(Translation: Sven Ljungholm)

A corps was opened in Moscow in 1918 and there I discovered the Army

While (stationed) at the International training college I was asked by the General to represent the Army at various conferences; one of the most interesting was the Conference of European Churches that met in the autumn of 1964. The late Commissioner Tor Wahlström, then leader in Denmark, accompanied me. The event was unique because of the unusual circumstances under which we met. Originally it was intended to hold a conference in the Danish town of Aarhus, but as the German Democratic Republic would not permit their citizens to enter territories or states belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization a new strategy had to be devised that would make it possible for East German Christians to attend. Finally it was decided to charter the M.S. Bornholm and station it in the Kattegat in neutral waters beyond the jurisdiction of any NATO nation.

We boarded the Bornholm at Copenhagen harbour and sailed toward the Swedish coast. As Sweden is not a NATO country, East Germans could travel there quite freely. We dropped anchor some miles from Malmö and waited until dusk deepened. Before long a tugboat was observed approaching from the east. As she drew alongside, the searchlights were turned on and a rope ladder was let down over the side of the ship. We stood and cheered as eight Christian leaders from East Germany climbed on deck, some of them weeping openly.

Later that evening, at our first meal on shipboard, I shared a table with two U.S.S.R. delegates, an elderly bearded pastor and a young woman, both fluent in English. The pastor told me he entered the ministry of his evangelical church before the October 1917 Bolshevik revolution, and had been well acquainted with Commissioner Karl Larsson, a Swedish Salvationist who had close links with the Army (SA) in Russia prior to and for some time after the revolution. In point of fact, as early as 1913 Larsson introduced the Army to Russia – the Army’s official history says “almost by holy subterfuge!”

Taking advantage of a Hygiene Exhibition in Saint Petersburg (now Leningrad) he presented a Salvation Army display in the Finnish Pavilion. It created considerable interest, and from such a small beginning Salvationism took root and grew slowly but steadily until by 1917 North Russia was recognized as a full-fledged SA Territory. 

A corps was opened in Moscow, (in 1918) and there my new acquaintance met Larsson and discovered The Army with its flags, happy singing and fervent proclamation of the gospel.[1]

The Moscow corps was opened in October 1918 by my grandparents and no doubt the Gospel heard was that shared by the corps officers, Adjutant Gerda and Otto Ljungholm, in their broken Russian but “fervent proclamation”, along with others. See page 140-41: “Whenever I walk by that old building where Salvationists held their Moscow meetings those long years ago,” he told me, “I invariably pause for a moment of thanksgiving to the Lord, for it was there I learned to know him better and to love him more deeply.”

He told me that nearly a hundred songs from the Salvation Army songbook are to be found in his Church’s hymnary, including the Founder’s  “O Boundless Salvation.”[2]

General Clarence Wiseman

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[1]Wiseman, Clarence, A Burning in my Bones, p. 140