Theresa Catharina de Góes Campos

  Do not forget History!

CHRISTIAN COMMUNICATORS HAVE TO GO UNDERGROUND (1979)

In the Soviet Union, Christian Communicators

Have to go Underground – a background news story.

The Citizen
Ottawa, Ontario – August 15, 1979

Dissident ignored

The United States released two Soviet spies recently in exchange for five jailed Russian dissidents. Among these, Georgi Vins was the most ignored in the news columns which reported his name only. Not a word on the courageous Baptist preacher’s years of suffering for his faith! Serving a five-year prison sentence for his religious beliefs, the church leader’s condition had been deteriorating, according to the frequent reports from his family. Vins’s mother increasingly feared for her son’s life. His wife and children, despite undergoing persecution and suffering hardships of all kinds – including loss of jobs and harassment by the school authorities – never repudiated their faith.

Vins’s recent release and coming to the West will certainly publicize the plight of Soviet Christians meeting in unregistered (illegal) churches, which far exceed those in the relatively few registered ones. They meet in homes where legal churches are not permitted, illegally teaching their children handwritten Scriptures or Sunday school literature. They keep their faith alive and pass it on to their children, when by law they are forbidden to do so.

The former chairman of the Soviet section of Amnesty International has stated on many occasions that the fate of Soviet dissidents depends mainly on the attitude of the free world concerning the human rights question. “If the West reacts with leniency,” he says, “it would mean that the Soviet civil rights fighters who are still free will be persecuted sharply.”
Vins’s recent release from prison clearly shows to Christians everywhere that prayers must be followed by public pressure at the internacional level until the goal is achieved.

Theresa Catharina de Góes Campos
Ottawa Citizen - Ottawa, Ontario - Canada, August 1979.
 

Jornalismo com ética e solidariedade.