Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

to his future ministry and work. The focus during his young adult life will be on his rise to leadership and his call to ministry, while the last two sections will highlight the key events that defined his ministry. I would argue that it was through Strahil Grozdanov’s leadership and commitment during the socialist era, that the Baptist movement in the region of Macedonia was able to survive and develop. In conclusion, I will offer an evaluation both of the contributions Strahil made to Baptist life in this region, as well as some of his shortcomings and failures. Although he was my grandfather, I have attempted to evaluate his life and work with academic objectivity. 1. Birth and childhood (1920-1940) The 1920s were a period where the evangelical mission in the area of Macedonia had reached its peak, unattainable almost a century later. The early missionaries of the congregational denominations had come to Macedonia in the 1850s, then under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. In the following decades, these missionaries created a network of orphanages, schools and churches which were quickly finding support among the local population. At the turn of the century, when the famous national Ilinden uprising for liberation occurred, over three hundred children orphaned by the uprising were being cared for by missionaries in their centre for Macedonia in Solun (Thessaloniki). The missionaries operated one of the first female high schools in the consular city of Bitola, and also other schools in different towns in Macedonia. 1 The local population was sympathetic to these actions which paved the way for larger numbers to join the churches. The highly publicised kidnapping of missionary Ellen Stone by Macedonian revolutionaries likewise drew attention to the 1 Strahil Grozdanov, Kratok istorijat na Evangelskoto dvizenje vo Makedonija od 19-tiot vekponatamu [Short history of the Evangelical movement in Macedonia from the end of the 19 th century onwards] (Unpublished, 1994), p. 2. 22 Journal of European Baptist Studies missionary work. It was from some of these Congregationalist missions out of which grew the Baptist communities in Macedonia. 2 In Radovis, the small town of Grozdanov’s birth, the church experienced the largest growth, and at the turn of the century grew to a membership of over three hundred people, which was unseen anywhere else in the Balkans at that time. 3 With the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, the area of today’s Macedonia was annexed by Serbia in 1913, and later the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. 4 The Serbian Orthodox clergy had taken up a cause to eradicate the sectarian movements under its jurisdiction, and now, with the support of the Serbian militias, it was able to utilise government power, which was also advocating a policy of ‘serbianisation’. 5 This policy produced severe tensions in the land and resulted in the assassination of the Serbian King Alexander by