Popov: Tortured for His Faith

Tortured for His Faith

Haralan Popov

Published 1970

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

reread

A lie is always a lie. Neither Marxists nor Leninists 

will ever succeed in building an earthly paradise upon a lie.

Haralan Popov (1907-1988), a Bulgarian Christian pastor, was arrested in 1948 for "treason" (ie. being  Christian) by the communist state government. [Recall: following WWII, Eastern Europe fell under the authority and influence of the Soviet Union.] In prison, Popov survived thirteen years of unimaginable hard labor, starvation, isolation, separation from loved ones, and barbaric mental and physical torture. He did not see his wife and children for at least eleven years. 

This is a startling, shocking, and yet, inspiring story about perseverance through persecution; by God's grace, Haralan Popov lived to tell it. 

COMMUNISM REQUIRES BRAINLESSNESS 

So, why did the communist government arrest pastors? Because communism (like most tyrannical governments) cannot compete with religion, particularly Christianity, especially because Satan knows that  God's Word demands that we use our mind to think about why we believe. Communism cannot afford for people to think. It requires absolute empty-headedness, that one would be ripe for brainwashing. 

As Popov explained in the breaking of one's will and brainwashing, one meant imprisonment, the other  freedom...

Let me point out again the difference between breaking our will and brainwashing us. My will was broken after six months of being beaten into helplessness, until my human body reached its very limits and physically crumbled. It was temporary. 

Breaking the will led to imprisonment, starvation, and suffering.  

Brainwashing is permanently convincing someone communism is good. They could break my will, but they could never brainwash me! 

Successful brainwashing brought the false sense of freedom. 

UNDERSTANDING COMMUNISM, IN POPOV'S WORDS:

Popov saw a sign posted on [the guard house] that read * Man is something to be proud of, a Maxim Gorki quote. Popov found this ironic considering they were treated like animals. He thought about how "God's Word teaches that man is the crown of creation," and that "nothing on the face of the earth is greater than man." And yet, how odd that commies who refuse to receive Christ and do not value human life would post such a quote for all to read. 

He said,

This is the difference between communism in theory and communism in reality...four or five thousand men had been gathered inside the barbed wire enclosure. We were called enemies, because we hadn't surrendered and hadn't permitted the communists' ideals to triumph over our minds and hearts. Communism demands complete conformity and subservience. We had refused to conform and were the vilest enemy. According to the words* on the guard house, these men, at one time, had been something to be proud of. In reality the quotation is a good argument against communism. It hurt us that only we, the enemies of communism, could read them.  

WHILE IN PRISON

Popov courageously rose to the occasion and continued preaching the gospel to his fellow prisoners, and with God's help, he did move mountains. 

We have faced not men, but Satan himself. Though he has done his work well, I for one am more determined than ever that in the end God will triumph. Brethren remember, 'He that is in you is greater than he that is in the world.' they have won the battle, but with God's help we will win the war.

I remind my readers, when man is without God there is no limit to his depravity or to the depths to which he will sink. These guards descended the ladder of humanity step by step until they had no humanity or kindness left. 

Popov admitted that "men in prison are at the end of themselves." Their normal lives consist of a family  and a job, as well as material things, "which can dull a man's need for God." In prison, "all this was taken away. Men had time to think. Their values became clear in prison and many genuinely realized their need of God." Hence, Popov found great demand for a prison pastor.  

Once a Bible was found tucked away in the prison library. (How that escaped the noses of the commies, only God knows.) From it, Popov memorize 47 chapters before it was discovered and confiscated. Popov also taught Scripture while pretending to teach English to other prisoners. The guards did not know or understand English, and therefore were ignorant of these truth-sharing opportunities.

As more men wanted to hear the truth, they learned a kind of morse code and tapped it out on the prison walls to one another. This way the gospel spread and prisoners were saved. Popov praised God: "Thank you, Lord, for the new congregation you sent me."

HIS RELEASE!

Finally, after thirteen years of witnessing and experiencing savage horror, Popov was released from his prison sentence. He admitted this:

I could honestly and truthfully say that it was worth those 13 years of torture, beatings, starvation, suffering and separation from loved ones to be a pastor to the thousands of communist prisoners my path had crossed. 

Outside of prison he prayed that "he could faithfully serve God in freedom as he tried to do in prison." Since he was prevented from traveling outside of Bulgaria, much time would pass before he would be reunited with his wife, who was living in Sweden, and his grown children. 

Therefore, he made himself useful to God. His next mission was to help the local churches. He found that the commies took over the Churches and destroyed them. Uncooperative pastors were replaced with malleable types. Attendance had fallen from two and three hundred to under twenty. 

HOW TO BEAT A COMMIE

As Winston learned in 1984, you cannot overcome the communists; the best you can do is break their rules. Therefore, the underground Secret Church was formed. People started to meet in homes for faux funerals and birthday parties. Lots of birthday parties. People had multiple birthdays all year long. 

A beautiful thing began to happen in the Secret Church. As the fires of persecution grew, they burned away the chaff and stubble and left only the golden wheat. The suffering purified the Church and united the believers in a wonderful spirit of brotherly love such as must have existed in the Early Church. Petty differences were put aside. Brethren loved and cared for one another and carried one another's burdens. There were no "lukewarm" believers. It made no sense to be a halfhearted Christian when the price for faith was so great. 

And to the Commies great regret, this was the healthiest thing they could have done for the church, for the insincere gave up but the true Christian became aware of what Christ meant to them...

But there was one more obstacle. Bibles were very difficult to find. People started handwriting their own Bibles from a lone Bible, which was a lengthy and arduous project. Popov realized that someone needed to get word out to the Church and "awaken fellow Christians living in the free world," to find a way to get Bibles to the persecuted Christians. Then by God's will, Popov was granted a passport, and on New Year's Eve 1962, he made his way Stockholm to reunite with his wife. He would be the one to carry the message to the free world.

Some years later, he founded a mission, Door of Hope International, to help persecuted and imprisoned Christians all over the world. And today that mission is still doing a good work all because of the love of Christ by one man, Haralan Popov, and his wife, Ruth. 

 * * * 

First review can be read HERE.