The Last Man in Russia: The Struggle to Save a Dying Nation (20 page)

down the walls and tear the bars

from the windows.

He

launched

his

mass

discussions in December 1973, and

by the beginning of January all of

Moscow seemed to know about

them. Thanks to their fame, we have

several different accounts. One

dissident wrote, ‘People spoke about

them who were very far from the

Church: professors and writers,

believers in the transmigration of

souls, and the same number of

people who believed in nothing;

followers of yogic philosophy and

the same number of people who

followed

nothing.

And

most

importantly, young people: kind

Russian boys, wonderful Russian

girls, fervent Jewish youths with fire

in their eyes, excellent, determined

and tough Jewish girls, Baptists and

Zen Buddhists, Anthroposophists

and Marxists.’

Ogorodnikov had told me how

old women had feared him when he

first entered their church, and that

generation clash was the first topic

tabled for discussion in that first

discussion.

Perhaps

it

was

Ogorodnikov himself who asked

about it. Perhaps it was an

experience shared by many of the

swallows of this new religious

spring. The discussions were written

down, typed up and passed around

from hand to hand. They were

hugely popular, and they confirmed

Father Dmitry as the star of the

religious dissidents. In one account,

he is hailed as ‘the bravest and one

of the best men I have ever seen’.

The worshippers marvelled that he

should have the courage to speak up

fortnight after fortnight, apparently

with no fear of the consequences that

surely awaited him.

‘Why does he do it? I can’t

understand how he continues,’ a

friend of one chronicler remarked.

‘He

is

quite

difference

from

Solzhenitsyn. I have spoken to them

both, Solzhenitsyn simply was afraid

of nothing and nobody, but this man

is afraid, all the time. Yet he carries

on.’

Soon enough the records of

Father Dmitry’s sermons slipped

under the Iron Curtain and into the

West. Emigré publishers printed

th em , bound them and sent them

back by their secret couriers. That

helped cement Father Dmitry’s

position, especially when his name

began to feature on the B B C and

the Voice of America, the radio

stations that dissidents listened to in

private and called simply ‘the

Voices’.

The

format

Father

Dmitry

created was simple and brave. Again

and again, he was asked to help a

parishioner trapped in a pit of

despair: ‘I get drunk till I pass out –

so I can forget. But once I sober up,

the depression will be back, only

stronger.’ These people had been

suffering

alone,

unable

to

understand why they were so

miserable, unable to talk about it,

and suddenly they learned that

everyone else felt the same way. ‘I

was a wasted individual. Alcohol

had destroyed me. There was no

light, no joy, no rest. My soul was

destroyed.’

In his answers Father Dmitry

repeatedly appealed for his hearers

to trust each other. The authorities,

he said, were splitting the molecules

and compounds of society, trying to

create moral, domestic and social

atoms. Many of his listeners were

clearly alarmed by what sounded

like a political campaign.

‘What are you doing? These

interviews are propaganda and

agitation, and they’re forbidden.

They can get you for that,’ said one

question he read out. It gave him the

opportunity to express his belief that

their faith in God and each other

could defeat alcoholism and despair,

and to voice his defiance of anyone

who tried to stop him.

‘Atheism has corrupted people.

Drunkenness, debauchery and the

breakdown of the family have all

appeared. There are many traitors

betraying each other and our

country. Atheism can’t hold this

back. Faith is what’s needed . . . If

this is so, then I must preach. If they

forbid me to preach from the pulpit,

I’ll speak from outside the pulpit. If

they throw me in jail, I’ll preach

even there. Preaching’s my main

job.’

Although

he

thought

the

Christian God was the answer to the

crisis they were living through, he

also argued that his lessons applied

equally to non-Orthodox believers

and he appealed to them too.

‘A

kind

of

unwritten

brotherhood is forming. Believers

and

non-believers

are

coming,

Orthodox and non-Orthodox –

Roman Catholics and evangelical

Christians,’ he said. And he reached

out across that great divide within

Russian society that had provoked so

much violence for so long. He talked

to the Jews. It was an ambitious

attempt to heal all of society,

regardless of who was in it.

By the 1970s, Jewish activists

were campaigning for emigration to

Israel. The Soviet government,

however, did not wish for many of

Russia’s best-trained specialists to

work in a capitalist country and

denied them permission, instead

sacking them from their jobs and

turning them into pariahs. Many of

these passionate young people found

a home in Father Dmitry’s parish,

feeling no contradiction between

their own religion and his inclusive

doctrine.

‘I have many times heard what

Russians say about Jews, that they

have a conspiracy, that they are

perfidious and only do evil, that

these are not people, but demons,’

Father Dmitry wrote. ‘And I have

many times heard what Jews say

about Russians, that they are brutal

Black Hundred nationalists, that they

are ready to kill all Jews, and are

scared of them, and assign some

kind of power to them . . . Where is

this

misunderstanding

from?

Relations between Russians and

Jews

have

become

particularly

strained. O Lord, open their minds

and hearts, show them that they are

brothers and must love each other.’

It was intoxicating. By his fifth

or sixth session, the church was

packed to capacity and his followers

rigged up loudspeakers in the yard

outside. Hundreds of people came

hours early to be sure of a place.

‘There is a choir, which sings a

little flat and, at the back of the

church, an open coffin containing

the body of an old woman, from

which comes a strong smell of

spices. It is very hot, and the hat of

the woman standing in front of me is

made of some angora-like substance,

which is constantly going up my

nose. Somewhere in the church a

mad woman is barking like a dog

and pawing the ground. I wonder if

I will be able to last out the service

without fainting,’ wrote a visitor.

It sounds like a medieval church,

like a sermon in England during the

Civil War. The ferment and the

excitement gripped the hearers as

they heard spiritual ideas discussed

openly for the first time in their

lives. Father Dmitry criticized the

police, begged people not to drink,

feud or lie, and all the time called on

his parishioners to unite among

themselves and trust each other.

‘As the communists use the

slogan “Workers of the world,

unite”, we must say “Believers of the

world, unite”. We must create the

Kingdom of God here on earth,’ he

said. ‘If you do not defend others,

then you are not defending yourself,

and you are leaving the field open

for attack.’

It could not last. There was no

way the authorities would allow this

defiance to continue in their capital

city. Dissidents could just about meet

in flats around Moscow to whisper

their heresy, but this was too much.

To gather every fortnight and hear

instructions to reject communist

authority was close to sedition.

The authorities were in a tricky

position, however. They feared

criticism from the West, and could

not arrest a priest for preaching the

gospel, because that was his job and

he was doing it in a church. Father

Dmitry’s appeals were rousing: ‘I’m

looking at all of you here. If we

were all armed to do God’s work,

nothing would be impossible for us.

So let’s all help each other.

Communicate Christian knowledge

to each other, support each other in

misfortune and temptations, and in

general manifest an active love for

each other.’ But they were not

treasonous.

In late April, he gave the

authorities the opening they needed

by reading out a question that

accused the patriarch of ‘grovelling

before the authorities’. Even though

Father Dmitry’s answer defended the

patriarch as a man surrounded by

enemies, this was too much.

A fortnight later, on 4 May 1974,

when the faithful crammed into the

church to hear his tenth fortnightly

discussion, they were disappointed.

The patriarch had banned him from

talking to them until he had

explained himself. Two weeks later

he stood before them again, with his

beard and his blue eyes, but without

his

priest’s

robes,

which

the

churchwarden refused to hand over.

He would not be silenced,

however. ‘The condemned man’, he

said, ‘is allowed a last word.’ He

told his parishioners that the Church

authorities had sent him away to a

new parish in a distant village. He

could keep preaching as much as he

liked, but all of Moscow would not

be his parish any more.

‘The atheists are using the

bishops’ power to smother the

Church, to dispose of those who

don’t please them,’ he said, in his

last words to the church of St

Nicholas as its priest.

His congregation complained

bitterly, sending letters to the

patriarch and the bishops. They said

they had found spiritual freedom in

his church, that he had comforted

them in a comfortless place, but to

no avail.

‘I am a Jewish woman,’ wrote

one

worshipper.

‘Previously

I

thought that Orthodoxy was Jewish

pogroms and chauvinism. Having

heard Father Dmitry’s sermons, I

understood that true Christianity and

Orthodoxy preach fraternal love to

all people. I understood that God is

love. Father Dmitry’s words opened

this path to me.’

It is clear that Father Dmitry’s

message had got through to his

parishioners if not to his superiors.

The patriarch and the security

services felt threatened by him, and

had taken prompt action to ensure

that his influence was contained.

Ogorodnikov

and

his

fellow

worshippers would need to go to

considerable inconvenience if they

were to keep hearing his sermons

out in the villages.

‘A whole lifetime has gone by. It

was 1973, so almost forty years have

passed, but it was an important,

strong thing. People gathered whom

you never saw in church. Not just

intellectuals,

but

others,’

Ogorodnikov said at the end of our

conversation.

‘There

were

discussions, and conversations, and

meals.

There

we

created