Women of the Catacombs

Memoirs of the Underground Orthodox Church in Stalin's Russia

Wallace L. Daniel

• Publisher: Northern Illinois University Press
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN: 9781501754401, 9781501753657
• eBook ISBN: 9781501754050
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: History

The memoirs presented in Women of the Catacombs offer a rare close-up account of the underground Orthodox community and its priests during some of the most difficult years in Russian history. The catacomb church in the Soviet Union came into existence in the 1920s and played a significant part in Russian national life for nearly fifty years. Adherents to the Orthodox faith often referred to the catacomb church as the "light shining in the dark." Women of the Catacombs provides a first-hand portrait of lived religion in its social, familial, and cultural setting during this tragic period.

Until now, scholars have had only brief, scattered fragments of information about Russia's illegal church organization that claimed to protect the purity of the Orthodox tradition. Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia and Elena Semenovna Men, who joined the church as young women, offer evidence on how Russian Orthodoxy remained a viable, alternative presence in Soviet society, when all political, educational, and cultural institutions attempted to indoctrinate Soviet citizens with an atheistic perspective. Wallace L. Daniel's translation not only sheds light on Russia's religious and political history, but also shows how two educated women maintained their personal integrity in times when prevailing political and social headwinds moved in an opposite direction.

INDEX

Page numbers in italics indicate a photograph.

Afanasii, Bishop (Sakharov), xxxvi–xxxviii, 87, 118, 180nn75–76, 181n83, 191n7, 192n17

Agafangel, Metropolitan, xxiii, 174n20

Aleksii, Patriarch, xxxvi, 87, 190n6

Alfeyev, Hilarion, 187n57

Amvrosii, Elder, xxvii, xxviii, 134

Anathema (Andreev), 138, 196n1

Andreev, Leonard, 138

“Anti-Soviet Church Underground,” 179n71, 192n17

Apostle John, 25, 185n33

Apostle Paul, 9–10, 13, 19, 122, 163, 198n13

Apostle Peter, 71, 83, 168

arrests and imprisonment, xxii, xxxvi, xxxviii

Afanasii, Bishop (Sakharov), 182n83

Gabriianik, Aleksei Ivanovich, 180n73

Ieraks, Fr. Ieromonakh, xxxix, 86, 179n71, 182n86

Kriuchkov, Dmitrii Ivanovich, 180n74

Krivolutskii, Vladimir V., 180n72

Mechev, Fr. Aleksei, 183n4

Mechev, Fr. Sergei, 183n4

Pyotr, Fr. (Shipkov), xxxi, 86, 179n70

Pyotr, Metropolitan, 178n60

Serafim, Fr., xxvi, xxxvii

Tikhon, Patriarch, xxi, xxxiv, 178n59

Vasilevskaia, Volodia, 123

Voino-Iasenetskii, Archbishop Luk, 181n78

Arzamas, 45–46, 187n53

Avgusta Germanovna (A.G.), 145, 154–55

Balaklava, 140

baptism

at Baptist Church, 107

Elena and Alik, 117

Elena’s promise, 103

L ′vovna, Inna, 103

sign of the cross and, 14

Vera’s family members, 74, 83

Vera’s thoughts on, 1, 13

Baratynskii, Evgenii Abramovich, 19, 184n25

Batiukov, Sergei Mikhailovich. See Serafim, Fr.

Blok, Aleksandr Aleksandrovich, 60, 188n64

Bocharev, Ivan Matveevich. See Ieraks, Fr. Ieromonakh

Bogdanov, Vladimir, xxxvi

Bogonosets, Ignatius, 93–94, 191n14

Bolsheviks, xx–xxii, xxix, xxxiv, 158, 177nn56–57, 185n40, 186n48

Bolshevo, xxxix, 17, 38, 40, 120, 184n22

Bonaparte, Napoleon, xx

Borovsk, xxxix, 91–...

Table of contents

• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration and Translation
• Foreword
• Editor’s Introduction
• Original Preface to Katakomby XX veka: Vospominaniia
• I. Fr. Serafim
• II. Fr. Pyotr Shipkov
• III. My Journey
• Appendix: My Childhood and Youth
• Notes
• Index