The Pastor Who Sang Underground

In 1948, Romanian secret police dragged Richard Wurmbrand from his family and buried him in a cell three floors beneath Bucharest. For three years he lived in solitary confinement — no sunlight, no books, no name, only a number. The guards expected silence or screaming. They got neither. Wurmbrand sang hymns. He preached sermons to an empty room. He composed melodies by tapping rhythms on the stone walls, and prisoners in neighboring cells tapped back.…