95 Years Ago Voronaev Set Sail on a Pentecostal Mission to Europe

Rev. Ivan Voronaev’s last letter to Assemblies of God headquarters in Springfield, Missouri was received by Rev. J. Roswell Flower on June 22, 1920 and was marked “He plans to return to Russia.” The letter outlined Voronaev’s six-point mission strategy:

1. he was leaving with his family and some brothers from New York to Russia on July 13, 1920 on the steamboat “Madonna”
2. Voronaev trusted the Lord for the finances necessary to complete the mission
3. First Russian Assembly of New York was poor and unable to meet the ministry expenses
4. Voronaev was unable to get in touch with Assemblies of God missionaries Johnson and Schmidt
5. but planned to preach in Russia
6. finally, the group had decided to purchase Russian Bibles and New Testaments in New York to take to Russia.

The group included the families of Voronaev, Zaplishny, Koltovich, along with V. Klibik and N. Kardanov from Ossetia. They could only purchase tickets for the deck, which proposed problems for the children during the cold ocean nights. According to Voronaev’s later records, the group set sail from New York on July 15, 1920 (thou Martha C. Zaplishny- Jackson recalls July 8th or 17th in various statements). The only standing proof for the exact departure date is the ship’s records with the French Fabre Line.

Madonna sailed via Marseille in France and Naples, Italy. The group’s trip to Europe included a stop in Greece before reaching Constantinople on August 10, 1920. Both Voronaev and Zaplishny’s children have pictures from visiting “several other Balkan countries,” thou not well documented and quite improbable. Consecutively, when the Zaplishny family had to flee Bulgaria in 1924, they used the same route taking a train to Cherbourg, France and then a boat to New York’s Ellis Island.

Through all these difficulties, Voronaev reached Bulgaria by the end of 1920 and Odessa in the U.S.S.R by August 12, 1921. The movements his mission started from Varna to Vladivostock were Pentecostal pioneers for this part of the Old World. By the time Voronaev was arrested in 1930, over 400 Pentecostal churches with 20,000 members strong were started by his ministry throughout Eastern Europe.

Read about the legacy of Ivan Voronaev:

• Ivan Voronaev: The Death of a Hero is a Legacy to Remember
• Arrest and Imprisonment of Rev. Ivan Voronaev (1930)
• Arrest and Imprisonment of Ekaterina Voronaev (1933)

More about the Voronaev’s children:

• The Real Voronaev Children
• The (un)Forgotten: The Story of Rev. Ivan Voronaev’s Children

Ivan Voronaev in the historical archives:

• Finding Ivan Voronaev (a.k.a. John Voronaeff) at the Graduate Theological Union of Berkeley, California
• Letters from Bulgaria: Overview of Rev. Ivan Voronaev’s Correspondence

Pacifism as a Social Stand for Holiness among Early Bulgarian Pentecostals

Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals (Research presentation prepared for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Seattle, 2013 – Lakeland, 2015, thesis in partial fulfillment of the degree of D. Phil., Trinity College)

When Pentecostalism began to spread rapidly in Bulgaria in the 1920s, it was viewed hostile as by both Protestant and Orthodox traditions. Not fasting during lent and not sacrificing for the dead, not honoring Mary or the saints was all detrimental in the formation of the identity of Pentecostal churches in Bulgaria. Even insignificant things like not wearing a cross, or not making the sign of the cross and not lighting candles and incense were noticed and severely criticized by the surrounding culture. And of course not drinking alcohol in Bulgaria and the Pentecostal abstinence was met with enormous opposition from other religious groups. Along with that any benevolence, social involvement, spiritual upbringing of minors (including sport actives) was all condemned as harmful protestant propaganda.

But one specific evangelical stand could never be forgiven – the protestant pacifism in the form of conscientious objection against carrying arms. For the newly re-born Balkan state, in a place where war has been ongoing for centuries, to refusal to go to war was essentially to refuse to be a Bulgarian.

The pacifism of Bulgaria’s evangelicals was silent but powerful against both Hitler’s fascism and the militant atheism of the coming Communist Regime. Their deep Christian conviction simply did not allow them to kill, carry a weapon, imprison another human being, swear allegiance to the communist state or take orders from another authority but God. And for their stand, many ministers and believers paid a heavy price. About 40 ministers and members of the Bulgarian Church of God alone were sentenced to hard prison labor for noncompliance with the mandatory military service. Hundreds more known and unknown believers from other evangelical churches followed.

Water Baptism among early Bulgarian Pentecostals

by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals (Research presentation prepared for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Seattle, 2013 – Lakeland, 2015, thesis in partial fulfillment of the degree of D. Phil., Trinity College)

The sacrament of water baptism was not new for Bulgarian believers. But Pentecostals did NOT accept infant baptism. Converts who were baptized as babies or any other Eastern Orthodox ritual were re-baptized before being received in the church. Among early Bulgarian Pentecostals, baptism was always done outside in “running water.” It was also considered mandatory for salvation as Bulgaria’s early Pentecostals insisted on spiritual fullness including: (1) salvation, (2) water baptism and (3) baptism with the Spirit. This formula of spiritual experience satisfied the witness of blood, water and Spirit (1 Jn. 5:8) on earth and corresponded with the triune God in heaven (1 Jn. 5:7), from whom the believer’s spiritual experience originated.

First Pentecostal Missionaries to Bulgaria (1920)

by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals (Research presentation prepared for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Seattle, 2013 – Lakeland, 2015, thesis in partial fulfillment of the degree of D. Phil., Trinity College)

Interestingly enough, the arrival of the first Pentecostal missionaries to Bulgaria was not associated with starting new churches. Neither was it purposing a takeover of existing protestant congregations or the traditional for Bulgaria Eastern Orthodoxy. First Pentecostal missionaries Voronaev (far left) and Zaplishny served as a pastor in the United States, but their goal in Bulgaria was to preach Pentecost in already established churches. Zaplyshny’s wife Olga, who was from Bulgaria, enjoyed her home church which was more than sufficient for the hand full of believers.

It was common in 1920 that whole congregations of traditional protestant churches in Bulgaria would convert to Pentecostalism. However, it was not until almost a decade later when in 1928 the nephew of Olga Zaplishny – Nicolas Nikoloff who was educated in the States was sent by the Assemblies of God to organize the Pentecostal movement in Bulgaria. Initially only 7 congregations agreed to his proposal to be included into the new Pentecostal Union and registered with the government. They were predominantly in Southern Bulgaria around the city of Bourgas where the Zaplishny family settled and labored. The rest remained under the leadership of Stoyan Tinchev (far right) calling themselves Free Church of God. They later formed churches in North Central Bulgaria, near the city of Varna where Voronaev resided.

Less than a decade old, the Bulgarian Pentecostalism movement split between the churches that registered with the government and the churches which refused to register. There were some later differences in their view on sanctification, Baptism with the Holy Spirit, leadership and organizational structure. Nevertheless, the preaching of Pentecost became the entry point for Spirit baptism among mainline churches and new converts.

The gifts of the Spirit were also contributing their part in the work. A well known example, in the first Baptist church in Bulgaria, the pastor’s daughter received the Holy Spirit and the whole church followed. And there are even some who suggest, that glassollalia had been previously experienced by some orthodox mystics in Bulgaria as related to the Russian Molokans from the Romanina city of Tulcha. With all this evidence, the baptism with the Holy Spirit was viewed as mandatory for salvation among early Bulgarian Pentecostals. Along with salvation and water baptism, it became known as “the fullness” of spiritual experience. One could not go to heaven without “the fullness!”

Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals

by Dony K. Donev, D.Min.

Historical and Doctrinal Formation of Holiness Teachings and Praxis among Bulgarian Pentecostals (Research presentation prepared for the Society of Pentecostal Studies, Seattle, 2013 – Lakeland, 2015, thesis in partial fulfillment of the degree of D. Phil., Trinity College)

Protestant work in Bulgaria began in 1815 when agents of British and Foreign Bible Society, Robert Pinkerton (1780-1859) and Benjamin Barker (d.1859), initiated a search for Bible translators in the spoken Bulgarian vernacular. As a result a new translation of the New Testament in Bulgaria was published in 1840 and the whole Bible in 1871.

By the liberation of Bulgaria from Turkish Yoke in 1878 Protestantism was well established in Bulgaria. Graduates from Protestant Robert’s College became prominent politicians in the new Bulgarian state. When the first Pentecostal missionaries arrived in 1920, they found a century old protestant tradition in Bulgaria.

Scroll Signing Service in London

25 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people in Eastern Europe are still haunted by the spirit of communism. The Regime robbed them not only from happiness and freedom, but from their deep human ability to even imagine a better and free world. For this very reason, we wrote the book “Looking over the Wall” as our prayer for a new prophetic re-imagination of the present reality. After laboring in Bulgaria for over 25 years, in 2014, we were thrilled to minister to churches and people that are dreaming and re-imagining God’s purpose for Bulgaria along with us. Join us in re-imagining imagination anew:

1. Purchase the book from Amazon
2. Read it with your church family
3. Help us pray for a renewal of a new prophetic re-imagination in the minds and hearts of the people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe

Scroll Signing Service in Stara Zagora

25 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people in Eastern Europe are still haunted by the spirit of communism. The Regime robbed them not only from happiness and freedom, but from their deep human ability to even imagine a better and free world. For this very reason, we wrote the book “Looking over the Wall” as our prayer for a new prophetic re-imagination of the present reality. After laboring in Bulgaria for over 25 years, in 2014, we were thrilled to minister to churches and people that are dreaming and re-imagining God’s purpose for Bulgaria along with us. Join us in re-imagining imagination anew:

1. Purchase the book from Amazon
2. Read it with your church family
3. Help us pray for a renewal of a new prophetic re-imagination in the minds and hearts of the people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe

Scroll Signing Service in Bourgas

25 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people in Eastern Europe are still haunted by the spirit of communism. The Regime robbed them not only from happiness and freedom, but from their deep human ability to even imagine a better and free world. For this very reason, we wrote the book “Looking over the Wall” as our prayer for a new prophetic re-imagination of the present reality. After laboring in Bulgaria for over 25 years, in 2014, we were thrilled to minister to churches and people that are dreaming and re-imagining God’s purpose for Bulgaria along with us. Join us in re-imagining imagination anew:

1. Purchase the book from Amazon
2. Read it with your church family
3. Help us pray for a renewal of a new prophetic re-imagination in the minds and hearts of the people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe

Scroll Signing Service in Plovdiv

25 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people in Eastern Europe are still haunted by the spirit of communism. The Regime robbed them not only from happiness and freedom, but from their deep human ability to even imagine a better and free world. For this very reason, we wrote the book “Looking over the Wall” as our prayer for a new prophetic re-imagination of the present reality. After laboring in Bulgaria for over 25 years, in 2014, we were thrilled to minister to churches and people that are dreaming and re-imagining God’s purpose for Bulgaria along with us. Join us in re-imagining imagination anew:

1. Purchase the book from Amazon
2. Read it with your church family
3. Help us pray for a renewal of a new prophetic re-imagination in the minds and hearts of the people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe

Scroll Signing Service in Kazanlak

25 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall, people in Eastern Europe are still haunted by the spirit of communism. The Regime robbed them not only from happiness and freedom, but from their deep human ability to even imagine a better and free world. For this very reason, we wrote the book “Looking over the Wall” as our prayer for a new prophetic re-imagination of the present reality. After laboring in Bulgaria for over 25 years, in 2014, we were thrilled to minister to churches and people that are dreaming and re-imagining God’s purpose for Bulgaria along with us. Join us in re-imagining imagination anew:

1. Purchase the book from Amazon
2. Read it with your church family
3. Help us pray for a renewal of a new prophetic re-imagination in the minds and hearts of the people in Bulgaria and Eastern Europe

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