Nicholas S. NicKoloff

b. Karnobat, Bulgaria on 15 March 1900, the son of 'Harry' Nickoloff and Marie nee Popoff.

He became an actor and a musician.

Educated at the State Commercial College, Bourgas, University of Sofia (law); Bethel Bible School at Newark, N. J., Biblical Seminary, NY. He later became a teacher at Bethel.

Nickoloff was converted in Bourgas 'by just reading the Bible and without instruction from anyone'.

On 17 Nov 1920, he entered the USA on the SS La France out of Le Havre.

After his conversion he was sent as a missionary to Russia, Poland and Bulgaria. In October 1926 he went to Russia to preach the gospel, discovering ‘several hundred groups of believers’, though many were suffering oppression and prison. In the same year he began cottage meetings in Bourgas, which rapidly grew into a thriving church. His associate, Theodore Stoykoff, travelled widely in Eastern Europe. It was out of this work that the Russian and Eastern European Mission (REEM) was organized in Chicago in 1927, on which Nikoloff collaborated with Gustave H. Schmidt, and Paul B. Peterson. In the following year the agency established in Danzig (Gdansk), Poland, a field office to supervise the work in Eastern Europe as well as a Bible institute for the training of ministers. Through the evangelistic work of its missionaries and the graduates of the school, REEM reported 80,000 converts in Eastern Europe and Russia by the time of WWII. Its activities were published in the Gospel Call\ the official voice of the agency. [Burgess 2002]

In 1927, he married Martha Elizabeth nee Nagel (6 May 1902, East Paterson, NJ -28 Sep 1995), the daughter of Gustav and Mary Henkes Nagel.

His experience of Soviet brutality and oppression coloured his preaching through the 1930s and 1940s: a 'forceful speaker' "some of the stories of persecution, which he tells, will make bis audience feel fortunate that communism is not in rulership in the United States. He has been an eye witness to many atrocities and has himself been almost in constant danger for preaching the Gospel.' [Sheboygan Press, 23 Jul 1932: 4]

In the 1930s, Nickoloff ran evangelistic campaigns across the eastern US states, and up into the north: for Irving H. Meier, the pastor of Full Gospel Church, Neptune; in the Embassy Theatre, Neenah, Wisconsin; and at the Sheboygan Gospel Tabernacle. He sat on the AGUSA national Education Committee. He also spent time in Europe. In 1935 he preached in the only Penfecostal meeting place in Italy, meeting then in secret in the Methodist Church. [Newsclippings, Flower PHC 'Italy File']

In 1939 he attended and spoke at the pan-European pentecostal conference in Stockholm, Sweden, during which trip he also toured Danzig and Bulgaria.

He started his own program at Lakeview Gospel Camp, NY., and after World War II he was Principal of North Bergen Bible School (while pastoring the North Bergen Gospel Tabernacle) and Metropolitan Bible Institute, Suffern NY. When numbers of Protestant ministers were arrested by Communist authorities in Bulgaria in 1949, Nickoloff became a point of contact for American media.

Later in life they moved to Springfield, MO, where Martha worked in AGUSA Central Headquarters, and Nicholas taught at Central Bible Institute.

He died on 6 Nov 1964 in Springfield, MO. He was buried in Greenlawn Memorial Gardens. Their children included Paul Zechariah ("Nichols", b. 9 Nov 1927, Bourgas, Bulgaria; Lancaster, PA); and Natalie (m. McBride).

Sources
Ancestry.com

Burgess, S [et al], New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002).

Flower PHC, 'Italy File'.

Newspapers.com.