Tortured for Christ by Richard Wurmbrand
My wife and I were arrested several
times, beaten, and hauled before Nazi judges. The Nazi terror was great, but only a taste of what was to come under the Communists.

But these Nazi times had one great advantage. They taught us that physical beatings could be
endured, and that the human spirit with God's help can survive horrible tortures.
pp.4

Beginning August 23, 1944, one million Russian troops entered Romania and, very soon after
this, the Communists came to power in our country. Then began a nightmare that made suffering under the Nazis seem easy.

Our army and police were disarmed and so, by violence and hated by almost all, the Communists came to power. It was not without the cooperation of the American and British rulers of that time.
pp.5

Preaching in Russian Army Barracks

The Russians were very fond of watches. They stole watches from everyone. They would stop
people on the street and demand that they hand them over. We would see Russians with several watches on each arm, and Russian women officers with alarm clocks hanging around their necks.
They had never had watches before and could not get enough of them. Romanians who wished to have a watch had to go to the barracks of the Soviet army to buy a stolen one, often buying back their own watch. So it was common for Romanians to enter the Russian barracks. The Underground Church also used that pretext-of purchasing watches from them-to give us entrance into their barracks.
It was not easy to talk to them. I told them the parable of the man who had a hundred sheep and lost one. They did not understand, as they were brainwashed with the Communist ideology.
They asked, "How is it that he has a hundred sheep? Has not the Communist collective farm taken them away?" Then I said that Jesus is a king. They answered, "All the kings have been bad men who controlled the people, so Jesus must also be a dictator."
When I told them the parable of the workers in the vineyard, they said, "Well, these did very well to rebel against the owner of the vineyard. The vineyard has to belong to the collective." Everything was new for them.
When I told them about the birth of Jesus, they asked what would seem blasphemous to a Westerner, "Was Mary the wife of God?"
pp.8

Once I saw a Russian lady officer on the street. I approached her and apologized, "I know that it is impolite to approach an unknown lady on the street, but I am a pastor and my intentions are earnest. I wish to speak to you about Christ."
She asked me, "Do you love Christ?" I said, "Yes! With all of my heart." She fell into my arms
and kissed me again and again. It was a very embarrassing situation for a pastor, so I kissed her back, hoping people would think we were relatives. She exclaimed to me, "I love Christ, too!"

I took her to our home and discovered to my amazement that she knew nothing about Christianity - absolutely nothing-except the name. And yet she loved Him. She did not know that He is the Savior, nor what salvation means. She did not know where and how He lived and died.
She did not know His teachings, His life or ministry. She was for me a psychological curiosity: how can you love someone if you know only his name?11
The secret police greatly persecuted the Underground Church, because they recognized in it the only effective resistance left. It was just the kind of resistance (a spiritual resistance) that, if left unhindered, would undermine their atheistic power. They recognized, as only the devil can, an immediate threat to them. They knew that if a man believed in Christ, he would never be a mindless, willing subject. They knew they could imprison the physical body, but they couldn't imprison a man's spirit-his faith in God.
And so they fought very hard.
When I was kidnapped by police and kept imprisoned for years in strictest secrecy, a Christian
doctor actually became a member of the secret police to learn my whereabouts! As a secret
police doctor, he had access to the cells of all prisoners and hoped to find me. All of his friends shunned him, thinking he had become a Communist.
To go around dressed in the uniform of the torturers is a much greater sacrifice than to wear the uniform of a prisoner. The doctor found me in a deep, dark cell and sent word that I was alive. He was the first friend to discover me during my initial eight-and-a-half years in prison! Due to him, word was spread that I was alive and, when prisoners were released during the Eisenhower-Khrushchev "thaw" in 1956, Christians clamored for my release and I was freed for a short time.
If it had not been for this doctor, who joined the secret police specifically to find me, I would never have been released. I would still be in prison-or in a grave-today.
pp.15

Unspeakable Tortures
A pastor by the name of Florescu was tortured with red-hot iron pokers and with knives. He was beaten very badly. Then starving rats were driven into his cell through a large pipe. He could not sleep because he had to defend himself all the time. If he rested a moment, the rats would attack him.
He was forced to stand for two weeks, day and night. The Communists wished to compel him to betray his brethren, but he resisted steadfastly. Eventually, they brought his fourteen-year-old son to the prison and began to whip the boy in front of his father, saying that they would continue to beat him until the pastor said what they wished him to say. The poor man was half mad. He bore it as long as he could, then he cried to his son, "Alexander, I must say what they want! I can't bear your beating anymore!" The son answered, "Father, don't do me the injustice of having a traitor as a parent. Withstand! If they kill me, I will die with the words, ‘Jesus and my
fatherland.'"

The Communists, enraged, fell upon the child and beat him to death, with blood
spattered over the walls of the cell. He died praising God. Our dear brother Florescu was never the same after seeing this.

Handcuffs with sharp nails on the insides were placed on our wrists. If we were totally still, they didn't cut us. But in the bitterly cold cells, when we shook with cold, our wrists would be torn by the nails.

Christians were hung upside-down on ropes and beaten so severely that their bodies swung back and forth under the blows. Christians were also placed in ice-box "refrigerator cells," which were so cold that frost and ice covered the inside. I was thrown into one while I had very little clothing on. Prison doctors would watch through an opening until they saw symptoms of freezing to death, then they would give a signal and guards would rush in to take us out and make us warm.
When we were finally warmed, we would immediately be put back into the ice-box cells to
freeze. Thawing out, then freezing to within minutes of death, then being thawed out-over and
over again! Even today there are times when I can't bear to open a refrigerator.
We Christians were sometimes forced to stand in wooden boxes only slightly larger than we
were. This left no room to move. Dozens of sharp nails were driven into every side of the box,
with their razor-sharp points sticking through the wood. While we stood perfectly still, it was all
right. But we were forced to stand in these boxes for endless hours; when we became fatigued
and swayed with tiredness, the nails would pierce our bodies. If we moved or twitched a muscle, there were the horrible nails.

What the Communists have done to Christians surpasses any possibility of human understanding.
I have seen Communists whose faces while torturing believers shone with rapturous joy. They
cried out while torturing the Christians, "We are the devil!"

We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities and powers of evil (Ephesians 6:12)
We saw that communism is not from men but from the devil. It is a spiritual force-a force of evil-and can only be countered by a greater spiritual force, the Spirit of God.
pp.16

The cruelty of atheism is hard to believe. When a man has no faith in the reward of good or the
punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human. There is no restraint from the depths of evil
that is in man. The Communist torturers often said, "There is no God, no hereafter, no
punishment for evil. We can do what we wish." I heard one torturer say, "I thank God, in whom I
don't believe, that I have lived to this hour when I can express all the evil in my heart." He
expressed it in unbelievable brutality and torture inflicted on prisoners.
pp.18

I have testified before the Internal Security Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate. There I described awful things, such as Christians tied to crosses for four days and nights. The crosses were placed on the floor and hundreds of prisoners had to fulfill their bodily necessities over the faces and bodies of the crucified ones. Then the crosses were erected again and the Communists jeered and mocked: "Look at your Christ! How beautiful he is! What fragrance he brings from heaven!"
I described how, after being driven nearly insane with tortures, a priest was forced to consecrate human excrement and urine and give Holy Communion to Christians in this form. This happened in the Romanian prison of Pitesti. I asked the priest afterward why he did not prefer to die rather than participate in this mockery. He answered, "Don't judge me, please! I have suffered more than Christ!" All the biblical descriptions of hell and the pains of Dante's Inferno are nothing in comparison with the tortures in Communist prisons.18
One of our workers in the Underground Church was a young girl. The Communist police
discovered that she secretly spread Gospels and taught children about Christ. They decided to arrest her. But to make the arrest as agonizing and painful as they could, they decided to delay her arrest a few weeks, until the day she was to be married. On her wedding day, the girl was dressed as a bride-the most wonderful, joyous day in a girl's life! Suddenly, the door burst open and the secret police rushed in.
When the bride saw the secret police, she held out her arms toward them to be handcuffed. They roughly put the manacles on her wrists. She looked toward her beloved, then kissed the chains and said, "I thank my heavenly Bridegroom for this jewel He has presented to me on my marriage day. I thank Him that I am worthy to suffer for Him." She was dragged off, with
weeping Christians and a weeping bridegroom left behind. They knew what happens to young
Christian girls in the hands of Communist guards. Her bridegroom faithfully waited for her.
After five years she was released-a destroyed, broken woman, looking thirty years older. She
said it was the least she could do for her Christ. Such beautiful Christians are in the Underground Church.
pp.19

The tortures and brutality continued without interruption. When I lost consciousness or became
too dazed to give the torturers any further hopes of confession, I would be returned to my cell.
There I would lie, untended and half dead, to regain a little strength so they could work on me
again. Many died at this stage, but somehow my strength always managed to return. In the
ensuing years, in several different prisons, they broke four vertebrae in my back, and many other bones. They carved me in a dozen places. They burned and cut eighteen holes in my body.20
When my family and I were ransomed out of Romania and brought to Norway, doctors in Oslo, seeing all this and the scars in my lungs from tuberculosis, declared that my being alive today is a pure miracle! According to their medical books, I should have been dead for years. I know myself that it is a miracle. God is a God of miracles.
pp.20

In the prison of Gherla, a Christian named Grecu was sentenced to be beaten to death. The
process lasted a few weeks, during which he was beaten very slowly. He would be hit once at the bottom of the feet with a rubber club, and then left. After some minutes he would again be hit, after another few minutes again. He was beaten on the testicles. Then a doctor gave him an injection.
He recovered and was given very good food to restore his strength, and then he was
beaten again, until he eventually died under this slow, repeated beating. One who led this torture was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, whose name was Reck.
During the beatings, Reck said something to Grecu that the Communists often said to Christians, "You know, I am God. I have power of life and death over you. The one who is in heaven cannot decide to keep you in life. Everything depends upon me. If I wish, you live. If I wish, you are killed. I am God!" So he mocked the Christian.
pp.21

"Mihai, Believe in Jesus!" (Mihai is Wurmbrand’s son, left to fend for himself when his parents were imprisoned)

At the age of eleven, Mihai began to earn his living as a regular worker. Suffering had produced a wavering in his faith. But after two years of Sabina's imprisonment he was allowed to see his mother.
He went to the Communist prison and saw his mother behind iron bars. She was dirty, thin, with calloused hands, wearing the shabby uniform of a prisoner. He scarcely recognized her. Her first words were, "Mihai, believe in Jesus!" The guards, in a savage rage, pulled her away from Mihai and took her out. Mihai wept seeing his mother dragged away. This minute was the minute of his conversion. He knew that if Christ can be loved under such circumstances, He surely is the true Savior. He said afterward, "If Christianity had no other arguments in its favor than the fact that my mother believes in it, this is enough for me." That was the day he fully accepted Christ.24

Why I Left Communist Romania
I would not have left Romania, despite the dangers, if the leaders of the Underground Church
had not commanded me to use this opportunity to leave the country, to be the "voice" of the
Underground Church to the free world. They wished me to speak to you of the Western world on their behalf about their sufferings and needs. I came to the West, but my heart remained with them. I would never have left Romania if I had not understood the great necessity for you to hear of the sufferings and the courageous work of the Underground Church, but this is my mission.
Before leaving Romania, I was called twice to the secret police. They told me that the money had been received for me. (Romania sells its citizens for money, because of the economic crisis that communism has brought to our country.) They told me, "Go to the West and preach Christ as much as you like, but don't touch us! Don't speak a word against us!
We tell you frankly what we plan for you if you do tell what happened. First of all, for $1,000 we can find a gangster to kill you, or we can kidnap you." (I have been in the same cell with an Orthodox bishop, Vasile Leul, who had been kidnapped in Austria and brought to Romania. All of his fingernails were torn out. I have been with others from Berlin. Romanians have even been kidnapped from Italy and Paris.)
They told me further, "We can also destroy you morally by spreading a story about you with a
girl, theft, or some sin of your youth. The Westerners-especially Americans-are very easily
deceived."
Having threatened me, they allowed me to come to the West. They had great confidence in the brainwashing through which I passed. In the West, there are now many who have passed through the same things as I, but who are silent. Some of them have even praised communism after having been tortured by the Communists. The Communists were very sure that I, too, would be silent.
So in December 1965, my family and I were allowed to leave Romania.
My last deed before leaving was to go to the grave of the colonel who had given the order for my arrest and who had ordered my years of torture. I placed a flower on his grave. By doing this I dedicated myself to bringing the joys of Christ that I have to the Communists who are so empty spiritually.
I hate the Communist system but I love the men. I hate the sin but I love the sinner. I love the
Communists with all of my heart. Communists can kill Christians but they cannot kill their love
toward even those who killed them. I have not the slightest bitterness or resentment against the Communists or my torturers.
pp.27

A man really believes not what he recites in his creed, but only the things he is ready to die for.
pp32

I was in prison with Lucretiu Patrascanu, the man who brought communism to power in
Romania. His comrades rewarded him by putting him in jail. Though he was sane, they put him in a mental hospital with madmen, until he became mad, too. They did the same to Anna Pauker, their former Secretary of State. Christians are often given a similar type of treatment. They receive electric shocks and are put in straitjackets.
pp.33

In our darkest hours of torture, the Son of Man came to us, making the
prison walls shine like diamonds and filling the cells with light. Somewhere, far away, were the
torturers below us in the sphere of the body. But the spirit rejoiced in the Lord. We would not
have given up this joy for that of kingly palaces.
pp.37

But, from the very day of my release, I was faced with aspects of communism more ugly than all the tortures of my imprisonment had been. One after the other I met great preachers and pastors of the different churches, and even bishops, who simply confessed with great sorrow that they were informers for the secret police against their own flocks. I asked them if they were prepared to give up being informers, even at the risk of being imprisoned themselves. All answered "no," and explained that it was not fear for their own persons that restrained them. They told me of new developments in the churches, things that did not exist before my arrest - that to refuse to be an informer could mean the closing of a church.
In every town there was a government representative for the control of "cults," a man of the
secret Communist police. He had the right to call any priest or pastor whenever he liked and to
ask him who had been in church, who took frequent Communion, who was zealous in religion,
who was a soul-winner, what people confessed, and so on. If you did not answer, you were
dismissed and another "minister" was put in your place who would say more than you did.
Where the government representative had no such replacement (which almost never happened), he simply closed the church. This happens today in China.
pp.38

Most ministers gave information to the secret police. Some did it reluctantly, trying to hide
certain things, whereas others got into the habit and their consciences were hardened. Still others had acquired a passion for it and said more than was demanded of them.
I heard confessions from children of Christian martyrs who had been obliged to give information about the families in which they had been received with kindness. Otherwise, they were threatened with not being able to continue their studies.
pp.38

Lenin wrote: "Every religious idea, every idea of God - even flirting with the idea of God-is
unutterable vileness of the most dangerous kind, contagion of the most abominable kind.
Millions of sins, filthy deeds, acts of violence, and physical contagion are far less dangerous than the subtle, spiritual idea of a God."
pp.38


The Communist Parties of the Soviet Union were Leninist. To them religion was worse than
cancer, tuberculosis, or syphilis. They decided who should be the religious leaders. The leaders of the official church cooperated, compromising more or less with them.
pp.38

Workers spoke to me about the terror in the factories and about an exploitation of work-power
such as the capitalists had never dreamed of. The workers had no right to strike.
Intellectuals had to teach, against their inner convictions, that there is no God.
The whole life and thought of one-third of the world at that time was destroyed or falsified, as is still being done in restricted nations today. Young girls came to complain that they had been called to the Communist Youth Organization and were reproved and threatened because they kissed a boy who was a Christian; and the name of another was given to them whom they might kiss! Everything was desperately false and ugly.
pp.39

I have decided to denounce communism, though I love the Communists. I don't find it to be right to preach the gospel without denouncing communism.
Some tell me "Preach the pure gospel!" This reminds me that the Communist secret police also told me to preach Christ, but not to mention communism. Is it really so, that those who are for what is called "a pure gospel" are inspired by the same spirit as those of the Communist secret police?
pp.40/41

I suffer in the West more than I suffered in a Communist jail because now I see with my own
eyes Western civilization dying.
Oswald Spengler wrote in Decline of the West:
“You are dying. I see in you all the characteristic stigma of decay. I can prove that your great
wealth and your great poverty, your capitalism and your socialism, your wars and your
revolutions, your atheism and your pessimism and your cynicism, your immorality, your broken-down marriages, your birth-control, that is bleeding you from the bottom and killing you off at the top in your brains-can prove to you that there are characteristic marks of the dying ages of ancient states-Alexandria and Greece and neurotic Rome.”
This was written in 1926. Since then, democracy and civilization have died already in half of
Europe and even as far as Cuba. Much of the West sleeps.
pp.42

But there is one force that does not sleep. Whereas in the East, Communists are disappointed and have lost their illusions, in the West a "humanistic communism" has remained virulent. The Western humanists/Communists simply do not believe all the bad reports about the cruelties, the misery, and the persecution in Communist countries. They spread their faith with tireless zeal everywhere, in the lounges of the upper classes, in the clubs of intellectuals, in colleges, in the slums, and in the churches. We Christians are often half-heartedly on the side of the whole truth. They are wholeheartedly on the side of the lie.
pp.42

In June 1966, the Soviet newspapers Izvestia and Dervenskais Jizn accused the Russian Baptists of teaching their members to kill children to atone for sins. It is the old accusation of ritual murder that used to be raised against the Jews.
But I know what this means. I was in a prison in Cluj in 1959 with a prisoner, Lazarovici,
accused of having killed a girl. He was only thirty years old, but his hair had turned white
overnight under the tortures. He looked like an old man. His fingernails had been torn out to
make him confess to the crime, which he had not committed. After a year of torture, his
innocence was established and he was released, but freedom meant nothing to him any longer. He was a broken man forever.
pp.43

I have led this fight although it was very dangerous for me personally. They kidnapped me from the street in 1948 and put me in jail under a false name. Anna Pauker, our Secretary of State at that time, said to the Swedish ambassador, Sir Patrick von Reuterswaerde, "Oh, Wurmbrand is now taking walks on the streets of Copenhagen." The Swedish minister had in his pocket my letter that I had succeeded in smuggling out of prison; he knew that he had been told a lie. Such a thing can happen again. If I am killed, the killer will have been appointed
by the Communists. No one else has any motive to kill me. If you hear rumors about my moral depravity, theft,homosexuality, adultery, political unreliableness, lying, or anything else, it will be the fulfilling of the threat of the secret police: "We will destroy you morally."
pp.44

I met with a Christian who had suffered under the Nazis. He told me that he is entirely on my
side as long as I witness for Christ, but I should not say one word against communism. I asked
him if Christians who fought against Nazism in Germany were wrong and if they should have
been confined to speaking only from the Bible, without saying a word against the tyrant Hitler.
The reply was, "But Hitler killed six million Jews! One had to speak against him."
I replied,"Communism has killed thirty million Russians and millions of Chinese and others. And they have killed Jews, too. Must we protest only when Jews are killed, and not when Russians or Chinese are killed?" The answer was, "This is quite another thing." I received no explanation..The police beat me both during Hitler's reign and during Communist times, and I could not see any difference. Both were very painful.
pp.46

May I say it again! The highest goal of man is to become Christ-like. To prevent this is the main aim of Communists. They are primarily anti-religious. They believe that after death man
becomes salt and minerals, nothing else. They desire the whole life to be lived on the level of
matter.
They know only the masses. Their word is that of the demon in the New Testament when asked what his name was: "We are legion." Individual personality-one of the great gifts of God to mankind-must be crushed. They imprisoned a man because they found him with a book by
Alfred Adler, Individual Psychology. The officers of the secret police shouted, "Ah, individual - always individual! Why not collective?"
pp.46

In their magazine Nauka i Religia (Science and Religion), they have written, "Religion is incompatible with communism. It is hostile to it...The content of the program of the Communist Party is a death blow to religion...It is a program for the creation of an atheistic society in which people will be rid forever of the religious bondage."
Can Christianity coexist with communism? Here the Communists answer this question: "The
Communist Party is a death blow to religion!"
pp.46

We are weak little Davids. But we are stronger than the Goliath of atheism, because God is on
our side. The truth belongs to us.
pp.51

On one occasion a Communist was giving a lecture on atheism. All factory workers were
required to attend; among these workers were many Christians. They sat quietly hearing all the arguments against God and about the stupidity of believing in Christ. The lecturer attempted to prove that there is no spiritual world, no God, no Christ, no hereafter; man is only matter with no soul. He said over and over that only matter exists.
And then there’s the issue of brutality. Men were not created as brutes and cannot bear to be
brutes for long. We have seen it in the collapse of Nazis.
pp.52

In Bucharest, during the Russian occupation (1947-1989), I once felt an irresistible impulse to
enter a tavern. I called my wife to go with me. Upon entering, we saw a Russian captain with a
gun in his hand threatening everyone and asking for more to drink. He had been refused because he was already very drunk. People were in a panic. I went to the owner-who knew me-and asked him to give liquor to the captain, promising that I would sit with him and see that
he kept quiet.

One bottle of wine after another was given to us. On the table were three glasses. The captain
always politely filled all three...and drank all three. My wife and I did not drink. Although he
was very drunk, his mind was working. He was used to alcohol. I spoke to him about Christ and he listened with unexpected attention.

When I finished, he said, "Now that you have told me who you are, I will tell you who I am. I am an Orthodox priest who was among the first to deny my faith when the great persecution under Stalin began. I went from village to village to give lectures saying that there is no God and that as a priest I had been a deceiver. ‘I am a deceiver and so are all the other ministers,' I told them. I was very much appreciated for my zeal, so I became an officer of the secret police. My punishment from God was that with this hand I had to kill Christians, after having tortured them.
And now I drink and drink to forget what I have done. But it does not work."

Many Communists commit suicide. So did their greatest poets, Essenin and Maiakovski. So did their great writer Fadeev. He had just finished his novel called Happiness in which he had
explained that happiness consists in working tirelessly for communism. He was so happy about it that he shot himself after having finished the novel. It was too difficult for his soul to bear such a great lie. Joffe, Tomkin - great Communist leaders and fighters for communism in Czarist times likewise could not bear to see how communism looks in reality. They also ended in suicide.
Communists are unhappy. So are even their great dictators. How unhappy Stalin was! After
having killed nearly all of his old comrades, he was constantly in fear of being poisoned or killed himself. He had eight bedrooms that could be locked up like safes in a bank. No one ever knew in which of these bedrooms he slept on any given night. He never ate unless the cook tasted the food in his presence. Communism makes no one happy, not even its dictators.
They need Christ.
pp.53

A minister who disguises himself under the name of "George" tells in his book about God's
Underground the following incident: A Russian Army captain came to a minister in Hungary and asked to see him alone. The young captain was very brash, and very conscious of his role as a conqueror. When he had been led to a small conference room and the door was closed, he nodded toward the cross that hung on the wall.

"You know that thing is a lie," he said to the minister. "It's just a piece of trickery you ministers
use to delude the poor people to make it easier for the rich to keep them ignorant. Come now, we are alone. Admit to me that you never really believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God!"
The minister smiled. "But, my poor young man, of course I believe it. It is true."
"I won't have you play these tricks on me!" cried the captain. "This is serious. Don't laugh at
me!" He drew out his revolver and held it close to the body of the minister.
"Unless you admit to me that it is a lie, I'll fire!"
"I cannot admit that, for it is not true. Our Lord is really and truly the Son of God," said the
minister. The captain flung his revolver on the floor and embraced the man of God. Tears sprang to his eyes.

"It is true!" he cried. "It is true. I believe so, too, but I could not be sure men would die for this
belief until I found it out for myself. Oh, thank you! You have strengthened my faith. Now I too
can die for Christ. You have shown me how."
pp.54

I have known other such cases. When the Russians occupied Romania, two armed Russian
soldiers entered a church with their guns in their hands. They said, "We don't believe in your
faith. Those who do not abandon it immediately will be shot at once! Those who abandon your
faith move to the right!" Some moved to the right, who were then ordered to leave the church
and go home. They fled for their lives. When the Russians were alone with the remaining
Christians, they embraced them and confessed, "We, too, are Christians, but we wished to have fellowship only with those who consider the truth worth dying for."
Such men fought for the gospel and still fight today in the Communist nations of Southeast Asia. And they fight not only for the gospel. They are also the fighters for liberty.
pp.54

The Red Star (the Russian Army newspaper) attacked the Russian Christians, saying, "The
worshippers of Christ like to get their greedy claws on everyone." But their shining Christian
lives won the love and respect of their fellow villagers and neighbors. In any village or town, the Christians were the most liked, beloved residents. When a mother was too ill to care for her children, it was the Christian mother who came over and looked after them. When a man was too ill to cut his firewood, it was the Christian man who did it for him. They lived their Christianity, and when they began to witness for Christ the people listened and believed-because they had seen Christ in their lives. Since no one but a licensed minister can speak in an official church, the millions of fervent, dedicated Christians in every corner of the Communist world win souls,witness, and minister in marketplaces, at the village water pump-everywhere they go.
Communist newspapers admitted that Christian butchers slipped gospel tracts in the wrapping
paper of the meat they sold. The Communist press admitted that Christians working in places of authority in Communist printing houses slipped back in late at night, started up their presses, and ran off a few thousand pieces of Christian literature-and locked up again before the sun arose.
The Communist press also admitted that Christian children in Moscow received Gospels from
"some sources" and then copied portions by hand. The children then placed the portions in the
pockets of their teachers' overcoats that hung in school closets. The vast body of laymen and
laywomen is a very powerful, effective, soul-winning missionary force already in every
Communist land.
pp.56

　
Uchitelskaia Gazeta
(The Teacher's Magazine) of August 23, 1966, states that a demonstration
was organized in the streets of Rostov-on-Don by Baptists who refused to register their
congregation and to obey their so-called "leaders" appointed by the Communists.
This occurred on the first of May. As Jesus performed miracles on the Sabbath days to defy his Pharisaic opponents, the Underground Church sometimes chose Communist celebration days for defying the Communist laws. The first of May is a feast on which the Communists always have their great demonstrations, which everyone is compelled to attend. But on this day, the second big force in Russia-the Underground Church-also appeared on the streets.
Fifteen hundred believers came. What compelled them was the love of God. They knew that they risked their liberty, and that in prison starvation and torture awaited them.
Every believer in Russia knew the "Secret Manifesto" printed by the Evangelical Christians in
Barnaul, which describes how sister Hmara, of the village of Kulunda, received the news that her husband had died in prison. She was left a widow with four small children. When she received the corpse of her husband, she could see the prints of manacles on his hands. The hands, fingers, and the bottom of his feet were horribly burned. The lower part of his stomach had knife marks on it. The right foot was swollen. On both feet were signs of beating. The whole body was full of wounds from horrible torture.
Every believer who attended the public demonstration in Rostov-on-Don knew this could be his fate, too. Still they came.
pp.59
But they also knew that this martyr, who had given his life for God only three months after his
conversion, was buried before a great crowd of believers who had placards with these
inscriptions:
"For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Phi_1:21).
"Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Mat_10:28).
"I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the Word of God" (Rev_6:9).
pp.59

The example of this martyr inspired those in Rostov-on-Don. They crowded around a little
house. People were everywhere-some on nearby roofs, others in the trees, like Zacchaeus. Eighty people were converted, mostly young people. Out of this number, twenty-three were former Komsomols (members of the Communist Youth Organization)!

The Christians crossed the entire city walking toward the river Don, where the new believers
were baptized. Automobiles loaded with Communist police soon arrived. The police surrounded the believers on the bank of the river, wanting to arrest the brethren in charge. (They couldn't arrest all fifteen hundred!) The believers immediately fell to their knees and, in a fervent prayer, asked God to defend His people and permit them to have their service for that day. Then the brothers and sisters-standing shoulder to shoulder-surrounded the brethren leading the service, hoping to prevent the police from arresting them. The situation became very tense.
"For to you it has been granted on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in Him, but also to suffer for His sake" (Phi_1:29). They exhorted the brethren "that no
one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this" (1Th_3:3). They also quoted Heb_12:2 and called the believers to look "unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame."
pp.62

　
A newspaper from Celiabinsk, Russia, described how a Young Communist Organization girl,
Nina, became a Christian by entering a secret Christian gathering:
Sovietskaia Justitia

No. 9 of 1966 describes such an underground meeting. "It is held at midnight. Hidden, wary even of their own shadow, men came from different parts. The brethren filled the dark room, which has a very low ceiling. They were so many that there was no place to
kneel. Because of the lack of air, the light in the primitive gas-lamp went out. Sweat ran from the faces of those present. On the street, one of the servants of the Lord was watching for
policemen." Nina said that in such an assembly she was received with embraces, warmth, and
care. "They had, as I have now, a great and enlightening faith-a faith in God. He takes us under His protection. Let the Komsomols who know me pass near me without greeting me! Let
them look at me with despite and call me, as if slapping me, ‘Baptist!' Let them do so! I don't need them."
pp.64

Pravda of February 21, 1968, reported that thousands of women and girls were discovered
wearing belts and ribbons on which Bible verses and prayers were printed. The authorities
researched and found that the person who had launched this new fashion, which I could
recommend also to the West, was none other than a Christian member of the Communist police, Brother Stasiuk of Liubertz. The newspaper announced his arrest.
The answers Christians of the Underground Church give, when brought before Communist
courts, are divinely inspired. One judge demanded, "Why did you attract people to your
forbidden sect?" A Christian sister answered, "Our aim is to win the whole world for Christ."
pp.65

"Your religion is anti-scientific," the judge taunted at another trial, to which the accused girl - a
student - answered, "Do you know more science than Einstein? Than Newton? They were
believers. Our universe bears Einstein's name. I have learned in high school that its name is the Einsteinian universe. Einstein writes: ‘If we cleanse the Judaism of the prophets, and Christianity as Jesus has taught it, from what came afterwards, especially from priestcraft, we have a religion which can save the world from all social evils. It is the holy duty of every man to
do his utmost to bring this religion to triumph.'

And remember our great physiologist Pavlov! Do not our books say that he was a Christian? Even Marx, in his preface to Das Kapital, said that ‘Christianity, especially in its Protestant form, is the ideal religion for remaking characters destroyed by sin.'
I had a character destroyed by sin. Marx has taught me to become a Christian in order to remake it. How can you, Marxists, judge me for this?"
It is easy to understand why the judge remained speechless.
pp.65

The life, the self-sacrifice, the blood that believers are ready to shed for their faith, is the greatest argument for Christianity presented by the Underground Church. It forms what the renowned missionary in Africa, Albert Schweitzer, called "the sacred fellowship of those who have the mark of pain" - the fellowship to which Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, belonged. The Underground Church is united by a bond of love toward its Savior. The same bond unites the members of the church with each other. No one in the world can defeat them.
pp.65

The worst suffering imposed upon them was that, if it was discovered that they taught their
children about Christ, their children were taken away from them for life - with no visitation rights.
During the Communist era, the Soviet Union signed the United Nations declaration "against
discrimination in the sphere of education," which stipulated: "Parents must have the right to
assure the religious and moral education of the children according to their own convictions." In
one article, traitor Karev, who was the leader of the official Baptist Union of the Soviet Union,
assured that this right was a reality in Russia-and fools believed him! Now, listen to what the
Soviet press said:

In its June 4, 1963, issue, Sowjetskaia Russia recounted how a Baptist woman named
Makrinkowa had her six children taken away from her, because she shared with them the Christian faith and forbade them to wear the Pioneer necktie.
When she heard the sentence, she said only, "I suffer for the faith." She had to pay for the
boarding of her children who were taken away from her, so they could be poisoned with atheism. Christian mothers, think of her agony!
pp.67

Western Christians can help us by praying for the persecutors that they may be saved. Such a
prayer may seem naive. We prayed for the Communists and they tortured us the next day even worse than before the prayer. But the prayer of the Lord in Jerusalem was also "naive." They crucified Him after this prayer. But only a few days later, they beat their breasts and five
thousand were converted in one day.
For the others, too, the prayer was not lost. Any prayer that is not accepted by the one for whom you intercede returns to you with great blessings. Fulfilling the word of Christ, many other Christians and I always prayed for Hitler and his men. And I am sure that our prayer helped to defeat him as much as the bullets of the allied soldiers.
We must love our neighbors as ourselves. Communists and other persecutors are our neighbors as much as anyone else.
pp.73

Pastor Richard Wurmbrand was not the first Christian leader to escape the cruel treatment of
Romania's Communist government; others had preceded him. Yet much of the Western world
remained ignorant of the sufferings endured by those of the Underground Church. Why had no one else spoken out?
This answer became apparent to Pastor Wurmbrand on his departure from Romania when the
officers of the secret police warned him to never speak against the Communists. They had their agents in the West and made it clear to Wurmbrand that they would be watching him. And why should he speak out? Had he not suffered enough?
But Wurmbrand did speak. Despite the Communist threats and the criticism of some Western
church leaders, he bore witness to the sufferings of those who endured a Communist hell and
spoke of their overcoming faith.
Within his first year in the United States, Pastor Wurmbrand was detained twice for "disrupting"
pro-Communist rallies. He was called to testify before the Senate, stripping to the waist to reveal the scars of eighteen embedded wounds from the frequent tortures. Some Christian leaders called him a lunatic - one who had lost his mind in the confines of a solitary prison cell. To others he became the "Iron Curtain Paul" or the "Voice of the Underground Church." A reporter with the Philadelphia Herald said of Wurmbrand, "He stood in the midst of lions, but they could not devour him."
In October 1967, with $100, an old typewriter, and 500 names and addresses, Richard
Wurmbrand published the first issue of The Voice of the Martyrs newsletter. This small
publication was dedicated to communicating the testimonies and trials facing our brothers and
sisters in restricted nations worldwide.
This newsletter was like no other. Readers would write to the Wurmbrands appalled at the
atrocities he described. "How could this be true?" they asked. Others said the newsletter gave
them nightmares and asked not to receive it. But those who looked beyond the sufferings and
tortures saw a beauty-a beauty in the hearts of men, women, and even children who refused to renounce Christ. Readers also witnessed a living faith that enabled men like Pastor Wurmbrand to "kiss the bars" of their prison cell, to rejoice in the fellowship of Christ's suffering.
In the Western world, persecution of Christians is often deemed a "human rights" issue, with an emphasis on the government to guarantee religious freedom and the protection it awards. While this may be true in part, we need to look beyond human reasoning and into the heavenlies.
Jesus said, "‘A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you" (Joh_15:20).
He also warned us that "in the world you will have tribulation" (Joh_16:33),
and "you will be hated by all for My name's sake" (Mat_10:22).
"Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven" (Mat_5:12).
Although we are called to take every opportunity to help those in need, we are to recognize that the "rite" of Christians is to be persecuted. Eleven of the twelve disciples were murdered. Jesus never said it would be any different for us. It is part of who we are in Christ. Not all of us are called to suffer persecution, as Pastor Wurmbrand did. But when trials do come, we should not be surprised but rather should rejoice that we have been considered worthy to suffer for Christ. For He has also stated, "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Mat_5:10).
Paul explains the relationship among members of the Body of Christ in 1Co_12:25-26 : "that
there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care one for another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it."
The writer of Hebrews adds, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body" (Heb_13:3, KJV).
This verse has been the theme of The Voice of the Martyrs since 1967.
It becomes clear as we study the New Testament that persecution is not, nor ever will be, foreign to the Church on this earth. Therefore, we have an obligation as members of that Body to "encourage one another and build each other up" (1Th_5:11, NIV) until Christ returns. To do otherwise would be to reject our Christian responsibility and the teachings of Jesus.
To this cause, The Voice of the Martyrs presses on, serving in nearly 40 countries around the
world where our brothers and sisters are systematically persecuted. In Vietnam, Laos, and China, Christians are beaten, killed, or imprisoned. Their churches are destroyed and their Bibles burned. Under Islam in the last decades, an average of 400 Christians are martyred each day.
Millions have perished in Sudan where radical Islamic forces have crucified thousands of
Christian men or drowned them in the Nile River. Others have been imprisoned awaiting
execution by hanging. Sudanese women are raped while their children are ripped from their
homes to be sold as concubines or slaves to Muslims in the North. And to this tragedy the
Sudanese Christians state, "Even though our homes are burned and our churches are destroyed, we are persuaded now more than ever to preach Christ to people."
It is difficult to comprehend that joy and freedom can coexist with some of the worst sufferings
known to man, to reconcile how suffering can be granted to us as a "gift" on behalf of Christ
(Phi_1:29). But there is little place for human understanding in the spiritual man destined to live eternally with Christ.
The Voice of the Martyrs newsletter continues to inform, and lead to action, Christians
throughout the free world of the plight of those who suffer for their faith in Jesus Christ. Through our network of offices around the world, the newsletter currently is published in over 30 languages and distributed to over 250,000 concerned believers every month.
The ministry has also developed five main goals in serving today's persecuted church:
1. To provide Christians with Bibles, literature, and radio broadcasts in their own language in
restricted nations where Christians are persecuted.
2. To give relief to the families of Christian martyrs in these areas of the world.
3. To undertake projects of encouragement to help believers rebuild their lives and witness in
countries that have suffered Communist oppression.
4. To win to Christ those who are opposed to the gospel.
5. To inform the world about atrocities committed against Christians and about the courage and faith of the persecuted.
We invite you to take part in this ministry-to "remember them that are in bonds, as bound with
them" (Heb_13:3, KJV). Find encouragement in their overcoming faith, and take the opportunity to be an encouragement to those who suffer for their faith in Christ.
If you would like to learn more about today's persecuted church or receive a free subscription to
The Voice of the Martyrs
monthly newsletter, please contact us:
The Voice of the Martyrs
P.O. Box 443
Bartlesville, OK 74005
(800) 747-0085
Visit our website: http://sitebuilder.myregisteredsite.com/sitebuilder/www.persecution.com