21

Learning to Live; Learning to Die

The spirit of the Ukrainian people was such a contrast to what I had seen in Russia that I noticed the difference as soon as I deplaned in Kiev. The people working in the airport and in the hotel were openly gracious and helpful. Where the Russian people had seemed shackled to a past that they weren’t certain was gone for good, the Ukrainians that I met seemed to relish a newfound sense of freedom with high hopes for a better future. They walked with heads up and a spring in their step. They made eye contact and smiled when I passed them on the streets. The people I interviewed weren’t just willing, but rather anxious, to tell me about the impact of communism on their faith and to share their renewed hopes and dreams for the future.

One of the first Ukrainian believers I talked with was a pastor in his late fifties, a national leader in his denomination. He excitedly recounted a recent experience that epitomized the rapidly-changing spiritual climate in that part of the old Soviet Union. “Just last week,” he told me, “the leadership of the Ukrainian army invited me to pray for them in a public military ceremony. I agreed. Before I prayed, I reminded those military men that not long ago they and our other government authorities had considered me an enemy of the state. I reminded them that a few months ago they were trying to arrest me. Now they were asking me to pray for them. So I was thrilled to stand before them to pray and to thank God for the great changes that He is bringing to our country!”

The optimism and pride evidenced by the people that I met in Kiev when they talked about a newly independent Ukraine, however, hadn’t erased their memories of the devastating hardships that they had endured through long decades of communist rule. In fact, those hard memories may have inspired the optimism that was now present. Recent changes were being received with joy.

Some of the stories of faith that I heard in the Ukraine sounded similar to what I had heard in Russia. Many of these stories were both inspiring and disturbing. I don’t know whether the oppression of Ukrainian believers had been any harsher than that in Russia. But in the storytelling, the Ukrainians seemed more open about the horrific details of their suffering.

I met a Ukrainian man by the name of Kostyantyn who was willing to talk with me. He also wanted me to meet his son, Alexi, who was himself a well-known leader in their denomination. As we talked, I learned that Kostyantyn had been imprisoned for many years for his faith during the time of communist rule. His son volunteered to translate for his father in order to make it easier for the older man to share his story.

Kostyantyn was not a minister. He was, however, such an active layman in his church that the local authorities evidently decided that he and two other elders in his congregation would benefit from some re-education in a Soviet labor camp. During his incarceration, the regional authorities cracked down on many area churches and arrested over two hundred pastors who were then sent to the same camp. Quickly the rumor spread around the camp that because these pastors were considered a serious threat to the state, they were to be kept separate from the other prisoners. The labor camp guards had been instructed to administer the harshest possible treatment so that none of the pastors would survive imprisonment.

Evidently, the authorities didn’t want to execute these pastors. What they did, instead, may have been worse. The pastors were issued the most rudimentary tools (broken shovels and sharpened sticks) and assigned the task of digging a trench in the frozen ground. They would be punished each day if they did not make adequate progress.

Of course, the daily goal was impossible to achieve. When the pastors were escorted back to the barracks each night, they were stripped to their underwear, doused with ice water, fed stale crusts of bread and water for supper, and then herded back into freezing cells to sleep for the night.

There was no formal torture. There were no beatings. But, according to Kostyantyn, more than two hundred pastors died within three months because of disease and other “natural causes.” Kostyantyn knew that the pastors had been sent to the gulag and, for all practical purposes, condemned to die because they had refused to deny their faith. Their courage and conviction gave Kostyantyn the strength to survive his own personal ordeal. He determined never to forget their faithful examples.

By the time Kostyantyn was himself released from the camp, he learned that his wife had died and that his teen-aged son Alexi had been living for years with relatives. He was re-united with his son, and together they visited his wife’s grave. The next Sunday, Kostyantyn took Alexi to church with him. That was the day when Kostyantyn learned that not all ministers had made the same decisions as the brave pastors that he had seen die at the labor camp.

The new pastor of his old congregation had evidently made some concessions to the communist authorities in order to keep his job. And on Kostyantyn’s first Sunday back at church with his son, the pastor was about to make yet another compromise.

The man stood in the pulpit and looked sadly out over his people. He hesitantly, almost apologetically, announced that the government had established a new law. Starting immediately, and from that day forward, no one under the age of twenty-six would be allowed to attend a worship service in a church. His voice cracked with emotion. He said that he felt bad about the new ruling. He also said that if the people of the congregation wanted their church doors to remain open, they would be required to abide by the law. He instructed everyone under the age of twenty-six to leave the building immediately.

Knowing that someone present in the congregation that morning would be reporting to the authorities, Kostyantyn stood with his son when Alexi rose to leave. As the two of them walked out of the sanctuary together, Kostyantyn vowed never to enter that church again. He explained, “It was no longer the church that I had attended and known before. And the gospel that minister preached certainly was not the faith that I had gone to prison for!”

As Kostyantyn finished telling me his faith story, I noticed that his son was weeping. Alexi was now a middle-aged man. He knelt before his father. Kostyantyn stroked his son’s hair as if Alexi was once again a small boy. Alexi looked up at his father and declared “I am so proud of you, Father! I never knew all that you went through.”

The older man smiled sadly and said, “I didn’t think you needed to know. We didn’t know if those difficult days would return. And I didn’t want to hurt you. But I’m glad that you know now.”

Even though Alexi had never known the details of Kostyantyn’s ordeal, he had always known enough about his genealogy of faith that his father’s convictions and courage had inspired and influenced his own decision to become a follower of Jesus, to accept his own call to the ministry, and to become a spiritual leader of his people.

As Kostyantyn learned, not every pastor maintained the strength of his convictions in the face of communist opposition. According to stories I heard both in Russia and in the Ukraine, compromising church leaders were dealt with in a variety of ways. In some cases, when a pastor was imprisoned for standing by his convictions and continuing to preach the gospel, local governmental authorities appointed another, more cooperative minister to fill the pulpit and lead the congregation. However, when the new communist-appointed pastor arrived for his first Sunday morning worship service, church members (often the older women) would show their disdain by linking arms and blocking his way to the pulpit. If he was able to push through to the pulpit, the women would take their usual places in the pews and join the rest of the congregation in singing the hymns. Then, when the new pastor (whom they felt had compromised his faith to stay out of prison) stood to deliver his government-approved sermon, the same women would silently stand and turn their backs on the preacher. They would face the rear of the sanctuary until he finished the sermon and it was time to sing the closing hymn.

Throughout the former Soviet Union, many church leaders refused to compromise their faith. This conviction so impressed and inspired the congregations that believers today still remember and honor those pastors. Now, in weekly worship services throughout the old USSR, congregants typically stand to honor the office of pastor whenever their minister enters the sanctuary. Until the pastor walks up onto the platform to take his place behind the pulpit, they remain standing in respectful silence for what is clearly a moving and meaningful tribute.

As a guest speaker in some of those churches, walking in and standing alongside my Russian and Ukrainian brothers being honored in that way, I felt utterly unworthy. I felt that I should have stepped down from the platform as if my own presence there would have cheapened the moment. I felt that I was experiencing an honor that I had never earned or paid for.

There were other pastors who never really had a choice about whether or not they would live. In arresting them, the authorities essentially decided that these pastors were going to die. Their only choice, at that point, was deciding whether they would die honoring their faith and their Lord or denying His name. Today, the churches in Russia and the Ukraine remember those who stood strong. By honoring that faithfulness, believers endeavor to value the painful lessons learned under persecution.

One question came to my mind often: How did so many Russians and Ukrainians keep their faith strong over decades of communist oppression of believers? The professional researcher in me wanted to discover simple, practical, measurable, and objective answers to that question.

But I wasn’t only a professional researcher. I was also a still-grieving father. I was a wounded would-be healer. I was a failed relief worker who had so helplessly watched thousands of starving people die. My objectivity was hard to maintain. Often, in interviews, I would simply blurt out: “How did you (or your family, or your church, or your people) learn to live like this? How did you learn to die like that?”

One of the first men I said that to answered me by telling me this story:

“I remember the day like it was yesterday, Nik. My father put his arms around me and my sister and my brother and guided us into the kitchen to sit around the table where he could talk with us. My Mama was crying, so I knew that something was wrong. Papa didn’t look at her because he was talking directly to us. He said, ‘Children, you know that I am the pastor of our church. That’s what God has called me to do—to tell others about Him. I have learned that the communist authorities will come tomorrow to arrest me. They will put me in prison because they want me to stop preaching about Jesus. But I cannot stop doing that because I must obey God. I will miss you very much, but I will trust God to watch over you while I’m gone.’”

“He hugged each one of us. Then he said: ‘All around this part of the country, the authorities are rounding up followers of Jesus and demanding that they deny their faith. Sometimes, when they refuse, the authorities will line up whole families and hang them by the neck until they are dead. I don’t want that to happen to our family, so I am praying that once they put me in prison, they will leave you and your mother alone.’”

“‘However,’ and here he paused and made eye contact with us, ‘If I am in prison and I hear that my wife and my children have been hung to death rather than deny Jesus, I will be the most proud man in that prison!’”

When he finished his story, I was stunned. I had never heard that kind of thing in my church growing up. I had never encountered that in my pilgrimage. I was sure that I had never been told that a father should value his faith over his family.

Almost immediately, though, I caught myself and I thought of some biblical examples of that very thing. I guess that is part of our story, I silently concluded. But it’s a part of the story that we have kept very hidden.

This was one more thing that sounded insane to me. Is this really the way that God intends for His people to live? And am I so certain about the resurrection that I would actually be willing to live that way—and maybe even be willing to die that way?

Another time, I asked the same question of another storyteller: “How did you learn to live and die like this?” This man responded this way:

“I remember when my parents gathered our family together and my father said, ‘Children, all over this district the communist authorities are slowly starving to death believers who refuse to deny their faith. If our family has to starve for Jesus, then let us do so with joy.’”

What was I to do with a story like that? I could only imagine what that experience—what the words of that father—had meant to that family.

That “How did you learn to live and die like that?” question was not only answered by those two stories. It was also answered by many other testimonies that I heard in Russia and in the Ukraine. In fact, whether I specifically asked that question or not, it was answered in almost every story I heard.

It was even answered in the story of the old women who stood up (literally) for their convictions and turned their backs on their compromising ministers.

How did so many Russian and Ukrainian believers remain strong in their faith through almost a century of communist persecution? How did they learn to live and die like they did? Time and time again, I heard the same words: “We learned it from our mothers, our grandmothers, and our great-grandmothers. We learned it from our fathers, our grandfathers and our great-grandfathers.”

As my time in the Ukraine was drawing to a close, I recalled those final days in Russia, especially the conversation when I had been told that persecution was as normal “as the sun coming up in the east.” I wondered if my Ukrainian friends would have the same view of persecution.

I was with yet another group of believers listening to their stories of prison, persecution, and God’s provision for His people. Once again I was struck by the power of the testimonies and stories that I was hearing. As we came to the end of our time together, I asked: “I just don’t understand why you haven’t collected these stories in a book? Believers around the world ought to hear what you have been telling me here today. Your stories are amazing! These are inspiring testimonies! I have never heard anything like them!”

An older pastor reached out and took my shoulder. He clamped his other hand tightly onto my arm, and looked me right in the eye. He said, “Son, when did you stop reading your Bible? All of our stories are in the Bible. God has already written them down. Why would we bother writing books to tell our stories when God has already told His story. If you would just read the Bible, you would see that our stories are there.”

He paused and then he asked me again, “When did you stop reading your Bible?”

Without waiting for me to answer, he turned and walked away. There was no friendly smile, no encouraging pat on the back, and no kiss on the cheek.

His convicting question still echoes in my mind.