Testimony from a Soviet Prison

Alexander Ogorodnikov
Lessons from Prison

1. One must NOT be afraid - “I am a weak person, but when God gave me the gift of prison, he gave me strength to serve him there.”

2. Fires of Opposition Serve our Holiness - “I met a man who had spent 47 years in that hell and he shone with the light of Christ. I asked him how that was possible. He replied, ‘In the fires of this hell, all that is evil is burned - my hate, lies, self-love; all that remains is love.’

3. The prison was a school of Christ.”
“I was placed in solitary - not alone in a cell, but alone in an entire building. My only companions were hunger and cold. The hunger was so great, that I wanted slit my wrists to drink my own blood in order to survive. And the cold? It was northern Siberia. The guards would smash the windows to let the freezing wind come in. You could not flee the cold. The cell is a tomb, with only a weak light present. In my cold, I would pray - so I ‘prayed without ceasing’. I had no experience of the Jesus prayer before this, but this I prayed constantly. This prayer helped me breathe and calmed my heart. I said, ‘Surely God you have not forgotten me’, and as I prayed I would become warm. I can only compare this warmth to the breath of a mother upon her cold child. I cannot communicate this beauty to you. I began to weep and a quiet joy - quiet but uncontainable - began to rise within me. Then I did not notice the passage of time or the cold. In the morning the guards would come with a doctor expecting to find me dead. But I was warm and well instead. The Lord showed me I was preserved, not by my merit but by the prayers of thousands of people, thousands of miles away - those prayers rose to heaven, got over the wires, passed the dogs, and came to embrace me. A voice came to me and said, “You are not alone.” And I wasn’t.

4. Prison is Witness: I was jailed first with true criminals - mafia, rapists, murderers. Sometimes this cell would have up to 60 people in it. They would say, “Alexander don’t pray for us today, we want to play cards.” In the morning they would stand silent until I had finished praying. I was able to share Christ with them all, in word and example.