The Protestant Church

Besides the Orthodox church, the Protestant church also posed a threat to the state, albeit a smaller one. That is, there were fewer adherents, but still it had to be kept in check. Luckily, this challenge was met with the same gusto as the problem with the Orthodox church. Pentecostals were served en masse with 20 to 25 year prison sentences, and many died in prison. The leader of the Seventh-day Adventist, Vladimir Shelkov underground church was kept in jail for 49 years. Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, all of these, persecuted, imprisoned, and their property confiscated.