[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 118 (Monday, July 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1596]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      PASSING OF GENNADI KRYUCHKOV

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. ALCEE L. HASTINGS

                               of florida

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 23, 2007

  Mr. HASTINGS of Florida. Madam Speaker, on July 14, 2007, the Russian 
Federation lost one of its great leaders, although I am certain he 
would steadfastly reject such a characterization of himself.
  He certainly wasn't a famous political figure, or a wealthy 
philanthropist, or a brilliant scientist, and his name was rarely found 
on the pages of the major media. Gennadi Kryuchkov's leadership was in 
the spiritual realm. He was a courageous and principled leader of the 
unregistered Evangelical Baptist Church in the Soviet Union in the days 
when merely sharing one's religious faith with a neighbor could lead to 
a ``discussion'' at the local police station or the feared KGB office, 
and actively preaching the Gospel without permission from the 
government was usually good for a ticket to one of the many forced 
labor camps that comprised the infamous Gulag.
  Born in 1926, Gennadi Kryuchkov came to faith in 1951, and became 
active in an unregistered congregation of Baptist believers. In 1960, 
when he felt the officially registered Baptist organization had too 
deeply compromised itself with Soviet authorities by submitting to 
repressive new regulations, he became one of the leaders of the 
Initsiativniki, the unregistered and essentially underground network of 
congregations that defied Caesar's intrusion into the spiritual realm. 
Gennadi Kryuchkov became president of the underground church council 
and the late Georgi Vins was chosen as secretary. In May 1965, Pastor 
Kryuchkov and Pastor Vins led an open march on Communist Party 
headquarters in Moscow to protest government restrictions on believers 
in the Soviet Union.
  According to church council statistics, by 1972 the unregistered or 
``reform'' Baptist church numbered around 450 congregations and 18,000 
members. Another reputable source reported in the mid-1980s that there 
were 2,000 reform Baptist congregations with approximately 70,000 adult 
members.
  I would add parenthetically that in April 1979 Georgi Vins and four 
other Soviet dissidents were expelled from the Soviet Union in exchange 
for two convicted Soviet spies. In August 1985, the Helsinki 
Commission, of which I am honored to serve currently as Chairman, heard 
Pastor Vins' dramatic testimony on the plight of the unregistered 
Baptist church at Congressional hearings in Buffalo, New York, devoted 
to the subject of Soviet forced labor practices.
  Meanwhile, as a result of his determination to preserve the freedom 
to worship without state interference, Pastor Kryuchkov was arrested 
and sentenced to three years in labor camp from 1966 to 1969. In 1970, 
under threat of continued persecution, he went into hiding and spent 20 
years working underground, preaching to fellow believers in clandestine 
gatherings, publishing ``illegal'' religious literature, and staying 
one step ahead of the KGB.
  Only when the chains of religious repression in the Soviet Union were 
cast off as a result of the new thinking that characterized the 
government of Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, was 
Pastor Kryuchkov able to emerge from the shadows and return to his 
family and loved ones in the Tula Oblast, still fervently preaching the 
Scriptures and standing fast for separation of church and state.
  Madam Speaker, like the Soviet Union itself, the days of cruel 
religious persecution and militant atheism in Russia are pretty much a 
thing of the past. But let us not forget the courage and persistence of 
church leaders like Gennadi Kryuchkov, who, like the ``Remnant'' of Old 
Testament times, kept the flame of faith of burning during the dark 
days of persecution.

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