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How old were you when you were in prison?

I was in my forties.

What were the conditions like in prison?

We wore chains made for animals riveted together so they could not come apart. We slept on beds of concrete. We each had a metal cup. When we were convicted and sentenced, they took our clothes away and gave us striped prison uniforms. Until they did that, we still had hope. When they did that they stripped away our individual identities and we were humiliated.

God has many images in unity. Within the spectrum of grace is love — beautiful, delicate and attentive. The first day I walked into my cell, I laughed for joy of a chamber pot! My cellmate thought I was crazy but God knew I had a problem with my kidneys and needed to go to the bathroom more than once a day, which until then was all that was allowed. Only the day before, had the order been given to put a chamber pot in each cell. To this detail God showed His love for me.

What were you given to eat?

We ate whatever they gave us. We ate and we praised God. Cabbage soup and cornbread. Sometimes the cornbread contained bits of mice. If you didn’t eat, you died. Often I lost consciousness from lack of food. They fed us soup made from the skins of potatoes, which contained a sort of poison that really irritated our throats. Many became ill as a result.

What kind of work did you do in prison?

Because of the crimes of which we were convicted, we had no right to work and no right to receive anything from the outside. We had a daily program of prayer, of singing and of recitation. After five years, after that time in which we should have died, the order came down that we should be put to work in the prison. Ironically, they marched us through the kitchen every day on our way to work.

Just as Christ became sin for us, a man stole food for me when we walked through the kitchen. The Communists stole our lives and we stole back from them, from under the influence of the devil.

How did you survive?

I survived by the prayers of my brothers (my fellow Christians) and the bits of extra food they fed me to keep me alive.

What sustained you in prison?

By realizing there is life when you accept death. Many will accept the life of Christ but who accepts death? Only through death do we live. In that understanding God comforted me and enabled me to release my family to His care, as if they were dead.

Love shortens time. Remember Jacob worked seven years for Leah and then seven more for Rachel. I thought the least I could do was to love the Lord to the extent that Jacob loved Rachel.

Jesus did not count the crowd or the loaves and fishes … He counted on God’s grace to be sufficient to meet the need.

Our own will hinders us, but the will of God sets us free.

Could you worship in prison?

Prayer was forbidden, but prayer does not have to be outward. In Matthew 6:6, the Lord said go into a closet to pray and the Secret Police gave us these “special” closets (i.e., cells) in which to pray.

Could you have a Bible in prison?

Not for six years … during that time we had only our memories, this was our manna.

Prison is the best commentary to the Bible.

Could you talk to anyone?

We were not supposed to talk, but we had ways to communicate. We would knock on the walls or press our metal cups to the wall and speak into our cups.

At the “university” you get to study many things and you become creative or inventive in how you use things. For example, I used a sliver of wood as a needle. The penalty for having this found on my prison uniform was seven days in solitary confinement.

In solitary you have two days of hunger and then food on the third day. This was my diet for a week. You have no pillows or blankets, only darkness.

While in solitary I heard knocking on the wall. I didn’t know what to do. Sometimes the guards would do the knocking to trick the prisoners. I didn’t know if I should answer or not, but I did. It was the man in the next cell. He asked where I was from and I told him, “The cell of the ministers.” He was so happy. He said he had been waiting a long time for someone to hear his confession and asked me if I would. This is not my practice but it is what the Orthodox ministers do so I said, “Yes.” He talked and I listened. When he was done he asked me what penance he needed to do to be forgiven for his sins. I told him he had to pray and ask God to forgive him. He said he did not know how to pray and so I taught him. There in prison he accepted Christ as his Saviour. Later he asked me how long I would be there because there was so much more he wanted to learn. I said, “For seven days.” He said he was being released from solitary on the next day, but when the guards came to get him he would do something so they would put him back into solitary and he could continue his lessons with me. I told him, “Don’t be such a good Christian!”

Even when we are lonely, we are never alone. God is with us.

How did your family survive?

Food is never enough without the Word of God. They ate the Word of the Lord. My wife prayed and blessed the Lord, even when there was nothing. Faith, love and service made them look good despite their circumstances.

When I was in Los Angeles I met a woman who (at the time had also lived in Romania, and who) had sent eleven ‘care packages’ to the area where my family was deported. These parcels were simply wrapped with string and addressed ‘to a pastor’s wife with seven children’. My wife, from the hands of strangers, received all eleven parcels.

When you suffer in the strength of the Lord, He sustains you. The one who asks will get and God will look after what He gives. Just like the two women took their problem to King Solomon (I Kings 3), you must take all problems to Jesus.

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From an interview with Ferenc Visky found HERE.



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