Tortured for Christ

I suffer in the West more than I suffered in a Communist jail because now I see with my own eyes Western civilization dying.

telling him what responsibility he took upon himself by leading so many young men astray. The entire class took his side. It was necessary that one should have the courage to speak out first, then all the others were on his side

All the biblical descriptions of hell and the pains of Dante’s Inferno are nothing in comparison with the tortures in Communist prisons.

When a man has no faith in the reward of good or the punishment of evil, there is no reason to be human.

I often asked the torturers, “Don’t you have pity in your hearts?” They usually answered with quotations from Lenin: “You cannot make omelets without breaking the shells of eggs,” and “You cannot cut wood without making chips fly.” I said again, “I know these quotations from Lenin. But there is a difference. When you cut a piece of wood it feels nothing. But here you are dealing with human beings. Every beating produces pain and there are mothers who weep.” It was in vain. They are materialists. For them nothing besides matter exists and to them a man is like wood, like an eggshell. With this belief they sink to unthinkable depths of cruelty

They taught us that physical beatings could be endured, and that the human spirit with God’s help can survive horrible tortures

I was an atheist, but atheism did not give peace to my heart.