The article introduces historical network analysis as a fruitful approach for scrutinizing social and other relations in church and religious history. The goal is to broaden the methodology of studying events, dynamics and processes of the past with a new perspective. This concept will shed fresh light on complex confessional relations but will also take into account relevant contexts as well as comparative aspects. The approach is promising for broadening the horizon to find new observations especially for social milieus and arenas of actions. The concept allows to re-evaluate historical sources and to detect silenced spheres and unexpected layers of acting. It can trace hidden contacts, follow personal relations cross borders — local, regional and national describe interdenominational ties during the Cold War within the Soviet Union and abroad, the functioning of underground churches, methods and ways of clandestine communication and much more.

The article presents biographical information about the first confessional historian of Russian Evangelical Christians-Baptists, S. N. Savinsky. He authored a number of chapters on the Russian-Ukrainian Evangelical-Baptist community in a book titled “History of Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the USSR” (1989), until that time the only book on the history of his own denomination published during Soviet times. Described is his work as member of the Historical Commission of the All-Union Council of the Evangelical Christians-Baptists. The article traces four trajectories of the worldwide evangelical revival into Russia: the late German Pietism, the North America revival movement, the influence of the worldwide Evangelical Alliance, and the early German Pietism. S. N. Savinsky basic concepts of evangelical revival and uniqueness of the Russian Evangelical-Baptist community are analyzed.

The publication consists of a research article and the first publication of the source. The article presents a historical and source-oriented commentary on the service of Bishop Jeremiah (Solovyov) to three Russian prelates who were glorified in the 1860's Mitrofan of Voronezh, Demetrius of Rostov, and Tikhon of Zadonsk. The reason for the creation of this hymnographic monument was the intention of the former bishop of Nizhny Novgorod to consecrate one of the churches under construction in honor of these saints. When writing the service to the three saints, Bishop Jeremiah relied on a wide range of sources, including the works of St. Demetrius of Rostov and the penitential canon of Cyril of Turov. The publication is intended to illustrate Bishop Jeremiah's work as a hymnographer and to present a little-known example of a service to Russian saints composed during the Synodal period of the history of the Russian Church.