SEGMENT OF CRIMEAN BAPTISTS DECIDE TO JOIN RUSSIAN UNION OF BAPTISTS
Religiia v Ukraine, 9 July 2015
Representatives of 28 Baptist churches of Crimea decided to register a regional association under the wing of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists. This was reported on his blog by the chief editor of International Christian Newspaper, Andreas Patts, Religiia v Ukraine reports, with a reference to Invictory.
This decision was adopted on 7 July during a pastors' conference in the central Baptist church of Simferopol. The chairman of the Russian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (RSEKhB), Aleksei Smirnov, participated in the conference.
Smirnov explained that the initiative for Crimean churches joining the Russian union belonged exclusively to Christians of Crimea. He also emphasized that the Moscow leadership is motivated merely by a desire to help fellow believers in the process of registration, so that "local churches would be able to perform ministry and to fulfill that to which they are called, without impediment."
In addition, the head of Russian Baptists described a telephone conversation with the chairman of the All-Ukrainian Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists, Valery Antoniuk, that occurred on the eve of his visit to Crimea. Smirnov said that he invited his Ukrainian colleague to the upcoming conference. The latter cited his tight schedule and blessed Aleksei Vasilievich for his trip and holding the constituent conference.
Conference participants represented churches on the basis of one delegate for every 40 members. They all unanimously (100%) voted for joining the REKhB and just as unanimously elected the head of the association, Presbyter Alexander Maikan. The candidacies of the first two vice-chairmen also did not evoke objections from the audience. Sergei Medvedev (Sevastopol) and Sergei Kozarenko, the presbyter of the church in Simferopol, were elected as vice-chairmen.
The Crimean association will join the Baptist churches of the southern region of the Russian federation. The pastor of the Novocherkassk church, Vladimir Romanenko, who represented this region, delivered greetings from the brotherhood of the south of the country and delivered a sermon of exhortation to the newly elected leadership of the Crimean association.
Previously, 39 churches of the once united Crimean association of Baptists founded and registered a separate autonomous union. It is headed by a presbyter of the Yalta church, Veniamin Yukhimets. How relations between the two Baptist associations in Crimea will develop is still not clear. (tr. by PDS, posted 9 July 2015)
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