The Forgotten Azusa Street Mission: The Place where the First Pentecostals Met

By Cecil M. Robeck, Jr.

For years, the building on Azusa Street has also been an enigma. Most people are familiar with the same three or four photographs that have been published and republished through the years. They show a rectangular, boxy, wood frame structure that was 40 feet by 60 feet and desperately in need of repair. Seymour began his meetings in the Mission on April 15, 1906. A work crew set up a pulpit made from a wooden box used for shipping shoes from the manufacturer to stores. The pulpit sat in the center of the room. A piece of cotton cloth covered its top. Osterberg built an altar with donated lumber that ran between two chairs. Space was left open for seekers. Bartleman sketched seating as nothing more than a few long planks set on nail kegs and a ragtag collection of old chairs.

What the new sources have revealed about the Mission, however, is fascinating. The people worshiped on the ground level — a dirt floor, on which straw and sawdust were scattered. The walls were never finished, but the people whitewashed the rough-cut lumber. Near the door hung a mailbox into which tithes and offerings were placed since they did not take offerings at the Mission. A sign greeted visitors with vivid green letters. It read “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin” (Daniel 5:25, kjv), with its Ns written backwards and its Ss upside down. Men hung their hats on exposed overhead rafters where a single row of incandescent lights ran the length of the room.

These sources also reveal that the atmosphere within this crude building — without insulation or air conditioning, and teeming with perspiring bodies — was rank at best. As one writer put it, “It was necessary to stick one’s nose under the benches to get a breath of air.”
Several announced that the meetings were plagued by flies. “Swarms of flies,” wrote one reporter, “attracted by the vitiated atmosphere, buzzed throughout the room, and it was a continual fight for protection.”

A series of maps drawn by the Sanborn Insurance Company give a clear picture of the neighborhood. The 1888 map discloses that Azusa Street was originally Old Second Street. The street was never more than one block in length. It ended at a street paving company with piles of coal, along with heavy equipment. A small house, marked on the map by a “D” for domicile, sat on the front of the property with the address of 87. (See highlighted section.) A marble works business specializing in tombstones stood on the southeast corner of Azusa Street and San Pedro. Orange and grapefruit orchards surrounded the property. On the right of the map a Southern Pacific railroad spur is clearly visible. The City Directory indicates that the neighborhood was predominantly Jewish, though other names were mixed among them.

A second map of the property was published in 1894. Old Second Street had become Azusa Street, and the address had been changed to 312. The house had been moved further back on the property where it served as a parsonage. The dominant building at 312 Azusa Street was the Stevens African Methodist Episcopal Church. At the front of the building a series of tiny parallel lines on the map mark a staircase that stood at the north end of the building providing entry to the second floor, the original sanctuary.

The only known photograph of the church from this period shows three interesting features. First, it shows the original staircase. Second, and less obvious, the original roofline had a steep pitch. Third, three gothic style windows with tracery lines adorned the front wall.

By 1894, the citrus groves had largely disappeared. On the southern side they were replaced by lawn. The smell of orange blossoms and the serenity of the orchard were rapidly being replaced by the banging of railroad cars and the smell of new lumber. A growing number of boarding houses and small businesses, including canneries and laundries, were moving into the immediate area by this time. The property marked “YARD” on the map is the beginning of the lumberyard that soon came to dominate the area. The City Directory reveals fewer Jewish names, and more racial and ethnic diversity in the neighborhood, including African Americans, Germans, Scandinavians, and Japanese.

Stevens AME Church occupied the building at 312 Azusa Street until February 1904 when the congregation dedicated a new brick facility at the corner of 8th and Towne and changed their name to First AME Church. Before the congregation could decide what to do with the property on Azusa Street, however, an arsonist set the vacant church building on fire. The structure was greatly weakened, and the roof was completely destroyed. The congregation decided to turn the building into a tenement house. They subdivided the former second-floor sanctuary into several rooms separated by a long hallway that ran the length of the building. The stairs were removed from the front of the building and a rear stairwell was constructed, leaving the original entry hanging in space. The lower level was used to house horses and to store building supplies, including lumber and nails.

In 1906, a new Sanborn Map was published. (See 1906 map.) The building was marked with the words “Lodgings 2nd, Hall 1st, CHEAP.” The transition of the neighborhood had continued. The marble work still occupied the southeast corner of Azusa Street and San Pedro, but a livery and feed supply store now dominated the northeast corner. A growing lumberyard to the south and east of the property now replaced the once sprawling lawn. A Southern Pacific railroad spur curved through the lumberyard to service this business.

The Apostolic Faith, the newspaper of the Azusa Street Mission between September 1906 and June 1908, later referred to the nearby Russian community. Many of these recent immigrants were employed in the lumberyard. They were not Russian Orthodox Christians as one might guess; they were Molokans — “Milk drinkers.” This group had been influenced by some of the 16th-century Reformers. They did not accept the dairy fasts of the Orthodox Church. They were Trinitarians who strongly believed in the ongoing guidance of the Holy Spirit. Demos Shakarian, grandfather of the founder of Full Gospel Business Men’s International, was among these immigrants who were led to Los Angeles through a prophetic word given in 1855.

Henry McGowan, later an Assemblies of God pastor in Pasadena, was a member of the Holiness Church at the time. He was employed as a teamster. He timed his arrival at the nearby lumberyard so he could visit the Mission during its afternoon services.

This map suggests why some viewed the Mission as being in a slum. A better description would be an area of developing light industry.

In April 1906, when the people who had been meeting at the house at 214 North Bonnie Brae Street were forced to move, they found the building at 312 Azusa Street was for sale. The photograph below taken about the time that the congregation chose to move into the building shows the “For Sale” sign posted high on the east wall of the building, as well as the rear of the tombstone shop. Seymour, pastor of the Azusa Street Mission, and a few trusted friends met with the pastor of First AME Church and negotiated a lease for $8 a month.

An early photograph reveals what the 1906 version of the map indicates. The pitched roof had not been replaced. The building had a flat roof. The staircase that had stood at the front of the building had been removed.

In a sense, this building suited the Azusa Street faithful. They were not accustomed to luxury. They were willing to meet in the stable portion of the building. The upstairs could be used for prayer rooms, church offices, and a home for Pastor Seymour.

Articles of incorporation were filed with the state of California on March 9, 1907, and amended May 19, 1914. The church negotiated the purchase of the property for $15,000 with $4,000 down. It was given the necessary cash to retire the mortgage in 1908. The sale was recorded by the County of Los Angeles on April 12, 1908.

  

Were Molokans the first to Speak in Tongues at Azusa?

Adopted from Andrei Conovaloff

American Molokan Dukh-i-zhiznik (lit. living in the Spirit) oral history (documented in the Book of the Sun: Spirit and Life, Dukh i zhizn’) reports that Molokani and Pryguny received the “outpouring of the Holy Spirit” in the Milky Waters region (now in Ukraine) in 1833. The diary of Vassili V. Verestchagin documents that Pryguny (lit. leapers) in the Caucasus in the early 1860s spoke in tongues, jumped to exhaustion, and held hands up in the air for more than an hour. These charismatic practices continue among Dukh-i-zhizniki in the U.S. and Australia.

From 1906 to 1909, the Apostolic Faith Mission conducted three services a day, seven days a week, for over three years or 1000+ services! Thousands of seekers received the “tongues” baptism, including many Molokani and Pryguny. Also many public Pentecostal revivals were conducted in tent meetings on Oake’s lot and other locations around the Flats area slums were Russian settled. English speaking Pryguny and other Russians immigrants often translated at the services. Oake’s lot later became Pecan Playground, at First and Pecan Streets.

In Molokans in America (pages 101-102, ch. 5), John K. Berokoff reports about the connection between Prygun leader Philip Mikhailovich Shubin and the early Pentecosts:

“During his 27 years in America he was the outstanding speaker and orator of the brotherhood with a wide acquaintance among non-Molokans , not infrequently taking a choir of singers to Pentecostal church meetings where he preached and explained the  Molokan reasons for their migration. It was his wisdom, his profound knowledge of the scriptures plus his wide knowledge of Russian literature that enabled him to repel the periodic attempts by leaders of neighboring denominations—Baptists, Pentecostals, etc.—to proselytize the  Molokan people …”

More evidence of connections between the Azusa Street Revival and the Pryguny is reported  in the newspaper The Apostolic Faith, which was distribute free to 50,000 subscribers, when the population of Los Angeles was 250,000. Many Russian sectarians in Flats knew about this church and saw this free paper, especially since it reported about them in the first issue, the church was within walking distance, and elders exchanged visits.

1906 September — The Apostolic Faith (Volume 1 Number 1) — The first edition of the newspaper reports that Apostolic Faith Mission members spoke at a Prygun prayer meeting. In 1906, Pryguny held Sunday services at the Bethlehem Institutional Church and the Stimson-Lafayette Industrial School, and welcomed guests at both locations which were 1/2 block from each other and about 1/4 mile east of the Apostolic Faith Mission. The Pentecosts invited the Pryguny to attend their meetings, which many did with a translator:

RUSSIANS HEAR IN THEIR OWN TONGUE
“Different nationalities are now hearing the Gospel in their own “tongue wherein they were born.” Sister Anna Hall spoke to the Russians in their church in Los Angeles, in their own language as the Spirit gave utterance. They were so glad to hear the truth that they wept and even kissed her hands [showing respect]. They are a very simple, pure, and hungry people for the full Gospel. The other night, as a company of  Russians were present in the meeting, Bro. Lee, a converted Catholic, was permitted to speak [translate] their [Russian] language. As he spoke and sang, one of the  Russians came up and embraced him. It was a holy sight, and the Spirit fell upon the Russians, as well as on others, and they glorified God.”

1907 April  — The Apostolic Faith (Volume 1 Number 7) — The 7th edition reports about the Russian and Armenian Pryguny in the Flats:

“Russians and Armenians in Los Angeles are seeking the baptism. The Armenians have a Pentecostal cottage meeting on Victor street, between 4th and 5th [Now under the I-5 Freeway]. Some have been baptized with the Holy Ghost.”

In his 2006 book, The Azusa Street Mission and Revival: The Birth of the Global Pentecostal Movement, Cecil Robeck reports that in 1906 Los Angeles had a population of 238,000 and was growing at the rate of 3,000 (1.3%) per month, as ~ 4,000 Russian sectarians migrated to the U.S. He mentions the Russian and Armenian Pryguny at least 5 times in his book:

[Page 57] Finally, between 1903 and 1912 several thousand Russians and Armenians arrived in the city, refugees from Russia’s increasingly repressive government. Unlike most Russians, they did not belong to the Orthodox church. They were [Spiritual Christian ethnic] Molokans, literally “milk drinkers,” a name they received because they refused to fast from dairy products during traditional fast days. More importantly, they could be described as a “proto-Protestant'” group, since they had been influenced by some of the sixteenth-century Reformers. They also had a special appreciation for the Holy Spirit. Many of them claimed that they had been directed to leave southern Russia through the gift of prophecy. They engaged in what was often described as ecstatic behavior, jumping and dancing; falling on the floor when they believed that they were possessed of the Holy Spirit to do so; and singing chant-like songs that strongly paralleled the “singing in the Spirit” (a multi-layered, harmony-rich singing in tongues that are unknown to the singers and are believed to be inspired by the Holy Spirit) at the Azusa Street Mission.

[Page 94] As the revival grew … Seymour celebrated the spread of the revival to other congregations … the Russian Molikan [sic] community, … He viewed them as fellow-workers.

[Page 138] While the mission was led by an African American pastor, dominated by and African American membership, and heavily influenced by African American worship patterns, it quickly developed into a multi-ethnic and multiracial congregation. … non-African-Americans did bring their own gifts and experiences. … Recent Russian and Armenian Molokan [Spiritual Christian] immigrants already practiced the unusual jumping and chanting also found at the mission. … This was a revival unlike any other the city of Los Angeles had ever seen … African Americans, Latinos, Armenians, Russians, Swedes, Germans, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, Native Americans, and other ethnic groups … bountiful expressions of ecstatic manifestation such as speaking in tongues, prophesying, claims of dreams and visions, trances, healings, exorcism, and falling “in the Spirit.”

[Page 153] “Singing in the Spirit” accomplished more than an expression of worship, however. It also provided a bridge that brought Russian and Armenian Molokans [Spiritual Christian Jumpers] into the mission — among them the Shakarian and Mushegian families. These families arrived in Los Angeles in the 1905 emigration. The Molokans commonly practiced a king of “sing-song” prayer, a form of vocal prayer and praise that resembled singing in Spirit.” Walking down San Pedro Street in 1905, Demos Shakarian, grandfather of the Demos Shakarian who would later found the Full Gospel Businessman’s Association, and his brother-in-law, Magardich Muchegian, passed the Azusa Street Mission. As they drew near, they heard sounds of praying, singing, and speaking in tongues coming from the mission — expressions that they identified as similar to their own. The single phenomenon of “singing in tongues” convinced Demos to embrace the mission as a place his family could worship. From the moment he heard it, he concluded that God was also beginning to move to America just as He had in their homeland of America and in Russia.”(27)

[Pages 189-190] At the same time a group of Armenians and Russians [Spiritual Christian Pryguny], who had come to Los Angeles in the Molokans immigration, opened cottage prayer meetings on Victoria Street between West Fourth and Fifth Streets that would quickly develop into an Armenians-language Pentecostal church.

American-born Armenian-Prygun historian Joyce Bivin comments: We have a similar story in our community about the Azusa Street Revival. The story goes like this — quoted from a letter by M. Mushagian:

“Our people came to Los Angeles right after the Azusa Street Revival. They used to attend the meetings even though they didn’t understand the American language. They saw that the Holy Spirit was moving there like it did in the Old Country. So they accepted Pentecostal because they believed in Acts 2:4.”

The Armenians apparently were worshiping in this manner, including dancing in the Spirit, (jumping, which my grandmother did at one of the Paskha meetings and the next day mother told me she was healed of whatever affliction she had at the time), prophesying, speaking in tongues, etc. before they came to America. I wasn’t aware the Molokans responded to the Azusa Street meetings. After the Armenians visited the Azusa Street meetings, they eventually changed their identity from Armenian Molokans to Armenian Pentecostals. Though they kept the Molokan traditions in their worship, their theology shifted from focusing on Jesus and M.G. Rudometkin (whose book was next to the Bible on the table) to Jesus’s teachings as defined by Pentecostal/Protestant doctrine.

The first place our people gathered to worship was on Boston Street. The next place was on 431 S. Pecan Terrace, in a large room where my great grandfather eventually turned into a bath house. Then they moved to Gless Street [all in the Flats] and next to Goodrich Blvd before moving to Hacienda Heights. The church today is located in Hacienda Heights, off Hacienda Blvd. on West. It’s the first entrance on the right after you turn on West.

Let the Protestant say the prayer: Protestant Participation in Bulgaria’s Liberation

A considerable number of Protestants took part in the prematurely erupted April Uprising. Many of them were in the immediate circle of Benkovski, Vasil Volóv, and the other revolutionary apostles. Some Protestants joined during the uprising itself. According to Dimitar Strashimirov, about sixty men from the village of Tserovo, in the Pazardzhik region, joined Benkovski’s detachment under the leadership of Tsvyatko Brŭshkov. At that time Tserovo had 120 households, fifteen of which belonged to Bulgarian Protestants. Two roster protocols were compiled – one larger list for the Orthodox, and a smaller one for the Protestants. The leaders of the Protestant group were K. Teliyski and Nikola Kochov. From the same village came Ivan Cheshírov, one of the “tens-men” (leaders of groups of ten) in the Flying Column. Collective memory has preserved the names of two well-known Protestants from Panagyurishte as active participants in the uprising: Stefan Balabanov, who organized the sewing of clothing for the rebels, and Rad Minev, one of the most experienced arms-bearers of the insurgent town.

Protestants were also involved in the activities of nearly all revolutionary districts. Particularly dramatic was the fate of the evangelist Stoil Findzhikov, the master craftsman of the “cherry-wood cannons,” who became a symbol of the uprising. As a youth, Stoil had worked in a military workshop in Constantinople, where he learned details of firearms manufacture. On the eve of the uprising and during its course, prompted by Volov and Benkovski, he crafted and refined several of these primitive cannons. He fired his last “cherry-wood cannon” at the advancing Ottoman forces beneath Mount Kamenitsa. Under the pressure of the attacking bashi-bozouk irregulars, the defenders fled one by one, and some fell in battle.

The evangelist Petar Donchev from Panagyurishte also took an active part in the April Uprising. During the height of the revolt, he served as a trusted courier between the surrounding towns and villages, employed by both Benkovski and Volov. “Petraki,” as the insurgents called him, displayed remarkable resourcefulness, courage, and self-sacrifice. After the uprising he departed for the United States, where he studied theology, later returning to Bulgaria as pastor in Chirpan. Yet he remained throughout his life a passionate patriot and tireless public figure. He declined every offer of praise or reward after the Liberation with the simple words that “whatever he had done, he had done for God and for the Fatherland.”

The numerological slogan “1876 – Turkey will fall” was created by the Evangelical Christian Petar Vezhinov. Serving as couriers for the Internal Revolutionary Organization were Bulgarian Evangelical preachers: Veliko Petranov from Panagyurishte; N. Boyadzhiev and N. Kochev from the Pazardzhik region; Blago Sarandov and Petar Musevich from Macedonia. The pastor from Chirpan, Petar Doichev, was entrusted with important intelligence missions. Ivan Neykov served as the personal courier of Georgi Benkovski, while V. Karaivanov from Chirpan was suspected and arrested by the Ottoman authorities. Stefan Balabanov supplied a significant portion of the revolutionary uniforms, while Rad Manev, a gunsmith, manufactured weapons for the insurgents. The design for the “Chereshovoto Topche” (Cherry Cannon) was the work of the Evangelical Christian from Panagyurishte, master Stoil Findzhikov. At the decisive assembly in Oborishte, he was asked to deliver the prayer for the blessing of the cause for Bulgaria’s liberation.

When Georgi Benkovski gathered the insurgents in Oborishte before announcing the uprising, he declared: “Let the Protestant say the prayer.” The Protestant was Stoil Findzhikov, the historical figure who became the prototype for Ivan Vazov’s vivid character Borimechkata (The Bear Slayer). According to the recollections of Findzhikov’s daughter, Radka Kaloyanova, his prayer was: “Lord God, Who created heaven and earth, Who has helped many who have put their trust in You – help us as well, gathered here today, to succeed in our endeavor.” (Bulgarian Baptist Digest, Heralds of Truth)

120 Years ago, the Azusa Street Revival Began with a Fast

On April 6, 1906 William J. Seymour and the faithful few gathered with him at the Asberry house, decided to engage in a ten-day fast while waiting on the baptism in the Spirit. The first baptism with the Holy Spirit would occur just three days later. Seymour himself would be baptized on the sixth day of the fast and on the seventh, which was Good Friday, Seymour and his followers leased an abandoned church property at 312 Azusa Street and begin cleaning it up. Easter was on April 15, 1906 when they held their very first Pentecostal service at Azusa Street. The rest is history…

Speaking in Tongues in America Prior to the Azusa Street Revival of 1906 (Diamonds in the Rough-N-Ready Series)

The Azusa street revival swept the globe starting with California

January 1, 1901– The initial phenomenon of speaking in tongues occurred at Parham’s school in Topeka, Kansas

January 6, 1900 – Frank Sanford’s Shiloh school reported that “The gift of tongues has descended”

1896 – Over 100 people baptized in the Shaerer schoolhouse revival conducted by the Christian Union in the North Carolina mountains

1887 – People falling in trances and speaking in tongues were reported at Maria Etter’s revival meetings in Indiana

1874 – Speaking in tongues occurred during healing meetings reported in New York

1873 – William H. Doughty and the Gift People of Rhode Island spoke in tongues

1854 – V. P. Simmons and Robert Boyd reported tongue speaking during Moody’s meetings

Pentecostal Neo-Primitivism: The Theological Framework

The Pastoral Trials of 1949 in the Foreign Press

Western journalism, even in the days before the pastors’ trial, widely covered the event in the reactionary press, making an unsuccessful attempt to present it as a campaign against churches and religion in a socialist country. The trial was attended by representatives of the American and British legations in Sofia, the agencies “United Press”, “Reuters”, “Telepress”, “International News Service”, the newspaper “New York Times”, etc. In the photo: a group of foreign journalists and Pastor Chambers (in the middle of the first row) during the trial. 

 

The Milwaukee Journal – January 12, 1949 – Preachers Arrested in Bulgaria

Ottawa Citizen – February 8, 1949 Protestant Leaders Indicted in Bulgaria

Lodi News-Sentinel – February 11, 1949 – Bulgaria Arrests 15 Protestant Pastors

The Free Lance-Star – February 11, 1949 – 15 Pastors in Bulgaria Officially Tried for Treason

Ottawa Citizen – February 12, 1949 Geneva, World Council of Churches: Bulgarian charges dismissed

The Evening Independent – ​​February 12, 1949 – Council of Churches denies espionage allegations

Gettysburg Times – February 17, 1949 – Bulgaria Tries 15 Protestant Pastors on February 25

The Evening Independent – ​​February 17, 1949 – Bulgaria forms new national Orthodox church

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – February 22, 1949 – 15 Protestant Pastors Charged with Espionage

Schenectady Gazette – February 24, 1949 – Bulgaria Rejects American Protests Against Pastoral Arrests

The Milwaukee Journal – February 24, 1949 – Bulgarian Bible Believers Under Fire in Red-Dominated Country

The Deseret News – February 25, 1949 – Church leader asks for prayer for Reds victims

The Deseret News – February 25, 1949 – Associated Press: Two Bulgarian Pastors Plead Guilty

The Evening Independent – ​​February 26, 1949 Third Church Leader Pleads Guilty

The Deseret News – February 26, 1949 – Chief defendant pleads guilty – third plea in just two days

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – February 26, 1949 – 5 Pastors Plead Guilty in Bulgaria

The Milwaukee Journal – February 28, 1949 – More officials plead guilty to espionage – five Bulgarian pastors tell of relationships with Americans

The Pittsburgh Press – February 28, 1949 – Russia Questions Religion and Patriotism

The Milwaukee Journal – March 1, 1949 – All Plead Guilty in the Pastoral Trials in Bulgaria

The Pittsburgh Press – March 1, 1949 – 15 pastors plead guilty in Bulgaria – all but one plead guilty

St. Petersburg Times – March 2, 1949 – Prosecutors testify in Bulgarian spy trials after defendants’ confessions

Prescott Evening Courier – March 2, 1949 – Bulgaria Suddenly Stops 42 Testimonies

St. Petersburg Times – March 4, 1949 – The Church in Bulgaria is Repressed

The Telegraph – March 5, 1949 – Trial in Bulgaria ends with pleas for mercy

The Pittsburgh Press – March 6, 1949 – 15 Protestant pastors in Bulgaria stand in the dock to plead for their lives

The Glasgow Herald – March 12, 1949 – Bulgarian trials in doubt – confessions in question 

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette – April 7, 1949 – Pastoral trials have repercussions at the UN

The Milwaukee Journal – April 30, 1949 – Bulgarian Church Severs Ties with Methodism

The Pittsburgh Press – May 1, 1949 – UN Condemns Charges Against Churches

 

Sarasota Journal – January 22, 1969 – Pastor Dr. Ladin Popov – Bulgarian Billy Graham to preach on Wednesday

The Evening Independent – ​​February 24, 1973 – H. Popov to preach after 13 years behind the Iron Curtain

Schenectady Gazette – January 22, 1985 – Rev. Kulichev’s Bulgarian Church Does Not Accept a State Pastor

March 12, 1906: William Seymour starts meetings at the home of Richard Asberry at 214 Bonnie Brae Street

Dony K. Donev

William Seymour was expelled from the Santa Fe Mission on March 4, 1906, after preaching that speaking in tongues constitutes the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. Outraged by the treatment of Seymour, one of the church members, Edward Lee, invited him to his home, where prayer meetings soon began. Because of the growing number of visitors, the gatherings were moved on March 12, 1906—exactly one month before Seymour himself received the Holy Spirit—to the home of Richard Asberry at 214 Bonnie Brae Street. Ironically, this was the same location where members of the Santa Fe Mission had met in 1905 after being expelled from the Second Baptist Church of Los Angeles for preaching the doctrine of holiness. At that same location, in Richard Asberry’s home, on April 9, 1906, Edward Lee became the first to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Many others were also baptized and spoke in tongues after Seymour and Lucy Farrow laid hands on them in prayer.

The prayer meetings at 214 Bonnie Brae Street gained widespread attention as the number of attendees soon exceeded the capacity of Richard Asberry’s home. Holding services in the street itself attracted crowds of curious onlookers. Among them were representatives of the numerous immigrant communities living in Los Angeles at the time. One such group consisted of Russian “Molokans,” who had immigrated because of religious persecution directed against their extremely conservative beliefs (the so-called Old Faith) and their worship practices, which included dancing, trance states, falling in the Spirit, and in some instances even speaking in unknown tongues. One of the earliest American missionaries to the Balkans, F. W. Flocken, encountered a similar Molokan community in Tulcea and documented in detail his observations concerning their religious beliefs and practices (see notes 25–27 and the 43rd Annual Report of the Missionary Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 1861, p. 48ff).

Most Russian immigrants in Los Angeles in 1906 lived in Boyle Heights and Oaks Lot (the so-called “flats area slums,” a term used to describe the apartment blocks in the ghetto), approximately half a kilometer from Azusa Street. There, at Pecan Playground, tent meetings were held during the height of the Azusa Street Pentecostal revival (1906–1909). The first issue of the newspaper published during the revival, Apostolic Faith, reports that members of the revival were invited to preach in the local Molokan church (see Apostolic Faith, Issue 1). What the Molokans observed in the prayer meetings at 214 Bonnie Brae Street, and later in the Azusa Street revival itself, was nearly identical to the “Old Faith” practices they maintained in their own gatherings. When Ivan Voronaev moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles around 1913, he worked among Russian immigrants who had been eyewitnesses to the Azusa Street revival. /to be continued/

March 7, 1906: Seymour Preaches before the Southern California Holiness Association

Expelled from the Santa Fe Mission for preaching that speaking in tongues is the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit, Seymour was invited to defend his position before the Southern California Holiness Association. The Santa Fe Mission was part of this association, and it was with its elders that Julia Hutchins consulted before locking the mission’s doors on Seymour’s evening service on March 4, 1906. One of the elders’ arguments was that Seymour himself had not received the baptism in the Holy Spirit and thus had not personally experienced what he was preaching.

The association’s meeting on March 7, 1906, was organized by J. M. Roberts at 114 South Union Street in Los Angeles. Pastors and leaders were present and voted following Seymour’s sermon. Their position was that the doctrine he proclaimed was not in agreement with the teachings of the Holiness churches, even though neither Seymour nor his teacher, Parham, were the first to associate speaking in tongues with the baptism in the Holy Spirit. The council instructed Seymour to cease preaching about Spirit baptism if he wished to continue pastoring Hutchins’s church at Santa Fe and Ninth Street in Los Angeles.

Thus, the democratic governance of the church voted against what would become the greatest outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the twentieth century—before it had even begun. The Santa Fe Mission has therefore remained in history as the church that expelled the preacher through whom God would initiate the revival.

March 4, 1906: William Seymour is expelled from the Santa Fe Mission

On March 4, 1906, Seymour preached during the morning service at the Santa Fe Mission that speaking in tongues is the biblical evidence of baptism in the Holy Spirit. When he returned for the evening service, he found the church doors locked by Julia Hutchins. After consulting the leadership of the Southern California Holiness Association, to which the Santa Fe Mission belonged, Hutchins informed Seymour that she did not accept speaking in tongues (glossolalia) as part of the doctrine of holiness. One of the elders’ arguments was that Seymour himself had not been baptized in the Holy Spirit and had not experienced what he preached.

However, Seymour was not the first to make the connection between speaking in tongues and baptism in the Holy Spirit. Even his teacher, Charles Parham, who systematized the theological link between biblical sanctification and Spirit baptism, was an heir to a rich tradition of preachers and churches that accepted speaking in tongues as the sign of the baptism in the Holy Spirit within the holiness doctrine.

1905 – Lucy Farrow, who introduced Seymour to Parham and later helped him receive the invitation to pastor the Santa Fe Mission in Los Angeles, was baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues. She was the niece of Frederick Douglass and pastor of a Holiness church in Houston. Lucy Farrow received the baptism in the Holy Spirit while working in the home of Charles Parham. At a prayer meeting in Houston in early 1906, she prayed for 25 people, all of whom were baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in tongues simultaneously. Shortly afterward, she traveled to Los Angeles, and when Seymour was expelled, it was Lucy Farrow who prayed for the first believers to receive Spirit baptism during the home prayer meetings that began on Bonnie Brae Street in April 1906.

1896 – During the revival meetings known as the “Shearer Schoolhouse Revival,” more than 100 men, women, and children were baptized in the Holy Spirit. They were part of a mountain community in North Carolina called the “Christian Union,” from which the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee) would later emerge.

1887 – In the revival meetings of Maria Etter, under the power of the Holy Spirit, believers (mainly Quakers and Methodists) fell into trances and spoke in unknown tongues, leading the secular press to call her a “voodoo priestess.”

1880 – The “Pentecostal Holiness Church Movement” documented Holy Spirit baptisms among its members.

1889 – Jethro Walthall of Arkansas was baptized in the Holy Spirit along with many others during a prayer meeting.

1875 – E. B. Swan testified that the so-called “Gift People” in Rhode Island practiced speaking in tongues.

1874 – Similar testimonies came from healing meetings in New York State, where many were baptized in the Spirit and spoke in tongues.

1855 – William Dowie spoke in unknown tongues during meetings of Frank W. Sandford in Shiloh, Maine. Later, Dowie founded the “Gift People” movement, and Sandford started a Bible school called “The Holy Spirit and Us” as part of his church. Ambrose J. Tomlinson, who in 1907 would organize the Church of God, also visited Shiloh in October 1901. Even Charles Parham stayed at the school for six weeks during the summer of 1900 to listen to Sandford’s lectures. It was there that Parham first heard speaking in tongues among the students in the school’s old prayer towers.

In 1906, the participants in the Azusa Street Revival sought the same experience of speaking in tongues that had occurred in the early hours of January 1, 1901, at Charles Parham’s school in Topeka, Kansas. Interestingly, a publication from January 6, 1900, reported that at Sandford’s school in Shiloh, many had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoke in unknown tongues following a prayer meeting that began on New Year’s Eve and lasted about ten days.

1854 – W. P. Simons and Robert Boyd separately testified about speaking in unknown tongues during evangelistic meetings led by D. L. Moody, attended by followers of the Scottish preacher Edward Irving.

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