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Since the end of the 20th century, Gospel Christian Baptists have come to the Rhine-Main area through the relocation of Russian-German families. They are considered very conservative.
Baptists are not the same as Baptists, ”say Jörg Bickelhaupt and Oliver Koch, who are responsible for interdenominational dialogue and ideological questions in the ecumenical center of the two Protestant regional churches in Frankfurt. The two Protestant pastors point out that there are only isolated contacts between the traditional Baptist congregations united in the Federation of Evangelical Free Churches (BFG) and the Gospel Christian Baptists.
While the BFG was founded in 1942 under pressure from the National Socialists, the Free Church of the Gospel Christian Baptists was established in Moscow in 1944 under state pressure. First, the Russian Gospel Christians joined together with the Baptists. Later parts of the Pentecostal movement, the Mennonites and the Adventists were added. In the Rhine-Main area there are prayer houses in Frankfurt, Hanau, Wiesbaden and Darmstadt.
According to information from the two Protestant pastors, the German communities of Gospel Christians have emerged since the end of the 20th century through the relocation of many Russian-German families. They are considered to be faithful, conservative and closed. The practice of piety is dominated by men, Muslims are viewed critically and homosexuality is rejected. Interdenominational contacts are therefore rejected as well as ecumenical relationships with other Christian communities and churches. In Darmstadt, for example, the Gospel Christians do not participate in the interdenominational peace prayer of religions or in the ecumenical night of the churches.
If you live near a church center or a gospel Christian prayer house, you can report a very intensive church life. There has been a lot of singing and music in the Darmstadt community center for years. Women wear long skirts and cover their hair with a veil. Wedding ceremonies are not continued in a restaurant after the church wedding, but often take place in the community center.
The Baptist pastor Lothar Peitz from Taunusstein, the managing director of the ecumenical consortium of Christian churches in Hessen-Rheinhessen, says that the Gospel Christians see their Baptist brothers and sisters in the Evangelical Free Churches as “too liberal”. Many parishes of the Gospel Christians are characterized by some large families. However, both currents unite the belief in baptism of faith and the rejection of infant baptism. The Gospel Christians in Wiesbaden see themselves explicitly as “part of worldwide Christianity”.
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