These posts are some of the easiest I've done, but I think they provide some telling information about who I was and how I came to be when I set foot on Austrian soil in 1987. I wasn't just an ill-prepared secretary; I was someone who had spent years doggedly preparing for missionary service specifically in Eastern Europe, what was then the Warsaw Pact.
And I was not interested in the Red scare. No, I had more methodically thought through the theoretical differences between Christianity and Communism, and had even tried to understand liberation theology. I've said all this before, but maybe these address are giving it a new credibility. I could start quoting parts of texts from the books I still have and maybe then you'd believe these other things too. But then it's hard to prove such things, especially so many years down the line, isn't it?
Mrs. Nellie Pavluk
15 Gal Crescent, Apt. 101
St. Catherines, Ontario
Canada L2R 7G3
USSR & Jewish emigres
Paulinum Seminar
Georgenkirchstr. 70
DDR-1017 Berlin
[This is where I had several friends I met while studying German in W. Berlin in 1983. I learned about the seminary while volunteering at a research center, but I got the address from someone in W. Berlin.]
Pravoslavna Cirkev
V Jame 6
11121 Praha 1
225-139
Polski Kosciol Chrzescijan Baptistow
ul Walicow 25 m. 12
00865 Warszawa 25
20 12 24 or 24 27 83
Persecuted Church Commission, Inc.
P.O. Box 1340
Kingston, NY 12401
The Pocket Testament League
117 Man St.
P.O. Box 368
Lincoln Park, NJ 07035
Possev-Verlag (Russian Books)
Flurscheideweg 15
D-6230 Frankfurt am Main 80
W. Germany
Prediger Seminar des Bundes Evangelisch-Freikirchlichen
Gemeinden in der DDR
KdoR (Baptist Union of the GDR)
x1276 Buckow (Mark Schweiz)
Klara-Zetkin-Str. 65
Tel. 212
[This seems to be an incomplete address.]
Dr. Walter Sawatsky
Mennonite Central Committee
Langendorfer Str. 29
D-5450 Neuwied
W. Germany
[He was one of the greatest specialist on Soviet Evangelical Christianity and his book Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II was published (1981) just before I became seriously interested in this area of world for ministry. I have no idea how he was regarding some of the ethical issues I dealt with when I arrived in Vienna. I will say that the Mennonites weren't present at the Vienna mission, so if there was any cooperation it was somewhere off the campus that I wasn't privvy too.]
The Romanian Missionary Society
P.O. Box 527
Wheaton, IL 60189-0527
[I believe this was the brain child of exiled Romanian Baptist church leader Josef Ton (pronounced Tsone). At one point, I audited a graduate level class from him at Wheaton College on the Theology of Suffering. Evidently the Romanian believers had developed an entire theological strain around suffering, much as we have ecclesiology and soteriology, which they had too, of course, being Baptists. Soon after Romania opened up Ton returned to his homeland. He never did want to leave, in the first place, so given the first chance to return he took it.]
Rektorat der Polnischen Kirche
Rennweg 5A
A-1030 Wien, Austria
Russia for Christ
P.O. Box 30,000
3009 A & B DeLaVina
Santa Barbara, CA 93105
(805) 687-7696
Revormatske Hriscanske Crkve USFR (Reformed)
Episkopsko Zvanje
Bratstva 26
24323 Feketic
Yugoslavia
(024) 738-070
Rimokatolicka Crka
Kaptol 1
41000 Zabreb, Yugoslavia
(041) 275-449
Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Trerkov
Ryleeva 18/2
Moskva G-2
201-2928
Rimsko-Katolickeskaya Tserkov
Vilnius gatve 4
233000 Kaunas
Lithuanian SSR
Rimsko-Ratolickeskaya Tserkov
Kijevas 16
Riga, Latvian SSR
213 898
[One thing that might be interesting to note that the Roman Catholics were one of the most persecuted in the USSR, that is they found it the most difficult to practice their religion as their canon prescribed. The reason is that they had an external leader, the Pope, and the Soviets, didn't like that, so they tried to undermind that, even though it's generally considered a major component of their faith.]
Reformovana Krestanska Cirkev na Slovensku (Reformed)
Svetoplukova 14
97901 Rimarska Sobota
Russisch-Orthodox Kirche in Exarchat des Moskauer Patriarchen
Wildensteiner Str. 10
DDR 1157 Berlin
509 91 91
Religiose Gesellschaft der Freunder in der DDR
Planck Str 20
DDR 1080 Berlin
207 15 25
[I'm not specifically certain in the DDR, but in the former USSR, certainly the pacifist religions also bore more persecusion for their stance on that issue alone. I assume this would have been true throughout the East Bloc and East Germany was one of the more thorough and predictable in carrying out rulings.]
Romesch-Katholische Kirche in der DDR
Franzische Str. 34
DDR 1080 Berlin
200 02 81
Research Center for Religion and Human Rights In Closed Societies, Ltd. (RCDA)
475 Riverside Dr.
New York, NY 10115
Russian Pen Friend Project
International Friendship League
22 Batterymarch St.
Boston, MA 02109
(617) 523-4273
[Here's another approach to ministry to the East Bloc.]
I think that's all for this time.
