A short history of witness to the truth and a challenge for today – Part three

Switzerland

The earliest attempts to preach the Word publicly in Switzerland illustrate the initiative and enterprise of brethren in the last century. A Swiss brother Malan who had been baptized in Britain returned to his native Geneva in 1884. He was determined that his light should be under no bushel. Although completely alone in the city he hired a hall holding 400 people, advertised a series of lectures, had handbills printed, and distributed them himself. He was in no way an orator. It is doubtful, indeed, if he had ever spoken in public before. He decided that the best procedure would be to translate “Christendom Astray” into French, and deliver the various chapters as separate lectures.

The first evening the hall was packed. The theological colleges, masters and scholars, turned out in force. Brother Malan acted as president, doorkeeper and lecturer, and the evening went splendidly. By the fourth lecture in the series the audience was less, but not discouragingly so. The difficulty to follow up was aggravated by the absence of literature in French.

It was not for nine years that this defect was remedied in part. In 1893 “Christendom Astray” was advertised in “The Review of Reviews,” and several people were introduced to the faith by this means. One of them was an artist in Neuchatel, in French-speaking Switzerland, who had already come to much the same conclusions by independent study. He made the journey all the way to London for the purpose of being baptized, and returned immediately into isolation after receiving the Right Hand of Fellowship. In 1896 he visited Birmingham and met brother Malan, and the two co-operated in preparing a pamphlet in French. To assist them the Birmingham ecclesia collected six pounds, then no small sum, and sufficient to enable a considerable number of copies to be printed.

France

From time to time Christadelphians were able to broadcast a few seeds of the Gospel here even as early as the 1880’s. In 1882 a brother set out from Britain in an attempt to visit the Holy Land, but his difficulties multiplied and he reached no farther than Paris, where he had to remain for a considerable time. His attempts to preach the truth were apparently fruitless.

Twenty years or so later a group of three or four brethren and sisters was resident in Calais, though its activities are not now known.

At the beginning of this century there was a small meeting in Paris under the guidance of Brother Bain, and in 1910 they had an addition to their membership whose case is of interest. Mme. Victorine de Verbizier had lived much of her life in the French Pacific colony of Tihiti. She had come to the knowledge of the faith by her own studies in that remote place, and had later asked to be baptized. In her extreme old age she chanced to meet a brother while in Paris, and had the blessings of fellowship during her last days.

Bulgaria

This is one of the most remarkable incidents in Christadelphian annals. The preacher was a Bulgar by the name of Peter Doycheff, a native of the city known now as Plovdiv, but then by the Greek name of Philippopolis. In those days the country was under Turkish domination,* and this was one of its chief towns. Brother Doycheff visited Lincoln, England during the winter of 1895, and there came into contact with Brother Bailey, who put works on the Bible’s teaching in his hands. He had already come some way towards our faith and these works completed his conversion. He returned to Bulgaria determined to spread his new faith, but was doomed to disappointment. In 1896 a pastor of a free church in Yamboli left his flock, and Brother Doycheff took the congregation in hand without fee. Later he preached in Plovdiv itself, but his message seems to have fallen on deaf ears. A couple of years later he set about publishing pamphlets on the Truth in Bulgaria, of which the first appeared in 1898 under the title “Are the Dead Conscious?” Two others followed later.

Soon afterwards a war of independence broke out in Bulgaria, and Plovdiv became the scene of bitter conflict. Nothing more was heard of our brother.