Basil Keusseff was from the village Gradetz, Kotlen region Bulgaria. He came to believe in Christ in Tulcha and was send to study for the ministries to England. He graduated Cliff College in Sheffield and was a missionary supported by the American Baptist Missionary Union. In 1894 he took the ministry in the Baptist church in the city of Lom. He was an individual of great personal stamina and spiritual conviction, under his stewardship the church doubled. The success was followed by a brief persecution from the local orthodox church and lay people. On Feb 19, 1895 the church property was attacked and destroyed. The attackers threw in the Danube river all Bibles and hymnals. In this attack Keusseff barely escaped public lynching.

The church grew to 31 members and in 1896 Keusseff was send to England to collect money for the building of a new building. In April he same year the Lom group officially was registered as a church, Keusseff was anointed pastor. In 1989 a new place was bought for the building of a church. The church of Lom was also a missionary church: in organized stations in Golnitza, Kovatchica, Mokresh, Rasovo, Vurbovo, etc. 1989 due to persecution Basil Keusseff left his ministry. The same year he was working as pastor in the Baptist church in Sofia. during this period we see a division in the Baptist churches in Bulgaria. A larger group was represented by German immigrants, who controlled the churches in Ruse and Tulcha. The other group was mostly Bulgarian and Russians who controlled the churches in Kazanluk, Sofia and Lom. By 1890's the Bulgarian churches were trying to bypass the supervision of the German Baptist leadership based in Hamburg. They applied for assistance to the American Baptist Missionary Union. Their claims were that Germans have failed to share financial resources, print Bulgarian literature and accept Bulgarians to the Hamburg Seminary. Additional problem was obvious when the Hamburg Committee withdrew it's support for Basil Keusseff, when he refused to marry the daughter of Jacob Klundt the leader in Lom.

Next we find Basil Keusseff active in America.

The Russian Christian Mission (rented store at 1709 S. Halsted Street).

Organized 1909, by Basil Keusseff; present membership, 40; Bible-school enrollment, 75.

About 1909 the City Missionary Society--E. M. Bowman, president--was anxious to start gospel work among the foreign-born
people of the city. Providentially, C. G. Kindred met then Daniel Protoff, who seemed to be qualified to work among the 250,000
Russians of the city; so it was begun. Mr. Protoff's health soon failed, and Basil S. Keusseff was called by the City Board from
Pittsburgh. He was doing missionary work there under the auspices of the Baptists. In the heart of the world's steel industry he
labored with Russians, Bulgarians, Servians, Croatians, Macedonians and Turks. Mr. Keusseff was born in Bulgaria, converted by
the Baptists in Roumania, educated in the American Missionary College in Samokov and in two colleges in England. Then he was examined by the Military College in Sofia and became an officer in the Bulgarian Army. However, he preferred
philology and religion; hence, he became an expert linguist in ten different languages and a minister of the gospel. He organized a
Baptist church in Lom, Bulgaria; built a chapel, and edited two newspapers in Sofia. Near Pittsburgh he met Robert Bamber, pastor
of the Turtle Creek Christian Church, and soon came to apostolic ground. His work in Chicago is unique and successful. The field is
most difficult. All Russians belong to the Greek Catholic Church, and are full of superstition and strongly attached to the church of
the Czar; its priests are active in their opposition, as are also the Russian Socialists, Tolstoists, Nihilists and Anarchists. Such
opposers challenge the courage of a true soldier of the cross.