Radchuk Is Not Only a Snitch but Also Robbed the Families of Prisoners
Radchuk was not only a snitch but also robbed prisoners’ families
Such facts, which were printed in an interview with Preobrazhensky and B. Perchatkin — if one were to take this material seriously, it would be time to write books about them.
What has been printed about Mr. S. Radchuk is known to half the Christian world. Back in 1988, when I was a refugee in Italy, Brother Grigory Vashchenko came to visit me from Germany. Even then, publicly, he recounted all those events that I read about twenty years later. Later, sometime around 1989, when I was already in Canada, Grigory Vashchenko came to visit us in Canada. While visiting us, he again told in conversation about that incident that happened back then in his work brigade with Slavik Radchuk. True, he called him not Slavik but Rostislav, but that did not change matters. And a year ago, when we spoke on the telephone, Brother G. Vashchenko again touched on this long-forgotten subject. In all three tellings, he never once added anything new, as happens when a person tells an untruth, fantasizes, or wants to slander someone. Nor did he ever omit a single detail from what he had said before. The event that happened in his brigade at that time was etched in his memory as if photographed. That only happens to a person in a special state of shock. And I think that to see a young lad, not yet mature enough for the serious work of being a plumber (and a real plumber he never was), next to a KGB major — and not just next to him, but in his car — was a shock for G. Vashchenko himself. So the material about Mr. S. Radchuk from Nakhodka has been circulating around the world for two decades. But those were only his first steps in that direction. And further: “the deeper into the forest, the more firewood.” But my testimony is not about Nakhodka. I had personal grievances against him. I write “former” because, as a Christian, I have forgiven him that deed. But since he now says he was slandered, that in reality he is not like that, that he is a saint, I am simply compelled to tell the truth about him, because he has never repented of anything before anyone at any time.
In the late seventies, as is now known to all, a stream of people appeared among Pentecostals striving for emigration on religious grounds. But the KGB and the subordinate authorities tried with frantic zeal to destroy it. All forces were thrown into this, both the overt KGB powers and the covert, corrupt agent network. Under various pretexts — I do not want to write about all of them in this article — many of our brothers were excommunicated from the church because they unyieldingly sought emigration. In addition, an unspoken decree was given by the KGB apparatus to the church leadership: not to perform marriages for persons entering married life unless they renounced emigration. It was even forbidden to bury a deceased brother or sister if they died without writing a renunciation of emigration. Not to administer water baptism to anyone listed among those who had applied for emigration. This list could go on, but I will stop at these. Therefore, so that we might have ministers for all these services, as well as for other questions of our emigrant life, in 1980 at our second conference, which was held in Vilnius, a Fraternal Council of Churches was elected that could take on all these responsibilities. I, V. Shilyuk, was elected chairman of the Council of Churches of Evangelical Christian-Baptists. B. Perchatkin was secretary.
Over the following two or three years, the key figures — secretary B. Perchatkin, his deputy Eduard Bulakh, chairman V. Shilyuk, deputy I. Fedorchuk, as well as members of the Council — were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment.
I was tried as a slanderer of the Soviet system and as an organizer of illegal worship services, which they then called “gatherings.” But about people like me, including myself, many of our friends in the West knew. As best they could, at the risk of their own lives, they tried to support our families materially so we could survive. At the end of my term in 1985, I was released from prison, and in 1987 I received permission to leave the USSR. At that same time, Pastor Nikolai Shevchik from Riga also received permission to leave. We were acquainted, especially with his wife Slava. She was an energetic sister, and during our meetings in Moscow, while we were working on one task, we would assign her to go to important meetings with people such as Andrei Sakharov and others. Therefore, we knew each other.
Brother Nikolai was leaving the USSR a week before me. I decided to see him off and traveled with my wife to Lviv for what we then thought would be our last meeting, because Brother Nikolai intended to stay in Europe, while my plans included America.
In the conversation, we touched on my time in chains. Sister Slava, in the simplicity of her heart, began as if to give an account before me and my wife. She started to say that all the material support they received underground from the West for the prisoners, including for me, they passed on to the prisoners’ families at the designated address. All the aid you received addressed to you, we gave all of it to you; we concealed nothing.
My wife, having listened to Sister Slava’s account, and as if to confirm, asked again through whom they had transmitted this material support. Sister Slava, without any ulterior motive, added: “We passed everything through Brother Slavik Radchuk. He would take it all from us and transport it himself.” — “Thank you, Sister Slava, for your care for us,” my wife answered her. “But neither I nor our family received absolutely anything from Slavik. And generally — we received nothing through anyone else either, that could have been passed on from the Baltic region. We thank you,” my wife again thanked Sister Slava, “that you were concerned about us, but we made no use of any of it.”
“What! Is it possible? It can’t be! No, no, it cannot be!” Sister Slava was shocked by my wife’s answer, finding no further words to explain.
Sister Slava insisted that this could not be, but that is exactly how it was. Slavik Radchuk stole everything they passed on to the prisoners’ families, without even suspecting that Slavik was capable of such an act.
I think that any honest Christian would also be shocked to hear such news at a time when nothing can be changed about it.
At that time, my wife worked as a cleaner. With a record like mine and my entire family’s, she couldn’t find a better job. She earned 60 rubles for this work. Three little children (our son was four years old then) and a wife, four of them in all — on 60 rubles a month! And even from those 60 rubles, we had to deduct rent, utilities, gas, electricity, and water. About 45 rubles remained. One and a half rubles per day for four people… Is it possible to live on a ruble and a half per day for three years? Oh, how necessary that outside support was.
I think: who is the greater thief? The one who steals a million from a billionaire, or the one who steals the last piece of bread from a hungry person out of greed?
In the camp where thieves, looters, and other criminals sat, it was a great sin, a great offense to steal someone’s food. And yet they did not live in plenty there. But if it happened that someone stole a bread ration, the prisoners themselves would punish such a person very severely.
To steal the last piece of bread from my hungry children in order to satisfy one’s insatiability, while he himself lived merrily and carelessly — such an act could be committed not just by a non-Christian, but by a person (if such can be called a person) who has completely lost human dignity. And after all this, to call oneself a great and honored servant of God — only a blasphemer can do that.
Vasily Shilyuk. London, Canada.