In the late 1970s, as a result of a Baptist initiative, Feed the Minds, with support from SPCK and USCL, developed
EUROLIT: A Literature Programme for the Benefit of Churches in Eastern Europe
BRITISH BAPTISTS in the late 1970s, with their interest in education and their contacts in Eastern Europe, were anxious to raise funds to help the churches behind the Iron Curtain but were afraid of damaging their own appeal for funds both for home and for overseas.
It was precisely the kind of venture and cooperation FTM had been looking for and hoping for following the Campaign and Feed the Minds saw it as an opportunity to extend its field of support and widen its horizons. FTM would promote the Fund in all the churches (Robert Runcie, then Archbishop of Canterbury, was one of the first subscribers), evaluate and administer the grants. The Baptists would promote FTM (EUROLIT) in Baptist churches and commend the Fund to potential Baptist donors and potential European beneficiaries.
The Fund had Three Main Objectives
- to help churches in Eastern Europe to develop their own Christian literature programmes.
- to stimulate Christians in the West to learn more about church life in Eastern Europe with a view to intelligent prayer and generous giving.
- to work openly, respect the laws of other countries and work within them.
The Programme had Three Main Facets
Books for Christian Education and Library Development
Stage One was the provision of theological text books, books for lay-training, liturgical material and (to a lesser extent) books for children, and since one of the principles (in harmony with FTM principles) was that the choice of books was theirs and not ours, and one of the problems in Eastern Europe was knowing what to ask for, the service developed in three different ways.
From 1987-95 some 300 past-ors from Eastern Europe benefited from SITE Grants totalling £15,000
300 years after Bray established his Tools for the Clergy 'in Foreign Plantations' a seed then planted as bearing fruit — different branch, one tree.
First, to choose new books they needed catalogues. Second, to choose used books they needed to know what was available at which point the FTM Book Service came into play. Third, they needed regular information and for this they were given a free subscription to the Theological Book Review. Grants were only made to institutions (mainly theological colleges and church headquarters) and in the case of new books institutions were given a maximum figure to work to.
Of the many library grants one of the most significant was the provision of mini-libraries in connection with the Summer Institute of Theological Education (SITE), a programme run by the European Baptists and supported by EUROLIT for all of 20 years. It brought together 20-30 ministers, with little or no theological training or resources, from Eastern Europe for a month’s Summer School in Switzerland at the end of which (in line with FTM’s Book Grants for ordinands) they returned with a mini-library worth about £50 to continue their studies. They were told to declare them at the frontier and because they were regarded as personal gifts most of them got through without any problems.
The bread-and-butter of Library Development took the form of smaller grants to a veriety of churches and theological institutions of several denominations and in many countries from 1980-95 totalling £35,000
Cash for Translations and Local Production
Stage Two was the provision of cash for creative writing, translation, training and publishing facilities. At no point did EUROLIT go 'underground' and where churches wanted to produce and distribute their own literature grants were only available where they could demonstrate government approval for funding.
The Baptists of Hungary, for example, produced three hymnbooks of their own (one general, one for young people and one for mission purposes), supervised by Paul Beharka, a distinguished musician who included tunes of his own as well as those of others based on music by Hungarian composers such as Kodally and Bartok, much of it copied by hand and prepared for the printer by his daughter.
Popular requests were for cash to translate and produce Bible commentaries for preachers and lay workers. Yugoslavia, after much research and heart-searching, opted for the Tyndale Bible Commentaries in Serbo-Croatian but much the most popular choice was the Barclay Bible Commentaries for Poland, Hungary, and the USSR where EUROLIT was able to share in a much larger operation in conjunction with the Baptist World Alliance and the Mennonites.
From 1986-95 the Reformed Church of Hungary received £24,000 for General Publishing and £40,000 for RE Books for Schools
Hungary’s first choice for children’s books was Charles Dickens, Life of Jesus (no longer in print in the UK but thought by them to be very important for children) followed by requests for various lexicons and textbooks, including Cecil Northcott’s Bible Encyclopaedia, where the request was shared with Poland as a result of which EUROLIT was able to supply coloured sheets without text enabling the local churches to supply the translation and handle the publishing.
Perhaps the biggest and most far-reaching of all was RE books for Schools in Hungary. Shortly before the end of the Cold War the government gave permission for RE in schools and authorised the Publishing Division of the Reformed Church to provide the books. The opportunity was vast but the church leadership had no experience in this field, no knowledge of what to provide nor any money to do it. EUROLIT supplied the knowhow and encouragement and when their educationalists worked hard to produce texts EUROLIT supplied the funding without which the project could never have been completed.
Help with Training and Publishing
Stage Three covered grants for local training, investment in EUROLIT courses and small machinery to aid the churches’ publication programmes.
With the exception of specialist titles only available in the West and material unlikely or inappropriate for translation FTM policy had always recognised that the provision of books from the West on a long-term basis was not satisfactory and limited translation and production locally was always a second-best without adequate training in local writing, translation, production and distribution.
Apart from books locally published in translations (such as the Barclay commentaries), history and political circumstances circumscribed the possibilities of developing publishing as the West knows it, but requests for support for magazines and periodicals were not unknown. Beneficiaries to the tune of around £12,000 on this front included Methodists and Lutherans in Poland, the Reformed Churches of the Czech Republic, the Orthodox Church in Romania and Baptists in Bulgaria, Estonia and the USSR. Others were looking for help in providing small equipment for printing and production, such as typewriters, photocopiers, computers and the like, and when the new Seminary and Conference Centre was opened at Radosc (Poland) around 1987-88 the printing equipment came from EUROLIT funds.
As for training, in 1985-86 EUROLIT organised and funded two ecumenical Seminars for Eastern European scholars, academics and publishers in Oxford, each lasting one week. Participants were given time to browse in Oxford book shops and funds were available for them to return home with a mini-library of their own choice.
These were followed in 1987 by a one-day Translators’ Workshop in Glasgow and in 1988 by a larger Translators’ Workshop in Switzerland attended by the Head of the Orthodox Publishing House in Romania and all present went away with a specially prepared handbook of resources for translators.
With the end of the Cold War requests for training in publishing, including a grasp of Western publishing, copyright nd the like, came to the fore in an attempt to get to grips with the new world.