March 30, 1974, Rev. G. P. Vins was arrested and, in January, 1975, he was sentenced to five years in concentration camps followed by five more years of exile in Siberia. His ‘crime’ was to be desirous of and fight for the principle of religious liberty. He refused to have the local churches and their pastors controlled by the (Russian) government. He was arrested in 1966, and again in 1970, and after serving his sentences, he went underground to carry on his ministry covertly. In 1980 Vins was one of five dissidents exchanged by the United States, for two Russian spies.
