Ivan Petrovich Fedotov: Unrighteous Judgment
First Conviction
One Sunday the church gathered in the forest near Bitsa station, on the outskirts of Moscow. The meeting was drawing to a close when suddenly, as if on cue, one of the parishioners raised her voice. It was Anna Krasina. She fell to her knees in front of me and, very loudly, began begging me not to sacrifice her daughter. I was right next to her; there was no need to shout — my hearing was good then, and it still is.
At that same moment, plainclothes men with a movie camera rushed out of the bushes from all sides and started filming the scene.
“What is going on here?” I asked.
The believers surrounded me and prevented my arrest. Their indignation knew no bounds. Everyone was shocked by the scene, by such falsehood and provocation, for it touched all of them. Anti-religious hysteria was being whipped up in society; an atmosphere of outrage and hatred toward Pentecostals was being created. The Church, as it was being born, immediately met hostility and persecution, just like its Head. When Jesus Christ was born, the devil sought to kill Him, but He was preserved by God. So now the devil wanted to destroy the newborn Church of Jesus Christ, baptized in the Holy Spirit.
Reading the Gospel, we see that Jesus Christ labored all day, preaching, healing, contending with the Pharisees, Sadducees, and Herodians. Where did He find strength for His work? He had one source of strength — His Father, and the meeting place was Gethsemane. After the day’s work, the Lord withdrew to a solitary spot in the garden on the Mount of Olives, and there, surrounded by olive trees, lifting up His hands to the Father, sometimes falling on His face, He prayed for renewal.
Biryulyovo, Donbasskaya Street, house 3. A small shed — my holy of holies. Getting up at six in the morning and working an eight-hour day, I arrived home every day, without weekends, at eleven at night. After supper, I retired for nightly communion with Him — the eternal Teacher — and He poured new strength into me for the struggle and victory. I am happy that I proved to be a vessel pleasing to God for reasonable service to Him.
One evening, my mother, Fedosei Fedorovich Afendikov and I were discussing in our home what had happened in the forest. Anna Krasina lived on a state farm where Brother Fedosei was responsible for a group of believers. He knew her well and suspected that she had been recruited by the KGB, but he had no direct evidence. Through her the KGB had learned the place and time of the meeting, and she, in turn, had received instructions from them on exactly when to run, to whom, and what to cry out and plead — “to spare her daughter” and “not to sacrifice her.” It was a well-rehearsed spectacle.
During this conversation the door opened, and two men entered. They showed red identification booklets and asked me to go with them. I replied:
“You will have to wait. We will finish our talk, I will pray, and then I will go.”
They went out. I prayed, and I set out on the path the Lord had appointed for me — a ten-year path, in order to carry out an embassy in bonds. Joy filled my heart: the Lord had called me to His work, and that work is very important!
The KGB had long been laying the groundwork for a show trial against Pentecostal believers. Even before my first conviction there had been attempts to cook up a case accusing me of malicious hooliganism, since the Constitution did not permit openly trying people for their religious convictions. But this did not succeed right away, because there was not enough material for a case, and, strange as it may seem, diligent executors of this KGB order were not immediately found. Initially the task was assigned to investigator Friedrich Neznansky, who received instructions from his superior to “put together a case” against Ivan Petrovich Fedotov. Neznansky reviewed the case and refused to handle it, declaring that, in his opinion, Fedotov’s actions contained no elements of a criminal offense. This is how Friedrich Neznansky himself later described it in his book “Bloody Easter.”
Head of the Biryulyovo Congregation
Before me, an investigator with the Moscow Regional Prosecutor’s Office, sits Ivan Fedotov, the head of Russia’s Pentecostals. He is a stocky blond with striking blue eyes, working in the metro. On the table, in a blue cover, lies his case—concocted not by the police or the prosecutor’s office, but by the KGB, the State Security Directorate for the City of Moscow and Moscow Region.
“When are you going to stop persecuting believers?” Fedotov asks point‑blank, as though I myself were the persecutor and tormentor of believers.
I remain silent. What can I answer? After a brief pause Fedotov continues:
“You surely know what your namesake Friedrich Engels said about this.”
No, I don’t know what my namesake said; I once passed exams on Engels, but I’ve shown little interest since… But I can’t admit that to a person under investigation!
“I can’t recall right now,” I say, spreading my hands vaguely.
“Engels said that persecution is the best way to strengthen undesirable convictions. The only service one can render God now is to proclaim atheism as compulsory dogma.”
“Well put,” I think. “This Fedotov knows not only his Christian‑evangelical faith, but also the classics of Marxism. He argues his position better than our prosecutorial‑investigative apparatus.”
But the prosecutorial‑investigative apparatus is no fool either; it pretends that Fedotov is being persecuted not for his faith at all. Oh no, no one is persecuted for faith here—anyone who claims otherwise is a slanderer, because freedom of religion is laid down in the most important document of all, the Soviet Constitution! Fedotov is charged not for slandering the Constitution. He is charged with malicious hooliganism. But Fedotov is the leader of a religious sect that attaches special importance to the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles. Can such a person engage in hooliganism? Yes, he can. In our Soviet Union anything is possible. The local policeman of Biryulyovo village claims that Fedotov roughly pushed him away from the door when he tried to enter his apartment to check the passports of those praying. The result of the shove was an injury. The policeman had no search warrant, without which he had no right to enter the dwelling without the owner’s permission, yet he nonetheless tried to break in, and Fedotov pushed him back. Moreover, it was the glass that broke, and it was Fedotov’s hand that was cut, not the policeman’s. Nevertheless, the injury appeared in the police report as an aggravating circumstance.
Fedotov and I both understood perfectly that the policeman was only a tool. The KGB often makes others, most often the militia, do various dirty jobs. The KGB officers needed, at any cost, to disperse the Biryulyovo religious community, so they did not shrink from any means. For example, they accused Ivan Fedotov—a calm, balanced man who despises violence and violent men—of hooliganism. I submitted a report to my boss, Prosecutor Novikov, in which I wrote: “I consider that there is no corpus delicti in Fedotov’s actions.”
The cunning fox Novikov did not shame me, persuade me, or appeal to my Party conscience. He simply handed the thin folder with Fedotov’s case to another investigator and dumped on me a bulky economic case about the theft of potatoes and cabbage. “If you stick your neck out, you’ll never get beyond potatoes and cabbage”—that was what this silent gesture of a boss meant.
However, the new investigator also proved not particularly compliant. He finished the case in such a way that the court could not sentence Fedotov to more than a year of corrective labor, and even that at his place of work. Such a mild sentence infuriated the KGB men. At the KGB’s behest a documentary film was prepared titled Miracle‑Worker from Biryulyovo, intended to compromise the Pentecostals and their leader. The state security men wanted to put together a show trial, and suddenly such an embarrassment: Fedotov was not even sent to a camp.
It was 1960. The First Secretary was Khrushchev—the liberal under whose rule the persecution of religion especially intensified. Many active Orthodox churches were closed. A turning point also came in the attitude toward religious sects and their leaders. On the instruction of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, the State Security Committee, the USSR Procuracy and the Supreme Court of the USSR drafted a new law, which was approved at a joint session of both chambers of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. On the basis of this law Article 227 appeared in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR. According to this article, leaders of believers whose activity was considered by the KGB to involve the infliction of harm on people’s health (for example, urging strict fasting) and the incitement of citizens to refuse social activity (for example, military service) were punished by imprisonment of up to five years. Less than half a year passed before the Moscow authorities again took up Fedotov. He was summoned for interrogations while a covert search was being conducted in his home and even more illegal actions were being taken: banned literature was planted, and a listening device was installed.
During those same days a tragic incident occurred in one of the central regions of the country. A certain so‑called believer, driven to despair by the hard Soviet life, in a fit of insanity killed her child. Fedotov was declared the culprit of that murder (apparently such a version of the accusation came to the attention of F. Neznansky. — Ed.). He, allegedly, by his sermons had driven the unhappy woman—whom he had never seen in his life and did not know—to frenzy and a criminal step. In Fedotov’s home, moreover, materials were found, mostly of a religious nature, which, in the KGB’s opinion, had come from abroad. It is very likely that they themselves planted those materials. Fedotov knew nothing about them. For all these “crimes” Fedotov was this time dealt with for real. He was sentenced to ten years’ deprivation of freedom as an accomplice to murder under Art. 107, 206 part 2, 17‑136F. (F. Neznansky. Bloody Easter. Moscow, 1994, pp. 86–88).
A former investigator, now a well‑known writer, Friedrich Neznansky.
In the same book F. Neznansky characterizes Soviet laws on religious activity as follows: “In the Soviet Union there are two groups of laws concerning religion. One group seems to protect the provision of the Constitution that speaks of freedom of conscience (under Articles 142 and 143 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, one may not hinder the performance of religious rites). The other group (for example, Article 227, under which the head of the Pentecostals, I. Fedotov, was convicted), on the contrary, justifies violence against believers. The laws of the first group are of a propagandistic nature and are practically never applied in practice. I do not know a single case when any representative of the authorities was held accountable for prohibiting worship or for dispersing believers who had gathered in a house of prayer. Seeing how defenseless believers are before the state, hooligans from among the atheists sometimes dealt with them in their own fashion” (F. Neznansky. Bloody Easter. Moscow, 1994, p. 85).
If Friedrich Neznansky had been a dishonest person, he could have concocted a case against me and sent it to court. It is not difficult for a professional. Then I would have been tried under Article 206—for hooliganism—and given not three years but five, in order to strip me of my Moscow residence permit upon return. As was already mentioned, for that refusal a bulky economic case was saddled on F. Neznansky, while my case was handed over to a new investigator, Kolesnikov, who instead of conscience had only a Party card. It was he who staged the entire show with inciting the woman to murder her own daughter. Where Kolesnikov is now, I do not know, I do not even remember his first name and patronymic—God shows no favor to such people. And Friedrich Neznansky became a writer, a famous man, and may the Lord grant that he turn to Jesus Christ and obtain eternal salvation from God, Who will not leave even a cup of cold water given to His disciples without reward.
At the end of the 1950s and beginning of the 1960s arrests of believers were going on all over the country. After the leading Pentecostal brothers A. I. Bidash, V. I. Belykh and I. A. Levchuk, invited to a Baptist congress in Moscow for a unification planned by the authorities, refused to accept registration—and thus refused to unite—they were arrested upon returning from the congress. Then we young brothers and sisters intensified prayer and fasting and boldly preached about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. People came and received spiritual baptism, and the church grew. In response new arrests followed, including mine; that is how I ended up in Lefortovo, in the KGB political isolation cell.
It was precisely at that time that, in one of the November 1960 issues of the newspaper Moskovskaya Pravda, an article by Ya. Gushchin appeared under the title A Rebuff to Obscurantists. I reproduce it here as a typical example, characteristic of that time, of vicious slander against Christians of the evangelical faith and against me personally.
«Rebuff to the Obscurantists»
Striving not to miss a single word, those gathered listened to the horrifying account of former sectarian-Pentecostal Anna Krasina. “Through fasts,” she said, “hysterical prayers and rituals, preachers Fedotov, Ryakhovsky, and Korchagin turned me over two years into a weak-willed person, a slave of God. They instill in sect members that our country’s achievements are a satanic affair, abhorrent to God.” Brothers in Christ wanted to punish Anna Krasina for a great sin: that she dared not attend a prayer meeting but instead went to visit her daughter Tanya at a Pioneer camp.
“Apostle” Ivan Fedotov howled that the Holy Spirit had descended into him, demanding that sister Anna lay hands on her daughter and offer her as a sacrifice to God. This wild demand to kill her only, dearly loved daughter sobered Anna Krasina, and she broke with the fanatical Pentecostal sect.
Krasina recounted this from the podium at a recent meeting of workers and employees of Bread Depot No. 31 and representatives of the public of the Biryulevo settlement. The meeting was convened to discuss the anti-social activities of Pentecostal sectarian Mikhail Frolov, an employee of the bread depot.
Frolov, Fedotov, and other sectarians living in Biryulevo have long carried out their harmful activities here, disregarding the laws of our state. In sectarians’ apartments and in the woods near the settlement, Pentecostal preachers organize secret gatherings, conduct their “dark rituals.” The settlement’s population decisively demands an end to the sectarian fanaticism and illegal activities of the Pentecostals.
Ivan Fedotov was arrested for his criminal activities. The gathered audience was greatly impressed by Anna Krasina’s statement that Mikhail Frolov was with Ivan Fedotov when an atoning human sacrifice was demanded of her. From Frolov, who took the podium, and the preachers Vasily Ryakhovsky and Ivan Korchagin, who hurried to his rescue, the meeting demanded an explanation on what grounds they violate Soviet laws, organize fanatical gatherings, and push believers towards murder.
Frolov and company appealed to freedom of conscience in our country. But they completely disregard the fact that freedom of conscience does not exclude, but presupposes, the mandatory observance of the laws of the state, of our socialist society. The sectarian preachers also tried to deliver their obscurantist sermons at the meeting, but the working people of Biryulevo did not wish to listen to this nonsense.
The criminal anti-social activity of the sect’s preachers was fully exposed at the meeting. A very vivid statement came from Comrade Dudareva, a worker at the Drezna Spinning and Weaving Factory, who recounted the sad story of how the Pentecostals drove her friend, Nina Nikolaeva, a worker at the same enterprise, to suicide. Other crimes of the sect leaders were also discussed at the meeting. The gathering resolutely demanded that the sectarians, who had built themselves a nest in Biryulevo, cease their illegal preaching, secret gatherings, and fanatical prayers.
Those gathered declared that if Frolov, Ryakhovsky, and others continue their anti-social activities, the force of law must be applied to them. Soviet people must be protected from their harmful, pernicious influence, states the meeting’s resolution. The assembled appealed to ordinary believers to break with the Pentecostal sect and actively join the bright labor and social activities of the Soviet people—builders of communism.”
Propaganda and lies exert a strong influence on people who are not established in the faith and not fully detached from this world. Knowing this well, the KGB specially allocated a film crew, which prepared a documentary for the trial titled “This Disturbs Everyone.” The film was screened in all clubs.
An atmosphere of militant atheism and incitement against Christ and His Church was being whipped up across the entire country. Even after the trial, during various anti-religious events, the false testimony of Anna Krasina was used, and she repeatedly had to appear before audiences. It was difficult for her to repeat this lie again and again; she felt fear and horror. She had been asked once to act out this charade, and she agreed, but now she also had to speak before the people. She understood that this performance was not against Fedotov, but against God. Fedotov was imprisoned, the goal was achieved, yet they still wouldn’t leave her alone. They promised one thing and did another. This continued until one day, when she was brought onto the stage for another false testimony, Krasina screamed:
“How many times can I lie?!” — and collapsed on the platform.
They quickly carried her out, and from then on they left her alone; she became useless to them. Krasina’s mission was over; the KGB operatives had extracted everything they could from her. And although the KGB no longer bothered Krasina, her mental disturbances continued. She never appeared in any church again. Many years later, I received her confession and prayed for her. At the present time, as this book is being written, it seems she has already died, and her daughter Tanya remained an unbeliever.
After we were brought to trial and each given prison terms, the remaining brothers were subjected to processing at their places of work. The atheists achieved some success in this: some became frightened and, seduced, fell away. Such brothers as Vladimir Semenets and Vladimir Govorushko—spiritually gifted and capable men—were placed in institutes with the help of the KGB, and both became engineers. Life became easier for them, while for us, who followed the Lord to the camps, it became harder. Diotrephes-like behavior is not outright betrayal, but it greatly harms the church. Others withdrew from the church covertly, having received an approving word from the authorities.
Thus was judgment carried out upon the church, and the atheists thought they had won. Vladimir Semenets, for example, retreated so far and became so close with the authorities that he appeared in court as a witness for the prosecution, and his name was included in the verdict. In his time, for refusing the military oath, he had served five years and had been a preacher and choir director. But it must be said that subsequently Vladimir Semenets deeply repented, and at the present time is a full-fledged member of the church. Sometimes it is difficult to fight—a person gets tired and weakens—but God forgives and strengthens, giving strength to go on.
However, the majority of church members stood firm, like, for example, Nina Donskaya, who remained faithful to the Lord in any situation. It seemed that fear was unknown to her. Even the film director singled her out during filming, perhaps so that she could also be imprisoned in the future.
A vivid example of utterly shameless slander, stopping at no lie, with which the people of God and especially their pastors were smeared, is also the book “Black Shadows Retreat” by E. Cherepanov. I will not cite these fabrications here; they were not distinguished by originality but roamed through all the dirty books and articles. I will dwell only on the description of that stubborn and large-scale battle against believers waged by the atheist authorities with the support of a deceived, duped public. In late 1959 – early 1960, enthusiasts from the Communists and Komsomol members, inspired by the KGB, organized an atheist headquarters at the Leninsky District Committee of the Komsomol to organize work aimed at destroying God’s work. They conducted constant surveillance of believers: crawling through bushes and swamps (!), they spied on their meetings, reporting everything to their KGB supervisors, who took appropriate measures. According to the same Cherepanov, the system was full of determination “to fight the believers, and, most importantly, with God, until the very root of the infection is smoked out.” Here is how one front of this all-Union battle is described in his book: “The idea was born to create Komsomol headquarters locally; the sect was encircled. A dam has been erected and is being increasingly strengthened by the efforts of those we are accustomed to calling the public: this is a serious, purposeful, difficult struggle waged by the forces of young enthusiasts—communists and Komsomol members—not a campaign, not a foray, not a random raid, but daily, hourly persistent work, such as doctors conduct during an epidemic until the last patient disappears. Dozens of permanent members and hundreds of assistants everywhere: in Moscow and the suburban villages of Vidnoye, Biryulevo, Bulatnikovo. The decision to create a permanent headquarters came after the first trip to those places where, as they knew, a fairly extensive underground organization of shakers already existed, with a regular schedule of fanatical gatherings and talks, and an established network of recruitment agents. The atheists first of all created a large headquarters in Biryulevo, which maintained constant contact with the settlement council. They released the films ‘Apostles Without Masks’ and ‘The Miracle Worker from Biryulevo.’ In the headquarters’ work, special attention was paid to active members of the sect, to exposing the newly appeared apostles and saints” (Quoted from the book: L. Shokhova. Eighteen Years of the Gulag. M., 1992, pp. 51-52).
Thus, over many years, the totalitarian system killed the living shoots of faith in people, erected dams that blocked the path of human hearts to the living streams of truth. Remembering all this, we see that the satanic schemes collapsed, because God is invincible. Now, after more than forty years, looking back and looking around, I am amazed: where is this communism, where is the “party—our helmsman,” where is the Komsomol and the Komsomol pickets? Where is this truly huge army of atheists that warred against Jesus and His children, one of whom was Ivan from the village of Biryulevo—insignificant to them, but precious in the eyes of God?
Observing what is happening around us today, we rejoice at how times have changed. People are seeking God and want to hear the Word of God, because what is written must be fulfilled: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come” (Matt. 24:14). Preaching is carried out also through the mass media. By God’s will, today I am a member of the editorial board of a Christian TV and radio company located in Helsinki (Finland), responsible for the magazine “Evangelist,” which in 1926 Ivan Efimovich Voronaev—a wonderful evangelist who laid down his life on the altar for the glory of Jesus Christ—began publishing in Ukraine and Russia.
In 1928, during the Stalinist repressions, the magazine was suspended by the punitive structure of the Communist Party, and only in 2002 did its publication resume. The renewed “Evangelist” started its march again, now throughout the whole world.
Into the brotherhood today, everywhere, young, talented people have come who produce radio broadcasts locally, publish newspapers and magazines, and issue books. Thus the Lord changes times; He sets up kings and deposes kings. All things exist and stand by His will, and will stand until the coming of Jesus Christ for the Church. But let us return back, to the early 1960s, to the times of persecution and trials of Christ’s Church.
Lefortovo
I was placed in the Lefortovo investigative political isolation ward. Thus began the investigative process in my case. Anna Krasina, who was the prosecution’s main witness, was brought for a confrontation only 50 days later. She was deeply dejected and could not look me in the eye—probably feeling guilty for agreeing to take part in this vile slander concocted by the KGB. Sincere compassion and pity for her filled my heart, and I took a step toward her myself, saying:
- Dear sister Anna, today you have the opportunity to tell the whole truth. Even if you, yielding to KGB influence, have betrayed me with this charade, I am not offended and I forgive you. But I beg you: from this moment, speak only the truth, and then I will pray to God for you, and He will also forgive you. And if you do not do this today, a day will come when you will have to answer for your false words before the Lord. From the way her face flushed, it was clear that the word of truth had touched her deeply, and I saw that she wanted to speak differently, wanted to tell the truth. Kolesnikov understood this too—he had already broken out in a cold sweat more than once and wiped his brow. But he also understood that if this procedure failed, he would have no mercy from his masters in the KGB. The confrontation simply had to take place. Krasina had been prepared and worked over for a long time for this meeting, for she was the main cog in the case; what they had promised her or threatened her with, I do not know. And if everything suddenly collapses now, what would become of his job, his career? Kolesnikov, a communist, had sworn an oath to the party and given his promise to a KGB officer. The devil behind his shoulders, no doubt, whispered these terrible thoughts to him, and so he unleashed a torrent of speech on the unfortunate Krasina, and the poor little bird began to thrash in the talons of a vulture-kite. She could not tell the truth.
In Lefortovo, a convicted man was placed in my solitary cell (I was deemed worthy of a private room), and he put me on my guard. He asked too many questions, spoke in rehearsed phrases unnatural for an ordinary criminal. Though such types can be very clever, something about him raised suspicion. I sensed inwardly that this new arrival had a direct connection to me. One night, when God had taken sleep from me, I was praying and suddenly heard my cellmate say in his sleep:
- Fedotov is unreliable for the Soviet regime, and he must be eliminated… So wonderfully God revealed to me the secret plan of the authorities: they had planted a “stool pigeon” in my cell to draw out my opinions and mood in conversation and report them to the KGB. But their plan failed. My cellmate heard nothing from me except that he was a sinner and, if he did not repent, would perish. And to all the trick questions about my opinion of Soviet power, he received the same answer: all authority comes from God.
Realizing their failure, the authorities decided to continue the process not as a political case but as a criminal one. I was put into a special compartment of a vehicle—not a Black Maria, where the arrested are normally transported, but a converted passenger car that had previously carried milk; on its side was written: “Milk.” I was taken to the Serbsky Institute of Forensic Expertise for a medical examination. The guard escorting me (the very man who once brought me the 13th volume of Leo Tolstoy’s Collected Works) carelessly drew back a curtain a little so he could see Moscow, which I, as a Muscovite, knew well. When we drove onto the institute grounds, the driver got out of the cab, saw the open curtain through which the barred grille was visible, and began shouting at the guard:
- Did you really drive like that?! What will the boss say?! This is a special vehicle—he’s not supposed to know where he’s been taken, that’s crucial! But it pleased God to reveal their design. Listening to the driver’s shouting, I thought that truly I now belonged to the cream of society, since they were taking me not in a “Black Maria” but in a milk-truck—an ordinary milk tanker drives through the city, and no one would guess that inside it has been refitted and, instead of milk, a man is sitting there.
In prison, God began to reveal to me what would happen to me, what awaited me. Usually this came in a dream, as it says in the Bible: “For God speaks once—and if no one notices, a second time—in a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds. Then He opens the ear of man and seals His instruction…” (Job 33:14-16).
Serbsky Institute
At the Serbsky Institute, I was examined by Professor David Romanovich Lundts. As a Jew, he was very interested in how the Holy Spirit could speak, and he asked me carefully considered questions:
- Do voices speak to you, or do you hear only one voice?
- You cannot understand this, but I truly hear the voice of God speaking with me — and I told the professor the following incident.
When I worked at the radio factory, one day at two o’clock, after lunch, I heard a voice: - Get up and go out.
- But where should I go? — I asked.
- You will go through the guard post, — said the same voice again.
I got up, walked past the guard, who did not say a word to me, and went out toward Paveléts Station. There, leaning against a wall, stood a young man, weeping. I approached and asked him: - What are you weeping about? He answered me.
- What business is it of yours, how can you help me?!
- The Lord sent me to you and commanded me to take care of you. He loves you.
- I haven’t eaten for several days. I have no money, and I’m ashamed to steal…
- You are hungry, I’ll feed you right now.
I bought him ten doughnuts, and he quickly ate them all. While he greedily ate, I studied him and pondered why I was there and what all this could mean.
Then he told me that he had come from Rostov. He had run away from home because his mother, a Baptist, had tormented him with her prayers, and he was running from God! In their last conversation, she had said to him: - God will lead you onto the right path and send you a person who will enlighten you.
Then I said to him: - I am that person whom the Lord sent to you, for I too am a believer, I also pray to the Lord and thank Him for everything. And you, return to your mother, who is waiting for you and praying for you. I know that now you will not dare to disobey Him.
He was so surprised by this and so struck that he immediately wished to go home.
That is how I answered Professor Lundts, who afterwards felt a heartfelt disposition toward me and offered his help: - If you agree, I will declare you ill; you will lie in the hospital for about six months and will not be tried, otherwise they will give you ten years.
But I understood that this too was a trap. If they declare me mentally ill, all the newspapers would write: “Church leader in a psychiatric hospital,” and that would undermine authority among God’s people.
The door of the office was slightly ajar. When the conversation ended, I walked out. In the corridor, on a sofa, sat a man who had listened to the entire conversation. When he saw me, he turned away. That night, my loving God revealed this situation to me in a dream. In the dream, I was shown that I wished to close the door out of caution and took hold of the handle, but encountered an obstacle: a strong black dog managed to push its muzzle between the door and the frame and entered the office unhindered. And so it happened.
The council of doctors at the Serbsky Institute declared me healthy, and therefore sane, and I was handed over to the court. In the cell of the “Matrosskaya Tishina” prison, where I was taken after the examination, I sat for nine months.
From the very first day after arrest, a sharp change occurs in a person’s life. You are given over to the power of the system, restricted in movement and parcels, you must eat what they serve in the feeding trough, one ration for all under the single name — balanda. One day is like another; the only difference can be a summons to the investigator. The point of each such meeting is to prove that you are a criminal. Often I felt like a dove in the talons of a bird of prey, or a lamb in the jaws of a wolf — eyes gleaming with fierce hatred, teeth set at the throat. Lying is a spiritually terrible thing. You look — a person who appears decent enough sits before you, yet he turns out to be a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
The Apostle Paul writes about the dangers he encountered in his wanderings across the world. He had various encounters, both good and bad, temptations from all sides. Unusual situations and encounters happen to everyone who walks this path. But it is easier to go when someone has already gone before you; then there is someone to look to. Yet always and everywhere, beware of dogs, beware of wolves!
Once a stranger came to me who introduced himself as my defender, but from my conversation with him I understood that he himself was seeking my help. - My name is Semyon Lvovich Aria, — he said to me, — I am your lawyer. I was sent to defend you, but understand, the case is already finished, it is fabricated, they will give you ten years, everything has already been played out. There is no point in my wasting time on you; it is a pure formality. You can reject me in writing. Here are the reasons you can cite: first, I am a communist; second, I am a Jew. Nevertheless, for reasons beyond your control, I will defend you.
I seem to have a lot of luck with Jews! They appeared on my life’s path like lost angels, strongly desiring to help me. A Jew — who is he? A man of God who has lost his God. How can he help someone who is being tried for the Jewish God? They were broken off from the root so that we, the Gentiles, who formerly did not know God, might be grafted into that root. Yet, as the Apostle Paul says, theirs are the fathers, and from them is Christ — the defense of everyone who trusts in Him.
I gladly took the pen and wrote that I renounce the defense lawyer and choose as my defender Jesus Christ, my Lord.
That lawyer came a few more times, and between us there developed, it seems to me, a relationship of a certain mutual sympathy.
Unrighteous Judgment
Finally, the investigation was completed, and I was brought to the town of Drezna near Moscow, where the trial was to take place. The location was chosen far enough from Moscow so that foreign correspondents could not attend.
I was placed in a preliminary detention cell — a room with no comforts, a bunk of bare boards, no mattress. Given the nature of my “crime” (a grave one), I was supposed to be in solitary confinement, in complete isolation. Before a trial, those under investigation are guarded very closely. The guards rotate, but all watch you through the “peephole,” that is, the Judas hole. Special mats are laid along the corridor, and the guards, like a cat on the soft pads of its paws, approach silently and look in.
The night before the trial was sleepless. The Lord was with me all night, comforting and encouraging me by His Spirit. It was dark in the cell. Around 5:50 in the morning, just before reveille, an extraordinary state of Great Light came over me, and then for a very short time I fell asleep. The Lord showed me a scene in a dream, and in it — two large dogs, muzzle to muzzle.
“Pass between them, do not be afraid,” the Lord said to me. “I am with you; do not turn to the left or to the right, walk straight.”
And I went. The dogs wanted to come near me, but a huge chain held them and prevented them from touching me. So, walking straight, I passed through. It is written in the Gospel: “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it” (Matt. 7:13-14). Such were the narrow gates for me and for my friends who sat beside me on the defendants’ bench. On one side the prosecutor, on the other side — the judge. And we passed through and came out, and found life. Because we proved obedient to the Lord and faithful to the Word of God.
Then the scene changes: in a corner sits a mother dog, giving birth to puppies; there is an enormous multitude of them, and they all whine. I thought: how can she give birth to such a multitude of puppies? That is unnatural.
Maria Smirnova (still from the film “This Troubled Everyone”)
Besides me, Ivan Korchagin, Vasily Ryakhovsky, and Mikhail Afonin were also brought to the trial. The sisters who had given a written undertaking not to leave before the trial also came as defendants — Maria Smirnova and Fedosya Klinina.
There was nowhere to jump out of the “Black Maria”: Pioneers from all the schools of Drezna stood packed tightly together and chanted:
“Ring-leaders! Ring-leaders! Bring them to trial!”
It turns out the children already knew before the trial — who was who and what for. While the court itself knew nothing yet. But what if they had been acquitted? What would they have to tell the children then? No, they knew everything in advance; they knew and had arranged a team of Pioneers beforehand and taught them what to shout. Everything was already planned, and the sentences were already determined. All they needed was a farce, this ritual of the judicial process, and the intimidation of the people, so that others would be discouraged from such things. And they had stationed the Pioneers, knowing that these so-called criminals would not harm any of the Pioneers, but, on the contrary, would bless them in the name of God. If they had been bringing in repeat offenders, they would never have lined up Pioneers; instead, riflemen with dogs would have been standing there. Otherwise, the Pioneers would have ended up as cripples, and the repeat offenders — free. “Yes, the mother-dog has whelped a great many of them,” I recalled my dream, and I felt sorry for those deceived children.
When I saw the prosecutor and the judge sitting opposite him, the dream became reality once more. Just as it is written in the Gospel, that the elders shall be instructed through dreams. Glory to the Lord for His revelations granted to man. God knows how to sustain those doomed to slaughter and those who are alone. How wondrous it is — to see what others do not see.
And then it rang out: “Arise, court is in session!” There were six of us, like six sheep doomed to slaughter. The words of the 21st Psalm rose in my memory: “For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me…”
The room where the trial was held is, of course, no Roman amphitheater where Nero entertained himself and his public, throwing Christians to the beasts. Why such cruelty? We live in a civilized world, everything is different with us (only the Christians remain the same), no beasts, everyone has a quite human appearance (though by nature some were just like vicious wolves). There were no defense lawyers there, but here lawyers were invited, as is proper:
“Attorneys for the defense, please take your seats.”
But all six defendants refused their services.
“Our Advocate is Jesus Christ,” I said, “we need no other.”
Then the court retired for a conference and issued a ruling to assign a lawyer to each of us. Thus began the first day of the trial. One hundred twenty people were summoned as witnesses. The testimonies of believers were not taken into consideration and were openly distorted by the judges. Everything had been worked out and fabricated in advance. All the seats in the courtroom were occupied by Komsomol members, and therefore, “due to lack of space,” believers were not let into the hall. Everything was thought out.
But on the day the trial was supposed to begin, April 12, 1961, a spaceship carrying Yuri Gagarin * was launched into orbit, and on account of this celebration the trial was postponed and began on April 17. The organizers of the process triumphed; there was no limit to their pride and arrogance. For instance, the judge asks Sister Valya from Reutov, summoned as a witness:
“Who is better, our Yura Gagarin, who did not see God, or your Vanya, who testifies about God?”
I will say frankly: in my opinion, a foolish question. But she wisely answered:
“Each of them is good in his own way. Each of them is a hero in his own field.”
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* Gagarin, Yuri Alekseyevich (1934-1968) — Soviet cosmonaut pilot, colonel, Hero of the Soviet Union. On April 12, 1961, he became the first person in human history to fly into space aboard the spacecraft “Vostok.” He participated in the training of cosmonaut crews. He died during a training flight on an airplane.
And now, 45 years later, allow me to ask you, who or what is better: the living Christian teaching and those who sat beside me on the defendants’ bench, or the ideology of the Communist Party, the dishonest investigators, the prosecutor, the witnesses — Komsomol members and Communists? The USSR has long since receded into oblivion, the Communist Party and the Komsomol have collapsed, but the evangelical faith — is alive!
This is also comparable to the statement of A.A. Oparin, Candidate of Medical Sciences, Associate Professor, in the book “In Search of Immortality” (pp. 170-171).
And so, among the vast army of Israel, a youth appeared, almost a boy, who decides to accept the giant’s challenge. When this was reported to Saul, he said to David: “You are not able to go against this Philistine to fight with him; for you are a youth, and he a man of war from his youth” (1 Sam. 17:33). These words show how much Saul had changed, once looking to God, but now evaluating all events from the standpoint of human logic, which could not understand David’s determination, and to which the very possibility of this boy’s victory over an experienced warrior seemed absurd. When David objected to these words, saying that he had already had occasion to show strength and courage thanks to the Lord’s help, Saul, no longer objecting to David’s wish, decided again to help resolve the problem in a human way: “So Saul clothed David with his armor, and he put a bronze helmet on his head; he also clothed him with a coat of mail. David fastened his sword to his armor and tried to walk, for he had not tested them. And David said to Saul, ‘I cannot walk with these, for I have not tested them.’ So David took them off. Then he took his staff in his hand; and he chose for himself five smooth stones from the brook, and put them in a shepherd’s bag, in a pouch which he had, and his sling was in his hand. And he drew near to the Philistine” (vv. 38-40). The spiritually broken king again showed trust not in God, but attempted to rely on the strength of weapons in the coming battle. But David again did not allow the king to carry out his intention, saying that he would go into this duel practically unarmed, relying in everything only on God.
Often, believers appear in the eyes of unbelievers as fanatics and madmen, devoid of logic. But who in this story — David or Saul — was more logical regarding the coming duel with Goliath? At first glance, it seems to be the cautious Saul, who initially refrained from sending anyone out against Goliath at all, then tried to convince David of the absurdity of his proposal, and then urged him to at least put on armor and take suitable weapons. But Saul’s apparent logic in reality turns into ordinary fear. For postponing the clash with the Philistine demoralized the Israelite army, rendering it incapable of fighting. And thus Saul could have lost the battle without even starting it.
Fear had paralyzed the king. And people who dwell in fear not only infect those around them with it, but they also cannot understand the display of courage in another. And finally, Saul’s advice for David to put on armor was absurd. Of course, the armor and weapons would not have made the boy much stronger against a giant who could, with a blow of his massive spear, easily break through any armor. But David was consistent in his actions, perfectly aware that humanly speaking, he could never overcome such an excellent warrior as Goliath. And therefore, he decided to rely entirely on God. In this, he did not display blind fanaticism, for he had personal experience of answers to his prayers, having more than once felt God’s help in extreme situations. And so he goes, practically unarmed, towards one of the best and strongest warriors of his time. He goes, knowing that God is with him, and therefore — victory!
Amazingly, Goliath goes out to meet him with no less confidence in victory. This is one of the rarest cases in history when each of the fighting sides was fully confident of its unconditional victory. Usually, there are always some doubts, questions, but here there was nothing of the sort. They were both confident of victory. One, understanding ALL his weakness and hoping only in God; the other — aware of his own strength and relying only on himself. One confidently walked toward victory; the other, no less confidently — toward death. Not without reason did King Solomon write half a century later: “Pride goes before destruction…” (Prov. 16:18). Our world today is amazingly similar to Goliath. We take pride in our achievements, the conquest of space, the unlocking of the atom’s secret, the creation of the Internet…
Militant communist atheism, like Goliath, waged war on Christians at the show trial in the town of Drezna near Moscow. And the little Davids on the defendants’ bench defended themselves not with the attorneys’ armor — having refused them — but with trust in Jesus Christ. We remembered the words of David spoken to the Philistine: “You come to me with a sword, with a spear, and with a javelin. But I come to you in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied… that all the earth may know that there is a God…” (1 Sam. 17:45-46). Our battle lasted from 1960 until 1991, until the complete overthrow of the communist regime.
However, let us return to the courtroom I wrote about above. The judges demanded that Alexei Petrovich Larin, a leading brother from Biryulyovo, be summoned to give testimony.
“Yuri Gagarin is not the hero; here is our true hero,” said Brother Larin, and he looked at me.
It must be said that some time later, under rather strange circumstances, Alexei Petrovich died tragically. The real cause of his death remains a mystery to this day. Next, Arina, our neighbor in the building, was invited as a witness. The night before, the Lord showed me in a dream: a goose was flying across the sky with a huge, elongated neck. An athlete was sitting on it, holding tightly to the goose’s neck, which kept getting longer and longer. The goose flew straight at me, and I cried out in surprise. But suddenly a shot rang out, the goose’s neck tore off and fell to the ground at my feet with a cry: “Ga-ga-ga!” When I woke up, this cry was still ringing in my ears.
When our neighbor Arina entered the hall, Judge Kotov said:
“Here is the key witness, a neighbor living in the same building as Fedotov. Let us hear her; she can tell us much.”
But, to the great astonishment of all those present in the hall, she fell almost at my feet and could say nothing, except “Ga-ga-ga…”
Judge Kotov turned in fright to Professor Lundts, who was present in court as a forensic medical expert:
“Look what they have done to her!” Professor Lundts approached Arina and asked:
“Citizen, what is the matter with you?”
In reply came: Ga-ga-ga…
Then he signaled to the policemen to have her removed from the hall. Tall, strapping fellows in greatcoats took her by the legs and arms and carried her out. The courtroom froze, gazing at this scene in horror. For several minutes, a deep silence reigned. And I remembered how, in the apostolic days, young men carried out Ananias and Sapphira, who had lied to the Holy Spirit.
Those present — and there were more than a thousand — were thrown into confusion by this unexpected turn of events. For this process was conceived to intimidate the citizens: “See what we do with sectarians,” so to speak, “bear in mind, the same will happen to everyone!” And suddenly, those present saw with their own eyes the intervention of the Invisible One, who executes His own judgment like no other.
As for the attorneys, they were Soviet people who generally helped the court, through cross-examination, to reveal the alleged crimes, and one of them became so inflamed that, pointing at me, he began shouting in atheistic ecstasy:
“Here she is, the severed head of the hydra!”
As a result of this pre-arranged spectacle, all six believing defendants received various terms of imprisonment. The longest was assigned to me — ten years. The prosecutor vehemently reviled me, trying to please his master, and worked himself into a fury, declaring that even this term was too short and that I had been treated humanely.
And only one lawyer — a Jew who, knowing that the question had already been decided in advance, asked me to release him from his duties — defended me as a true defender should. It is to him that I wish to give both space and a voice on these pages. He has earned it.
Attorney Semyon Lvovich Aria began asking Anna Krasina questions, which threw her into confusion; she was caught in a lie, everyone in the courtroom saw it, and the case began to fall apart. Then the prosecutor jumped up and furiously shouted at the lawyer, asking him who he was. Aria, not understanding his question, answered:
“I am Semyon Lvovich Aria, attorney at law.”
The prosecutor grew even angrier and shouted again:
“Who are you?”
And again, not understanding him, Aria repeated:
“I am Semyon Lvovich Aria, attorney at law.”
Then the prosecutor, with foam at his mouth, shouted:
“Who are you?! Are you a Communist or who?!”
“A Communist,” Aria replied.
“Sit down! I hope you have understood everything.”
Aria sat down; he understood everything: a Communist was supposed to sing in unison with the entire judicial team. It is a miracle that Attorney Aria survived that defense of his client. And he not only survived but lived to see the time when he could write his remarkable book “Mosaic. Notes of a Lawyer. Speeches.” Today, this is a valuable teaching aid for students of law faculties, future lawyers. One of the chapters in this book is called “The Case of the Pentecostals” and is dedicated to our trial (see Appendix 1).
Fate prepared, tempered this defense lawyer harshly. Here is how S.L. Aria wrote about himself in the preface to his book: “I do not know if those around me liked my life, but I did. Moreover, I have a quite definite impression that life was beautiful. At the same time, it was so hectic and twisty that at times it was no laughing matter, though I tried to joke even then. This latest life of mine, about which I wish to tell something, I lived in two guises: as a soldier and as a lawyer. The soldier’s part was brief, only five years. But four of them fell during the Great War and are therefore remembered for almost every day that I managed to live. The entire remaining, lawyer’s part was a gift of fate, if only because I returned alive from the first part. But it proved to be a gift also in the wealth of impressions. A kaleidoscope of unique situations and images, sometimes tragic, sometimes comical, was revealed to me by my life in the Russian justice system of the 20th century. And I happened to be not a contemplator of these events, but an active participant, analyst, and empathizer. I dare to assure you that creativity in legal analysis and the search for the optimal resolution of the stranger’s problems entrusted to a lawyer is no less fascinating than creativity in science or art.
As a lawyer, I happened to defend — and sometimes quite successfully, easing their fate — individuals decidedly unaccepted in polite society, and even real spies. I happened — and also sometimes successfully — to defend those accused by the state by mistake or consciously slandered in crimes they did not commit. Among my consciously slandered clients were dissidents, opponents of the regime, sacrificing themselves for the truth” (S. Aria. Mosaic. Notes of a Lawyer. Speeches. Moscow, 2000, pp. 7-8).
Interview with Attorney Semyon Lvovich Aria
I remember my participation in the trial of I. P. Fedotov and other Pentecostal church leaders without much difficulty, because that case was one of the most striking in my practice. More than forty years have passed, but the details of the case are still vivid in my memory, because the trial itself was extraordinary, and the people were extraordinary too—first and foremost, Ivan Petrovich Fedotov.
No one invited me to take part in this trial; I was appointed, because the case fell into that category for which participation by defense counsel was mandatory. I saw the draft indictment while preparing for trial, and I was told that Fedotov had been the leader of the church in the Moscow region, serving as its preacher, though he held no formal office as such. He was the universally recognized leader of this Pentecostal church.
According to the indictment, the charge against him was that he played an organizing and leading role in the establishment of this Pentecostal church in Moscow and the Moscow region. The other defendants in the case were also charged with acting as active organizers of this sect under Fedotov’s guidance. The legal charges, however, were framed so that he was charged under Article 227 as the leader of a fanatical sect. Moreover, to make it stick, they added a very substantial extra charge: “incitement to murder.” Compared to that, the charge of leading a sect looked minor; but incitement to murder was meant to bring a very serious sentence. That was precisely why defense counsel’s participation was mandatory.
Having studied the case, I went to see Fedotov in prison—more precisely, in the detention center—and spoke with him. Ivan Petrovich told me that he was refusing counsel, that the Lord would protect and preserve him, and that he had no need of a lawyer’s services. But I told him that the court was unlikely to accommodate him, even though the law required it, for, in cases of this sort, defense was supposed to be mandatory in principle. The case was to be tried by the Moscow Regional Court at first instance, because important, significant cases were—and still are—heard by courts at that level: regional or city courts, not by people’s courts.
I had quite lengthy conversations with Fedotov, and more than one. He made a gratifying impression on me. He was a restrained, very modest person, firm in his faith. He was relatively young at the time, around thirty. I asked him how he had come to faith, and how he had come to the idea of the need for missionary activity, for he not only believed but also actively sought to spread his faith. He explained that, on the whole, he had been an absolutely ordinary working lad, had served in the navy, where he had the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of human existence, which was not clear enough to him. Incidentally, not many people ponder that question today, and it’s unlikely that his contemporaries did so then either.
Besides that, I learned that Fedotov once had the chance to read the Gospel. I don’t remember how the Gospel came into his hands under naval conditions, but in any case, he began reading it, gradually became captivated, and realized that many of the teachings of that holy Book matched his own inner disposition. The lines of the Gospel fell, as it were, on already prepared soil. As a result, he arrived at the thought, the firm conclusion, that the meaning of his existence—and perhaps of human existence in general—lay in faith and service to the Lord. That was how he explained his coming to faith to me.
His service in the navy also reflected this in a certain way, for, first, he stood out among those around him because he entirely renounced everything sinful, including foul language; no one ever heard a curse or an obscenity from him. Second, he carried out his duties most meticulously, never grew irritated, and accepted even the strictness and harshness of his commanders as something that neither required nor should provoke any equivalent reaction in his soul. He accepted everything with humility.
After demobilization, Fedotov went to work—if I am not mistaken, at the Metrostroi, on underground construction—and there, too, he distinguished himself from those around him by being an exemplary, model worker, fulfilling his duties impeccably, and never swearing. He was ascetically modest in daily life and continued his missionary work. Without making it his aim, he nonetheless drew human souls through his behavior, which was so unusual to those around him: his modesty, his lack of irritation, his humility, and his firm faith, which he tirelessly shared with others. Gradually, he gained considerable authority among his followers and, without holding any official position, became the universally recognized presbyter of a group of believers in the Pentecostal church.
That was the state of affairs at the moment when a decision was evidently made to root out the activity of this church within Moscow and the Moscow region. Generally speaking, church groups at that time were divided into those that were legalized and official—among them, for instance, the Baptist church (which the authorities called the Baptist sect)—and those that were illegal, meaning all other groups that were considered undesirable because they could not be controlled by the authorities.
Criminal proceedings were instituted in order to put the leaders of the Pentecostal church away for a long time in places not so remote. That was how I understood the charge, and Ivan Petrovich Fedotov, apparently, understood it the same way. I had very long conversations with him, and, on the whole, I chose a definite line of defense. I should tell you that, in principle, every defense lawyer, by the end of his study of the case and after lengthy conversations with the client, has a certain inner disposition and chooses accordingly either a hard or a soft line of defense. This, of course, affects the tone of the defense and the methods of conducting it. So I chose the following line of defense: first, I believed that I should handle the legal side of the defense clearly, precisely, and firmly—that is, without concessions; second, I thought I should emphasize Fedotov’s positive human qualities and speak about freedom of conscience, which the Constitution proclaims, and also about the fact that, on the whole, I saw no signs of fanatical activity in the life and work of I. P. Fedotov.
It was with that approach that I had to go into the trial. I coordinated this line of defense with Fedotov, who gave me full freedom of action. As I have said, Fedotov had waived my defense, stating that he would defend himself. I explained to him that the court was unlikely to allow that. He replied:
“I’m giving you carte blanche; choose whichever line you find necessary, and I will defend myself on my own, if I defend myself at all.”
Fedotov was not some isolated, independent figure. There were six defendants; all were united and firm in their faith and their position, and neither the court nor the prosecution could expect any repentance during the trial from them, nor any departure from their religious convictions or their faith. Therefore, I was not surprised that the trial venue was chosen to be the town of Drezna, sufficiently remote from Moscow—if I’m not mistaken, not far from Orekhovo-Zuyevo. There was a large factory club there that could hold enough spectators, while at the same time it was possible to avoid the influx of foreign visitors, who had a quite definite interest in the case.
The case was heard by the Moscow Regional Court—as far as I remember, under the chairmanship of the deputy president of the regional court, Kotov. The prosecution was to be handled by the deputy prosecutor of Moscow region, Zalegin; there were several defense lawyers. When the trial began, I noticed that a distinctly sensational atmosphere was being created around it, and I realized that this was no accident, that everything had been arranged. In any event, during the trial, there were representatives of television, radio, and newsreel services. The hall was wired for sound; microphones were on the tables of the judges, the prosecutor, and the expert. Incidentally, the expert in this case was a man of notorious reputation, Professor Lundts, a psychiatrist, deputy director of the Serbsky Institute.
The hall was invariably full, but, looking more closely, I understood that it was filled, first, by representatives of the Baptist church, who were given special tickets to attend the trial, and, second, by the vigilantes who had taken part in the persecution of the Pentecostal church. The hall held not just a few hundred, perhaps even up to a thousand people, and members of the press were present. The journey there was a long one.
The trial began with the questioning of the defendants, who took precisely the stance I had expected of them: they firmly maintained that they were not guilty of any criminal offenses, that they were steadfast in their faith, and that they would not abandon it.
Then began the questioning of the witnesses. Carrying out my professional duties, I gradually began testing the strength of the charges as I questioned the defendants and witnesses. The charge of incitement to murder against Fedotov rested on the testimony—if I’m not mistaken—of a witness named Krasina, who claimed that the church leaders, including Fedotov, had hinted to her that if she sinned against the Lord, she would have to sacrifice her underage daughter. Such was that wild accusation.
Although Krasina did confirm this circumstance, her testimony was full of contradictions. When I began testing the solidity of this charge, it slowly began to crumble. This provoked a rather nervous reaction—not from everyone, but from two or three people present in the hall, and, above all, from a certain, let’s say, very corpulent lady who for some reason appeared behind the scenes during the breaks, where we were resting, and complained to me about why I was conducting the defense in one way and not another. Well, I explained to her that I was fulfilling my professional duty, nothing more, and had no intention of departing from that duty. At that time I did not yet know what all this meant; I understood it later.
One day, when we were having lunch in the factory canteen together with the court members and other people connected with the trial, a waitress came up and asked who lawyer Aria was. I replied:
“Aria is me.”
“You’re wanted on the telephone.”
I went out, picked up the receiver, and heard a male voice, muffled by the distance:
“Comrade Defense Lawyer Aria?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
“This is Secretary of the Regional Party Committee Pankratov speaking.”
“I’m listening, Comrade Pankratov.”
“I’m being told that you are wrecking our event.”
“Pardon me, what event?” I asked.
“Why, this very trial.”
“Forgive me, but I had thought it was a court trial, not an event,” I replied.
“Bear in mind that this is not merely a court trial but an event, and that the matter is under the supervision of the Central Committee of the CPSU, which you would do well to keep in mind.”
I answered that nothing wrong was happening here, that I was performing my professional duty, and that I thought he had been misinformed.
“I’ll check,” said Pankratov.
“Check, then,” I replied.
At that, the conversation ended, and I went back to carrying out my duties. About two hours later, two automobiles arrived from Moscow. These were people sent by Pankratov to check what Lawyer Aria was up to at the trial. The arrivals, who were the chairman of the regional bar association and regional committee officials, went during the break to the presiding judge and the prosecutor to find everything out thoroughly. Those professional jurists said that the lawyer was simply doing his duty and that no complaints could be made against him. Then they asked me:
“Who is stirring things up here?”
I said that there were several people in the hall who were making complaints to me, foremost that fat lady sitting in one of the front rows.
“That fat lady is no lady; she is the head of the propaganda department and a member of the regional party committee,” they told me.
I replied that it made no difference to me, and that it was she who needed to be quieted down, not me, for I would not go against my conviction: I had to do what was required of me, and not sit there, so to speak, with my mouth shut. I don’t know whether they exerted any influence on her, given her high-ranking position, but in any case after that the lady stopped her visits backstage, and I continued my work.
The further course of the trial was marked by a whole series of peculiar episodes that I will remember forever, because they were quite extraordinary. When the questioning of the defendants was over and the questioning of witnesses began, a woman wrapped in a dark, warm shawl came to the witness stand, with fanatically burning eyes, thin, emaciated, and no sooner had the judge asked her surname than, having barely answered, she immediately fell to the floor in a severe fit. Professor Lundts rose from his seat and, looking at the woman across the orchestra pit (we were sitting on stage), told the court:
“That is not epilepsy; it is a neurotic attack caused by severe exhaustion of the nervous system.”
Then the judge, turning to the defendants, said:
“See what you drive people to with your prayers!”
Thereupon, very quietly, almost in a whisper—but because of the sound system my words were heard everywhere—I said to him:
“Comrade Presiding Justice, she is not a sectarian; she is a vigilante, a Party member.”
The judge began feverishly flipping through the case file and, finding that I was right, said, somewhat embarrassed:
“Yes, indeed…”
And with that, the episode ended, and this witness was removed from the courtroom to receive urgent medical attention. That was one of the episodes that gave me a sense of light moral satisfaction and caused a stir in the hall. It was a nice little fiasco…
The second episode is no less interesting. A young, rather comely woman came to the microphone. The judge quickly read out the beginning of her testimony and said:
“Now, I see from the transcript of your interrogation that you were a member of this sect and later left it; therefore, we hope that this will allow us to hear from you how the prayer meetings take place and what causes such neurotic reactions among those praying.”
“Yes, indeed, I was in that sect and later left it,” the woman confirmed.
“Well, then, tell us how these prayer meetings take place.”
She told us that the meetings took place under unfavorable conditions. The believers gathered, prayed for several hours, observed fasting; the air there was very stuffy because of the multitude of worshippers, and the room was small and wretched. Therefore, when they came out, as she put it, “instead of one tram, I saw two”—everything doubled in her eyes.
The judge listened to her with great satisfaction and said:
“Yes, yes, indeed. Here we read about shouts, which in the forensic-psychiatric examination were termed ‘glossolalia.’ If I’m not mistaken, that refers to a reaction where people during prayer begin to cry out words unknown to themselves, which they take for words of a foreign language. But now tell us what brought you there, why you went there in the first place.”
The witness told us, quite artlessly, that she had suffered from an incurable disease—I think it was leukemia, or blood cancer (I don’t remember exactly now; I’m no great medical expert)—and that after she had tried to be cured at ordinary medical institutions and saw that it did nothing, she began to look for some unconventional way of healing, and someone told her to try attending these prayer meetings. She joined the sect and for a certain period attended and prayed, primarily for her healing.
“And why did you leave?” the judge asked.
“You know what? After a certain time, I felt myself drawn to worldly things; the disposition was no longer the same, and I decided not to mislead my brothers and sisters, and so I stopped going to the meetings and left that church,” the witness answered artlessly.
“I see,” said the judge. “Well, and how do you feel now?”
“Normal,” she replied.
“In what sense normal? Are you saying you no longer suffer from that illness?”
“No, I don’t suffer from it now.”
“And thanks to what?”
“Thanks to what?” the witness was surprised. “Why, I took part in the activity of this Pentecostal church; I prayed truly and sincerely to the Lord, and the Lord healed me.”
An unimaginable uproar arose in the hall. After that court day ended, the poet Sergei Ostrovoy, who was covering the trial as a correspondent for Pravda, gave me a lift home, and he said to me:
“Listen, my dear fellow, what kind of atheist propaganda is this? It’s something diametrically opposite!”
I told him that they should have thought about that when they were preparing the trial, when they were setting it up—they should have expected that this would inevitably backfire.
Those are the two moments I remember best, and I still recall them with pleasure, with a light moral satisfaction. But now I must say a few words as to why I took part in this trial at all. Apart from the fact that I was appointed to participate, I needed some additional moral incentive, for to go there merely to play the role of a parrot was a situation I would not have accepted inwardly. I suspected that the outcome of this case was predetermined. Especially after I heard that it was an “event,” I naturally understood that the outcome was fixed. But my experience also played its part.
I belonged to that handful of lawyers who had both before and after taken part in what were called “dissident trials”—that is, I took part in purely political trials, defending dissidents. Few lawyers risked participating in such cases; there were perhaps seven or eight of us in the whole of Moscow. This occupation was rather risky, required highly polished professional skill—and that drew me—and, moreover, it was akin in a way to mountaineering. It was a very dangerous line of work, close to the circus tightrope walk: you had to walk across, that is, do your duty, and not fall, because it was very easy to fall. That attraction existed. Besides, strange as it may seem, sometimes this defense did bear some fruit, as I was repeatedly convinced, even if the results were modest. Still, in a number of criminal (essentially political) cases in which I took part, I managed to achieve some modest result, not to mention the fact that abandoning these people without defense was inhumane, and one simply had to do one’s duty. All this pushed me toward actively defending Ivan Petrovich Fedotov.
I must also say something about certain reasons that gave me a heightened interest in Fedotov’s case, and particularly in his such steadfast faith. I believe that the longing for faith is genetically embedded in the soul of every individual and is inherent in humanity as a whole. Apparently, it is ineradicable; one can be an atheist, but nevertheless, at some stage atheism, as a rule, gives way to faith in one form or another. In this connection, I remember the strong impression made on me by an article I read once in the magazine Amerika—about the achievements of modern neurophysiology. That article began by telling how three of the world’s greatest neurophysiologists ended their lives as believers, because what they encountered when studying the workings of the human brain at the level they had reached (that is, at the highest scientific level) could not be explained by any theories—neither evolutionary nor any other. And this inevitably led to the thought that there had to be a Creator, some absolute power that had created the human brain with its astonishing mechanism, inexplicable by anything else except the existence of an absolute Creator. Therefore, both my interest and my attitude toward faith predisposed me to regard the personality of I. P. Fedotov with interest as well.
I won’t even mention that there was also an element of a personal nature. The fact is that I spent the entire war at the front; moreover, I served in the field army and served hard, so hard that the very fact that I ended the war alive and without serious wounds I personally attribute to fate. Anyone who went through the war (and I went through it for real, because I was a tank driver and fought on the front line) came out of the war either a fatalist or a believer. Therefore, I had a definite personal element that evoked respect for Fedotov, and not at all mere bewilderment at his absorption in faith. I consider his activity beneficial and conducive to the perfection of the human soul and nature. This return to faith and return to the church—though not equivalent things—I regard the return to faith as a factor beneficial for our tragic modernity. With that, I would like to conclude my reminiscences about Fedotov’s case.
After he had served his five-year sentence, Ivan Petrovich’s mother approached me. I wrote a petition for the pardon of I. P. Fedotov, framing the request in these words: “to release a man guilty without guilt.” A refusal came back from the Supreme Court of the RSFSR.
(Printed from a tape recording.)
During the trial, many witnesses were questioned and so-called material and documentary evidence was presented. Among it was the film “This Troubles Everyone,” which had been edited over three and a half years by order of the KGB. The lights in the hall were turned off, a screen was lowered, and for thirty minutes we watched a nightmare that only Satan, the skillful slanderer of our brothers, could devise. But it must be said that the film is a double-edged sword: in the 1960s it was directed against us, yet today that same film testifies against them. It captured our gatherings, which took place in rooms where it was indeed always hot, stuffy, and cramped, but the songs we sang there were written from the heart. For example, “Draw Closer Around Jesus Christ”—those words were fitting there. And the forests served as our houses of prayer. In summer and winter, in rain or heat, we carried out our watch of service with great joy. That labor was performed in the Holy Spirit, who both comforted and filled us with joy, and foretold the future, revealing it to me in visions.
There remains a sound recording of my preaching in the forest, just a few seconds long. I said:
“The time will come, as it is written, that every knee shall bow before Him, in heaven and on earth and under the earth. It is better to bend the knee today in this world once than a thousand times in hell. Dear brothers and sisters will bow their knees, but there will be no forgiveness for ever.”
Once the Lord showed me in a vision that I rose high above the earth and flew around it. At the same time, the Holy Spirit filled me with a joyful song that the whole earth heard. But this was preceded by years of suffering, labor in fasting and prayer, both common and solitary, by day and at times by night.
The first ten-year term, for the formation and organization of the church in Moscow and the Moscow region, was followed by a second—three years, for establishing a church in Maloyaroslavets, and then another five years for work in the Soviet republics. In total—eighteen years. The arithmetic is simple: it takes one second to count, but to live through it… I am still living through it, again and again. It will never be forgotten. This is not something to be spoken of; it is something to be cried out, so loudly that the whole world might hear and repent!
In 1988, two years after the end of my last term, the power of the Holy Spirit began to fulfill this vision in my life. Just as Joseph was once clothed, seated in a chariot, and brought to Pharaoh, so I was clothed, seated—instead of a chariot—in an airplane, and I flew to Sweden. “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life” (Rev. 2:10).
Already in Sweden, my friends put me into a car, and we drove along an asphalted road through a landscape unfamiliar to me. On the way to Borås, we stopped nearly every two hours at specially equipped rest areas, refreshed ourselves, and drank coffee. This prompted the thought of creating a similar rest center in our town of Maloyaroslavets. Some time after I returned from that beautiful country, in my little shed there were already two people living—recently released prisoners. That was the beginning of a rehabilitation center. But we shall return to that subject later.
The “Black Marias,” the “Stolypin” railway cars, the surrounding of zeks, the filthy transit prisons of the North, and the barbed wire of the camps that restrict a prisoner’s walk upon the earth—the Lord is able to replace, for His servants, with the most comfortable conditions: airplanes, swift foreign cars, beautiful premises, spacious prayer houses, and, instead of the hostility of people disfigured by devilish atheism, fellowship with a multitude of believers, united by the love of Christ, enlightened by the light of His truth, and cleansed by His blood. After Sweden, the Lord truly led me around the earth: the USA, Germany, Finland, Holland, Norway, Israel—and everywhere there was preaching and testimony about life and service in bonds, in Communist hell. But all that was still far ahead; meanwhile, the trial lasting six days concluded with the reading of the judgment, an eleven-page typescript duplicated in one hundred copies and circulated as a manual for courts across the USSR on “how to judge sectarians properly” (see appendix).
Here I shall not dwell on the refutation of the charges set forth in the judgment; their falsehood is obvious today to any sane person. I will say only a few words about the suicides of Kapustina and Nikolaeva, for which the believers were blamed. Although the judgment mentioned quarrels in Kapustina’s family, nothing was said about the conduct of her husband, which was the real cause of their quarrels and led to her death. At the trial, they kept silent about her husband’s guilt, for then there would have been no one else to blame but him. The believing sisters tried to change her life and help her, but they did not manage it; there was not enough time. She was not a church member but only an occasional visitor, yet all the blame was laid on the believers because that was what the KGB desired.
As for Nikolaeva, even before coming to the church she suffered from mental instability and had a head injury, which is noted in the judgment. For this reason, she considered herself inferior and wronged by fate. Contact with believers calmed her, and that prolonged her life. Like Kapustina, she was not a church member but rather an attendee who had not yet decided for herself whether to embark on the path of faith. She lived in one room with Smirnova and, in conversations, mentioned a young man who had been in her life, but she told no details and was reserved. The sisters assumed that she had been rejected by him and, possibly, was pregnant at an early stage. In those years, that was a great shame for an unmarried girl. Had there been no interference from all manner of “volunteer teachers” at the factory where she worked, who badgered her and re-educated her in the Communist spirit, she would have remained alive and, having come to faith in God, would have lived a wonderful life. In point of fact, she was not a believer, but it was advantageous for the KGB to count her among the believers in order to find an additional pretext for convicting Fedotov.
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APPENDICES
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The Case of the Pentecostals
On my bookshelf there gleams with gold embossing a Bible, superbly published in Sweden in the Russian language. It was recently sent to me as a gift by the bishop of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals), from his residence near Moscow. On the title page is an inscription: “To dear Semyon Lvovich from your client Ivan Petrovich Fedotov. 1961. Moscow Regional Court. 17-136F. U17-136” — that was his article, for incitement to murder. At that time, in 1961, it was by no means the recognized, fully legal Church with international ties that it is today, but a small, yet growing religious community. Fedotov was its presbyter and preacher. The parishioners were united by a special purity of morals, selflessness, diligence, brotherly love and mutual aid. I don’t remember exactly where it differed from the Baptist church, which was close in spirit and practice, but it came out ahead in that competition, and the ranks of its followers were actively growing. This attracted the authorities’ attention, who looked on any ideological rival with zero tolerance. What’s more, unlike the Evangelical Christian-Baptists, the Pentecostal community was beyond external control and guidance.
Persecution began, and Baptist structures took part in it as well. The community’s prayer meetings were broken up by militia and voluntary auxiliary forces, but the people kept being drawn to each other and to Fedotov, gathering secretly again and again. This unequal struggle ended in the launching of a criminal case.
Fedotov was accused of inciting a certain parishioner to a ritual (?!) murder of her own child. In addition, he and several women who had offered their homes for prayer meetings were accused of organizing a fanatical sect. Fanaticism (causing harm to citizens’ health under the guise of performing religious rites) consisted, according to the forensic psychiatric examination, in the fact that prolonged prayers and the singing of psalms induced a state of trance in the parishioners, during which they began to cry out incomprehensible words and phrases. This phenomenon (glossolalia) resembled the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles on the day of Pentecost described in the New Testament, when they began to speak “in other tongues,” previously unknown to them, in order to carry the Good News to other nations. Hence the name of the community.
All the accused forbade their relatives to hire defense lawyers: “The Lord will defend us; we need no other defense. We are not guilty of anything,” they said. The defendants also refused their appointed “state” lawyers, but their refusal was not accepted — and they resigned themselves to our presence.
My conversations with Fedotov in prison, while preparing for the trial, went beyond the usual professional boundaries: talking to him and listening to him was interesting. He told me how, back when he was a conscript sailor, he began to reflect at length on the meaning of life and how to live it worthily; what a revelation the Gospel became for him when he accidentally got hold of it, and how it illuminated the whole of his future path. He returned from service a fervent believer, who took the teaching as a direct guide to his way of life and choice of purpose.
Along with the essence of the Book, he also accepted the way of life of the first Christian communities described in it as the one and only true way, having nothing in common with the pomp and spectacle of modern confessions. “A person cannot come to God on a visit and leave Him whenever he feels like it. He must carry Him in his soul,” Fedotov would say. His conversations with those around him were not instructions. He simply shared the good light of the knowledge of true Truth that filled him. And the strange comfort he brought to those who listened to him — both in Maloyaroslavets (author’s error: at that time I.P. Fedotov lived in Biryulyovo. — Editor’s note), where he lived with his mother, and at his work — gradually began to attract an ever wider circle of people. People started coming from other districts of the region to hear him. That is how the community came into being.
Despite a fairly meticulous investigative check, no signs of mercenary gain in his actions were found. He lived on his wages, and his lifestyle was extremely modest. The case file contained a reference from ‘Metrostroy,’ where he worked as a carpenter brigade leader: it noted his exactingness toward himself, his honesty, reliability, and even, kindly disposition. Incitement to the murder of a child looked rather strange against this background. Fedotov viewed the likely outcome of the trial calmly, considering it a trial sent to him from above.
The case was to be heard by the Moscow Regional Court. As was practiced at the time for propaganda purposes, the court session was scheduled as a traveling session, in one of the region’s districts. However, the place chosen was fairly distant, the town of Drezna — presumably to make it difficult for foreign correspondents who had shown an interest in the case to attend. For the same reason the large hall of the factory club where the trial began was filled with voluntary auxiliaries and Evangelical Christians-Baptists admitted by special passes.
The court sat on the stage, illuminated by Jupiters. To the left and right — the prosecutor and the defense lawyers. Seated separately there was Professor L., a psychiatrist, deputy director of the Institute of Forensic Psychiatry for the scientific-punitive section, wearing enormous horn-rimmed glasses. Downstairs, separated by the orchestra pit, were the defendants under guard. The importance of the trial was underscored by the abundance of journalists from the central newspapers, as well as the television, photo, and film men with their equipment. The spectacle, evidently, was planned on a
VERDICT
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Off-site session, case No. 2-104/61
IN THE NAME OF THE RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATIVE SOCIALIST REPUBLIC
26 April 1961
The Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Moscow Regional Court, composed of presiding judge Kotov, people’s assessors Belousov and Utyonkov, with secretary Gorelova, with the participation of Moscow Region prosecutor Zalegin, with the participation of public prosecutors Kruglov and Ivanov, defense attorneys Ariya, Gusev, Ilyina, Valyaev, Karmadonov, examined in an open court session in the town of Drezna, Orekhovo-Zuyevo District, Moscow Region, on April 19–24, 1961, the case against:
Fedotov Ivan Petrovich, born in 1929, native of Tambov Region, Staro-Yuryevsky District, village of Staro-Alexandrovka, Russian, citizen of the USSR, non-party, education: six grades, single, not previously convicted, prior to arrest employed in the Moscow Metro as a track worker, residing at Biryulovo-Tovarnaya station, Donbasskaya St., house 3, committed for trial under Article 17-136, part 1, point (a) of the 1926 RSFSR Criminal Code, and under Articles 107 and 206, part 2, of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code;
Afonin Mikhail Zinovyevich, born in 1915, native of Oryol Region, Zelegoshchensky District, village of Alekseyevka, Russian, citizen of the USSR, non-party, education: four grades, single, previously convicted in 1958 under the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR of March 8, 1958, “On Strengthening Criminal Liability for Persistent Violation of Passport Regulations,” and in June 1960 under Article 92 of the 1926 RSFSR Criminal Code, prior to arrest employed at Undol station, Vladimir Region, as an unskilled laborer, residing at Undol station, Karl Marx St., house 2, committed for trial under Article 107 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code;
Klinina Fedosya Nikolayevna, born in 1898, native of Ryazan Region, Starozhilovsky District, village of Ugorskoye, Russian, citizen of the USSR, education: three grades, non-party, married, not previously convicted, not working, dependent on her husband and children, residing in the village of Sevastyanovo, Orekhovo-Zuyevo District, committed for trial under Article 107 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code;
Smirnova Maria Ivanovna, born in 1926, native of Kalinin Region, Kirovsky District, village of Litkino, Russian, citizen of the USSR, non-party, education: seven grades, unmarried, not previously convicted, working as a weaver at the Drezna factory, Orekhovo-Zuyevo District, residing in Drezna, Parkovaya St., house 5 – dormitory, committed for trial under Article 107 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code;
Ryakhovsky Vasily Vasilyevich, born in 1929, native of Ryazan Region, Dankovsky District, village of Perekhval, Russian, citizen of the USSR, education: four grades, non-party, married, with four children ranging in age from less than one month to five years, previously convicted under Article 58-10 of the 1926 RSFSR Criminal Code to ten years of deprivation of freedom. In 1955, his sentence was reduced to five years and he was released with the criminal record expunged. Prior to arrest, he worked in the Moscow Metro as a track worker, residing at Zagoryanskaya station, Shchyolkovsky District, Moscow Region, Tchaikovsky St., house 4, committed for trial under Article 227 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code;
Korchagin Ivan Mikhailovich, born in 1926, native of Voronezh Region, Sadovsky District, village of Brodovskoye, Russian, citizen of the USSR, non-party, married, no children, education: five grades, not previously convicted, prior to arrest employed at the Likhachev Plant as a loader, residing in the settlement of Razvilka, Ulyanovsky District, Moscow Region, house 8, apt. 3, committed for trial under Article 227 of the 1960 RSFSR Criminal Code.
The Judicial Collegium, having examined the materials of the judicial investigation, questioned the defendants and witnesses in the court session, heard the expert’s conclusion, the speeches of the prosecutor, public prosecutors, and defense attorneys, HAS ESTABLISHED: ……..……………………………………………………………………………………… In Moscow and the Moscow Region, for a long time, in violation of the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR of April 8, 1929, “On Religious Associations,” an illegal fanatical sect of Pentecostals-shakers has been operating. The defendants: Fedotov, Afonin, Korchagin, and Ryakhovsky, being leaders and preachers of this group, systematically held illegal gatherings and prayer meetings of sectarians in private homes, communal apartments, and forest areas, accompanied by wild howls, weeping, and shouting of incomprehensible words, shaking of the head and hands, i.e., they arranged the performance of fanatical rites that drove people into a frenzy.
Despite repeated warnings from representatives of Soviet authorities and the public to cease the gatherings, the defendants did not react. Moreover, Fedotov even allowed resistance and hooligan behavior. At the prayer meetings organized under the leadership of Fedotov, Afonin, Korchagin, and Ryakhovsky, with the participation of active female sectarians – the defendants Klinina and Smirnova, sermons were preached and conversations held among citizens about renouncing “earthly life,” about the desire to enter “eternal life,” about the imminent “end of the world,” and each time the performance of fanatical rites took place – the extreme behavior characteristic only of Pentecostals, i.e., “praying in the Holy Spirit.” At the meetings, the sectarians were instilled with the idea that they must pray “in the Holy Spirit,” that is, so fervently until “the Lord’s gift” descends upon them to speak in other tongues – understandable only to God, to prophesy, and perform other signs.
Desiring to achieve this and under the influence of the defendants’ preaching, the sect participants, through self-suggestion, tormented themselves with wild weeping, cries for the forgiveness of sins, convulsive movements, head shaking, and thereby drove themselves into ecstasy and frenzy. Citing the Gospel, the defendants in their sermons and conversations called on their fellow believers to involve new people in the sect, in particular, youth and minor children, to renounce earthly goods, not to go to clubs, cinemas, not to listen to the radio.
It was confirmed in the court session that the performance of fanatical religious rites caused mental disorders and the development of mental illnesses in some sectarians, and some ended their lives by suicide.
It has been indisputably established that all the activities of the Pentecostal sect are criminal, as they are associated with causing harm to the health of Soviet citizens and involving minors in it. And its most active organizers and participants, the defendants in the present case, committed the following crimes.
1
The defendant Afonin, being a preacher of the Pentecostal sect in the towns of Pavlov-Posad and Drezna, with the help of an active sect member – the defendant Klinina, drew into the sect and then drove to suicide a worker – a weaver at the Drezna factory and mother of four children – A.V. Kapustina.
The late Kapustina, before being drawn into the sect, was a good homemaker and caring mother, a cheerful, sociable, and joyful woman. However, immediately after attending prayer meetings in the sect, her character changed drastically. She became taciturn; often going to gatherings of sect participants, she would lock her young children in house No. 4, leaving them to their own devices. On Sundays Kapustina would disappear at sect gatherings for whole days and return from there exhausted and worn out. Such behavior of Kapustina was the result of the pernicious influence exerted by the defendant Afonin and his assistant and active sect member in the town of Drezna – the defendant Klinina, who in their sermons and talks systematically instilled in Kapustina and other sect participants that for the sake of eternal life and the Lord God one must be ready for any sacrifice.
Under the influence of such sermons, Kapustina attempted to push her young daughter under a motor vehicle, and on another occasion – to push her off a cliff into a river. Only the resourcefulness of the vehicle’s driver and the intervention of citizens prevented Kapustina from carrying out her religious plans – to sacrifice her daughter to God – for the sake of “eternal life” and “forgiveness of sins.” The more frequent leaving of the children without supervision, as well as Kapustina’s organization of “prayer meetings” in her own house in the presence of the children, created grounds for quarrels within the family.
Under the influence of her husband, relatives, and neighbors, Kapustina sometimes refused to attend the sect’s gatherings. Then the defendants Afonin and Klinina, exploiting Kapustina’s religious dependence, demanded that she attend prayers, threatening all sorts of punishments if she departed from the faith. As a result of the sermons and talks by Afonin and Klinina, as well as her systematic performance of the fanatical ritual of praying in the Holy Spirit, i.e., to the point of frenzy, Kapustina declared to her relatives that she would never depart from this faith. Being under the influence of religious intoxication by the defendants Afonin and Klinina, as well as internal contradictions, Kapustina, seeing no way out of the situation and being in a depressive state, on December 31, 1955, committed suicide by throwing herself under a train near the Drezna railway station.
2
The defendant Afonin, jointly with his accomplices in the sect – the defendants Fedotov, Klinina, and Smirnova – using the religious dependence of a worker at the Drezna factory, Nina Nikolaeva, drove the latter to suicide. This crime was committed by the defendants under the following circumstances. The young worker-weaver Nina Nikolaeva, after graduating from the factory training school (FZU), came to work in the town of Drezna and after some time was drawn into the Pentecostal sect. At the factory training school and during her first period at the factory in Drezna, Nikolaeva was a sociable girl, participated in amateur arts activities, and was a decent production worker.
However, after she came under the influence of the sect, Nikolaeva began to eat poorly and became withdrawn and depressed in character. From malnutrition and exhaustion at the gatherings, she began to work badly, to dress poorly, declaring that she no longer needed anything, that it was pleasing to the Lord God. Nikolaeva stopped attending the club, the cinema, and refused other cultural entertainments.
The defendants Afonin and Fedotov in their sermons, and the defendants Klinina and Smirnova in their talks, instilled in Nikolaeva a striving for “eternal life” and suggested renouncing all earthly goods. This influence intensified even more when Nikolaeva was placed to live in one room with an active sect member, the defendant Maria Smirnova. The latter constantly watched over Nina Nikolaeva, forcing her to read divine books and taking her to gatherings. The defendants Klinina and Smirnova often took Nikolaeva to Pentecostal meetings in Moscow to listen to the stronger brothers – the defendant Fedotov – where fanatical rituals of praying “in the Holy Spirit” were performed.
In their sermons and talks, the defendants Afonin, Fedotov, and Klinina instilled in church members the need to imitate Jesus Christ, who offered Himself as a sacrifice. Under the influence of such sermons, the fanatical sect member, the defendant Smirnova, forced Nikolaeva to read divine books, took her away to gatherings, where the fanatical prayer ritual drove Nikolaeva to frenzy.
3
The defendant Fedotov, being the leader of the Pentecostal sect in Moscow and the Moscow Region, continuing active work despite warnings from representatives of the authorities, on April 16, 1960, organized a gathering of sectarians at his home. In a small room, he gathered a large number of people who had come from different places. When representatives of the public and a police officer arrived at the house where the sectarians had gathered to ascertain the reason for the large crowd of people, the defendant Fedotov refused to comply with the demands of the authorities’ representatives and to go to the police station. When the defendant Fedotov was taken by the arms to be led to the police station, he broke free, kicked out the terrace window frame, and, wishing to gain support among the church members, shouted:
“Look what the Komsomol members are doing to me!”
Thus, the defendant Fedotov violated public order, offered resistance to representatives of the authorities, i.e., engaged in hooliganism.
4
The defendant Fedotov, being a religiously fanatical person, with the aim of establishing unlimited power over the sect participants, on July 21, 1960, summoned A.M. Krasina to himself and, using her religious dependence, demanded that she sacrifice, i.e., kill, her twelve-year-old daughter.
This crime was committed by the defendant Fedotov under the following circumstances. Krasina was drawn into the sect led by Fedotov in 1958. Having summoned her for a talk through the sectarian Boldina, the defendant Fedotov began to accuse her of committed sins: that she disclosed the secrets of the sect, that she sent her daughter to a pioneer camp. Further, the defendant Fedotov demanded that Krasina, in atonement for her sins before God, sacrifice her only daughter, i.e., kill her by a method of her own choosing. The defendant Fedotov ordered Krasina to tell at the next gathering on Sunday, July 24, 1960, what she had done with her daughter.
Fearing for her life and not wishing to kill her daughter, citizen Krasina, not knowing how to act, decided to appeal to the sect members on July 24, 1960, with repentance for her sins. At the gathering, she told the sectarians that Fedotov was demanding that she sacrifice her daughter, i.e., kill her. The most fanatical sectarians, in particular the defendant Klinina and others who were dependent on the defendant Fedotov, began to call Krasina “Judas” for having betrayed the secret. And on July 19, Fedotov was arrested.
5
The defendant Ryakhovsky is one of the leaders of the illegal fanatical Pentecostal sect, whose activities are connected with causing harm to the health of citizens. Continuing to lead illegal gatherings of sectarians despite repeated warnings from representatives of the authorities, the defendant Ryakhovsky did not cease his criminal activities even after the introduction of the new Criminal Code, Article 227, which provides for criminal liability for such activities.
Ryakhovsky organized a gathering of sectarians in November 1960 in the town of Noginsk at the apartment of Bashmakova; in December 1960 – in the village of Leonikha, Shchelkovo District, Moscow Region. On June 16, 1960, Pentecostal sectarians from other regions of the Soviet Union gathered at Ryakhovsky’s apartment, in particular from the city of Stalino, Ukrainian SSR, from Astrakhan, and other places.
Not ceasing his criminal activities, the defendant Ryakhovsky on January 2, 1961, organized and led a gathering of Pentecostals in the town of Balashikha at the apartment of the sectarian E.S. Desyatova, of which an act was drawn up by representatives of the public.
6
The defendant Korchagin is one of the leaders of the Pentecostal sect. Despite warnings from representatives of the authorities and the public, he did not cease his activities and intensified the organization of sectarian gatherings after Fedotov’s arrest. In his sermons, Korchagin continued to instill in sect members the necessity of practicing the fanatical religious ritual of “praying in the Holy Spirit” until people began to speak “in tongues,” i.e., he continued activities connected with causing harm to the health of citizens. Despite repeated warnings, the defendant Korchagin did not cease his activities even after the introduction of the new Criminal Code and after the essence of Article 227 of the RSFSR Criminal Code had been explained to him at a workers’ meeting.
On September 2, the defendant Korchagin led a gathering of Pentecostals in Moscow at the apartment of citizen Leontyeva at: Zubarev Lane, house 10, i.e., committed a crime under Article 227 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.
At the court hearing, the defendant Afonin did not plead guilty and stated that he could not have driven the citizens Kapustina and Nikolaeva to suicide, since it is not said in the Word of God to push people to suicide. Furthermore, Afonin said that at the time of Kapustina’s and Nikolaeva’s suicides he was not in the town of Pavlov-Posad. However, the judicial panel considers that the guilt of the defendant Afonin in driving Kapustina and Nikolaeva to suicide has been fully proven.
The defendant Afonin, residing in the town of Pavlov-Posad, did not work anywhere for a long time and exercised leadership over the church. Collecting money from sectarians together with the defendant Klinina, he essentially drugged them, while he himself led a parasitic way of life. By systematically reading sermons about renouncing “earthly life” and striving for “eternal life” through the performance of the fanatical religious ritual “praying in the Holy Spirit,” the defendant Afonin thereby drove the citizens Kapustina and Nikolaeva to suicide.
Afonin’s guilt is also confirmed by the conclusions of the forensic-medical and forensic-psychiatric expert examinations, Afonin’s own admissions that he read sermons, and the testimonies of witnesses: Bakin, Sidorenkova, Bubnov, Shadrina, Kapustin, Petrova, Karpova, and other materials of the case. As for Afonin’s arguments that he was not in Pavlov-Posad before Kapustina’s and Nikolaeva’s suicides, these arguments cannot be taken into consideration.
The defendant Afonin for a long time, right up to his arrest, resided in the Moscow Region, and his trips to Vilnius and other cities were short-term.
The defendant Klinina did not plead guilty to driving Kapustina and Nikolaeva to suicide and stated that the Gospel forbids committing such deeds.
The judicial panel considers that the guilt of the defendant Klinina in driving Nina Nikolaeva to suicide has found its full confirmation. As established by the judicial investigation, the defendant Klinina played an active role in the sect and was, in essence, the assistant of the defendants Afonin and Fedotov in the town of Drezna. Klinina collected monetary funds from the Pentecostal sectarians and was the treasurer. During a search, 2400 rubles were seized from her – according to the new exchange rate, 240 rubles – collected from the members of the sect.
Conducting talks with Nikolaeva, the defendant Klinina instilled in her the thought that it was impossible to leave the sect. Klinina’s guilt is also confirmed by the conclusions of the forensic-medical and forensic-psychiatric expert examinations, the testimonies of witnesses: Sidorenkova, Dudareva, Gmyzova, Petrova, Karpova, Shadrina, and other materials of the case.
As for the episode involving driving Kapustina to suicide, it is to be excluded from the charges brought against Klinina on the following grounds. In accordance with the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of November 1, 1957, “On Amnesty to Mark the 40th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution,” women over 55 years of age were released from punishment (Article 2, point b, and Article 5 of the Decree). The defendant Klinina at that time was 59 years old. Therefore, the defendant Klinina cannot bear criminal responsibility for driving Kapustina to suicide.
At the court hearing, the defendant Smirnova did not plead guilty to driving Nikolaeva to suicide. The judicial panel considers that Smirnova’s guilt has found its full confirmation. Smirnova was a fanatical Pentecostal sectarian; she systematically instilled in Nikolaeva thoughts about “earthly life,” forced her to pray even at night, took her away for entire days to sectarian gatherings, where the performance of fanatical religious rituals drove Nikolaeva to frenzy. If Nikolaeva occasionally had doubts and showed interest in social life, the defendant Smirnova, using her influence, threatened Nikolaeva with all sorts of “God’s punishments” if she departed from the sect.
Using her religious fanaticism, Smirnova skillfully drew other persons into the sect as well. In particular, Smirnova’s mother, Feodosia Andreevna, who had been drawn into the sect, committed a grave crime in 1955 in Kalinin Region on the grounds of religious fanaticism – she killed her 11‑month‑old grandson and inflicted severe injuries on another, five‑year‑old grandson, for which she was sentenced to be shot (volume 3 – case materials).
Smirnova’s guilt in driving Nikolaeva to suicide is confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses: Dudareva, Gmyzova, Kopytina, Petrova, as well as by the conclusions of the forensic-medical and forensic-psychiatric expert examinations, the posthumous note of Nikolaeva, and other materials of the case.
The reference by the defendants Afonin, Fedotov, Klinina, and Smirnova to the fact that Nikolaeva had a head injury and therefore became ill is implausible and is contradicted by the materials of the case.
The defendant Fedotov pleaded guilty only partially – under Article 206, part 2, of the RSFSR Criminal Code – categorically denying his guilt in driving Nikolaeva to suicide and in inciting Krasina to kill her daughter.
The judicial panel considers that the guilt of the defendant Fedotov has been fully proven on all counts of the charges brought.
Fedotov’s guilt in committing hooliganism is confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses: Preobrazhensky, Kosynkin, as well as by the acts of representatives of the authorities and the public (vol. 1, case files 40, 42, 43).
The defendant Fedotov is the leader of the Pentecostal sect and is regarded as a “stronger brother” among the preachers. Leaders of Pentecostal sectarian groups from other republics and regions of the USSR came to his apartment.
The guilt of the defendant Fedotov in driving Nikolaeva to suicide is confirmed by the fact that he is the leader and preacher of an illegal religious group and organized sectarian gatherings at which Nina Nikolaeva was present. At the so-called prayers, a fanatical religious ritual was performed which drove Nikolaeva to ecstasy. Attendance at Fedotov’s sermons influenced Nikolaeva’s psyche and served as a cause of her suicide. His guilt is also confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses: Bubnov, Bakin, Sidorenkov, Semenets, Desyatin, and the conclusions of the forensic-medical and forensic-psychiatric expert examinations.
The guilt of the defendant Fedotov in inciting Krasina to kill her daughter is confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses. Krasina, in her testimony before the judicial panel, stated in detail that she has a 12‑year‑old daughter. The judicial panel assesses Krasina’s testimony as objective and plausible. Fedotov’s guilt is also confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses: M.V. Belova, D.A. Pupkova, Makovsky, partly Frolov, as well as by the act drawn up on July 24, 1960 (case file 177, vol. 1), and other materials of the case. The judicial panel assesses the testimonies of witnesses Boldina and Frolov critically on the grounds that they are active fanatical sectarians and are themselves in religious dependence on Fedotov.
At the court hearing, the defendants Ryakhovsky and Korchagin did not plead guilty under Article 227 of the RSFSR Criminal Code and stated that on January 2, 1961, they were at prayers and read the Gospel, but did not cause harm to anyone. Meanwhile, the judicial panel considers that the guilt of the defendants has found its full confirmation in the court hearing and in the materials of the case, and is confirmed by the testimonies of witnesses – eyewitnesses to the gathering of January 2, 1961 – as well as by the minutes of workers’ meetings at Grain Depot No. 31 at Biriulevo station and at the Likhachev Automobile Plant dated January 3.
The guilt is also confirmed by the personal explanations of Ryakhovsky and Korchagin. The defendants Ryakhovsky and Korchagin deliberately continued activities causing harm to the health of citizens even after January 1, 1961, i.e., after the introduction of the new Criminal Code and the explanation of Article 227 of the RSFSR Criminal Code.
The judicial panel considers that the guilt of all defendants in the crimes committed is also confirmed by the material evidence – the newsreel documentary film “This Alarms Everyone,” attached to the present case.
In determining the measure of punishment for the defendants, the judicial panel takes into account the gravity of the crimes committed and the personalities of the defendants.
On the basis of the aforesaid, the judicial panel, guided by Articles 301, 302, and 303 of the RSFSR Code of Criminal Procedure,
HAS SENTENCED:
………………………………………………………………………………………………
Mikhail Zinovievich Afonin, under Article 107 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1960), to deprivation of liberty for a term of five years.
Fedosya Nikolaevna Klinina, under Article 107 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1960), to deprivation of liberty for a term of two years.
Maria Ivanovna Smirnova, under Article 107 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1960), to deprivation of liberty for a term of five years.
Ivan Petrovich Fedotov, under Article 107 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1960), to deprivation of liberty for a term of four years; him also, under Article 206 part 2 of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1960), to deprivation of liberty for a term of three years; him also, under Article 17‑136, part 1, point (a) of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1926), to deprivation of liberty for a term of ten years. By virtue of Article 40 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, on the totality of the crimes committed, the final measure of punishment for Ivan Petrovich Fedotov shall be determined under Article 17‑136, part 1, point (a) of the RSFSR Criminal Code (1926) – deprivation of liberty for a term of ten years.
Vasily Vasilievich Ryakhovsky, under Article 227, to deprivation of liberty for a term of three years, without subsequent exile, and with confiscation of property.
Ivan Mikhailovich Korchagin, under Article 227, to deprivation of liberty for a term of five years, without subsequent exile, and with confiscation of property.
In accordance with Article 25 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, after serving the sentence, additional punishment in the form of exile for a term of two years shall be imposed.
To count the time of preliminary detention from November 12, 1960, towards the term of punishment for Mikhail Zinovievich Afonin.
To count the time of preliminary detention from July 29, 1960, towards the term of punishment for Ivan Petrovich Fedotov.
To count the time of preliminary detention from January 18, 1961, towards the term of punishment for Vasily Vasilievich Ryakhovsky.
To count the time of preliminary detention from January 21, 1961, towards the term of punishment for Ivan Mikhailovich Korchagin.
Physical evidence containing records related to the case – notebooks with records of religious content, letters of Klinina, the book of religious “psalms” belonging to the defendant Smirnova, the Gospel seized from Klinina – as of no value, shall be destroyed.
The money in the sum of 240 rubles (new type) seized from the defendant Klinina, as acquired through non-labor means, shall be turned over to the state revenue.
The measure of restraint for M.Z. Afonin, I.P. Fedotov, V.V. Ryakhovsky, and I.M. Korchagin shall remain as before – commitment to custody.
The measure of restraint for F.N. Klinina and M.I. Smirnova shall be changed – they shall be taken into custody in the courtroom.
The documentary film “This Alarms Everyone” shall be kept in the documentary film studio.
The sentence may be appealed to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR within seven days from the date of delivery of a copy of the sentence, or challenged by the prosecutor within the same period from the day of its pronouncement.
Presiding Justice Kotov
Order 40. Print run of 100 copies.
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