12.12.2012 TORTURED FOR CHRIST by RICHARD WURMBRAND

this book was published in 1967 a short while after richard wurmbrand and his family were brought to the united states. from romania.  i would like to type the whole 100+ pages...probably will not get much. this first is his personal testimony.

i was orphaned from the first years of life.
being brought up in a family in which no religion was recognized,
i received no religious education as a child.
as the result of a bitter childhood,
which included knowing poverty in the difficult years of world war I,
at age 14 i was as convinced an atheist as the communists are today.
i had read atheistic books,
and it was not just that i did not believe in God of Christ-
i hated these notions, considering them harmful for the human mind.
so i grew up in bitterness toward religion.

but as i understood afterward,
i had the grace to be one of the chosen of God for reasons that i don't understand.
these reasons had nothing to do with my character,
because my character was very bad.

although i was an atheist,
something unreasonable always attracted me to churches.
i found it difficult to pass a church without entering it.
however, i never understood what was happening in these churches.
i listened to the sermons,
but they didn't appeal to my heart.
i had an image of God
as a master whom i should have to obey.
i hated this wrong image of god that i had in my mind,
but i would have liked very much to know that a loving heart existed
somewhere in the center of this universe.
since i had known few of the joys of childhood and youth,
i longed that there should be a loving heart beating for me too.

i convinced myself that there was no god,
but i was sad that such a God of love did not exist.
once, in my inner spiritual conflict,
i entered a catholic church.
i saw people kneeling and saying something.
i thought,
i will kneel near them so i can hear what they say
and repeat the prayers to see if something happens.
they said a prayer to the holy virgin,
'hail mary, full of grace.
i repeated the words after them again and again;
i looked at the statue of the virgin mary,
but nothing happened.
i was very sad about it.


one day, being a very convinced atheist,
i prayed to god.
my prayer was something like this:
'God, i know surely that You do not exist.
but if perchance You exist, which i contest,
it is not my duty to believe in You;
it is Your duty to reveal Yourself to me.
i was an atheist, but atheism did not give peace to my heart.

during this time of inner turmoil,
an old carpenter in a village high up in the mountains of romania prayed like this;
'my God, i have served You  on earth
and i wish to have my reward on earth as well as in heaven.
and my reward should be that i should not die before i bring a jew to Christ,
because Jesus was from the jewish people.
but i am poor, old, and sick.
i cannot go around and seek a jew.
in my village theree are none.
bring a few into my village
and i will do my best to bring him to Christ.

something irresistible drew me to that village.
i had no reason to go there.
romania has twelve thousand villages,
but i went to that one.
seeing i was a jew, the carpenter courted me
as never a beautiful girl had been courted.
he saw in me the answer to his prayer and gave me a bible to read.
i had read the bible out of cultural interest many times before.
but the bible he gave me was another kind of bible.
as he told me some time later,
he and his wife prayed together for hours
for my conversion and that of my wife.
the bible he gave me was written not so much in words,
but in flames of love fired by his prayers.
i could barely read it.
i could only weep over it,
comparing my bad life with the life of Jesus;
my impurity with His righteousness;
my hatred with His love-
and He accepted me as one of His own.

...out of remorse for being an atheist, i longed from the first day of my conversion to be able to witnesses to the russians.
..it was a dramatic, moving work.
i will never forget my first encounter with a russian prisoner, an engineer.
i asked him if he believed in God.
if he had said 'no', i would not have minded it much.
..but when i asked him this, he lifted his eyes toward me without understanding and said,
'i have no such military order to believe. if i have an order i will believe.

tears ran down my cheeks.
i felt my heart torn in pieces.
here stood before me a man whose mind was dead,
 a man who had lost a great gift God has given to mankind
-his individuality.
...this was a typical russian after all these years of communist domination!
after the shock of seeing what communism had done to human beings,
i promised God that i would dedicate my life to these men,
to give them back their personalities
and to give them faith in God and Christ.

....once the communists came to power, they skillfully used the means of
seduction toward the church.
the language of love
and the language of seduction are the same.
the one who wishes for a wife
and the one who wishes her for only a night
both say the words,k
'I love you.
Jesus has told us to discern between
the language of seduction and the language of love,
and to know the wolves clad in sheepskin
from the real sheep.
unfortunately, when the communists came to power,
thousands of priests, pastors and ministers
did not know how to discern between the two voices.

the communists convened a congress of
all christian bodies in our parliament building.
there were 4000 priests, pastors and ministers of all denominations-
and these men of god chose joseph stalin as honorary president of this congress.
at the same time he was president of the
 World Movement of the Godless
and a mass murderer of christians.
one after another,
bishops and pastors arose and declared
that communism and christianity are
fundamentally the same and could coexist.
one minister after another said words of praise toward communism
and assured the new government of the loyalty of the church.

my wife and i were present at this congress.
sabina told me,
'Richard, stand up and wash away this shame from the face of Christ!
they are spitting in His face.
i said to her,
'if i do so, you lose your husband.
she replied,
'i don't wish to have a coward as a husband.


then i arose and spoke to this congress,
praising not the murderers of christians,
but Jesus Christ,
stating that our loyalty is due first to Him.
the speeches at this congress were broadcast
and the whole country could hear proclaimed
from the rostrum of the communist parliament
the message of Christ!
afterward i had to pay for this,
but it was worthwhile.

orthodox and protestant church leaders competed with each other
in yielding to communism.
and orthodox bishop but the hammer and sickle on his robes
and asked his priests to no longer call him
'Your Grace, but 'Comrade Bishop.
priest like patrascoiu and rosianu were more direct.
they became officers of the secret police.
rapp, deputy bishop of the lutheran church in romania,
began to teach in the theological seminary
that God had given three revelations;
one through moses,
one through Jesus,
and the third through stalin,
the last superseding the one before.

i attended the congress of the baptists in the town of resita-
a congress under the red flag,
where the anthem of the soviet union had been sung with everyone standing.
the president of the baptists praised stalin
as a great teacher of the bible
and proclaimed that stalin did nothing but fulfill
the commandments of God!

....together with others, i began an underground work.
outwardly i had a very respectable position-
pastor of the norwegian lutheran mission-
that served as a cove for my real underground work.
at the same time i represented the
world council of churches in romania.
(in romania we had not the slightest idea that this organization
would ever cooperate with the communists.
at that time in our country
it did nothing but relief work.)...

there were two aspects of this underground work.
the first was our secret ministry among russian soldiers.
the second aspect was our underground work with the enslaved peoples of romania.

for me to preach the gospel to the russians
is heaven on earth.
i have preached the gospel to men of many nations,
but i have never seen a people drink in the gospel like the russians .
they have such thirsty souls.
and orthodox priest,
a friend of mine,
telephoned me
and told me that a russian officer had come to him to confess.
my friend did not know russian...

i read (the man) the sermon on the mount and the parables of Jesus.
after hearing them,
he danced around the room in rapturous joy
proclaiming, 'what a wonderful beauty!
how could i live without knowing this Christ!
it was the first time that i saw someone
so joyful in Christ.

then i made a mistake.
i read to him the passion and crucifixion of Christ,
without having prepared him for this.
he had not expected it and,
when he heard how Christ was beaten,
how He was crucified and that in the end He died,
he fell into an armchair
and began to weep bitterly.
he had believed in a savior
and now his savior was dead!

i looked at him
and was ashamed.
i had called myself
a christian, a pastor and a teacher of others,
 but i had never shared the sufferings of Christ
as this russian officer now shared them.
looking at him,
it was like seeing mary magdalene
weeping at the foot of the cross,
faithfully weeping when Jesus was a
corpse in the tomb.

then i read to him the story of the resurrection
and watched his expression change.
he had not known that his savior
arose from the tomb.
when he hear this wonderful news,
he beat his knees and swore-
using very dirty,
but very 'holy' profanity.
this was his crude manner of speech.
again he rejoiced,
shouting for joy,
'He is alive! He is alive!
he danced around the room once more,
overwhelmed with happiness!

i said to him,
'let us pray!
he did not know how to pray.
he did not know our 'holy'phrases.
he fell on his knees together with me
and his words of prayer were:
'Oh God,
what a fine chap you are!
if I were You
and You were me,
i would never have forgiven You of Your sins.
but You are really a very nice chap!
i love You with all of my heart.....

we worked among the russians not only by individual witnessing.
we were able to work in small group meetings as well.

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 arem,
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.

the first time i ;preached in a russian barrack
was on the day of st. paul and st. peter, an orthodox feast.
i went onto the military base pretending to buy a watch.
i pretended that one was too expensive,
another was too small,
and another too big.
several soldiers crowded around me,
each offering me something to buy.
jokingly i asked them,
'are any of you named paul or peter?
(some of the older russians knew it.)
so i asked,
'do you know who paul and peter were?
no one knew,
so i began to tell them about paul and peter.
one of the older russian soldiers interrupted me and said,
'you have not come to buy watches.
you have come to tell us about the faith.
sit down here with us and speak to us!
but be very careful!
we know about whom to beware.
these around me are all good men,
but when i put my hand on your knee,
you must talk only about watches.
when i remove my hand,
you may begin your message again.
quite a great crowd of men was gathered around me and i told them...

the underground church met secretly
in homes, in the woods, in basements-
wherever it could.
as is true in many captive nations today,
the underground church in romania
was only partially underground.
like an iceberg,
a small part of its work was in the open.
under the communists,
we devised a plan of street preaching,
which in time became very risky,
but by this means we reached many souls
we could not reach otherwise.
my wife was very active in this.
some christians would quietly gather on a street corner
and star to sing.
people crowded around them to hear the beautiful singing,
then my wife would deliver her message.
we left the spot before the secret police arrived.

one afternoon, while i was active elsewhere,
my wife delivered a message
before thousands of workers
at the entrance of the great MALAXA factory in the city of bucharest.
she spoke to the workers about God and salvation.
the next day,
many of the workers in this factory
were shot after rebelling against
the injustices of the communists.
they had heard the message just in time1

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.

but the underground church also has its sympathizers or members
even in the communist governments
and in the secret police.

we instructed christian to join the secret police
and put on the most hated and despised uniform in our country,
so they could report the activities of the secret police
to the underground church.
several brethren of the..church did this,
keeping their faith hidden.
it was difficult for them
to be despised by family and friends
for wearing the communist uniform
and not reveal their true mission.
yet they did,
so great was their love for Christ....

i worked in both an official and underground manner until february 29, 1948.
on that beautiful sunday, on my way to church,
i was kidnapped from the street by the secret police....

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....

..i have passed through brainwashing myself.
it is a most horrible torture.
we haqd to sit for 17 hours a day-
for weeks, months and years-
hearing
communism is good!
communism is good!
communism is good!
christianity is stupid!
christianity is stupid!
christianity is stupid!
give up!
give up!
give up!
several christians have asked me
how we could resist brainwashing.
there is only one method of resistance to brainwashing;
it is 'heart washing'.
if the heart is cleansed by the love of Jesus Christ,
and if the heart loves Him,
one can resist all tortures.
what would a loving bride not do for a loving bridegroom?
what would a loving mother not do for her child?
if you love Christ as mary did, who had Christ as a baby in her arms,
if you love Jesus as a bride loves her bridegoom,
then you can resist such tortures....

the year 1956 arrived.
i had been in prison eight and a half years.
i had lost much weight,
gained ugly scars,
been brutally beaten and kicked,
derided, starved, pressured, questioned
as nauseum,
threatened and neglected.
none of this had produced the results
my captors were seeking.
so, in discouragement-
and amid protests over my imprisonment-
they turned me loose.

i was allowed to return to my old position as pastor
for just one week.
i preached two sermons.
then they called me in and told me
that i could not preach anymore,
nor engage in any further religious activity.
what had i said?
i had counseled my parishioners to
have 'patience, patience and more patience.
'this means you are telling them to be patient
and the americans will come and deliver them,
the police shouted at me.
i had also said that the wheel turns and times change.
'you are telling them the communists will not continue to rule!
these are counterrevolutionary lies! hey screamed.
so that was the end of my public ministry.

probably the authorities believed that i would be afraid to defy them
and continue with underground witnessing.
that was where they were wrong.
secretly,
and with my family's support,
i returned to the work i had been doing before...

my second imprisonment...

it was strictly forbidden to preach to other prisoners,
as it is in captive nations today.
it was understood that whoever was caught doing this
received a severe eating.
a number of us decided to pay the price
for the privilege of preaching
and they beat us.
WE WERE HAPPY PREACHING;
THEY WERE HAPPY BEATING US-
SO EVERYONE WAS HAPPY.

the following scene happened more times than i can remember.
a brother was preaching to the other prisoners
when thee guards suddenly burst in,
surprising him halfway through a phrase.
they hauled him down the corridor to their 'beating room'.
after what seemed an endless beating,
they brought him back and threw him-
bloody and bruised-
on the prison floor.
slowly, he picked up his battered body
painfully straightened his clothing and said,
'now, brethren, where did i leave off when i was interrupted?
he continued his gospel message!

i have seen beautiful things !

sometimes the preachers were laymen,
simple men inspired by the holy spirit
who often preached beautifully.
all of their heart was in their words,
for to preach under such punitive circumstances
was no trifling matter.
then the guards would come
and take the preacher out
and beat him half to death....

a total of 14 years in prison passed for me.
during all this time i never saw a bible or any other book.
i had forgotten how to write.
because of the starvation, drugging and tortures,
i had forgotten the Holy Scriptures.
but on the day that i fulfilled 14 years,
out of oblivion came into my mind the verse;
'so jacob served 7  years for rachel,
and they seemed but a few days to him
 because of  the love he had for her genesis 29.20.
very soon after this i was released through a general amnesty given in our country,
very much under the influence of american public opinion.

i saw my wife again.
she had waited faithfully for me for 14 years.
we began our new life in poverty,
because those who are arrested have everything taken from them.

the priests and pastors who were released
were allowed to have small churches.
a church in the town of orsova was given to me.
the communist department of cults told me
it had 35 members in it
and warned that must never have 36!
i was also told that i must be their agent
and report to the secret police on every member
and keep all youth away.
this is how the communists use churches as their 'tool' of control....

because of the renewed work of the underground church, i was in very great danger of still another arrest. at this time, two christian organizations, the orwegian mission to the jews and the hebrew christian alliance, paid the communist government a ransom of $10,000 for me..i could now leave 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 a '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...

before leaving romania, i was called twice to the secret police.
they told me that the money had been received for me. ..
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 $1000 we can find a gangster to kill you,
or we can kidnap you...
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...

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 that i have
to the communists who are so empty spiritually.

i hate the communist system
but i love 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...

if i were asked,
'are you for the communists or against them?
my answer would be a complex one.
communism is one of the greatest menaces to mankind.
i am utterly opposed to it and wish to fight it until it is overthrown.
but, in the spirit,
i am seated in heavenly places with Jesus.
i am seated in the sphere of the 'no',
in which, notwithstanding all of their crimes,
the communists are understood and loved...
st macary said,
'if a man loves all men passionately,
but says only about one man that
him he cannot love,
the man who says this is no more a christian,
because his love is not all embracing.
st. augustine teaches,
'if all mankind had been righteous and only one man a sinner,
Christ would have come..He so loves every individual....

a great part of my family was murdered.
it was in my own house that their murderer was converted.
it was also the most suitable place.
so in communist prisons thee idea of a
christian mission to the communists was born.

strategic thought is needed in missionary work.
from the point of view of salvation,
all souls are equal;
from the point of view of missionary strategy,
they are not equal.
it is more important to win a man of great influence,
who can afterward win thousands,
than to speak to a savage in the jungle assuring salvation only for him.
(note: is this right?)
therefore, Jesus chose to end His ministry
not in some small village,
but in jerusalem, the spiritual headquarters of the world.
for this same reason,
paul strove so much to arrive in rome....

the early church worked secretly and illegally,
and it triumphed.
we must learn again to work in the same manner.

until the communist era, i never understood why so many persons of the new testament
are called by nicknames:
simeon who was called niger,
john called mark and so on.
we continue to use secret names in our work in captive nations....

A MAN REALLY BELIEVES NOT WHAT HE RECITES IN HIS CREED,
BUT ONLY THE THINGS HE IS READY TO DIE FOR.
the christians of the underground church have proved
that they are ready to die for their faith.
our international network of missions continues today
with a secret work in captive nations
that can mean for them
imprisonment, torture, and death
if caught in such a country...

but the worst thing communists do is not that they torture and kill the bodies of men.
they hopelessly falsify the thoughts of men and poison the youth and the children...

..many christians i the west have no love for those in captive nations..
many have no mission to captive nations,
claiming that such work is 'against the law'!...

..by their complacency,
by their neglect,
and sometimes by acting as actual accomplices,
some western church leaders strengthen the infidels in their infidelity.
they help the communists to intrude into western churches
and to win leadership in the churches of the world.
they help christians remain unaware of the danger of communism...

..they do not love their own flocks..
if they do not allow them to participate in
this spiritual battle around the world...

when i was reunited with my wife after my release from prison,
she asked me what my plans were for the future.
i answered,
'the ideal that i have before me is the life of a spiritual recluse.
my wife answered that she had had the same thought.

i had been a very dynamic type in my youth.
but prison, and especially the years of solitary confinement,
had transformed me into a meditative, contemplative man.
all the storms in the heart had been stilled.
i did not mind communism;
i did not even notice it.
i was in the embraces of the heavenly bridegoom.
i prayed for those who tormented us
and loved them with all of my heart.

i had very little hope of ever being released.
from time to time i wondered what i would do in case i were released.
i always considered that i would retire somewhere and continue the life
of sweet union in the desert with the heavenly bridegroom.

God is the Truth.
the bible is the truth about the Truth.
theology is the truth about the truth about the Truth.
christian people live in these many truths about the Truth,
and because of them, have not 'the Truth'.
hungry, beaten and drugged,
we had forgotten theology and the bible.
we had forgotten the truths about the Truth,
therefore we lived in 'the Truth'...

the desire to fight against somebody or something could not have been further from my mind.
i did not wish to fight any wars, even just wars...

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....

..peasants from all over the country came to me,
and told me how the collectivization was being conducted.
they were now hungry slaves on their own former fields and vineyards.
they had no bread.
their children had no milk, no fruit-
and this in a country with natural riches that equal those of canaan of old.

brethren confessed to me that lenin's communist regime
had made thieves and liars of them all.
out of hunger they had to steal from what was originally their own field,
but now belonged to the collective.
then they had to lie to cover their theft.

workers spoke to me about the terror in the factories
and about an exploitation of work power..

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...
everything was desperately false and ugly.

then i met the fighters of the underground church-
my comrades of long ago-
some of whom have remained uncaught
and others who have taken up the fight again
after having been released from prison.
they called on me to take up the fight with them.
i attended their secret meetings
at which they sang from hymnbooks written by hand.

i remembered st. anthony the great,
who had been in the desert for 39 years.
he had left the world altogether,
passing his whole life in fasting and prayer.
but when he heard about the fight
 between st. athanasius and arius about the divinity of Christ,
he left the contemplative life and came to alexandria
to help the tuth to triumph.
i remembered st. bernard de clairvaux,
who was a monk high up in the mountains.
but he heart about the foolishness of the cursades,
about christians killing arabs and jews
and their brethren in faith of another confession,
to win an empty tomb.
he left his monastery
and stepped down from his heights
to preach against the crusades.

i decided to do what all christians have to do:
to follow the examples of Christ, the apostle paul, and the great saints,
to give up the thought of retiring and to take up the fight.
what kind of fight would it be?   CONTINUED at II,  1.15.13