Richard

Wurmbrand

If that

were

Christ,

would

you

give him

your

blanket?

Tortured for Christ.

If That Were Christ

Would You Give Him Your Blanket?

Two Qiinese Christians shivered with cold in a cell.

Each had a thin blanket. One of the Christians looked to

the other and saw how he trembled. The thought came

to him, 'If that were Christ, would you give Him your

blanket?' Of course he would. Immediately he spread

the blanket over his brother.

By the same author

TORTURED FOR CHRIST

IN GOD'S UNDERGROUND

THE SOVIET SAINTS

SERMONS IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

If That Were Christ

Would You Give Him

Your Blanket?

by

Richard Wurmbrand

HODDER AND STOUGHTON

London Sydney Auckland Toronto

Copyright © 1970 by Richard Wurmbrand First printed 1970

ISBN o 340 12534 9 All rights reserved No part of this publica-

tion may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any

means electronic or mechanical including photocopy recording

or any information storage and retrieval system without permis-

sion in writing from the publisher Printed in Great Britain for

Hodder and Stoughton Limited St. Paul's House Warwick Lane

London E.C4 by Hazell Watson & Viney Ltd Aylesbury Bucks

Contents

Chapter

Page

I

Episodes in the Life of the Underground

Church

7

2

Does the Underground Church Exist?

25

3

Facts, Only Documented Facts

33

4

Russia's Golgotha

39

5

How Many Christians are Jailed in the Soviet

Union?

47

6

The Prison Regime

*52

7

Red China

55

8

The Christian Church at Midnight

6i

9

Romania : a Liberal Communist Country

65

IO

The Absolute Torture

69

ii

Beauty Shines at Midnight

79

12

Persecutions of Christians in Africa

83

13

The Attitude of the Church of the Free World

Towards Communism

87

What We Should Not Do

94

15

What Can Be Done?

98

i6

The Need for Literature

103

17

Broadcasting the Gospel

106

i8

Help to Underground Pastors and Families of

Christian Martyrs

108

19

Answer to the Most Frequent Criticisms

112

20

My Last Word

122

'There is no better rest in this restless world than to face

imminent peril of death solely for the love and service of

God our Lord.'

St. Francis Xavier

CHAPTER 1

Episodes in the Life of the Underground Church

In North Korea few workers have a free day. They work

from the ist of January to the 31st of December. The

revolutionary feasts are celebrated by increased produc-

tion. You can stay at home only when you are sick.

In a big coal-compound with some 40,000 workers,

it was observed that 1,200 always reported sick on

Sundays. The authorities became suspicious, and they

discovered that, in turns, these gathered in private

homes or, during the good season, in the woods. Their

pastor would announce a hymn, but nobody would

sing. The danger of being heard was too great. They all

would read silently at the same time the respective songs

from hymnals written by hand. Then they would pray,

also in perfect silence. The pastor would read a few

Bible verses and give a very short exhortation, which

was meditated upon in silence by the whole congrega-

tion, which would disband afterwards in small groups,

looking around to be sure that nobody saw them.

Forty-five Christians considered to be leaders of this

Christian group have been shot. We do not know the

fate of others.

What is this? A scene in the life of the Underground

Church. This happened in 1969.

Rev. Fang-Cheng is in jail. He has been tortured, but

has not betrayed the brethren.

One day he is brought again before the examining

officer. He sees in a corner of the room a heap of rags,

and hears a rattling of chains. The image becomes

clearer. It is his mother. But she did not have white

hairs before. Now she has. The colour of her face is like

ashes. You can see that she, too, has passed through

heavy ordeals.

The Communist asks Cheng, 'I have heard that you

Christians have ten commandments allegedly given by

God, which you strive to fulfil. I would be interested to

know them. Would you be so kind as to recite the

commandments ? '

Cheng is in a terrible state of heart, but still such an

opportunity to acquaint a disciple of Mao with God's

law must not be neglected. He begins to enumerate the

commandments until he arrives at 'Honour father and

mother'. Here he is interrupted. The Communist tells

him, 'Cheng, I wish to give you the opportunity to

honour your mother. Here she is in suffering, in chains.

Tell us what you know about your brethren in faith and

I promise that tonight you and your mother will be

free. You will be able to give her care and honour. Let

me see now whether you really believe in God and wish

to fulfil his commandment.'

It is not easy to take a decision.

Cheng turns to his mother—'Mummy, what shall I

do?' The mother answers, 'I have taught you from

childhood to love Christ and his holy Church. Don't

mind my suffering. Seek to remain faithful to the

8

Saviour and his little brethren. If you betray, you are

no more my son.'

This was the last time that Fang-Cheng saw his

mother. The probability is that she died under torture.

What is this? A scene from the life of the Under-

ground Church.

An officer of the Secret Police sits in the study of a

pastor. The Communist is very polite. He asks the

pastor to become an informer for the Secret Police. In

exchange, he can preach as much as he likes. 'And then,

you know. We have a say in the Church today. We can

help to make you bishop.'

The pastor refuses.

It is a Saturday afternoon. The Communist leaves.

When he is already at the door, he says, 'I will be back

for a definite answer on Monday. You had better think

it over. By the way, your congregation considers you a

saint. But you remember your affair with Betty. It went

far. We have a picture of her in your embrace. You have

been very incautious. If your congregation knew the

story,.you would be finished. I wish your good. Better

accept our proposal. In any case, goodbye, and have a

very blessed Sunday.'

On Sunday morning the pastor tells from the pulpit

his love affair, omitting only the name of the girl. He

says, 'We all are sinners, pastors as much as laymen. I

have failed. The Secret Police blackmails me by this

sin to inform on you. I prefer my shame as a whore-

monger to be considered by you. God forgives, and I

will not become a Judas. The wrong which I have done

is enough. For the rest, it is up to you to decide if I can

stay on as your pastor or not.'

When he descends from the pulpit, the parishioners

throng around him. In tears they kiss hftn and say,

'Don't leave us. We are not better than you. Now you

will be the best of pastors.'

When the Communist comes back on Monday, the

pastor says, 'Just go ahead and publish what I have

done.' The publishing does not discredit him. Everyone

answers, 'We know the story. He has told us himself,

and we forgave him.'

Soon after this, the pastor is sent to prison, but it is

like going to a feast.

What is this? A scene from the life of the Under-

ground Church.

A Christian has ,been released from prison. He is a

farmer. He goes into the fields and prays, 'God make me

perfect.' An inner voice answers, 'Would you be ready

to return to prison in order to become perfect?' He

shrinks back. He has suffered so much. He replies,

'Anything else, God, only not this.' The inner voice says,

'Then do not ask to be perfect.'

A long inner struggle follows. In the end the Chris-

tian yields. 'Make me perfect at whatever cost,' he

prays. Soon he is re-arrested and put in solitary con-

finement. He passes a long term there. Beatings, hunger,

lack of sun, no reading material. His only pastime is to

communicate by Morse code through the wall with his

fellow-prisoners. One day he has near him a new pris-

oner. He asks him his name. It is the same as his own.

It is his son. Encouraged by the heroic example of the

father, the son has also walked the way of the cross and

has also arrived in jail. The father thanks God for the

privilege given him to have a confessor of the faith as a

son. A remarkable step on the way to perfection.

What is this? An occurrence from the life of the

Underground Church, as reported in Vestnik Spasenia

10

(The Herald of Salvation), the secret magazine of the

Russian Baptists.

Sovietskaia Bielorussia of the 15th of August 1967

said, 'Ignorant fanatics of the Utevsk Baptist Evangeli-

cal Christian Church have woven their nest in the

area. .. They are determined to convert the population

and to establish the rule of the evangelical ideology over

the land, to introduce religious instruction of children

and the abolishment of anti-religious propaganda. They

urge each person to earn their salvation by active re-

cruitment and winning others to Christ.'

The Moscow publishing house Znanie published re-

cently a book by a Communist A. Shamaro, called

Irreconcilability. It thunders against the Christians.

But at the same time it describes them : 'The preachers,

the active bearers of religion in all its forms—in

churches or sects—don't laugh and don't make jokes.

They act. They work day and night. They preach

everywhere, at bus-stations and in hospital wards. They

seek new men for the parishes or sectarian congrega-

tions. They seek them everywhere. They would stop on

the streets unknown men whonv they saw to have a sad

face. . . Day and night they seek the sheep that have

gone astray. "Faith without works is dead", they say.

And the first work pleasant to God and which honours

him,. . . they consider to be "the fishing of men", the

attraction of new adherents in church parishes and sec-

tarian groups. . . If the dirty religious preachers and

recruiters endeavour not to miss any occasion to fish a

soul among those with whom they work, with whom

they live in the same town or village, with whom they

meet on the street, they surely do everything to fill

with religious faith the heads of their children, and of

the children belonging to relatives and acquaintances'

11

Where are there such faithful pastors? Where are

these zealous Christians? We do not meet them often in

the free world. You have heard again about the Under-

ground Church, as described by her worst enemies.

A letter arrives. The writer introduces himself as a

florist. He is a speciahst in breeding orchids. He has

cultivated new variations of orchids which can grow

even in Northern Siberia. As far as from there, but also

from many other parts of the country, people come to

copy his catalogue of twenty-seven new kinds of

orchids. (By the way, what a coincidence! The New

Testament is composed of twenty-sevçn books. Would

it be so that he is the lucky possessor of a New Testa-

ment and people come to copy it by handwriting?) He

says that the most appreciated are his Amosian orchids,

types 8 and n. I open the Bible at Amos 8: n and

read 'Behold, the days come, says the Lord God, that I

will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread,

nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the

Lord.'

In this shrewd manner, this brother informs western

Christians about their need for Bibles.

Others make it simpler. A Christian begins his letter

with the words 'Dear Censor, I know that every letter

written abroad is censored. But you are also a man

created by God, who will stand once before his judge-

ment seat. Allow this letter to pass. It does not harm

the state. I simply communicate with my brethren in

faith in another country.' The letter passed. Some

Communist censors are also men with hearts.

A tourist returns from the Soviet Union. She re-

ceived there various little gifts, among them a towel.

The tourist is thoroughly searched when she leaves the

U.S.S.R.J but nobody pays attention to the towel.

12

When we get it, we dip it in a chemical solution. And

we can read a communication from the Underground

Church.

There exists a church which keeps relationship with

other churches by methods like this.

Mrs. Ghinzburg is a Soviet writer and a Communist.

Notwithstanding, she has been in Soviet prisons some

seventeen years. She has been jailed by her own Party

comrades. This is not an exceptional case. Communism

is not only anti-Christian, or anti-Jewish, or anti-

imperialistj it is simply anti-everybody. One Commun-

ist hates another Communist. The Communist Kosygin

put manacles on the wrists of the Communist Dubcek.

Mao hates Kosygin. Kosygin hates Tito. Khrushchev

has kept his own wife in prison eight years. It is a reli-

gion of hatred. In Party purges, thousands of Com-

munists have been jailed and killed. Mrs. Ghinzburg has

been one of the victims.

Released from prison, she wrote a book called The

Whirlwind. She asserts that she still has Communist

convictions. Nevertheless, she describes honestly the

horrors of Communist prison-camps. Among other

things, she says that in the north of Siberia, where the

snow never melts, some Christian women prisoners re-

fused to work on Easter Sunday, saying that they had

to celebrate the Lord's resurrection. They were pun-

ished by being made to stand barefoot on the ice. And

the Communist writer adds, 'Not one of them fell sick.'

It reminds us of what happened i,6oo years ago.

Forty Christian officers serving in a Roman legion

in Sebaste (Armenia), refused to bring sacrifice to the

Roman Emperor as a god. They were stripped naked and

made to stand on the ice of the river Kisil-Irmak. On

the shore, a fire burned. A warm bath was prepared for

13

those who would recant. Every hour they were asked if

they were ready to renounce their faith, in which case

their life would be spared. In the end, one denied the

Saviour. At that moment,, the Roman centurion who

watched the execution, saw forty angels with forty

crowns descending from heaven to crown the martyrs.

But one of the angels found no head on which to put the

crown. The would-be martyr had become a renegade.

So, the centurion stripped himself of his clothes and

crying, 'Angel, I come' ran to the ice. He died, as did

the others, for the glory of the Saviour.

Those have died. The sisters in Siberia did not die.

But neither was there even one to recant.

This is the Underground Church as described by a

Communist writer.

The Christian Ketchik had been converted late in his

life. He lived on a small pension. His wife did not share

his Christian faith.

One day, Ketchik was found at a secret prayer-meet-

ing and compelled to pay, as a fine, his income for two

months. He came back from court happy, and told his

wife, 'Now you see that I was right telling you the great

worth of prayer. You did not believe me. But look here

—the sentence. The Communists know the value of

prayer. Even in their eyes a prayer has the value of two

months' pension. If it is of such high price, from now

on I will never miss a prayer-meeting.' He was fined

three times during one year. He lost his income for half

a year. But he learned the truth of what St. Augustine

said : 'Prayer is the strength of Christians and the weak-

ness of God.'

This is another of the many happenings in the life of

the Underground Church.

Monsignor Draganovic was head of the Yugoslavian

section at the Vatican. He himself is a Croatian.

But then the Vatican decided to arrive at an under-

standing with Tito. He had not killed all the Catholics.

You just pass over the corpses of the hundreds of thou-

sands dead, forget to mention their innocent death any

more, and you sign a concordat. So Monsignor Dragan-

ovic, opponent of Communism, had to leave the Vati-

can. But he continued to work from Germany on behalf

of his persecuted brethren.

He foresaw the possibility that he might be kid-

napped. Therefore he wrote and deposited in a safe

place a statement that he had no intention of returning

to Yugoslavia and that he considered invalid any declar-

ation which he might give, if he is ever in Yugoslavia,

this being possible only against his will. Monsignor

Draganovic was lured to Trieste where allegedly one

waited for him to give him more documents and pictures

about Tito's crimes. From Trieste he disappeared.

The foreign correspondents in Belgrade were shown

afterwards a declaration written by Draganovic in

which he declared that he returned to his fatherland of

his own choice. The reporters even got photocopies of

the document. It was certainly his handwriting. But

Monsignor Draganovic was a sophisticated writer. In

this declaration the syntax was that of an illiterate.

It had been dictated by a Communist officer of little

education.

After a few weeks, Draganovic himself appeared be-

fore the foreign press and declared that he had decided

to come back to Yugoslavia and to stand trial under the

charge of having been a 'war criminal', though he had

never been in the army. Only God knows through what

methods of torture and brainwashing he had passed be-

fore giving such a declaration.

The American Government apologised before the

North Korean Communists for having intruded into

territorial waters, though it had not been true. This has

happened even though the American president had not

been beaten by the Communists. Why should we won-

der about Draganovic?

This bishop did not resist. Nobody must judge him.

Two hundred pounds of flesh under Communist torture

are not a man. They have ceased to be a human body.

As the root of the figure 4 is plus 2 or minus 2, these

pounds of flesh under a Communist whip are a bunch

of several possibilities: they can make a hero, a traitor,

a weakling.

Christians meet in a wood. The police surround

them. Several try to flee, but they are caught by dogs.

Many get short terms of prison, fifteen days, but they

have to pay for their board in the hospitable institution

which detained them! A heavy burden for a family of

poor Soviet citizens.

A Christian lady fights with the policemen. She

would not allow her hymnal to be taken away from her.

She has had it for forty years and could not replace it.

She bleeds. The bone of her nose is broken. She also

has injuries to her arms. Just visualise the scene. Phy-

sical violence endured for possessing a book containing

praises to God, while we have hymnals and never sing

except in church.

In the U.S.S.R., hundreds of families have their

children taken away because they teach them the Chris-

tian faith. Now, these families understand in a new

manner the words of the Lord, 'Except ye become as

children, ye cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven'.

According to them this means unless you accept to be-

come sufferers like these children, unless you accept to

16

lose the one most beloved as they lose their mummies

and daddies, there is no place for you in the Kingdom.

This is a new interpretation of the Bible, or rather a

return to an old interpretation, and it happens in this

world apart, the world of the Underground Church.

Children fight. The teacher says, 'Cosmonauts have

been in space and have not met God.' A pupil stands up.

The child knows that by its Christian witness it may lose

father and mother. But she says, 'Comrade teacher, did

the astronauts have a pure heart? Without it you will

never see God on whatever star you arrive. If you have

it, you can see God everywhere, even while sitting on a

form in an atheistic school.'

In another school, the children are taught that man

comes from a monkey. The teacher, suspecting Eve to

be a Christian girl, points at her and asks her what she

thinks about it. She answers, 'I am thankful, comrade

teacher, for what you taught us today. I have always

asked myself how it is that Communists are so wicked

and torture so many innocent men. Now you have given

me the explanation. You are from the monkeys.'

The children Vania, Pavlik, Andrei, Vera and Sveta

were given a rubber doll. When the children played 'a

prayer-meeting', they were embarrassed by the fact

that the knees of the doll could not be bent. So they

complained to the teacher that they have an unbelieving

doll. 'We have learned that every knee must bow before

the Name of Jesus.' What a lesson for an atheist!

Many children taught in the Underground Church

say openly what they think about God, and also what

they think about Communists.

Y. I. Kushev stands before a court in Moscow. He

has been one of the organisers of a demonstration on a

public square against the arrest of Soviet writers. He

17

had shouted, 'Release Dobrovolski. Down with dic-

tatorship.'

The prosecutor asks him, 'Do you believe in God? —

Yes.'

Then Anatalovy Krasnov-Levitin takes the stand as

witness for the defence. He had brought Kushev to

Christ. Doing this he knows that he exposes himself to

heavy sufferings. Krasnov-Levitin had already been for

seven years in prison for his Orthodox faith. Now he

sees his convert in the dock. It is not like bringing

somebody to Christ and then rejoicing that he sings

dressed in a choir-robe in the church.

Krasnov-Levitin says, cIt is under my influence that

Kushev asked to be baptised. I was on the square.

Someone said to me, "They've arrested Kushev." I ran

after him, but it was too late. They pushed him into a

car and drove off. And now I see him after eight months

—here, pale and drawn after his long imprisonment

... he is a man of exceptional integrity ... What hap-

pened to him is the direct result of his generosity... he

is very unselfish, always thinking of others, never of

himself. A gifted poet... he has all the makings of a

brilliant writer.'

The defence asks, 'Were you pleased to have him

baptised?' Levitin: 'Of course I was pleased. What

kind of a religious man or writer would I be if I wasn't

happy when people come to believe in God? But I am

most displeased to see him in court.' The defence

(which in the Soviet Union also acts as the prosecution) i

'You think you can baptise a nineteen year old boy with-

out his parents' knowledge?'—'There is a canonical

rule that the church is not entitled to refuse baptism to

anyone and the Gospels call upon everyone without

exception to be baptised.'

The lawyer Alski 'defending* Kushev: 'Levitin as-

18

serted his right to be religious and to propagate reli-

gion; but no one has given him the right to subvert

minors to religion or to use compulsion. In coming to

your verdict, I ask you to keep in mind the need to

protect such youngsters from Levitin.'

Soon after the trial of Kushev, Levitin was also ar-

rested. A Communist, general-major P. Grigorenko,

protested against the injustices. He is an atheist, but

Levitin called him 'the good Samaritan' who helps,

while priests pass by. Grigorenko has been interned in

an asylum.

A new fashion appeared in the Russian town of

Liubetz.. Women wore ribbons with inscriptions like,

'May God arise and His enemies be dismayed', The

Most High is alive to help', 'May the devils perish

before the face of the living God', and so on. These

were worn publicly in open defiance of the Communists.

But how could they be produced? Every factory has

a political commissar who surveys everything. Well, it

so happened that the man of the Secret Police appointed

for the textile factory of Liubetz was a secret Christian.

He had infiltrated the police in order to help the cause

of Christ. His name is Stasiuk. He has been discovered

and is in prison now. But he did it.

This is how the Underground Church works.

Some of the Underground Churches, especially those

from among the Orthodox, are also politically active.

Christians would like not to be busy in politics. But

when Communists are busy to meddle in church affairs,

when Communist politics jail, and kill millions of Chris-

tians, believers have not much choice. They have to

defend themselves. Did not the Scottish Covenanters

fight with weapons against bloody King James II?

19

In Leningrad a plot to overthrow the Communist

regime, headed by brethren of the Orthodox Under-

ground Church has been discovered. Involved in it

were sixty intellectuals of high-rank position.

On this occasion we received the explanation how it

was that the Soviet press itself contained much data

about the persecution and growth of the Underground

Church. We can tell the secret now because it has been

discovered.

Some Christians made a much bigger sacrifice than

that of their liberties and their lives, as martyrs do.

They sacrificed for Christ their integrity. They became

members of the Communist Party. They tried to arrive

at top positions in order to help the Underground

Church.

Some of them became editors of anti-religious mag-

azines and newspapers. Pretending to oppose the Bible,

they published whole chapters of it, followed by a few

words of criticism. In this way the Underground Church

had pages of the Bible printed by the Communists.

For the same reason, they published facts about the

persecution.

Hmara was a Ukrainian. His father was a well-to-do

farmer; for this 'crime' he was deported with his whole

family to Siberia. Hmara grew up there with bitterness

in his heart and became an anti-social element, a rob-

ber. He was put in jail for criminal offences. In jail he

met Christians, beings apart, who suffered with shining

faces for a Lord about whom they and their lives spoke

so beautifully. Overwhelmed by what he saw in them,

Hmara told one of them how he had become a robber,

and finished with the words, lama lost man.* The

Christian, smiling, asked him, 'What is the worth of a

ten rouble bill when it has been lost by its owner? Is it

20

not still worth ten roubles? Does a diamond ring dim-

inish its value if someone has lost it? So a lost man has

the whole value of a man, of a splendid creature of God.

God values men even if they are sinners. And he gave

his Son for them.' The old story about Jesus follow^

told in simplicity with its old effect; Hmara was con-

verted.

In 1964 he finished his term, and was released. He

was no longer the old drunkard who beat his wife and

children. They saw in him a new man. They, his

brothers, his neighbours, were converted. Hmara be-

came a member of the Underground Church.

In 1966, he was arrested. The Secret Police had no

special motive in arresting him rather than anybody

else. He was to be the subject of a new experiment.

The Communists had hands on a leading personality

of the Underground Church, whom we will call Brother

X. He had resisted all tortures and refused to betray.

The Secret Police thought, 'What about torturing one

of his flock in his presence, telling him that this torture

of somebody else, of a beloved brother, would stop only

if he disclosed the secrets? Worth trying.'

So Hmara was flogged, submitted to all kinds of

tortures. He had the lower part of his belly split, his

tongue was cut, in order to make a leading pastor be-

come a traitor. This pastor did not betray. And what if

Hmara should die? Should a pastor tremble because

one of his flock will have his body killed and fall into

the hand of the One who made the lilies. Hmara will

have the same God on the other side of death.

Brother X told afterwards that, while Hmara was

tortured, he did not think so much about Hmara. He

knew that he was walking a thorny path towards heaven.

But he was appalled by the sight of the sadistic joy on

the faces of the torturers. He remembered that for

I.T.Y.B.—2 21

these, too, Christ has died. And he prayed for them.

The experiment did not succeed. The corpse was

returned to the family in order to scare others away from

becoming Christians. But its sight produced such an

indignation in the population, that the authorities could

not prevent the burial from becoming a triumphal march

of the Underground Church. Singing Christian songs,

masses of Christians and non-Christians took the coffin

to the cemetery.

As Communists usually do, they got rid of the hang-

men. Those who had tortured, having been ordered to

do so, were sentenced. The judge was a woman. She

wept hearing of the ordeals; she embraced the children

of Hmara. Then she was converted. I, who come from a

Communist country, know that the sentenced hangmen

were released soon, and sent to do the same things in

another place.

Jesus has been given again to be crucified in the per-

son of Hmara of Kulunda. Two brothers of Hmara are

still in jail.

How do Underground Christians think? Aida Skrip-

nikova, the heroine of the Christian youth in the Soviet

Union, at the age of twenty-seven, and in prison for the

fourth time (her father was shot by the Communists for

his faith), writes, 'I cannot divide my heart in two, for it

all belongs to the Church.' (A western Christian would

have said, 'It belongs to Christ.' In the Soviet camp

the Church is very much beloved. She has been seen in

her splendour. There the words of old have remained

true, 'Whosoever has God as his father, has the Church

as his mother.' Western Christians speak about the

Church rather as about a mother-in-law.) Skripnikova

continues, 'Religion is my very heart and to take away

my religion would be to tear out my heart.'

22

I met an Underground Orthodox priest from Russia.

I asked him by whom he had been ordained. He an-

swered, 'We were ten young men decided on entering

the ministry. No regular Orthodox bishop would have

ordained us, because they can do this only with the

approval of the Communist authorities, who put unac-

ceptable conditions. So we went to the tomb of a mar-

tyred bishop, and formed a circle round it, holding each

other's hand. Two of us held the hands on the tomb-

stone. We gave an oath of faithfulness, which we had

found in an ancient book of Church history; "I take on

myself scourgings, imprisonment, tortures, reproaches,

crosses, blows, tribulations and all temptations of the

world, which our Lord and Intercessor and the Univ-

ersal and Apostolic holy Church took upon themselves

and lovingly accepted. So even do I, an unworthy ser-

vant of Jesus Christ, with great love and ready will take

upon myself all these until the hour of my death." Then

we prayed that Jesus might ordain us with His pierced

hands. We believe He did.'

In my eyes, this ordination was valid.

Two women kneel on the steps of a warehouse in

Russia. When asked why, one of them answers, 'It is a

former church. It is still sacred ground. When I kneel

on the steps, I can hear the priest singing the praise of

God in a loud voice. You'll say that here textiles are

sold and that there is no priest. I don't believe you. I

believe what I hear. I smell the incense. I see the images.

The worship continues. Therefore I come every night.'

Typical Russian mysticism, you will say. But why do

you feel compelled to say something? Is it not better to

refrain from any comment? You are on sacred ground.

Who can define what is possible and impossible on

holy ground?

23

I am Romanian, not Russian. My former Lutheran

church in Bucharest is now a studio for making movie-

pictures. When I walked into the building after its

desecration, there could be no shadow of doubt. The

angels had not left it.

When the Cathedral St. Sophia was invaded by the

troops of Mohammed the Second, the priest interrupted

the Liturgy and disappeared behind a door, which has

remained closed since then. The Christians then be-

lieved that when Constantinople becomes Christian

again, this same priest will reappear and continue the

Liturgy from the very place where he interrupted it.

In the 15 th century, the Christians were such children.

There are still children who believe that this building

which has been changed first into a mosque and then

into a museum, will be a church again and that the

priest mentioned will serve in it. The childlike minds

who believe legends have become few. My mind is

among these few.

In Russia there are Christians who wear iron chains

under their shirts, day and night, so as never to forget

their brethren who are in bonds.

I have brought you on to most holy ground. You have

now lived scenes of the Underground Church oppressed

by the Communists.

Poor Communists. They do not know the words of

Tertullian, 'To kill us means to multiply us. The blood

of martyrs is the seed for new Christians.' (What about

sowing this seed also in the West by sharing in the

Spirit the sufferings of martyrs?) Neither do the Com-

munists know the words of St. Hilarius, 'The Church

triumphs when it is oppressed and progresses when it

is despised.'

24

CHAPTER 2

Does the Underground Church Exist?

When, by publishing Tortured for Christy The Soviet

Saints, In God's Underground and other books and

articles, I made known this wonderful world of Christian

martyrdom and heroism, when I told this Church's

story which, though real, sounds more fictitious than

any novel, the response was huge. I gave up counting

the letters of enthusiastic support, after they passed the

figure of 300,000.

Christians simply know that they have now been told

a truth which had been hidden from them. The human

heart knows many things for which it does not need any

proof. They knew Communism to be atheistic. They

knew it to be a dictatorship.

And in the free world, as well, Christians have

around them atheists, or men who are practically god-

less, though they might profess some form of re-

ligion. Christians know from their own experience how

tyrannical a boss, a husband or a parent can be if he

does not fear the Creator. They know the resistance to

the terrible pressure of the world in their own hearts.

When they read about the fighters of the Underground

25

Church who chose to die rather than compromise with

the Red Dragon, they saw in their beautiful examples

only a magnification under exceptional circumstances

of what was best in themselves.

I received letters from some who had passed through

prisons or who had worked with me in the Underground

Church. A former prisoner wrote: 'What you say is as

true as the fact that two and two are four.' A Romanian

Lutheran pastor wrote: 'We are whole-heartedly be-

hind you.'

But I had interesting letters from people who had

quite different backgrounds. One of these came from

among the Sikkim, in India, and encouraged us:

'Warmed through your most timely message, I cannot

help shedding tears for all you, dears. I hope that the

message of the Underground Church will prepare God's

children of the free world also to face such hardships

in the coming day.'

I quote from a letter from Sweden, 'I heard you in a

church in Stockholm. For many days afterwards, I

could think or speak of nothing else than the Under-

ground Church.*

A pastor from Bombay states: 'My colleagues have

already been excited by the publications of your mis-

sions and many are telling about them to their own

congregations. The demon of acquiescence to the tor-

ture of the brethren has suffered a defeat.'

An American writes, 'Please continue. The common

people hear you gladly. Even if you just stir up some of

us common people to prayer, you will have a very faith-

ful ministry. Please, give our love to our brothers and

sisters in the Communist countries.'

Another voice from Scandinavia: 'Do not give up. It

is true that most of us sleep, but there are also those who

suffer because of this laziness. There are 10,000 people

26

in our congregation. At the most twenty-five come to

our large church building on Sunday ... Sometimes, a

hymn is being played, without a single person opening

his mouth to sing ... I received the message of the

Underground Church. It gave me a period of searching

of my heart, good for me. I will read again everything

which I receive from your mission and lend it to others,

as often as I can. The ignorance about the Church in

the East seems to be great in our country.'

Another letter from India: "The night after reading

about the martyrs, I could not sleep. I pray that many

people have such sleepness nights and be aroused to

prayer.' In the same spirit is a letter from France : 'The

example of the Underground fighters whips us in a wel-

come manner. In it there is grace for all.'

And now a Britisher: 'I was not a Christian. I have

never been a member of any Church and I have never

lived a Christian life. But I read now about today's

martyrs and cannot stop weeping. Now I understand

the verse,

When I survey the wondrous cross,

On which the Prince of Glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss

And pour contempt on all my pride.'

Innumerable writers show their thankfulness at hav-

ing been made able for the first time to fulfil the Biblical

commandment, 'Weep with those who weep.' Christians

have received one of the finest gifts of the Holy Spirit,

that of shedding tears for their suffering brethren.

A New Zealander: 'The things which you describe

may well be repeated in our land. I have faced this

possibility and decided that I am ready to suffer with

Jesus, as these beloved ones have done.'

The opinion of an Englishman is, 'The type of Chris-

27

tianity practised in the Red Camp is much needed in

our country.'

An Indian writes : 'The only conclusion I am able to

draw from the message of the Underground Church is :

I wish I had suffered more for Christ.' A letter from

Nigeria, 'You asked me about the best way to combat

the Communist threat in my country. You have supplied

already the best weapon: the examples of the heroes of

the martyr church'.

One letter from Ulster: 'My congregation is very

earthly. My sister and I have always felt contempt to-

wards its cold services and the stale sermons which are

quite often preached. The singing in our church is so

dead and heartless., that it must be an insult to our Lord.

But having read about Christians going to prison for

singing Christian songs and continuing to sing like

nightingales would do, even when they are in dungeons,

I am determined with Christ's strength and guidance

to change this, so that the western Church may be as

soul-winning as the Underground Church in countries

behind the Iron Curtain.'

A Californian boy of fifteen writes that he challenged

the kids in the junior high school group to give up their

candy bars and malts and send money to get Bibles into

Russia.

Top leaders of the churches of the free world received

our message with love and opened to us their cathedrals

to bring there the cry of those tortured for Christ.

But we met also some sceptics. These sceptics had

not read a letter which I received by hidden channels

from an officer of the Russian Secret Police : 'I read all

your books and am happy that these things were told. I

know that some doubt your assertions. I would recom-

mend to these people to come and sit in a Soviet prison

ten years under my command. Then they would know

28

the.truth. The only thing in your book wherewith I do

not agree is that you are so mild. I, in your place, would

have thundered.'

I am in the office of an important personality of the

World Council of Churches.

'Your books and lectures have produced a big sensa-

tion. I take it for granted that you sincerely believe

what you say, but objectively your assertions are untrue.

There is no Underground Church. I have visited in-

numerable times Russia, Romania, and other Commun-

ist countries. I never saw the slightest trace of an Under-

ground Church.'

I asked, 'Have you been also in China and Korea?'

'No. My travels did not take me so far. But let us stop

at Russia and Romania.'

I refused. 'No, I will not stop here. Supposing that

my assertions are wrong and there is no Underground

Church in the Soviet Union and the European satellite

countries, you have won no point. Every fourth man is

a Chinese. In China, for sure, not one single church is

open. One million catholics, it is reported, have been

killed. Proportionally, the same number of Protestants.

The jails are full. Christians there practise their religion

only underground, under the danger of torture and the

death penalty. The same holds good for North Korea,

Mongolia. Nendor, organ of the Albanian Communist

Party, announced officially in November 1968 the

closure of all churches. Here you have four countries

about which nobody can argue. The Church there can

only be underground. It suffers. Instead of debating

about Russia, why not organise better help for the

Chinese martyr Church?'

He was a ruddy-cheeked man, but his face now be-

came red altogether. He said decidedly, 'Let us remain

at the European countries.' I knew that I had to yield.

29

Otherwise the discussion would have ceased. He was a

bishop and I was not. He had to remain in the right.

'Naive people are easily impressed. And you have a

gift. But I am no fool. I looked around well when I was

in Russia. There is no Underground Church.' I replied,

'I have been five years in the West and have also looked

around attentively. I never saw a Soviet spy. Would you

say that it would be right for me to assert that there

exist no such spy-rings? People who do an underground

work never introduce themselves as such.'

Now he walked round the room agitated. His new

shoes squeaked. I remembered how in prison I had

shared one pair of shoes with a former general. Each of

us went to the exercises in the yard every second day.

The bishop said 'Comparison n'est pas raison* (Com-

parison is no argument.) Underground Church is an

expression with a very precise meaning. We don't live

in the times of the catacombs any more. An Under-

ground Church would have to have secret seminaries,

secret printing-presses, secret services, Sunday schools

and so on. Such things don't go unnoticed.'

I had come to him well prepared. I took out from

my bag Nauka i Religia (Science and Religion), the omi-

nous atheistic magazine of the Soviet Union, dated May

1966. In it an article called 'Podpole' (Underground)

describes how a Christian with the name of Elisha

created a secret seminary for young believers. It is deep

in the endless Siberian woods, many miles from any

house, and at a distance from the last village to which

you could pass only through mire and jungle. There

was the seminary—two houses. One for men and one

for women. The Christians called this seminary The

Academy in the Forest. The atheistic magazine mocks

the secretary of the organisation of Communist youth

of that district who had not the slightest idea of the

30

existence of the seminary. But even the Christians knew

about it only if they had something directly to do with

the school. The rules of conspiracy were kept perfectly.

'So we have the first sign of a regular Underground

Church: secret seminaries.'

I took out a book proving the existence of under-

ground printing-presses written by the Soviet author

P. Savkin and entitled A Meeting in Hiding-PIaces. It

finishes by describing the arrest of Christians who have

organised such a press.

I then produced a Russian New Testament printed

secretly within the Soviet Union. So it is much more

than a secret printing-press. They have a secret Bible

Society.

My brother, who was my opponent said, 'What you

say seems factual, but is not when you take a closer

look. We know about a small Baptist splinter group

which did such things. Now this group has reunited

with the official Church. It was a small, transitory thing.

You have greatly exaggerated its importance.'

I replied, 'I am sorry to contradict you. The docu-

ments show clearly that The Academy in the Forest is

Orthodox. Those arrested because of the printing-press

mentioned in Savkin's book, are the Orthodox priest

Pletkov and several Orthodox ladies. Anglican Digest,

one of the organs of the Episcopalian Church of the

U.S.A., says that the Orthodox Underground Church

of the Soviet Union has—brace yourself—forty-five

million members. The Episcopalian Church of America

collaborates in the World Council with the official

churches of Russia. It would have no interest in exag-

gerating the role of the Underground Church.

'Headway of January 1968, a magazine not noted for

special sympathy with sectarians, says that the number

of underground Baptists is four millions. If you add the

31

Catholics, the Pentecostals and other groups, it appears

that every fourth citizen of the Soviet Union has some

ties with Underground Churches. It is not the question

of a small Baptist splinter group.'

I took out of my bag a pile of articles from the Soviet

press and wished to show reports about secret meetings,

secret Sunday schools for children. But he did not seem

likely to melt like an icicle in the sunshine before my

proofs.

Lenin has said that if there were important interests

involved in denying that two and two are four, people

would deny it. I remembered the hundreds of thou-

sands of letters of support. People write that after hav-

ing listened to the cry of the martyred Church they

wept, they had sleepless nights. Others wish to be com-

fortable. They wish to sleep.

Thé bishop shook my hand. He told me, *I sympathise

with you. I understand you have suffered much. This

makes you emotional. We are used to thinking factually.

A man who has passed through pains like yours cannot

be objective any more. Facts do not count with you. It

is all sentiment.'

The door had opened already. The secretary an-

nounced the next visitor. When I closed the door behind

me, it creaked. My last thought as I left him was, "They

should have an oil-can and drop a little oil into the

hinges.' What thoughts pass sometimes through a human

mind!

CHAPTER 3

Facts, Only Documented Facts

The episodes of the life of the Underground Church

may be beautiful and impressive. But we have to distin-

guish between beautiful legends and an impressive

reality. I leave all my emotions on one side for a time

and will give only facts as proved from unchallengeable

sources. I cannot be quiet about them, not because of

the accidents of my own destiny, which brought me into

conflict with Communism, but because I love Jesus: It

is written in Matthew 24:31 that his angels shall

gather his elect from the four winds. If the gospel will

not be published in the Communist world, angels will

find elect ones only in three winds and the word of the

Master will not be fulfilled.

The Church in the Red Camp is persecuted. She

needs our help. Therefore the facts of her martyrdom

must be known. Even in seminaries you are taught

about all kii\ds of churches, but never about the Under-

ground Church, a Church existing in one third of the

world. This anomaly must cease. Its existence, its

suffering, its victory must be proclaimed.

Sovietskda Moldavia of the 1 ith of June 1968, under

33

the heading 'There exists no more open and disgusting

lie than the Christian religion', describes a secret meet-

ing of Baptists in Chishinau. Children keep an eye on

the street, so that no stranger may interfere. Many of

those who attend the meeting are young teenagers. The

guilty man is Horev, who has passed already several

times through prisons. He organises such meetings, the

article says. He spreads secret religious literature. Also

charged with having organised a secret prayer-meeting

in the woods, is the Christian S. Apostu.

Pravda of the 19th of August 1969 describes a Baptist

Underground Church in the town of Mozdok. Believers

meet in an apartment with two bedrooms which are full.

The newspaper says, 'During the service, people

weep.' This is one of the distinguishing features of the

Underground Church. I don't remember ever seeing a

religious service there without tears being shed. They

don't enjoy their sermons, they suffer them. They share

the sufferings of Christ, the sufferings of all who suffer.

They weep for those in the West who have lost the

precious gift of having a tender heart and the ability to

weep with those who are persecuted.

Pravda (don't forget, please, that this word means

in Russia 'The Truth') describes the secret baptism of

three believers. The Christians went to baptism

through dark streets, avoiding men. Now, why would

they be fools to be baptised secretly if the Soviet Union

has religious liberty, as we are told again and again?

The same article in Prauda calls the fact that Chris-

tians teach love towards enemies 'treason'. The article

concludes by reporting the arrest of several Christians,

among them a certain Cherviakov charged with having

arranged a sort of Bible Summer School for children.

Twelve boys and girls have been taught there the word

of God. For this crime, Cherviakov works now in bitter

34

winters in northern Siberia's slave labour camps, knee-

deep in snow.

In the French Christian magazine Tant qu'il Fait

Jour of November 1969, a Danish Christian describes

his participation at an Underground Church meeting

somewhere in the Soviet Union. He had the address of

one of its members. Having succeeded in escaping from

his hotel one evening, without attracting attention, he

met in the comparative obscurity of the outskirts of the

town a young girl who asked him in bad German if she

could help him. He said the convened password. She

asked him to follow her, going before him at a distance

of some ten yards and pretending not to know him. She

took him to a house where there were boys and girls

between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. These did

not need to take narcotics for kicks. To follow Jesus on

the way of the cross, to worship Him under danger of

arrest and death, was thrill enough. Not to attract atten-

tion, one single candle illuminated the room. At the

beginning nobody spoke. After a long time of silent

prayer there followed a whispered Biblical lecture.

Then, one after the other, at irregular intervals, the

Christians disappeared into the night But the night was

not dark for them. They were the light of dark Russia.

Zaria Vostoka, a Caucasian Communist newspaper

of March 1969, reports the arrest of Peter Restshuk and

others for having organised a secret printing-press in

Suhum.

I can describe such a printing-press, which I have

seen myself. Imagine a small state grocery. Trucks dis-

charging goods or taking back those which had remained

unsold. Nobody would notice if ballots with" paper were

discharged or printed material put in boxes were taken

out. In the cellar of the house was a well. It was on the

outskirts of a primitive town. You don't find running

35

water everywhere in the Communist Camp. A man was

let down into the deep well by a rope. From the side

wall of the well, above the level of the water, a tunnel

led to a small room in which was the printing-press.

Those who worked there had little air. Again and again

they had to leave to take a breath. Such printing-presses

are discovered. Others take their place. But The

Herald of Salvation has appeared regularly for many

years. It is the underground magazine of the Soviet

Baptists.

It is not only the Baptists. The Soviet Union is

mainly an Orthodox country. Sovietskaia Kirghizia of

the 15 th of November 1969 tells of the Orthodox monk

Zosima who had been in prison already once for his

faith. After having been released, he organised a church

in his parlour and held its liturgies there. The church

is the house of the Christian. So it was in New Testa-

ment times. It would be much more effective in the

West, too, rather than the huge buildings which exist

and that are sometimes empty as regards men and often

empty of Spirit.

The Communists report about this monk that Chris-

tians spoke about him in the following terms, 'Hie glory

shines upon him,' 'God has given him a gift of speech

like that of the Apostles,' 'He leads a righteous and

blameless life.'

The article uses the very expression 'Underground

Church' and it is the most adequate. I looked up in

Webster's Dictionary of the English Language what the

word 'underground' means, and found it to be a

synonym of 'secret'. The church of monk Zosima was

surely secret. Whoever wished to visit it had to have the

recommendation of a trusted person and give the

promise of silence, just like in the Academy in

the Forest. Then you could enter the church from one

36

street, the exit being in another. (The existence of such

a church with two exits has saved my life in Nazi times.)

Monk Zosima told the Christians to be as clever as ser-

pents and righteous as doves, and, if asked, not to tell

where they had been, but to invent some story.

I myself believe that St. Dominic was not mistaken

when he wrote about a saintly hypocrisy. This does not

mean that the end justifies the means. Just the contrary,

the end to keep personal integrity and purity of heart

does in no case justify the ugly means used for this pur-

pose, which are to leave the world terrorised by the

Communists without the gospel, which cannot be

brought to them without using conspiratorial tech-

niques. Moralists would call this hypocrisy, forgetting

that it is immoral to leave the victims of tyrannies with-

out the knowledge of Christ.

Zosima had also an underground workshop for the

producing of candles. Sovietskma Kirghizia says that

many bought his secretly produced candles, which

shows that there are places where there are no other

possibilities of getting candles, considered as necessary

for the religious services by our Orthodox brethren. The

newspaper does not say what happened further to monk

Zosima. But hundreds of other articles from the Soviet

press justify the supposition that he must be in prison

again.

More than all this. In the huge Soviet Union there

exists a whole district populated only by Christians, a

district about which Westerners know nothing. The

world first heard about it from the Communist source

Nauka i Religia, issue of September 1968. It tells us

about large numbers of old-ritual Orthodox who took

refuge in an inaccessible district in the far north of

Siberia. These Christians deny the whole Soviet reality,

as centuries ago Protestants denied the then oppressive

37

Catholic reality and fled to America. Nauka i Religia

says: 'They are a mysterious, unbelievable, newly in-

vented world. The women and men do not recognise

the anti-Christian power, but they wish a righteous

death as a step towards eternal life.'

The atheistic magazine also gives several pictures

taken in Siberia. Among others, it shows a copy of their

Holy Scriptures. It has a great hole in the middle which

has been caused by rats. They had nothing wherewith

to replace it.

I myself am not an idolatrous worshipper of facts.

Every man sees what he calls 'the facts' according to a

pre-existent image which hovers in his mind. It is not

possible to establish facts, apart from the variety of

opinions which arise when they are viewed from differ-

ent standpoints. But my opponents wished facts. Here

they have them.

CHAPTER 4

Russians Golgotha

Figures show that more Christians have been suffering

persecution during the Communist period than at any

time in history. In the Red Camp, those who have the

longest road of Calvary behind them are the children of

God in the Soviet Union.

The test of the veracity of any report about the state

of religion in that country is if the martyrs of today are

mentioned.

When Eban, minister of external affairs of Israel,

came to Western Germany, his first visit was to Dachau,

the place where his co-nationals and co-religionists had

been exterminated. Should Christians not learn from

Jews how to behave?

I know not of one single case of a Christian church

leader who, visiting Russia or any other Communist

country, would have gone to place a wreath of flowers

on the tomb of a martyr or who has even asked to visit

the Christians in jail. Yet Bratskii Vestnik, the organ of

the official Baptist Union of U.S.S.R., publishes that a

delegation of Swedish Baptist preachers visited the

mausoleum of Lenin, the murderer of millions of Chris-

39

Sj instead of going to the grave of one of his victims.

In Germany, Eban would not have gone to honour the

tomb of some Nazi war-criminal. Is not the Christian

religion meant to teach a higher level of solidarity with

the innocent victims than the Mosaic religion?

As for us, our hearts go out to the martyrs. Not that

we pity them. Their chains are of pure gold. Their cross

is perfumed. All those whose spiritual senses are alive

know it. To Christians, prison has always been a delect-

able orchard where the sweetest nectar flows. Neither

do we give to the sufferings of the martyrs an honour

due only to the cross of Christ. Only to this cross apply

the words of St. John Chrysostom, 'The cross is the

will of the Father, the honour of the Son, the joy of the

Spirit, the jewel of angels, the assurance of the faithful,

the glory of Paul. By the cross we know the gravity of

sin and the greatness of God's love towards men.' But

the true knowledge of the state of Russia's Christianity

will enlarge our minds and hearts and will help us to

follow in the footsteps of Christ

Russia! Its writer Tiutchev said, 'You cannot com-

prehend her with your mind, you cannot measure it with

any rod. She is an entity apart. You can only believe in

Russia.' I, from my side, do. I believe that she will yet

find peace at the feet of Christ.

We love Russia. Jesus descended into hell. So we

descend into Russia's helL When Brother Andrew, the

author of God's Smuggler, made, in Norway, an appeal

for Christian workers on behalf of Russia, two hundred

volunteered at one meeting. The same thing happens

now all over in the free world. Young Christians expose

themselves to prison sentences, but they protest against

the persecutions in Moscow itself, in public squares and

shopping centres. There are now innumerable Chris-

tians of the free world who can use of themselves the

40

words of a Russian underground poet, whose verses

circulate in handwriting:

I bend to the head of thy bed;

You, Russia, wash

your tears and pus

with my blood.

The Russian martyrs are no longer alone in their

fight

There are now millions in free countries who weep

with those who weep in the Soviet Union because of the

closing of their beloved houses of God.

Prauda of the 18th of April 1968 says that in the

district of Vologodsk there are now only seventeen

churches, where there existed eight hundred before the

Communist take-over. Is this because people have

ceased to believe? The answer is given in the same

article, 'The leaders of sects could increase their in-

fluence. Religion is not harmless in our days. It does

not breathe its last as some believe, but somehow it has

the tendency to go on, to attack.'

It is not her fault if she has to attack from the under-

ground, into which she has been driven because of the

closure of churches in a time when she is increasing her

influence. On the 8th of April 1968 Pravda reports the

closing of 210 churches in the Odessa region.

But how do the churches fare which have remained

open? They seem to be all right in Moscow, Leningrad

and a few other places visited by foreign tourists. But

how about the smaller towns and villages ?

A secret communication of the Underground Church

tells us that on the 10th of April 1969, during a Baptist

religious service in Kopeisk, a group of atheists, led by

a policeman, disturbed it. They put bottles of alcoholic

beverages on the Communion table and photographed

J.T.Y.B.—3 41

the people with the bottles. These pictures will be used

for atheistic propaganda.

The assertion of the Underground Church is cor-

roborated by official communications. In Science and

Religion of November 1967, the Communists tell what

happened in the licensed Baptist Church of the village

Batiatitsh. The atheist lecturer Bilchenko entered the

church on Sunday, pushed aside the pastor and de-

livered her blasphemous doctrines. Those who had

come to worship had to swallow the praise of godless-

ness.

Foreigners and church leaders from the West are

never present at church services where this kind of

thing happens.

The Psalmist loved the house of God. So does every

Christian. Next Sunday when you sit comfortably in

your pew, remember Russia's churches changed into

warehousesj museums, factories and dancing clubs.

Out of 50,000 Orthodox churches before the Revolu-

tion, only 7,000 remained. Remember the churches who

have to bear the mockeries.

But the temple of the Holy Spirit is the Christian

himself. Against him the great fight is fought.

A letter signed by 180 young Christians, addressed

to the Soviet Government and other officials, has been

smuggled out of the U.S.S.R. It is dated the 13th of

May 1969, and protests against the arrest of a great

number of brethren. The youngest among them,

E. Radoslavov, is only 19 years of age. (The oldest

Christian prisoner about whom we know is Peter Popov.

He is eighty years of age, the age of St Polycarp, when

he was thrown before lions.)

When this group of Baptists were arrested, in the

school No. 61, the director Malamud told the children

that the Baptists were sentenced because they had sacri-

42

ficed to God a girl, by crucifying her. Therefore children

and parents have to beware of the Baptists.

This was not the fancy of just one man. The State

Publishing House of Leningrad published a book called

Children and Religion. In it the Communists reiterate

the old lie also used in times ago about the Jews, that

Christians teach and practise ritual murder. Allegedly,

Christians, to atone for their sins, kill their own chil-

dren. The Roman persecutors had invented the story

centuries ago. Now it has been unburied by the Bol-

sheviks to frighten the children and hinder them from

becoming Christians.

Many Christians are sentenced today in the Soviet

Union under the accusation of ritual murder. Just one

example: in 1969 the Military Publishing House of

Moscow issued a book by F. Dolgich and A. Kurantov,

called We must not forget. In it, pastor M. Krivolapov

of the village Neftogorsk, district of Karaganda, is said

'to have sacrificed to God as a lamb without blemish'

the three-year-old boy of the Christian Oslovetz. *He

allegedly killed the child in the presence of its mother

and of all the worshippers. None of the faithful ever

tried to hinder the horrible crime. They considered that

all this happened by the will of the Holy Spirit. The

child is said to have been buried during the night in a

forest. The young mother died for grief. Such 'facts'

from Soviet publications are all lies, needless to say.

Have Krivolapov and others like him been executed

already for an uncommitted murder or are they in a

death-row awaiting execution?

Even to be an official Baptist leader, licensed by

the murderous Communist Government, does not

necessarily save a person from persecution and years in

state prisons.

Sovietskaia Moldavia of the 13th of November 19693

43

describes the trial of such a pastor, Slobodchikov, in

Chishinau. He was known in town to have denounced

the underground leader Rudenko, who received ten

years in jail because of him. Rudenko died as a conse-

quence of the tortures he endured.

So Slobodchikov knew himself to be in good standing

with the Communists and imagined he was exempt from

danger. He therefore dared to use a microphone at à

Baptist wedding and so, as the article puts it, 'he com-

mitted the darkest of possible crimes.' A few words

about Christ slipped out of his lips while speaking with

the children. The newspaper says that he should have

taught them rather about Paul Morozov, a Soviet hero,

a child of twelve, whose statue is in one of the parks of

Moscow. The heroism of Morozov had consisted in the

fact that he had denounced his own father for having

taken some weed from the field formerly owned by him,

but now the property of the collective farm. The father

was sentenced to prison. The boy had been lynched by

the population.

Well, Slobodchikov had committed two crimes. He

had used a microphone and, instead of eulogising a lad

who had put his father in jail, had said good words

about Christ who had been obedient to His parents. So

Slobodchikov got two years in prison. In jail he might

remember his victim, Rudenko, and repent

The world press has announced the arrests of the

Orthodox Talantov and Krasnov-Levitin. The charge

against them is that they had protested at the lack of

religious liberty in Russia, the closure of churches and

the stupid burning of ikons. You can surely burn an

image. But the knowledgeable Orthodox believer has

never bowed before it. For him the image is transparent

He looks through the image to the holiness of Jesus, to

the purity of Mary, to the courage of the martyrs

44

painted on them. Burning images, you burn together

with them many superstitious conceptions connected

with them. But fire cannot burn those whose pictures

have been on the images. Neither can you stamp out the

love towards them in the hearts of Christians. The

Christian on earth is one with Christ and with the glori-

fied saints in heaven.

The closing of churches, the jailing of Christians, the

taking away of children—all this seems insufficient to

Communists. An underground document tells how aged

Orthodox nuns Morozova, Gherasimchuk, and Koro-

lenko, had been raped at the monastery of Pochaev.

Tomakova was raped and killed. The writer, Galan-

ski, who published this news in his secret periodical

Phoenix (a mythical bird which resurrects from his

ashes, which was used as symbol of the Saviour in the

catacombs), went to prison for this.

The Moscow Publishing House issued a book Psy-

chosis and Religion. They say that arguments have

failed to convince religious people. Christians must be

considered as mentally sick and put into asylums for the

insane. We now have brethren and sisters of the faith in

strait-jackets and gagged. We know the location in. the

town Kalinin where this institution is.

All denominations are persecuted. The Lutheran

World Federation had forgotten to inform us. We had

to read in the novel This Happens More Rarely by the

Communist M. Glinka, that the largest Lutheran

Church in Leningrad had been converted into a swim-

ming pool.

Unirea of January 1969 reports about the sentencing

of the Catholic Priest Potochniak in Lyiv to five years'

hard labour. Vysti iz Rymu of June 1969 announces the

death in prison of the Catholic bishop Welyezkowich.

45

Other sources say that he is still alive in jail. But in any

case, the Catholics, too, are persecuted.

If it would not be for God, the spring of vitality

in the Church of the Soviet Union would be unaccount-

able. It blossoms under persecution. It is the fastest

growing Church in Europe.

CHAPTERS

How Many Christians are Jailed in

the Soviet Union?

The only true answer is that nobody knows.

Free Trade Uriion News, the organ of the American

trade unionSj a sound proletarian source, says in its

issue of April 1968, that fifty-six concentration camps

have been identified in the Soviet Union. The total

number of prisoners is estimated at 1,150,000.

How many of them suffer for their faith in God? Try

to guess the right figure yourself on the basis of the

following data:

On the 8th of May 1969, Pravda Vostoka reports

from the town of Angren the sentencing of eight Chris-

tians—Friezen, Schmidt, Walla and others. They re-

ceived between two and five years for having plotted

wickedly to spread diseases in the population by three

means: taking holy communion from the same cup,

being baptised in the same baptistry, and greeting each

other with a holy kiss. (The Russian Christians have the

biblical habit of kissing each other as often as they meet,

and greeting each other with the words, 'The peace of

God be with you', instead of the ugly and nonsensical

47

'Hallo' or 'Hi' used by the Christians in the West.

These are Bible-believing Christians. Could someone

tell me where they have found a 'Hallo' or 'Hi' in the

Bible? Did St. Paul greet his brethren like this?) -

Well, this is Soviet justice. To go together with others

to a swimming pool does not spread diseases : to be

baptised with others does. Unholy kisses are immune.

Only holy kisses transmit microbes. If you kiss in a holy

manner, you may suffer five years in prison.

Only a month later, on the 12th of June 1969, the

same newspaper announces the arrest of another fifteen

people for their religious belief. These have committed

the crime of going from home to home to call people to

salvation. Among these fifteen is a certain Rabinchuk

together with all his five sons. Stop a little and try to

understand the grief of Mrs. Rabinchuk's heart. She

lost on one day all the joy of her house.

So twenty-three men sentenced for their faith in the

town of Angren during a single month. Twenty-three

about whom we happen to know. There may be many

more. We have no reason to believe that the anti-

Christian terror in Angren would be fiercer than any-

where else. The Soviet Union has 5,092 towns. If in

one town twenty-three go to prison for their beliefs in

one month, how many Christian prisoners are there?

Who knows what happens in the villages about which

we never hear anything?

It is naive to reduce the problem of Christian

prisoners in Russia to a couple of hundred Baptists. The

Baptist prisoners themselves number more than that.

The Baptist Underground Church is not centralised

and has no possibility of knowing what happens in the

vast Soviet Union. There exist several Baptist under-

ground groups working independently of one another.

In December 1969, the European Baptist Union

48

announced with great joy that 'the Initsiativniki', that

is the underground Baptists of the U.S.S.R.., had united

with the official Church. But in the same month, on the

4th, Red Star, the organ of the Soviet Army, announced

the sentencing of a group of Baptist soldiers. Nobody

knows how many, to what terms of imprisonment, under

what charges. The names are not given. So much is said

about them that 'the Baptists have a fierce religion and

do not pity their children. They do not kill them only

because the law of the state does not permit it.' In

January 1970, after the 'reunion' staged especially for

foreign delegates, the whole underground activity con-

tinued, as well as its denunciation by the Soviet press.

There must be thousands of Baptists in prison.

Kristeligt Dagbladet, Copenhagen, of the 4th of March

1970, evaluates them at 10,000.

In my book The Soviet Saints I have provided many

instances of sentencing of Pentecostals. In my hearing

before the U.S. Congress Committee, I gave names of

persecuted Seventh Day Adventists. Forty Catholic

priests from Lithuania signed a protest, dated August

1969, against the sentencing to forced labour of Rev.

M. Gylys and Rev. J. Sdepskis. Miss Paskeviciute, a

Roman Catholic who had prepared children for their

first confession, was also deported to a forced labour

camp, where she died of over-exhaustion. But the great

bulk of Christian prisoners are the Orthodox, these con-

stituting the majority of the Soviet population.

The official Orthodox Church has a membership of

fifty millions, according to the claim made by its dele-

gation at the session of the World Council of Churches

in New Delhi. The Orthodox underground is considered

to have another forty-five millions. Then there exists

the so-called True Orthodox Church and Old Ritual

Orthodox. All these give huge numbers of prisoners.

49

Sometimes we read about them in the Soviet press.

Some other news we have from underground docu-

ments. But the names of most of the martyrs are known

by God alone. Then there are sufferers from all kinds

of Christian sects which exist only in the Soviet Union

as the Molokans, the Duhobortsi, the Murashevtzi and

others.

The Underground Church is the most powerful anti-

Communist force in the Soviet Union. It is also the

most organised. If the figure of 1,150,000 political

prisoners is correct, a big percentage must be the reli-

gious opponents, considered by the Communists as

political criminals. The Communists themselves say

again and again that religion is their No. 1 foe.

How many Christians are in prison in the Soviet

Union? Nobody knows. Remember this, however: in

one town twenty-three were sentenced during one single

month. There are 5,092 towns and there are twelve

months in a year.

Perhaps after these grim things we should smile a

little, even if it will be a bitter smile.

Moscow News, the newspaper in English which

appears in the capital of the Soviet Union, says in its

issue of the 25 th of October 1969, 'All religious associa-

tions in the country (Baptists, Mennonites, Methodists,

Adventists, Molokans, Pentecostals and even Jehovists)

have the right freely to observe their rites at specially

allotted premises.' The newspaper did not say that the

premises were prison cells.

Michel Zhidkov, one of the top leaders of the official

Baptist Union of U.S.S.R., declared at the European

Baptist Congress in August 1969 in Vienna that nobody

is persecuted for his faith in his country. Michel

Zhidkov's own father spent many years in Siberia be-

cause he had dared to believe in Christ contrary to the

50

Orders of the Communist dictators. Not one delegate

booed Michel Zhidkov.

The Belgian magazine Panorama of the 9th of May

1969, publishes that one of the former heads of the

Gestapo, Henrik Mueller, sought as a war-criminal, is

now leader of Moscow's Communist Secret Police.

He has tortured Christians and Jews in times past in

Hitler's name. He does the same job now in the name

of Karl Marx's ideals. The important thing for him is to

be able to torture. , ■ .

Men like him, and his genuine Communist comrades,

do not feel it wrong to commit cruelties, just as we do

not feel it cruel to peel potatoes. For Marxists, man is

only matter. They do not believe in the existence of

soul or spirit. We cut wood, we tear down houses, we

hammer nails into walls. It is matter. We have no re-

morse. So, Communists do not pity their victims. For

them, they are matter.

CHAPTER 6

The Prison Regime

We could describe the regime in Soviet prisons from

communications smuggled out by the Underground

Church. But these might be considered as biased. So I

prefer to allow a Communist to tell the story.

Under Dubcek, there was a short respite in Czecho-

slovakia. You could tell some of the truth. At that time

a certain Loebl, an old-time Communist, high-ranking

official of the Ministry of Foreign Trade told the story

how he has been tortured by his own comrades under

Novotny, in a time when the Czech Secret Police was

led by Russian specialists. Loebl's story, corroborated

by writings of other Communists who have passed

through the same ordeal (see Arthur London's The

Confession and the book of Mrs. Slanski about her hus-

band being hanged by his own comrades), will give us

a picture of what our brethren have to endure in Soviet

prisons and will give us the chance of fulfilling the com-

mandment, 'Remember them that are in bonds, as bound

with them' (Hebrews 13:3).

Ï quote from the Czech Communist magazine

Reporter of the 15th of May 1968. Loebl writes that

during the interrogations., which lasted an average of

sixteen hours a day, he was not allowed to sit. He had

to stand or march sixteen hours a day, day after day. All

the time he was hungry. After a fortnight, his feet were

swollen, every inch of his body ached at the slightest

touch. Sometimes he had to stand for a whole day with

his face to the wall. Even the latrines were of the stand-

up type.

Loebl was drugged. So was I. So are Christian pri-

soners in the Soviet Union. CA11 of a sudden I would

feel as if someone were trying to push his hand into my

head. It was a sensation similar to that which one has

after laughing-gas has been administered as an anaes-

thetic ... I heard from other prisoners, who had to do

the cleaning at the prison hospitals, that they had found

empty bottles of narcotics, which were put into the soup

served to prisoners.

'In addition to classical beatings, there were ice-cold

showers, the crushing of genitals or the victim's head

was wrapped in a wet cloth and when this cloth dried

and shrank it caused unbearable pain ... I was no

longer a person.'

During this short respite in Czechoslovakia we heard

what is happening continually in the Soviet camp but

remains untold. The Czech Communist newspaper

Kulturny Zhivot of the 31st of May 1968 reads: 'The

church as a whole has been in prison since 1950 ... In

jails, guards fired from the observation towers into the

cells. Dogs without muzzles were led into the prison

hospital, the inmates were beaten on their heads with

horse-whips and sprayed with water from hoses. The

investigators yelled, "We do not recognise any humani-

tarianism." Many of the inmates suffered internal in-

juries. Some, for example Hermanovsky, a very young *

man, became insane from the torture. In one of the

53

transports was also the seventy-five-year-old bishop

Vojtassak. They stripped him naked and he had to stand

for several hours on the stone floor. When he could not

continue the squatting exercises, they yelled at him,

"Squat, until you spit blood, you..." '

At that time, the late professor of theology,

Hromadka, Czech himself, was touring through all the

continents for the World Council of Churches telling

of religious liberty.

Don't read only the story of these tortures. But feel

them as if you are being tortured, because in reality it

is you. All Christians are one soul and one heart. They

constitute the mystical body of Jesus Christ When one

member suffers, all the members suffer together with

him. Never would a mouth say, 'I don't care. It's not

me, it is the tooth or the stomach which aches.' It would

rather say, CI have pains,' and all the members would

collaborate to evince or ease the pain.

With a hard look in his eyes, with a face which had

grown grey from care, a leading personality of the Ger-

man Lutheran Church warned me: 'No point in pub-

licising such facts. It will only make things to become

worse.' My'hands began to quiver, and I said with

vehemence, 'It was centuries ago that the Chinese might

have refused to rescue a drowning man for fear of an-

tagonising the water demons. Such a mentality is

obsolete in the twentieth century. Crocodiles do not eat

men because zoologists have upset them by writing

about their voracity, but because it is in their character.

Russian Communists began with torturing Christians

when I was the age of nine. They will continue to do it,

and even grow in ruthlessness, because this is their

teaching, not because I protest against the terror and

organise relief for those persecuted.'

54

CHAPTER 7

Red China

An ingenious person has estimated that if a man stood

by a roadside and watched the whole people of China

walk past him at the rate of one individual per second,

more than twenty years would elapse before the last

member of the procession went by. But in this huge and

steadily increasing crowd, very few would be Christians.

Even before the Communist take-over, there was in

China only one Christian to 475 non-Christians. We

must be aware of the quantitative insignificance of mis-

sionary work. Ten per cent of the population of the

world are English-speaking. They have ninety per cent

of the preachers and pastors. Only ten per cent of the

preachers work among the ninety per cent of those who

have committed the sin of being non-English-speaking

and belong therefore to the spiritually under-developed

peoples. As far as I know, Norway and Northern Ireland

are the exceptions, and the missionary effort of churches

in other western countries is minimal. From the im-

measurable incomes of the churches of the U.S.A. only

six per cent is used for charitable and missionary pur-

55

poses. We have not fulfilled the great commission, *Go

and teach all nations.'

In China, the Christians have always been a small

minority.

And now the Christians had to face the onslaught of

a new religion, 'the Mao worship'. Giant Mao statues

began going up throughout the length and breadth of

China. Millions were mesmerised by the method of

brainwashing brought to its final perfection.

Many of the influential Christian leaders had not

realised the danger of Communism. Some had sym-

pathised with it. Others would confine themselves to

what they understood to be a pure Gospel, not mention-

ing the Communist menace because this would mean

becoming involved in politics. But when Communist

politicians enter in the sphere of religion, introducing

there their poison or persecuting the children of God,

politics is forced upon us. It cannot and should not be

avoided. Who thinks that he can separate religion from

politics, knows neither religion nor politics.

Just mark in ybur Bible all the parts which have

political connotations. You will find they are seventy

per cent of Scriptures. The formation of a nation, the

freeing of slaves, minute laws regulating state life, rules

of judges and kings, prophets expressing their thoughts

about big empires and nations surrounding the Jews,

'Render to Caesar', 'be submissive to authority', but

also the description of these authorities as wild beasts

in Daniel and Revelation, all these and many other parts

of the Bible are political. Christians must speak out on

political questions, only without distorting politics with

personal greed or national ambitions.

In any case, the Chinese Christians were unprepared

for the onslaught. When the Communists took over

China, Communism had ruled Russia already thirty

56

years. Nothing was taught in Chinese churches and semi-

naries about the experiences and methods of work of the

Underground Church. The examples of the Russian

martyrs were not known.

No bells ring any more on the mainland of China

under Communist occupation. AU the churches have

been closed and desecrated. You can see on them the

inscription, 'Hang God', which is also shouted as a

slogan at their parades.

An eye-witness who escaped to Hong Kong reports

about the stoning to death of a Christian girl in a Com-

munist slaveMabour.camp. She was bound hand and

foot, and made to kneel in the centre of a circle of people

who were commanded to stone her. Those who refused

to participate were shot. The eye-witness says that she

died with her face shining, like St. Stephen. One at least

of those who saw her was led to faith in Christ through

that girl who sealed her testimony with her blood.

Five students who were sent out to dig deep holes

into which they were then placed, sang Christian hymns

as they were buried alive.

Vart Land of the I ith of February 1969 reports how

a pastor from the district of Swatow had been dragged

through the streets with a dunce's cap on his head. The

cap had ugly inscriptions on it. Faithful pastors would

be led, with shaved heads, in mocking processions, ex-

posed to revilings. But these pastors continued to gather

their flocks in small groups, usually not larger than four

to ten people.

Christians have to kneel in the streets. They are spat

upon. With some, their hair was cut, leaving them with

only a cross as a mark that they are Christians.

The most minute descriptions of the tortures inflicted

upon Christians have been given by their Russian com-

rades, upset against them for a while. A thief whom I

57

knew in prison had very high moral principles! He told

me once that he condemned decidedly and considered

as unethical, any theft committed by somebody other

than himself. That is how the Russian Communists

think. They demand the monopoly of directing the tor-

turing of innocents in the whole world. The Chinese

Communists, not being obedient in this, are denounced

now for their cruelty, learned in the Soviet Union, by

Literaturncda Gazeta, a Moscow magazine (quoted in

Russkaia Jizn of the 18th of June 1969).

During one torture called 'the small criticism', the

man is paraded through the street havirçfa dunce's cap

on his head, with an inscription on his breast listing the

charges against him. This continues for three consecu-

tive days. After parades, he is put to fulfil the dirtiest

and heaviest work. He receives food only once a day,

but before receiving the food he has to bow ninety times

to the earth, before the portrait of Mao.

If this treatment does not re-educate him, then fol-

lows the 'big criticism*. With hands tied behind his

back, he has to attend daily meetings for two months.

At these meetings his sin of not believing in Mao is

exposed. He is ruthlessly beaten and spat upon. After

every meeting, again the respectful ninety bows before

the picture of Mao.

The third torture is called 'airplane'. A rod is put

upon the man's shoulders. The hands, tied to the back

are strung upwards towards this rod, until they are out

of joint. In this position he has to bow 180 times before

the one who is better than all gods.

During the torture called the 'Golden Scale', on the

shoulders of the guilty one a heavy desk is placed. On

each side of the desk the Red Guards put three bricks.

With the bricks on his shoulders, he has to stand at

attention before the picture of Mao for two hours. Every

. 58

twenty minutes, a brick is added on each side. In the

end he has eighteen bricks to bear. Woe to him if they

move. If he bows his knees even a little bit, the whole

torture begins again.

Another torture is to shave the heads of Christians

and to put ashes on them. So they must stand at atten-

tion before the sacred ikon of Mao. No moving is

allowed.

A Christian bore all the humiliations, but refused to

bow answering again and again, 'I know one single

thing: there is a God. Apart from this, I know nothing.'

(He had not read the 'God-is-dead' theologians.) He

answered again and again, 'Do with me whatever you

like, but I will not deny my faith.' Brave Sung-Fu. We

do not know his end.

Christians were obliged to hand over their Scriptures

and religious books in order that they should be burned

publicly. To some their own hearts told them, others

had learned it from church history, that in the early

centuries whoever handed a Scripture to the persecutors

was expelled from the Church for ever.

Christ is the Word of the living Father. So are the

Scriptures. To give the Scriptures to be burned is like

giving Christ to be killed. There were Christians who

realised the respect due to the written word of God.

They hid the Bible. Asian News Report of Marchai 968

says: 'In Canton, a Christian lady who had hidden her

Bible in a pillow was subjected by the Red Guards to

the grossest humiliation. She was stripped naked,

smeared all over with honey and made to stand in the

fierce sun for many hours.'

Parcels from abroad containing Bibles, are returned

with a slip stating that its teaching is 'against the law

and morality of the People's Republic of China.'

To possess a Bible is to be in deadly danger. A brother

59

who had been sent there from the West to help, was

taken by a Chinese Christian into his room. He closed

the shutters to be sure nobody saw from the outside.

Then he removed some boards from the floor. There he

kept a Bible and hymnal. When he was sure he was not

observed, he would take them out and read them. .

The well-known book by the German Christian

Rittling, entitled Red or Dead, states that Red Guards

are burning men with red-hot pokers. There have been

cases of crucifixion. But the same report states that

sometimes Communists preferred to be jailed instead of

continuing to be torturers of Christians. One of them

was overheard saying, 'If we cut their tongues and

forbid the Christians speech, they love with their hands,

with their feet and with their eyes, they love always and

everywhere until their last respiration. Does nobody

know how to take out the power of love from these

stupid Christians? Does nobody know a way to put

hands on their Christ ?'

60

CHAPTER 8

The Christian Church at Midnight

A refugee in Hong Kong tells that in a little Christian

cell-group of the commune where he was made to en-

gage in forced labour, they would meet together in the

very early morning in a basement, before they went to

work. If they were not able to meet together, they would

join two by two in the early hours, as they walked to

work and, on the pretext of being engaged in conversa-

tion, they would quietly quote Scripture verses to each

other. How well it is for those who have gathered a

treasury from the word of God in their hearts!

This little cell group was discovered by the Com-

munists. The refugee and his friend were put in prison.

His friend died there.

Chinese prisons are real hells : dirty, humid, cold and

full of insects. It is considered that some forty thousand

Protestants are today in prison. The number of Cath-

olics must be higher.

But the dirty cells are the setting for episodes of

heavenly beauty:

Two Christians trembled from cold in a cell. Each

had a thin blanket. One of the Christians noticed how

61

the other trembled, and the thought shot into his mind,

'If that were Christ, would you give him your blanket?'

Of course he would. He immediately spread the blanket

over his brother.

Next day they were given more blankets.

The Christian prisoners have to pass through

brainwashing. Communist indoctrinators visit them

regularly while they are sitting in the yard of the

prison.

One Christian, when the Communist tried to con-

vert him to his beliefs, wrote on the sand the Chinese

characters for righteousness; The Chinese letters are

painted rather than written. The ideogram for,

'righteousness' in Chinese is showing a lamb over the

personal pronoun T. The Christian asked the Com-

munist 'Could you tell me what this character means?'

He answered correctly, 'Righteousness'. Then the

Christian pointed to the lamb over the I and quoted

from the New Testament, 'Behold, the Lamb of God

which takes away the sins of the world', the Lamb of

God which covers the sinful *I\ The Communist indoc-

trinator walked out silently. He might have had a Chris-

tian background himself. -

Two Christians were led towards torture and death.

'It is finished now,' said one in a whisper. His brother

answered, 'No, this is not what Jesus said when He

suffered. His words were "It is accomplished." '

By His cross Jesus redeemed mankind. In order to

bring souls to salvation made possible by the Redeemer,

others must be ready, to bear crosses. Our Chinese

brothers and sisters, when enduring water being forced

up their noses, pieces of wood put between the knuckles

and compressed tightly, severe electric shocks and even

crucifixion, they share the sufferings of Jesus for the

salvation of mankind.

62

Not only the heroes of faith suffer. China's Church

had not only faithful, but also treacherous leaders. No

wonder. The first band of apostles had a Judas. These

traitors had collaborated with the Communists from

the first, leading astray the rank-and-file believers and

making 278,000 to sign the Communist manifesto.

Communists love treason, but not the traitor. After

having used them, the Reds sent the traitors to sit in

prison together with the faithful Christians whom they

had denounced. They now have time for reflection in

their dirty cell. What is better? Compromise with the

tyrants or purity of soul? .

Many pastors committed suicide out of fear of betray-

ing secrets of the Underground Church in some moment1

of weakness. We know also Christian laymen who did

the same.

Others went mad, for example, Rev. Beda Tsang,

who repeated continually, 'Tsang Beda, 47 years of age.

Tsang Beda, 47 years of age.' He was deprived- of sleep

until he died.

Some told me, *I could not bear to read your books to

the end. They give you sleepless nights.' This is just

what I aimed at. I wished you to find fellowship with

those to whom sleep is denied. I have known a prisoner

to whom sleep was denied twenty-five days and

nights.

China had 6,000 missionaries before the Communist

take-over. Now they have not a single one. Some mis-

sionary agencies make big plans for an uncertain future

when the doors of China may open. No, I am for break-

ing down the doors. We cannot allow millions of Chinese

to die without the knowledge of Christ in the hope that

in a future generation others will die saved. God tore

in two the veil in the temple of Jerusalem. Why not tear

the Bamboo Curtain? Why not penetrate with the Gos-

63

pel into Red China secretly, risking imprisonment and

death? The multitude of missionaries who died in China

during the Boxer rebellion and the martyrs of Com-

munist times, now glorified saints in heaven, call us to

follow their example.

CHAPTER 9

Romania: a Liberal Communist Country

I had a whole committee of church leaders before me.

'Your fault, Mr. Wurmbrand,' said one of them, 'is

that you mix up things. You put all Communists in the

same pot. I admit that things are very bad in Red China

(that is what the Chinese Christians have from his side:

an admission of the tortures they endure. And what a

rich church this interlocutor of mine represented!).

Things could be better in Russia, too. But I have just

returned from Romania. You cannot contest the full

liberty there.'

Pleased with himself, he looked around to his col-

leagues. Then he stretched out his hand towards me:

'Would you contest?' From some hands power eman-

ates: none emanated from this.

About Romania, the opinion seems to be unanimous.

The Pope, the World Council of Churches, the Bible

Society, the Lutheran World Federation, the Baptist

Union—what a unity of opinion. In praising the liberty

of religion under the Romanian Communists even Pen-

tecostal leaders agree with the Pope.

They all have a virtue which I don't have—candour.

I.T.Y.B.—4 65

A candour which makes them see geese as swans.

In January 1968, the Pope received the Prime Min-

ister of Romania and the Minister of External Affairs,

Mr. Manescu. At that time, some 1,200 Greek Catholic

churches had been stolen. They were not given back

after this visit. All the Greek Catholic bishops except

one had died in prison. Unirea of June 1969 reports

that Romanian Greek Catholic priests and laymen have

received a total of five thousand years of imprisonment.

All their schools and philanthropical institutions had

been confiscated. The Pope shook hands with the mur-

derers of his flock. Blessed is he if he used the oppor-

tunity of this visit to call them to Christ.

After this visit, from the five dioceses of the Roman

• Catholic Church, the situation continued that only one

had a titular bishop. The Roman Catholic bishops had

also died under tortures. The one siirviving, Marton

Aron, is not allowed even to visit his priests.

He could not attend the Council of Bishops in Rome,

but when foreigners were gathered for the anniversary

of 250 years since the building of a famous monastery,

he was led by force and under threat was compelled to

be present

A Western bishop who visited Romania published a

report in his diocesan magazine. In his article the word

'dinner' occurs six times, the word 'luncheon' five times,

and once the word 'breakfast'. (This has nothing to do

with the etymology of the word. There has been no fast-

ing. What he ate did not break a time during which he

would have fasted.) Not once does the word 'martyr*

appear. His fellow-bishops had been martyred. Now die

Western bishop has eaten at table with their execu-

tioner, Dogaru, and he praises the dinners. They had

been really good.

There appear in Romania religious and patriotic

66

magazines, which have only one defect: nobody sees

them in Romania. They are for foreign use only. If

anyone does not believe this, let him ask at a kiosk in

Bucharest for Glasul Patriei (Voice of Fatherland). He'll

not obtain it. But you can get it easily everywhere in

the West and so be persuaded what good magazines

appear in Romania.

In one issue Father Staniloaie praises greatly the

religious liberty in Romania. He himself has been in

prison for five years, together with me. He writes under

compulsion.

I was interrupted. The one who did so, a short, bald

man, with light eyes, told me in all sincerity, 'There

have been bad things in the past. But Ceausescu has

changed.'

I replied, 'And where are T. Dumitrache, Iorgu

Stavar, Elena Sincai? They were arrested at Christmas

1968 having committed the crime of demonstrating on

the street demanding religious liberty. Since then they

have disappeared. There exists fears that they may have

succumbed to the harsh prison regime.' {Bire of the ist

of December 1969.)

The Romanian Communists lie just like the others.

They have asked American Baptists and Pentecostalists

to give dollars, for which they will build churches of

these denominations. But why give dollars for this?

Two-thirds of the Romanian-speaking Baptists, Pente-

costalists, Brethren and Adventist Churches have been

closed and the buildings confiscated. Why not restore

and re-open these?

The aim of Romanian Communists is the same as that

of Leninists all over the world: the destruction of re-

ligion. Romania of the 5 th of June 1969 announced

that Mihai Gere, one of the Communist Party secre-

taries, speaking at a meeting of the National Council of

67

'Pioneers', the Red Children organisation, said that the

political education of the pioneeers was inadequate, be-

cause there was insufficient emphasis on atheistic and

anti-religious orientation.

Romania a country of religious liberty? The Bible

Society is forbidden. The same is true of the Y.M.C.A.,

the Salvation Army (called there, *Army of the Lord'),

the. Church of the Nazarenes, and many other organisa-

tions.

Nobody is allowed to be a Baptist, or Pentecostalist,

or Adventist preacher without the licence of the Gov-

ernment, which is given only if the Communists are

sure that you will preach as they permit. Believers'

baptisms must be authorised by the Commissioner of

the Government. He authorises an average of twenty-

five per cent of the requested baptisms. So there exists

the practice of secret baptisms, made during the hours

of darkness. Those who are caught are sentenced.

In January 1970 we received the news of the sen-

tencing of the Baptist deacons—Gheorghe Potoc of the

village Leasa, Lupei Vasile of the village Bontesti, Popa

loan from Sic and Florea from Suseni—for the crime

of having baptised illegally.

To protect others from being arrested, Christians

often turn to self-baptism. They go alone to a river and

submerge in the water after having said, 'I baptise my-

self in the name of the Father, thé Son and the Holy

Ghost'

From 165 Baptist pastors the licence to preach has

been withdrawn. The number of Orthodox monasteries

has been reduced from 182 to seventy-four; the number

of monks and nuns from 6,097t0 around 2,000. There

are in Romania 800 Greek Catholic priests who are not

allowed to fulfil their vocation because they did not

comply with Communist orders.

.68

CHAPTER 10

The Absolute Torture

A government cannot be judged only according to what

it does now. We must have in view also what it has ex-

perimented withj its future purpose and what it is pre-

pared to do. The government of the Soviet Union wages

no war. But it has experimented with the nuclear bomb

and stockpiles it. So do other governments.

In the same way, whoever wishes to judge the re-

ligious situation in Romania must remember that mem-

bers of its government, or of the Central Committee of

the Party in power now include CeausescUj Maurer3

Manescu and Bodnaras, among others.

Romania was the laboratory for experimenting in the

perfect torture which breaks the power of will.

The big innovation of Russian and Chinese Com-

munists has been the application of Pavlov's brain-

.washing technique to the re-education of prisoners.

The results have been astonishing. Remember only

what an enormous percentage of American prisoners of

war in Korea became collaborators with the Communi-

ists. Remember the Bolsheviks like Zinoviev, Kamenev,

69

Bukharin, confessing to crimes they had not committed,

and pathetically demanding that death sentences, should

be passed upon them. Remember Cardinal Mind-

zenthy confessing that he had been a spy and a black

marketeer. \

But Pavlov's method, the result of many experiments

on dogs, is not perfect, because men are not like dogs.

You can create conditioned reflexes in men, but here

you will encounter also resistance to the forming of these

reflexes. I myself have been subjected to brainwashing

techniques for nearly three years and my brain still

remained in a state which the Communists would con-

sider dirty.

To brainwashing you can oppose heartwashing.

While the brainwashing indoctrinator talks without

much conviction what is commanded of him, you can

repeat to yourself silently but endlessly some short pro-

position, always the same, in the contrary direction.

When the brainwashers said, 'Christianity is dead', I

repeated to myself again and again, 'Christ is alive.'

But Romania has been the place of tortures which

can break any power of resistance.

Christians could bear beatings on genitals, being

strung to ropes, standing on tiptoes for.hours, the ty-

ing of hands and feet behind the back and hoisting the

victim into the air, the slamming of fingers in a door,

etc., when these things were done by the Communist

foe.

The Romanian Communists invented the torturing

of Christians and patriots by their fellow-prisoners. A

Communist officer would finish torturing after a couple

of hours. With the fellow-prisoners you were in the

same cell day and night. This torture never ended.

Secondly, from a Communist you did not expect any-

thing else than ordeals. But it was terrible to see a

70

fellow-Christian, with whom you had taken Commun-

ion earlier, or with whom you had worked in a patriotic

organisation, finding now delight in torturing you in a

most refined manner. He has been corrupted and forced

to do this by promises that he will be released, by

threats, or by having himself first passed through tor-

ments in which he proved weak. The refinement of

cruelty consisted in the fact that the Christians corrup-

ted by the Reds would first pray with you who were

completely unaware that they had become Communist

tools, or they would speak about the Gospel and at a

certain signal jump at you to inflict terrible ordeals.

When I came out from Romania, I had reservations.

I did not say everything that happened in Romanian

prisons. I had not witnesses to prove my assertions

which would have seemed unbelievable. Therefore I

did not describe all the sufFering and nightmares. Now

I have the testimonies.

Mr. D. Bacu and Ion Cirja, former fellow-prisoners,

have published books about the perfect torture by the

Communists in our country. Unfortunately, these

books are available only in Romanian.

I quote from the book of Mr. Bacu, called Piteshti,

which is the name of a Romanian town, with a famous

prison. The very name of the town comes from the

Slavic word pitka, which means 'torture'. What pre-

destination there is in names sometimes! The things

which he describes have happened just the same also in

other jails. Remember these tortures were practised not

by Communists (though under Communist guidance),

but Christians tortured Christians, patriots tortured

patriots.

'We had to scrub the floors while two or three other

prisoners rode on us ... We were obliged to eat like

71

the swines. We had to kneel, with the hands hand-

cuffed to the back, lapping the hot soup from the

dish. At noon, bread was thrown before you, which

you had to eat in the same position, using only the

mouth. The last crumb had to be gathered from the

floor with the lips or tongue. The whole day you had

to sit at the bedside with the feet stretched out, with

your hands on the knees, head up, looking straight

forward without the right to move. After sixteen

hours of such torture, you were allowed to sleep, but

only on your back, the face upwards, the body per-

fectly stretched, with the hands over the blanket. If

you changed your position you were hit powerfully

with a stick by the one who watched.

Sixteen prisoners were put one over another. Un-

der the pressure of this weight, the muscles of the

abdomen of the last yielded. He made in the cell

what he was not allowed to do in the toilet. He was

compelled to cleanse his undertrousers with his

tongue. He refused first. His fingers were bruised

between two pieces of wood. In the end . . . The

student A.O. was compelled to fulfil his necessities

in his dish, then to receive the food in the same dish

and to eat. The student N.V., not succeeding to cut

his veins, threw his head in the bucket with hot food,

hoping to die. He did not die. (Christians trying to

commit suicide! What a nice subject of moral indig-

nation in the free world, from the side of those who

eat apple pies!) Some tried to tear up their veins

with their teeth.

It was forbidden to hit in the temples, in the re-

gion of the heart, in the neck, wherever death might

follow. They did not wish physical death . . . They

made a devilish experiment: the death of the soul,

72

putting in its place conditioned reflexes. Not physical,

but moral death.

At Easter, they clothed a prisoner in sheets, he

having to play the role of Jesus Christ. Out of soap

they made a genital organ, which the theological stu-

dent, the would-be Christ, had to wear on his chest

instead of the cross. He had to walk around the

' room, beaten with sticks—the road to Golgotha.

Other Christians had to bow before him, to kiss this

genital organ and say, "I bow before your Almighti-

ness." There was only one who did not accept to

descend to such blasphemy. He was tortured for

hours.'

I have told in my book God's Underground what

happened to an Armenian Catholic priest who was com-

pelled to say the Holy Mass over excrements and urine.

I did not venture to say everything then. Now that it

has been said by others, I can add: those who com-

pelled him to do this were corrupted fellow-Christians

who previously had confessed to him, prayed with him,

who had been instructed to play their role perfectly.

When he relied on them as being his flock, they tor-

tured him until he became half-mad and did whatever

he was commanded. May I add, that after being re-

leased from prison, he confessed his sin to another

priest. This was reported to the hierarchy and as" a re-

sult he was excommunicated. I consider that the church

leaders of the West who did not move a finger to help

us should have been excommunicated instead.

I have known an Adventist farmer whose toes were

cut off by his former fellow-Christians, slowly, with

intervals. The cutting was done bit by bit and lasted

for weeks.

Later on, some of these corrupted Christians had

73

terrible excesses of remorse. My former fellow-pris-

oner. Ion Carja, tells the story of one who threw himself

head down to the shoulders in a big bucket of faeces and

urine. With the dregs on his face, he cried, 'Don't wash

me. So I wish to remain. What I have on my face is

nothing. My soul is dirtier.' He had tortured to death

his brethren in the faith. I will not tell you how far I

went to transpose myself into the situation of this poor,

precious soul, beloved by Christ, which has gone astray.

But I could identify myself with him, to feel his dirt as

mine, his guilt as mine, to be sure that I am not a little

bit better than he. That is what Christ did when He

took our guilt upon Himself.

To take upon yourself the sins of others is essential.

Jesus says to His adversaries, 'Upon you may come all

the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood

of righteous Abel. . .' (Matthew 23:35). Now, of one

crime the Pharisees were surely not guilty. They had

no part in the slaying of Abel. There were neither Jews,

nor Pharisees at that time. How can Jesus call them to

account for the blood of Abel? Why does Jesus in the

same discourse say, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that

killest the prophets .. .'? (Matthew 23:37). Nowhere

is it written in the Bible that any prophet had been

killed in Jerusalem. Neither does profane history report

such a happening.

There is sense in it. Who does not learn to consider

the guilt of others, of people completely foreign to him,

even people belonging to past generations, as his own,

will never be able to grasp deeply as his own the right-

eousness of somebody else.

If I don't learn to see myself in every other man, if I

cannot identify myself with Cain, the murderer of

thousands of years ago, and see my hands stained with

the blood shed by him, how will I grasp deeply that

74

Jesus is my real self and that His sacrifice, which also

happened a long time ago, is my righteousness, how

will I learn this identification with Christ?

It is the daily practice of Christians wherever they

meet sin and crime to appropriate them, to feel them as

their own. .

I was able to show that man when he quietened down

that Christ had besmeared Himself with mire, that He

allowed Himself to be treated as dung, to expiate even

the crime of torturing fellow-Christians. To think that

I will be able to see in heaven as a beautiful, glorious

saint, clothed in white, the man who had felt this mad

impulse to throw himself into excrement, this is really

exhilarating..

But let us not deceive ourselves. Cases of remorse

and the recovering of Christians who have gone to the

extreme of torturing their fellow-Christians, and this in

the service of atheists, have been extremely rare. In

ninety-nine per cent of these cases their hearts were

hardened for ever. Who knows if there does not exist a

point beyond possibility of return ?

Just study Psychopolitics, the book of Lavrentii

Beria, former Minister of Interior Affairs of the Soviet

Union, and you will see how scientifically the Com-

munists have thought all this out.

Lenin had passed nights with Professor Pavlov to

learn how his experiments of forming conditioned re-

flexes in dogs could be applied to men. They can be

applied. Men, like dogs, can be brought to what is

called in reflexeology, the ultra-paradoxical behaviour,

to lick the hand of the one who beats him, and to bite

the hand of the one who feeds him. Necessary for this

are nervous exhaustion through sleeplessness, lack of

food, humiliations, refined tortures, prolonged deten-

tion in darkness, or with a blinding light, etc. With

75

men, one thing more had to be added in order to obtain

perfect results. The cruelties must be inflicted by those

whom you love most and in whom you trusted.

Those who have not studied Pavlov, and the Soviet

policy based on his theories, or have not experienced

them personally, will always be a dupe of the Com-

munists. Metropolitan Manuil Lemeshevski of Russia

has passed twenty-seven years in prison. After this, he

broke down. He became a member of the Soviet-con-

trolled Orthodox hierarchy whose work consists on

serving and flattering the regime which had made him

to suffer so cruelly.

Monsignor Augustin, the real head of the Roman

Catholic Church in Romania has passed through

prisons. I was with him. His love and faith shone until

a certain moment. Then he cracked. Can the Com-

munists now rely fully on him?

It is interesting to see with what confidence the

Romanian Communists have sent Orthodox priests,

who have been in jail together with me, who have been

beaten, treated with electric shocks, sentenced to long

terms, to make their propaganda in the U.S.A. and in

France. They travel now around the world praising the

liberties under Communism. They don't defect. By the

Pavlovian system they have been changed into neurotics

with ultra-paradoxical behaviour. Their reaction to the

stick is no more abhorrence, but loyalty. They are faith-

ful to those who have beaten them. At a certain stage,

those who are made to drink urine in prison would no

more recoil from it, but beg during the night, 'Give me

more urine.' A Romanian Orthodox priest, Anania, who

has suffered much in Communist prisons, now in the

U.S.A., is loyal to the Red-controlled Patriarchy.

This belongs to the world of madness, but it is a mad-

ness scientifically produced and entertained.

76

A Western church leader has before him some Rus-

sian or Romanian Baptist or Qrthodox leader. He is

fully assured that this man has many years of Com-

munist prison behind him. How can this Westerner be

convinced that this man is not a reliable Christian, but

a lackey of Communism? First of all he would have to

study reflexeology and Communist psychopolitics. But

what Western Church leader has studied Communism?

In what seminaries is it taught under this aspect, even

though Communism rules one-third of the world?

To whom should we tell that young men trained to

become officers of the Secret Police have to desecrate in

an obscene manner the image of the Holy Virgin? It

makes them ruthless torturers of Christians.

I was told that never will a Western publisher pub-

lish such gruesome things, and that Westerners would

not read it. Well, we will have to circulate this infor-

mation in handwriting, as the Bible circulates in hand-

writing in Russia. But the Christians of the free world

must know all these things, and in detail, because it

might be their future fate. I will not tailor what I have

to say, I will not trim my thought in order to ensure it

will be published.

From hundreds of prisoners in Piteshti, some de-

tained there for their Christian beliefs, others for

patriotic activities, three succeeded in committing sui-

cide. Two kept their faith undefiled. All the others

denied their beliefs, divulged secrets, denounced even

their parents, became, in their turn, torturers of other

prisoners. The experiment has succeeded.

Ceausescu and Kosygin and Tito and Ulbricht know

now how to do it. Blasts with nuclear power have been

made. Today, the big powers only stockpile nuclear

bombs. But they are piled with the purpose of using

them in the future. The same is true here. A terrific

77

experiment has been made in Romania, unequalled in

the history of tortures. It was not made only by the late

Prime Minister Gheorghiu-Dej, who has died. Ceaus-

escu, Maurer, Manescu and the rest of the gang col-

laborated with him. The method was also exported to

Red China. Today Romanian Communists wish to

trade with the West. They want loans, so they behave

themselves for a time. But their character has remained

the same. They have never repented of what they have

done. They have never given up Leninism. Their aim

is still the uprooting of religion. And at the moment

which they will consider convenient, the Romanian and

other Communists will begin again with the sure meth-

ods of Piteshti.

As regards the liberalisation in Romania, it is more

important to know what Romanians think, not casual

visitors who do not know the truth. I will tell the situa-

tion in the form of a joke which circulates widely in my

country : a tourist calls to a taxi-driver, 'Are you free?'

He answers, 'No, sir, I am a Romanian.'

And a second joke. Ceausescu went to inspect an

asylum for madmen. These were instructed to shout

'Hurrah', Ceausescu was very pleased, but he observed

that one of those present did not cheer him. He asked

that man why. The man answered, 'Comrade Ceau-

sescu, I am not mad. I am a doctor/

7.8

CHAPTER 11

Beauty Shines at Midnight

A courier of the Christian missions to the Communist

world reports: 'I saw a wife of a Christian martyr in

Romania. He had left many children behind. She

looked amazingly young, though she had grown-up

boys. I expressed my amazement. She answered, "Suf-

fering has renewed my youth." '

Another Christian told him, 'We would like aneasing

of our conditions but not the full ceasing of oppression.

We fear that liberty will make us lose our burning love.'

Yet another, 'We, when we think of the cloud of wit-

nesses in the spiritual sides (Hebrews 12 : i), are happy

that the part of the sky which is most cloudy is over the

Communist countries. We are glad to give the greatest

number of confessors and martyrs.'

The Romanian Churches all know what has happened

in Piteshti. They know that in the future excess of tor-

ture might break them, too. But as long as it has not

happened they speak out for the Lord.

An eye-witness at the trial of the Seventh Day Ad-

ventist pastor Boian told us what happened. The judge

asked Boian, 'Do you believe that Jesus will return and

79

destroy His enemies?' *He surely will.'—'Will He des-

troy me also?' 'Without'the slightest doubt, if you do

not repent.'—'Do you regret to have preached ille-

gally?' 'I have done what was pleasing to the Lord. As

for you, God will punish you here and in eternity.' 'You

were not allowed to preach.'—'God not only allowed it,

but commanded me to preach. Read yourself the order

in the Bible. It is in Matthew 28.'

He was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment. This

happened in 1969, in the liberalised Romania of Ceau-

sescu. I had been in prison with the same Boian in

1964. At that time he was sentenced for only three

years. Romania had not been liberalised then !

We have news that important leaders of the Com-

munist Party listen to Christian broadcasting and are

greatly impressed by it.

Our brethren in Romania allow themselves jokes. I

was at the end of a conference with church leaders be-

longing to the World Council. Their aim had been to

convince me about the liberties in Romania. Some of

them were Lutherans and they were not aware that for

twenty-five years the Romanian Lutherans were not

allowed to publish one issue of a religious magazine.

But one of the leaders handed me a letter. It was in

Romanian. A Romanian Christian had asked him to

smuggle this letter out and give it to me, which he did.

In the letter our Romanian brother ridiculed the naivety

of this very church leader who had expressed to him his

enthusiasm about the huge attendance in the Roman-

ian-speaking Protestant Churches. 'Your churches are

so over-crowded,' he said with excitement. 'There are

people sitting on the floor, on the windows, standing

crammed.' He did not wonder why it was so. It is wrong

that a church should be over-crowded. The normal

thing is to have as many churches as are needed to give

80

people the opportunity to worship in comfortable con-

ditions. It did not even pass through the mind of this

church leader that Christians had walked forty miles

and had arrived seven to eight hours before the meeting

started to be sure to have a sitting-place.

He would not believe what the writer of the letter

had told him that two thirds of the Romanian-speaking

Protestant assemblies were closed. It could not be true.

The important leader from the West had spoken him-

self with the butcher Dogaru, head of the Communist

Departments of Cults and with the official Baptist

leaders. They had assured him that there is full religious

liberty. 'Should I not believe such a high official and a

leader of a Baptist Union?'

God mocked him by making him to bring out the

letter in which his own unfitness for his high position in

the Church was made clear.

But in this same letter, our brother told us about a

meeting of pastors, at which the Commissioner of the

Communist Government was present, who complained

that since the Red rule the number of believers has in-

creased by three hundred per cent. 'We, the authorities,

do not wish this to happen, and will give you no increase

of liberty.' Some official church leaders congratulated

the commissioner and assured him that they would

obey all the rules of the Communists and do nothing

that would bring about a further increase of the num-

ber of Christians. In any case, their numbers increase

in spite of and not because of these leaders.

The letter finishes by telling us that Jesus had been

tempted with words of Scripture. The Christian leaders

in Communist countries are also tempted by Bible

verses. Foremost among these is Romans 13 : 'Let every

soul be subject unto the higher powers', forgetting that

this chapter describes the legitimate ruler. He is a min-

81

ister of God for the good and an executor of wrath upon

him who does evil. If a ruler rewards evil and punishes

good, it is not about him this chapter speaks, and to

him we owe rebellion, not subjection.

Ah, and what about those hundred thousand Bibles

printed in Romania? I am still waiting for someone to

come forward and to assert that some team from the

West has counted 100,000 Bibles and has seen to the

distribution of 100,000, no more and no less. The asser-

tion of Communists has been believed. Any cashier who

issued a receipt for £100,000 without having counted

them one by one would be fired.

82

CHAPTER 12

Persecutions of Christians in Africa

When I wrote Tortured for Christ and the Soviet Saints

there was still something like an Iron and Bamboo Cur-

tain. Since then, these have ceased to exist. Communism

does not begin any more somewhere at the Berlin wall

finishing with- North Korea. Two countries of Africa,

the Sudan and Congo Brazzaville have become avowedly

Communistic. Syria has an extreme left pro-Maoist

Government. There are Communist guerilla fights in

many parts of Africa. Moscow- and Peking-instructed

Arab guerillas fight believing that they do it for their

national cause., But Communists are not so unselfish as

to train guerillas for something which will benefit

another ideal than theirs. The Reds have made great

advances in Laos, too.

I am sorry that lack of space does not permit me to

give details about other European and Asian Commun-

ist countries, but I wish to write a few words about

Africa. .

My heart breaks for the Sudan. Kumm, the founder

of the Sudan Interior Mission had written at the begin-

ning of this century, 'Was there no Christ of God for

83

all these people of Sudan, no Jesus, no life set free from

sin and fear? The vast Sudan, 3,000 miles across . . .

hundreds of languages, all, all non-Christians to this

hour. I cannot escape these eyes. Walk away. They fol-

low. Meet them, they watch you still.'

He and others worked hard. The souls brought to

Christ by them had to seal their faith with blood when

the Arabs persecuted them.

Now the Communists rule -the country. Twelve of

the ministers are members of the Party. The others are

sympathisers. The major-general Nimeri, who heads the

revolutionary council, has had his military training in

America. Then he earned his reputation in killing non-

Arabs in the south. The first thing which the new gov-

ernment did was to enter into friendly relations with

the Communist dictatorships in other countries. There

are now talks about uniting the Sudan, Libya and Egypt

(the latter having become now in reality a Soviet

colony) in one state. In it the dominant role will be

played by the Communists. The Christians can await a

new bloodbath.

The hammer and hoe is now on the flag of Congo-

Brazzaville (the sickle is unknown there). At the first

governmental rally in Brazzaville, "The Internationale'

was sung as the national anthem. Christians still re-

member the cruelties of the Sambis who had killed a

multitude of missionaries and native Christians just a

few years ago. Now the murderers rule the country.

Let us remember just a few of the crimes committed

by those who rule this part of the Congo today. They

opened the chests of living men, tore out their hearts,

and ate them. They cut the ears and genitals, of native

Christians and compelled them afterwards to eat their

own organs. They opened forcibly the mouths of Chris-

tians and poured benzine into their bellies; afterwards,

84

they split open the belly and set fire to the benzine.

(From the book of Rev. W. Van Straaten, Where God

Weeps.) Those who committed these crimes were

Chinese- Russian- Cuban-trained guerillas. They have

conquered the leadership of the country now. You shud-

der when you think what Christians are passing through

there.

It would be useful specially for American Christians

to think over the fact that in the United States, Com-

munism can rule only under the form of black power,

and that such treatments will be applied to American

Christians if ever the country falls under Communist

rule.

Milton Obate, Prime Minister of Uganda, declared,

'We will go left', which means in the historical situation

of today, 'We will pursue a policy, the ultimate result

of which will be the harrassing of Christians.' Odinga in

Kenya has allowed his house to become a meeting place

for all leftist sympathisers, for Communist diplomats,

and for all who wanted the victory of the red star. Com-

munist friends gave Odinga money to send students to

universities in the red Camp. A coup from his side has

been prevented at the last moment by Kenyatta, as has

been prevented that by another Communist-paid ad-

venturer in Lesotho.

Seventy tons of atheist literature are brought into

Africa from Red China every month. But it is not only

the thoughts of Mao which are used to attract people.

The Communists attract youth in Southern Africa by

sex demonstrations of black and white nude parties, as

a recent trial has shown.

At Nambuanfongo and Luvo, in the Portuguese ter-

ritories, Communist guerillas trained in China, Cuba

and the Soviet Union have bound Christians and others

who dared to oppose them, to long boards, and fed them

85

through rotary saws like trussed-up logs of wood. One

of the criminals, describing afterwards the events to a

reporter of the Paris newspaper Le Monde, said, with

a broad smile, that once the Christians have been bound,

'We sawed them lengthwise.' Christian women, black

and white, were raped before and after they were split

open. Some were raped, still alive, with their entrails

dragging to the ground. They stuffed the vitals into

the mouths of those who had dared to keep their own

faith and would not accept cruelty as a religion. Al.

Venter, a journalist of remarkable objectivity, says in

his book The Terror Fighters: "The incidents as des-

cribed here were not isolated. '

Blood and tears—this is the story of Communism

everywhere.

86

CHAPTER 13

The Attitude of the Church of the Free

World Towards Communism

In Italy every third man votes for the Communists, in

France every fourth man. Even Christians vote un-

knowingly for those who will torture them when they

come to power. Commumsts are masters of deceit. They

assure everyone in the West that they will give religious

liberty. But this is what Lenin promised also in Russia.

To promise costs nothing. Italy and France have had

already the rehearsals of revolution. Christians who

sympathise with Communism would do well to ponder

the following quotation from Voprosi Filosofii, a Mos-

cow magazine, of January 1968, 'From the point of

view of Marxism-leninism, freedom of conscience de-

mands full denial of religion, its definitive defeat and

its exclusion from social life.'

In the United States, revolutionism has taken an

extremely subtle form. Be it enough to quote from Do

It, the book of Jerry Rubin, a leftist leader: 'We've

combined youth, music, sex, drugs and rebellion with

treason—and that's a combination hard to beat' This

man has been freed by a court of appeal, being con-

87

sidered as not dangerous. Bombings arid killings of

policemen and occupation of campus buildings or

churches are daily happenings.

Should all this make us become anti-Communist?

What will we have gained by this? Hitler was surely an

anti-Communist. Notwithstanding, he was a tyrant and

a rogue. In my eyes, to be an anti-Communist means

just nothing. I am much more interested to know what

a man is for than what he is against.

The Communists are men and must be loved.

I am against any compromise with Communism, be-

cause it always starts from lies. Niemoeller, at that time

vice-chairman of the World Council of Churches, as-

serted in the Norwegian press, that Communism has

made no more martyrs since 1920. The Evangelical

Relief Committee for interned persons of the German

Lutheran Church and the department of External Af-

fairs of the same, denied in 1969 the existence of Chris-

tian prisoners in the Communist camp. This contrary

to obvious evidence. The policy is,not to upset the

Reds.

All such compromises disarm the Christian fighters

who have to oppose Communism. The Journal of the

Moscow Patriarchate No. 3/68 reports on a symposium

of church leaders in East Germany. Buievski, foreign

secretary of the Moscow Patriarchate, stated there, 'The

fifty years since the October revolution characterise a

new Socialist society as serving peace and love of man-

kind .. . Every Christian must accept the fact that the

foundation of the Communist revolution is love of

mankind and he must thank God for the revolution.'

Those attending swallowed these infamies. Buievski's

boss, Khrushchev, had told mankind how many innocent

victims were killed by Stalin in this revolution for

88

which we are called to thank God. Stalin's own daugh-

ter gave other facts.

I don't believe in what is usually called anti-Com-

munism, and I refused to join any anti-Communist

organisation, but neither do I believe in compromising

with Communism in the religious or in the political

sphere. Every bridge built towards Communism will

make it easier for the Reds to cross rivers and oceans

to destroy freedom.

Communism is a religion of hatred. I believe in what

St. John of the Cross taught, 'Where there is no love,

put love and love will spring up.' I believe that it is

right to follow the example of St. Patrick who, after

having been held as a slave by the Irish, and treated as

slaves were treated at that time, when he escaped to

England, prepared himself for a noble mission. Passing

over many hindrances, he went back to his former slave-

holders and brought them to Christ.

Psalm 104:35 is inexactly translated. In Hebrew

the words are: 'Let the sins (not the sinners) be con-

sumed out of the earth and let the wicked be no more.*

The Talmud comments: 'When the sins disappear

there will be no more sinners.'

It is written in Proverbs 24:29, 'Say not, I will do so

to him as he hath done to me : I will render to the man

according to his work.' When you tread a flower under

your feet, she rewards you by giving you her perfume.

Christians are on the side of people oppressed by the

Communists. Their duty is to help them and their

churches by providing them with Bibles and Christian

literature, by broadcasting to them the Gospel, by send-

ing relief to the innumerable families of Christian

martyrs.

Christians are on the side of the Underground

Church in Communist countries, not on the side of the

I.T.Y.B.—5 89

official church leaders there, who have become stooges

of the Communists. The Communists are anti-man,

something similar to what anti-matter is in the physical

realm. If anybody makes friendship with them and

obeys them now, what will be his attitude when the

Anti-Christ will appear?

But by helping the Underground Church, we em-

brace in our love its torturers, too. Our ministry must

extend to them. They should also be won for Christ

St. Patrick won Ireland. We wish to win the Com-

munist world for Christ.

Every missionary work in which the passion of Christ

is passionately preached is valuable. But the missionary

work in the Communist lands should have the top-

priority. From the point of view of salvation, all men

are equal, not so from the point of view of missionary

strategy.

When St. Paul wrote that the gospel of Christ is the

power of God unto everyone that believes, to the Jews

first and also to the Greeks (Romans 1:16), it was not

because the salvation of a Jew would be more precious

to God than that of a man of another nation. He speaks

here from the point of view of the strategical priority.

The most powerful arguments St. Paul had for his

assertion that Jesus is Saviour, were the prophecies con-

tained in the ancient Holy Scriptures of the Jews. A

Gentile had to think it over well if he should become a

Christian or not. To become a Christian could mean

that he could be thrown to the wild beasts. Caution

would counsel him first to ask some Jewish neighbour if

the assertion of St. Paul regarding the contents of the

Scriptures was true, he, very often, not having access

to them. As a rule the Jews would answer, 'No, Jesus

has been a deceiver', in this way cancelling all the mis-

sionary efforts of the apostle. It was, therefore, of the

90

utmost importance to preach the Gospel first to the

Jews, to those depositories of the sacred scrolls, in order

to have an impressive group of Hebrew Christians, who

would testify that their prophecies had been fulfilled in

the person of Jesus. Then followed the possibility of

winning those of other nations.

The same happens now. The salvation of an abori-

ginal in New Guinea or in South America is as impor-

tant as that of a Russian. But if the aboriginal in the

jungle remains unsaved, he cannot destroy the Church

and Christian civilisation. If we do not bring salvation

to the Communist world, the Communists can destroy

these. Don't forget they have piled up the experience of

perfect torture. They can wipe out Christianity in a

huge part of the world, as Mohammedanism has wiped it

out for centuries in the north of Africa, where in pre-

vious times it flourished. Gone will then be all mission-

ary societies which work at spreading the Gospel to the

primitives. Gone will be most of the church life in the

free world as well.

The Timesy London, of May 1968 announced that

Russian nuclear-power submarines patrol full time the

Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the U.S.A. They have

submarines, containing sixteen missiles each with a

range of 2,000 miles, and they are patrolling at only

eighty miles distance. Should we answer to the ravages

which they can inflict with retaliatory nuclear ravages?

What about winning the crews of such Soviet sub-

marines for Christ? What about winning the Commun-

ist world, oppressors and slaves? Once converted, Com-

munists would never destroy our cities, which they will

know to be full of churches and believing souls. I

understand, surely, by conversion something entirely

else than the phenomenon usually called so, which did

not stop Christians of different nations from killing each

91

other with the benediction of their priests and pastors

in two world wars. I mean by conversion a new birth,

becoming a new creature, embracing all men in the love

of God.

This is our attitude towards Communism—neither

hatred nor compromise, but soul-winning love.

Will we succeed in winning the Communist world?

Surely, under two conditions :

1. We must be able to answer the questions of the

Communists and the objections they raise against our

religion. This means a huge intellectual task to which

the best heads of the church must dedicate themselves.

2. We ourselves should live up to the standard of

what we teach. We do not demand the impossible. 'Be

ye perfect', or 'Love from all your heart' are command-

ments which cannot be fulfilled all at once. But it is the

same as the conquest of a country in war. You have a

strategy for attaining the final aim. And you have daily

tactical decisions for each step forward towards the goal.

The standards of Jesus are the final end to be attained.

Demanded from us is only the daily step forward in

this direction. Neither God nor men can ask us more

than this. But we will never win the Communist world

without such decided steps. Winning the Communist

world for Christ is therefore connected with an urgent

Christian revolution in the free world.

Our love extends surely also to the anti-Communists,

to whom we show a new constructive way. It extends

also to those who compromise. We have full under-

standing of the religious leaders of the West who do so.

Eighty-five per cent of the Orthodox of the world and

two-thirds of the European Baptists live in Communist

lands. To break relationship with their official leaders

means to be left with very little.

But St. Athanasius preferred to remain alone with

92

the truth, having against him a whole ecumenical coun-

cil, which expelled him under no less slanderous accusa-

tions than the killing of a bishop and the raping of a

virgin. A Pope preferred to lose Britain for his Church

than to yield once in the matter of what Christ had

taught about divorce. We can understand the Western

Church leaders and the accounts they make, but we

cannot approve of them. No compromise, but secret

Christian mission in the Red camp is our line.

93

CHAPTER 14

What we should not do

Through letters or in big rallies with question and

answer sessions, I have been asked again and again,

'What can we do to help our suffering brethren? What

can we do to hinder the spread of Communism in the

free world?'

Before answering the question 'What can we do?' I

would say first what we should not do.

Don't remain asleep. The Ukrainian writer Shev-

chenko wrote, 'It is terrible to fall in prison and chains,

but it is much worse to sleep in liberty.' Your country

and your Church is also a target of world-Communism.

They work already at the subversion of your country

and they wish to destroy your Church.

Free yourselves from illusions. Don't believe such

general vulgar sentences as 'right; triumphs in the end'.

The end might be after centuries. Mohammedanism

triumphed over Christianity in northern Africa a thou-

sand years ago, and the situation has not been reversed

until now. When Jesus promised that the gates of hell

will not prevail against His Church, He relied on the

fact that His disciples would not sleep, expecting vic-

94 4

tories to fall from heaven. Leave the beautiful looking

but false sentence 'God will save us.' God does not help

two and two make anything else but four. He will never

make spiritual sleep and apathy give, as a result, Chris-

tian triumph. If we go on as until now, the persecution

of Christians will become worse in Communist countries

and Communism will expand further. The world in

which we live is harsh and unromantic. Nice, hope-

inspiring slogans do not prove true.

Do not see the main foe in Communism, without

realising that we are its accomplices. The great hind-

rance to spreading the Gospel in Communist lands is

not the Iron Curtain. We can easily break through that

The hindrance is the Silk Curtain of easy living. I saw

in Miami an ocean show. A barefooted man fought with

an alligator. He hit him with a stick on his head, he

drew him by his tail. The alligator snapped occasionally

at him, but never did him any harm. I asked the man,

'You seem healthy. You can make your living in some

other manner. One day the alligator will bite you and

you will be gone.' He answered, 'Out of the question.'

Marvelling about his assurance, I asked him if he had

an agreement with the alligator. He said, 'No, but be-

fore every show the alligator is over-fed. An over-fed

alligator does not bite.' This is the situation of many

Christians in the free world. The U.S.A. spends more

money on chewing-gum than it gives to missions.

When I preached about these things in the West,

many Christians told me, 'You are right.' This is not

enough. Take the decision. What useless or even useful

things do you renounce in order to be able to do more

for the holy cause?

A church with comfortable pews, with philosophical

sermons which you can enjoy, a church without mis-

sionary endeavour, but debating trifles, while humanity

95

is engaged in a race with catastrophe, can become the

Judas Iscariot of Christianity. THE CHURCH, the

Bride of Christ, is undefiled, unpolluted. She will never

betray. The churches—Roman Catholic, Anglican, Or-

thodox, Lutheran, Baptist, Pentecostal—are human in-

stitutions. They have played many ugly roles in past

times. Remember the Inquisition, the anti-Semitism,

the connivance with Hitler, the splits in matters in

which nobody knows the real truth, the blasphemous

heresies. These churches can betray again if they do not

watch.

Opinions differ about the much-debated Baptist

Church in Moscow. Is she genuine or not? Apply the

test: on what unevangelised field does it do a mission-

ary work? Well, she has accepted not to do missionary

work even within the Soviet Union. A Church without

missionary work is no Church. The persecuted Church

under the Roman emperors sent missionaries to coun-

tries far away. The official Baptist Church in Moscow

has no mission—no secret mission, if no open mission is

allowed. By this simple fact, she has stepped out of the

rank of Churches.

But what about our Churches? Christian missions are

on the decrease. There are less Protestant missionaries

than ten years ago, and these at the ratio of five women

for one man. The population of the world grows with

sixty-three millions a year. Only two millions will have

a chance of hearing the gospel.

Fight Communism, but don't be arrogant towards it.

Communism has not the monopoly of evil. There are

shortcomings in Christianity, too. We are forgetful of

the needs of the world we are commissioned to save.

Beware of anti-Communist hysteria or bigotry which

makes you suspect a Soviet spy in everyone who speaks

out for the poor, the hungry, for those who are victims

96

of racial, national or religious discrimination. Com-

munism thrives on the injustices of our society. ~

> Don't hope that politicians will solve the Communist

problem. Churchill wrote, 'It is the duty of a civilised

world to conquer Russia. The Soviets do not represent

Russia. They represent an international concept, entire-

ly foreign and even hostile to what we call civilisation.'

But it was he who had given at Yalta half of Europe into

the hands of the Communist butchers. Richard Nixon

wrote in Reader's Digest of September 1961, "The

U.S.A. goal must be nothing less than to bring freedom

to the Communist world.' When he became President

of the United States, he danced with the Communist

Prime Minister of Romania, Ceausescu, on a public

square.

I don't think that the Communist threat will be

abolished by military means. Neither do I wish it. We

don't know much about life after death. But by killing

a Communist I might deprive him of all opportunity of

being saved. Soldiers are right to kill in legitimate de-

fence of their country, but the aim must always be peace,

a peace based on righteousness.

The whole military fight against Communism is

dubious. If anyone should have a Vietcong flag in South

Vietnam, an American soldier would shoot him. But

thousands parade with Vietcong flags in the U.S.A. it-

self. Nobody bothers them. Americans don't fight Com-

munism in Cuba. They don't fight it at home, but fight

it in Vietnam, while making friendship with the Soviets

who support the Vietcong. The political and military

fight is led without decision to conquer and therefore

might not succeed. No hope from this side!

97

CHAPTER 15

What Can Be Done?

Humans do not have the habit of committing suicide for

another's grief, but that is exactly what we demand

from you : 'To deny yourself, to die for yourself and to

live for Christ, who is in grief and suffers again in his

mystical body, to feel every pain of his holy martyrs as

your own, to remember those in bonds as bound with

them' (Hebrews 13:3). At this moment you have

brothers and sisters kept in chains tied behind their

backs, sometimes for weeks, having to lap their food

like dogs. You have brethren and sisters in strait-jackets

and gagged. At this moment, Mrs. Malozemlova weeps

in her home. Seven children have been taken away from

her, because she had taught them about God. And her

children and the children of the family Sloboda and

thousands of others weep, crying desperately, 'Mummy,

Mummy.' They will not see their mothers again. At this

moment in Red China Christians have their eyes

gouged out, their tongues cut. Die to yourself and live

their life.

A Christian, even if he is well-to-do, free, young,

healthy, is like his Master always a Man of Sorrows^

98

acquainted with grief (Isaiah 53:3). This, because like

a sponge, he sucks in the sorrows of every innocent and

shares them.

Share our griefs, help us to bear our heavy cross, as

Simon of Cyrene helped Christ to carry his—this is the

appeal of the Underground Church.

You hear again and again in churches, 'Crucified

under Pontius Pilate.' Two thousand vears have passed.

The stain has not been washed away. Will it not be said

once, that Christians in Communist countries suffered

persecution, were without a Gospel, that families of

Christian martyrs hungered, while Christians of the free

world were'richer than ever befpre ?

Your riches, even if they are relative, will be a terrible

burden for you at the last judgement. So will be, even

more than your riches, your comfort, your easy-going,

pleasure-loving ways. Unburden yourselves, prepare

yourselves for meeting Jesus who will tell you, 'I was in

jail.' You seek His fellowship. Be in jail with Him. It is

the only place where you can be with Him. He has never

said that He will be in cathedrals.

Pray for the Underground Church. Elijah was a man

with the same weaknesses as ours, but the fate of a coun-

try depended upon the prayers of this one man. Pray,

having the same consciousness. The Christians of the

Underground in Russia have organised a chain of

prayer. They pray uninterruptedly twenty-four hours a

day for the Christians in the free world. Do the same.

Pray yourself. Organise prayer groups. Ask from your

pastor or priest that there should be public prayer for

the martyrs in Communist countries at every religious

service. An old canon of an ecumenical council says that

every liturgy at which the martyrs are not mentioned is

not valid. Don't mention only the martyrs of centuries

ago. Mention those Idïl&î today by the Communists.

; 99

And when you pray, be careful to do it as many

prayer-books righteously say, 'together with the angels

and archangels.' Everyone of us has a guardian angel.

These angels have wings. Why? Because they wish to

be our messengers. We have left them unemployed. Tell

your angel: 'The Berlin wall and the Iron Curtain are

not too high for you. Fly over them to a Christian in

chains, to a mother deprived of her children, to a brother

who passes through tortures and tell them that they are

not forgotten, that somebody prays for them. Strengthen

them in their faith.'

Don't simply pray, but agonise in prayer as Epaphro-

ditus, yes, as Jesus Himself did.

Prevailing prayer is united with regular fasting. The

Underground Church of the Soviet Union fasts on Fri-

days. They fast even in slave labour-camps, where they

are hungry the whole week long. The Church Fathers

and the great Evangelists believed in fasting. Tertullian

wrote a treatise on this subject. St. Polycarp saw in fast-

ing a powerful aid against temptation. Luther, Calvin,

Spurgeon, the Catholics until not long ago, all stressed

the necessity of fasting.

The thousands of Christians in Red prisons have no

Communion Service. Remember them at every Com-

munion. When you hear the words, 'This is my body

broken for you', remember the body of our Lord broken

on Golgotha, but remember also His mystical body,

broken by Communists today. Not only His blood was

shed, His bride's blood is also shed on many modern

Golgothas. Have a tear for those who give their body

and blood today. Don't eat the wafer just as cattle eat

grass.

When I came to the West, and afterwards to Aus-

tralasia and Africa, bringing the message of the Under-

ground Church, when my books Tortured for Christ,

ioo

The Soviet Saints and In God's Underground appeared,

the response of the Christians was huge. The books were

translated in a total of twenty-three languages. And in

nineteen countries of the free worlds missions to the

Communist world were created.

The purpose of these missions which collaborate in

an international fellowship is to help the Underground

Churches in Communist countries with Bibles and

Christian literature, with Gospel broadcasts, with relief

for underground pastors and families of Christian mar-

tyrs, as well as to spread the Gospel among the revolu-

tionaries in the free world. An ounce of prevention is

better than a pound of cure. It is better to prevent Com-

munist revolutions by winning leftish youth for Christ,

than to help the persecuted Christians after Com-

munism has won.

Spurgeon said once, 'I would be missionary-minded

just for selfish reasons. What a joy it will be, when I

enter into heaven and find some souls saved through my

efforts or prayers or gifts. They will come and say, "We

are here because of your missionary interest and

efforts."'

Not many Christians have this holy selfishness. They

make concrete plans for going to church or to a movie,

they make concrete preparations for going on vacation.

They don't make detailed preparation for their going to

heaven.

Every time we take a breath, four souls pass away.

Every hour 4,000 men die. It is 100,000 a day. One

third of these live under Communist rule prevented by

force from hearing the Gospel.

Leave aside discussions regarding post- or pre- or

a-millenialism, leave aside debating infant or believers'

baptism, apostolic succession, quarrels about the inter-

pretation of the Bible (which was not inspired by God

101

so as to become subject for debate), leave aside the

stupid modern theologies of whatever kind. Theology is

sin. It produces only quarrelling. If the carpenter Jesus

tried to read the books of Karl Barth, Bultmann, John

Robinson and others like them or those of their theolo-

gical opponents. He would put them aside after the first

pages. He would not understand them. They are much

too cleverly written. Believe in God, in love, in eternal

life and tell the story of Jesus to lost souls.

Don't expect your church leaders to do it. It was

rarely they who started it. The Bible Society was started

when a girl from a Welsh farm met one faithful pastor.

The China Inland Mission was started by an employee

in a drug-store. The pioneer of Protestant missions in

India was a cobbler, Carey. Moody was a salesman of

shoes. Spurgeon never went to college. Up, cobblers,

salesmen, men of little culture, men without degrees

but with ardent love toward Christ! You do the work!

Many pastors and bishops join you. Welcome them

when they do. But don't wait The Lord's work is

urgent

102

CHAPTER 16

The Need for Literature

Prauda of August 1969 states that one quarter of all the

literature produced on the whole earth is produced in

the Soviet Union (it has less than one tenth of the

world's population).

Christians believe the Word to be God and yet do so

little in the matter of literature. The most widely-trans-

lated book in the world is no longer the Bible, but

Lenin's writings. It has had 968 new translations since

19465 the Bible has had only 887.

The world is simply flooded with the book of Mao

Tse Tung.

In the Communist world. Bibles and other Christian

literature are very scarce. A Communist book Children

and Religion by Ogrizko, tells how parents in the Soviet

Union feed their children with the Word of God. The

Party has published The Comical Bible, a book ridicule

ing the word of God, but which contains excerpts from

the Holy Scriptures. The Christians glue paper over all

the mocking words, leaving only the Bible verse and

feed thus the souls of their children. In the same way

they also use other atheistic books.

103

The underground printing-presses work. Much

literature is smuggled in. But how much is this much?

There are in the Soviet Union alone some 220 million

inhabitants with a hunger for the word of God as it is

not known in the West We have to give them the

literature.

We find no difficulty in doing so in the Far East.

Literature is flown in by balloons from South Korea.

We have broken also through the Iron Curtain.

Let us listen to what the Communists have to say

about this. Leningradskaia Pravda of the 12th of

October 1967, writes about *a stream of religious litera-

ture and leaflets directed towards our country.' In the

article we are told that the literature is spread by Chris-

tians who come disguised as tourists. In other articles

they complain, that it is smuggled into sacks or ballots

with different goods imported into the Soviet Union.

The Moscow magazine Voprosi Filosofii No. 6 of 1967

enumerated among the causes of the persistence of reli-

gion in the U.S.S.R., 'the distribution of literature ...

which comes from abroad.' At the big trial of Soviet

writers, Galanskov was accused of having met a

foreigner, who introduced herself under the nickname

Nadia, in the monastery Troitsa Sergheievska. Nadia

had brought religious literature from abroad to Galan-

skov.

You can help so that Communist countries should

have Bibles and Christian literature.

In the Chinese town of Chungking, the Bibles,

hymnals, prayerbooks, were burned publicly, the Chris-

tians being compelled to attend. One of them profited

from a moment's inattention of the Red Guards and

snatched out of the jar just one page which had not been

consumed by fire. He had to act quickly and could not

get more than one page. For years, the Underground

104

Church of this town feeds on this single page of Scrip-

ture.

I wondered which page it was. It could have been a

page from Genesis or Nehemiah, full of genealogies,

which have their importance, but which they would not

have understood. I expect to see in heaven the angel of

the church in Chungking and to congratulate him for

the skill wherewith he directed the hand of that Chris-

tian towards the right page. Because after two years of

striving, I have succeeded in getting the information as

to which page they have.

Every Sunday they read, 'On this rock will I build

my church; and' neither Mao Tse Tung, nor the bury-

ing alive of Christians, nor the gouging out of eyes, nor

the cutting of tongues, nor the desecration of church

buildings, nor the gates of hell shall prevail against

it (Matthew 16:18). They have the page with this text

Really something to live on.

But it is a righteous thing to give them more of the

Bible so that they might learn new things about the

Person who builds the Church, about hell and heaven.

105

CHAPTER 17

Broadcasting the Gospel

The Communist customs officers cannot prevent

streams of Christian literature from entering Com-

munist countries, but they still make the work difficult

and dangerous. Secret printing-presses are sometimes

discovered, and this leads to arrests.

The Communists have no customs officers in the air.

The radio-waves arrive. In Red China death sentences

have been passed upon some for listening to Gospel

broadcasts from abroad. But still they listen. In the

Soviet Union they have jamming stations, but these are

very expensive. The territory of U.S.S.R. is huge. There

are large portions of this country where the radio is well

heard. In the European satellite countries the messages

are clearly heard.

The radio work is most effective. We know about

Communist members of governments and diplomats

who listen regularly to them. We know cases of conver-

sion among them as the result of this broadcasting of

the Gospel.

A young Chinese smuggled out a letter in which he

said that he had been an atheist. But once he saw in a

movie-picture a lady wearing a cross. He inquired what

106

the cross meant and was told that it is the symbol of

Christianity. But he could not find out what Chris-

tianity meant. There were no Christians in his area. By

chance, he tuned into a Gospel transmission. He listened

to one broadcast after the other and began to love

Christ. He asked, 'Does God accept somebody from Red

China? You have mentioned the church several times in

your sermons. But with us it is so, that God is in

heaven, we are in Red China, and we have no church

in between. All the churches have been closed. How can

we enter heaven?' The poor lad did not know that he

has many churches. The whole Church universal is his.

Then he puts a second question, 'How should I pray?

You always finish by prayer. I don't know how to pray.'

But then he says what he imagines prayer to be, and

gives the most beautiful definition of it which, to my

knowledge, has ever been given—'Prayer means to

speak the whole day so as to be able to say after every

talk, "Amen".' I think we must all learn from this defi-

nition. You cannot well say 'Amen' after having quar-

relled with your wife.

We possess letters from Russia of men converted by

radio transmissions, though they have never seen a Bible

in their lives.

New congregations are created in this manner. I

quote a letter from Romania: 'We wish you to know

that in the last three months over fifty souls in our

village were converted, listening to the radio. Among

them the wife of the head of the police. In this village

there were no believers before. Now they all listen to

the word of God. Work. Work as much as possible and

God will reward you.'

The missions to the Communist world broadcast the

Gospel in the languages used in the various Communist

countries.

107

CHAPTER 18

Help to Underground Pastors and Families

of Christian Martyrs

The Christians in Communist countries are poor, they

have to pay heavy fines. They have difficulty in sup-

porting their pastors. Here help is required.

Innumerable Christians are in Communist prisons.

Marchenko, a prisoner in a Soviet camp, has written

the renowned book. My Testimony. In it he says that in

nearly every cell he met some believers. How many

prison cells does the Soviet Union have? And what

about other Red countries? The families of martyrs and

confessors of the faith are hungry.

It is not easy to help them» Not so much because of

the Communists watching. We have learned to work so

that they do not know what we do. But we find resis-

tance within the families of Christian martyrs them-

selves. One sister whose husband is in prison said, 'Why

do you wish to deprive us of the privilege to bear a heavy

cross? Why do you wish to separate us from our love-

liest friend, sister poverty?' Russian Christians have in-

quired if they could not help their Western brethren

financially. Seeing that in the fifty years since Com-

108

munist dominion the Western Christians have done

nothing to help the sufferers, our Russian brothers who

could not imagine that we are indifferent to their fate,

draw the conclusion that we are very poor in the West.

They thought about helping us.

We overcome the resistance and help the families.

From one we received a beautiful letter of thanks. She

is the mother of nine children. Her husband is sentenced

to ten years : 'I thank God for the privilege he has given

me to bear a chip of the cross of Christ. My small chil-

dren ask me when Daddy will return. But Daddy has

put his life at stake for the faith once for all delivered

to the saints. When the Communists took my husbands

they mocked us saying, "Now let your God come and

help you. You will see that you will starve." But love

has a long arm. It stretched us a piece of bread from far

away and now the Communists are ashamed.'

We have succeeded in bringing food and clothes into

Siberian slave-labour camps and in getting letters of

thankfulness from there.

'I thank God for the privilege to bear a chip of the

cross of Christ.' Only a chip, so much is it to have a

husband in prison and nine children to care for. I have

heard somebody complaining in the West about a heavy

cross that he had to bear with having to buy a cheaper

car rather than a more luxurious one.

Those who have eaten excrement and drunk urine

because they believed in the same Lord, have the right

to receive from the Christians of the free world a piece

of bread. Even a piece of chocolate would not be too

much for them.

The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, an early

Christian book, says, *A prophet who asks money is a

false prophet' This applies also to missionary organisa-

tions. I personally would never give to an organisation

I.T.Y.B.—6 JO9

which demands money. Its cause must be so luminous

that people should ask the organisation to accept its

gifts. •

It is ugly for preachers to speak about the verse, 'Set

your affections on things above', and then to fuss be-

cause the mission income is not high enough. It is higher

than that of the first band of apostles.

My duty as a teacher in Israel is only to convey to

you what has been always and everywhere the doctrine

of Christianity in this matter. St. Ambrose said, 'If my

brother hungers and I do not help him, I am a thief.

And if my brother dies of hunger, I am a murderer, too.*

I have seen many Christian prisoners literally starving

from hunger.

The words, 'I have been young and now am old; yet

have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed

begging bread' (Psalm 37:25), hold true only where a

David is king. Under the Communists, children of

righteous fighters for the faith eat sometimes from the

garbage. They have to be helped. Ask your church to

do it, by whatever means she will know best.

Soviet Lithuania of the 4th of June 1967 stated that

the Easter collection at the Kaunas Orthodox Cathedral

was 1,274 roubles. This is approximately the salary for

a year of a Soviet factory-worker. In the West we are

far from this. Questions of Scientific Atheism of May

1968, tells that in a village in which, according to their

description, the average church attendance is about 300

persons, the income of the church has doubled in one

year. The latest report about yearly income was of

23,000 roubles. Thus a churchgoer in an official village

church gives on the average eighty roubles per year,

which is one and a half times the monthly salary of a

worker on a collective farm.

I don't ask you for money for a certain mission. I

no

don't ask you for money at all. I have described to you

the Christian life of the underground fighters. It is of

such a beauty that you have to go immediately to your

pastors and friends to find out how you and your church

can have the privilege of sharing the sufferings and

future glory of the elect among the elect

in

CHAPTER 19

Answer to the Most Frequent Criticisms

We don't pay much attention to criticisms. We have

found that, as a rule, those who criticise our activity

never care to help the persecuted Christians. Those

who help never criticise. I, personally, do not care what

the whole world thinks of me. It did not think highly

of Jesus.

But I wish to answer some sincere doubts about our

work.

There are some Christians who ask, 'Don't you en-

danger even more the persecuted Christians by your

secret work of smuggling in Bibles and relief, by sup-

porting the whole underground movement?'

We, surely, could endanger them. Did Jesus endanger

men by exhorting them to become His disciples? He

says, 'I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves'

(Matthew io: 16). This surely was to endanger lives.

The apostles would not have died a premature martyr-

death if Jesus had not called them to such a risky task.

St. Paul endangered the life of his converts. Listening

to him, they arrived to be thrown before wild beasts.

Every Christian soldier must be ready to die for his

112

Lord. Every officer in the Christian army must be ready

not only to die, but also to send others to death for the

good cause. If the Reformers had not preached their

doctrines, thousands would not have been burnt at the

stake. Neither would Catholics have died, killed by the

Protestants, if the Pope had not taught them to with-

stand what he considered to be a heresy. If you are con-

vinced that your cause is the cause of Christ, it is right

to give your own life and to teach others to do the same.

• In the end, it is very dangerous to feed a starving

man. You might spoil his stomach. Should we, there-

fore, not give food to the hungry? No, they should be

fed, but with caution. So, the underground work must

be done, though it is dangerous, but avoiding blunders

and wrong methods.

A Hungarian Christian wrote an article against me,

in which he says that by my activity I am fixing the

noose of the rope wherewith the Christians in Com-

munist countries will be hanged. This was in 1967.

Time enough. Not only was not a single Christian in

Hungary hanged or even imprisoned because of our

activity, the contrary happened. At this moment, not a

single Protestant Christian is in prison for his faith in

Hungary. Neither was anyone jailed because of our

activity in any other Communist country. We know how

to work cautiously.

If the figures of those arrested in the Communist

camp after publishing my book had been increased, the

guilt would have been put on me, but since I published

it the Bible Society received the freedom to print Bibles

in some Communist countries. The merit is not attri-

buted to me!

I am criticised as being an anti-Communist I will

answer with a word of Spurgeon, 'We cannot do other-

wise than contend with those who contend with God.'

113

Lenin wrote: *A11 modern religion and churches are

agencies of bourgeois reaction, which serve to protect

exploitation and benumb the working class.' The

Leninists desire the destruction of the Christian reli-

gion. This is their plan and it must be defeated. We

have to fight against Communism. Christianity has al-

ways fought against its foes. Never has the Church

canonised any leader who has compromised with the

enemy, only those who stood up against him. Those

whom we call saints, far from bearing tyrannies quietly,

went rather in the opposite direction. The gentle St.

Bernard of Clairvaux wrote, 'The Christian glorifies in

the death of an infidel, because Christ is thus glorified,'

and Anselm of Canterbury, referring to the crusaders,

said, 'Our men, returning in victories and bearing many

heads, fixed upon spikes, furnished a joyful spectacle to

the people of God.' If there is a general consensus in

Christianity to call men who have spoken like this about

the adversaries of Christianity, 'saints', why should I

criticise who say much less? My message is: 'Expose

the evil of Communism, defeat it, but glory in convert-

ing the Communists, not in having killed them.'

Everyone honours Dietrich Bonhoeffer, martyred for

Christ, who justified under the Nazis the murder of the

tyrant. Why then should I be criticised as deploying an

unjustified anti-Communism because I exhort Chris-

tians, 'Win the tyrants for Christ'

Dear brethren criticised me for not preaching the

pure Gospel.

My Gospel is full of the tears and blood and spittle

and excrements and urine which sully the faces

of the saints of God in Communist countries. It is a

dirty Gospel. A Gospel which hides these ferocities

committed against Christians, which does not call us to

114

fight for freedom and righteousness, to sympathy and

sharing with sufferers, is not a Gospel at all.

Neither do I know any one important preacher in the

history of the Church who should have preached the

so-called pure Gospel.

John Chrysostom has also been charged with not

sticking to the Gospel, because he said in his sermons

that the Archbishop Theophilus of Alexandria was

guilty of simony, of misappropriating funds and prac-

tising brutality. This saint raged against degenerate

Eudoxia, Empress of Byzantium, calling her a second

Jezebel. He had to go into exile for this. Was he wrong?

Was St. Ambrose wrong not to allow the king to enter

the church when he returned from an unjust war?

Why did Charles Spurgeon not stick to the pure

Gospel? It was the time of the war of secession. And

Spurgeon spoke out on the side of the Northern Con-

federation which fought for the abolishment of slavery

in the Southern States. His books, yes, he himself, was

burned in effigy in the Southern States by his fellow-

Baptists. He did not restrict himself to preach only the

personal salvation of souls.

From these preachers I have learned which is the true

Gospel.

I am criticised for my strong attitude against die Or-

thodox Metropolitans and Protestant leaders in the Red

camp who flatter the Communists.

How many truths exist? When Hitler invaded Nor-

way, the Lutheran Archbishop Berggrav refused any

compromise with him. He preferred to become a pri-

soner. Nearly unanimously, his pastors followed his

example. This was, probably, right. But Romania, Bul-

garia, the Baltic countries, Hungary and Czechoslovakia

have been invaded by Soviets. I expect the world church

leaders to tell me that Berggrav was wrong. Then I

"5

would understand. They greatly honour his attitude as

right, but at the same time put in the leadership of the

World Council of Churches the bishops and Protestant

leaders of Russia, the Balticum, of Romania, Czecho-

slovakia and so on, who flatter the oppressors of their

native countries.

Pope Pius XII and the leaders of the German

Lutheran Church of that time, are criticised for not

having taken up the defence of the Jews against Hitler.

But the Jews were driven out of Poland and are dis-

criminated against in the Soviet Union today. The very

existence of the state of Israel is put under a question

mark because of the Soviets. Do the official leaders of

the churches in the Soviet Union take up the defence of

the chosen people? Has the World Council of Churches

done it?

Hitler had invaded Czechoslovakia. It was a shame

that the church leaders of Germany of that time had

not protested. With this everyone would agree. But

Czechoslovakia has been invaded again by the Soviets.

Did the official church leaders of the Soviet Union pro-

test? The underground fighter, Krasnov-Levitin, pro-

tested publicly and was sentenced to seven years'

imprisonment for this. Who represents the conscience

of Christ in Russia today?

Others tell me, 'Whatever you say about Communism

might be right. But we should first put in order Chris-

tianity's house.' It is like saying that every policeman

must first be born again and become a saint before he

gets a right to fight the gangsters. Christianity may have

many shortcomings and failures. But it has the truth

about Christ and about eternal life. The Church has a

divine and human side. The divine side is constituted

by the word of God, the sacraments, the fellowship with

angels and the glorified saints, the Lordship of Christ,

116

the beautiful examples of those who follow Him in truth.

The Church has also a human side. It is constituted of

sinners who can and do commit bad deeds. Communism

has no divine side. It is not even human. It is anti-

human. Communists don't persecute only Christians,

they just hate. They hate each other. The Communist

Kosygin hates the Communist Dubcek, the Communist

Mao hates the Communist Kosygin, comrade Brezhnev

hates comrade Tito, Stalin killed his nearest friends and

Khrushchev kept his own wife in prison for eight years.

In opposing Communism the Church is right, even as

the unconverted policeman is right when he fights a

gangster.

Christians should simultaneously put their own house

in order and fight Communism.

'But,' I am told, 'there is surely something valuable in

the work of the legal Churches. The activity of your

mission meant a death-blow to the legal work.' It did

not. On the contrary, we helped it. Pastor Paul Hansson,

secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, declared

in Kristeligt Dagbladet, Copenhagen, that they could

help legally the official churches in Communist coun-

tries with four and a half million crowns, more than in

previous years.

I will mention one more objection: "The church has

its leaders, its Presidents of Protestant Unions, moder-

ators or bishops. We have to listen to them. Some of

these do not agree with you. Should we not rather listen

to our bishops than to you who are not a bishop or hold

no other high position in the church hierarchy?*

My answer might seem histrionic but it will be, 'Ask

that a bishopric should be given to me.' How is it that

Wurmbrand who has brought the message of the suffer-

ing Church in one third of the world has not yet been

made a bishop or leader of some other Protestant

117

denomination? That he does not belong to that denom-

ination does not count. St. Ambrosius was made bishop

before even being baptised. Neither did he have a D.D.

He had only a commission from God for the Church.

It is not my fault that the Underground Church is not

considered and that its messengers are not received in

high places. Milan Haimovici, the greatest hero of the

Christian fight in Romania, a man who has suffered

beyond human imagination and always maintained the

highest standards, though an ordained Lutheran pastor

and one of the greatest preachers in Romania, works

now as a caretaker of a church in Western Germany.

They had no place for him. He does not mind it. Violets

enjoy the shadow. Neither do I care for high positions

in the church. But I had to give this answer for those

to whom church authority is everything. Not every

Church leader is a child of God.

When two Church leaders wrote circular letters

against me, one in U.S.A., the other in West Germany,

I remembered that a fourteenth-century Catholic his-

torian wrote about Wycliff, "That instrument of the

devil, that enemy of the Church, that author of con-

fusion to the common people, that image of hypocrites,

that idol of heretics, that author of schisms, that sore of

hatred, that coiner of lies, being struck with a horrible

judgement of God, was smitten with palsy and con-

tinued to live till St. Sylvester's day, on which he

breathed out his malicious spirit into the abodes of

darkness.' Excommunicated after death, Wycliff's skele-

ton has been exhumed and thrown away.

There are many faithful bishops and other Church

leaders who have supported us.

To summarise, aÙ the well-meant criticisms have two

common denominators: critics consider Church life as

they know it in the free world as being the normal. The

118

Underground Church with its devices, nicknames, pass-

words, meetings in the wood, non-submission to state

laws, infiltration into Communist ranks, they see as a

Church gone wrong instead of seeing it as an entirely

new phenomenon. It is the Church of the catacombs

adjusted to conditions of the twentieth century, which

has a perfected police, but also a perfected conspiratorial

technique.

Others cannot find a label for me. They do not know

in what frame to put me. I enter in no fixed set of rules.

Every order of monks has its rules. So has any Protestant

missionary society. But according to what rules did St.

Francis Xavier, the first missionary to India, work, or,

later on Hudson Taylor, Carey, Morrison, Patton,

Livingstone? They established rules for those who

would come after them. Until then they were rules for

themselves, as it is always with pioneers, with spear-

heads. I do not compare myself with these great per-

sonalities, but on my modest level I am also a fore-

runner, the first to bring to the Western Evangelicals

the message of the Underground Church. Neither did I

have a predecessor to set me rules when I started the

secret missionary work in the Soviet Army. I can be

judged according to nobody's rules. If your country

should be taken over by the Communists and you are

forced to work underground, you will have to do it

according to the rules learned from me.

There have been personal attacks against me—'mad-

man, demon-possessed, Nazi, Fascist, anti-Semite,

Communist, Anarchist, Jesuit agent, illiterate, fake,

racketeer, etc' The slanders have never amounted to

what has been said against those who shine today as

beautiful stars in the spiritual sky. If these had to endure

much worse than me, why should I, an unworthy ser-

vant of the Lord, defend my person?

119

But I do defend the cause of the Underground

Church. What I assert about its sufferings and victories

is unchallengeable. This fact makes opponents try to

side-track Christians from the message to the messen-

ger. They would like people to discuss, 'Who is Wurm-

brand?' instead of 'What is the Underground Church?*

They will not succeed. The cause of the Underground

Church has already become the cause of faithful Chris-

tians all over the free world. In one country of the free

world after another, missions are formed to support it.

Christ is on our side. We will win. Making no apologies

to the critics, we go brazenly ahead, burning the cand-

les at both ends.

I know very well that I am one-sided. There exists a

holy one-sidedness. When the Jews were burned by the

Nazis, a man had to be one-sided. It would have been

wrong to put the questions : But have Jews never sinned

against the German people? Have not some Jews done

very wrong things in the time of the Weimar Republic?

Was it absolutely wrong for Hitler to rebel, asking for

more vital space when Britain had a world-wide empire,

and Russia had a huge territory badly managed, and so

on? Menr even children were burned. They had to be

defended. All other things did not count. One-sidedness

was the right attitude.

The Underground Church is not ideal. It has its sins,

as has the legal Church in Communist countries. But it

is persecuted. This obliges me to be on the side of the

underground fighters. The Talmud says: 'If an un-

righteous man persecutes a righteous, God is on the

side of the persecuted righteous. If a righteous man

persecutes an unrighteous, God is on the side of the

unrighteous. God is always on the side of the perse-

cuted.'

But taking decidedly the part of only one side, I don't

120

have the deceptive certitudes which usually accompany

one-sidedness. There exists no face without a back, no

reality without a counter-reality. There is much to say

for dialogue with the Communists. Contacts with the

official Church are also very useful. And I ask all those

in position for these to continue, but never forgetting

the brethren in chains.

121

CHAPTER 20

My Last Word

Many Christians of the free world, if they had lived in

Noah's time, would have said, "There are no signs of

rain. It's just ridiculous to speak about the menace of a

flood. Noah must be a right-wing crank who sees sinners

under every bed. Why does he not keep to true religion,

to the pure Gospel, instead of predicting an approach-

ing geological catastrophe which is not his business?

Geology does not belong to religion, neither floods, but

only the personal, individual salvation through the

blood of the Messiah who will come one day. In any

case, there is no hurry.' If they had lived in Noah's time

they would have perished with the ungodly. The excep-

tions would have been few.

There are surely more signs of a Communist menace

today than signs of a flood when Noah began to con-

struct his ark. As for Noah's Gospel, he had it directly

from God. God must have some idea as to which is the

pure Gospel. And He instructs a teacher of righteous-

ness not to stress for a while personal salvation, but to

speak about geology and to make weather-predictions.

122

This because the catastrophe to follow was to be a

punishment from God, just as is Communism.

We have more signs of approaching catastrophe than

in Noah's time. John Kennedy has been killed by

Moscow-trained Oswald, Robert Kennedy by Sirhan,

who declared in his diary that Communism is the best

system. There is hardly a day in the U.S.A. without

Communist-inspired blasts, killing of policemen, riots,

occupation of university buildings.

Gus Hall, the secretary of the Communist Party of

America, then a little man, said some twenty years ago,

'I dream of the hour when the last congressman is

strangled to death on the guts of the last preacher. And

since the Christians seem to love to speak about the

blood, why not give them a little of it? Slit the throats

of their children and drag them over the mourner's

bench and the pulpit and allow them to drown in their

own blood and see whether they enjoy singing their

hymns.' (Quoted from the Hearing of the U.S.A. Senate

Sub-Committee 86th Congress, p. 798). But Hall has

worked hard since and he has arrived to say that Com-

munists and liberal Christians share so many goals, that

they can and should work together for the same thing.

This same goal cannot be the victory of Christianity.

Hall would not work for that. Then which is it? Should

theologians and pastors have arrived to prepare uncon-

sciously the bloodbath against their brethren? Com-

munists are now sometimes guest speakers at the

principal services of churches in the U.S.A.

The influence of Communism in Italy and France

has been already mentioned.

In Britain their influence is great in the trade unions.

But not only there. The Liverpool Daily Post of the 29th

of May 1968 has an admission of Sir Hugh Greene,

then the Director-General of the British Broadcasting

123

Corporation, that he has Communists on his staff, 'but

they are none of his business'. They are the business of

the listeners who can be brain-washed by disguised

pro-Communism.

In all Arab countries, the trade-unions, the universi-

ties, the army, the police, and the Moslem brotherhoods

are infiltrated by the Communists.

According to A.B.N. of May 1969, the Kremlin

finances its world-wide offensive as follows: Brazil, 40

millions a year, Argentina 30, Mexico 24, Chile 14,

India 30, Indonesia 300. Apart from India, only Kerala

gets a part of 66 millions, West Germany 6o, Turkey

10 and so on.

In Japan, professors have committed suicide because

of the Communist-inspired turmoil on the campuses,

during which they have been compelled to confess pub-

licly their crimes, exactly as in China.

We have shown the clouds of a near tempest in

Africa.

By 1972 the Chinese Communists, who already have

the nuclear bomb, will also have the missile to launch it

and they are determined to do so. The Russian Com-

munists have their orbital bomb. It may fly over your

head as you read these lines. Treaties with them are of

no value. They don't keep their promises.

Communism can be overcome. God has a chosen tool

for this pupose. It is the Underground Church which

gives to the peoples oppressed by the Communists the

inspiration of the highest possible ideal—the service of

Christ; the Underground which infiltrates even the

high-rank Communists and can win them for Christ.

I have before me a bunch of letters from Christian

prisoners of the Soviet Union. They show us the quality

of its fighters.

A few quotes from them. From one: 'Communists

124

have put on the wall of our cell a poster "Reason is

against Religion". But weapons are used only against

the living, never against the dead. So this poster told

me that religion is alive, and I thanked God.' Another

describes a scene from his trial. A Christian child was

brought as witness for the prosecution against him. 'But

our children are unafraid. When asked by the judge,

"Who performs the baptisms?", the child answered,

"This is an internal affair of the Christian Church. I

can give you no information about it. The secrets of the

Church are not for unbelievers. You first repent, then

you'll be in the right to know what happens in the

Church." ' This child knew that by speaking thus he

might be taken away for ever from Mummy and Daddy.

But behind the Iron Curtain, Christ is loved in the only

manner in which He should be loved, i.e. to the point

of folly, and sacrifices do not count.

My son, Mihai, has also been brought up in the aura

of arrests and trials. They were familiar to him.

In another letter from Soviet prisons we find Brother

Alfred Boettcher's last word before court: 'I have one

aim in my life. This is to bring as many sinners as pos-

sible to Christ. Communists usually finish by putting in

prison their own comrades. When you, Mr. Judge, will

sit.on this form, remember my witness for Christ'

The Underground Church fights for the salvation of

souls. But like Noah, she does not remain in the sphere

of pure religion. She is also a vanguard fighter for free-

ing the world of the Communist menace.

She is persecuted, but she can say the words ad-

dressed once by Theodor Beza to the king of Nevarra:

'Sire, it belongs in truth to the Church of God, in the

name of which I speak, to receive blows and not to give

them. But it will please your Majesty to remember that

it is an anvil which has worn out many hammers.'

125

The Christians of the free world must support whole-

heartedly the Underground Church or see in this gener-

ation their own Churches subverted and destroyed. This

is the choice.

There is one greater than the Church. Its head, Jesus

Christ, will pour out the spirit of grace upon His fol-

lowers everywhere. Instead of useless talks about the

merging of empty churches of different denominations

in the West, there will be a real union of the free Church

and the Church of the martyrs.

One of our couriers writes : *I recall the joy the sister

in Russia had last night, when she saw the Russian Bibles

on the table. She literally ran to it and kissed the stock

of Bibles, then circled around them the husband, the

wife and I and prayed. The next morning, the brother

was up at five o'clock, wrapping them up to distribute

them.' Such joy and love is contagious. From the

Underground Church, the Western Christians will

learn the enthusiasm, the ecstacy, the cherishing of the

Word of God, and of the high calling to be a soldier in

Christ's army, the divine impatience to see the Kingdom

of God coming.

If my personal desire counted for anything, I would

retire for quiet communion with God, as I had it in the

solitary cell. But God decides. I can have communion

with Him only to the diapason of the shrieks of my

beaten and tortured brethren. My place is on the twen-

tieth century's Golgotha.

Christ suffers here again in His mystical body.

On His right side suffers the penitent thief. The last

words of Zinoviev, president of the Communist Inter-

national, shot by Stalin, were, 'Listen, Israel, the Lord

our God is one God'. The last words of Iagoda, head

of Russia's Secret Police, were, "There must be a God.

He punishes my sins.' The last words of Yaroslavski,

126

president of the International Organisation of the God-

less, were, 'Please, burn all my books. Look, the Holy

One. He waits for me since long. He is here.'

On the left side are the impenitent Communists. They

have the deep suffering of a bitter heart.

Then there is the huge crowd of millions who just

stand by and look upon what is happening, like on

Golgotha. And you can hear from the bride's mouth the

cry, a cry like that wherewith Jesus died. To make you

hear that cry was the purpose of this book. It is not so

much a cry of suffering. This they have learned to bear.

It is a cry of anguish for the multitudes of Communists

and Communist-indoctrinated souls who cannot come

to Christ because there is nobody to instruct them.

I would like to leave the work of supporting the

Underground Church and go to theological universities,

to pastors' studies, to Church leaders, and tell them,

'Just give up cutting the Bible asunder, your worthless

theological debates, your endless and fruitless discus-

sions about merging or not merging into nothingness.'

Some call me mad. I would cry like crazy that souls go

to hell in the Soviet camp, after having lived their whole

earthly life in hell. 'It is because of your neglect. Don't

you fear God? Don't you know that you will give

account to Him?'

I can breathe not only gentle words, I can breathe

also fire. If good words would not help, I would vitu-

perate, hike Jesus did at times.

The Christians in Communist countries have borne

prison without expecting any help from the West. They

have kept the faith. To spread it to all creatures, as their

all-embracing love commands, is not in their power

without our help.

The souls who perish because of the Communist

poison are an overwhelming sorrow, a painful wound

127

on their soul and mine. Would you not try to heal this

wound?

I have described atrocious sufferings through which

Christians pass there. It was not to make you pity those

hapless ones, but to pity those who have the oppor-

tunity to be useful, and do not take it, leave alone the

galleries of nonentities who quibble at this or that of my

sayings. I am not infallible. Not everything that I say

must be right My character and my deeds are also far

from perfect

But that the Church of the free world must join hands

with the Underground Church in the fight for Christ,

against Communism, is surely right This do, and God

will bless you.

The author welcomes correspondence and

inquiries about the Underground Church.

They may be sent to :

THE CHRISTIAN MISSION TO THE

COMMUNIST WORLD,

P.O. Box 19, Chislehurst, Kent, BR7 5AA, England

128

Richard

Wurmbrand

If that

were

Christ,

would

you

give him

your

blanket?

'There is no better rest in this restless world than

to face imminent peril of death solely for the love

and service of God our Lord.'

St. Francis Xavier

Two Chinese Christians shivered with cold in a

cell. Each had a thin blanket. One of the Christians

looked to the other and saw how he trembled. The

thought came to him, 'If that were Christ, would

you give Him your blanket?' Of course he would.

Immediately he spread the blanket over his brother.

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ISBN 0 340 12534 9

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If that were Christ would you give him your blanket?