Church Persecution- Pastors “Confess” At Trial In Bulgaria

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 February 1949, Page 5

Church PersecutionPastors “Confess” At Trial In Bulgaria

(Recd. 10.20 a.m.) SOFIA, February 25. With tears streaming down his cheeks and his voice cracking, a Bulgarian pastor, Nikola Naumov, president of the Supreme Council of United Evangelical Churches of Bulgaria, repeatedly paid tribute to the Communist State, renounced his previous beliefs and asked for a chancy to work as an honest man when he appeared on trial at the Palace of Justice today. Naumov ,was the first to be called of the 15 Protestant church leaders who have been, accused of treason, espionage for Britain and the United States and black-marketing.

Naumov pleaded guilty to all the charges and for several hours spilled forth a stream of repentant confession. He wept with emotion when reviewing his past alleged activities against the State. He said that Cyril Black, secretary of the United States Political Mission in Bulgaria before the peace treaty and now a Princeton University professor, asked him to take to him information on military factories.

Americans Accused

On another occasion, he said. Black requested information on the people’s attitude toward ' the Communists and other political and economic data. Confessing that he had supplied this information, Naumov blamed Black, describing the American as “a very sly man, and a man who knows how to listen.” Naumov mentioned Rockefeller. Ford and other wealthy Americans as being behind the church organisations, for which he is alleged to have collected information. He declared he was won over “by the good behaviour of the security officials.” The second defendant, Pastor Yanko Nikolov, supervisor of the Methodist Church, pleaded guilty.

2226 Pages

Collective pleas of guilt and repentance, alleged to have been made by the 15 Bulgarian Protestant mm-

isters on charges of. .spying and plotting, were shown to foreign press correspondents last night by Mr Ilia Times, the Bulgarian Deputy Minister of Justice.

The Sofia correspondent of the Associated Press says that the Minister produced 2226 pages of statements and depositions, which he said were in the handwriting of the defendants. The correspondent adds that the documenta were filled with responses like these: “I admit my guilt,” “I repent,” “I beg for clemency,” and “I want to be given a new chance to work for the Motherland.”