Devils Strategies

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Bishop Pavel Borissov Ignatov a native of Sofia Bulgaria has been a minister of the gospel for about 50 years Born in 1948 he was raised and began his early ministry under the times of the Communist Regime He began preaching in his house very young and took over the fellowship which his father Boris had started He is at All Nations Beijing this week to mentor us in the coming revival to China Ignatov s ministry of evangelism took him all over Bulgaria In 1980 he was elected National Overseer Bishop of the Church of God the largest underground fellowship in the country The movement was going under tremendous persecution during those years and brother Pavel was arrested hundreds of times and his family was threatened by the godless atheistic regime In 1986 Pavel was sentenced to exile and internment to the mountain village of Mihalkovo far away from Sofia the sentence was for three years but an international campaign was launched very soon for his release that campaign was led by Human Rights organizations in Finland and Lee College currently Lee University in the United States The Lee College students were wearing Pray for Pavel badges and writing letters to the Bulgarian government After General Secretary of the Bulgarian Communist Party Todor Zhivkov received over 36 000 letters in defense of Pavel Zhivkov publicly denied that such man existed but had him secretly released after only 6 months of exile Pavel immediately resumed his preaching activities which were marked by the remarkable growth of Pentecostal conversions among the Bulgarian Roma Gypsy minority Pavel was in the middle of the public protests for democratization of the country which eventually brought about the end of authoritarian one-party rule in Bulgaria at the end of 1989 Pavel s home church came out in the open in 1990 and celebrated Easter that year in the largest auditorium in country in the National Palace of Culture in Sofia For the following 5 years Bulgaria experienced tremendous and fast changes the churches had a spiritual harvest and explosive growth Brother Pavel s congregation continued to have Sunday worship services in the National Palace of Culture for about 10 years as he pastored the largest in the country where regular attendance was 1500- 2 000 people every Sunday Then brother Pavel decided to branch out his large congregation and start a number of new churches proliferated all around Sofia The number of believers doubled in a short period Pavel has hosted well-known international ministers like Bert H Clendennen R W Shambach David Hathaway Ray H Hughes Phil Driscoll Cliff Richards Perry Stone Tommy Tenney Floyd Lawhon and many others Magazines like Charisma Christianity Today and the Church of God Evangel have published articles on r Pavel s ministry From 1992 to 1996 he served on the Church of God Executive Council in Cleveland TN USA In 2005 Bishop Pavel Ignatov withdrew from the administrative leadership of the Bulgarian Church of God but continues to preach and pastor his local congregation in Sofia and conducts teaching and preaching activities in Bulgaria and internationally He has since then written 4 books on Bulgarian Evangelical and Pentecostal history and spoke at Christian TV shows and conferences Bishop Pavel Ignatov is a powerful preacher of the gospel and a man of prophetic insight and wisdom Support the showClick here to visit this podcast episode