Three Generations of Suffering

A Chronicle of One Family’s Persecution in an Atheistic Society

For what are we being tried? For free faith in Christ! In fact, it is not we who are on trial, but Christ! We are merely His twentieth-century disciples, and we are saying and doing nothing new. We continue to witness to the Gospel about the salvation of man and about eternal life in Christ.

Our interrogators, procurators, and judges have not come very far from those who participated in Christ’s trial in the first century—they use the same methods: slander, falsehood, and hatred for God’s truth.

I prepare for the trial . . . By now I have pencil and paper. My first thought: we are appearing here (before the court), not for robbery, not for rioting, not for gold, not for hooliganism.

The trial of Jesus Christ is continuing here today, the trial which was begun in the time of the Roman procurator in Judea, Pontius Pilate.

It is faith in the bright future of humanity that is on trial. Christ was calm, full of spiritual strength, and confident of the victory of the cause of the Gospel. His confidence is transmitted even to us.—Georgi Vins

Author Bio

Georgi Vins was a Baptist pastor imprisoned a total of eight years in Soviet concentration camps for preaching the Gospel. In the middle of his prison term in 1979, he was suddenly stripped of his Soviet citizenship and exiled to the United States. He settled in Elkhart, Indiana, where his wife and children were allowed to join him. Georgi established a Christian ministry in the U.S. to represent and aid the persecuted church in the Soviet Union.