Georgi Petrovich Vins (russian: Георгий Петрович Винс; August 4, 1928
Blagoveshchensk
Blagoveshchensk ( rus, Благове́щенск, p=bləgɐˈvʲeɕːɪnsk, meaning ''City of the Annunciation'') is a city and the administrative center of Amur Oblast, Russia. It is located at the confluence of the Amur and the Zeya Rivers, opp ...
,
Russian SFSR
The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, Russian SFSR or RSFSR ( rus, Российская Советская Федеративная Социалистическая Республика, Rossíyskaya Sovétskaya Federatívnaya Soci ...
Indiana
Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...
) was a Russian
Baptist
Baptists form a major branch of Protestantism distinguished by baptizing professing Christian believers only (believer's baptism), and doing so by complete immersion. Baptist churches also generally subscribe to the doctrines of soul compete ...
pastor persecuted by the Soviet authorities for his involvement in a network of independent Baptist churches. Following an agreement between Soviet leader
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet Union, Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gener ...
and U.S. President
Jimmy Carter
James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...
, Vins and his family were expelled from the Soviet Union in 1979 with a group of other
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established Political system, political or Organized religion, religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and ...
s (
Alexander Ginzburg
Alexander "Alik" Ilyich Ginzburg ( rus, Алекса́ндр Ильи́ч Ги́нзбург, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr ɨˈlʲjidʑ ˈɡʲinzbʊrk, a=Alyeksandr Il'yich Ginzburg.ru.vorb.oga; 21 November 1936 – 19 July 2002), was a Russian journalist ...
, Eduard Kuznetsov, Mark Dymshits and Valentin Moroz) in exchange for two convicted spies, Rudolf Chernyaev and Valdik Enger.
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
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part of ...
just two years before as a missionary, and Lydia (Zharikova) Vins. Peter was arrested in 1930, freed three years later but re-arrested in 1935 and died in prison in 1943. The family was only later informed of his death. Peter Vins was the son of
Mennonite Brethren
The Mennonite Brethren Church is an evangelical Mennonite Anabaptist movement with Wiktionary:congregation, congregations.
History
The conference was established among Plautdietsch language, Plautdietsch-speaking Russian Mennonites in 1860. Durin ...
leader Jacob J. Wiens born in
Borden, Saskatchewan
Borden ( 2016 population: ) is a village in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan within the Rural Municipality of Great Bend No. 405 and Census Division No. 16. Borden is named after Sir Frederick William Borden, Minister of Militia in the L ...
. 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.".
The young Georgi was brought up by his mother Lydia, with his various siblings. After the
Second World War
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
they moved to
Kiev
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the List of European cities by populat ...
, where Vins qualified as an electrical engineer.
Georgi Vins became involved in Baptist churches in Kiev. As
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
'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
Central Committee
Central committee is the common designation of a standing administrative body of Communist party, communist parties, analogous to a board of directors, of both ruling and nonruling parties of former and existing socialist states. In such party org ...
building in Moscow. Several days later, Vins went to the Central Committee with other leaders to ask about the fate of those who had been detained at the unprecedented demonstration. As a result, they were themselves arrested. Vins and the Chairman of the Council of Churches, 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
Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov ( rus, Андрей Дмитриевич Сахаров, p=ɐnˈdrʲej ˈdmʲitrʲɪjevʲɪtɕ ˈsaxərəf; 21 May 192114 December 1989) was a Soviet nuclear physicist, dissident, nobel laureate and activist for nu ...
, the
World Council of Churches
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a worldwide Christian inter-church organization founded in 1948 to work for the cause of ecumenism. Its full members today include the Assyrian Church of the East, the Oriental Orthodox Churches, most juri ...
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
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...
, 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
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet (russian: Президиум Верховного Совета, Prezidium Verkhovnogo Soveta) was a body of state power in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR).Lefortovo prison and then all five expellees were taken to Moscow airport. Two American embassy officials on the plane explained that their release followed an agreement between the
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
and the Soviet embassy in
Washington, DC
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
. It was not until the plane landed in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
that they learned they were being exchanged for two convicted spies, and the handover took place in an isolated hangar at
Kennedy airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Ne ...
. 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
Elkhart, Indiana
Elkhart ( ) is a city in Elkhart County, Indiana, United States. The city is located east of South Bend, Indiana, east of Chicago, Illinois, and north of Indianapolis, Indiana. Elkhart has the larger population of the two principal cities of th ...
his home and learned English. He received invitations to the White House and to innumerable events around the world. At first there was competition between missions supporting persecuted churches in the Soviet Union to enlist him, but Vins kept his distance. He eventually set up the international representation of the Baptist churches in the Soviet Union that owed their allegiance to the Council of Churches, a group of tightly-knit congregations that categorically rejected any compromises with the Soviet authorities and refused to register officially. Their members were suffering persecution, with hundreds in
labor camps
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (espec ...
or psychiatric hospitals. His displacement to the USA led to the rest of his extended family (siblings and their families) to travel from the
Ukrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic ( uk, Украї́нська Радя́нська Соціалісти́чна Респу́бліка, ; russian: Украи́нская Сове́тская Социалисти́ческая Респ ...
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
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet politician who served as the 8th and final leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
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
The KGB (russian: links=no, lit=Committee for State Security, Комитет государственной безопасности (КГБ), a=ru-KGB.ogg, p=kəmʲɪˈtʲet ɡəsʊˈdarstvʲɪn(ː)əj bʲɪzɐˈpasnəsʲtʲɪ, Komitet gosud ...
case file, and Vins finally learned that his father had been executed in 1936.
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.
See also
* Children of the Storm
*
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
*
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...