90 Years of Bulgarian Pentecostalism
Bulgarian Pentecostal believers celebrate 90 years of ministry and history. The Bulgarian Pentecostal movement is rooted in the Azusa street holiness Pentecostal revival which began in April of 1906. The revival then spread through the United States and less than a decade later, large Pentecostal denominations as the Church of God and the Assemblies of God were formed embracing the vision to send missionaries to foreign lands.
After establishing contact with the World Missions Department of the Assemblies of God at the end of 1919, Cossack born immigrant, who later took on Ukrainian citizenship, Ivan Voronaev received a calling to return to his motherland and preach the message of Pentecost there. Alongside him traveled the family of Ukrainian immigrant Dionissey Zaplishny and his Bulgarian born wife Olga, who like Voronaev left the church they pastored in the United States to obey the call to missions.
On March 10, 1920, Assemblies of God issued Voronaev a certificate as a “pastor and evangelist in Bulgaria” valid till September 1, 1921 and on June 22, 1920 Voronaev notified them his plans to set sail for Russia with his family on July 13, 1920. On the said date, the Voronaev, Koltovitch and Zaplishny’s families set sail on the “Madonna” steamboat from New York to Constantinople. Along with them traveled a group of Kavkaz believers among which was Bulgarian Boris Klibok.
After arriving to Constantinople, they had to wait for visas to enter Russia. Voronaev immediately began meeting with the Russian community in town recognizing the lack of Russian Bibles and Pentecostal churches. He wrote on August 15, 1920: „ ….with the help of God opened Russian mission here [Constantinople], and God our work blessed;” and on August 30, 1920: „…. we had first baptism with water in river. I baptized one lady wife of a Russian office. Glory to Jesus!”
After waiting for three months in Constantinople, Voronaev arrived in the Bulgarian port city of Bourgas along with Bulgarian Boris Klibok. The Zaplishny family had already established their ministry there through Olga’s Congregational home church. What followed next was a revival that made history.
March 5, 1921: The Pentecostal Evangel published Voronaev’s report from Bulgaria where he has been holding Russian-Bulgarian revival services in various churches in the cities of Sliven, Yambol, Varna and Sofia. Seven received the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
April 16, 1921: The Pentecostal Evangel published Voronaev’s second report from Bulgaria about services in Sliven, Bourgas, Plovdiv and the Baptist Church in Stara Zagora where the daughter of the Baptist pastor from Kazanlak received the baptism with the Holy Spirit.
May 14, 1921: Services in the Congregational Church in Plovdiv and baptismal service in the Martiza River.
June 11, 1921: „In Bourgas, Bulgaria the Lord baptized with the Holy Spirit about fourteen souls. We have about twenty candidates for baptism with water, and about thousand Bulgarians and Russian were there and were much interested.”
July, 1921: The Latter Rain Evangel published an article under the title “Pentecost in Bulgaria” in which Voronaev wrote about new Pentecostal believers in seven Bulgarian cities, his relocation in Varna to work with the local Methodist church and his plan to move to Odessa. The Pentecostal Evangel from the same month wrote, “God called Brother J.W. Voronaeff, who had charge of a Russian Pentecostal Assembly in New York City, to Russia.”
The early Bulgarian Pentecostals spoke in other tongues, embraced the gifts of the Spirit, practiced foot washing and conservative holiness, and received the Bible as their rule of life almost to the point of ritualistic ascetism. It was their prayer, preaching and serving before the Lord that ensured the future of the movement. Many of them would be forced underground when the Pentecostal Union is registered with the Bulgarian State in 1928. Others will be persecuted even unto death during the Communist Regime after WWII. The more conservative group split right down the middle by two strong leaders, Tinchevists and Borisovtsi would protect the faith to the best of their abilities. Many modern religious formations, among which the Bulgarian Church of God, would spring out from these grassroots of these holiness seeking Pentecostal Puritans. By 1990, after the Berlin Wall had fallen, this group of people will go through the largest evangelistic revival in Bulgaria since the Christianization of Bulgaria in 861AD.
Reclaiming the Roots of the Bulgarian Church of God
The Bulgarian Church of God started in the 1920s north of the Balkan Mountains as part of the Bulgarian Pentecostal movement. They came to be known as the “northern brethren” and “free churches.” They had received the message of Pentecost under the ministry of first Assemblies of God missionaries to Eastern Europe Zaplishny and Voronaev and kept their faith fervently through the early years of persecutions. The first Church of God members were Holy Ghost baptized, Bible believing believers who walked in the Spirit of prophecy and practiced the supernatural gifts God had given them.
Their theology was conservative and their practices strict. But their prayers could be heard all through the night as they tarried in fervent persistence, testing themselves against the Word in a constant search for the holiness of God in their hearts. And humbled themselves when they had found it, they experienced miracles ever unseen, knew things of matters untold, saw visions no man was allowed to utter and heard from the throne room in glory, from God, receiving the words to be spoken to their generation. Their tears became rivers of life that watered the seed of the Gospel they sowed, and slowly but surely God blessed their work and brought back revival in the soul of the land.
When the Assemblies of God trained and sent Bulgarian born Dr. Nick Nikoloff in 1928 to bring to order the growing Bulgarian Pentecostals, the Church of God people set themselves apart refusing to register with the secular state, thus loosing their legal status and were forced to go underground. But their prayers were still heard in the darkness of persecution. The stories of the gifts they practiced were told and when only a miracle could have answered a need, it was brought to the people who practiced the gifts, who prayed without ceasing and waited on God till He gave the answer from Heaven above.
Some 90 years have passed since these humble beginnings and times have now changed. Now, new things, new people, new orders and such are taking new rule of soul and of life. And slowly but surely the story is forgotten. The glory of old is long gone in the past.
But it is said that in crises, when times are too hard, someone should return to the basics of life, to reclaim the old roots of the faith from the past, and save again people and free them at last. This time is right now … and this chance must not pass.
Some of the Projects Completed with the Bulgarian Church of God in 2005-10
1. Chaplaincy: Bulgarian Chaplaincy Association and masters program in chaplaincy
2. Ethnic Minorities: annual Roma events and training seminars
3. Evangelism: 19 documented revivals, 24 evangelization meetings and 9 prayer rallies
4. Leadership Seminars for Church of God regional representatives
5. Media: COGBG.com and related websites
6. Mobile Bible School for pastoral teams and local churches
7. National Assembly for the Bulgarian Church of God
8. Served on the educational committees, evangelism board and church planting teams
9. Sunday School Program (2001-2002 and 2010 anniversary addition)
10. Youth Ministry: annual national events and camps
Map with Locations of Bulgarian Church of God Congregations Where We Have Ministered in 2005-2010
Three New Bulgarian Churches
In the last year, among other Bulgarian churches we have worked with, we have focused our attention to three newly started Bulgarian congregations located in London, Cypress and Las Vegas. They all have unique stories. The London church emerged from several home groups, which met regularly for years in various suburbs of the vat metropolis. The Vegas church was started not without the prayer and support of the Bulgarian church in Los Angeles. And the Cypress Church of God is a conglomerate of four congregations located on the Greek part of the island, which meets regularly in four of Cypress’ major cities each Sunday.
In attempt to improve their ministry and create a context of availability to the people in need, among several other ministerial endeavors, we have helped these churches with their websites. They are now launched and active, easy to be found on the internet in support of their ministry in these three significant global locations. They can be found at:
Cypress Bulgarian Church: http://vitezda.com/
Las Vegas Bulgarian Church: http://lasvegaschurch.tv/
London Bulgarian Church: http://bgchurchlondon.com/
Bulgarian Postcommunist Context of Ministry
Almost a decade ago, we presented a theological proposal for ministry in postcommunist countries, which has gained by far a prophetic value in our context of ministry. A strong point in the exposition was a response to the narrative, relational, spiritual paradigm often discussed in Pentecostal theology, to which our research proposed a more Eastern and more experiential model which includes prayer, persecution and power.
The thesis used this triangular formula to show that the Wesleyan quadrilateral is too logical to apply to the Pentecostal mindset and especially the Eastern Pentecostal one. Thus, it is more enforced on than emerging from the Pentecostal theology and is but a step toward understanding the Pentecostal experience.
At the same time, postmoderns relate to the spiritual mystical experiential nature of early (the research called it “primitive”) Pentecostalism, but are indifferent to a more denominational structure that marginalize the spontaneity and almost irrational unexpectancy of the Pentecostal ordus liturgia.
Applying each of the above models creates a number of dilemmas in the Bulgarian context of ministry. One of the main problems is that the Bulgarian church needs much growth before even recognizing some of the above trends. Additionally, Bulgarian clergymen have little training in distinguishing current social changes, which affect their congregations daily. Actually, in most cases there is strong negation against the relevancy of social reality on church life; almost like during the time of the Regime, when congregations were practically closed, underground communities, defined not only by the persecution against them, but by their own identity as well.
At the same time, the respective western partners of the Bulgarian evangelicals fail to properly apply their knowledge on the subject in the Bulgarian context of ministry. This inability closes like a magic circle the relationships between the said social agents and creates church crises of unprecedented magnitude, which often result in a death spiral within the community of believers. Thus, the Bulgarian church, ministering in a post communist context, continuously struggles to find its identity through which it can minister effectively in and to a postmodern world.
In the struggle where postcommunism meets postmodernity in a battle for survival and even world dominion in which, Eastern European churches become unfortunate victims on an altar where the secular antitheism and the nominal orthodoxy cross their sacrificial axes. And this cycle can be broken only when Eastern European evangelicals refuse the identities forced on them by postmodern and postcommunist (both postChristian at best) social structures, and discover their own roots in the Pentecostal identity of the Bible, the spirituality of which alone has the power to transform both postmodernity and postcommunism. And there lays the key for effective ministry among Eastern European in the 21stcentury.
Conference of Bulgarian Churches in America
The Annual Conference of Bulgarian Churches in North America will be held May 28, 2010 in Huston, TX. More information is available via the website of the Bulgarian Church in Houston at: http://twitterchurch.us/
Download the brochure as PDF
Easter at the Bulgarian Church in Houston
Palm Sunday at the Bulgarian Church in Las Vegas
When you think of Las Vegas, the first things that flood your mind are negative. One automatically associates this city with aspects, which you would feel uncomfortable referencing in a Christian newsletter. Therefore, you question if it is appropriate to even mention that you ministered in “Las Vegas” because of the negative connotation with simply saying these words. Yet, when you really come to think about it, is not the Gospel for the sinners and what better place to bring the Gospel than to a city that takes pride in its alias “Sin City?”
When ministering in Mississippi this year, we attended a biker church, which carries the slogan “Sinners Welcomed, Others Tolerated.” This should be the mindset of righteous Christians; however, for the most part this is not true. Sinners make us uncomfortable. Sinners are “dirty.” The motto of most churches today should read: “Sinners Tolerated, Others Welcomed.”
Regardless of being “too righteous”, we did go to Las Vegas and we did minister there. When the Lord tells you to “GO” you do not question His command. Even when you know it will make you uncomfortable, you still go. Or you end up like Jonah.
Las Vegas is the home to a growing Bulgarian community, which has already established not one, but two Bulgarian churches with solid ministry presence in the area. They serve as a lighthouse to the European Immigrants in a place where it is hard to keep your faith.
On Palm Sunday we delivered a message on a traditional topic in a nontraditional way and spoke about The Price of the Kingdom. We were also able to spend time with the pastoral family who is currently seeking denominational affiliation and assist them in obtaining a website for their church. Their hope is to be able to inform other Bulgarians in the Las Vegas area of the new church, to provide a presence among the network of Bulgarian Churches in North America and hopefully begin broadcasting their services LIVE in the near future in order to reach more souls for the Kingdom.
When a Christian thinks of Las Vegas, the first things that flood the mind are negative. But after having ministered the Gospel in the midst of “Sin City,” you cannot stop thinking about the potential for saved human souls. For the Gospel was not given for our weekly Sunday morning entertainment, but rather for the salvation of the sinner. If we wish for Revival to go on, we must continue to preach the Gospel of the Kingdom to all the world, which includes even Las Vegas, Nevada.
Ministering at the Bulgarian Churches of Chicago
With the Annual Conference of Bulgarian Churches in North America being just around the corner, we were invited to minister with the Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago. Last year we were able to hold a weekend training event for their leadership as well as to assist them in the area of web development as a cyber platform for their church. In postmodernity it is ever important that the church has a voice in every field of ministry. Since then they have been able to broadcast their services LIVE which have been viewed by Bulgarian in the States and abroad.
This year we were also able to meet with their web development and pastoral team to offer further suggestions of how to better implement and modernize their church website to more effectively meet their unique needs. Being directed by the Spirit under the leadership of Pastor Vladimir Georgiev, the church has witnessed tremendous success. They are currently in a building project to expand their existing building to accommodate this new growth. It is our prayer that the Lord continues to bless the efforts of the New Life Bulgarian Church of God in Chicago. We were also able to minister at the Bulgarian Baptist Church before we left the Windy City.
