The Story of the Subversive Cross

While I am still gathering pictures to be able to properly do daily journals, I thought I’d share the story of the “Subversive Cross,” which we saw when we worshiped in San Salvador our first Sunday in El Salvador. The story itself is powerful enough, but we were incredibly blessed to hear it in first person from Bishop Gomez after the service.

In the fall of 1989, both the government and guerilla forces were gearing up for a final battle in San Salvador. Bishop Medeardo Gomez led his congregation in a ceremony whereby a cross, painted white, is then inscribed with the sins of El Salvador and prayers for the country and its people.

A few weeks later, on November 16, the situation had gotten even worse. Bishop Gomez learned that government forces were coming to arrest and possibly even to kill him, and he took refuge in the German embassy. Sure enough—shortly after he left his church, the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection, soldiers appeared, seeking the Bishop.

At the same time, soldiers were headed to the Central American University. There, six Jesuit priests were murdered execution-style.

But at the Lutheran church, the soldiers only found an international group of witnesses, holding a vigil. They arrested 15 people, along with the cross, saying that the church was using the cross to teach subversiveness. The cross was taken to the jail, where individuals were interrogated (and possibly tortured) in front of it. Bishop Gomez eventually had to flee the country to save his life.

When the war ended and Bishop Gomez returned, the American ambassador worked to get the cross returned; it had, somewhat miraculously, not been destroyed. The cross was brought to the house of the President of El Salvador, who then personally presented it to the Bishop. The “subversive cross” now resides in the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection as a reminder of the war and all that happened.