Revival among the aliens: the case of Lithuanian Baptists

Thus we have two contrasting stories of Baptists in Lithuania. On the one hand, there is the Germanic revival in Memel: a local phenomenon which nevertheless had soon adopted Onckcn’s approach and structures and retained impressive numbers and influence. Other congregations in the region of Prussian Lithuania, having grown out of the Prussian pietistic soil, also enjoyed considerable growth and solidity. On the other hand, there is the story of the constant, tiring struggle and fragility in Catholic Lithuania, and no revival whatsoever. The first story ends right at the border with Lithuania Proper, and raises some important questions. As demonstrated, revivals in Lithuania were an exclusively Protestant phenomenon, both in Prussian Lithuania and Lithuania Proper. The same would be true for the larger geographical region surrounding Lithuania. Whilst Prussian Lithuanians were drawn to Zalzburgers, and the Moravians significantly impacted Livonians and Estonians, neither form of pietism— nor its later children such as the Baptists—had any bearing upon the religious and daily life of Catholic Lithuanians in Lithuania Proper. W. R. Ward notes “the evident power of [pietistic] revival in breaking old paganism of the Baltic lands,” but no such revival touched Lithuania Proper. Ward does not discuss this omission, although the thesis in his work, The Protestant Evangelical Awakening, centres around the idea that the European revivals that swept much of Europe starting with eighteenth century were a Protestant product, relying on an interdependent, international Protestant culture. The two stories of two Lithuanias would seem to be an excellent corroboration of this thesis. Perhaps with the exception of Catholic Ireland, I struggle to think of any example, in Europe at least, of a revival amongst the Catholics—particularly in the contexts in which Catholics were enjoying considerable political and social freedom and power. On the other hand, one must bear in mind the history of evangelical revivals in Slavic Orthodox contexts,which would suggest, contra Ward, that a revival cannot be limited to a simply and solely Protestant phenomenon. In any case, the history of the Lithuanian Baptist movement underlines the importance of the religio-cultural context for the interpretation of what we call a “revival.