Ministry to Hurting Persons


People have suffered under authoritarian rule for centuries but they have survived. Until now dictators have generally ruled people’s daily lives but allowed them to develop their souls as they pleased. The Bolsheviks have changed all that. Now we must give ourselves body and soul to the state. Alexander Solzhenitysn paraphrase From Under the Rubble, Regnery Press, 1981

I have been actively supporting people in Russia and the CIS since the early 90’s. During that time I have seen the nation and all its people go through a horrendous time of pain and distress. As you read the reports below you will be shocked by the carnage and suffering mainly because the USSR destroyed almost everything leading to freedom, democracy and hard work.

Soviet Persecutions of the Church

Spiritual, vitality is necessary for any nation to thrive. The Bolsheviks did everything possible to destroy faith in God and the health of the churches. Some estimate that they killed over 90,000 Russian Orthodox priests and destroyed over 12,000 of their churches during the 70-year reign of terror. This includes only the Orthodox so we know that an equal percentage of Pentecostal and Baptist believers were also eliminated along with their meeting places.

One of the most brutal practices they used to stamp out Christianity was to take believers’ children from them. Christians were seen as defective parents who were dangerous to the kids so they were placed into orphanages or foster homes. A close friend and leader of the movement to treat Christian addicts were in such a home. The long-term effects of being ripped from their parents and siblings still reverberate throughout the adult children in the form of depression, addictions, abuse and illness.

These are very common problems among those who stayed true to God despite Communist persecution. Many of the current leaders are survivors from those homes and churches and are deeply wounded adults with immature parenting and leadership styles. The articles below outline many of the mental, emotional, spiritual and physical outcomes of the satanic attack on the Russian people in general and Christians as a specially hated group.

Pray for the leaders of Russia and the people who love God.