Seventh Day Adventist
Church
Vratsa
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Seventh Day Adventist
Church |
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History & Autograph |
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A Short History of Vratsa SDA Church
Vratsa SDA Church was founded in 1946 when Boris and Mariam Ortovi, ministers of the church, came to live in Vratsa. They were the first Adventist family in the town. Immediately when they came to Vratsa, they visited an address given to them by Zora Hristova – an Adventist woman from Sofia (she was the founder of “Bulgarian Vezmo” – a firm for Bulgarian embroidery). Thus they met Savka Donova Tosheva and invited her to their home. Savka came with her granddaughter and together with Mariika Borisova and Penka Georgieva (she was baptized in 1926 and was the first Adventist who had come to live in Vratsa in 1927-1929) were the first believers. Biljana, Savka’s granddaughter, remembers the visits at that time: “Boris and Mariam Ortovi had a very kind method of approach toward us. The first spiritual song we learned from them was “Only Love Gives us Bliss and Happiness” (¹ 276). The first book we read was “The Wonders in the Bible”. Soon after that a young family (the family of a Russian Baptist pastor, who at that time was in a concentration camp) began attending the church, but they never became its members. Some of the first people who were baptized in Vratsa are Vasilka and Jina Danovi, Maria Valkova and Asen Danov, Savka Tosheva, Veta Nacheva, Kamenka Filipova, Ivanka Mishljakova, Anani Toshev (who in time was an elder for a long period) and some others. At first the church gathered in the pastor’s home, later in the home of Vasilka and Jina Danovi, Ivanka Mishljakova and Vitka Atanasova. During the totalitarian communist regime, the members of the church were warned many times by the police to stop their gatherings. From 1954 to 1958 there were difficulties caused by the lack of literature. At times Vratsa SDA Church had just one Sabbath school lesson. Some of the members copied them, and also the songbooks, by hand or on typing machines with carbon paper. There were just a few books and people took turns at reading them. Although the conditions were so bad, the believers were very close to one another. When they were threatened and forbidden to hold meetings in their homes, they gathered on the meadows in the mountain near Vratsa. Their spiritual songs echoed in the vicinity and attracted the curious glances of people walking by. Nothing could put out the flame of the first love. After Boris Ortov, the church was encouraged and given spiritual nurture by well-known Bulgarian pastors: Dimitar Stoichev, Stancho Dimov, Boris Bonev (president of the Union in Bulgaria), Hristo Kirov, Dimitar Kirov, Stojan Tomanov and others. They also helped the seeds of truth to be scattered in that region. Thus, during the period of the communist regime (1946-1989), the church slowly, but continuously grew in number. During the years to 1992, it had on average 10 - 20 members. The first appointed pastor after 1989 was Stefan Maximov. During February 1993 pastor Harald Knott from Switzerland hold the first public evangelization in Vratsa. It had great success. One of the biggest halls in Vratsa was full of people. Hundreds of Christian books and Bibles were presented to them. As a result, the number of the membership doubled. It’s a pity that the small number of church members and their lack of experience became an obstacle to be involved in the church activities more of the attendants of that evangelization. At the same time, a small building of 2 floors was bought for the needs of the church. The hall of worship consisted of 2 small rooms with no wall between them. The history of that building is also interesting. After the communists’ coup d’etat in 1944 it was nationalized by the government and became a headquarters for the police. Many people were tortured there. Even now there are signs of that on the walls of the rooms under ground. Since 1993, for 2 years, a pastor in Vratsa was Mihail Yorgov. During that time the church steadily grew. A whole group of 15 members from the so-called Reformist Movement (they separated from the SDA Church in 1915) joined Vratsa SDA Church. After that Ivan Stoyanov, Ivan Popov and Plamen Paskalev pastured the church. Now the pastor is Trifon Trifonov. With the blessing of God and the missionary work – the colporteur work in the town and the villages near it, and also the comparatively successfull evangelizations during the period of 1995-2002, the membership grew to 113 people. Together with the non-baptized people, the church consists of approximately 130 people. Author: Borislav Yordanov |
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