Hieromartyrs, Martyrs And Confessors Of Vladimir, Suzdal And Ivanovo 3 of 3

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"How many of them are there, International Red Cross? No answer. They don't know, and how could they? How many of them are there, Amnesty International? Silence. They do not know, either. How many of them are there, official Soviet Patriarch of All Russia, Pimen? He, too, is silent. Maybe he really does know: the 'True Orthodox' are outside his jurisdiction, so why worry about them? How many of them are there, the KGB of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Silence. They do know, but won't tell.

"About eight 'True Orthodox' passed through our Zone, the last being Granny Manya and Granny Shura. From our Zone, they went on to serve out their terms of internal exile. Granny Manya, according to the stories I heard, was meek and gentle. She found joy in the smallest things, such as the sight of a tiny beetle on a leaf: Look, she would say, how wondrous are the works of the Lord! How beautiful are all God's creatures!

"Granny Shura was made of sterner stuff, and given to uttering 'denunciations' from time to time. She would march out and upbraid the inhabitants of the Zone for succumbing regularly to temptation: watching television, smoking, forgetting to pray - iniquity! Her denunciations, however, were never motivated by spite, but by her sense of duty, and occurred not more than once every two to three months. She herself explained it thus:

"'The Lord will ask me:

"'"Did you sin?"

"'And I will reply, saying: "Not a great deal, Lord."

"'"What about the people around you? Did they sin?"

"'So I will have to say: "Yes, they did."

"'"And what did you do about it?..Why did you not point out the error of their ways?"

"'So that's what I'm doing, it's my duty. Forgive me, for His sake!'"

(Sources: Orthodox Life, vol. 29, no. 5, September-October, 1979, p. 47; Les Cahiers du Samizdat, no. 49, January, 1978; Russkaya Mysl', August 25, 1977, p. 5; Catacombes, September, 1977, p. 7; Le Figaro, August 27-28, 1977; Irina Ratushinskaya, Grey is the Colour of Hope, London: Sceptre, 1989, pp. 65-67; Keston College Archives, KC 2454, September 2, 1981)

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The True Orthodox priest or monk, Fr. Bakhrov was serving his second term of ten years, six of which were spent in Vladimir prison (institution OD-1/ST-2). From July, 1972 he was resentenced to ten years under a strict regime.

(Source: Keston College Archives; C.C.E., 27b, 1972)

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The Kalyakins were a poor family from the village of Torki, Ivanovo province. They greatly venerated Monk Stefan (Podgorny) of the Spaso-Eleazar monastery in Suzdal, who, while in prison in the monastery, prophesied a great future for Suzdal. All the spiritual children of Elder Stefan remained faithful to Orthodoxy and did not join the sergianist false church.

The Kalyakins moved to Suzdal, whence babka Paraskeva used to go on foot all the way to Kiev. In the 1930s she was in prison for the faith. After the offical church became sergianist, the Kalyakins did not go to church until the appearance of parishes of the Russian Church Abroad in Russia in 1990. Believers would gather in their house for prayer, for which Paraskeva's grand-daughter Alexandra was called a sectarian. She was driven out of her work in the House of Culture because she went to church services on feastdays instead of writing Bolshevik slogans. Alexandra's mother died in the early 1990s. On March 15, 1998 her brother, the talented artist Alexander Alexeyevich Kalyakin died in Suzdal.

(Source: Pravoslavnaya Rus', N 17 (1614), September 1/14, 1998, pp. 13-14)

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End of part 3
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