Holiness Website Released

For several years now our team has envisioned a new website as part of our website ministry, a website that deals exclusively with the subject of holiness. For over a month now, this vision has been a reality bringing thousands to the teaching of Biblical sanctification and holiness lifestyle through www.Osveten.com (meaning “sanctified” in Bulgarian).

I know that many would object to the idea of preaching holiness in the beginning of the 21st century. Who needs holiness in the world today, anyway? After all people today have more important issues with which to deal. In my opinion, perhaps many of the issues humanity deals with today, can be resolved though acquiring a lifestyle of Biblical holiness.

Historically, the Bulgarian evangelism lacks the evolvement of sanctification as a second work of grace, as it was present in North America at the end of the 19th century. Missionaries to Bulgaria did not concentrate on the teaching of holiness, as other important issues were being addressed. It was not until the dawn of Bulgarian Pentecostalism, that definite holiness movements within among Bulgarian evangelicals began appearing. And of course, since the Assemblies of God was the major organized Pentecostal denomination, sanctification was viewed as part of the experience of salvation and Holy Spirit baptism, and never as a separate second work of grace as described by Wesley.

Yet, the strife toward Biblical holiness was ever present in the Bulgarian context ever since Christianity entered the Balkans in the 10th-11th centuries. Since then, Eastern Orthodox Christianity has taught, although practiced very little, the doctrine of holiness. During the Communist Regime, various Pentecostal groups declared their holiness stand, thus bringing the attention of the government along with extra persecution upon themselves. The national Pentecostal revival after the Fall of the Berlin Wall increased the interest in sanctification, and the issue of how to live a holiness life often became a point of separation between older and younger believers.

And although holiness is not often preached today, it still remains the standard of God. For this very reason, we released www.Osveten.com with the vision to bring Bulgarian evangelism back to the basics of Biblical sanctification and to lift up the standard of holiness as a lifestyle among the Bulgarian people.