“Jehovah’s Witnesses From the USSR​—Brighter Days Ahead”

THAT was the headline in the English-language newspaper The Warsaw Voice of August 19, 1990, published in Poland. The writer, Anna Dubrawska, commented on the “Pure Language” Convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Warsaw in August 1990. She interviewed Witnesses from the Soviet Union, some of whom had spent 15 years in prisons and labor camps because of their religious beliefs. But now they were emphasizing the positive changes taking place in their country.

Grigor Goryachek, a construction worker from the Crimea who was raised a Witness, was exiled for 15 years in Siberia. He said: “We are now expecting better times to come along.” Another Witness, Anton Pohanich, said: “Better times are already here. I can now take our message freely from house to house, whereas in the past this was not possible.”

Dubrawska quotes Igor Cherny, a 17-year-old Witness from the Caucasus: “For 70 years people, especially the young, were so intensively drawn away from God that now they want to return to Him just as intensively, or at least hear about Him as a start.”

The Polish publication Dziennik Wieczorny (Evening Paper) reported, under the title Radość braci (Joy of the Brothers), that an employee of Zawisza stadium in the city of Bydgoszcz said: “I am delighted by the clean language used and good manners shown by the youths.”

Writing in the Polish daily Trybuna under the heading Głosiciele Królestwa (Kingdom Publishers), Zofia Uszynska stated concerning the convention: “In a period of 30 minutes I was offered snacks and coffee ten times. Five times someone wanted to give up his seat for me. For four consecutive days more than 30,000 people at Dziesieciolecia Stadium in Warsaw participated in a [religious] festival. Women in a state of advanced pregnancy, families with small children, grown-ups and youths. The youngest baptized was 11 years old, the oldest almost 80.”

The article continued: “Several thousand Russians [actually more than 16,000] came to this year’s meeting. Last year there were 6,000 of them. Russian border officials let all the buses through without the need to wait for checking in lines many kilometers long. Delegates from all over the Soviet Union came: from Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Vorkuta. Some spent four or five days on a train.”

The same paper quotes Ivan M. Grevniak as saying: “I saw injustice in what the popes and priests did, and I searched for honesty.” The account continues: “He noticed agreement between the words and deeds in the behavior of Jehovah’s Witnesses.” Then Ivan added: “I thank God that he allowed me to learn the truth.”

The Trybuna reports that Ivan is an elder in a congregation in Lvov, where “there are 13 congregations and more than 2,000 religious believers. . . . ‘In all religious groups everywhere there reigns a spirit of nationalism. However, it is absent among my coreligionists,’ says Grevniak.”

This unity was shown at the Warsaw convention of Jehovah’s Witnesses where the program was presented simultaneously in Polish and Russian in different parts of the stadium. There was absolutely no nationalistic friction.

Zofia Uszynska was also impressed by the organization needed to house, feed, and even medically care for the more than 35,000 who attended the convention. She concluded: “I have never participated in such a fine, friendly public gathering.”

The Polish daily Sztandar Młodych (Standard of Youth) commented on the work done to make the stadium fit to receive so many visitors: “As a social service . . . Jehovah’s followers rebuilt the benches, remodeled tunnels and toilets, cleaned the grass field. They contributed to the cost of the convention from their own pockets. Jehovah’s Witnesses prepared about 22,000 private accommodations for the visitors, cared for boarding for Soviet citizens, and had their own medical care.”

Certainly Jehovah’s Witnesses are already experiencing “brighter days” in Eastern Europe and pray that their newfound legal standing in countries such as Romania, Hungary, and Poland will soon extend to Czechoslovakia, Albania, Bulgaria, and the Soviet Union.​—2 Thessalonians 3:1; 1 Timothy 2:1, 2.

[Pictures on page 23]

Soviet Witnesses at Warsaw “Pure Language” Convention, including baptismal candidates (upper and inset), Russian speaker, program, and Soviet delegates in front of their buses