A Man Named Andronicus

It's been a little over a year since I learned about a man from Georgia (the nation, not the state) whose name was Adronicus. I am convinced with all of my being that you need to hear about him too. There are considerations under way right now as to the best way to do this, but I think a good place to start is right here on my blog. You see, in all of our knowledge and access to instant data, we've missed a familiarity with great men like Andronicus. This trip furthered my knowledge and understanding of his life and influence. I was privileged to be in the home of his daughter, and then later his wife on my recent trip. I felt like I had been given the greatest gift ever just meeting them and hearing them reflect, even if briefly, on the man who was a godly husband and father, unstoppable preacher, and survivor of one of the most horrific persecutions in recent history. That may sound like an exaggeration, but as his story unfolds, you will not think so. He is giant on whose shoulders we should all climb in order to be closer to our Savior. His legacy is clearly seen in the lives of his family and the men who are following his ministry that I had the privilege of teaching and learning from this past week.

Andronicus was born like many giants in Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in unlikely circumstances. His father was a Russian revolutionary during the days of Czar Nicholas II and Vladimir Lenin. His father was a bloodthirsty radical who did not hesitate to kill anyone who did not embrace the communist ideology of the Russian revolution of the early 1900's. But his father was not alone in this endeavor, for his mother was every bit the revolutionary that her husband was. Because of their activities they fled all over Russia until Czar Nicholas II finally caught up with them. Andronicus' father was promptly executed for his role in the revolution, and his mother pregnant with Andronicus, was exiled to Georgia. It was here that she would give birth to the man who would become a revolutionary giant for the Gospel in the Soviet Union. A man who with his blood and his life would sound the Truth that represented the opposite of everything she and her husband labored for. After his birth, she left him in Georgia to return illegally to Russia to continue the work of the revolution. In that part of the world there is a custom involving the leaving of children in such cases. If the parent lays the child on the ground and the other family picks the child up, the birth mother in doing so has relinquished her rights to the child and thus gives him to the other family permanently. If instead however, the mother simply hands the child to the other family, it means that she will be back to claim her child. In the case of Andronicus, the family asked her to lay him on the ground, but his mother refused. Instead she simply handed him over with the promise to return, which she would later do. Meanwhile, Andronicus began growing up in the atheistic culture of the Bolshevik revolution. While earthly adoption had been refused by his mother in order that she would raise him to follow in the radical ideology of his father, little could anyone have imagined the radical adoption he would experience during his teenage years. A radical adoption that would bring him from the darkness of atheism to the light of Jesus Christ and a radical life of discipleship and persecution for His sake.

A few years later his mother would return to claim him for the radical indoctrination into the communism and atheism that now ruled the Soviet Union thanks to the work of his deceased father and her. At the age of 12 or 13, Andronicus “happened” to have visited a Russian Orthodox church for the first time. God was about to continue His sovereign work through the mere curiosity of a young boy, for it was the first time that Andronicus would interact with the idea of God and religion. Upon entering the church, he asked inquisitively, "who is the man in the picture?". It must have taken the priest by surprise. "That is Jesus", the priest replied. And there, even in the midst of all the error and spiritual carnage that is the Orthodox church, Andronicus heard for the first time in his life the name of Jesus. As he continued to grow God in His providence had another meeting arranged for this young man. This time the meeting would be for the purpose of meeting Jesus Christ personally, not just historically, in a painting. In the area where he was living some years later, Andronicus met a group of Gospel believing Mennonites. He quickly joined himself to their community and was soon after converted through their witness to the Gospel of a resurrected Savior. In a most unlikely conversion, Andronicus became a follower of Jesus. Herein is the challenge to us. For in following Jesus in that culture, it meant not only giving lip service, but every part of your being. It was no trifling decision that he had made, but one that would literally be tested in a baptism of suffering and persecution that would last for the rest of his life. He grew in his young faith and before long sensed the call of God upon his life to become a preacher of the Gospel.

The next chapter of Andronicus' life finds him at the age of twenty, faithfully preaching the Gospel as a Baptist preacher during the time of Joseph Stalin. Andronicus had turned completely from the revolutionary ideals that his parents embraced that put into power the man who would cause the next chapter in his life to be so horrific. Funny how God uses little details like that isn't it? By age twenty Andronicus had married and fathered three children. But during the middle of the night as he and his family slept the black cars and agents of the KGB came for him. They took him away from his family and life as he had known it for the next 20 years. Like many faithful pastors Andronicus was taken away to the gulags of Siberia to die. How wrong they were to think that through the death of Its heralds that the Gospel could be silenced. Who knows how many of them actually died in those camps. It is however a number so astounding that truly only God knows. Their lives however are not lost, for their memories live on as a testament to the unconquerable nature of the Kingdom of God and Its advancement. Even in the face of death. It was in this camp that Andronicus met and lived with the great Russian philosopher and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn. His hut was full of pastors, intellectuals, leaders, and anyone else the regime felt threatened by. They were forced to live in sub-human conditions every day. As most men who have come through such an ordeal, Andronicus never spoke much of the hardships that he endured. Partly out of humility, and partly out of courtesy to his family so as not to upset them unnecessarily. Some things are known however, and with the families permission I will share what they have told me.

Each of his twenty years during his imprisonment, Andronicus was placed on a list of prisoners to be executed. Many of those around him were. But God had a plan for this man, for in twenty years, with twenty sentences of death passed upon him, Andronicus was never executed. Instead, he faithfully endured the worst that they could throw at him. He told of times that they were taken deep into the forests to cut timber and left there without food or provisions during the harsh Siberian winters. In short, it was a means of execution. But he said that God would always provide. Natives who lived in the area (people I would imagine as something like American Eskimos) would watch from the forest and after the soldiers were gone, would bring them food and clothing to survive. When the guards returned days or weeks later, they would find their prisoners alive and well. But when such passive means of death did not work they tried more aggressive forms. Andronicus was overheard telling someone at one point with laughter, "you think that's tough! Try being submerged in freezing water for 24 hours." At which point he realized his wife was listening and so ended the account. And on and on the stories go.

He was eventually released through a series of events that can only be described as Providential, only to return home to the pain of loss as his wife and two of his children had died from hunger and neglect, and the pain of a child who had grown up without him and did not know him or follow the God that he had loved so dearly. And yet even then, the persecution did not stop as the KGB. Andronicus would go on to continue preaching, remarry, have four more children. Even after his death in 1979 his new family would continue to feel the oppression and persecution of the Soviet regime.

One of his son-in-laws has become one of my dearest friends. Several years ago he traveled to Moscow to review the official records regarding Andronicus. As he was handed the official indictment, he was amazed as he read the simple but pointed indictment for which Andronicus was imprisoned for so many years. The charge: “Baptist Preacher”. I wonder, what has your faith cost you? Have you ever sacrificed anything because of what you claim to believe? Most of us have seldom even sacrificed convenience to serve and worship Jesus. We live in a nation where almost everyone is a “Christian” and a member of this church or that church. Yet why are our churches so often half full? Why are we lukewarm when it comes to sharing our faith? Why are we complacent toward things of God? Are such things even worthy to be called sacrifice in the light of men’s testimony like Andronicus?

Friends, we need to hear the story of men like Andronicus. We need to be rebuked, encouraged, and changed by the hearing of such stories. God has given them as a gift to us. The character forged by the gulags and persecution is something that we all need to have in our lives. Since we in America have not suffered in such a way it is imperative that we learn as best we can from the heroes of the faith like Andronicus.

My prayer is to continue more of his story as time goes on. If you are touched by his story and would like to continue hearing more would you do this? Please respond by commenting on this post or reply to Facebook via comment or message. It would be a great encouragement to his family and to the persecuted church to know that you have heard and that you would like to hear more. Thank you, and may God continue to mold us more into the image of His Son through the testimonies of men like Andronicus.