Listen as former Soviet Christian dissident, Timothy Chmykhalov, shares more details on the shocking ways he and his Evangelical Christian family were treated in the Soviet Union in the 60's, 70's, and early 80's. In this extended interview, Timothy also tells about his experience as part of the "Siberian Seven" in which he starting at age 16, his mother, and another family from their church in Siberia stormed the American Embassy in Moscow in 1978 seeking asylum, then proceeded to live in a small basement room at the embassy for nearly 5 years!

As Julie Behling interview Timothy, she also interject a few things. She wrote her master's thesis in graduate school on dissident Christians in the Soviet Union from post-WWII through to Perestroika in the mid-80's.

1 hour and 2 minutes

Timestamps -

0:03 – Timothy tells about his family’s background and his own background, how his parents converted to Evangelical Christianity in the Soviet Union, what it was like growing up as a Soviet Evangelical Christian. Father worked in a coal mine, etc…

7:10 – How Timothy and his family, as dissident Christians, were treated by people in their town.

8:23 – How children of dissident Christian families could be confiscated by the Soviet state and forcibly put in state-run atheistic boarding schools until age 18. This happened to some people in their church.

10:09 – Timothy talks about KGB/police raids on his family’s home growing up

12:45 – Timothy shares details about his father’s arrests and sentences to exile and to a Soviet labor camp (aka the Gulag).

17:59 – How Timothy and his family and other Soviet dissident Christians were able to keep from anger and bitterness over their ill treatment.

20:57 – Psychiatric prison hospitals for dissident Christians

25:44 – Timothy’s experience with Soviet anti-Evangelical Christian propaganda.

28:07 – Timothy’s experience with oppression for his faith growing up in Soviet Siberia – government disruption of church services, neighbors spying on them, worshipping in an unregistered church, etc…

31:06 – Timothy discusses the infiltration of Soviet churches when Timothy was growing up in the 1970’s

33:10 – The price tag for worshipping in registered churches in the Soviet Union, and does Timothy think it was worth it? 36:49 – The Siberian Seven

44:44 – George Bush Sr. and Billy Graham visit Timothy and the Siberian Seven at the American Embassy in Moscow.

48:51 – What kind of response did Timothy and the Siberian Seven get from Christians globally?

52:14 – What it was like for Timothy and the others emigrating from the Soviet Union after nearly 5 years camped out in the basement of the American Embassy in Moscow, and coming to America?

53:22- Timothy has been warning America’s Christians for 40 years about assaults to their faith.

54:19 – Timothy’s observations about America’s Christians, generally, since he immigrated to the U.S. in the early 80’s.

58:31 – His advice for Americans.

1:01:30 – We asked Timothy to sing a hymn in Russian from one of his hand-written hymnals, and he obliged us.

Get All "Beneath Sheep's Clothing" Extended Interview Footage