Protestants were subjected to brutal persecution. The Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists (ECB) was the most numerous of all Protestant churches, both in the USSR and in Ukraine. Under Stalin, in the pre-war years, Baptists were severely persecuted. During the war, Stalin changed his policy toward religion, and the Council for the Affairs of Religions and Cults (CARC) was established under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. The Stalinist government then took the same steps with the largest Protestant church as it did with the Russian Orthodox Church: instead of destroying it, he sought to turn it into an apparatus for surveillance and re-education of believers. To this end, the All-Union Council of Churches of the ECB (AUCC ECB) was created from above.
The main task of the AUCC ECB was to select “loyal individuals” for all church positions. In 1960, the AUCC ECB issued “The New Statute of the AUCC ECB” and a secret document, “An Instructive Letter to Senior Presbyters,” which seriously conflicted with the principles of the Baptist church. Some presbyters, including A. Prokofyev, G. Kriuchkov, and G. Vins, who received the “Instructive Letter,” perceived it as an act of apostasy by the AUCC ECB. In May 1960, they formed an Initiative Group. First and foremost, they called on the AUCC ECB to repent.
After being rebuffed, the members of the Initiative Group distributed the secret “Instructive Letter” and “The New Statute,” along with an explanation of the apostate spirit of these documents, among Baptist communities, both registered and unregistered. Their next step was to attempt to convene a general congress of ECB communities from across the country to re-elect the AUCC ECB. According to L. Alexeyeva, a powerful petition campaign by broad circles of Baptists to the CARC, demanding permission to hold the congress, deterred the authorities from immediate reprisals against the members of the Initiative Group. However, between 1960 and 1963, about 200 active opponents of the AUCC ECB were arrested. But this had the opposite effect. Baptists began to switch their allegiance to the Initiative Group en masse. On February 25, 1962, the Initiative Group was transformed into the Organizing Committee for the Convocation of an All-Union Congress. To avoid completely losing control over the Baptists, the CARC resorted to convening a congress of the AUCC ECB, attended exclusively by communities that supported it.
At the congress, it was decided to repeal “The New Statute” and the “Instructive Letter,” and in their place, the Charter of the AUCC ECB was adopted. This document was milder and less contradictory to evangelical principles. In the authorities’ view, it could serve as a compromise between the AUCC ECB and the defiant Baptist communities. However, the Organizing Committee and its supporters did not recognize the congress as legitimate. After an unsuccessful delegation to A. Mikoyan, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Organizing Committee lost hope of holding a democratic congress of ECB communities. In September 1965, the defiant communities formed a separate church, not subordinate to the AUCC ECB, with a permanent governing body—The Council of Churches of the ECB (CC ECB). It consisted of 11 members. By May 1966, the leaders of the CC ECB—M. Khorev, G. Kriuchkov, and G. Vins—were arrested. They were sentenced to three-year terms in labor camps. From that time on, there was not a single day when the members of the Council of Churches were not under threat of arrest.