[1] In 1951, while still a student, he was arrested by Soviet authorities and accused of religious and nationalist propaganda.
In 1964, after 13 years in a Gulag labour camp, Ernst Sabila was released and returned to religious activism in Belarus.
[2] In the 1970s, he managed to receive a part-time degree at the Minsk State Linguistic University.
In 1989, pastor Sabila took part in the founding conference of the Belarusian Popular Front.
[3] From the late 2000s until his death, Sabila was among the members of the revived Belarusian Christian Democracy.