History is full of examples...
Illustration
History is full of examples of the church prospering under persecution. In the middle of the 12th century, the Mongol warrior, Genghis Kahn, broke through the great wall of China and moved through central Asia and across the mountains into Russia. He and his warriors literally crushed the Russian opposition by building a huge platform over their victims and then holding a feast atop this platform. Their victims were then crushed to death by the weight of the celebrants.
When they attacked Kiev in 1240, they aimed their catapults at the dome of the cathedral. They used battering rams to break down the walls of the city and stormed and destroyed the churches where people had gathered for refuge. A traveler passing through in 1246, wrote that Kiev, which has been a great city with many churches and libraries, had only 200 houses left. He had seen only ruins and a countryside littered with human skulls and bones.
This was not the end. Although two-thirds of the population had perished and most of the survivors had fled into the forests -- despite all this -- the people of Kiev maintained their Christianity. The two centuries following this conflict became known as the Golden Age of Russian Spirituality during which the teaching and the spirit of the Orthodox Church came to stand for the Russian nation itself. (Suzanne Massie, Land of the Firebird, Simon and Schuster.)
When they attacked Kiev in 1240, they aimed their catapults at the dome of the cathedral. They used battering rams to break down the walls of the city and stormed and destroyed the churches where people had gathered for refuge. A traveler passing through in 1246, wrote that Kiev, which has been a great city with many churches and libraries, had only 200 houses left. He had seen only ruins and a countryside littered with human skulls and bones.
This was not the end. Although two-thirds of the population had perished and most of the survivors had fled into the forests -- despite all this -- the people of Kiev maintained their Christianity. The two centuries following this conflict became known as the Golden Age of Russian Spirituality during which the teaching and the spirit of the Orthodox Church came to stand for the Russian nation itself. (Suzanne Massie, Land of the Firebird, Simon and Schuster.)
