KestonKeston NewsletterNewsletter No. 19, 2014
Albanian Orthodox cathedral – the Resurrection of Christ – in Tirana, capital of Albania Religious Persecution in Albania: the Greek Minority and Orthodoxy
by Maria Panayiotou
The most repressive Communist regime in this area feel that their identity has been in Eastern Europe was that of Albania, violated because their territory has fre- where religious persecution was targeted quently been invaded by other nations, towards all religious denominations. Communist rule lasted from 1944-1990 Also in this issue: and for over 40 years the country suffered under the iron fist of Enver Hoxha. Be- Theological Education in the fSU...... p.10 cause of its prolonged political isolation, The Memory Keepers, Past and Future . . p.22 Albania has been the least known country Gorbachev and the Church after 25 Years p.27 of Eastern Europe. It is situated in the Tengiz Abuladze’s Film Repentance . . . . p.37 Balkans, a highly volatile area where few Appeal from Ukrainian Evangelicals . . . . p.41 borders have any long-term historical justification or permanence. Many nations Home News ...... p.44
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thus contributing to the explosive nature of the area. It is bordered by Monte- negro and Serbia in the north and north- west, by the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia in the east, and by Greece in the south and southeast. Albania has three main reli- gions – Islam, Or- thodoxy and Ca- tholicism – with a population of 3,255,891 (1993): according to official figures 60% are Muslim, 30% Orthodox, and 10% Catho- lar resistance and foreign interference lic. 1 Previous statistics showed a popula- from Albania’s neighbours – from Italy tion which was 70% Muslim, 20% Ortho- with its Roman Catholicism, from Serbia dox and 10% Catholic. 2 and Greece with Orthodoxy and from Turkey with Islam. The land reform law Enver Hoxha’s regime of August 1945 deprived religious organi- sations of most of their property – monas- teries, libraries and seminaries. A further By 1967 Enver Hoxha’s regime declared law followed in November 1949 which that Albania was the first atheist state in obliged all religious communities to de- the world. The Albanian Orthodox velop a sense of loyalty towards ‘popular Church, the denomination to which the power’ and the regime. The first religion Greek ethnic minority belonged, came to be targeted was Islam as it was the under attack like all other religious least organised. Mosque attendance and groups, but the effect on the Greek minor- Islamic teaching were first discouraged, ity was particularly devastating in that for restricted and gradually banned. them their cultural identity, customs and language were interwoven with their reli- gion. Under the Communist regime the As for the Orthodox Church, only bishops Greek minority faced religious, social and loyal to the regime and willing to estab- ethnic oppression. lish close links with the Russian Ortho- dox Church in Moscow were appointed, while others were imprisoned or execut- The attack on religion was not immediate ed. The Archbishop of Tirana resisted this to avoid a backlash or confrontation with collaboration with the Moscow Patriar- the people. It started slowly with chate, was removed and then murdered. measures curbing religious worship, lead- Subsequently the last Primate of the Al- ing in 1967 to a complete clamp-down. banian Orthodox Church, Archbishop The Communist regime saw religion as a Damian, was imprisoned in a concentra- divisive force, a potential source of popu- tion camp in 1967 where he died six years
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later aged 80. The Orthodox Church’s Italy; China allegedly by the United leadership was literally eliminated. States, the Soviet Union, India and Japan.
In 1945 the Roman Catholic Church in In seeking officially to close the gulf be- Albania was attacked as an instrument of tween ordinary people and the Communist the Vatican, the latter accused by the re- Party, Enver Hoxha adopted with enthusi- gime of collaborating with the Nazis, and asm the doctrines of Mao Tse-Tung and Albanian Catholic clergy were put on trial set about adapting them for use in his own for subversion, imprisoned or executed. country. The time had come, he an- Eventually in 1951 a government decree nounced ‘to widen the links with the outlawed the independence of the Roman masses, to win them over, to mobilise and Catholic Church and severed its links with to re-educate them’ and to ensure finally Rome; a ‘national’ church, subservient to that everyone rigidly followed the Party the state, was established and any dissi- line. According to Amnesty International: dent clergy were labelled class enemies. ‘state education inculcated atheist doc- trine and a strong nationalism in the Albania and China: the Cultural younger generation; religious belief Revolution was officially attacked as having im- 4 peded progress and national unity.’ After the Second World War Albania at first aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Albania’s Cultural Revolution began in but during the Khrushchev period, owing 1966 and with it the anti-religious cam- to Soviet de-stalinisation policies, Enver paign intensified. In a speech on 6 Febru- Hoxha broke off relations with the USSR ary 1967, Enver Hoxha encouraged a and aligned Albania with China. This led movement by young people across the to disastrous results both for Albanian country to close down mosques and society as a whole and for the Greek mi- churches. Some of these buildings were nority: in 1967 Albania’s regime decided destroyed, others converted into ware- to imitate China’s Cultural Revolution. houses or cultural centres. A decree in April 1967 turned over all the fixed assets
of religious communities to the Executive Albania’s special relationship with China, Committees of the District People’s her dependence on China for economic Councils or to agricultural cooperatives, and technical aid, the strong political and without compensation. On 13 November ideological support she received from 1967 Decree No. 4337 annulled the de- Peking, as well as implicit Chinese pledg- crees of 1949, 1950 and 1951 on religious es and military assistance should she communities; the latter were thereby de- come under attack, made it almost inevita- prived of legal status and their clergy ble for Albania to react more or less posi- 3 prohibited from exercising their office. tively to Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Decree No.4337 contravened Article 18 Although Albania and China differed in of the 1946 Constitution then in force, size, culture and geography they also had which not only guaranteed freedom of some common traits. Both had known conscience and of faith but also stated: poverty, shared a respect for Stalin and resented ‘revisionist Khrushchev’. They also both saw themselves as encircled by ‘All religious communities are free in enemies – Albania by Yugoslavia, matters concerned with their faith as Greece, the United States’ Sixth Fleet and well as in their practice and outward expression.’ 5
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But the 1946 Constitution was to be re- 2,619 churches, mosques, monasteries, placed in 1976 with a Constitution which and other religious institutions, had been contained Article 37: closed and that Albania had thus become ‘the first atheist state of the world’. ‘The state recognises no religion what- Among these were 630 Orthodox church- soever and supports atheistic propa- es (mainly in southern Albania where ganda for the purpose of inculcating a most members of the Greek minority lived scientific, materialistic world outlook and which they called Northern Epirus) in people’. which were either destroyed or converted into buildings for secular use. 8 The 42 Orthodox priests still alive in Northern Epirus in 1967 were dragged to the city of Delvino by Albanian red guards, where they were insult- ed, spat upon, and forced to ‘apologise’ to the Albanian people; they then had their vestments removed and their beards shaved. When one of the priests, Fr Theodore Zisis, resisted he was viciously beat- en and imprisoned for ten years. 9
18 th century Orthodox Church of St Athanasius near Moshopolis Religious holidays and private (Voskopojë ) in south-eastern Albania with a predominantly religious practices were sup- Orthodox population pressed. During the anti- In addition the 1977 Criminal Code con- religious campaign red guards tained severe sentences for ‘religious were sent out into the countryside on a propaganda’. 6 Article 55 dealt with ‘anti- wave of destruction. In conversation with state agitation and propaganda’ and stipu- members of the ethnic Greek minority I lated: was told about the extent of the destruc- tion: groups of young people accompa- nied mainly by their teachers were sent on ‘Fascist, anti-democratic, religious, missions to destroy; in Greek minority warmongering or anti-socialist propa- villages all evidence of religious worship ganda, as well as the preparation, was obliterated, churches were attacked distribution or the possession for dis- and many religious buildings of great tribution of literature with such con- historical and archaeological importance tent intended to weaken or undermine were destroyed or converted into stables, the state of the dictatorship of the warehouses, hotels or army depots. Per- proletariat are punished by depriva- sonal religious possessions such as bibles, tion of liberty for from three to ten icons and crucifixes were confiscated; 7 years.’ even tombstones were vandalised – no one escaped not even the dead. By 1971 In September 1967, the Albanian literary Hoxha described the abolition of religious monthly Nëndori announced that all reli- organisations as ‘a decisive victory’ gious buildings in Albania, including which prepared the ground for the
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Desecrated frescos on the walls of St Nicholas Orthodox Church in Moshopolis (Voskopojë )
‘complete emancipation (of the people) od, 335 Orthodox priests died – some from religious beliefs’. executed, many of the others died because of maltreatment, untreated Religious belief can never truly be abol- illnesses and exhaustion. Only 22 ished – it remains in the heart of believ- Orthodox priests were still alive when ers, it goes underground. The elderly Communism at last collapsed in Alba- continued to light candles late at night in nia. Many thousands of Christians had the ruins of churches, or they would dis- been jailed or sent to labour camps, cretely make the sign of the cross when often dying as a consequence. Of walking past a former shrine. Many approximately 1,600 Orthodox priests were imprisoned for performing churches, monasteries and cultural religious services in secret, and no one centres existing prior to 1967, less was allowed to grow a beard lest they than 5% were still standing in resemble an Orthodox priest! Even the 1990.’ 10 few visitors who came into the country were ordered to shave. Suppression of Greek culture
According to Jim Forest: Education was controlled by the state and religious instruction was banned. In ‘no religious services were permitted Greek minority schools, textbooks were anywhere at any time. Priests were Communist Party publications translated killed by firing squad or tortured to into Greek, with no material on Greek death for such actions as having bap- history, geography or religion. The Greek tised a child. During the Hoxha peri- language was closely associated with the Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 5
minority’s Orthodox faith, and their faith Prisons and labour camps was intimately linked with their cultural and ethnic identity, so the limits placed on During Hoxha’s years of oppressive rule, the use of Greek, coupled with restrictions the regime maintained an extensive net- on religion had far-reaching consequences work of 29 prisons and labour camps for this group. which held over 30,000 ‘enemies of the
In 1975 a further blow deeply affected the Greek minority: the government ordered name changes for ‘citizens who had inappropriate names and of- fensive surnames from a polit- ical, ideological, and moral standpoint’ 11 and local civil affairs offices were supplied with lists of government- approved names (the govern- ment had circulated a list of ‘acceptable’ names to the Greek community as early as 1967-69). All Greeks with religious names had to change Ruined Orthodox church in southern Albania used as an army them. Muslims, however, depot during the Communist period were not affected by this order as Hoxha, whose surname meant a Mus- state’ year after year. While ethnic Greeks lim imam, would himself have had to in Albania were estimated to comprise change his name! This name-changing about 10% of the population, the propor- campaign disrupted the longstanding tra- tion of Greek prisoners in Albania’s Gu- ditions of the Greek minority who named lag during the Hoxha years averaged their children after their grandparents, or 40%. 14 saints and martyrs, or other religious fig- ures. While registering an Albanian name for their children with the government, Apart from the United Nations, Enver many parents at home, however, contin- Hoxha refused to permit Albania to partic- ued to call them by Greek names. At ipate in any international forum. Its UN school the children had to use their Alba- membership, however, did not alter Alba- nian names. 12 nia’s decision to ignore the commitments of the UN Charter of Human Rights, and due to its self- imposed ideological isola- Another decree, No. 225, was also issued tion following its break with China, Alba- in 1975 stipulating that place names with nia’s human rights abuses were not scruti- religious connotations had to be nised and went unpunished: changed. 13 Thus all towns named after Christian saints were renamed. In addi- ‘It is estimated that between 1945-56 tion, some non-religious Greek town an estimated 80,000 political arrests names, anything that sounded inappropri- were made; 16,000 of these died in ate or Greek were changed as well. Com- prison. By the mid 1970s some 18 munism wished to eliminate all traces of Gulags or prison camps existed.’ 15 Greek identity.
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Post-Communist Albania be voted in by a referendum: Article 4 was a direct attack on the Archbishop and The introduction of ‘democratisation’ in stated that only Albanian citizens could be Albania after the collapse of Communism bishops or archbishops. This requirement had some welcome results for minority was unfair in the circumstances since, rights. Yet although freedom of religion thanks to the former relentless persecu- was introduced, the Albanian authorities tion, there were no qualified Albanian continued to be highly suspicious of the churchmen suitable for these positions. Albanian Orthodox Church which they Some argued that the government wanted saw as the ‘powerhouse’ of the ethnic the Archbishop to leave because under his Greek minority’s national aspirations, a leadership the Albanian Orthodox Church view strengthened by the fact that the began to flourish and grow. Albanian Orthodox Primate was Greek like many Orthodox missionaries at the Fr Jani Trebicka, an Orthodox priest, gave time. Since Albanian independence in an account of events at the time: 1912, the idea of an autocephalous Alba- nian Orthodox Church – independent of ‘All our clergy met at the seminary in the Greek Orthodox Church – had been a council where we wrote a letter to the part of the Greek minority’s quest for people saying that we were not national identity. By 1922 the Albanian against the state’s laws but opposed to Orthodox Church had announced its auto- Article 4 because our Church does not cephaly and this had eventually been rec- yet have an Albanian citizen who is ognised by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in able to be Archbishop. The Albanians 1937. who would have been suitable candi- dates were all dead or too old and in In 1992 the Albanian Orthodox Church poor health. It would take years for began to encounter government hostility. the church to nurture a person of the The Ecumenical Patriarchate, with the maturity and experience needed for approval of the Albanian government, such a responsibility. Article 4, we appointed a Greek citizen, Anastasios explained, would mean that we would Yiannoulatos, as Primate because at this be a church without a leader […] The time, due to past persecution, the Albani- letter was distributed to all parishes, an Orthodox Church had no suitable can- but the government did all it could to didate for the post. On the 11 July 1991, prevent it being published or read in permission was given to Archbishop Ana- public. Police tried to prevent me stasios to enter Albania, but thereafter the reading it aloud in the church where I government treated him with great suspi- was celebrating the liturgy that day. cion. He was forced at first to live in a They told me they could arrest me if I hotel in Tirana until December 1991, and read the letter, but I did so all the then his rented apartment in the city re- same.’ 18 mained, ‘under surveillance 24 hours a 16 day by the Albanian secret service’. Archbishop Anastasios like Fr Jani thought there was little hope that the Con- In the summer of 1993 Greek-Albanian stitution would be defeated and so pre- relations became particularly strained: pared to leave the country. He could do the Albanian government expelled Archi- little to change the situation; he could not mandrite Chrysostomos Maidonis for address the Church about the Constitution allegedly disseminating pro-Greek propa- 17 and the approaching referendum. A man ganda. Then in 1994 the government of lesser faith and diplomacy would not proposed a new Constitution which was to
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to dioceses in Albania to enter the country because they were not Albanian citizens, although non- Albanian clergy of other religions had been accepted. Some members of parlia- ment even proposed a law to require the head of the Or- thodox Church to be a ‘third -generation’ Albanian citi- zen. 20
Albania’s decision to join the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in De- Church of the Archangels Michael & Gabriel at Moshopolis cember 1992 has had conse- quences for the Greek mi- nority and their religion. The Islamic have survived the continuous pressure schools (madrassas) which were estab- placed on him. I remember at the time lished in Albania have been producing hearing one of his sermons in which, students who are hostile to Christianity unable to advise his flock on how to vote, (especially to Orthodoxy). Some of them he said simply, ‘when one goes to the began to roam the countryside, attacking cardiologist one does not ask about his Orthodox churches in, for example, Mo- nationality; one asks whether he is a shopolis (Voskopojë) near Koritsa good cardiologist.’ And then he gave his (Korçë) and in Himara where churches of blessing. To his surprise the Constitution great historical importance were de- in the end was defeated with an over- stroyed by them. By 1996 Islamic funda- whelming percentage opposing from the mentalism had taken hold and in August a south of the country where the majority of group of fanatical Muslim students van- Orthodox Albanians, i.e. the Greek mi- dalised the Church of the Archangels nority, live. Michael and Gabriel in Moshopolis, an 18 th century building which even under On-going tensions Hoxha had been protected and which was located in an area where the majority of The government, composed mostly of the population were Orthodox. These Sunni Muslims, has been unsympathetic extremists desecrated the Byzantine fres- towards both Orthodoxy in general and 19 cos digging out the eyes of saints in icons towards the Greek minority. While and writing ‘Allah is great’ on the walls international pressure forced Tirana to while demanding that a mosque be built allow the re-establishment of the Albani- in the area. 21 an Orthodox Church, the government was reluctant to help the Orthodox rebuild the In the autumn of 1995, during a field trip, many churches destroyed by the Hoxha I visited Koritsa and met Fr Christos, one regime, or to return the property and of the few remaining Orthodox priests church land which had been confiscated from the pre-Communist era. He ex- during Communist rule. The Albanian plained with tears in his eyes how with authorities refused to allow three bishops the closing of the churches in 1967, he appointed by the Ecumenical Patriarchate Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 8
had been defrocked, shaved and obliged property claims in different parts of the to work as a carpenter in a labour camp. country, as well as difficulty in recovering He insisted that he had never lost his faith icons and precious manuscripts. Both the and had always tried to help his fellow Albanian Orthodox Church and the Ro- men during the long years of Communist man Catholic Church are still trying to rule. Compared to those days of persecu- regain possession of archives seized by tion, today the religious situation has im- the Communist government and held in proved dramatically: what was inconceiv- the national archives. able 25 years ago is now possible. The Orthodox in Albania have been able to Whilst the Greek minority have regained construct a new cathedral in the capital, much, they still feel threatened by the Tirana, on a plot of land given to them as fragile nature of inter-faith relations in the compensation for land seized by the Com- country, and by some of the negative munist government. At the same time attitudes towards them which can be there has been little progress on other found within institutions of government.
1 Edith Harxhi, An invitation to Albania: An Overview of Albania’s Economy & Resources, Besa, Tirana, 1995 , p.9. 2 ibid., loc.cit. 3 Peter Prifti, Socialist Albania Since 1944: Domestic and Foreign Developments , The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1978, p.144. 4 ibid, p. 143. 5 Amnesty International, Albania, Political Imprisonment and the Law , Amnesty International, 1984, p.13. 6 Derek Hall, Albania and the Albanians, Printer Publishers Ltd., London, 1994, p.45. 7 Amnesty International, op.cit., p.10. 8 Hugh Poulton, The Balkans’ Minorities and States in Conflict , Minority Rights Publications, London, 1993, p.196. 9 Nicholas Gage, The Greek Minority in Northern Epirus . Their History and Legal Status, New York, 1992, p.20. 10 Jim Forest, The Resurrection of the Church in Albania , WCC Publications, Geneva, 2002, pp.25-26. 11 Hugh Poulton, op.cit., p.197. 12 ibid, p.199 13 ibid, p.200. 14 Nicholas Gage, op.cit., p.19. 15 ibid, p.20. 16 Jim Forest, op.cit., p.57. 17 Transition , Vol.1, No.15, 25 August 1995, p.14. 18 ibid, p.58. 19 James Pettifer, The Greek Minority in Albania in the Aftermath of Communism , Conflict Studies Research Centre, July 2001, p.11. 20 Nicholas Gage, op.cit., p.23. 21 Eleftheros Typos , 28 August 1996 and Athesmeftos Typos , 30 August 1996.
Maria Panayiotou gained an MA in European Studies at the University of Reading and is now working on a PhD at the London Metropolitan University. She has a special interest in minority rights in south-eastern Europe.
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Learning from the Past to Reimagine the Future: Theological Education in the (Former) Soviet Union
by Joshua T. Searle
Introduction
My aim in this article is to draw on the research ma- terial that I collected dur- ing a recent trip to the Keston Archive at Baylor University in order to outline the tasks that con- front theological educa- tion in the contemporary post-Soviet context. Alt- hough my primary focus is on theological education within evangelical con- texts, I am also concerned about learning from other traditions (particularly Orthodoxy) and understanding how evan- crisis are primarily social, political and gelical models of theological education economic, there are also spiritual dimen- can be renewed, reformed, contextualised sions to the current predicament. and – if necessary – abandoned in the contemporary, post-Soviet setting. I will The monstrously unattractive buildings endeavour, wherever possible, to draw on and unsightly slag heaps, which I could my own experience as a theological edu- see from my classroom windows in Do- cator working in Ukraine and the Czech netsk, are part of the melancholy legacy Republic, as well as on the research find- of a malevolent ideology that asserted ings that I gained from the Keston Ar- control not only over the outward appear- chive. ance of the buildings, but also over the inward direction of people’s innermost The Soviet legacy of crisis thoughts. The eyesores that blemish the scarred urban landscape in this region are Anyone who has lived in or even visited a throwback to a materialist, atheist, func- Eastern Ukraine recently will perceive tionalist worldview, which regarded archi- that in this part of the world the Soviet tectural beauty and any sense of aesthetic Union as a public mentality has far out- appreciation as signs of ‘bourgeois deca- lived the USSR as a political entity. The dence’. The scars of the Communist lega- period between 1917 and 1991 has left an cy are not merely aesthetic; they penetrate enduring critical legacy of crisis through- through to the collective national con- out the nations of the former Soviet Union sciousness of the Ukrainian people. The (fSU). Although the manifestations of the enduring influence of Soviet ideology on
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the public mentality in this region of East- Christian theology and Marxist ern Ukraine creates a social situation to atheism in the (former) Soviet Union which the label ‘post-Soviet’ can be cau- tiously attached. It is generally well known that the Soviet authorities set a premium on education. Evangelical theological education today Lenin remarked that, ‘Without teaching shares in the crisis that is affecting the there is no knowledge, and without wider society. Throughout the territory of knowledge there is no Communism.’ the fSU, from the Baltic to the Pacific, Mass education was regarded as an essen- seminaries and other institutions of Chris- tial prerequisite for building up a utopian, tian education are closing their doors with classless Communist society, and was alarming frequency. The veteran missiolo- therefore used as a political tool to pro- gist, Walter Sawatsky, comments that, mote the official Marxist-Leninist ‘Beautiful campuses built largely with worldview. 4 According to Soviet officials, largesse from the West, including many ‘The role of Soviet education is to assist thousands of sweat hours by volunteers in the building of a Communist society, in from America, are standing nearly emp- shaping the materialist world outlook of ty’. 1 Several lucid and persuasive ac- the students, equipping them with a good counts of the factors that have contributed grounding in the different fields of to the current crisis in evangelical theo- knowledge and preparing them for social- logical education in the fSU have been ly useful work.’ 5 All subjects, from litera- published by a variety of authors, and it is ture and history 6 to mathematics 7 and not my intention to rehearse or add to physics, 8 were taught from the perspective these discussions in this article. For our of dialectical materialism. 9 purposes, it is sufficient to note that the crisis is real and is widely acknowledged In the USSR a metanarrative was propa- not only by foreign observers, 2 but also by gated, according to which the advance of Christian academic leaders throughout the science and human reason would culmi- fSU. 3 nate in the universal acceptance of dialec- tical materialism as the only legitimate One of the basic principles of history is philosophical paradigm. One of the main that events have causes; conditions are as perceived obstacles to the development of they are today because circumstances this process in the eyes of the Soviet ideo- were as they were yesterday. Since con- logues was religion. As a result, religion temporary phenomena cannot be properly was completely divorced from education. explained or understood without recourse Moreover, theology was defined officially to the diverse developments in the past as ‘a scholastic teaching of religious dog- that created them, it is necessary to offer a mas’ and was scorned as a useless and brief description of some of the historical illegitimate pursuit that was ‘not a science factors that have given rise to the current and [had] nothing to do with science.’ 10 crisis in evangelical theological education in the fSU. By looking to the past we can Although the USSR no longer exists as a also derive encouragement and wisdom as political entity, Ukrainian higher educa- we look critically but appreciatively at the tion today, in common with the education successes and failures of those who faced systems of many nations of the fSU, is similar challenges in times past. In this still largely determined by its Soviet past. respect the Keston Archive is an invalua- Despite the apparent ‘religious renais- ble resource, not only for historical analy- sance’ and ‘a rebirth of faith’ 11 that osten- sis, but also for theological reflection. sibly occurred in Ukraine following the
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demise the USSR, the education system, Referring to government interference in from primary school to university, is es- determining the content of courses in sentially secular and little thought is given theological education, the Orthodox pro- to how theological insights are reflected fessor, Vladimir Fedorov, noted that, in theories about science and human life ‘During the Soviet period, theological in society. schools were prohibited […] from dis- cussing contemporary issues of mission Theological education initiatives and those of the relationship between in the Soviet Union church and state, that is, beyond the limits of official ideology. Discussing such top- Within the rigid structure of the central- ics as “Christianity and Culture” was ised Soviet education structures there was impossible. Yet students could not help very little room for manoeuvre for believ- thinking and talking about them.’ 15 ers (particularly evangelicals) who wished to obtain a theological education. Alt- The Christian Seminar hough some evangelical theological semi- naries struggled on into the late 1920s – This situation gave rise to a series of crea- most notably Leningrad Bible College led tive underground initiatives, in which by Ivan Prokhanov which, according to believers organised themselves into infor- one source, helped to graduate more than mal discussion groups and secret commu- 600 preachers and pastors before the So- nities, which discussed the theological viet authorities closed the college down in contributions of Christian faith to culture. 1927 12 – the Stalinist purges and the new One particularly significant group was the wave of persecution under Khrushchev ‘Christian Seminar’, founded by young resulted in the closure of all evangelical Orthodox intellectuals in 1974. 16 residential seminaries and Bible schools throughout the USSR. Explaining the founding of the Christian Seminar, one of the key early leaders Although, on the whole, the Soviet sys- remarked that: tem in relation to theological education tended to be more tolerant of Orthodoxy ‘As we were dissatisfied with the mere than of evangelicalism, many Orthodox “performance of a religious cult”, had theologians, apart from those officially had no opportunity to receive a reli- sanctioned by the State to discredit reli- gious education and needed to estab- gious belief, 13 were forced underground. lish brotherly Christian relations, we Thanks to the Keston Archive, we know began in October 1974 to hold a reli- that the curricula of those seminaries gious and philosophical seminar […] which were allowed to remain open – Our thirst for spiritual communion, namely those in Zagorsk, Leningrad and religious education and missionary Odessa – were forbidden from including service [ran] up against all the might any aspect of theological critique of cul- of the state’s repressive machinery.’ 17 ture. Instead the curricula were focused on internal church doctrine and practice The Keston Archive contains a wealth of and included modules on such topics as information on the origins and develop- ‘Historical and Dialectical Materialism’, ment of the Seminar and the subsequent which seem rather out of place amid the brutal persecution of its leaders by the other modules on more traditional topics KGB. 18 Concerning its ultimate goals, the in a theological curriculum, such as Pa- Christian Seminar aimed to become part tristics, Canon Law and Greek. 14 of a mass youth movement that would
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Joshua Searle working in the Keston Center at Baylor
contribute to the building of ‘a new type culture presents us with a com- of human community’. A document from plete, finished, essentially abso- the Keston Archive dating back to 1979 lutely false image of the world. expressed the utopian aspirations of those This world, excluding tragedy, who founded the Seminar: compassion and in effect all Christian values from life, sets the ‘We are all in need of a deeper and pattern of one’s life from birth to warmer type of communication: death with the inevitability of the force of active love must fate.’ transfigure the world around us […] It has become impossible to Despite this deeply pessimistic appraisal go on living in falsehood. An of their situation, the leaders of the Chris- unbearably aimless existence in a tian Seminar looked to the Christian faith, frenzied world, dull attendance at in particular to the peculiar synthesis of useless jobs, meaningless debili- Christian eschatology and nationalistic tating disputes, faceless socialist messianism that was expressed in the so- culture, newspaper pathos and called ‘Russian Idea’, associated with lies, lies, lies. Corrosive, destruc- Dostoevsky and Solovyov: tive, humiliating lying motivated by fear, which some justify as ‘We feel that we are that living caution, others as inevitability, material out of which Christ will others as wisdom […] From the make all things new: a new com- moment we are born, socialist munity, a new culture, a new fam- ily, a new kind of man and a new
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Left to right: Joshua Searle & Larisa Seago (Keston Center’s archivist)
kind of woman. Essentially, He is ideology. This critique drew heavily on the creating a new people out of us. resources of Christian theology, particular- But at the same time this is a re- ly eschatology and utopia, and can serve as turn to the primal roots of the Rus- a model and inspiration for contemporary sian national soul, which is trust- faith-based critiques of post-Soviet socie- ingly thrown open to receive ty. Humanity and spiritual values of truth, God’s world and all the nations integrity and community, according to this which live in it.’ 19 critique, had been engulfed by an over- bearing, intrusive ideology and the absurd formalities of a stifling, cumbersome and The literature produced by the Christian corrupt Kafkaesque bureaucratic system Seminar testifies to the philosophical so- which cared a lot more about abstract no- phistication and theological erudition of its tions of Science and Progress than it did authors. Topics for discussion in the Semi- about human beings. These mainly young nar ranged from ‘The Fate of Contempo- Orthodox dissidents were drawing on the rary Humanism’ to ‘Husserl’s Theory of resources of Christian theology in search the Crisis of Contemporary Science’. The of a new set of values, which would confer second issue of the Seminar’s samizdat 20 21 ‘a life-giving sense of purpose, a pivot journal, Obshchina , likewise contained around which existence can organise it- articles with such daunting titles as ‘The self.’ 22 Ontological Problems of Russian Sophiol- ogy’ and ‘Konstantin Kavelin on Nihil- Perhaps recognising the grave threat to ism’. Perhaps owing to the erudition and their ideological hegemony posed by these sophistication of its academic content, the cultural critiques, the Soviet authorities Christian Seminar never became a mass suppressed these educational initiatives movement. with disproportionate brutality which in- volved detaining their leaders, 23 allegedly It did however represent a lucid and co- torturing them, and forcibly confining gent cultural critique of the official Soviet them in prison psychiatric hospitals.
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Impressions of Orthodox theological ministry for men who have a seminaries and academies in the USSR merely sentimental or convention- al attachment to the Faith or who Although dissident activity was sup- have psychological defects.’ pressed by the authorities, Orthodox theo- logical seminaries and academies were, at He went on to make the revealing observa- least, allowed to function throughout the tion that the sermons he heard preached at period of the USSR and many seminaries the Orthodox seminaries and academies were able to graduate hundreds of priests consisted of ‘good, simple Gospel stuff and future church leaders during this peri- that could, in most cases, be preached in a od. Baptist chapel without raising an eye- brow.’ 26 Sources from the Keston Archive offer conflicting accounts concerning the state Evangelical theological education: the of Orthodox theological education in the AUCECB Bible Correspondence USSR in the 1970s and 1980s. After de- Course livering a series of lectures at Zagorsk and Leningrad, the Indian Orthodox theologi- It was not until 1968 that the All-Union an, Dr Paul Varghese, reflected that, Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB) were able to launch a part- ‘the intellectual life in the acade- time theological correspondence course mies struck me as being inade- for trainee evangelical pastors. Topics quate to cope with the problems of included in the first curriculum were contemporary society. Increasing- Christian Doctrine, Exegesis, Introduction ly theological books in English, to the Bible, Preaching, Pastoral Care, French and German are becoming History of the ECB, and the Constitution available in academy libraries, but of the USSR. 27 The correspondence course most students do not have access appears to have enjoyed considerable suc- to anything but books in the Rus- cess, despite the threatening backdrop of sian language, most of which date hostility and intimidation against which it from before 1917.’ 24 was carried out. The Keston News Service reported that between 1968 and 1980, 207 According to another source, the situation people had successfully graduated from seemed not to have improved by the late this course and that the new programme 1980s when Orthodox seminaries contin- had helped provide the impetus for the ued to suffer from ‘inadequate theological publication of new academic theological training’, ‘under-resourced theological literature. 28 libraries’ and a ‘lack of church person- nel’. 25 During the period when every kind of formal evangelical education was prohib- On the other hand, one British theologian, ited, theological training was carried out O. Fielding Clarke, who went to teach a through the official publication of the series of courses at Odessa and Leningrad, AUCECB, Bratsky Vestnik , and by the referred to the Russian Orthodox seminary samizdat publications, Vestnik Spasenia graduates as ‘the best educated clergy in and Vestnik Istiny .29 Although Bratsky the world’. He observed that: Vestnik contained many devotional arti- cles, it also published material that was ‘in a country where Marxist athe- explicitly educational in nature and inten- ism is the established philosophy, tion. 30 The thematic content and theologi- there is no room in the Christian cal quality of these educational articles Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 15
varied considerably. There are articles in movement, there is no evidence to suggest Bratsky Vestnik devoted to issues ranging that evangelical Christians established from abstract analysis of the Trinity to informal academic theological communi- mundane descriptions about the need to ties comparable to the Christian Seminar maintain personal hygiene. or the Orthodox-initiated dissident group known as ‘37’. The Baptist texts on theo- The editors used their journal to educate logical education and mission do not ex- readers about the dangers of alcohol and hibit the same kind of idealistic or utopian cigarettes. In one amusing article – alt- tendencies that were common to groups hough the author was presumably dead such as the Christian Seminar or ‘37’. serious at the time – an evangelical author ingeniously links an old Orthodox prohi- Theological education since the bition on smoking in church to the bibli- collapse of the USSR cal teaching on the body as the church or temple of the Holy Spirit. ‘Is it proper to Despite its considerable achievements, smoke in the temple?’ asks the author evangelical theological education under rhetorically. ‘Of course not!’ comes the Soviet Communism suffered from many predictable reply. 31 The author assumed of the problems that continue to afflict that since the believer’s body is itself a religious education, particularly at univer- temple of the Holy Spirit, he or she sity level, in the contemporary post- should refrain from smoking at all times Soviet context. In his book, Baptism bez so as not to sin against this biblical prohi- kavychek , Mykhailo Cherenkov identifies bition. several problems which confronted theo- logical education in the USSR, such as This kind of practical, mundane advice Soviet atheism, inter-church conflict, and and simple, proofreading exegesis was a anti-intellectualism, as well as new chal- far cry from the sophisticated cultural lenges in the post-Soviet era, such as critique exhibited in the texts of the Chris- global consumerism, popular post- tian Seminar. Moreover, in contrast to the modernism and resurgent paganism. The- comprehensive curricula of the Orthodox ological education cannot be unaffected seminaries and academies, which aimed by these broader social, political, econom- to provide students with knowledge of ic and religious challenges. It is, as yet, philology and grounding in philosophy uncertain how the churches can best re- and logic, the Baptists and evangelical spond to these various and multifaceted Christians were more focused on prepar- challenges. ing students in practical ways for pastoral ministry. According to my friend, Dr One thing that does seem quite certain, Alexander Popov, who teaches theology however, is the need for a rigorous system at the Moscow Theological Seminary, of theological education, which is attuned evangelical theological education in the to the contextual realities and challenges USSR was ‘first of all focused on training of real life and real people in the countries preachers and, secondly, it addressed of the fSU. The evangelical churches will certain specific questions about particular be better able to respond to the challeng- ministries in the church.’ 32 es if they can build up a generation of dedicated and well-educated Christian Furthermore, although evangelicals and men and women. The evangelical church- Baptists (particularly the dissident evan- es in Ukraine today need not only gelical group known as the Initsiativniki ) ‘professional Christians’ (i.e. pastors, were an important part of the dissident missionaries, evangelists, etc.) but also
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‘Christian professionals’ (i.e. Christian educational aims (such as training pastors doctors, nurses, lawyers, entrepreneurs, and preachers), but they were at least architects, journalists, broadcasters, etc.), achievable, even in the unfavourable cir- who are able to bring their Christian cumstances created by the Soviet regime. worldviews into these various spheres.
It is on this point that the leaders of evan- gelical seminaries would gain considera- ble insight and wisdom from reading about the history, not only of their prede- cessors in the AUCECB, but also of edu- cational initiatives which originated in different traditions, such as the Christian Seminar. Unlike the Bible Correspond- ence Course, which began in 1968 – and in contrast to other previous short-lived evangelical theological residential courses established in the early years of the USSR 33 whose educational aims were limited to the training of pastors and preachers – the Christian Seminar offered a more comprehensive vision of holistic theological education.
It is regrettable that the Christian Seminar was neglected for so long, but thanks to the Keston Institute and a few recent pub- Soviet atheist textbooks for teachers which lications, the Seminar and the heroic lead- have been preserved in the Keston Archive ership of its founding members are being revived. It is important that the vision of Learning from the past the Christian Seminar should be revived, because its social critique and profound The challenge for the next generation of connection to the history and spiritual educational leaders is to learn from the reality of Russia and Eastern Europe are example of groups such as the Christian as relevant and necessary today as they Seminar and the AUCECB, and to devel- were at the height of Soviet power. op new and creative programmes of theo- logical education which will equip people Similarly, however, a valid criticism can with the conceptual resources to engage be made that the Christian Seminar was in cogent and contextually-relevant philo- too idealistic and utopian in its outlook sophical critiques of culture (i.e. in the and that its aims – of building ‘a new tradition of the Christian Seminar), whilst community, a new culture, a new family, still attending to the immediate pastoral a new kind of man and a new kind of and mission needs of local churches (i.e. woman’ – would have been unfeasible, as the AUCECB sought to do). even in the most auspicious social and political conditions, and utterly impossi- Most of the Western-funded evangelical ble in the adverse context of Soviet op- educational initiatives in the 1990s were pression. The evangelical leaders of the woefully inadequate in this regard. Prag- AUCECB may have set out fairly limited matism and short-term initiatives aimed at
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conversion 34 prevailed over the more of theological and historical insights. The costly and time-consuming need to learn Archive contains a wealth of information from the successes and failures of histori- on educational initiatives among other cal precedents and to construct creative groups and confessions, including Catho- and culturally sensitive models of theo- lics, Orthodox, and unofficial Baptists logical education which would connect (Initsiativniki ) which have not been ad- with the spiritual, social and economic dressed either in this article or in other realities of life in the post-Soviet con- publications, but which should be brought text. 35 The failure of these well- to light by future research. intentioned but half-baked initiatives is clear to anyone with any experience of As well as acquainting me with the publi- theological education in this region. cations of dissident academic groups, the time that I spent perusing the samizdat One way of redressing the effects of these journals on theology also reinforced my initiatives would be to develop pro- long-held intuitive conviction that the grammes of theological education which most valuable theological reflection is are directed towards equipping people to produced not in the armchairs of theologi- relate effectively to the hopes, fears, anxi- cal faculties which are occupied by ten- eties and aspirations of the people whom ured, comfortable academic professionals, they serve and the society in which they but by those outside mainstream academ- live. Mykhailo Cherenkov insists that the ic life who recognise with Dietrich Bon- evangelical communities of the fSU re- höffer that ‘theology means struggle’. quire a new mission paradigm that ‘responds to the needs and questions of The compelled apartness of believers people beyond the walls of the church.’ under Soviet Communism enabled them Moreover, theological education has a to produce works of theological reflec- vital role to play in ‘bringing together the tion, which – however seemingly crude or inner world of the church and outer world unpolished by contemporary academic of culture, overcoming the spiritual and standards – nonetheless, in many cases, social dichotomy.’ 36 represented the genuine cry from the heart of a people in crisis, who knew all Conclusion too well what it meant to be ‘persecuted for righteousness’ sake’. By becoming a Given the constraints of this article, I ‘voice for the voiceless’, the Keston Insti- have only been able to offer a brief over- tute continues to render the invaluable view of two specific educational initia- service of preserving the memories and tives – the Christian Seminar and the communicating the living faith of believ- AUCECB Correspondence Course. Theo- ers, from various confessions, during the logical education in the USSR is a huge era of Soviet Communism, for the benefit topic and the Keston Archive at Baylor is of those of us who have the awesome and a veritable goldmine which will reward humbling privilege of continuing their the patient researcher with an abundance legacy in the present day.
1. Walter Sawatsky, ‘Reflections on the Urgency of Theological Education in the Former Soviet Union – After 20 Years’, Religion in Eastern Europe 30 (May 2010), 25. 2. Mark R. Elliott, ‘Current Crisis in Protestant Theological Education in the Former Soviet Union’, Religion in Eastern Europe 30 (November 2010), 1-22. 3. One of the most lucid (and controversial) recent assessments of this crisis is offered by my friend and former colleague, Dr Mykhailo N. Cherenkov, in his Баптизм без
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кавычек : Очерки и материалы к дискуссии о будущем евангельских церквей (Черкассы : Коллоквиум , 2012). 4. Mark Popovsky, Science in Chains: The Crisis of Science and Scientists in the Soviet Union Today , trans. Paul S. Falla (London: Collins and Harvill, 1980); Loren R. Graham, Science and Philosophy in the Soviet Union (London: Allen Lane, 1971). 5. Y. P. Yelyutin, quoted in Nigel Grant, Soviet Education , (London: Penguin, 1964), 23. 6. Я. Н. Мараш , Вопросы Атеистического Воспитания на Уроках истории СССР и БССР (Минск : Издательство Белгосуниверситета им . В. И. Ленина , 1961). 7. А. Г. Конфорович , Атеистическое Воспитание в Процессе Преподавания Математики (Москва : Педагогика , 1984). 8. Д. Н. Пеннер и Р. Г. Кротова , Научно -Атеистическое Воспитание при Обучении Физике (Москва : Просвещение , 1982). 9. Dialectical materialism was a philosophical perspective, associated with Karl Marx, which posited the external world as a product of the organising activity of communal experience. According to this perspective, social reality is determined by the relationship between ‘man’ ( Mensch ) and ‘nature’ ( Natur ). For a comprehensive exposition of dialec- tical materialism in the Soviet context, see Gustav A. Wetter, Dialectical Materialism: A Historical and Systematic Survey of Philosophy in the Soviet Union , trans. Peter Heath (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964). 10. ‘Theology’, Ushakov Dictionary (1935-1940) Archive file
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its leaders, see Koenraad De Wolf, Dissident for Life: Alexander Ogorodnikov and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Russia (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2013). 19. These quotations are excerpts from a letter written by five members to sympathisers in North America, dated November/December 1979. Archive file
33. These initiatives are summarised in Popov, ‘Evangelical Christians-Baptists in the Soviet Un- ion’, 162. 34. Although many thousands of conversions did result from these kind of evangelising efforts, the long-term consequences for the Ukrainian evangelical community were, on the whole, detri- mental, and have, at least, not resulted in the much-anticipated ‘revival’ in this region. 35. For more details on these initiatives and a critical analysis of the role of Western missionary activities, see Mark Elliott, ‘Theological Education after Communism: The Mixed Blessing of Western Assistance’ in East-West Church & Ministry Report 3 (Winter, 1995); Wes and Cheryl Brown, ‘Progress and Challenge in Theological Education in Central and Eastern Europe’, Transformation 20 (2003), 1. A very critical account of Western missionaries can be found in Johannes Reimer’s controversial and thought-provoking article, ‘Mission in post-perestroika Russia’, in Missionalia 24 (April, 1996), 16-39. Walter Sawatsky offers a more balanced per- spective in his, ‘Return of Mission and Evangelisation in the CIS (1980s-present): an Assess- ment’, in Penner and Sawatsky (eds.), Mission in the Former Soviet Union (Schwarzenfeld: Neufeld, 2005). 36. Cherenkov, Баптизм без кавычек , 34 . Joshua T. Searle is Tutor in Theology and Public thought at Spurgeon’s College, London. He was awarded a Keston scholarship in 2013 enabling him to work in the Keston Archive at Baylor.
Keston AGM Saturday 1 st November 2014 at 12 noon The Royal Foundation of St Katharine Butcher Row London E14 8DS The Royal Foundation of St Katharine is on the Docklands Light Railway. It is within easy walking distance of Limehouse station.
DLR Limehouse
St Katharine’s
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KestonKeston SymposiumSymposium Baylor University
The Keston Center at Baylor organised a transfer of the Keston Archive to Baylor symposium entitled ‘Religion and Politi- in 2007 when he was a senior Baylor cal Culture in Communist Countries: faculty member, and today serves on the Past, Present and Future’ in November Keston Center’s Advisory Board. The 2013, at which Professor Wallace Daniel complete programme and video record- and Canon Michael Bourdeaux gave ings of the two keynote addresses can be keynote addresses. Wallace Daniel, Uni- found at http://www.baylor.edu/ versity Professor of History at Mercer kestoncenter/index.php?id=99707. We University (Georgia), helped engineer the print below the text of both addresses.
The Memory Keepers, Past and Future by Wallace Daniel
I want to begin with a word of gratitude demonstrating the government’s forward- to Michael Bourdeaux, who is an inspira- looking thinking. The picture we gained, tion and helpmate to me, and, more a widespread view, portrayed a compliant broadly, to everyone working in the field church, a lifeless clergy, lacking energy, of religion and politics, church and state creativity, and vigour – a handmaiden of in Eastern Europe and beyond – in global the state, firmly in its grasp. affairs. I became interested in these issues in the In the West, in the popular press, but also mid-1990s, in part driven by a suspicion in many academic studies, there is a wide- of these stereotypes, a sense that the reali- spread view that the Orthodox Church – ty was much more complex than we were and religion in general – have played little led to believe, and, in part, because of strategic role in national affairs. The meetings in Moscow with two very differ- church, it is often claimed, is and has ent people: one, a young scholar named been a tool of the state, allied with the Sergei Filatov, a sociologist of religion at Soviet government earlier and with the Moscow University, whose work opened Russian government presently. Joseph up for me a much different world, about Stalin revived the church in 1943, during which I will say more later. the worst days of the Second World War, to inspire the national spirit, to connect The second person was an eighty-one the Soviet effort in the war to Russia’s year old nun, a former award-winning national heritage. Afterwards, the gov- molecular chemist, appointed to lead the ernment used the church as a propaganda restoration of one of Russia’s most fa- tool, its carefully selected clergy appear- mous women’s monasteries, Novode- ing at international disarmament confer- vichy women’s monastery in Moscow. ences, stressing peace initiatives and When I first met her, in her office in No- Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 22
vodevichy Monastery, the late after- noon sunlight streaming through the window beside her, she took down from the shelf a photograph album, opened it, and showed me a picture of her father and mother, standing beside Tsar Nicholas II and the Tsarina Alex- andra. The second photograph was her grandfather, Leonid Mikhailovich Chichagov, a priest, an author, an artist, with whom she and her sister lived until 1937, when he was taken away by the police, during that awful year, and shot, his memory erased from the history books and from the public memory. I came away from these meetings believing that the memory was what had been most under assault, that the parts of that memory would be recovered and re- stored, and would have a large impact, a shaping influence, on how religion and politics would play out.
If memory is to be recovered, then who are the memory keepers? In this fast-paced, instantaneous world in Professor Wallace Daniel delivering his keynote which we now live, who holds the address at the Keston Symposium keys to family memories, to the stories Russia, as many other places, including to that give us connections? Photographs, some extent our own, has suffered from a Michael Ignatieff reminds us, are a fami- kind of collective amnesia. Shortly after ly’s ‘court of memory’; they provide a becoming Patriarch in 1990, Alexi II de- sense of connection and rootedness in a scribed the loss of memory and the need time of migration and expatriation. In a for its recovery, as well as the rediscovery secular culture, photographs ‘are the only of culture and spiritual heritage as the household items, the only objects that most important issues facing his country. perform the religious function of connect- On the success of that venture, he said, a ing the living to the dead, and of locating large part of his country’s future would the identity of the living in time.’ In a ride. famous essay on this subject, Susan Son- tag describes photographs as a ‘new kind But where are those rich sources that con- of inheritance,’ a figment of identity; they nect the past to the future to be found? recall the past; they are often all that bears Might they offer a different way of read- witness to connectedness. In my inter- ing church and state than the one we have views with her, Mother Serafima told me come to know? Where are the memories she often looked at the photographs of her kept, memories that, in Patriarch Alexi grandfather: she often saw his face; his II’s words, will connect the past to the eyes, she said, seemed to call he r, to reach future, and upon which the future will be out to her. built?
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When Mother Serafima sought to recon- us a richer, deeper account of the inter- struct Novodevichy Monastery in the late section between politics and religion than 1990s, she knew that she had first to con- we have for most of the 20 th century. I front the past. She had to learn the fate of think of a young British exchange stu- her grandfather, on whose memory she dent, Michael Bourdeaux, studying in hoped to build. She went to KGB head- Moscow and buying on the street a copy quarters where she requested the files on of the first number of a journal entitled her grandfather, but was met with silence. Nauka i religia (Science and Religion), She admitted her despair of ever learning not then, of course, realising its im- what had happened to him. It was then that portance or how rare that issue would a friend mentioned to her an elderly woman become. I think of a house in Chislehurst, who lived in a small apartment in Moscow. England, where the collection began, then One day Mother Serafima went to the wom- a building in the village of Keston, and an’s apartment, seeking her out, not believ- then in Oxford, and now at Baylor, today ing she would learn anything. She located one of the richest, probably the greatest, the woman’s small, one-room flat in the collection of primary source materials in Moscow suburbs. She found there an old the Western world on politics and reli- woman, living alone in cramped quarters, gion, on church and state in Eastern Eu- her apartment filled with boxes of index rope. And since both Great Britain and cards. This person, Serafima soon discov- the United States are intertwined in those ered, had worked many years collecting the subjects, the collection is also global in its names of people who had been shot, and outreach. she had transcribed the information, pre- serving the record and fleshing out the story The materials in the collection belie the of those who had disappeared into the death stereotype of a docile, apathetic Orthodox camps. She had learned about these people clergy mentioned at the beginning of this from various sources, including people who talk. They present a much more complex, had worked in the archives of the police, multi-faceted picture. There are exam- and some of the files she had seen herself. ples of socially active, dynamic men and women, who reached out to the people ‘She had the names of 20,000 people writ- and presented alternate ways of seeing ten on the cards,’ Mother Serafima said; and believing to the existing order. There she had these boxes of cards lining the is, for example, the charismatic parish shelves of her apartment. She told Serafi- priest Fr Aleksandr Men’, who captivated ma that she ‘feared all this work she had the public and was murdered in Septem- committed herself to, had worked on for ber 1990, and whose legacy is revered in many years, would be lost from view, Russia and in other places today. There is because no one heretofore had ever re- Fr Gleb Yakunin, the courageous dissi- quested from her this information.’ The dent, the human rights leader, who would boxes that filled her small apartment in not be silenced, despite the Soviet gov- Moscow gave vital testimony to her de- ernment’s relentless attempts to do so. sire to preserve for history the details of There are the works of the sociologist one of the darkest periods in the 20 th Sergei Filatov and his team, whose multi- century. volume, detailed studies of religious life and beliefs in every corner of this vast Similarly, the materials contained in the country, are still not as widely appreciat- Keston Archive are also part of that story. ed as they deserve. They give us a pic- A great deal of the narrative remains still ture of life that we have not had in over a to be explored, to be told. They will give century. There is much more.
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The past, as the distinguished geographer outspoken, superbly intelligent, unbroken David Lowenthal has superbly shown, is by years in prison, he offers a very differ- never immutable, never set in stone, or ent picture of the Russian clergy from the fixed forever in the imagination. It is one we normally get. He posed a chal- always alive, changing, part of the pre- lenge not only to the state, but also to the sent, and also part of the future. Whose church hierarchy as an alternative spokes- version of the Russian past will be most person for their faith. widely accepted is a question that is still evolving. But we might project outwards Third, we are seeing a significant change some ten or twenty years into the future, in the social composition of Russian and ask how the memories stored here Protestants. A generation ago, as Sergei will be relevant to that future, might have Filatov’s studies show, they were mainly direct bearing on what lies immediately workers and peasants, people with little ahead, only dimly visible at the present education. In the last ten years, he has time. Historians are notoriously bad at found, this is no longer the case; a predicting, as we know. Yet several Protestant intelligentsia has emerged, trends are already taking shape, etched in including many humanists and econo- the landscape, and seem likely to become mists. They are becoming a real cultural even more prominent over the next two force, capable of evolving into a strong decades or so. political force in the next decade.
If I may, with some trepidation, project The fourth concerns a large global issue. five of them. Several go beyond our pre- The Columbia University scholar Miro- sent holdings, but they could, with vision slav Wolf calls it one of the two most and a little work, be added easily to what important problems we presently face: the is already here. First, we very much need problem of how different religious faiths, a study of a remarkable woman, Margari- occupying the same space, can learn to ta Morozova, who lived in Moscow in the live together peacefully. Given the rapid- first half of the 20 th century. Widow of a ly changing religious landscape of the last wealthy Moscow merchant, she held in two decades, the need for dialogue be- her mansion, in the Old Arbat section of tween different religious faiths has never Moscow, a weekly seminar, given to been more important, more pressing. As discussion of religious-philosophical one looks outward, to the future, the sig- issues, in which participated many of nificance of dialogue becomes ever more Russia’s finest young intellectuals, in- essential, if we are going to flourish, even cluding Evgeni Trubetskoi, whose book, to survive. Dialogue between the church (Icons: Theology in Colour ), is a tour de and society, between different faiths, is force . She used her wealth to finance a one of the central themes of the work of publishing house, Put’ (The Way), in Fr Aleksandr Men’. It is not incidental which a lively, spirited debate took place, that he loved the novels of Graham a multi-sided debate, on issues that are Greene, which deal with that subject, and very much with us now – namely, the whose novel, The Power and the Glory, relationship between religion and culture, the Aleksandr Men’ Foundation has trans- the secular and the sacred, and the church lated and published this year. The Keston and the state. collection contains a wealth of material on the importance of such dialogue. It is Second, we have no scholarly biography a topic that projects directly into the fu- of one of Russia’s greatest religious dissi- ture and on a global scale, one much larg- dents, Fr Gleb Yakunin. Courageous, er than Russia.
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Last, when looking at Russia, in my view, we have paid far more attention in the past to the surface, to the ocean and the white- caps on top, than to what lies underneath the political hierarchy, ‘to the rise and fall of tides that move the waves and the white- caps’. Keston invites us to explore beneath the surface, inviting us to ask again the ques- tion, ‘Whither Rus- sia?’, the question Gogol posed at the end Left to right: Professor Wallace Daniel, Canon Michael Bourdeaux & of his novel Dead Pattie Orr, Dean of University Libraries & Vice President for Souls . Information Technology at Baylor University
In looking to the future, we don’t want to Women, as she claims, now command the miss the recent emergence of an Ortho- expanding field of religious media – so- dox intelligentsia that has come into be- cial networks, blogs, bookstores, televi- ing following the controversial 2012 sion and movie production studios. Presidential election. What is so striking Among the most noteworthy are the edi- about this group is that it is not connected tor-in-chief of the leading Orthodox web directly to the church, but is nourished by site, the editor-in-chief of the theological the ideals of Russian Orthodoxy. The journal Alpha and Omega , and the lead- members of the group express strong ing documentary filmmaker. disagreement with the church hierarchy and its political alliance with the govern- They, and others, are directly challenging ment. As historian Nadezhda Kizenko the close relationship of church and state. has recently pointed out in an important They are raising some major questions article (‘Russia’s Orthodox Awakening: about the creation of a system of law that The Fraying of Russia’s Church-State puts the flourishing of citizens as its Alliance’), they are young Orthodox pro- preeminent goal. What is perhaps most fessionals – academics, journalists, busi- important, Kizenko maintains, these new ness people, mass media personnel – who ‘critical voices have no intention of stop- hold a diversity of views; they do not, at ping until they spark a national moral all, fit the mould we hold of a unified awakening.’ church or society. This is a story that must be seen and must A large number of the most active in this be told, if we have the eyes to see and the group, Kizenko shows, are female. ears to hear.
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Gorbachev and the Church after 25 Years: Some Facts and Personal Reminiscences
by Michael Bourdeaux
Today I want to scan the church in the nation in the archives and publication in Soviet Union, touring some of the hori- English. I made a hurried attempt to do so zons as though from an aerial perspective. in my book, Gorbachev, Glasnost and the I have two theses: the first is that religion Gospel , published – when the issues were played a greater role in the collapse of the far short of resolution – in 1990. Soviet system than is generally realised. The second is that the role of religious Latvia dissent in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1970s and 1980s awaits full and hon- Except for a significant Catholic minority est evaluation, not least on the part of the in Latgalia, the majority of the Latvian Moscow Patriarchate. population had been Lutheran before the inroads of enforced atheism. The rump of There is no time today to discuss the role the church survived, but with a passive of the Baptist Church, the persecution of leadership which appeared content with which remained a constant factor in the the limited degree of liberty permitted by 1960s to the 1980s. For the first part of the state. The authorities granted leave to our tour, we focus on the Soviet Baltic the bishops to attend international confer- republics of Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania. ences, such as those organised by the I pass over as a given your knowledge of World Council of Churches; they gave the persecution of religion under Lenin, assurances that they enjoyed ‘freedom of Stalin and Khrushchev. The imprisonment worship,’ so all seemed quiet on the Baltic of church leaders, the widespread closure front. of places of worship, the abolition of reli- gious education, the banning of charitable This was to change significantly in 1985, work and – later – the collaboration of just at the time of Gorbachev’s accession. some religious bodies with the regime was The Soviet authorities controlled church a feature which had long been imposed on life partly by monitoring the students who the Soviet Union, and after the second applied to the one Lutheran theological occupation of the Baltic republics towards seminary now allowed to operate. A the end of the Second World War the bright young student, Maris Ludviks, was Communist authorities had to bring the in trouble with the local Council for Reli- region ‘up to the mark’ in short order. I gious Affairs for his energetic youth work. omit to dwell on the deportations and their Traditionally, the authorities would al- associated horrors – they have been thor- ways win such a battle and remove the oughly documented. I want to move im- unruly element. This time it was different. mediately to the later consequences of Although the Latvian Lutheran leaders this: the attempts by the religious commu- weakly caved in, a much bolder Lutheran nities in the Baltic republics to regain their bishop, a rare species from Lithuania, lost liberty in the 1970s and especially the where the Lutherans were in a tiny minor- 1980s. Much of this needs further exami- ity, stepped in and ordained him. Pastor
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Canon Michael Bourdeaux delivers his keynote address
Ludviks could scarcely imagine that this The rest, as they say, is history. Eduards would set in train a series of events which Kokars-Trops, head of the Latvian Coun- would lead to the reopening of Riga Ca- cil of Religious Affairs, leant on Arch- thedral (it had been transformed into a bishop Mesters to dismiss Pastor Plate, concert hall) and a national revival of the which infuriated more and more people. church. The ‘Rebirth and Renewal’ move- Nineteen clergy signed a petition for the ment came into being. reinstatement of Pastor Plate on 18 March 1987; 350 lay people joined in the protest There was, coincidentally, a hiatus in the and Pastor Plate stood his ground. Soon a leadership of the church. Archbishop non-religious protest group joined in: the Matulis had just died and his successor, Helsinki monitors. An even younger Pas- Eriks Mesters, equally acceptable to (or tor, Juris Rubenis, called for the re- appointed by?) the regime, had not yet opening of the cathedral. The state caved been consecrated. Archbishop Mesters in, not only permitting a service to be caved in and refused to appoint Pastor held, but even televising it. There was Ludviks to a parish. In typical form, the now no going back. A democratically Latvian newspaper Padomju jaunatne elected consistory (meeting of senior (Soviet Youth) published a scurrilous clergy) met on 11 April 1988 and voted attack against him, calling him a black- Archbishop Mesters out of office. His marketeer and a work-shy parasite, there- replacement was Archbishop Karlis by shooting themselves in the foot. Enter Gailitis, only 53 years old, who openly Pastor Modris Plate, still in his early thir- supported the Latvian National Independ- ties, who organised a group of five clergy ence Movement. This goal was now im- to visit the editorial offices of the newspa- mediately in sight and the Lutheran per to protest against the calumny. Church played a significant role in achieving it.
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Estonia atheism. A full biography is one of the many tasks awaiting today’s scholars. The Soviets long considered that the claimed pacification of Estonia was an However, Estonia was not as passive as achievement of socialism. The majority Alexi – and his Soviet masters – would Lutheran Church there seemed weaker have liked the world to believe. Various than its Latvian counterpart. elements – not least in the Russian Ortho- dox Church itself, but also in the small But in church-state relations here the first Roman Catholic Church and elsewhere – focus was on the promotion and eventual began to coalesce. The Catholic compos- elevation to the Patriarchate of Alexei er, Arvo Pärt, was forced into exile for Mikhailovich Ridiger, born in 1929. He writing liturgical music, which caused later claimed that his religious views dissent in the artistic community. It is a were formed during the ‘free’ years – mistake to confine one’s study to purely from the age of six he wanted to become church matters: a wider cultural perspec- a priest in the Orthodox Church. We do tive is often helpful. not know exactly if, how or when he was compromised: what is certain is that at There was also unrest and religious re- Leningrad seminary in 1947 he was sin- vival among the very small Methodist gled out for a purpose – to pacify, Church, where Pastor Olaf Pärnamets ‘Kremlinise’ the large Orthodox minori- began, most successfully and fearlessly, ty, ‘converting’ them from Estonian Or- to organise youth work. In the Lutheran thodox to Russian Orthodox – and to Church, Harri Mõtsnik horrified the So- make that great cathedral in Tallinn the viet establishment by giving up a distin- symbol of Russian domination. guished law career to become a Lutheran pastor and remarkable preacher. With his At 32 in 1961 Alexi became the youngest experience of public speaking, he was bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church – especially effective and his ‘gospel’ in- first in Tallinn, eventually as the Metro- cluded strong elements of Estonian na- politan of Leningrad (1986) and then as tionalism. How about this from a pre- Patriarch Alexi I (1990). Abroad, he perestroika sermon? became the best-known Russian church leader. His extensive international role with the World Council of Churches and especially the Confer- ence of European Churches frequent- ly took him abroad. In his public statements he consistently concealed the persecution which continued while he was in his heyday in the 1970s. Looking back, I estimate that his role was to suppress not only knowledge (abroad) of religious dis- sent in USSR, but to suppress dissent itself in Estonia. He became the ar- chetypal ‘Soviet man’, whose core was compromise, but at the same time jealously preserving that degree of Left to right: Sister Tatiana Spektor, a former Keston religious liberty permitted by Soviet scholar at Baylor, with Larisa Seago, the Keston Center’s archivist Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 29
‘It is relevant to remem- ber the noble path of self-sacrifice of those who have chosen the struggle for freedom as the only way of hope for the Estonian peo- ple, setting on one side the fear which they surely experience with- in and in the face of the totalitarian regime which confronts them.’
The KGB of course tar- Left to right: Professor Stephen Gardner, Canon Michael Bourdeaux, geted Harri Mõtsnik. He Professor Xin Wang & Professor Wallace Daniel answer questions. ‘repented’ and was forced into exile in Sweden. Yet his message document the rise of dissent in the 1970s, had galvanised hundreds, perhaps more. but the story is written in my Land of What had seemed a passive church was Crosses , published in 1979. throbbing with new life in 1980s. Here is another subject awaiting new research. Let me quote just a single example, culled from literally hundreds recorded within Almost out of the blue an ecumenical the voluminous pages of the samizdat group calling itself ‘Rock of Support’ journal, Chronicle of the Lithuanian Cath- formed in 1987 to defend all believers olic Church. It makes amply clear the fact throughout USSR. They contacted me that the Catholic leadership was never directly and asked to work with Keston compromised in the way that other de- College – and we published their infor- nominations became subservient through- mation – these were exciting times. Their out the Soviet Union. role has received little publicity since, but deserves re-examination. They were far I consider it of major importance that the from being the sole stimulus for the Sing- case of Fr Juozas Zdebskis was reported ing Revolution, which did receive world- in the very first issue of the Lithuanian wide publicity and eventual success, but Chronicle in 1971. He was arrested for the the voice of the church was present during third time in that year for teaching the these turbulent years, so even ‘pacified’ catechism to children at their parents’ Estonia picked up the pace, as dissent request. He already had an extensive rec- gathered strength in its neighbouring re- ord of fearlessly upholding the faith, so a publics to the north and the south. ten-year sentence, at least, might have been expected. However, in the face of Lithuania the manifest public support for him, his sentence was ‘only’ one year. The Chron- Lithuania truly became the Achilles heel icle, amazingly, contained an abridged of the Soviet system, and I hardly need to transcript of his trial, having been secretly emphasise here the potent link between written down by a supporter during the Catholic dissent and Sajudis, the trial. On his release, he walked on a carpet ‘Movement’ for perestroika , which was a of flowers which children strewed in front covert way of saying ‘independence’. of him. In 1978 he became a founder- There is no time here even to begin to member of the Catholic Committee for the Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 30
Defence of Believers’ Rights, which soon ernment and it declared independence led to his death. After several brutal at- long before the collapse of the Soviet tacks, he died in a so-called road accident system. in February 1986. At his death, apart from a Bible and a few other Christian books, Nowhere in the Soviet Union had the his sole prized possession, found in a movement for change been more power- drawer, was a collection of small stones ful. The Catholic Church had openly em- he had picked up in various parts of his braced politics in a way which was, of native land. He had witnessed the begin- course, on a smaller scale than the parallel ning of Gorbachev’s era, but not the inde- in Poland, but which was no less potent pendence which his country gained at the within its community. Religion, in the end of it. One wonders why he – and oth- 1980s, was popularly but mistakenly ers like him – are not in the forefront of viewed as a dying force. Historians whose the current rush in the Vatican to create work is honed by the realities of 2013 are modern saints. likely to re-evaluate the role of religion in the Baltic States prior to the collapse of The Lithuanian Church achieved its liber- Communism. ty at the cost of great suffering. Indeed, when Gorbachev began sanctioning the Russia release of political prisoners in 1987, the many imprisoned Catholic leaders did not Evaluating the role of religious dissent and immediately benefit. The Bishop of Vilni- striving towards democracy in Russia itself us, Julijonas Steponaviçius, was released is a much more difficult task. Some schol- only at the end of 1988 after 27 years (no ars, such as Professor Archie Brown of less!) of house arrest – he was never tried. Oxford University, dismiss the role of dis- By this time Lithuania was already awash sent as a whole – not just religious dissent – with the new signs of freedom – parishes as a factor in the collapse of Soviet Com- regained, Christian books published, char- munism. itable activities revived, monastic orders reinstated. The bishop set himself as his first task the re-consecration of Vilnius Cathedral (it had been, successively, an atheist museum and a bookstore). By February 1989 Professor Vytautas Lands- bergis and the other Sajudis leaders were installed in a house opposite.
It was my privilege to be – apart from some Russian church representatives – the only foreign guest present at this momen- tous event. When the authorities permitted a live TV broadcast of the whole three- hour event, this was not the beginning of the end of the Soviet domination of Lithu- ania – it was virtually the end itself. Events moved irresistibly from one phase Alina Urs from Romania, a speaker at Keston’s to the next. Lithuania witnessed the last murder of its own citizens by the Special 2012 AGM, addresses the symposium during Forces, but even this was too late to stem her four-week period of research in the Keston the tide. Sajudis became the elected gov- Archive at Baylor Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 31
sional woman) contributed to the intellec- If one were to seek out one key moment, tual atmosphere of the mid-1980s, which it would be 29 April 1988, when Gorba- led directly into perestroika. Not a single chev received the leading bishops of the one of the ordained men saw his efforts Russian Orthodox Church in the Kremlin. crowned by what one might term It is a subject of some dispute whether ‘ecclesiastical preferment’. Gorbachev himself initiated this event or whether it occurred in response to an initi- It is of immense significance, though, that ative from the church itself. I personally the Moscow Patriarchate, immediately at have always favoured the former interpre- the beginning of perestroika , began to tation, because the pliant Patriarch Pimen, cultivate the ground which the reformists who had never lifted a finger to support had so painfully cultivated in the preced- religious liberty, was still in office. Be ing two decades. that as it may, the date was doubly signifi- cant: it was the 59 th anniversary to the day Mikhail Gorbachev was not himself a of Stalin’s new repressive laws on reli- believer, but the demands for religious gion of 1929. It was also only the second liberty, which the church democrats put occasion in Soviet history when any on to his early agenda, undoubtedly had a church leader had been invited to meet the profound influence on his policy. His first Kremlin leadership, the first having been liberal act in the religious sphere was the on 4 September 1943 when Stalin release of prisoners, first in a trickle in acknowledged the role of the Orthodox 1987, then in a spate from 1988 onwards. Church in its efforts during the Great Indeed, this latter date provided, from Patriotic War. On that occasion he gave many points of view, the fulcrum which permission for the election of a Patriarch, levied the pressure which caused the dam after a gap of 25 years, and the establish- to burst. ment of the Moscow Patriarchate.
Participants in the Keston Symposium: Professor Kathy Hillman, Director of the Keston Center & Director of Special Collections for the Central Baylor University Libraries, stands in the front row (in a red jacket) Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 32
Gorbachev, in his turn, was to promise auspices of Inter-Church Travel – was abolition of the Stalinist legislation, which issued, then withdrawn with a telephone he brought about in 1990. More immedi- call from the Soviet Embassy in London. ately, he admitted that there had been However, intervention from the British persecution in the past – ‘mistakes’, as he Foreign and Commonwealth Office pre- called them. Now he went on to say: vailed. Some such conversation as this must have occurred: ‘How can you possi- ‘Believers are Soviet people, work- bly exclude the Reverend Michael ers, patriots, and they have the full Bourdeaux from these celebrations when right to express their convictions we are in the full glare of perestroika ?’ with dignity. Perestroika, democ- Well, that is speculation. What is not is ratization and glasnost concern the fact that I received a telephone call them as well – in full measure and from the Soviet Embassy at 9pm – ‘Please without any restrictions. This is come and collect your visa’ – I was an especially true of ethics and mor- hour’s travel away, I hadn’t packed a als, a domain where universal stitch and my group’s plane was due to norms and customs are so helpful leave at 7am next day – two hours travel for our common cause.’ away!
Never before in history had a Communist After this frenetic experience, the pressure leader in power anywhere in the world of excitement if anything mounted over proclaimed such a common cause. the next ten days. For an account of these events I must refer you to my book, Gor- The church, though, was far from minded bachev, Glasnost and the Gospel , Chapter to work out the practical basis of such co- 3. Let me, though, give the flavour of the operation. This was the moment at which rapid unfolding of events – and their me- the demands of the democrats now ticulous recording on both of Moscow’s passed, unacknowledged, into the mouths TV channels. I quote (pp.61-2): of the church hierarchy. By an astonishing coincidence of history, 1988 was also the ‘The day ended with a jubilee con- year in which the Baptism of the Eastern cert in the presence of dignitaries Slavs would be celebrated. In double- representing both church and state short order – and with every assistance (Raisa Gorbachev and President from the state – the Orthodox Church Gromyko were the most notable prepared to turn this into a major interna- secular figures present). I am able tional event. Buildings were painted, even to describe it in detail because it if there was not much time for repair, took place also the previous even- organising teams were appointed, interna- ing, in the presence of a slightly tional invitations were sent out. Breath- less official audience. My wife lessly and amazingly, the Russian Ortho- and I were there, the Moscow dox Church was ready, more or less, to Patriarchate having provided us receive a bevy of international guests, with tickets. We sat in the second headed by such figures as Cardinal Wil- row of the stalls to witness yet lebrands from the Vatican, Billy Graham another revelation. No fewer than and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr seven choirs, six orchestras and Runcie. some of the stars of Soviet screen and concert platform combined in I was due to join them but the KGB still a joint celebration of the Millenni- retained control of the visa blacklist. Mine um by church and state. To wit- – to lead a group of pilgrims under the ness the best choirs of the Russian Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 33
It is impossible here to summarise the information about the renewed persecu- evidence. It has already been done in tion. Fr Gleb sounded out senior priests as Keston’s publications, but it needs to be to why there was no opposition to re-assessed by the wider scholarly com- Khrushchev’s new brutal measures. Elev- munity. This is where the ongoing work en or so promised support; Fr Gleb col- of the Keston Center here at Baylor is so lected nationwide information from visi- very important. Historical scholarship in tors to Moscow who often came with Russia on the period from Khrushchev’s their petitions to the Government. But assault on religion beginning in 1959 to when he published his sensational (but the rise of perestroika about a year after objective) documents in 1965 this support Gorbachev’s accession in 1985 has been quietly evaporated, and the signatures of weak. In 1990, doing my research on the the two priests alone appeared under their role of religion while perestroika was in open letters to the Kremlin and to Patri- full swing, I published Gorbachev, Glas- arch Alexi I. nost and the Gospel. I intended it as a work of journalism, basically, which The two priests wrote: would soon be superseded by more in- depth studies. This, by and large, has not ‘No fewer than ten thousand yet happened. Most of all, one might have churches and dozens of monaster- expected the now free Russian Orthodox ies have been closed, among Church to pay minute attention to what which we should specially men- immediately preceded its contemporary tion the Monastery of the Caves at gains. The reason for this lacuna is almost Kiev, the most ancient sacred certainly guilt. The Moscow Patriarchate place of our Orthodox people […] speaks in general and persistent terms of The mass closure of churches, a the way the church suffered under Com- campaign instigated from above, munism, but it shies away from a more has created an atmosphere of anti- detailed examination of the evidence – religious fanaticism which has led which it has in abundance. The fear is that to the barbaric destruction of a such study would inevitably uncover the large number of superb and endless compromises which the church unique monuments.’ made, both nationally and locally to avoid the worst of the persecution. Meanwhile This reads like a blueprint for the de- the true heroes of the faith are rapidly mands of the perestroika period more disappearing into the mists of history with than 20 years later. Fr Gleb’s career suf- no true memorial established commemo- fered – the Patriarch silenced him; he was rating their podvig. As time goes on, the eventually imprisoned and disowned by number of those still alive dwindles and the Moscow Patriarchate. He survived – opportunities of documenting oral histo- just – due to his undaunted bravery and ries are missed. determination. Here is another biography waiting to be written. As a rare example, Fr Gleb Yakunin, who first publicly challenged Khrushchev’s Such a work would describe the atmos- atheist campaign, is the sole survivor of phere of increasing boldness which the that astonishing act of bravery – and he is activities of the two priests would arouse: now in his 80 th year. As a young priest in the rise of religious dissent. To list the a Moscow parish in the early 1960s he names today is to make a roll call of hero- began, with his colleague the late Fr Ni- ic activity. Here are some names (in no kolai Eshliman, systematically to gather particular order).
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• Fr Alexander Men’ – a contempo- almost died at a young age in prison rary and friend of Fr Gleb Yakunin, for having, as a schoolteacher, a who never became a dissident as handful of religious poems. She such, but was nevertheless mur- became a cause célèbre worldwide dered in 1990 in circumstances before being allowed to emigrate as never fully investigated. His is an a result of pressure from Mrs exception to the generalisation that Thatcher. there has been no serious study of his role. • The tragic Fr Dmitri Dudko, subject of another biography this year ( The • The layman Alexander Ogorodni- Last Man in Russia by Oliver kov, who became a student convert Bullough) who was perhaps the from Communist activism and es- most outspoken and influential of tablished a Christian Seminar all dissident Orthodox priests, but (discussion group) which rapidly who renounced his ‘political and spread from Moscow to many re- disloyal’ activities after maltreat- gional centres. Dissident for Life, ment in prison. his biography, was published this year by Koenraad De Wolf . • Fr Pavel Adelheim, fearless critic of the atheist regime, who actually • Boris Talantov – another layman, a managed to build a church in re- maths teacher from the northern mote Uzbekistan, survived several city of Kirov (Vyatka) who docu- attempts on his life, carried out a mented Khrushchev’s persecution fruitful ministry in Pskov supported of religion in his region with the financially from abroad, and was same assiduity which Frs Eshliman murdered in his own kitchen in and Yakunin practised on a nation- August 2013 by a young assailant. wide scale. He died in prison. Xenia Dennen has met a Russian in Vyat- Other names one might mention are Fr ka who is working on his biog- Vsevolod Shpiller, parish priest in Mos- raphy. cow; Vadim Shavrov, graduate of the Odessa Theological Seminary, who re- • Anatoli Levitin, another layman, mained a layman; Vladimir Osipov, edi- also a schoolteacher, who was for- tor of the samizdat journal, Veche (named merly a deacon in the Living after the popular assemblies of ancient Church. His particular interest was Kiev and Novgorod); Igor Shafarevich, in the education of young people in mathematician; and there were others. A the faith. For doing this in practice special category is, of course, the literary and for circulating his voluminous world where, towering over other writers, works in samizdat , he too lost his stands the figure of Alexander Solzheni- job, was imprisoned and forced into tsyn. exile in Switzerland, where he died, being mysteriously run over by a All these Christian voices associated with car. the Orthodox Church form a pattern and a complex one at that, but they do not coa- lesce into anything resembling a move- • Irina Ratushinskaya, a lay-woman, ment, except perhaps Ogorodnikov’s almost totally innocent of any Christian Seminar. It is still open for dis- ‘crime’, even by the debased stand- cussion how far these men (and the occa- ards of Brezhnev’s Russia. She Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 35
Orthodox Church alternating with atmosphere was charged and emotional. the finest secular choruses was to Finally, the Bolshoi Opera Chorus and see a new era in microcosm. Orchestra joined together to sing the tra- There have been thousands of ditional Russian greeting, Mnogoe leto evenings when the Bolshoi atmos- (Long Life) , which now resounded as a phere has sparked electricity: paean of praise from the Soviet state to rarely can it have been more the church. The heavens – literally – charged than it was then. Nuns opened, and the top tier of the Bolshoi from Riga and Kiev, with whom I stage revealed a peal of real bells. The talked, were given the opportunity carillon rang out the louder, since the to see and hear something which ringing of church bells had been forbid- would remain with them for the den for the past 70 years. rest of their days.’ The state abolished all restrictions on Then the great Soviet actor Sergei Bond- religion in the new law two years later. archuk took centre stage and read the Things would never be the same again – words from the Russian Primary Chroni- though the direction they would take after cle, which recount the conversion of the collapse of Communism was, for a Kievan Rus’ to the Christian faith. The few years, veiled from sight.
Legacies Keston’s trustees are very grateful to all members for their continuing support and enthusiasm for the Institute’s work. We are, however, a dwindling band of enthusiasts so we would be delighted if you were able to recruit new members.
If you are thinking of remembering Keston in your Will, the following suggested form of words, which can be copied directly into a Will, may be helpful:
‘I give the sum of £…… [in figures and words] absolutely to Keston College, (otherwise known as Keston Institute), Company Registration No 991413 and Registered Charity Number 314103, hereinafter called “the Charity”, such sum to be applied for the general purposes of the Charity. I direct that the receipt of the Chairman or other author- ised officer for the time being of the Charity shall be a good and sufficient discharge to my Executors.’
With best wishes, Xenia Dennen (Chairman)
Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 36
In Search of Repentance: Tengiz Abuladze’s Film Examined
by Mikhail Roshchin
The Georgian director Tengiz Abuladze’s we are talking about sin at the film Repentance , released in 1987, was a heart of society, not about individ- bombshell: for the first time in the USSR uals. Any other sort of repentance the subject of Stalinism and Stalin’s is not repentance but hypocrisy.’ crimes was presented on the big screen with total honesty, and attracted many In the film a respected and influential reviews which were basically positive. civic leader, Varlam Aravidze, is buried, but in the morning his body is found lean- In 1987 Repentance was awarded the ing up against the wall of his son, Avel’s Grand Prix at the Cannes house. This happens Film Festival, the special again and again. In the prize of the International end a woman called Federation of Film Crit- Ketevan Barateli is ics and the prize of the discovered to be the Ecumenical Jury. In the person who kept dig- Soviet Union that same ging up the body – her year the film was given parents had been vic- the Nika Award with six tims of Varlam Ara- nominations: ‘best fic- vidze. Ketevan is put tion film’, ‘best produc- on trial during which tion’, ‘best screenplay’, she tells the story of ‘best cinematography’, Tengiz Abuladze how her family were im- ‘best art direction’, ‘best prisoned. This is of little male actor’ (Avtandil Makharadze). interest to the judge, to Avel, his wife and their circle, but Varlam’s grandson Tor- The film made a deep and immediate im- nik experiences what he hears as his own pression on me, so much so that I wrote to personal tragedy. Unable to bear the hy- Abuladze. I know my letter reached him pocrisy of his parents and their minions, because I sent it via some friends. In that he commits suicide. After this, even old letter I was not interested in an aes- Avel’s conscience is awakened: he digs thetic evaluation of Repentance , and I now up the body of his father and throws it see that my mini-review was more like a down the mountainside, thus breaking diary entry which retains the spirit of that with the criminal past. moment in time. But the main point in my letter seems still valid today. I wrote: The film starts with Ketevan hearing about the death of Varlam in her small bakery, ‘Your film speaks about the past where she makes beautiful cakes decorat- and present, but primarily about ed with marzipan churches, and ends with the future: totally sincere and hon- scenes of her back in her bakery. She est repentance has not yet taken looks out of the window and sees an old place and still lies ahead, but with- woman who asks: ‘Could you tell me out it there can be no true recov- whether this road leads to a church?’ ery. Sin must be admitted, and fully recognised by everyone; for Ketevan replies: ‘This is Varlam Street. Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 37
This street does not lead to a church.’ mass of external signs of change, The old woman hears this and says: but we are functioning like people ‘Then why do you need it? What’s the in a new world who avoid genu- point of a road unless it leads to a ine repentance. In this way we church?’ The framing of the film with have weakened society in the face scenes in the bakery is the key – the of many trials.’ (‘Покаяние все posthumous punishment of Varlam takes еще впереди ’, Izvestia, 1 Febru- place in the consciousness of Ketevan ary 1994). herself, in symbolic not real time. Thus the story told by the film’s director be- These words have not lost their rele- comes a parable about the purges. The vance. On the contrary: more and more question at the end of the film – ‘What’s often today you hear talk of Stalin’s the point of a road achievements and unless it leads to a how the Soviet church?’ – becomes Union flourished redolent with mean- during the Stalin ing and crucial when period. trying to understand why the Communist Repentance, possi- utopia collapsed. bly the most famous and significant film The theme of a ruined of perestroika , is church and lost ide- particularly im- als permeates the portant because it whole film: at the was filmed in 1982- beginning Ketevan’s Ketevan Barateli 1984, i.e. during the artist father, Sandro Barateli, tries to stop period of stagnation when such a film had an ancient church being destroyed, but it no chance of general release, and at a is demolished on the orders of Varlam time when public discussion of Stalinism Aravidze, while at the end of the film and Stalin’s crimes was taboo. Abuladze Ketevan makes churches out of marzipan conceived Repentance in the late 1970s, for the town’s residents. In this way but it was one particular meeting which Abuladze portrays how convictions, finally made him decide to make the film: which could not withstand the authorities’ brutality, had been devalued. He fore- ‘My meeting with Ketevan, a re- saw so much: from the shattered pieces of markable woman who had suf- past convictions new ones were not fered in the camps, touched me to formed, and the divided mind which the depths of my soul, and, I later dominated Avel’s soul (Varlam’s son) is realised, turned my life upside still a mark of our times. More than 15 down… Ketevan is very beauti- years ago on 31 January 1994, not long ful; she has an inner spiritual before the death of Abuladze, Ninel Is- light. For six hours she told me mailova wrote an article about this film in about her tragic fate. I found it which she commented: hard not to weep… After she returned from the camps Ketevan ‘The period of perestroika is for us started baking cakes in order to almost like running on the spot, earn a living. That day the con- because we have experienced no cept and form of the future film spiritual renewal. There are a took shape in my mind.’
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Repentance was filmed twice. The role of Tornik, the dictator Varlam’s grandson, was played by Merab Ninidze who later became a famous film star. Initially, however, this part was played by another young actor, Gega Kobakhidze whose scenes had already been filmed when on 19 November 1983 he and a group of friends hijacked flight 6833 from Batumi to Kiev. Kobakhidze was arrested and later shot on 3 October 1984. Because of Soviet conditions, Abuladze was forced to Varlam Aravidze © Vasili Roshchin destroy the material with Kobakhidze and redo those scenes using another actor bear the burden of his grandfather’s and [http://kino-teatr.ru/kino/movie/sov/5335/ father’s crimes which engulf him, and forum/#503137 ; http://kino-teatr.ru/kino/ kills himself. Thus does the director show acter/sov/39459/bio/]. Afterwards no one that there is no positive way out from the talked about this, and even the writer dead-end to which dictatorial power leads Margarita Kvasnetskaya, who knew – all results are negative. exactly what had happened during the filming of Repentance , did not mention The digging up of Varlam’s body is a key this tragic episode in the only book so far element in the film. Abuladze later said dedicated to the creative work of Tengiz that this was based on fact: Abuladze and published in 2009. ‘I heard once that someone dug up Presented as a parable, this film can be a body in a village and leant it up interpreted in different ways, although in against the house belonging to the the context of Soviet history certain things dead man’s relatives. It’s difficult have a specific meaning. The main hero, to imagine what terrible sins were Varlam Aravidze, is undoubtedly a com- on the conscience of the dead posite figure. His salient features are man. I not only remembered this those of Stalin and Beria, but he also fact but also wanted to give it sometimes resembles Hitler. As Abu- flesh in a film. Thus may one ladze later said: avenge the terrible deeds enacted by Varlam. In a literary context ‘We invented the name Aravidze. these acts had to be carried out by No such Georgian surname exists a man. We figured out what his in reality. Aravidze comes from job would be – someone who the word “ aravin ” which means sticks up adverts. But then I “nobody”, i.e. Varlam, the No- dreamt that a woman had to take body.’ revenge on Varlam. A woman after all is the source of life, the His son Avel, who loves life and is prag- continuation of a family, humani- matic, in some fundamental way reminds ty’s immortality. When I said this one of Brezhnev or of some figure from to my “operations team” they the Brezhnev era: the dictator’s initial were all knocked for six. A male drive and indomitability have faded away actor had already been rehearsing into the past, leaving a desire simply to the role! Everything revolved enjoy the fruits of power. Tornik, whose around this role. There were heat- conscience is genuinely awakened, cannot ed exchanges, but I stood my Keston Newsletter No 19, 2014 39
ground. I already knew that Ze- you, you wouldn’t turn the other inab Botsvadze would play this cheek, but would get out of the role.’ line of fire! People like you can- not divide into two! You couldn’t From the point of view of the plot and care less about good or evil! the film’s inner logic, the choice of a You’re not worried about being woman for the role of avenger adds dra- split in two, you’re eaten up with matic effect to the unfolding story. The fear, fear!’ choice of actress was brilliant. When the avenger, Ketevan Barateli, is still a child, Only at the end of the film does it be- she and her mother are filmed at a station come clear that the confessor was Avel’s where logs from Siberia have been trans- father who laughs sardonically after what ported. Some logs bear messages in is probably the film’s climax – a climax Georgian – letters from the Gulag world, worthy of the best pages in a Dostoevsky signs of hope from behind barbed wire. novel. Ketevan’s mother vainly searches for a message from her arrested husband, the Repentance was released to the general artist Sandro Barateli. She is soon arrest- public more than 20 years ago. Not eve- ed and her daughter is bereft of parents. ryone approved of it; many could not This scene at the station among the logs grasp its meaning; in the provinces the is filmed almost like a documentary and film was sometimes censored. Even to- conveys a feeling of oppressive defence- day the public has different and often lessness in the face of a totalitarian sys- contradictory views about it. Further- tem. more, debates around the role of Stalin himself, the prototype for Repentance ’s The director of Repentance put together main hero, have not died down. It is an excellent caste. The most striking interesting to note that David Giorgobi- actor was Avtandil Makharadze who ani, who plays the part of the artist Sandr played both the part of Varlam Aravidze Barateli and fights in vain to save an and his son Avel, i.e. both Stalin and ancient church, later played the part of Brezhnev. This actor’s extraordinary Stalin brilliantly in the film Stalin Lives, talent is revealed particularly in the scene and in recent years has been filming Rus- when Avel makes a confession, to, it later sian Orthodox documentaries. transpires, his own father Varlam who at that moment is eating a fish with great relish, i.e. destroying something which symbolises Christ. During his confession Avel talks about a split consciousness and a loss of faith, but the confessor does not believe him:
‘So is that what you think? Who are you deceiving, you hypocrite? I know you, you who smash into smithereens anyone who stands in your way. If someone hits David Giorgobiani © Vasili Roshchin
Mikhail Roshchin is an Arabist and expert on the North Caucasus. He is a member of the Oriental Institute in Moscow and works with Keston’s Encyclopaedia team.
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Ukraine Mass protests – peaceful until late Janu- protesters, though calling for a peaceful ary 2014 – began in Ukraine in Novem- resolution to the conflict: the Ukrainian ber 2013 after President Yanukovych Greek Catholic Church and many withdrew from an agreement establish- Ukrainian Orthodox, as well as Muslims ing closer ties with the European Union. from the Crimea and Protestants. On 16 Events in the capital Kiev, especially on January 2014 the government rushed Independence Square or Maidan, became through anti-protest legislation. The next headline news. A striking image, pub- day in Kiev a roundtable discussion took lished in The Times on 25 January, was place which issued a resolution entitled of Orthodox clergy holding a procession- ‘Maidan and the Church: Mission and al cross and standing in the mud between Social Responsibility of Christians’. This the riot police and oppositionists during was then circulated in the form of an the night of 24 January. A number of ‘Appeal to the Evangelical Churches of religious denominations supported the Ukraine’. We print the text below.
Appeal to the Evangelical Churches of Ukraine
At this crucial time for Ukraine we, the lowing the example of the good Samari- participants of the roundtable ‘Maidan tan (Luke 10:29-37) and our Lord Jesus and the Church: Mission and Social Re- Christ, in the context of the recent repres- sponsibility of Christians’ held in Kiev sions against the activists on Maidan on 17 January 2014, appeal to the leaders Independence Square in Kiev, the threats of Evangelical churches, fellowships, against the Ukrainian Greek Catholic denominations, ministries, and organisa- Church, the adoption of anti- tions, as well as to church members – to constitutional laws on 16 January 2014, do all in their power to stand up for truth, and the use of terror and force against the peace and justice in Ukraine. protestors on 19 January which is still continuing. Regardless of political preferences, we call our brothers and sisters all over the The church has wisely avoided political country to take a more active part in the speculation about the association agree- life of Ukrainian society and to demon- ment with the European Union. However, strate a high level of personal responsibil- after the bloodshed at Maidan on 30 No- ity. We all should first strengthen our vember 2013 [ riot police attacked a prayer: ‘I exhort therefore, first of all, peaceful student demonstration and that supplications, prayers, intercessions caused many injuries . Ed] the church can and thanksgiving be made for all men no longer keep silent. Recognising its […] lifting up holy hands, without wrath moral responsibility before God and soci- and disputing’ (1 Tim. 2:1-4, 8). As ety, Christians must condemn the vio- ‘faith without works is dead’ (James lence against civilians, publicly call it a 2:17, 20, 26), we have to provide practi- crime, expose the perpetrators and help cal help for the victims of violence, fol- the victims.
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Maidan – Independence Square – in Kiev, What will the church say to Maidan? as well as little Maidans all across the country, are places where the Ukrainian Maidan has challenged not only the gov- people have the right to demand from the ernment but also the church. While government respect for their freedom, searching for answers, people are turning dignity and rights, as well as to require to the church, but so far it has not been officials to fulfill their obligations towards able to give a clear reply. Society is try- the common good and refrain from abus- ing to understand: is there a limit to toler- ing the power granted by the people. The ance when human rights and freedoms are church must make its authoritative voice brutally violated by the President and heard alongside the voice of the people, parliamentary majority? How should we declaring that human beings are created demand justice? How should society react by God in His image and likeness, that all to the sudden threat of dictatorship after people are equal before God, that God’s more than 20 years of independence? judgment is real, as well as God’s care for How should we protect our lives and our the helpless. children’s future in view of the current political situation in Ukraine? We draw the attention of the government and protesters to God’s commandments of The roundtable ‘Maidan and the Church: love and forgiveness, without which the Mission and Social Responsibility of demand for justice may result in chaos Christians’ took place in Kiev on Friday and violence. Therefore we encourage 17 January 2014. The event was initiated everyone to do their best in support of a by the youth leaders of Ukraine’s Evan- peaceful resolution to the conflict. Each gelical churches. The Christian Student person will have to give a personal ac- Fellowship (known as CCX in Ukraine count for his or her actions both on earth and part of a global Christian student and in heaven. movement) together with the Spiritual Renewal Association and the Maidan- We declare that the government’s at- Prayer.org project helped to implement tempts to isolate Ukrainian Evangelical this initiative. More than a hundred peo- believers from the European and interna- ple attended, and their feedback has been tional community of Christians are unac- resonating in social media since then. The ceptable. We confirm that the main task discussion was led by the following three of the church at this time is to be ‘salt’ groups of speakers: 1) pastors and mis- and ‘light’ in our society. This means that sionaries; 2) theologians and scholars, 3) the church has to expose sin in all its experts and public figures. They repre- manifestations directly without any com- sented the Baptist, Pentecostal, Free promise, call officials and civil society to Evangelical, Lutheran and Reformed repentance, show people the true way of Churches of Ukraine. salvation in Jesus Christ, help the victims in every way, and give hope. All the speakers expressed serious con- cern about the violence demonstrated We believe that through the mercy of repeatedly by the Ukrainian government God, through the prayers and labour of during the last two months (all the church- Christians, the events taking place on es condemned the violence used by riot Maidan will bring forth a spiritual awak- police against the 30 November 2013 ening and renewal of the Ukrainian na- student demonstration on Maidan). The tion. participants also condemned the Ukraini- an Ministry of Culture for its illegal
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threats against the Greek Catholic Church. freedom and to lay down their lives for the Finally, they criticised the adoption of the sake of others,’ commented Dr Sergiy anti-constitutional laws (already named Tymchenko. His testimony impressed ‘Black Thursday’ by the Ukrainian peo- many people in the room. Oles Dmytren- ple) on 16 January 2014, which outlawed ko, author of the book Corruption: a Bone the right to peaceful protest, and called in the Throat , reminded the church of its into question the legitimacy of the whole role as ‘salt and light’ in the world – its government. At the same time, some calling to convict sin plainly in any politi- participants of the roundtable believed that cal context, to give a clear moral judge- the current unprecedented crisis would ment about what is really happening to purify both church and society. ‘A final society, and at the same time to give hope “desovietization” of our post-USSR socie- and to show the true way of salvation. ty and the birth of a new generation of leaders are taking place,’ said pastor Oleg The roundtable was supported by the fol- Magdych, a Maidan activist. lowing church leaders: Anatoly Kal- yuzhniy (Union of Independent Evangeli- The leaders of the Evangelical community cal Churches of Ukraine), Valery An- declared that they were ready to carry on tonyuk (Union of Baptist Churches of their Christian ministry were there to be a Ukraine), Ralph Huska (German Evangel- new wave of repression or restrictions ical Lutheran Church of Ukraine), as well against religious freedom. ‘The January as by other pastors of Kiev churches, Pet- laws signed by the President threaten not ro Marchenko, Mykola Ponomarev, Ser- only our society but Christian organisa- giy Tymchenko, Denis Kondyuk and tions, too. We should not be afraid, and Olexiy Satenko. The following theologi- instead continue our ministry,’ said Denis ans and seminary professors also made Gorenkov, CCX director. Dr Mykhailo their authoritative contributions to the Cherenkov [ soon to be a Keston scholar discussion: Petro Kovaliv, Fr Yuriy Chor- who will work in the Keston Archive. Ed] nomorets, and Fr Petro Balog. Sergiy added: ‘It is the Church which is the Hula, Andrew Shekhovtsov and Oles strongest element within civil society Dmytrenko, who are public figures and today so our responsibility has grown.’ respected experts, also contributed. Guests ‘The barricades of Maidan touched my came not only from Kiev but from many heart. I saw the birth of a new nation other Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv, there. People were ready to fight for their Sumy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Lviv and other places. At the end of the discussion, the moderator Andriy Shekhovtsov, the Maidan prayer tent ministry’s coordinator, encouraged Evangelical Christians to become more active in their mission and to support the peaceful protesters by pray- er, witness and practical help.
The Appeal to the Evangelical Churches of Ukraine aims to lay a strong biblical foundation for more effective Christian mission and outreach to society at such a critical historical moment for the Ukraini- an nation. A protester prays with an open Bible during the unrest in Kiev
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Home News Patrons The Archbishop of Canterbury The AGM this year, on Saturday 1 No- The Archbishop of Westminster vember, will be held at the Royal Foun- The Chief Rabbi of Great Britain dation of St Katharine in Limehouse The Moderator of the Free Churches (Butcher Row, London E14 8DS). The The Archbishop of Glasgow Chairman looks forward to welcoming The Archbishop of Thyateira & Great Britain members and hopes the new venue will Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia not discourage those who live far out of London from attending. in helping drug addicts and their families. In recent months grants have been award- In January 2014 the team visited Kaluga ed to Dr Mykhailo Cherenkov from 200km south of Moscow, and in March Ukraine who will spend four weeks work- travelled to Krasnodar which borders on ing in the Keston Archive, and Alexander both the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea. Ogorodnikov from Moscow. Alexander, Further field trips are planned for this or Sasha as those of us at Keston always year: in June to Kirov, in October to Cher- called him, spent 1978-1987 imprisoned kesk-Pyatigorsk and in November to Kali- in a Soviet labour camp for organising a ningrad. In January 2015 the team will be network of study groups – visiting Kostroma, and in all branches of what be- March the Komi Republic came know as the Christian in the far north. On 17 Seminar – in different parts January this year they of the Soviet Union for organised a book launch people who were searching in Moscow for the first for Christian faith. He volume of the Encyclo- plans to write a history of paedia’s new edition. The the period he lived through, launch was held at the and will be consulting doc- Institute of Europe in uments in the Keston Ar- Moscow. Professor Ana- chive which he lost when The Chairman & Sergei Filatov with Fr Sergi Shulgin & some of the lay toli Krasikov, head of the his material was confiscat- Centre for the Study of sisters in Novokuznetsk ed, during the many Religious and Social Prob- searches of his flat before lems within the Institute of Europe, perestroika . opened the meeting and welcomed the In November 2013 the Encyclopaedia new Keston publication. Professor Niko- team organised a field trip to south- lai Shaburov (Russian State Humanities western Siberia, when the Chairman was University) then spoke, explaining that delighted to meet members of the Com- the Encyclopaedia was unique, and that munity of SS Elizabeth and Varvara who this new volume would be essential read- follow in the tradition of the Martha and ing on his courses. Alexander Ogorodni- Mary Convent, founded by the Grand kov was the final speaker: he observed Duchess Elizabeth before the Revolution. that in his opinion objective studies of the Their community of a hundred lay sisters religious situation were very important for is based in Novokuznetsk and specialises Russia, and thanked Keston for its work.
Keston Institute PO Box 752, Oxford OX1 9QF [email protected] www.keston.org.uk
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