Journal of European Baptist Studies, 2007

a Macedonian nationalist in Marseille in 1934. 6 The missionary movement was unable to operate in these circumstances and the churches were left to bear the struggles with the authorities alone. Membership began to decline, partly because people emigrated to avoid persecution, partly from fear of the authorities. It was in this time of persecution that Strahil Grozdanov, also known by the last name of Zlatanov, was born in a provincial part of what was then the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. He was born near the border with Bulgaria, on 9 th May 1920. 7 His parents Nikola and Magdalina were simple peasant people, working as farmers, cultivating their land and caring for herds of sheep and goats. His mother, Magdalina, had become a member of the congregational church prior to World War I, while his father, Nikola, was Orthodox at the time of their marriage. Grozdanov was born during the time when large crowds gathering to worship were still present in the evangelical churches. He was, however, even as a child, going to experience some of the hardships of being a Christian, which would follow him throughout his life. When he was nine years old, the militia burnt down the local evangelical church under the V o encouragement of the Serbian Orthodox priest of the town - Priest Ziko. ~ R. Tandy McConnell, Indigenous Baptists and Foreign Missionaries: Baptist Communities in Romania, Hungary and Yugoslavia 1872-1980 (Doctoral Thesis, 1996), p. 119. 3 Strahil Grozdanov, Kratok istorijat na razvojot na protestantizmot vo ovoj del od Balkanot [Short history of the development of Protestantism in this area of the Balkans] (Unpublished, 1984), 1. 4 Matjazh Klemencic and Mitja Zhagar, The Former Yugoslavia’s diverse peoples (Oxford: ABC-Clio, 2004), p. 140. 5 Robert Lee Wolff, The Balkans in our time (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956), p. 145. 6 Ibid. 7 Strahil Grozdanov Personal Documents [Birth ceritificate. Issued on 17.8.1993, owned by Ivan Grozdanov]. 8 Grozdanov, Kratok Istorijat 1994 , p. 5. The life and legacy of Strahil Grozdanov 23 There were at least two assassination attempts directed at the pastor of the church, Vladimir Daskalov (himself coming from an ex-orthodox priest’s family), in the late 1920s. Although Daskalov survived both attempts, he emigrated first to nearby Strumica, and later to Egypt. 9 For the next decade the declining membership was left without a place to worship and without a pastor. It was during these hardships, in 1928, that the Radovis Evangelical Church joined the Baptist Union of Yugoslavia, through the work of Vinko Vacek, the pioneer of Yugoslav Baptists. 10 It is unclear how much influence Vladimir Daskalov had on Strahil. Daskalov was the most highly educated evangelical scholar and pastor to emerge out of Macedonia up until the late 20 th century. He studied in Bulgaria and taught maths in Strumica for several years, 11 before