KIEVO-PECHORSKAYA LAVRA
One hundred and eighty-six inhabitants of Kiev have sent the Soviet government a petition, requesting that the monastery in the Kievo-Pechyorskaya Lavra be opened again. The monastery re-opened after the war and was never formally closed: its buildings and premises in the caves were placed “under repair”.
After the effective closure of the monastery in 1961 its monks were found to be scattered all over the place.
Some of them settled in the Pochayev monastery (Ternopil Region, Ukraine). A group of monks started to live ‘in the wilderness’, as in ancient times. They settled in the Caucasus, in a place that was difficult to reach. In 1965 they were taken from there by force, with the help of a helicopter. One of the ‘hermits’, the monk Father Akhilla, described this at a press-conference on 11 November 1977 at the flat of Pyotr and Zinaida Grigorenko [1].
*
(See also the BBC interview with Igor Shafarevich in this issue CCE 47.18.)
*
Catholics. Adventists. Baptists. Pentecostals
*
1. CATHOLICS
MOLDAVIA
All Roman Catholic churches in the Moldavian SSR (there were about ten in all) have been closed. Only a small chapel in the cemetery in Kishinyov is still working: Catholics come there from all over the republic.
The senior priest of this chapel, Vladislav Zavalnyuk was sent to Kishinyov in 1974 after graduating from the Riga seminary; he is the only Catholic priest in Moldavia.
As the chapel is crowded and can only be reached with difficulty, elderly and sick people are unable to attend services. On Sundays after the service there is a queue of people to see the priest: they want to invite him to give spiritual help to those dying or sick at home.
*
The local authorities, noticing Zavalnyuk’s visits, have begun to put obstacles in his way.
Two years ago, the Catholics of Rashkovo (Raszkow) obtained permission for a priest to conduct services twice a month in a consecrated house of worship.
This year, on the Wednesday of Holy Week, the car in which Father Zavalnyuk was returning from Rashkovo to Kishinyov was stopped by the police in Rybnitsa. The car was searched on the roadside, driven to the police station and searched again. The car was returned only the following morning, after a third search. In this way the service in Kishinyov on the Wednesday of Holy Week could not take place.
On 29 July 1977 the patron saint’s day of St. Marta was being celebrated in Rashkovo. The police stopped the car in which Zavalnyuk was travelling on the road to Rashkovo and demanded a certificate from the medical-epidemic station, on the pretext that a quarantine existed. The priest was forced to walk the last few kilometres on foot.
On 2 August Catholics gathered in Kishinyov for the patron saint’s day of “Portsiupkul”, but the service did not take place: the police again detained Zavalnyuk on the road from Rashkovo, demanding a pass from the driver.
*
Recently Catholics in Rashkovo have on several occasions received 15-day jail sentences.
On 20 October 1977 Valentina Oleinik and Vladislava Pogrebnaya were convicted. At the trial Oleinik pointed to the policeman who had beaten her.
The Catholics of Rashkovo wanted to expand their prayer-house but Khozhukhor, secretary of Kamensky district soviet executive committee, threatened that he would put bulldozers and tractors into action.
*
The village soviet of the village of Ivanovka (Rybnitsa district, Moldavia) where Polish Catholics live, forbade Zavalnyuk in writing to enter the village.
At the other end of Moldavia, German Catholics from Andriyashevka village (Slobodzei district) received a document from the executive committee saying that the priest from Kishinyov could perform a service once a month for the Catholics of this village. Commissioner A. Vikonsky of the Council for Religious Affairs at the Moldavian SSR Council of Ministers took this document from the believers of Andriyashevka, but would not give the priest permission to go to the village.
In order to visit a sick man, Father Zavalnyuk has has to secure five documents from various sources: the doctor, the local authorities, the district soviet executive committee, the city soviet executive committee, and from Commissioner Vikonsky. The latter jokes: “In order to acquire all the documents before the sick man has died, start soliciting beforehand, while the man is still healthy.”
*
GEORGIA
On 8 April 1977 the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs (Georgian SSR Council of Ministers) arrived at the Catholic church in Tbilisi.
He went into the sacristy and, without saying a word, picked up and took away a book of records, a list of young people receiving the sacraments, and a religious book from the table.
*
*
2. ADVENTISTS
A.R. Miller (b. 1958) was arrested in Dushanbe on 30 December 1976 for refusing to serve in the army.
Under Article 78 (Tajik SSR Criminal Code = Article 80, RSFSR Code) he received two years of forced labour. He is serving his sentence in Dzhanatas (Dzhambul Region, Kazakhstan).
*
An inhabitant of Dnepropetrovsk P.P. Kovalchuk was arrested on 12 September 1977 for refusing to take the military oath and to carry a weapon. He was held in custody in the Kazakh city of Taldy-Kurgan [Taldykorgan].
*
V.A. Shelkov (82), Head of the all-Union Church of Loyal and Free Seventh-Day Adventists, has served three terms in prisons, camps and exile (23 years in all). He has been in hiding since 1969 [2].
*
3. BAPTISTS
Mainly compiled from material in CECB Prisoners Relatives‘ Bulletin Nos. 44 & 45.
*
On 5 June 1977 in the settlement of Kant (Frunze Region, Kirgiz SSR), the trial took place of Baptists Ya.G. Yantsen and I.G. Shlekht. They were charged under Article 141, pt. 2 (Kirgiz SSR Criminal Code = Article 142, RSFSR Code).
The accused were not taken into custody before the trial.
*
From the evidence of witnesses and the accused it became clear that on Sundays believers gathered in some house for a service of worship, and would come with their children. After the service they would have dinner, and then occupy themselves with the children: reading to them from the Bible, showing them pictures, singing songs and reading poetry with them.
On 30 January 1977 an administrative commission from the district soviet executive committee came to Shlekht’s house and found about twenty children there and approximately the same number of adults, mostly women. Yantsen was occupying himself with the children.
Specialist witness Galperin stated to the court that he regarded such pursuits as constituting a Sunday School and that, whatever they were called, they were prohibited by law.
The court sentenced the defendants to three years of ordinary-regime camps.
*
Events in Rostov-on-Don
The Rostov congregation of Evangelical Christians & Baptists (ECB) comprises more than thirty members.
The congregation has been applying for registration, having stipulated that its members would not recognise the Commissioner from the Council for Religious Affairs or the KGB as occupying the place of Jesus Christ in the church. The local authorities refused to register the congregation.
*
The believers assembled in a house belonging to two elderly women: Terekhova and Khmara. In January 1977 this house was confiscated. The members of the congregation began to assemble in other places. Their gatherings were dispersed.
On 8 February 1977 the police and voluntary patrols (druzhinniki) would not allow Baptists who had gathered there to enter the house of the Zakharov family. In the process many people were beaten.
Then the authorities left the congregation in peace for a while.
The believers built a ‘tent’ (7 x 9 metres) on the Zakharovs personal plot and organized prayer-meetings there. The district soviet executive committee decreed that this tent should be taken down, but the Baptists refused to submit. On 8 August 1977 the police took down the tent. With the building materials from which the tent had been made, they removed: seven cubic metres of firewood, welding apparatus, two gas cylinders, electric lamps, a table and benches.
The Baptists continued to assemble on the Zakharovs plot and soon afterwards built a new tent there.
Late in the evening on 23 August 1977 the police and workmen again took down the tent on the orders of the district Soviet executive committee and took away the building materials.
On 26 August a prayer-meeting was again held in the Zakharovs yard. Ranks of policemen, KGB officials and voluntary patrols (druzhinniki) filled the streets around it: when the service started, they switched on a deafening loud speaker. They began to disperse the believers, pushing them and twisting their arms. The minister of the church, Pyotr Peters, was taken away: members of the congregation assembled near the police station, demanding his release. Some were taken into the police station, others were driven into buses and taken to far-off districts of the city. Brute force was again applied.
*
The congregation arranged a ‘youth communion’ for 27-28 August and on this occasion they gathered in a wood.
The believers had scarcely reached the place, when the police appeared, together with voluntary patrols (druzhinniki), and busloads of workers especially taken off the production line. Loudspeakers started up, a crush began. The service was cut short. A few people were taken to the police station. After talks there the believers were allowed to go to the Zakharovs plot.
However, on 2 and 4 October 1977 prayer-meetings at the Zakharovs were again broken up.
*
On 14 September 1977 massive searches were carried out at the homes of members of the Rostov congregation.
Rumours were released around the town that the Baptists had sacrificed a child and killed a policeman.
The Soviet executive committee of the city’s Pervomaisky district decreed that the house be confiscated from the Zakharov family. Nina Zakharova was deprived of guardianship over her younger sister Lena. The Zakharovs are the children of a Baptist minister. There are three sisters aged 24, 19 and 11, and one brother aged 22. Their parents died in 1971. (The oldest sister Nina has brought up the children.)
A criminal case has been brought against Pyotr Peters. He is 34, and has already served three terms of imprisonment as a dissenting Baptist. In 1969 they tried to persuade him to cooperate with the KGB under threat of imprisonment.
*
Harvest Festival in Gorlovka
The congregation of Baptists in Gorlovka (Donetsk Region, east Ukraine) arranged a gathering for 9 am on 28 August 1977 to celebrate the Harvest Festival.
The secretary of the district soviet executive committee was informed of this in advance. The congregation intended to celebrate in the house of Baptist F.M. Kinash.
At 8 am the police and civilians surrounded the house and blocked off all approaches. Road signs prohibiting through traffic were hung nearby, and cars were parked across the streets.
At this time, those who had come earlier to help the hosts were in the Kinashes yard preparing for the celebration. Some of the guests who arrived meanwhile had registered and were allowed to enter the house. After this no one was allowed to approach the house; in this way those who had assembled were divided into several groups. The Baptists who found themselves in the Kinashes yard began to pray.
*
A group of policemen led by Captain Dobrovolsky entered the yard and demanded that the praying stop and the believers disperse.
Then they began to disperse the believers by force. They lifted up those praying on their knees, grabbed the prayer books out of their hands, took away bags and briefcases, at the same time stealing money from them. They twisted the arms of believers, tore their clothing, and threw children on the ground. They removed tape-recorders and cameras. They broke tables, chairs, benches, musical instruments brought by guests, and a radio. Dobrovolsky, using a megaphone, poured abuse on the believers.
Those who had gathered outside the district soviet executive committee tried to enter the building, but the authorities began pushing them into cars. Some were taken to different support points of the people’s voluntary police (druzhinniki); others were bundled out on the street at the opposite end of the town; still others were taken out of town.
They dragged some believers out of public transport, stopping trams and buses in the road.
They continued to beat and rob those brought into the police station. It even happened to children who had landed up in the children’s room at the police station. Those who came to the police station to receive the things that had been taken away were immediately sent to the cells.
Captain Dobrovolsky with a police detachment drove a group of believers through the town, announcing through a megaphone that they were Baptists, that they did not work, did not submit to Soviet laws, engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda, etc.
A procurator summoned to the police station personally swore at and beat those detained.
Originally about sixty people were detained: 15 of them were arrested and on the following day each given 10- or 15-day jail sentences. After the members of the congregation had sent a telegram to the Supreme Soviet and the Regional Procurator describing what had happened, 12 people were released.
*
BRYANSK (west-central Russia).
The registered Bezhitsa congregation of Baptists in Bryansk built a brick prayer-house by their own efforts, using 50,000 roubles donated by believers.
In August 1977 the members of the congregation were completing the decorating work. On 28 August representatives of authority appeared at the construction site. They produced a resolution about the confiscation of the prayer-house and ordered the work to stop. The believers refused to submit, regarding the resolution as illegal. All of them (62 people) were locked in the house. They were not allowed out to the toilet, and were not fed. In this way two days passed.
On 30 August 1977 Baptists gathered near the house.
KGB officials, the police and voluntary police (druzhinniki) began to disperse them. In the course of this about a hundred and fifty people were beaten up. Believers were dragged along the ground, their heads were beaten against the asphalt and against walls, they were trampled on, their hair was pulled out, and they were drenched by fire-hoses. Those inside the house were smoked out.
Presbyters P. Kozorezov and V. Serpikov, choir-master Kravchuk, deacon V. Vosnyatin and //Vasily Vysotsky suffered particularly serious injuries. Elderly and pregnant women were amongst those beaten up.
About 300 policemen and voluntary police took part in the operation, and fire engines were used. It was directed by MVD Lieutenant-Colonel Nozdrachev, head of the Internal Affairs Department of the Bryansk Region; by KGB Majors Zernov and Korshunov; by Khokhlov, secretary of the district Party committee; by Yevdokimov, chairman of the city soviet executive committee; and by Fomichenko, chairman of the district soviet executive committee.
On 30 October 1977, in the house of Sinyushenkov in Bryansk, a prayer-meeting of the Bezhitsa ECB congregation celebrating the Harvest, was broken up. Believers were beaten, some were fined, others received 15-day jail sentences.
*
In July 1977 a member of the Council of ECB Churches [CCECB] D.V. Minyakov was detained at Rostov airport. He was interrogated and issued a formal warning in accordance with decree of 25 December 1972.
On 14 September 1977 a search was carried out at the home of presbyter of the Shakhty ECB congregation (Rostov Region), N.G. Baturin. His wife and children were in the house during the search. Copies of the Gospels, a Bible and other religious literature were confiscated.
*
KIROVOGRAD REGION (Ukraine).
On 11 September 1977 a member of the CCECB, I.Ya. Antonov, was taken off the Odessa-Kharkov train.
He was searched and various pieces of literature were confiscated: a Bible, a three-volume Bible course, Church documents and personal notes. (The Bible and Antonov’s notes were later returned to him). The morning of the following day Antonov was transported to Police Station 2 in Kirovograd where he was warned in the presence of a procurator of his criminal liability for vagrancy and parasitism. As a presbyter, Antonov is provided for materially by the Kirovograd ECB congregation and is paid 80 roubles a month.
Then a plenipotentiary of the Ukrainian KGB, Fesunenko, and an official of the Kirovograd KGB, Kryuchek, invited three other members of the local ECB congregation to have a chat with them.
They advised them:
- (a) to register the congregation and not to indicate in doing so that it belonged to the unofficial CCECB;
- (b) not to incite Baptists against registration;
- (c) to alter the work of the CCECB and the Council of Relatives of ECB prisoners with regard to information about persecution; and
- (d) not to communicate this information abroad. They advised Antonov to find himself an official job.
In reply the believers asked then to stop persecuting the ECB and not to interfere in the internal life of the church.
On 2 May 1977 an article was published in the Regional newspaper Kirovograd Pravda [Truth] called “The Apostle of Baptism”. It accused Antonov of parasitism, appropriating the money of believers, and circulating false information. CCECB Members Kryuchkov, Vins, Golev and Minyakov were also mentioned in the article. They were represented as slanderers, parasites and criminals, with several convictions each.
*
ALMA ATA REGION (Kazakhstan).
In the town of Issyk in the Alma-Ata Region the conflict between the local authorities and the ECB congregation continues (CCE 42.6, CCE 44.26-1).
The members of the congregation make the release from imprisonment and the rehabilitation of their presbyter Shteffen conditions of registration. Employees of the city soviet, the police and voluntary police are constantly breaking up prayer-meetings and fining owners of houses where they take place, and those who conduct the meetings.
In the summer Shabaldin, chairman of the city soviet, summoned the congregation’s Council of Twenty to an administrative commission. It told the believers that it would not allow any more prayer-meetings. Each Council member would be fined 50 roubles for a meeting whether they themselves were present or not. The commission threatened the Baptists with expulsion for living without passports (see Omsk Baptist Kasyanova, CCE 46.8).
On 3 July 1977 a member of the congregation, Yakov Petrovich VOLF, was arrested. He was sent to Alma-Ata, where an investigation into his case was started.
*
VOLYN REGION (West Ukraine).
On 6 May 1977 in Glukhi village (Starovyzhevo district) Baptist believers celebrated a wedding.
During the marriage rites about thirty outsiders arrived: the head of the KGB, representatives of local authority, the police. They took pictures with a movie camera and recorded the service on tape, tried to hinder the performance of the rites, pushed guests aside, and threatened to release tear gas. The chairman of the village soviet called out to the believers: “Stop it, I have already married them.”
In a wood on the way home Tsapuk and Yntsyuk, who were returning from the wedding, were arrested. They were given 15 days each.
*
In the Volyn Region towns of Kovele, Rozhishche and Kivertsy the ‘public’ have been turning up at Baptist weddings with a brass band, which has played and made a noise during the performance of the rites. After the weddings several believers were fined.
***
Chronicle 46 reported (CCE 46.8) the beating up in a military unit of Nikolai Kravchenko, a Baptist of the CCECB who refused to take the military oath. After treatment in several hospitals, he was discharged and in the middle of September 1977 returned home from the army. His jaws, injured during the beating, were not successfully treated.
*
DZHAMBUL (Kazakhstan).
In schools Nos. 20 & 28 teachers handed out a compulsory questionnaire to the children.
Here are some of the questions asked:
1. Do you believe in God?
2. Do you visit a prayer-house?
3. Do you visit meetings for young people and children?
4. Who directs them?
5. Are you baptised?
6. Religion is a great evil for the State. How do you explain this?
*
4. PENTECOSTALISTS
*
FINES
CRIMEA (Ukraine). In Yalta the presbyter of a congregation of Christian Pentecostalists A.M. Tupikov has been fined 50 roubles. He has nine children of school and pre-school age to support.
In the autumn several Pentecostalists from the Simferopol congregation were fined.
*
Pentecostalists are now being fined in a new way.
No longer are they issued with resolutions of administrative commissions about the fine with receipts for payment. The representative of the enterprise where the believer works takes him to the town soviet executive committee. There the administrative commission announces the imposition of a fine. The money is stopped from his wages at his place of work.
Evidently, this new procedure stems from the fact that official documents about fines have been reaching the West.
In Donetsk those fined in the old way have had their passports impounded until they hand over their receipts for payment of the earlier fines.
*
BRYANSK REGION (Russia).
On 14 August in the village of Prutki a wedding was celebrated in a family of Christian-Pentecostalists. Co-religionist and presbyter V.S. Prudnikov, who was performing the marriage rites, came to the wedding from Zhdanov [Mariupol].
Prutki village is situated 17 kms from the district centre, the small town of Komarichi. The guests had to cover this distance on foot: the district authorities forced people going to the wedding to get out of a bus; then the police made them get out of the vehicles in which they obtained lifts.
During the marriage service officials from the district soviet executive committee and the police entered the house and ordered them to finish the service in 15 minutes. Half an hour later they came back again, arriving during the wedding feast. This time they insisted that they stop reading verses and singing and ordered them to disperse.
Having scattered the believers, the police searched them one by one. They took away Bibles and song books.
============================================
NOTES
- See the Reuters report of 11-12 November 1977 for Father Akhilla’s press conference at the Grigorenko apartment in Moscow.
↩︎ - V.A. Shelkov, 82-year-old head of the Adventist church in the USSR, was arrested in Tashkent (Uzbekistan) on 14 March 1978, see CCE 49.14-1 (and Name Index).
↩︎
=========================
A Chronicle of Current Events 