Friday, September 18, 2026

0:00It is the 18th of September, 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Aluminac brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. I'm Dan, fan for us. One thing that totalitarian governments seem to have learned in the last century is that outlawing and persecuting the church tends to have the opposite effects to the ones desired by the government that wants to stamp out all belief. Instead of a full frontal attack, these governments found that a better approach was to come alongside the institutions, fain support, and slowly guide them towards being arms of state propaganda. Such was the case with the Soviet Union with their council for the affairs of religions and cults, and the creation of the all-union council of churches of evangelical Christian Baptists.

1:01Baptists had grown exponentially in the Soviet Union after World War I. That's a story for another time, but in large part due to missionaries and especially German missionaries evangelizing Soviet prisoners of war who then took their faith back home. Baptists, usually known for their rejection of state intervention, staged a defiant act in petitioning for the abolition of their own legal mode of existence. Contemporary Soviet reports called these Baptists a generally backward and shamelessly deceived people who met on this the 18th of September in 1965 to create their own private council of churches of the evangelical Christian Baptists. The group was headed by Georgi Vins, a man neither backward nor deceived and part of a lineage of missionaries with ties to Russia, Canada, and the United States. The patriarch was Jacob Vins, the spelling differs, a men and a night evangelist near the

2:04Earl Mountains in Russia in the 19th century. He and his wife Elizabeth had a son, Peter, who would follow the family when they immigrated to the United States in 1911 and then settled in Saskatchewan in 1912. Peter would return to the States to attend the Southern Baptist Seminary in Louisville. He was ordained. He had an early call to Pittsburgh where he ministered to Russian immigrants. This in the 1920s led him to consider going to his native land to serve as a minister there. By 1928 he and his new wife Lydia had moved to Russia. They settled near the Manchurian border and gave birth to a son, Georgi. Peter was routinely arrested for his evangelistic work. In 1935 he was arrested for the last time and never seen again. Georgi and his mom Lydia moved to Ukraine where Georgi studied engineering. Georgi was married, had five children, and could have settled down for a quiet life in the job for which he had trained.

3:05But he felt the call in the early 1960s and decided to become a secret evangelist like his father. By then the government was cracking down on dissidents and the state sponsored all Union council tried to bring them all into the fold. Georgi, one of the leaders of the dissent, was there on this day in 1965 to reject it and create their own independent group. Within a year he would be arrested and sentenced to three years of hard labor upon being released he continued to preach and reject the state-sponsored Union. In 1974 he was arrested again and sentenced to ten years of labor. His son, named Peter after his deceased father, also entered the family business of illegal preaching. He too was arrested and sent to a camp with the charge of paracytism, that is not doing real work that was considered beneficial to the community. In 1979 Georgi received a shock when he was taken to a new prison where he was told

4:06to shower and then given a suit to wear. Ushered to a plane he soon learned that President Jimmy Carter had arranged a prisoner swap. Georgi's family would soon join him but he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship. With coming up Gorbachev and his reforms Georgi and his family were allowed to go back. He did so numerous times in the 1990s to preach and tell his story. It's collected and translated into English as the gospel in bonds. Georgi would live until a brain tumor took his life. He died in Indiana in 1998. His son Peter lived with his family in Ukraine until the recent invasion. The fourth generation of vines or vines ministers was last known to be working with the Catholic charity in Portland, Oregon. Today we remember that remarkable Georgi and the descent that led to the underground Baptists and his arrest. We remember their group forming on this day in 1965.

5:12The last word for today comes from the daily electionary and other psalm, this is 105. Give praise to the Lord proclaim his name, make known among the nations what he has done. Sing to him, sing praise to him, tell of all his wonderful acts, glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the Lord rejoice. Look to the Lord and his strength, seek his face always. Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles and the judgments he pronounced, you have servants, the descendants of Abraham, is chosen ones, the children of Jacob. This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 18th of September, 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org. This show is produced by a man who knows that the Soviet Creed was, we believe in one state, Almighty, maker of five-year plans.

6:12He is Christopher Gillespie, the show is written and read by a man who knows that in Soviet Russia you do not separate church from state. The state separates the church from everything. I'm Dan Van Forrest, you can catch us here every day. And remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness and the redemption of all things are true. Everything is going to be okay.