ATLANTA (ABP) — A friendship between the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia and Baptists in the Caucasus Republic of Georgia that began with the coincidence of being “Georgians” grew deeper with return of a long-lost communion chalice that carries deep historical and theological significance for descendants of Baptists who suffered persecution at the hands of Soviet communism.
In 1946, Louie Newton, president of the Southern Baptist Convention and pastor of Druid Hills Baptist Church in Atlanta, visited Russia on a five-week tour at the invitation of Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin to meet with leaders of the Union of Evangelical Christians-Baptists of Russia and investigate the status of its 2 million Baptists.
Malkhaz Songulashvili and Susan Broome tell chalice's story at CBF Georgia meeting Nov. 7.
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After his final sermon at First Baptist Church in Moscow, Newton was presented with a 19th-century gold-plated Florentine chalice that had been used in observance of the Lord’s Supper by an overflow congregation. Treasured by Newton, one religious newspaper labeled it “a holy grail of peace.”
Dating from 1868, the chalice had previously been used in observance of the Lord’s Supper at the church in Tiblisi, Georgia. In 1928 a Georgian minister was called to pastor the First Baptist Church in Moscow, the largest Baptist church in the Soviet Union, and the Baptists of Tbilisi asked him to accept the chalice as a symbol of fellowship.
Nobody living today in the Republic of Georgia knew of the chalice’s existence until Baptist Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili from Tbilisi, while researching for a Ph.D. at Oxford University, came across records of the 1946 meeting between Newton and both religious and political leaders of the U.S.S.R.
Songulashvili contacted friends in the United States to ask about Newton’s archival materials. He received a booklet that Newton wrote about his 1946 visit and was haunted by a reference that he had been given of a chalice that once belonged to the Baptist church in Tibilisi.
Susan Broome, associate director for technical services at Mercer University in Macon, Ga., had befriended Songulashvili along with her husband, Frank, head of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of Georgia. She offered to transcribe Newton’s diary and search for other records. She mentioned she had seen photos of a chalice that was presented to Newton, but assumed it was lost.
A colleague mentioned that she had heard the word chalice used in an interview she was cataloging for the archives. Regarding it an unusual word for a Baptist to use and about to drift off to sleep one night, Broome recalled a vague memory of a little-used room in Mercer’s chapel that was named after Newton. The next day she went there, turned the doorknob, found it unlocked, turned on the light and found the chalice right in front of her as a centerpiece of a display of photos, documents and other objects that belonged to Newton.
Last year Songulashvili attended the Georgia CBF meeting to celebrate discovery of the chalice, symbolic both because of Georgian Baptists highly liturgical worship tradition and memory of Baptist predecessors who used the cup at risk of persecution.
Mercer University turned possession of the chalice over to Songulashvili in a special Eucharist service Nov. 3. It was centerpiece of a worship service that opened the Georgia CBF annual meeting Nov. 6. After several stops, including a Eucharist at Duke Divinity School, the chalice will arrive in Georgia in time for Maundy Thursday next year.
Susan Broome said a year ago it was uncertain whether Songulashvili would be allowed to take the chalice home.
“I had thought perhaps the best thing we would get is the fact that it existed and is a special part of their heritage,” she said. “It has been quite a wonderful experience to be involved in making sure that it does go back to where it belongs.”
Songulashvili said discovery and return of the chalice holds deep meaning for Baptists in his country.
“We would like to believe this chalice, which is sort of an icon of the church, a relic really, is going to be a symbol of yet another stage in the spiritual journey of Georgia Baptists,” he said.
He said the gesture suggests that a partnership begun as temporary to see what happens will become long term.
“What the cooperation between Georgia in Caucasus and Georgia in the U.S.A. does for us is bring affirmation that we belong to each other” Songulashvili said. “The chalice was one of the miraculous events that is going to bring us even closer, deepen our relations.”
Bob Allen is managing editor of Associated Baptist Press.