Another Tragic Soviet Continuity in Putin’s Russia – the Catacomb Church Still Suffers

Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 10 – Many of the religious groups in Russia now suffering government oppression, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, did experience a brief reprise from that between Gorbachev’s time and a few years ago; but one group never got that respite – the True Orthodox – who have remained a catacomb church since tsarist times.

            As in Soviet times, some of the followers of this church have been killed, others jailed, and the rest in hiding. A few like Viacheslav Demin have escaped abroad to tell the story of what is happening to a church known to have given rise to the greatest number of saints. I am grateful to him for sharing two of his recent appeals on the behalf of those in the catacombs.

            In a few cases, Demin says, people in the West know what has happened to their fellow believers but most often the authorities release no information lest the sufferings of these Christians attract attention and lead other Christians to condemn what the Kremlin continues to do to those who want only to believe and serve their Lord.

            Among the horrors visited upon the True Orthodox is the punitive use of psychiatry. In Tyumen today, there is a special “therapeutic” colony for True Orthodox believers. Among those incarcerated and mistreated by police officers in white coats are Nikolai Volkov and Vladimir Melikhov. There are others, but their names are not known.

            Many of the True Orthodox are Cossacks, and not surprisingly, they are victims of various forms of repression in Putin’s Russia.  Most of the victims whose names are known are people from central Russia. How many more there are beyond that region staggers the imagination since the True Orthodox were historically stronger on the periphery.

            Among the True Orthodox who have been forced to flee abroad are Archbishop Amrosiy Sivers, Yevgeny Tupikin, Aleksandr Portnenko, Nikolay Smolentsev-Sobol, Yevgeny Smirnov, Viktor Matyukhin, Oleg Butusin, Sergey Azhinov, Dmitry Savvin, Aleksey Kutalov, Tatyana Kungurova and Yuri Gorsky.

            Their lives are hard and few of them have the opportunity to speak out. Consequently, over the last year, they have regularly appealed to the international community and to Christians around the world to protest what the combined forces of the Russian state and the Moscow Patriarchate have been doing – and continue to do.

            “Our brothers and sisters in Christ place their hopes in you,” one appeal reads. They “are waiting for the results of Christian solidarity and mercy. The Free World can stop this arbitrariness, violence and repression, prevent others from becoming victims, and ease the fate of the unfortunate.”

            Over the past year, the situation for the True Orthodox has become worse in Russia, and the FSB has even gone after those members of the faith who have managed to flee abroad.  “Isn’t it time,” Demin asks, “to stop this carnage” and allow Christians to practice their faith in their own country freely?

            Unfortunately, he reports, none of the national and international organizations he has appealed to have responded to him.  He prayerfully hopes that will change, that people of good will around the world will see that defending the True Orthodox in the catacomb church in Russia is their duty to God and man.

            Those who want to help should contact him at Viacheslav Demin, 4406 S. Donald Ct., Spokane, WA 99223 USA; 509-218-8706; or demin-nimed@mail.ru.