The Haunting Testimony of ALEXANDER OGORODNIKOV, Christian Activist "SENT TO THE CAMPS" In Communist Russia, and HIS FAITH'S FINAL VICTORY
By Pamela Schuffert presenting investigative journalism from a Biblical perspective-
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“It is in the communist concentration camps...as you are buried in the tomb-like twilight of solitary punishment cells, when the heart begins to fail, when hunger gnaws your belly, the cold numbs your flesh and desperation courses through your blood...then it seems that an indifferent world has already consigned you to the grave, and despair washes over you like a tide."-Alexander Ogorodnikov, prisoner of faith under communism
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The following is the account of one Russian Christian hero of the faith, ALEXANDER OGORODNIKOV, who was "SENT TO THE CAMPS" (much as AMERICAN CHRISTIANS will someday be under MARTIAL LAW/NWO) for his outspoken faith and attempt to bring forth a Christian movement (called "OBSCHINA," or COMMUNITY)in Russia under communism.
I and many other Christians in America spent much time in prayer for him throughout the years. His account is a picture of what WE AS CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA may soon face in the many camps I have been researching and outlining for 13 years now.THIS is the kind of price Christians under Jewish-originated Bolshevik communism have paid for exercising their Christian faith.
-Pamela Schuffert
www.AmericanholocaustComing.blogspot.com
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RUSSIA: Warmth in the Gulag-
Russian Christian prisoner tried to take his own life before letter-writing campaign Christian letters revived Alexander Ogorodnikov’s broken spirit.
“You must see that death appears to be the only way to end my agony, the only release,” Ogorodnikov wrote his mother in 1986. “I have already committed the grave sin of attempting to commit suicide. So I beg of you again...please appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to show me a measure of mercy by ordering my execution by firing squad in order to put an end to the prospect of lifelong, painfully slow torture.”
More than seven years in Soviet prison camps had finally accomplished their mission: Ogorodnikov’s spirit was broken.
Creative Mind, Spiritual Heart-Ogorodnikov was not an easy man to bring down. An atheist, he became an Orthodox Christian in 1971 while a student at the Cinematography Institute of Moscow. He tried to use his skills to make a film about his generation’s search for the spiritual. He was expelled from the Institute, ending his career in films.
The year following his expulsion, Ogorodnikov founded the “Christian Seminar.” Its purposes were to provide fellowship, theological study and a strong witness of Christian values to the atheistic system. Started outside Moscow, it spread to several Soviet cities.
The KGB followed members of “Christian Seminar” groups, harassing, beating, and often arresting them.
"Parasite"-
Alexander was arrested in 1979 and sentenced to one year in a labour camp for “parasitism” because he could not get a job due to his Christian beliefs. Then a five-year prison term, plus six years internal exile, was added in 1980 for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.”
This "anti-Soviet propaganda" was simply CHRISTIANITY and promoting and exercising his Christian beliefs!
Most of his imprisonment was spent in the Perm-36 labour camp in the Gulag, called the “death-sentence zone.” It was one of three camps where some of the most famous dissidents and religious opponents of communism served time in the 1970s and 1980s.
Everything in the camp was a form of torture. “The basic means of oppression is the exhausting, coerced slave labour for one’s ration and the camp gruel,” Alexander wrote. “The tedious work, the regimen, the rations, the sleep, the uniformity -- all are directed at reducing you from the high calling of the image and likeness of God to a dull, apathetic slave-animal state, capable of snatching the shadow of an opportunity to stuff your sucking belly."
“The slightest violation of the regimen can result in the punishment isolation cell -- the measure of education favoured by our correctors."
"There, herded into a closed area of utter hopelessness, cut off from the world, blindly isolated in a deathly silence broken from time to time by the swearing of the guards and the rattle of keys, hounded by cold, measuring the long, tiring day in small steps, you are acutely aware of how your spirit has been pounded into your flesh, and you are only a small, pitiful creature being torn apart by hunger and cold.”
"I Feel So Alone, So Forgotten-" Isolated from the world and his fellow prisoners, living in the cold twilight of the Siberian winter days in cells where the walls and ceilings were entirely coated with ice, deprived of his Bible and his notebooks by prison guards, deliberately and systematically humiliated, in ill health, having lost much of his eyesight and most of his teeth, the hardest thing for Ogorodnikov was the sense that he had been forgotten.
“I feel so alone, so forgotten. Those prisoners on whose behalf a lot of noise is made are not only released upon the expiration of the sentences, but receive better treatment in the camp. The less publicity, the more vulnerable [the prisoner] becomes.”
Ogorodnikov continued to receive harsh treatment. An additional five years had recently been added to his sentence, this time for “violating camp discipline” (wanting his Bible returned).
[Christians in America, are you reading and comprehending this?Are YOU prepared for such kinds of persecution to come to America under martial law? I tell you, it is coming...]
He had not received one letter, not even from his wife and young son. He was forced to conclude that the Christian community had forgotten him. “Will not the universal Christian Church say at least a word in support of one of her persecuted sons? Perhaps errant and sinful, but still her son?”
Death seemed his only escape.
Support from Abroad-
His words did not fall on deaf ears. In May 1986, Ogorodnikov’s friends in Moscow wrote an appeal to Christians in the free world to mobilise and free their suffering brother in Christ. The ministry called OPEN DOORS, along with many other organisations, started letter-writing and prayer campaigns. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher heard of Ogorodnikov’s plight and interceded with Soviet President Gorbachev on Ogorodnikov’s behalf.
On February 14, 1987, ninety-nine months after he was arrested, less than a year after his desperate letter to his mother, years before his new release date, Ogorodnikov was picked up from the camp by his sister and her husband. The other inmates refused to start work on the second shift before they were satisfied that he had truly been allowed to leave.
“I bow my head in deepest gratitude for your prayers and compassionate activity in defence of your Russian fellow-Christians,” Ogorodnikov wrote to those who prayed and campaigned for him.
“It is in the concentration camps, as you are buried in the tomb-like twilight of solitary punishment cells, when the heart begins to fail, when hunger gnaws your belly, the cold numbs your flesh and desperation courses through your blood...then it seems that an indifferent world has already consigned you to the grave, and despair washes over you like a tide."
“But it was in these terrible moments in icy cells that I physically felt the warmth of your prayers and compassion, a force linking us by a stream of spiritual energy generated by mutual experience of faith and the mysterious bonds of fraternal unity.”
Hurdles beyond Prison-
Even with his release from prison, Ogorodnikov had personal hurdles ahead. He returned to Moscow, but was given no official residency papers. THIS was reason enough for him to be re-arrested. Dima, his son, had been a baby when Ogorodnikov was initially arrested. He had missed his son’s childhood and was always concerned about the boy’s spiritual upbringing.
Now physically able to be a father to his son, he found himself in a custody fight. The alleged fall of the Soviet regime opened the doors for religious and other freedoms, but with it came economic upheaval, disillusionment, organized crime, drugs, and immorality. The Communist system, flawed as it was, had nonetheless provided some structure and social programs. People were used to being “taken care of” by the State. Now that was gone. [Only temporarily!-Pam]
Ogorodnikov saw a need and started a soup kitchen for Moscow’s homeless. In 1992, he set up “Island of Hope,” Moscow’s first private (not state-owned) center and orphanage for girls. As of 2001, over 400 girls had found refuge, compassion, teaching, and Orthodox Christian values there. Still considered a dissident, Moscow authorities tried to shut down “Island of Hope.” PLEASE PRAY for Alexander and his family, his health, and total restoration.
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For those of you who have been following my reports throughout the years previously, NOW do you understand my previous reports about RUSSIAN MILITARY ADVISERS being set up over the largest NWO deathcamp in America, in ALASKA?
It flies a joint RUSSIAN/AMERICAN FLAG.
NOW do you understand WHY Russian military are building NEW DETENTION CAMPS FOR AMERICANS UNDER NWO MARTIAL LAW in the ALEUTIAN ISLANDS?
NOW do you understand WHY Russian KGB/FSB SPIES are bragging to my Russian Christian friends, "AS LIFE WAS IN RUSSIA, SO SHALL IT BE IN AMERICA!"???
NOW do you understand WHY Russian military will be heavily used to arrest Americans and take them TO THE CAMPS under martial law???
Now do you understand WHY Russia from MOSCOW, over their Internet system called INTERFAX, has dictated MANY of the names TO AMERICA, to be placed on OUR LISTS like "FEMA RED-BLUE LIST" of those to be arrested under martial law and SENT TO THE CAMPS?
The NWO is just a modern term for world globalist communist with the same antichrist agenda. And it IS coming to AMERICA. Let us learn from those who suffered in the past like ALEXANDER and MANY MORE.
-Pamela Schuffert
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