Theology of decorum: Perspectives on women's external appearance among evangelical Christians-Baptists in the late- and post-Soviet periods

This article uses oral history interviews to examine the memory of believers from Evangelical Christian-Baptist (ECB) churches regarding the requirements for women's external appearance as a reflection of their personal piety. While discussing believers' memory of the late Soviet period, the article demonstrates that these congregations focused almost exclusively on women. The conviction that believers were not to reflect the "outside world" in appearance was actually a double standard for women, since women's fashion choices have been much more dynamic than men's in the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. The article discusses the historical and social significance of the emphasis on women's appearance, arguing that both a high view of scripture and a nostalgia for the "Soviet past" perpetuated the patriarchal norms held by both men and women in ECB congregations. The authors then utilize a series of historical photographs from the 1940s to the 1970s to demonstrate the scope of the transf