Thirteen Years of FILTH, Pain, and Starvation for Popov
[Neofits Bulgarian Translation of the New Testament, 1838—Wikimedia File:Neofits Translation New Testament Matthew Two.jpeg]
At 4:00 AM on this day, 24 July 1948, secret police came for Haralan Popov. In Communist Bulgaria, a visit from the secret police was always cause for foreboding. After searching his house, they propelled him toward the door. He was wanted, they said, for just a few minutes questioning. His little daughter, Rhoda, woke, sensed the lie and cried inconsolably. They were taking her daddy.
Popov was pastor of the largest Protestant church in Bulgaria’s capital, Sofia. The atheistic regime was determined to destroy the church. They arrested all god-fearing pastors and replaced them with godless men. Meanwhile the legitimate pastors were held in cells swarming with bedbugs (Haralan and a cellmate killed over 500 one night). And they were tortured until they “confessed” they were spies for western powers. Torture included sleep deprivation and being forced to stand unmoving in unnatural postures for days and nights on end.
After his conviction, Popov was sentenced to fifteen years of prison. Once at the beginning of his sentence, he was near despair and madness. A light shone around him and Christ took him in his arms promising never to forsake him. “How I love him!” said Popov. It was impossible for him to renounce such a savior. Popov would live in filthy conditions on a starvation diet for over thirteen years, telling others of Christ as he had opportunity.
Meanwhile, his wife, Ruth, was thrust out of their home. The little she earned cleaning a church and playing organ was cut off when the secret service threatened the pastor for assisting the family of an enemy of the state. When her last penny was gone and her children Paul and Rhoda were crying from hunger, Ruth fell to her knees and pleaded with the Lord. That same day a letter arrived from an elderly Christian. Enclosed was a small sum of money that met the needs of the moment. For about a year Ruth was able to hold a night cleaning job until her employers learned she was Popov’s wife and fired her. Not long afterward, Bulgaria permitted Ruth and the children to return to her family in Sweden.
Back in Bulgaria, Popov was shifted from prison to prison—sixteen in all. Except at Kolarovgrad, conditions were terrible: cold, overcrowding, starvation, torture, senseless killings, treachery, bedbugs, mosquitoes, and dangerous work conditions. When he was able to sleep, it was on bare concrete floors. Once he was confined for nine months with dozens of other prisoners in an airless pit where every breath was a desperate struggle to stay alive. Many died for lack of oxygen.
The worst prison was on an island at a place he called "Persin." There he nearly drowned in an icy flood one Christmas Eve. He had been set a task on a raft but it disintegrated under him half a mile from shore in the raging river. Exhausted, unable to keep above water, he cried out “Lord, save me.” Supernatural strength flowed through him and he was able to swim despite water-logged boots. “It was truly God’s strength, for I had none left.”
On 25 September 1961, he was freed. Miraculously he was assigned to live in Sofia, the hub of Bulgaria, the perfect location for a pastor. He had to live in a tiny, deserted attic, five stories up, accessible only by a ladder through a trap door. The roof leaked on his cot, but after conditions in prison, this cubbyhole seemed like a palace. At the insistence of an old, praying woman—Babba Maria—he began leading a Bible study. God gave him other “underground” (secret) pastoral work.
Ruth was able to see him while traveling with a tour group.
Later Babba Maria insisted God had shown her that Popov would soon be able to leave Bulgaria to rejoin his family. At the visa office, a hardened deputy declared it would be over his dead body. Babba Maria replied, “I don’t care one bit what he said.” She told Popov to pack his bags. A few weeks later the deputy was forced out of his job in a power struggle. Soon afterward, Popov was told to report for a visa to travel to Sweden.
From the West, Popov broadcasted sermons in the Bulgarian language. In 1972, he founded Evangelism to Communist Lands, which smuggled study Bibles into Eastern-bloc countries and produced documentaries. Popov was allowed to revisit Bulgaria in 1988. He was then a feeble man, eighty-one years old. He died soon after, but his ministry to persecuted churches continues, renamed Doors of Hope International.
—Dan Graves
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Similar stories of prison suffering in Eastern Europe are Tortured for Christ and Bless You Prison. For more, check RedeemTV.
Both can be purchased from Vision Video.