The Pentecostals. The “Right to Emigrate” Committee

In 1945, the Pentecostal denomination was forcibly subordinated to the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB). However, most Pentecostal communities simply did not register and existed underground, not being subordinate to the AUCECB. Thus, by 1974, there were 539 unregistered Pentecostal communities in Ukraine compared to 16 registered ones. The religious activities of the Pentecostals themselves—worship services, preaching, raising children in the spirit of their religion, etc.—could lead to arrest and trial. The repressions against them were the same as against the Baptists. The continuous oppression and persecution of Pentecostals by the Soviet system pushed them in the late 1940s toward the idea of leaving the USSR—a godless, aggressive country. Sporadic attempts to emigrate continued in the 1950s and 60s, for which Pentecostals were persecuted. An organized emigration movement began to form in 1973 among Pentecostals in the Far East of the USSR. The struggle for emigration brought the Pentecostal movement out of isolation and brought them closer to human rights activists. From 1974, Pentecostals connected with Western correspondents through human rights activists. It was then that the first families received invitations from the West and permission to leave. The Pentecostal movement grew stronger. From that moment, the publication of the bulletin “Information Service of the Christians of Evangelical Faith—Pentecostals” (later “Facts and Only Facts”) began. From 1976, it was published regularly, and its reports were regularly published in A Chronicle of Current Events. In Ukraine, by the end of the 1970s, thousands of Pentecostals had submitted documents for emigration. In total, in the USSR at that time, their number reached 30,000 people. From 1979, repressions against Pentecostals significantly intensified. In 1981, the Pentecostals formed the “Right to Emigrate” Committee—a human rights organization of Pentecostals. One of its leaders was Pavlo Akhtiorov from Donetsk, author of the religious treatise “On the Path to Immortality.” For his activities, he was twice convicted, in 1971 and 1981. In 1982, in connection with the Committee, a case was fabricated against its other leader, Vasyl Barats, a resident of Rivne. These repressions were not an isolated incident but the rule in the Soviet Union.