle in the unpopulated areas of Russia. They were to bring their industries, their initiative, their culture and their hard work to improve the lot of the Russian people. These settled in the Black Sea region, in Bessarabia, around the Crimea and the Caucasus, and along the Volga River. Most of them were Lutherans although others included Mennonites, Hutterites, and Moravian Brethren.
The Bible for everyone
In 1813, the British Bible Society was officially established in St Petersburg and from there colporteurs travelled throughout Russia selling Bibles and reading the Gospels in public places. It brought the Word of God to people in their everyday language for the first time. This was only the beginning of what God had in store.
Home Groups
In 1832, Johannes Bonekemper, a German pastor fresh from Theological School in Basel, Switzerland, was posted to Rohrbach, to work in one of the 15 German Lutheran parishes in the Black Sea region. He began something that was to have an incredible impact upon the Ukraine and Russia in the years to come. When he began his ministry in the strategic Odessa region, Bonekemper saw the need for his people to get back to what the Scriptures taught. He encouraged his congregation to meet in home groups for an hour (German 'stunde') for Bible study, prayer and hymn singing. Before long, these meetings had such a strong impact upon the area that they spread to other areas throughout the Black Sea region and Bessarabia. The Lord brought about a spiritual awakening throughout these areas, subsequently spreading into other parts of Russia and the Ukraine through seasonal workers who had become converted.
There were many such itinerant workers who travelled wherever work was available. Often they came to the Black Sea colonies during harvest and other times. When these workers were touched by the awakening, they returned to their home areas continuing the practice of the 'stunde'. Some years later, under the pastoral leadership of Johannes' son, Karl, the members of this movement became officially recognised as the Stundists. Let's take a glimpse at the affects of this movement through the eyes of Dunaenko in the Ukraine.
A personal story
"My name is Feoktist Dunaenko. From my childhood I was brought up in the Orthodox Church. We revered our saints and prayed to them. Every day when we looked at our calendar we saw the names of so many who had suffered and died for our faith. We were told that Jesus had died for the Orthodox faith, and that we must protect it at all costs. Many times I thought to myself as I was growing up, 'Yes, I too am prepared to lay down my life for it'."
Everyone in the village knew Dunaenko, for he was a reader of the Orthodox Scriptures at the Church. He had a rich sonorous voice that moved the congregation whenever he read. Dunaenko loved reading the Scriptures in the Old Slavonic language, known only to the cultured few. Although it wasn't always clear to him what it meant, there was something about the sound of it that he loved. Most of the people could not understand it at all, but accepted that it was the Sacred Scriptures that were read to them.
One day his wife brought home a copy of the Gospels in the Russian language. It was the first time he had laid eyes on a copy like this. As he read it, things that were not clear before came alive to him, and Dunaenko began to realise that he had had a wrong understanding of salvation.
Dunaenko continued to go to the Orthodox Church. Meanwhile his wife admitted that she had been secretly going to home meetings with Stundist friends. At first he didn't know why these meetings were so secret, but he soon found out! The police kept these people under strict surveillance and even encouraged villagers to break down the windows and doors where these meetings were held.
On one occasion a number of priests turned up in the village. There was going to be a public debate between them and the Stundists. The meeting was crowded. Some of the Stundists were actually brought in by the police. When the Stundists began to ask questions from the Scriptures that the priests could not answer, the police quickly brought the meeting to a close. Dunaenko went away thinking to himself, "How can it be that these priests, with all their preparation, training, and education, could not answer questions from the Bible that ordinary people put to them?"
A new ministry
Dunaenko was so impressed with his new Scriptures that he used to read them wherever he could. When some of the locals heard this, they invited him to come to their home and to read to them and their families. Someone had told them that the Orthodox were idolaters, and they were disturbed by this. They wanted to find out what the Bible had to say about these things for themselves. This ministry was to be at great cost.
"Little did I know that such an ordinary thing as reading the Sacred Scriptures in people's homes would lead to threats, beatings, imprisonment, and finally exile from the land of my birth. All the powers of the State and the Church were used to persuade me to come back to Mother Church. When that failed, their hatred knew no bounds. What angered them so much was that as attendance at the Stundist meetings increased, attendance at the Orthodox Churches declined."
"Despite all the persecution, the Stundist movement spread throughout the country. As the Holy Spirit opened the minds and hearts of the common people, even the youngest believers came to understand and to use the Scriptures to confound the wise and the learned. There was an assurance to their salvation and a joy that they had never known in their Orthodox faith."
Our prayer for Russia, and indeed for our own country, is expressed in the words of the following hymn, quite possibly based on a poem of Derzhavin, the poet-laureate of Catherine II; and usually sung to the tone: Moscow