David Hathaway (born 17 April 1932) is an English evangelist and founder and president of Eurovision Mission to Europe, as well as editorial director of ''Prophetic Vision'' magazine.
Biography
David Hathaway was born in
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
in 1932, and was the younger twin son in his family. His father, William George Hathaway, was born in 1890.
In 1950 David pastored his first church in
Dorking
Dorking () is a market town in Surrey in South East England, about south of London. It is in Mole Valley District and the council headquarters are to the east of the centre. The High Street runs roughly east–west, parallel to the Pipp Br ...
in
Surrey
Surrey () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in South East England, bordering Greater London to the south west. Surrey has a large rural area, and several significant urban areas which form part of the Greater London Built-up Area. ...
. He was full-time pastor and evangelist for 14 years in the
UK from 1950 to 1964.
[Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...]
countries - and he delivered more than 150,000 copies. The biggest smuggling operation was planned for June 1972. The bus was loaded in
. On the border of Czechoslovakia, customs discovered the elaborately concealed secret compartment with 5000 Russian Bibles as well as some leaflets deemed to have political overtones. Hathaway was arrested on the border on 24 June and was accused of committing the offences of attempted sedition and attempted violation of customs regulations. Finally, arrested and tortured, he was sentenced to five years in prison and imprisoned in Czechoslovakia in 1972. He served less than one year of his sentence and in 1973 was released at the request of the then UK opposition leader, the former Prime Minister
.