And what about Portugal? Here too, missionaries were ordered out of the country. Egged on by the Catholic clergy, the police searched the homes of Jehovah’s Witnesses, confiscated their literature, and disrupted their meetings. In January 1963 the commander of the Public Security Police of Caldas da Rainha even issued a written order forbidding them to ‘exercise their activities of Bible reading.’ But the Witnesses did not forsake their service to God. There were over 13,000 of them by the time they gained legal recognition in Portugal in 1974.

[Picture on page 494]

During bans, congregation meetings were often held in the countryside, picnic-style, as here in Portugal