CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2008
| Author | Stoker, Julianne |
|---|---|
| Title | Georgi Vins: A Case Study of One Man???s Justification of Civil Disobedience and its Unintended Consequences |
| Summary | Georgi Vins, a Baptist pastor living in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and 70s, spent eight years in prisons and hard labor camps for defying his government’s religious laws. Yet, after his exile to the United States in 1979 he declared that he was a man of peace, not politics. This thesis examines the way in which one individual, a Baptist pastor living in the Soviet Union, justified his disobedience to the governmental authorities based on his doctrinal positions while considering the basic question of whether or not it was possible for a fundamental Baptist to be a good citizen of the Soviet Union. Basing my discussions on the concept of the cosmion as defined by Eric Voegelin, I have used a variety of secondary sources to outline the basics ideas regarding Soviet citizenship. I then used this as a backdrop for examining issues confronting the Baptist community at large in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. After establishing a historical precedent for non-Orthodox dissent in Russia and the Soviet Union, I outlined the basic theological statement of Georgi Vins which in turn governed his political actions. In determining his beliefs and interpreting his behaviors I relied heavily on a large body of speeches, interviews, and testimony before the United States Congress that Vins gave in the years after his forced emigration to the United States. What I found was a man who was well trained in fundamental, Bible-believing, Baptist theology. These convictions governed all of his daily actions and provided him with a world view which was capable of withstanding Soviet repression. What I also discovered was a man who never forgot his homeland and spent the rest of his life working for religious freedom, or after perestroika, the continued support of Baptist in the former Soviet Union. |
| Supervisor | Rieber, Alfred |
| Department | History MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2008/stoker_julianne.pdf |
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