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Timchenko, Sergei (d. 1971)
Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1971 Dec 9 p. 2
Birth date:
text of obituary:
Both Visited North America
AKRON, PA. — Alexander V. Karev, executive secretary of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB), died Nov. 24 at the age of 75. Funeral services were held in Moscow , Nov. 29. Only 12 days earlier, on Nov. 12, Sergei Timchenko, vice-chairman of the AUCECB, had died. Mennonite Central Committee send the following telegram to Moscow: "Our brother Alexander Karev is gone. We attempted to be with you in this solemn hour for mutual encouragement and fellowship but it was not possible to obtain visas so quickly. Mennonites in Canada thank God with us for his life and service in the church. Only now did we also hear of the passing of our dear friend Sergei Timchenko and pray God to provide leadership to fill vacancies. Greetings with John 11, verse 25 and 26."
Alexander Karev, born in 1896 in St. Petersburg, today called Leningrad, was well known to Mennonites on both sides of the Atlantic. In May 1956 he was a member of the first delegation of Russion [sic Russian] Baptists to visit North American Christians since the Russian revolution of 1917.
KAREV HAD RECEIVED his elementary training in a German Lutheran school and the fact that he spoke a good German enabled him to communicate to the older generation of Canadian Mennonites in the language they preferred. He was converted while a student at a Polytechnical Institute, and baptized three years later in 1914. In 1920 he first became affiliated with the Baptist Union in Leningrad. In 1930 the Baptist center was transferred to Moscow and there he became treasurer of the Union. When all Baptists in Russia united in 1944, he became general secretary. He was married and had five children, all of whom received a university education, notwithstanding the fact that their father was in full-time church work.
All who knew Karev felt his warm, dynamic, evangelical faith. And he did appreciate the Mennonites, sometimes praising them possibly too much. In 1956 for example when he and his delegation were with Mennonites in the Woodlawn Mennonite Church, Chicago, he said that "In the history of the Evangelical Christians and Baptists in Russia, the Mennonites have a place as the first pioneers of spreading the Gospel."
FREQUENTLY he spoke about unity and sought to promote it among Christians. He felt strongly that believers must rise above such petty barriers as language and cultural differences and unite in Jesus Christ. In a paper that he read at the Conference of General Secretaries of European Baptists Union in Rueschlikon-Zurich, Switzerland in 1968, he said:
"The example of unity between Russian Baptists and Mennonite Brethren who nowadays are absolutely similar with the Baptists, should make Baptists of all other countries pay their attention to these truly 'Mennonite Baptists' and look for ways of communication with them that will give an opportunity to carry by united and solidary Mennonite-Baptist efforts the good news of the Gospel to the whole mankind as well as to participate together in many social-philanthropical activities of the church, keeping in memory that a great force lies in unity.
SERGEI TIMCHENKO a "typical" probably only because of his mustache, was not known by many North American Mennonites until his visit in June of 1969. For three weeks he traveled in Canada and the United States with four other Russian church leaders reporting and preaching daily in Mennonite and Baptist churches. Wherever he went on that tour as well as on later trips to North America, people who got close to him were amazed at his gentle spirit and deep faith.
When pressed by people asking why Russian Baptists did not carry on mission work, he replied in his characteristically charitable way that "the purpose and object of every church member is to proclaim the Gospel."
In British Columbia he chided the Mennonite parents for neglecting to evangelize in their own homes, leaving Christian teaching too much to the Sunday schools and the conversion of their children to some youth organization. Sunday school may be wonderful and Christian young peoples' meetings desirable, he said, but parents dare not relegate their sacred responsibility of leading their own children to the Lord to any organization or institution.
BOTH MEN, Karev and Timchenko, have been accused by fellow believers in America as well as in Russia of having compromised their Christian faith and personal integrity in order to please the Russian government. Now that they are gone there seems little point in debating that issue. They are no longer accountable to any man. Now they answer only to God their maker — to whom all of us are ultimately responsible.
The Mennonite obituary: 1972 Jan 4 p. 10
text of obituary:
Alexander V. Karev, executive secretary of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Soviet Union died November 29. Only twelve days earlier, on November 12, Sergei Timchenko, vice-chairman of the council had died. Both visited North America as part of Baptist delegations. Mr. Karev was in the first group in 1956.