In Loving God, Charles Colson tells of a quiet act of forgiveness that began a chain of events that still survives. Deep in one of Siberia's prison camps a Jew by the name of Dr. Boris Kornfeld was imprisoned. As a medical doctor he worked in surgery and otherwise helped both the staff and the prisoners. He met a Christian, whose name is unknown, whose quiet faith and his frequent reciting of the Lord's Prayer moved Dr. Kornfeld.

One day, while repairing a guard's artery which had been cut in a knifing, he seriously considered suturing it in such a way that he would bleed to death a little while later. Then, appalled by the hatred and violence he saw in his own heart, he found himself repeating the words of the nameless prisoner: "Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us."Shortly after that prayer Dr. Kornfeld began to refuse to go along with some of the standard practices of the prison camp, including one day turning in an orderly who had stolen food from a dying patient. After that he knew his life was in danger, so he began to spend as much time as possible in the relative safety of the hospital.

One afternoon he examined a patient who had just been operated on for cancer of the intestines, a man whose eyes and face reflected a depth of spiritual misery and emptiness that moved Kornfeld. So the doctor began to talk to the patient, telling him the entire story, an incredible confession of secret faith.

That night someone snuck in and smashed Dr. Kornfeld's head while he was asleep—he died a few hours later.

But Kornfeld's testimony did not die. For the patient who had heard his confession, became, as a result, a Christian. And he survived that prison camp and went on to tell the world what he had learned there. The patient was the great writer—Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.