The only religious groups in the USSR who send regular detailed news of persecution to the West are the Reform Baptists and Lithuanian Catholics. Therefore the documents collected by the Christian Committee for the Defense of Believers Rights which was founded in 1976 have great significance. They are ecumenical in the best sense. They appeal for a Jew, Begun, imprisoned for two years for teaching Hebrew. They pass on an appeal to Pope Paul for Moldavian Catholics, with a covering letter. They act as a mouthpiece for Pentecostalists and Seventh Day Adventists, who, unlike the Reform Baptists, have no centrally organized protest group, and include a history of, and appeal by, Adventists. They also form an invaluable mouthpiece for scattered victimized Orthodox congregations and individuals, performing a service comparable to that of Levitin and Talantov in the 1960s.
The committee is a dedicated little group of Orthodox who are ready, if necessary, to face imprisonment for their defense of the truth. Fr. Yakunin is now very well known and has not been allowed to exercise his priestly function since his letters of 1965. Mr. Varsonofi Khaibulin is a monk, a Tatar, former Marxist and medical student, who was converted to Christianity while serving a seven year sentence. He is described as a quiet, impressive, authoritative person. Two laymen’ Mr. Viktor Kapitanchuk, a Ukrainian, and Mr. Vadim Shcheglov, complete the committee.
The documents cover a great variety of problems.
There are complaints of renewed victimization at Pochaev Monastery. Believers, including young people like Mr. Alexander Ogorodnikov, leader of a young people’s seminar, ask for the Kiev Caves Monastery to be re-opened and returned to the church. In Georgia, there is wanton destruction of ancient monasteries which are used for target practice. Georgian Orthodox delegates were not allowed to attend the Pan Orthodox congress — a pertinent comment on church corruption in Georgia. Now that Mr. Shiolashvili has been elected as Catholicos Elias, things may change, as the church will have a leader who is respectable and learned enough to appear on the international scene, though not brave enough to take an independent line.
There is an appeal on behalf of Ginsburg, a recent convert: a protest on high taxation of churches; Bulletin No. 47 of the Reform Baptists prisoners relatives and an article by Rev. Regelson on the right to work. He says that the violation of the freedom of labor should be discussed. Not only prisoners but also free citizens are forced to work for the government, even where they could earn far more by work in the private sector. Most have to work in the private sector in their free time to supplement their insufficient government salaries. The obligation to be at work for 8 hours is a face and waste, as there isn’t enough for them to do there!
Reprinted From East West Digest. #12, Vol. 14. 1978
