The Gates of Hell: An Untold Story of Faith and Perseverance in the Early Soviet Union

by Matthew Heise

Overview

The gates of hell shall not prevail.

Decimated by war, revolution, and famine, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia was in critical condition in 1921. In The Gates of Hell, Matthew Heise recounts the bravery and suffering of German—Russian Lutherans during the period between the two great world wars. These stories tell of ordinary Christians who remained faithful to death in the face of state persecution.

Christians in Russia had dark days characterized by defeat, but God preserved his church. Against all human odds, the church would outlast the man—made sandcastles of communist utopianism. The Gates of Hell is a wonderful testimony to the enduring power of God's word, Christ's church, and the Spirit's faithfulness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683595953
Publisher:	Lexham Press
Publication date:	05/11/2022
Pages:	520
Sales rank:	846,427
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.40(d)

About the Author

Matthew Heise is director of the Lutheran Heritage Foundation. Previously, he was a missionary for the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod for over a decade, serving in countries including Russia, Ukraine, and Georgia.

Table of Contents

Chronology xiii

Abbreviations xi

Prayer for Martyrs xvi

Prologue 1

1 A World in Flux 3

War, Revolution, and Reformation

2 "The Church is Separated from the State" 9

The Bolsheviks Take Power

3 "Any Proof of Brotherly Love" 23

Finding a Way to Aid Russia

4 A Powerful, Invisible Hand from the Dark 39

The Malevolent Might of the Cheka

5 The "Religious NEP" 52

The Departure of the ARA and the NLC's Struggle to Continue

6 A Fir Tree with Two Peaks 67

The First All-Russian Lutheran Synodical Convention

7 Servants in his Vineyard 79

A Bible School Is Born in the USSR

8 "Hold Fast What You Have" 87

The Status of the Lutheran Church in 1926

9 "Unbelievable Elasticity" 96

Managing Relations with Church and State in 1927

10 "They Would Not See His Face Again" 124

A Last Synod and Mission Festival

11 "A Declaration of a Relentless Struggle" 120

The Battle Against Religion Is Joined

12 "He … Shall Think to Change the Times and the Law" 141

Stalin's First Five-Year Plan Gets Underway

13 "Faithful to Him to the Grave" 153

Inspiring a New Generation of Believers

14 A Somber Christmas 169

Arrests and Interrogations

15 The Church is Broken 185

The Koch Trial and the Decision in the Hansen-Muss Case

16 Sheep Among Wolves 196

The Servant of the Church as Enemy of the State

17 "Stand and Eat, You Still Have a Long Way to Go" 209

Words and Prayers of Encouragement

18 "Stuck Deep in Snow and Ice" 219

The Spiritual Life of the Church in Late 1931 and Early 1932

19 A Sad and Muddled Affair 230

Conflicts in the Church as OGPU Pressure Intensifies

20 "Harvest of Sorrow" 242

Seminary Struggles, Famine, and the Recognition of the Soviet Union

21 "A Martyr to the Cause" 253

The Tragedy of the Meiers

22 "A Small Crowd Armed with Courage" 268

More Arrests and the Closing of the Seminary in 1934

23 The Pulse of the Church Grows Weaker 280

The Kirov Terror and the Most Difficult Year Since 1929

24 They Could Do No Other 294

The Closing of Jesus Christ Lutheran Church

25 "Fellow Citizens with the Saints" 306

The Death of John Morehead and Departure of Arthur Malmgren

26 "Thousands of Seeds … Cast to the Wind" 313

Shadows of the Great Terror

27 The NKVD Big Lie 329

Linking the Russian Lutheran Church to Hider

28 "Blessed are They That Suffer Persecution for Justice's Sake" 340

The Great Terror and the Destruction of the Lutheran Pastorate in the USSR

29 Heroes of Faith in the Gulag 348

Re-Arrests and Deaths in the Camps

30 Last Christmas in Leningrad 356

Erasing Three Centuries of Lutheran Presence

31 Under the Watchful Eye of the NKVD 365

Being German Proves Fatal

Epilogue: The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail against the Church 386

Acknowledgments 395

Photo Gallery 397

Notes 413

Bibliography 473

Archives and libraries used 487

Subject Index 489

Editorial Reviews

The Gates of Hell helps us ... to recognize the signs of the time, so that we are not lulled by songs of the world and the devil and caught in their traps unprepared.

—V’yacheslav Horpynchuk, bishop, Ukrainian Lutheran Church

The work of Matthew Heise is a precious work not only because of historical facts and his professional approach to their understanding, but also very precious with his inclusion of testimonies of individual people in their concrete reality. They bring a quiet yet insistent call for us to remain as faithful Christians in our present times.

—Ivan El’ko, general bishop, Evangelical A.C. Church in Slovakia

From the Publisher