"Communism set out to destroy me.
But Communism is gone and I am still here!"
Father Placid
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| In the small room where he lives and reads |
He is not great in stature, but Father Placid is great in faith. Of all of the events that our team participated in this week, this one is perhaps the one that can not be duplicated. Meeting Father Placid, a 94 year old priest who suffered in a Russian Gulag for his faith, was a rare opportunity to meet a man who played an important role in God's Story here on earth...the story of faith and perseverance, the story of God's love for man and His strength and purpose in the midst of suffering.
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| Edina interpreted for Father Placid. |
Please read the article below, written in 2004, when we (Michael and Gail) first met Father Placid. He retold many of the stories in this article, and he told some new ones. One new story I'd like to share happened three years ago when a priest friend of Father Placid was visiting a hospital. In this hospital, a man lay dying and this dying man asked the priest if he knew a specific man. The priest said, "Yes, I know that man because he was an especially harsh judge who sentenced me to the Russian gulag." The dying man then confessed that he was that man, and the priest told him that it was time to repent..."you will soon be forced to repent, or you can do it now of your own free will." The dying man did repent...to one who he had oppressed and the former prisoner prayed for the soul of his former judge. Minutes later the judge passed into eternity to meet his final JUDGE.
Father Olofsson—Grace In and Out of the Gulag
Copyright © 2004 Gail Purath
A Small Room, A Great Man
In November 2004 during our first three months in Budapest, Hungary, Michael and I had an opportunity to meet Father Carl Olofsson, a Hungarian priest who spent ten years of his life in a Russian Gulag. I will always remember that evening as a glimpse into God’s incredible grace.
High European ceilings with ornate trim and yellowing paint created an old world charm in the small room that Father Olofsson calls home. Disorderly stacks of books lined the walls and spilled over onto the massive antique desk. In contrast, the Father’s single bed was neatly made with an old blanket. Next to it sat a small table topped with a clean piece of Hungarian lace and two small plants.
We put our coats on the bed as Father Olofsson offered us seats in massive antique chairs with pieces of colored cloth covering their threadbare seats. A large framed award from the mayor of Budapest was propped against one wall. Hanging above it was a painting of three generations of Olofssons, a teen-aged Carl being the youngest. Olofsson is a Swedish name, but his family has lived in Hungary for hundreds of years.
During our conversation, Father Olofsson was animated and cheerful. His eyes danced, his hands moved rapidly in gesture, and from time to time he clasped his wrinkled fingers in delight. He laughed frequently while he spoke with us, and the lines of his face revealed tenderness and kindness. His overall impression was gentle and happy without a hint of the godly suffering he had endured.
109 Years Old
Our friend, Mary, translated as Father Olofsson (or Father Placid as his order of St. Benedict named him) explained his recent visit to a Hungarian nursing home. “I told them I was 109 years old and they were my little nieces and nephews,” he said, laughing mischievously, “because every year in the Army is worth two normal years, and every year in prison is worth three normal years, and I spent one year in the Army and ten years in a Russian gulag. So that makes me 109!” (He was actually 88.) A smile broke across his wrinkled face and he put his clasped hands to his lips in delight. When my husband, Michael said that (according to those calculations) he is 77 years old (he spent 22 years in the U.S. Army), Placid laughed and grabbed Michael’s hand for a hardy shake.
Speaking through Mary, Father Olofsson encouraged us to take some of the cookies and juice he had arranged on a small table next to us. Although he has a seminary degree and he knows several languages fluently, English is not one of them.
A Dainty Portrait
Mary explained to Father Placid that she had spent the previous evening telling us some of the stories from his biography (A Hit Pajzsa—The Shield of Faith). He nodded his head humbly, then jumped up and pulled a small case (about 3”x 3”) from his desk drawer. When opened, it revealed a tiny discolored mirror on one side and a small picture of a woman’s face on the other. On closer examination, we found that the picture was actually a small, detailed painting of excellent quality. The Father explained that this is one of his mementos from the gulag.
When the Russian guards discovered Placid had artistic skills,(1) they assigned him to do portrait work. Because he did so well on these portraits, a fellow prisoner approached him and asked him to paint a portrait on his mirror case (one of the few possessions prisoners were allowed). Placid was a bit fearful because this man was not a political prisoner—he was a violent man who had killed 23 people! What would happen if Placid’s portrait displeased him? But the Father had no reason to fear. The murderer was extremely pleased with the portrait and offered Placid protection in exchange.
This little mirror case exemplifies the quality with which Father Olofsson does everything in his life. It makes me think of the Old Testament story of Joseph and the way he found favor in everything he did, even in prison.
Arrested at age twenty, the Father spent ten years in the Siberian prison camp. He was beaten, forced to do hard labor, and fed only a small portion of bread and thin soup daily. Sometimes he and the other prisoners ate the bitter sap of birch trees, which they hoped would provide some additional vitamins for their survival. They slept in a comfortless cell without a blanket during the cold Siberian winters. When another prisoner stole his only pair of shoes, Placid walked and worked the frozen Siberian ground without shoes. When released, he weighed a mere 86 pounds.
He Knew His Purpose
“What kept you from discouragement during those years of suffering?” I asked him.
Father Olofsson explained, “It was very hard for me at first because I didn’t know my purpose. But soon God let me know that I was there to help the other prisoners, and my attitude must give them hope. Before this I would often cry; afterwards I tried to remain happy for the sake of the others. It was especially hard for me when part way through my ten-year sentence, they gave an early release to prisoners with much longer sentences than I had. But I knew God had a purpose for me to stay.” (Again I thought of Joseph who was “forgotten” in prison.)
A Theology Teacher
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| Father Placid insisted he must smile in pictures with the women and look serious with the men |
Placid had always dreamed of teaching theology, and in an unusual way, he did just that. He ministered as a friend and priest in the gulag to guards and prisoners alike, and he did it in some creative ways. For example, he realized that his Russian captors did not understand Hungarian, so he sometimes sang messages to Hungarian prisoners while he scrubbed the floors or toilets. The guards thought he was simply singing a meaningless song, but it was one of his creative methods of ministry. And when his time for release came, he and some of his fellow prisoners voluntarily stayed a few days longer to help a Russian guard finish some work!(2) This is certainly a living example of Matthew 5:43-48.
Appropriately Framed
Father Placid has a warm sense of humor, and he comes by it naturally—his heavenly Father has one too. If you doubt that, all you need to do is hear some of the Father’s stories. For example, the Russians were unfamiliar with the European toilet so when the prison commander confiscated some German toilet seats from a captured train, he didn’t know what they were. The commander of the prison ordered the father to place Stalin and Lenin’s portraits in these new “frames.” Father Placid felt compelled to eventually explain this mistake to the commander, but the frames were put up long enough for the non-Russian prisoners to be cheered and amused by this fitting tribute to the Communist patriarchs.
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| "I am a happy man. I'm a child of the Gospel and the Gospel means 'good news.' There is no kind of suffering that can ruin that." |
House of Terror
Placid shared the love of Christ, saw many of his fellow prisoners converted, and tried his best to administer the sacraments. Several prisoners worked secretly to craft a challis for his use, and this crude gift of their love for the father now sits in the House of Terror, the Budapest museum which reveals the atrocities of the secret police during the years of Communism. The museum is located in the same building where Father Placid and others were interrogated and tortured before they were sent to the gulag.
Placid’s Curriculum of Survival
While in the gulag, Father Placid developed a “curriculum” of survival with four main points:
1. Never complain. It only discourages you further.
Find something about which you can rejoice each day. Perhaps there are a few extra pieces of potato floating in the thin broth that is your daily ration of soup. When a guard passes, perhaps he does not require that you remove your hat in the icy wind.
Under Father Placid, the prisoners actually had contests to see who could find the most reasons to
rejoice. One prisoner found 17 reasons to rejoice during one of his days of gulag suffering!
3. Remember that you are never alone. Jesus is with you and He will give you strength.
We are all men, guard and prisoner alike, but we can show the guards that we are a different kind of men
because of Jesus.
The Communists arrested Father Placid without ever explaining the charges against him because his only crime was an outspoken love for God and his fellowman. For the first eight years of his imprisonment, he had no contact with anyone outside the gulag, and his family did not know where he was or whether he was alive. When he was released, he sent someone ahead to prepare his aging mother for his return. At that time, she still lived in the family apartment on Bartok Bela Street in Budapest where Placid and his sister were raised. The small room where we visited Father Olofsson is in that same apartment. A high school teacher now rents the larger part of the apartment and provides some assistance to the father.
Working For the Lord Even in the Laundry
For 10 years after his release, Father Olofsson was a marked man, watched constantly by the Communists. Unable to resume his duties as a priest, he began working at a hospital laundry where he soon became the director. Father Olofsson excelled at whatever he did because God was with him. The Bible does not tell us whether the patriarch Joseph had the same glow that Placid has, but the Father has trust and forgiveness similar to Joseph (see especially Genesis 50:19-21).
Before we visited Father Olofsson, Mary helped us learn the phrase “May Jesus Christ be praised” in Hungarian. This is a phrase of greeting used by Hungarian Catholics to which the one greeted responds “forever!” The father was delighted at our poor attempt to recite the phase, and he chuckled as he told us how ironic it was when the former Communist mayor said “forever!” when Father Olofsson praised Jesus at his recent award ceremony.
The Christian world knows the story of Corrie Ten Boom (who spent about a year in a Nazi concentration camp because she aided escaping Jews). We also know the stories of a few others, but many more of these suffering saints remain anonymous. Some died with only God as a witness to their faith; others survived but remain unknown to the world.
Some, like Father Olofsson, live humbly, barely aware of their impact on the Kingdom. And they continue to serve. Father Olofsson lets neither his age nor his past service deter him from his active life of church duties, speaking engagements and visits to the sick. Our land lady Mary, who sees the Father regularly, said that he is always cheerful and always full of wisdom about God. He has received some recognition (as the framed award from the mayor attests), but he is largely unknown and underestimated by the world in which he lives.
Western Christians have skills and knowledge that we can offer Christians in former Communist countries, but Father Olofsson and others like him can teach us something we know little about—they can teach us what it means to share in Christ’s sufferings (Phil. 3:7-11).
After our meeting, I asked myself: Do I have the kind of faith that can survive cruelty and injustice? Will I still trust my Savior when everything around me crumbles? Do I focus my prayers on my own conveniences and comforts or on the kingdom purposes of God?
I am grateful for the faith of Father Olofsson which encourages me to press on, to know Christ better, to serve him with a stronger resolve, to appreciate the little blessings and see inconveniences as opportunities for character growth.
The day following our visit, Michael and I saw Father Olofsson walking down Bartok Bela toward his apartment building. I wondered what he was thinking as he walked against the icy Budapest wind—was he thinking of those wintry days in Siberia when he had no coat or shoes? With a cane in one hand and a briefcase in the other, he looked rather frail and alone…but I knew that he was neither!
(1)—In our 2010 meeting with Father Placid, the interpreter explained that Father Placid had confessed to being an artist, thinking the guards would leave him alone. But, to his surprise, the commander of the prison asked him to paint his portrait. The Father said it took quite a bit of practice to improve his skills, but after a number of attempts, he began painting decent portraits.
(2)—In our 2010 meeting, if Father Placid was relating the same incident, it appears their work was for an individual who had contracted with the prison in order to meet his government quota for lumber work. Father Placid and other prisoners who were soon to be released were exempt from this work, but they chose to do it anyway to help this man meet his quota so he would not get in trouble.
Pray for Father Placid and for others like him. Pray that younger Hungarians, who never suffered under atheistic Communism, will understand their need for God. Pray for the Catholic Church in Hungary and for Catholic Christians. Pray for unity among genuine Believers, whether Catholic or Protestant.
PLEASE READ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ADDED TO MONDAY, WEDNESDAY AND THURSDAY BLOG ARTICLES--(IN RED).
But before our free time, we attended another KEGY church English Club where Tammy gave her testimony and others on our team participated in English conversation with Hungarian English students.
Thursday morning we got a little extra sleep and then went to the Fine Arts Museum for a class and tour by Jane Stevens, a good friend of mine (Gail) here in Budapest. Jane has worked as a docent for several years and gives a course called "The Bible Illuminates Art."
