Russia's Catacomb Saints Sergianism-Boris Talantov
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Boris Talantov was born in 1903 in the province of Kostroma, in the family
of a priest. In 1922-23 he attended the Mezhov Institute in Moscow. "My close
relatives and I suffered greatly from the lawlwssness and arbitrary rule of the
state security agencies during the Stalin period. My father was condemned by a
troika (a committee of three secret police offcial who sentenced their victims
without hearing or appeal) in 1937 at the age of 62, and in spite of his age and
illness was placed in the Temnikovskiye camps (Sarov Monastery), where the
writer Yu. M. Daniel is now located. On February 5, 1940, I submitted a petition
to the attorney general of the RSFSR for his early release from imprisonment on
the grounds of illness. After prolonged red tape, the attorney general's office
informed me only on December 19, 1940 that my father had died in the camps on
March 12, 1940. The sole reason for his arrest and conviction was that he was a
clergyman. My brother Seraphim Vladimirovich T
alantov, working as a hydraulic technician in 1930, at the age of 22 in the city
of Vologda, was arrested and convicted without any cause. He perished in
concentration camps on the White Sea-Baltic Canal. I myself from 1930 to 1941,
due to my origin, was continually subjected to threats from the state security
agencies. In 1954 I was expelled from the Pedagogical Institute for religious
convictions, though the cause was officially entered as invalid status. Working
without reproach, as the documents can show, for my whole life each day I
expected that I would be arrested without cause-'to rot in prison,' or would be
fired from my job with 'blacklisting.' Therefore, I held it my duty to write the
newspaper Pravda a letter of protest against the tyranny and lawlessness of the
state security agencies. (pp.126-7).
This letter, the first of many documents to arouse the ire of Soviet
officials against the author, was sent by Talantov anonymously on July 18, 1957.
"I do not know whether this letter reached the editor of the newspaper Pravda,
but ultimately it reached the Kirov KGB (state security-political police,
formerly GPU) Headquarters. The latter, by studying the handwiriting,
established that the author of the letter was me. On July 29, 1958, I was
summoned to the KGB Headquarters, where in writing I confirmed my authorship and
expressed the regret that due to faint-heartedness I had not signed the letter.
On August 14, 1958, I was fired my from job at the Kirov...Polytechinic
Institute 'on my own wishes.;" (p.127).
Far from being intimidated by such pressure, Talantov wrote several other
letters, now openly under his own name, whih he describes as follows:
"I. A letter to the magazine Science and Religion containing a refutation of
one lie of anti-religious propaganda. It was sent on October 31, 1960, and has
essentially gone unanswered.
"II. A letter to the newspaper Izvestiya, "Mass Destruction of Monuments of
Church Architecture in the Kirov Area," sent me nothing in response to this
letter, but a Moscow lecturer in the summer of 1963, evidently on assignment of
the editor, at a meeting in the city of Kirov recomended that I be subjected to
forced treatment for my seditious letter, that is, placement in a mental
hospital.
"III. A letter to the newspaper Izvestiya, "The Soviet State and the
Christian Religion" received by the newspaper's editor on December 19, 1966".
(p.127).
This last letter was an amplification of an Open Letter to Patriarch Alexy
written by Talantov and signed by twelve believers of the Kirov region. "The
letter contained mainly a description of unconscionable actions of the local
Bishop John aimed at setting church life in disarray. Therefore, the belivers
requested the Patriarch to remove Bishop John immediately. Among other matters,
the letter noted that local civil authorities have, form 1960 to 1964, illegally
and forcibly closed 40 churches in the Kirov area (53%), had the icons and
iconostases in these churches set afire, plundered the church valuables, and had
a number of churches completely destroyed without any necessity for so doing."
(p.123).
"The 'Open Letter of Kirov Believers to Patriarch Alexy' was sent abroad by
some method unknown to us and on December 8, 1966, the BBC radio released its
content.
"On February 14, 1967, I was summoned to the Kirov Headquarters of the KGB
in regard to these letters. At this point it was proposed to me that I
officially repudiate my signature on the 'Open Letter of Kirov Believers' which
had become well known abroad. In a written explanation I pointed out that, as an
author of the 'Open Letter' and of a letter sent to the editor of the newspaper
Izvestiya, I confirm the genuineness of my signature to the 'Open Letter' and
express my readiness to stand firm on the accuracy of what both letters
contain...On the very same day a KGB official removed from apartment my working
files consisting of outlines of various philosophical works with my
commentary...
"Later, on February 25, I learned from a BBC broadcast that at the same time
I was confirming in the Kirov KGB Headquarters the genuineness of my signature
to the 'Open Letter of Kirov Believers,' in London Metropolitan Nikodim had
declared this letter anonymous and therefore not worthy of credibility. He made
clear his readiness to swear to the truth of his statement on the Cross and the
Scriptures....This assertion of Metropolitan Nikodim greatly distressed me, as
an Orthodox Christian, since from previous correspondence with the Moscow
Patriarchate I was convinced that Metropoitan Nikodim could not be in doubt of
the authenticity of the 'Open Letter'. Therefore, on March 22 I sent to
Patriarch Alexy a letter in which I refuted the assertion of Metropolitan
Nikodim about the anonymity of the 'Open Letter of Kirov Believers' and
confirmed the credibility of its contents.
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of the city of Kirov. Early in April, they were individually summoned to the
Kirov City Council, L. Ostanina, who labelled me 'a dangerous individual with
foreign connections,' and threatened prison for anone who signed any further
letters of this kind. In spite of the threats, all confirmed that they had
signed the 'Open Letter' voluntarily and fully conscious of what they were
doing...
"At the same time KGB officials bullied several believers who were
petitioning to open a second church in the city of Kirov, accusing them of
having ties with me, calling me 'a dangerous political criminal.' Finally, one
lecturer at the Polytechnic Institute, where I had worked in 1955-58 as an
instructor in higher mathematics, publicly called me 'an enemy of the people,'
as was common in the time of Yezhov (Stalin's chief of secret police at height
of the worst 'purges' of late 1930's)" (pp.124,125).
Another result of these letters of Talantov was an article published the
Soviet newspaper Kirov Pravda on May 31,1967, "which contained slanderous
assertions, gross threats, and unwarranted insults aimed in my direction," and
which contained quotes from the personal archive of Talantov which the KGB had
seized on February 14, 1967-thus showing the close working relation between the
Soviet press and the political police in the persecution of believers. The
tragic outcome was that "my wife, Nina Agafangelovna Talantova, suffering from
hypertension, was unable to bear up under the threats and slanderous charges of
the article, consistent in the style of the intimidating articles against the
pseudo-enemies of the people of the Yezhov period. On September 7, 1967, as the
result of the traumatic experiences, she suffered a heart attack and died on
September 16, 1967.
"On the day of her death, I wished to have the rite of unction performed for
her, as she desired. But the Dean of the sole remaining open Orthodox church in
the city of Kirov, that of St. Seraphim, told me that the local authorities
forbade the rite of unction to be performed in homes. This deplorable case
demonstrates that believing Christians in the city of Kirov are deprived
nowadays even of those rights that they were given by J.V. Stalin" (p.135).
Talantov himself was seriously ill at this time.
In a recent collection of documents detailing the "Perscution of the Russian
Orthodox Church Today," Patriarch and Prophets (edited by Rev. Michael Bordeaux,
Praeger, N.Y., 1970), three other texts by Boris Talantov are given in English
translation: "The Calamitous Situation of the Orthodox Church in the Kirov
Region and the Role of the Moscow Patriarchate" (Nove. 10, 1966), which is very
similar in content to the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers"; which is very
similar in content to the "Open Letter of Kirov Believers"; and a bief selection
from two articles reaching the West in 1968 concerning the betrayal of the
Church by the leaders of the Moscow Pariarchate (described further below).
Several other articles of his, including one on Russian Society, 1965-68," have
appeared in the West in Russian in the periodicals Posev and the Messenger of
the Russian Student Christian movement in Paris.
As a result of all these writings, Boris Talantov was arrested on June 12,
1969, and on Septemer 3 he was sentenced two years in prison for "anti-Soviet
acitivities." In his final address at his trial, he affirmed the truth of his
statements and his faithfulness to his religious convictions and bade farewell
to his friends, since he did not expect to return alive from prison. And so it
happened.
For the faithful inside of the USSR, Boris Talantov is an inspiring example
of Christian courage against overwhelming obstacles. Here is how he is described
by the Moscow intellectual Anatoly Krasnov-Levitin, who has himself suffered
imprisonment for his outspokenness, in an article "Drama in Vyatka," which was
written at the time Talantov's arrest, and was then smuggled out of the USSR and
published in Posev (October, 1969).
"I saw him only once in my life: a short little old man with a small gray
beard, stooped, with a cheap little case in his hands, untalkative. In
appearance, a typical man from the back woods....When all the newspapers and
magazines were filled with foul slander against believers, and the hierarchs sat
in their places, afraid to utter a word in defense of the Church,-at that time
the humble teacher from Vyatka battled for the Church. He battled with the pen,
writing striking letters to all fronts; he battled with word, accusing the
arbitrariness of the local authorities and the criminal connivance of the
hierarchs. It was difficult for him, an old man. For in the provinces he was
completely alone...In the provinces people are more timid than in Moscow, the
authorities are more despotic, arbitrariness is more cynical...But it turned out
that in this meek little old man there was an iron will, titanic energy and a
great heart. Diseases did not break him, nor difficult personal gri
ef. He is a hero, but a reticent, unobtrusive, quiet hero. He gives his life
simply, without affectation, without pose, He speaks the truth in an even, calm
voice, and with an even quiet step proceeds to Golgotha."
Thus Boris Talantov lived and died as a fearless confessor of the holy
Orthodox Faith. With his bold protests against the authorities of State and
Church and their persecution of Orthodoxy, he stands at the head of those many
believers whose heartfelt appeals and protests have reached the free world in
the past decade: the believers of Pochaev, the two Moscow priests, Archbishop
Ermogen, and others. But in the depth of his analyses he surpasses them all, and
indeed adds an entirely new dimension to their protests.
Boris Talantov is a philosphical thinker; indeed, he complains in one letter
that his notes and commentaries on various philosophical works have been stolen
by the KGB. Applying his philosophical mind to the tragic experiences of himself
and his fellow believers under the Communist Yoke, he has penetrated to the very
root of the "illness" of the present-day Moscow Patriarchate. The problem is not
merely those injustices, persecutions, and lies against which the believers have
boldly been protesting for the past decade, but is to be found most
fundamentally in the very principles of "Sergianism" itself: the "concordat'
which Metropolitan Sergius made with the Soviet Government in 1927. Talantov
sets forth these views in a special article entitled "Sergievshchina (ie., "The
Sergianist Affair," with a pejorative connotation), or Adaption to Atheism (The
Leaven of Herod)". (The whole article is printed below, page 465; here only a
few quotes are given).
Decisively rejecting the generally favorable view of Metropolitan
(Patriarch) Sergius that prevails in the West, Talantov states that "the roots
of the serious ecclesiastical crisis which has now been revealed were planted
precisely by Patriarch Sergius." The latter's "Declaration" in 1927 was not at
all merely "a forced declaration of the Church Administration whose aim was to
preserve church parishes"; rather, "this address and the ensuing activity of
Metropolitan Sergius were a betrayal of the Church." "Metropolitan Sergius by
his adaptation and lies saved no one and nothing, except his own person."
Sergianism "not only did not save the Russian Orthodox Church during the period
of J. Stalin but, on the contrary, contributed directly to the loss of an
authentic freedom of conscience and the transformation of the Church
Administration into an obedient instrument of the atheistic regime." Even during
World War II, when some churches were reopened, this was not at all a result
of the "Sergianist" compromise. "The opening of the churches within narrow
limits was not the work of Patriarch Sergius or Patriarch Alexy, but his opening
was accomplished by the atheistic regime itself under pressure from the common
people and for their appeasement."
Mark Templet
about that which they are about to unite to.
Unworhty Mark Templet
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Christ Is Risen!
My wife does all the postings, but thank you on behalf of my entire family.
A belated congratulations on the baptisms of you, your wife and child. What are the names of your patron saints? Is today your namesday?
What the Moscow Patriarchate did to the Catacomb Church is beyond terrible and horrifying. There is carrying over to this day in some areas of Russia. Even our own Metropolitan Valentin a true confessor of the Orthodox Faith, is being persecuted in Russia as well.
With Love In Christ,
John and family
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Moscow Patriarchate in the struggle of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Against the Orthodox Christian Church" (excerpts in Pariarch and Prophets,
p.331; Dunlop, pp.101-106), Talantov sets forth the purposes for which the
Moscow Patriarchate has become "an obedient instrument of the atheistic regime."
At home, "the Moscow Patriarchate and the majority of the bishops are secretly
patricipating the organized activities of the atheistic regime, directed toward
the closing of churches, the limitation of the spreading of faith and the
undermining of it in our country." Abroad, "by means of shameless lies and
slander" the Patriarchate tries to cover up "the unlawful clsoing of churches,
the oppression of believers and their organizations, and the secret
administrative measures directed toward the undermining of faith within the
USSR...Secondly, the activity of the Patriarchate is directed toward leadin
g by means of deceit and lies the development of the Christian movement in the
whole world along a maximally false path and by this to undermine it." As an
example of the latter point he cites the demand of the Moscow delegation at the
Rhodes Pan-Orthodox Synod in 1961 that the Orthodox "repudiate Christian
apologetics and an ideological struggle with contemporary atheism." In sum,
Talantov warns, "the activity of the Moscow Patriarchate aborad represents a
conscious betrayal of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Christian faith. It
has stepped forth on the world arena as a secret agent of worldwide
anit-Christianity."
No critic of the Moscow Patrichate from the Russian Diaspora has come to
more drastic conclusions than these. Within the USSR Talantov's words are fully
in the tradition of the "Josephite" bishops of 1927, and indeed they demonstrate
that the wa rnings of those bishops over the consequences of Sergius'
"Declaration" were entirely justified and have been more than fulfilled. One
might, therefore, ask what Talantov's position might be with regard to the
"Josephite" or Catacomb Church in the USSR today. He in fact mentions it in one
of his writings. "The Slobozhanin couple brought up their children in the
Christian faith and in their home promulgated the Christian outlook on life
among their fellow villagers. In their home believers, calling themselves
members of the True Orthodox Christians, Wanderers, came to worship, sing hymns,
and read the Bible. Their only difference from other Orthodox Christians was
that they did not recogize Patriarch Alexy and other bishops installed by
him, viewing them as traitors to the Church. In June, 1961, the People's Court
held M.L. Slobozhanin to be a parasite and exiled him to remote areas for a
period of five years...at the end of 1962 the same court deprived Tatyana
Slobzhanina of parental rights and exiled her as a paraiste to locations outside
her district, and the children were forcibly placed in a children's home"
(Complaint to the Attorney General," p. 131). It is clear that Talantov stands
together with these persecuted "True Orthodox Christians" against the tyranny of
the State and the official Church hierarchy. As John Dunlop has noted (p.123),
on the popular level the boundary between the "official" and the "catacomb"
Church is somewhat fluid. The writings of Boris Talantov testify to the presence
of a deep division today within the Moscow Patriarchate between the "Sergianist"
hierarchy with its "Communist Christianity" and the truly Orthodox faithful who
reject this impoius "adaptation to atheism." Those in t
he West who affirm the possibility of dealing with the Moscow hierarchy because
it is "perscuted," without seeing its own persecution of the faithful, stand
accused by writings of Boris Talantov of betraying the true Orthodox Christians
of Russia.
God alone knows the future of the Russian Orthodox Church, but we cannot but
believe that one day it will again be free. The writings of Boris Talantov point
toward that day. Though they were begun with the aim of correcting present-day
outrages to Orthodoxy, their final conclusions are so radical and so profound
that they totally transcend the immediate conditions that gave them birth. They
will doubtless be used as testimony at that longed for Council of the entire
free Russian Church including the Churches of the Catacombs and of the Diaspora,
that will finally judge the situation created by the Communist Yoke and
Sergianism.
Boris Talantov was not only a polemicist and philosophical thinker; he was
first and foremost simply an Orthodox Christian. A letter written by him in the
last month of his life in prison (Dec. 7, 1970) reveals a side of his Christian
character that might easily be overlooked in his public writings: his patient
suffering, acceptance of God's will, and Christian love. (Russian text in the
Messenger of the Russian Student Christian Movement, Paris, 1970, No. 4, p.168).
"Receiving your letters was a great joy for me, because, having found out on
October 2, 1969, about your great misfortune, the whole time I have been worried
about you and have fervently prayed to God to deliver you from misfortune.
"I offer you and your friends my heartfelt gratitude for the great indness
which you showed me when I fell into misfortune. Sincere and sacrifical love
among us, Christians, is the seal of the fact that we are disciples of Christ.
The awareness of this in itself consoles and encourages us, no matter in what
condition we may find ourselves. Forme, a sick old man, it is of course not easy
to live out my confinement But here I have met several truly believing
prisoners, who, being younger than I, have looked after me and helped me as
their very father. Likewise, believers in freedom also have comforted me by
their letters, in which their sincere Christian love is evident.
"Since November 6 I have been in the hospital because of heart disease. The
eye doctor has diagnosed a cataract in both eyes and said I must have an
operation, or else total blindness will ensue. But all these misfortunes have
not broken my spirit and my faith: I can still write and read letters, glory be
to God.
"I am in good spirits and with gratitude acccept from God all my bitter
trials.
"I fervently pray to God for your health and the health of all faithful
Christians.
"May the Lord God preserve you from all misfortunes and troubles and grant
His perfect joy.
"Your friend, Boris Talantov."
Eric Templet
Christ is risen!
I took the name of St. Mark of Ephesus, my wife took St. Sophia, and our daughter was named after the Prophetess Hannah. So my Name's day was a while back, but thank you.
May Our Lord continue to bless and grow the Church in Russia under Metropolitan Valentine!
Yours in Christ,
Unworthy Mark