One meeting in 1968 changed everything
Voice of Persecuted Christians began the night a British missionary listened to a Romanian pastor describe fourteen years in Communist prisons — and decided the Western church could never look away again.
A pastor’s testimony, a movement’s spark
In the UK, 1968 was the year the Revd. Stuart Harris, then General Secretary of the European Christian Mission, set out to answer a form of oppression few in the West were willing to name: the persecution of Christians behind the Iron Curtain.
What moved him was not a statistic but a man. Before leaving Romania, the pastor Richard Wurmbrand met Harris in Bucharest and, later that evening, shared his story. Harris would write: “We were appalled by the evidence of such bitter suffering… we felt that we could never be the same again.”
Out of that conviction, Harris founded Christian Mission to the Communist World – the ministry that, decades later, became Voice of Persecuted Christians.
It started in a hut
The new mission had the most modest of homes — a wooden hut in the grounds of Elmstead Baptist Church, near Bromley. Before the year was out, a newsletter titled Jesus to the Communist World had been published, calling a sleeping church to attention.
Its purpose was plain: to help persecuted believers and the families of Christian martyrs, to carry the gospel where it was forbidden, and to wake the wider church to a suffering it preferred not to see. The work grew quickly, and soon outgrew the hut.
The West sleeps, and must be awakened to see the plight of the captive nations.
Richard Wurmbrand
Fifty-seven years of standing with the persecuted
A mission is born
Stuart Harris founds Christian Mission to the Communist World (CMCW), run from a hut at Elmstead Baptist Church near Bromley.
Voice of the Martyrs
Beyond the Iron Curtain
Through two decades the focus stays on Communist Europe, while the mission’s eyes widen to the persecuted church worldwide.
The wall comes down
Communist regimes collapse across Eastern Europe. The world also grows newly aware of Islamist and nationalist persecution.
A new name: Release International
As the work reaches far beyond the Communist world, CMCW is renamed Release International - the newsletter becoming Release in Action.
The founders pass
Sabina Wurmbrand dies in 2000, Richard in early 2001, and Stuart Harris that October — within months of one another.
Fifty years
The ministry marks half a century of serving the persecuted church — the contexts changed, the calling unchanged.
Voice of Persecuted Christians
A refreshed name for the same mission. Active in around 30 countries, working through local partners — prayerfully, pastorally, practically.
How our logo has changed over the years
First Logo
Recent Logo
Current Logo
You can be part of the next chapter
Because of people who pray, share and give, persecuted Christians around the world know they are not alone. Stand with them today.
