MINSK, Belarus — Chairs revolved in Minsk’s large Bethlehem Baptist Church as Viktor Nikodimovich Krutko was elected president of the Belarusian Baptist Union on March 20. More than a two-thirds majority of the assembled 289 delegates voted for him to succeed Nikolay Vassilovich Sinkovets as the union’s president.
Krutko was born June 18, 1953, and grew up in Vileysky region near Minsk. He studied theology for three years at Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, graduating in 1992. He served thereafter as superintendent of Minsk district and became head pastor of the Bethlehem congregation in 2002 — a capacity in which he still serves.
The Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Republic of Belarus has 13,500 members gathered in 290 congregations. Besides a relatively strong presence of the International Union of Churches of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (IUCECB) with nearly 4,000 members within the country, a sprinkling of autonomous Baptist congregations also exists. This IUCECB was known during Soviet times as the “underground church;” its congregations remain unregistered up to the present.
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