Georgi Vins

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"Vins" redirects here. For other uses, see Vins (disambiguation).

Georgi Petrovich Vins (

Mark Dymshits and Valentin Moroz) in exchange for two convicted spies, Rudolf Chernyaev and Valdik Enger.[1]

Life in the Soviet Union

Georgi Vins was born in the Russian Far East to Peter Vins, an American citizen of Russian origin who had traveled to

Mennonite Brethren leader Jacob J. Wiens born in Borden, Saskatchewan.[2][3] See also: "Jacob J. Wiens was born in Russia", "Винс Яков Яковлевич родился в России в семье обрусевших выходцев из Голландии. Член Церкви евангельских христиан-баптистов.".[4][5]

The young Georgi was brought up by his mother Lydia, with his various siblings. After the

Kiev
, where Vins qualified as an electrical engineer.

Georgi Vins became involved in Baptist churches in Kiev. As Nikita Khrushchev's anti-religious persecutions began in 1959, the state imposed new regulations on the Baptist church that drastically curtailed the small measure of independence they had enjoyed. As the Baptist movement split acrimoniously, Vins became one of the leading figures in the campaign to resist state pressure. He publicly opposed the pastor of his own congregation, in Kiev, who had accepted the new measures. Vins formed his own breakaway congregation, becoming its pastor, despite a lack of formal theological training. The group met in a forest outside Kiev.

When the Council of Churches was formally set up as an underground body in 1965, Vins became its General Secretary. Hundreds of the movement's followers were already in prison. In a dramatic protest, Baptists converged from all over the Soviet Union for a mass demonstration outside the

Gennady Kryuchkov
, went on trial in November 1966 and he was sentenced to three years imprisonment. His wife Nadezhda was left to look after their four children.

After release, Vins resumed his work as pastor and organizer of the movement, but soon went into hiding to avoid arrest. He was discovered and seized in March 1974. Prodded by the human rights campaigner Andrei Sakharov, the World Council of Churches joined the international protests at Vins' arrest. Vins was tried in Kiev in January 1975 and sentenced to five years in labor camp to be followed by five years internal exile, becoming the Soviet Union's most famous religious prisoner.

Later life

International pressure led to his dramatic expulsion from his homeland. On April 26, 1979 Vins was awakened in prison and told to change into his own clothes. Unaware of his imminent change of circumstances, he was flown to Moscow, where he spent the night in a center for vagrants. The following day he was issued new clothes and informed that because of his anti-Soviet activity the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet had stripped him of his Soviet citizenship. He was being expelled. Vins protested in vain that his activity was not anti-Soviet, but had to bow to the inevitable. He was told to write down the names of his close relatives so that they could leave the country with him. Realizing that he would be unlikely to see them again otherwise, he listed his wife, children, mother and niece.

Vins was driven to Moscow's

Washington, DC. It was not until the plane landed in New York City that they learned they were being exchanged for two convicted spies, and the handover took place in an isolated hangar at Kennedy airport
. The five walked off the plane at one end while the spies walked on at the other.

Joined in the United States six weeks later by the rest of his family, Vins made the town of

Ukrainian SSR
to start a new life in a free country.

Vins' work aiding Baptist victims of persecution changed dramatically in the late 1980s, when open Christian work in Russia became possible. In 1990, President Mikhail Gorbachev revoked the decree that had stripped Vins of his Soviet citizenship, thereby allowing him to revisit his homeland. In the 1990s Vins made numerous preaching trips, especially in Russia and Ukraine. In 1995 he was allowed access, in Moscow, to his father's KGB case file, and Vins finally learned that his father had been executed in 1937.

Vins discovered in late 1997 that he had a malignant inoperable brain tumor, from which he died in 1998.

His sister-in-law Maria Glukhoman died in Arvada, CO in 2014.

Georgi's son, Peter Vins, returned to Russia in the 1990s, and founded a shipping firm.[6][7]

See also

References

  1. ISBN 0-465-00969-7
    .
  2. ^ Georgi Vins (Wiens) Archived 2010-06-20 at the Wayback Machine Canadian Conference of Mennonite Brethern Churches, accessed November 20, 2008
  3. ^ The Russian Baptists, J.S. Mack Library, Bob Jones University; The Russian Baptists: Twenty Years of Soviet Propaganda : the Hammer and the Sickle on the Platform of the Baptist World Alliance.
  4. ^ Винс Яков Яковлевич (сконч. 1944) // Религиозные деятели русского зарубежья
  5. ^ А. Дементьев. Винс, Яков Яковлевич // Энциклопедия евангельских христиан-баптистов
  6. Moscow Times
    , Issue 3745. Independent Media. p. 10. Retrieved August 20, 2020.
  7. Moscow Times
    . Retrieved January 10, 2017.
  8. ISBN 978-1579248543
    .
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