Anna (1882-1936) and Vladimir (1880-1966) Abrikosov.

THE MOTHER OF GOD CHAPTER RUSSIAN APOSTOLATE.
By Mrs. Gail A. Waterman, T.O.P. Mother of God Chapter West Springfield, Massachusetts U.S.A., and Published in Torch-lites Newsletter beg. Apr-May-June 1995 Dominican Laity St. Joseph Province Newsletter

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE DOMINICAN RUSSIAN APOSTOLIC MISSION

The Dominican Russian Apostolate actually began over 700 years ago. It was inspired by the exhortation St. Dominic (1170-1221) gave to his friars, "We must sow the seed, not hoard it" (Jarret 70). And then he sent them out, two by two, from their safe havens, to all parts of the known world, to become "champions of the faith and the true lights of the world." So you see, it's not hard for me to understand why some Dominicans are both traveler and planter of seeds as they travel the highways and byways.

Like our Lord, Dominic's field of apostolic work, to the very end of his life, was the entire world. Nostalgia for his mission to the pagans found Dominic at the chapter meeting of 1221 organizing "regions that will be bases for undefined missions"--Scandinavia, which opened on to the great North, Poland, becoming to Russia, and Hungary, the gateway to Asia. Dominic's concept of universality defines the reason and need for a direct connection to the papacy, which was the source of all missions, and it gives Dominic's ecclesiastical vision a definitive direction" (Bedouelle 46).

St. Dominic longed to reach Tartary (Russia) but never reached his apostolic goal. "Dominic schemed and toiled to get into Tartary; again and again his blood was shed in the effort to Christianize a nation that had demonstrated time after time that it did not want Christianity" (Dorcy 155-156).

The people of our time know, very well, that over the past 700 years, the seeds of faith have, indeed, been planted in Russia. And Mary, the Mother of God, continues to call her Dominican children to work in her beloved vineyard.

Early 20th century witnessed a revolution that sent Holy Mother Church in Russia reeling back in time to almost 2000 years when the early Christians were murdered, persecuted, and sent to prison rather than deny their faith and belief in the existence of God. The Communist revolution was a total uprising against God. Like the early Christians, the Church in Russia was forced to go underground into the catacombs. "The Communists turned the great Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in St. Petersburg into a museum of atheism. It then became the center of world militant atheism, and the Communist Party's official publications were produced on the printing presses which they installed in the crypt.

“Following the 1917 Revolution, the Communists seized all the Church's treasures and stored them in warehouses, and the use or possession of any article of religious significance was outlawed. In 1936, the Communist destroyed the Cathedral of Our Lady of Kazan in Moscow" (Tindal-Robertson 71) which housed the original Icon of Our Lady of Kazan. While churches burned, Lenin could be heard shouting, "Where is your God now?" And from the rubble and smoke of these smoldering ashes OUR LADY RESPONDED to Lenin's ridicule by appearing on the other side of Europe, at Fatima, and spoke specifically of Russia, promising that "in the end my Immaculate Heart will triumph... Russia will be converted!" Six times she called Western Christendom to prayer, conversion, penance and consecration to her Immaculate Heart, so that Russia would be converted instead of becoming Satan's henchman and the ruin of countless souls. For Our Lady added to her appeal, 'If my requests are heeded, Russia will be converted; if not it will spread its errors throughout the whole world, unleashing wars and religious persecutions. Many good people will be martyred, the Holy Father will have much to suffer and entire peoples will be destroyed'. God confirmed these words with the miracle of the sun" (Tindal-Robertson 80).

Somehow, the original Icon of Our Lady of Kazan was smuggled out of Russia, and in 1950, the year Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption, it was found in Farleigh castle in England. It was recognized as authentic by the Grand Duchess Zenia, and through the tests of experts its true identity was firmly established. In 1963 the Blue Army constructed a large Byzantine chapel in Fatima, Portugal, and duly "redeemed" the priceless Icon enshrined therein, to await its return to "Holy Mother Russia"
Fatima Russia & Pope John Paul II, Timothy Tindal-Robertson 1992).


Living in Moscow at the time of the 1917 revolution was a most outstanding couple, Anna (1882-1936) and Vladimir (1880-1966) Abrikosov.

After reading St. Catherine of Siena's Dialogue and works of Henri Lacordaire, O.P., they wished to learn more about the faith. "After a year in Rome studying theology they were received into the Catholic communion at the Church of the Magdalene in Paris in 1909" (Nichols 165).

Upon their return to Russia, the Abrikosovs found a group of Dominican tertiaries which had been established earlier by a certain Natalie Rozanova. They were received into the Third Order, circa 1911, by Albert Libercier, O.P. of the Muscovite Church of St. Louis.

During the winter of 1910, the Abrikosovs entertained a young seminarian named, Leonid Fedorov (1879-1935) from St. Petersburg. Leonid's widowed mother ran a restaurant much frequented by another convert to Catholicism, Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900). It was through many conversations and discussions that Leonid was inspired to take his faith more seriously, and after high school he entered the St. Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy. Leonid later became 'Exarch of the Greek Catholic Church of Russia. His "overall objective was the corporate reconciliation of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches via that of their respective hierarchies" (Nichols 167). It's not hard to see and compare Soloviev's influence in Leonid's thinking. "Soloviev's apocalyptic ecclesiological speculations included dreams of co-operation between the Tsar, as Christ's representative in his kingly office, and the Pope, his representative in the priestly office" (Nichols 165).

Pope John Paul II writes about Soloviev, "The theology of the Fathers, especially in the East, broke away more and more from Plato and from philosophers in general. Philosophy itself, in the Fathers, ends up in theology (as in the case, for example, in modern times, of Vladimir Soloviev (John Paul II 29)." He was perhaps Russia's greatest philosopher, as well as, poet, and mystic.

In retrospect, Professor J. Joseph Lake (currently teaching Russian Language and Literature, at the University of Massachusetts Amherst) makes the following remarks, "Soloviev's entire work, and his faith were the outcome of three visions of what he called the Eternal Lady, Friend. They were clearly visions of the Mother of God. What she wants for the world, and which might come from the conversion first of Russia, with its long history of deep devotion to the Mother of God. This wish is for unity in One Faith, a unity that Soloviev names "Vseedinstvo" - "All-unity" in Russian. It is this union in the body of Christ which we can all seek to further in our Russian Apostolate."

After a year's novitiate, circa 1913, the Abrikosovs went to Rome to make religious professions. There Pope Pius X bestowed a special blessing on their apostolate to their fellow Russians. "Though they wished to join the Latin rite....Canon Law allowed them to worship in that rite but they would belong to that of the Byzantine-Slavs" (Nichols 164).

Anna clandestinely taught catechism classes, and worked in kindergartens. She established her home in Moscow as a haven for worshippers, and became known as Moscow's Sister Catherine of Siena. On the feast of St. Dominic, 1917, the lady of the house became Mother Ekaterina Sienkaya, with her erstwhile fellow-tertiaries now her religious subjects. She would have a fully-fledged conventual priory of Dominican women, devoted to the intellectual apostolate, in the setting of a Byzantine liturgical life in the Russian tradition" (Nichols 167)

Vladimir was ordained to the Eastern Rite priesthood by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, the Uniate Metropolitan of Lvov, on May 29, 1917. Though Eastern Rite priests can marry, the Abrikosov couple had vowed to live in celibacy.

"Catherine's letters to Vladimir in future years, however, reveal that much true love endured in their relationship to the end. And so far as we know, Mother Ekaterina Sienskaya is the last Dominican sister of the Third Order Regular in Russia. However, we do know that she wore the Dominican habit and carried in a darkening land the torch of truth. In March 1936, Mother Ekaterina died of cancer in a prison camp. Her body was cremated on July 27, 1936" (Swift 29-30).

"It is a Christian truth of wide application that out of suffering, born in an evangelical spirit, does the desert bloom. The suffering which both purified and warmed Mother Ekaterina's heart may also provide a valuable education of feeling for those involved in the ecumenical task today" (Nichols 171).

"Nec Plus, Nec Minus, Nec Aliter: A Brief History of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church and the Russian Catholics"

The following article was excerpted from the website of the The Society of St. John Chrysostom of Ayatriada Rum Katoliki Kilise: http://rumkatkilise.org/necplus.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Reader Methodios Stadnik

Copyright, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2005 All Rights Reserved.
(This is an abridged version of a more detailed work in progress)

The following is a brief summary of the history of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church. For more detailed information, please consult the works listed in the Select Bibliography at the end of this history.

(An introductory note on terminology-- We tend to describe ourselves using a shorthand reference as Russian Catholics and we refer to our church as the Russian Catholic Church. Properly speaking, we should refer to ourselves as Russian Orthodox who are in communion with the Church of Rome, because we are Orthodox in our entire liturgical and spiritual practice according to Holy Tradition of the Byzantine Church and the spiritual traditions of Russian Orthodox Church. The liturgical and spiritual practices of the Russian Orthodox Church and of some of its sister churches may be referred to more generally as the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite, i.e., the Byzantine liturgical and spiritual tradition as received by and adapted to the needs and use of the Slavic peoples. For purposes of the following essay on the history of our church we shall refer to it as the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church and to the members thereof as Russian Catholics.)

The Russian Byzantine Catholic Church traces its institutional origin back to the second half of the nineteenth century in Russia where the philosophy of Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900)had fostered an active debate and interest among various circles of intellectuals in the notions of the universality of the church and Church unity.

It should be noted that when Christianity came to Kievan Rus in 988 A.D., the new Russian Church, following the Byzantine tradition brought from Constantinople, was in full communion with the Holy See of Rome. The events of 1054 did not cause any immediate rupture between the See of Rome and the Russian Church; rather there was a gradual drift apart. Indeed, contact between Rome and Moscow continued. The Russian Church was represented at the Council of Florence in 1439 by Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev and several other Russian clergy. The Russian bishops signed the Act of Union at the Council and they declared the union, which was warmly received by their people, throughout their territories as they returned to Moscow.

Metropolitan Isidore and his retinue arrived in Moscow on March 19, 1441, and on that same day celebrated the Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Ascension in Moscow and promulgated the Union before Tsar Basil II and his court. Four days later, Tsar Basil, motivated by a somewhat xenophobic and nationalistic desire to control the Church and to exclude foreign influences from his domain, had Metropolitan Isidore arrested. However, Isidore managed to escape to the west, apparently with the collusion of Tsar Basil himself. Although the Union was not formally upheld by Tsar Basil or Metropolitan Jonah, whom Tsar Basil appointed as Metropolitan Isidore's successor, it continued to live in the hearts and souls of several Russians and other subjects of the Tsars.

After this time, there were always some Russians who were in communion with the Holy See, albeit small in number and hardly organized. Among these, there were the isolated instances of Russians who chose to become Roman Catholics (Princess Elizabeth Golitsin, Fr. Dmitri Golitsin, S.J.--the "Apostle of Western Pennsylvania"--and Fr. Ivan Martiniov, S.J.,) or those who, retaining their Russian Orthodox tradition, suffered for their belief publicly (Blessed Deacon Peter Artemiev).

However, the more enduring presence was that of the "Starokatoliki," who derived in large part from the supporters of the Servant of God Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev and who were augmented from time to time by the descendants of Greek Catholics from the western parts of Russia, who had been sent into internal exile in the Urals, North Caucausus, or Siberia. Surviving for long periods without benefit of Byzantine Catholic clergy, these believers preserved and nourished as family traditions both their Russianness and their communion with the Holy See. In some respects, these families provided one of the several diverse sources of fertile soil upon which the seeds of Soloviev's thought would flower and bring forth fruit.

According to Soloviev's reasoning, the Russian Orthodox Church is separated from the Holy See only de facto (there was no direct formal breach between the Sees of Rome and Moscow), so that one can profess the totality of Catholic doctrine and be in communion with the Holy See while continuing to be Russian Orthodox. Soloviev was received into communion with the Holy See as a Russian Byzantine Catholic on February 18, 1896 by Fr.Nicholas Tolstoy, the first Russian Byzantine Catholic priest (see below). Soloviev's thought had a profound impact on several generations of Russian society and inspired such later thinkers as Fr. S. Bulgakov, Fr. P. Florensky, Fr. G. Florovsky, N. Berdyaev, L. Karsavin, the poet V. Ivanov, and one could even include Fr. A. Men, among others.

As a result of Soloviev's thought a movement began among various intellectual circles, spanning the aristocracy, the intelligentsia, the growing middle class and later spreading as well amongst farmers and workers, that led various Russians to seek to be in communion with the See of Rome. At first they did this by being received into the Roman Catholic Church, but this solution left all but a few of them thirsting for the spiritual richness of the Byzantine Slavonic tradition.

This tendency began to change as the nineteenth century began to draw to a close. In 1893, Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy, a Russian Orthodox priest, was received into communion with the See of Rome and was incardinated in the Melkite Catholic church. He returned to Moscow and a small community began to form around him. A few years later, it was he who received Vladimir Soloviev into communion with the Holy See. Larger numbers of like-minded individuals began to form circles and communities in St. Petersburg and Moscow and among them were a number of Russian Orthodox clergy, as well as some Russian Old Ritualist or Old Believer priests.

Decisions by these groups of people were taken to enter into communion with the See of Rome and to form themselves into more formal communities and this,was undertaken under the moral protection in part of Prince Peter and Princess Elizabeth Volkonsky and Mlle. Natalia Ushakova, who had influential connections with the authorities. In St. Petersburg, an upper floor room was rented at ul. Polozovaia 12 and outfitted as a chapel and the first priests of the St. Petersburg community, Fr. Ivan Deubner, Fr. Alexander Zerchaninov, and Fr. Eustachios Susalev (the third, a Russian Old Ritualist priest received into communion with Rome) began to hold regular services. The Divine Services were celebrated either according to Russian synodal form or to the Old Ritual, depending on which priest was officiating. In Moscow, Fr. Tolstoy's community began to form around the family of Vladimir and Anna Abrikosov and a chapel was set up in their home.

On May 22, 1908 Fr. Zerchaninov was appointed the Administrator of the Mission to the Russian Catholics. The decree from the Vatican Secretariat of State appointing him specifically states: "Therefore His Holiness commands the aforementioned priest Zerchaninov to observe the laws of the Greek-Slavonic Rite faithfully and in all their integrity, without any admixture from the Latin Rite or any other Rite; he must also see that his subjects, clergy and all other Catholics, do the same."

Subsequently, this command to observe strictly the Russian Orthodox Church's rituals and spirituality was confirmed during an audience with Pope Pius X attended by Mlle. Ushakova.

In response to Mlle. Ushakova's inquiry whether the Russian Catholics should hold firmly to their Russian synodal and Old Ritualist practices, or adapt these to the more "latinized" Galician liturgical forms, Pope Pius replied that the Russian Catholics should adhere to the synodal and Old Rite practices with the now famous response in Latin: "nec plus, nec minus, nec aliter" (no more, no less, no different). This principle continues to be observed by the Russian Catholic communities today.

The first public Divine Liturgy was celebrated, in St. Petersburg, on 29 April 1909 (Pascha, or Easter, on the Julian Calendar) by these three priests. The choir was made up of amateurs. After the Liturgy, they agreed with Fr. Susalev's idea to send the following telegram of Paschal greetings to the Czar:

"On this radiant day of Pascha, the Russian Old Ritualists in communion with the Holy See address their prayers to God for the prosperity of Your Imperial Majesty and His Highness the Grand Duke and Heir."

A cordial response was soon thereafter received from Baron Vladimir Fredericks, Minister of the Court; this response was prominently displayed in the chapel and for some time police harassment abated. In April 1911 Minister Stolypin sent a legal authorization, thanks to the intervention of Mlle. Ushakova. In 1912, the St. Petersburg chapel was moved to ul. Barmaleieva 2 because more space was needed for the growing community.

It should be noted that at this time it was illegal to be Russian and Catholic of the Byzantine rite in Russia, and this remained the case technically after the 1905 Decree on Religious Toleration. The presence amongst the early Russian Catholics of a number of Old Ritualists, whose tradition was recognized by the 1905 Decree, enabled the communities to begin to organize and function. Nonetheless, these communities were often hounded by the police and the priests and members occasionally arrested.

In spite of these difficulties, the Russian Catholics firmly believed in their faith and their goals of achieving church unity among the separated Catholic and Orthodox sister churches, keeping in mind Soloviev's view that the separation of the Russian Orthodox Church from the Church of Rome was only a de facto separation and therefore it was possible to be Russian Orthodox in spiritual practice and be in communion with the Church of Rome. Government harassment abated for a few years, but the communities continued to be monitored and occasionally harassed.

As one would expect in a thriving spiritual community, and the Russian Byzantine Catholic communities were indeed thriving even under the difficult conditions under which they functioned, persons were drawn to the religious life. To meet the needs of the Moscow community, Vladimir Abrikosov was ordained a priest on May 19, 1917 in order to serve them. He and his wife had taken vows of chastity in preparation for entering the monastic life. Anna Abrikosov, who had organized a religious community for young women under simple vows along the lines of a Dominican Third Order, became its leader as Mother Catherine.

A young man named Leonid Feodorov, who grew up in the midst of intellectual ferment of Soloviev's circles in St. Petersburg, made his way to L'viv and later to the West in order to study for the priesthood. Early on, the movement in Russia, inspired by Soloviev, had attracted the attention of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptitsky (1865-1944), the leader of the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Church and he took a special interest in fostering and aiding the Russian Catholic movement and in the training of young Leonid. Upon completion of his studies abroad, his ordination, and his monastic tonsure (all punctuated by visits back to his mother and the community in St. Petersburg), Fr. Leonid returned permanently to St. Petersburg in 1913 whereupon he was promptly arrested for his association with Metropolitan Andrew and was sent into internal exile in Tobolsk until March, 1917.

In Saratov, a small community of Russian Catholics developed from the ministry of Fr. Alexander Sipiagin who had been working as a professor of natural sciences there after his reception into communion and ordination. Later, under the guidance of Bishop Pie Neveu, Fr. Alexi Anisimov and his entire parish in, Saratov were received into communion.

In June 1918, Fr. Patapios Emilianov and his entire Old Ritualist parish with nearly 1,000 members (828 adults!) at Nizhnaja Bogdanovka (200 kms. from Makieievka in the Don region) declared themsleves to be in communion with Rome. They had approached and been received by Metropolitan Andrew.

A movement toward union with the Holy See had also arisen amongst the Georgians. Many of the Georgian Byzantine Catholic priests and laity were to suffer side by side with the Russian Catholics in the maelstrom that was about to descend upon them all.

The First World War and the ensuing Russian Revolutions of March and October, 1917 followed by the Civil War brought upheaval for all in Russia, and the by now several thousands of Russian Catholics were no exception. The fall of the Czarist government in the March Revolution and subsequent grant by the Provisional Government of religious rights to all enabled the Russian Catholics to establish themselves and organize more formally. Metropolitan Andrew, due to the vicissitudes of the war, happened to have been a prisoner under house arrest in Russia at the time. The Provisional Government freed him and he was able to make his way to St. Petersburg to join the community for its first public Paschal celebrations. He convened the first sobor or council of the Russian Catholic Church during Bright Week 29-31 May, 1917 (the week after Pascha or Easter) which met for several days and adopted a set of 68 canons to govern and administer the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church. Fr. Leonid Feodorov was appointed officially as this Church's first Exarch.



St Petersburg, May 30, 1918--Feast of Corpus Christi--Photo shows Exarch Leonid and his clergy who were gueests at the celebration of their Roman Catholic brethren. This was the last public procession which the Soviet regime permitted in St. Petersburg (from Osipove, I, "Se il mondo vi odia..." Milan, 1997)

For a few months the new Church experienced some measure of relative peace and growth amid the chaos that was developing around it. At first, after the October Revolution little changed, but soon the full brunt of the Communist oppression was visited upon the all of the Churches in Russia and the Russian Catholics were no exception.




In January 1923, Exarch Leonid (photo above) was arrested and tried along with several of his clergy and several Roman Catholic priests. He served out his prison term of ten years under the extremely harsh conditions of the Solovky prison camp, a former monastery on the White Sea in Northern Russia, together with many of his clergy and with several bishops and priests of the Russian Orthodox Church. Reports from some survivors of Solovky prison in those days reported that Exarch Leonid was, even under those harsh conditions, active in the cause of church unity. With Exarch Leonid in Solovky were some of his clergy, several Roman Catholic priests, and the Georgian Byzantine Catholic exarch, Fr. Shio Batmanishvili.

The clergy imprisoned at Solovki contrived to set up a chapel and to celebrate the Divine Liturgy whenever possible under the strained conditions of the camp. For a period they were even allowed by the camp authorities the use of the chapel of St Germanus on Sundays.

Their zeal and ingenuity in doing so was truly remarkable and is underlined dramatically by an event which took place in the camp in 1928. Roman Catholic Bishop Boleslaw Sloskans was sent to the camp and soon after his arrival he ordained a young man, Serge Kasipinski, to the diaconate and later to the priesthood for the Russian Byzantine rite. A second Russian Byzantine Catholic, Donat Novitski, was soon thereafter also ordained a Russian Byzantine Catholic priest in similiar fashion. Exarch Leonid in the exercise of the special authority granted him, had already ordained both young Serge and young Donat to the subdiaconate in the camp.

Prayer and vocations flourished in the camp and were an inspiration to, and in some instances a source of conversion for, the other prisoners. Most of the reports concerning the Russian Catholic clergy and laity in the gulags reveal the same zeal and fortitude, with the clergy ministering to any other prisoners who sought their help and arranging secret liturgies when possible. It is also reported that several of the Orthodox clergy fellow prisoners with whom Exarch Leonid discussed church unity in the prison acknowledged that they could accept communion with the See of Rome upon the terms and under the understanding as explained by Exarch Leonid.

Ironically, while this systematic persecution was being carried out, the Moscow City Archives reveal that a Russian Byzantine Catholic parish--not that of the Abrikosovs--was legally registered by the Moscow Soviet in 1927. This community appears to have been different from the parish organized by Fr. Serge Soloviev, a relative of the celebrated philosopher, who was appointed Vice-Exarch for the Russian Byzantine Catholics in 1923. These parishes managed to function for several years under extreme conditions of harassment and surveillance. Vice-Exarch Serge was arrested on February 15, 1931.

An "illegal" monastery dedicated to Saint Peter was also organized in Moscow during the early thirties and functioned in the catacombs under the direction of Archbishop Bartholomew Remov, a former member of the Holy Synod who had secretly entered into communion with the Holy See. In the course of 1935 the NKVD "uncovered" the monastery and Archbishop Bartholomew and its members were arrested and tried; Archbishop Bartholomew was sentenced to death, his monastics sentenced to prison terms.

Upon completing his prison term, Exarch Leonid, as a convicted felon under Soviet law, was subject to internal exile and hence could not return to St. Petersburg, Moscow or other major cities. He spent his final years in failing health in the little hamlet of Viatka and fell asleep in the Lord on March 7, 1935, a true confessor of the faith.

Several of the other Russian Catholic clergy perished in prison, were executed, or died under mysterious circumstances. Some were able to flee to the West. On August 17, 1922 Fr. Vladimir Abrikosov was arrested, tried and sentenced to death, which sentence was commuted to perpetual external exile. He was expelled from Russia and, after some months in Rome, he settled in Paris. A year later, Mother Catherine and several of the sisters of her community, along with Fr. Nicholas Alexandrov, who had been serving the Moscow community after Fr. Vladimir's expulsion, were likewise arrested.

While imprisoned, Mother Catherine contracted cancer and under the harsh conditions of prison life, her health soon deteriorated and she succumbed to the disease. Some of the Abrikosov children were able to flee to the West to join their father. The few sisters who had not been arrested, together with the sisters who survived their prison ordeals, upon their release, remained behind and organized a Russian Catholic catacomb community in Moscow that has survived to this day.




The other communities in Saratov and Bogdanovka experienced similar fates. In October and November 1937, the greater part of the Russian Catholic clergy and faithful, together with the Georgian Byzantine Catholic, Armenian Catholic, and Roman Catholic clergy and faithful still being held in Solovki (photo above of Solovki monastery prison), were executed together with thousands of Orthodox, Protestant and Jewish clergy and faithful in one of the largest mass executions carried out in the gulags at Sandormoch and Leningrad.

The Russian Catholics who left Russia did so alongside their Orthodox brethren and along the same routes east, west and south. Hence, they were to be found in all the centers of the Russian diaspora: Harbin and Shanghai, Istanbul, Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Rome, Buenos Aires, Sao Paolo, London, New York, San Francisco, and Montreal.

Gradually, parishes were organized in the diaspora. In Harbin, a Russian Catholic catechism was published in 1935 by Fr. S. Tyshkiewich, one of the pastors of the Harbin community. The communities in Harbin and Shanghai soon faced new threats with the invasion of Manchuria by the Japanese and later the rise of the Chinese Communists. Some moved to Hong Kong and Australia, some moved to Argentina; one large group moved to the Los Angeles area and established St. Andrew's Russian Catholic Church in El Segundo, CA.

In 1927 the Russicum, the Pontifical Russian College, was established to train clergy for the Russian Catholics in the diaspora and in order to have priests to work in Russia for those who remained in Russia at such time as priests would be allowed in to serve those communities. The emigre Russian Catholics continued to be active in the intellectual circles of the Russian emigre communities as well as in those of their new homelands.

Prince and Princess Volkonsky and Julia Danzas, activists in the St Petersburg community, were active in the Paris Russian emigre community. In Brussels, Mlle. Irina Posnova founded the "Zhizn s Bogom" press of Foyer Oriental Chretien. Viacheslav Ivanov, one of the leading poets in modern Russian literature, was a disciple of Soloviov's and was received into communion with the Holy See by Fr. Zerchaninov. A friend of Fr. Vladimir Abrikosov, Ivanov was active in Paris and in Rome, where he taught at the Russicum.




Helena lzwolsky (photo above), the daughter of a former Czarist diplomat and Sorbonne graduate, was widely known in the intellectual circles of Paris and New York; a member of St Michael's, she served on the faculty of Fordham University, was the author of several books and articles and was an editor of the journal "The Third Hour". Helena was a friend of both Dorothy Day and Catherine de Hueck Dougherty, both of whom frequented the Russian Byzantine liturgy at St. Michael's in New York.



Exarch Leonid was succeeded as exarch by Fr. Kliment Sheptitsky, brother of Metropolitan Andrew. Exarch Kliment, who has been posthumously honored by the State of Israel for his aid to Jews during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine (photo below), died in a Soviet prison in 1951.

To meet the needs of the Russian Catholics throughout the world, an ordaining bishop has been appointed, beginning in 1936 with the consecration of Bishop Alexander Evreinov. He was succeeded in 1958 by Bishop Andrei Katkov. Bishop Andrei served for several decades in this postion. Perhaps the high point of his career was his invitation as an official guest of the Moscow Patriarchate to visit Russia in August and September 1969, during which trip he was accorded all the respect and honor due a bishop by his Russian Orthodox episcopal hosts.

Patriarch Alexei I himself personally presented a "Panaghia"(symbol of the Episcopate) to Bishop Andrei. Shortly thereafter, on December 16, 1969 the then Metropolitan Alexei of Tallinn, now Patriarch Alexei II, acting as Director of Affairs of the Moscow Patriarchate, announced the Sacred Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church's decision to admit Catholics to receive communion in Russian Orthodox churches (this decision was subsequently rescinded several years later). Bishop Andrei reposed in the Lord in September, 1996. At the time of writing, the Russian Catholic faithful around the world are anxiously awaiting the consecration of Bishop Andrei's successor.

Bishop Andrei Katkov at St Michael's in New York

Fr. Andrew Rogosh, a Russicum graduate, was sent to New York City in 1935 to minister to the Russian Catholics there. In 1936, St Michael's Russian Catholic Church opened its doors and has been serving the Russian community in New York and their supporters for over sixty years.

One of the many confessors of the faith with which the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church is especially blessed was Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J.. Fr. Walter was born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pa, where he grew up. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1928. He experienced what he described as "almost a direct call from God" to volunteer for the Russian mission in response to Pope Pius XI's appeal. He was the first American Jesuit to be ordained in the Russian Byzantine rite in June 1937. He was assigned to the Byzantine mission parish in Albertyn in eastern Poland (now in Belarus) under Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky. When World War II broke out in September 1939, Fr. Walter found himself within the Soviet zone of occupation.

On March 19, 1940 Fr. Walter (photo on right) entered Russia proper with a group of Polish refugees, together with two of his Russian Byzantine Jesuit priest colleagues, hoping to be able to minister to their needs and those of any Russians who might request his aid. A year later he was arrested by the NKVD and sentenced to fifteen years hard labor. After an initial five years of solitary confinement in Lubianka prison in Moscow, he was sent to the Siberian slave-labor camps above the Arctic Circle, part of the infamous Gulag Archipelago.

In 1947 Fr. Walter was declared "legally dead" back in the US. In 1955 he was released from prison and was given restricted freedom in the USSR. He functioned as a priest while working in factories and as an auto mechanic in various Siberian cities. In 1963 together with another American citizen, he was exchanged for a Russian couple being held for espionage in the US.

Upon returning to the US, Fr Walter served as a member of the John XXIII Center for Eastern Christian Studies at Fordham University in New York. He wrote two books about his experiences, "With God in Russia" and "He Leadeth Me". He became an internationally known director of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. During the last eight years of his life he was afflicted by a severe heart condition and arthritis, but still served as spiritual advisor to many persons, including a community of Byzantine Carmelite nuns in Sugarloaf, PA. He died at the John XXIII Center on December 8, 1984. Fr. Walter was a friend and spiritual father to many at St. Michael's and our community is honored to have had Fr. Walter celebrate the Divine Liturgy with us on several occasions.

The late Fr. Pietro Leoni who served the Russian Catholic parish in Montreal until his death had a similar experience to that of Fr. Walter. Assigned as a chaplain to an Italian military hospital that was sent into the occupied southern zone of the former USSR, he first was able to work in the Catholic parish in Dnepropetrovsk. Upon his release from military service in 1943, he went to serve a Catholic parish in Odessa. He was arrested in 1945 and held in Soviet prisons and labor camps, were he continued his apostolate as best he could, until his release in 1955.

The catacomb communities that formed in Leningrad, Moscow, and other places throughout the former USSR around the survivors of the original Russian Catholic communities, and those spiritually minded persons who were inspired by the obdurate faith of the Russian Catholics, survived as best they could. Clandestine priests of either rite would serve them when possible. Many priests were ordained in the catacombs and gulags by Ukrainian Catholic and Russian Catholic bishops also being held prisoner and would circulate and serve the communities whenever they could. As a result of this catacomb existence and the restrictions on internal movement of former gulag inmates, several new communities arose throughout the former USSR, particularly in Siberia and Kazakhstan in the smaller cities (e.g., Tobolsk, Obdursk, Krasnodar, Norilsk, Krasnoyarsk, Karaganda) where former gulag inmates (both clergy and lay people) were sent to live in internal exile.

Under the circumstances the catacomb clergy often attend to the spiritual needs of not only Russian and Ukrainian Byzantine Catholics but of Roman Catholics as well. These new communities, and our parish in Moscow as well as the "Spiritual Dialogue Club" (the continuation of the tradition of the Abrikosov's circle maintained by Sr. Nora Robashova) in Moscow, our parish in St. Petersburg and those in what is now Belarus (e.g., Minsk, Mohiliov, Homel, Brest) are a tribute to the faith and zeal of the Russian Catholics and should be an inspiration to all those who believe in Jesus Christ.

The fruits of their labors have led to a rebirth of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church in the Russian Federation, despite many obstacles and continuing repressive efforts by outside parties in both nations. Parishes have arisen in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Omsk, and several towns and cities in Asian Russia, and a new spirit can be seen in the communities of the diaspora, where an upsurge of membership has been seen in many communities and new parishes have been established. The first two exarchs of the Russian Byzantine Catholic Church, Exarch Leonid and Exarch Kliment, were beatified by Pope John Paul II during his visit to Ukraine, and the causes of many of our other witnesses to the faith are progressing. If the blood of martyrs be the seed of the Church, we look to more flowering in the years to come.

Some Russian Byzantine Catholic Witnesses to Christ's Love Throughout History (date of repose in the Lord indicated where known; most listed here are martyrs and/or confessors of the faith):

Pre-1890:

Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev - 1385- 1463

Deacon Peter Artemiev - 30 March 1700 (an early Russian Catholic martyr)

Post-1890:

Fr. Fabian Abramtowicz - 2 January 1946

Fr. Vladimir Abrikosov - 22 July 1966

Mother Catherine Abrikosova - 23 July 1936

Hieromonk Fr. Igor Akulov - 27 August 1937

Fr. Nicholai Aleksandrov - 29 May 1937

Fr. Alexei Anisimov - February 1931

Vladimir Balashiev - sentenced 19 May 1924, fate unknown

Sr. Catherine (Aleksandra) Balashieva - sentenced 12 September 1927, fate unknown

Sr. Eupraxia (Catherine) Bashkova - arrested 3 January 1927, fate unknown

Fr. Alexander Bilianewicz - arrested 20 August 1935, fate unknown

Anna Brilliantova - 3 November 1937

Viktoria Burvasser - 20 May 1931

Natalia Cherep-Spiridovicz - arrested 8 July 1919, fate unknown

Fr. Paul Chaleil - 22 September 1983

Catherine Cicurina - arrested 2 February 1935, fate unknown

Fr. Walter Ciszek - 8 December 1984 and his companions, Frs. Makar and Nestrov - fates unknown

Sr. Justina (Julia) Danzas - arrested 17 November 1923, released to exile, died in Rome 13 April 1942

Fr. Ivan Deubner - 12 November 1936

Fr. Patapios Emilianov - 14 August 1936

Exarch Leonid Feodorov - 7 March 1935

Fr. Vendelin Javorka - 24 March 1956

Fr. Leonid Jurkewicz - arrested 26 May 1929, fate unknown

Fr. Serge Karpinski - arrested 19 May 1924, ordained in Solovki prison, fate unknown

Fr. Jan Kellner Brinsko - 7 July 1941

Nina Kenarskaya - arrested 26 April 1935, fate unknown

Fr. Vladimir Klepfer - 4 May 1936

Fr. Boleslaw Lash - arrested I December 1937, fate unknown

Fr. Pietro Leoni - 26 July 1995

Fr. Jerzy Moskwa - 7 July 1941

Fr. Donat Novitski - arrested 16 November 1923, ordained in Solovki prison, died in Poland 17 August 1971

Fr. Victor Novikov, Exarch for Siberia, arrested 23 June 1941, died 1979 in Belebej

Fr. Deacon Anton Pastushenko - arrested 31 January 1933, died 1941

Archbishop Bartholomew Remov - condemned to death 17 June 1935 and shot in Butyrki prison

Fr. Joseph Romanjuk - last arrested 21 September 1935, fate unknown

Sr. Nora Rubashiova - arrested twice, spent 23 years in gulags

Fr. Andronikos Rudenko - arrested 20 August 1935, died in prison 12 May 1951

Alexander Rumjanchov - arrested 28 October 1929, fate unknown

Fr. Stefan Sabudzinski - arrested in 1929 and again in 1937, thereafter probably shot, fate otherwise unknown

Fr. Nicholai Schepaniuk - 27 February 1937

Exarch Kliment Sheptitsky - 1 May 1951, died in prison

Vice-Exarch Serge Soloviev - 2 March 1942

Liubov Shorcheva - arrested 21 February 1935, fate unknown

Fr. Vladimir Shtepa - 15 May 1938

Leonid Titov - arrested 30 January 1934, fate unknown

Fr. Nicholas Tolstoy - 4 February 1938

Fr. Alexander Vasiliev - arrested 15 February 193 1, died by 1944

Fr. Alexander Zerchaninov - 1933

Sr. Hyacintha (Anna) Zolkina - arrested 1941, fate unknown

Archbishop Alexander Evreinov - 1959

Bishop Paul Meletiev - 19 May 1962

Bishop Andrei Katkov - 18 September 1995

Fr. Deacon Victor Boldireff - 1996

Fr. Michael Ott - 1997

Fr. Anton Ilc - 1 August 1998

Irina Posnoff, December 1997

Georgian Byzantine Catholics who suffered and died in the gulags:

Exarch Shio Batmanishvili - 1 November 1937

Fr. Emmanuel Vardidze - 25 March 1936

Fr. Konstantin Separishvili - 13 Sept 1937

Fr. Makar - Jesuit priest, companion of Fr Walter Chiszek, S.J., arrested 1941, fate unknown

Armenian Catholics who suffered and died in the gulags:

Fr. Akop Bakaratjian - February 1936

Fr. Stepan Erojan - 3 November 1937

Fr. Ter-Assen Ter Karapetian - 8 December 1937

There are countless other Russian Byzantine Catholics, lay and clergy, who have suffered for their belief in Jesus Christ from 1893 to the present, especially the martyrs at Sandormoch and Leningrad in 1937.

There are also many brethren in Christ who have given us respect and comfort in the spirit of Christ's Love, among whom we remember in prayer and with love:

Popes Leo XIII, Pius X, Benedict XIV, Pius XI, Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, and His Holiness, John Paul II

Metropolitan Andrew Sheptitsky - 1 November 1944

Bishop Nicholas Charnetsky - 2 April 1959

Patriarch Joseph Slipyi - 7 September 1984

Bishop Boleslaw Sloskans - 18 April 1981

Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad - 1979

Bishop Michel d'Herbigny - 23 December 1957

Bishop Pie Neveu - 17 October 1946

Fr. Alexander Men - 9 September 1990

Select Bibliography:

Andrews, C. & Mitrokhin, V., The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, New York, 1999

Diaconus Basilius, O.S.B., Leonidas Fiodoroff, De Vita et Operibus Enarratio, Publicationes Scientificae et Litterarae "Studion" Monasteriorum Studitarum, No. III-V, Roma, 1966

Ciszek, W., With God in Russia, Image Books, New York, 1966

Materials of the Fr. Walter Ciszek Prayer League, R.D. #I, Box 245, Sugarloaf, PA, 18249

Fennell, J., A History of the Russian Church to 1448, Longman, London and
New York, 1995.

Keleher, S., ed. & trans., Korolevsky, C., Metropolitan Andrew Sheptitsky, Stauropegion, L'viv, 1993

Keleher, S., Passion and Resurrection - The Greek Catholic Church in Soviet Ukraine 1939-1989, Stauropegion, L'viv, 1993 (contains important data and documents concerning the Russian Byzantine Catholics)

(Both of Fr. Keleher's books are available through Eastern Christian Publications)

Mailleux, P., Leonid Feodorov: Bridge Builder Between Rome and Moscow, P.J.Kenedy, New York, 1964

Martin, S., "Former KGB Men in Control as Heads Roll", Irish Times, December 8, 1998. http://www.cdi.org/russia/dec1198.html#2

Osipova, I., Se il mondo vi odia ... Martiri per la fede nel regime sovietico, R.C. Edizioni La Casa di Matriona, Milan, 1997

Perejda, G. trans., Bachtalowsky, S.J., C.Ss.R., Nicholas Charnetsky, C.Ss.R, Bishop-Confessor, Redemptorist Publications

Reznikova, I., Pravoslavie na Solovkach: Materiali po istorii Solovetskovo Lavria (Orthodox at Solovki: Materials for the History of Solovki Lavra), Saint Petersburg, 1994

Vicini, A., "Colossei del XX secolo ... La terra restituisce i suoi morti...." 7 La Nuova Europa 1, pp. 79-85, 1998

(The works by Ms. Osipova and Ms. Vicini are available from the Centro Studi Russia Cristiana in Milan, Italy; see address list on Links and Resources Page at this site.)

Bishop Pavlos Meletiev (1880-1962) Convert to Russian Catholicism

Picture: Bishop Meletiev sings Pontifical Divine Liturgy in the the Russian Byzantine rite at Fatima.

From Solovetski to Rome, the story of a Russian Pilgrim

Born on 15 November, 1880 in Archangelsk in northern Russia, Pavlos Meletiev entered the famous Russian Orthodox monastery of Solovetski, situated on islands in the White Sea, at a very early age. In 1908 he was ordained a priest, and was designated by his superiors to the active ministry at the request of the Bishop of Archangelsk. Known for his missionary zeal and devotion, the young monk was arrested by the Bolsheviks shortly after the revolution in 1917 and condemned to death. Divine Providence preserved him from the fate reserved for the 121 Russian Orthodox bishops and some 11,000 of their priests 'liquidated' over the next few years of Lenin's Reign of Terror, and the sentence of Fr Pavlos was commuted to five years of hard labour. Having survived this ordeal, Fr Pavlos emerged from the horrors of the Soviet prison system only to find his church in ruins, both physically and morally. Many of the bishops and clergy who had survived Lenin's war against religion had done so only at the price of the most degrading subservience to, and compromise with, the atheistic tyrants. His own monastery had been closed down and the Solovetski islands complex turned into a maximum security prison. For him there was only one option, the life of an underground priest. Soon he was re-arrested, and sent back to the GULAG, this time for seven years in the notorious Siberian camp of Karaganda. God's grace, however, was with him, and Fr Pavlos persevered through this living hell, and returned to his catacomb ministry on his liberation.

The German occupation of Western Russia in 1940 was the occasion of a the breathing-space allowed to the underground church at the expense of the official one, and the consequent attempt at spiritual reorganisation saw Fr Pavlos consecrated as Bishop of Briansk in 1942. When the Germans began to retreat soon after, Bishop Pavlos and his sister, a nun, Mother Igumena Serafima, saw that exile was their only choice. Many adventures were in store for the two refugees, but God's Providence accompanied them safely all the way to the end point of their journey - Rome. For some years, this sincere bishop had been led through prayer to believe in the necessity of being united with the Catholic Church under the Roman Pontiff. Indeed, the fulfilment of this desire had been the most serious reason prompting him to leave his beloved Russia. He had reached, independently, the same conclusion as had the Martyr-Bishop Varfolomey Remov, the former representative to Metropolitan Peter, the locum tenens of the late Patriarch Tikhon, who had endured eighteen months of futile torture aimed at making him renounce his conversion to the Catholic Church before being shot at Moscow's infamous Butyrky prison on 1 August, 1935. And so it came to pass on 21 September 1946 that the aged prelate humbly made his profession of the Catholic Faith into the hands of the Pope's representative Cardinal Tisserant, receiving from Pope Pius XII the titular see of Heracleopolis.

His remaining days were passed between his beloved Rome and the visitation of various centres of Russian Catholics, particularly in Germany and Belgium. His, however, was rather a hidden and humble interior life. The dominating intention of all his prayer and penance in these last years was the conversion of his people to the Catholic Church. Perhaps the highlight of his life was the leading of a pilgrimage of some 500 Russian Catholics to Rome and Fatima for the Holy Year of 1950-1951, which terminated with his singing a Pontifical High Mass in his Russian Byzantine rite before the assembled crowds at Fatima.
In Rome, where the Russian pilgrims had assisted at the joyous celebrations marking the proclamation of the dogma of the Assumption of Our Lady, Bishop Meletiev had handed a petition to the Sovereign Pontiff on their behalf in which he, Bishop Evreinov (another convert from Russian Orthodoxy) and the Russian Catholics asked, on behalf of their beloved homeland, for the
"special consecration of our country, Russia, which has suffered so much, to Our Lady the Queen of the World, that is, to Her Motherly and Immaculate Heart pierced by the sword...the deliverance of our country, followed by that of the whole world from the terrible slavery of Bolshevism, cannot be obtained by material forces of arms and money...the struggle taken against God and Holy Church by the Bolsheviks is not led by mere human powers. These forces have at their source Satan himself and the spirits of darkness. The evil is Satan, who has assumed the appearance of Marxist-Bolshevik atheism, and the force capable of overcoming it is our Holy Queen and protectress, the Mother of our God...But who can make this consecration in the name of Russia, which has been profaned and enslaved? We see only one solution, and we express it by our humble request. We ask that this consecration be done by the Vicar of Christ on earth, successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Peter, Sovereign Pontiff of the Universal Church, the Pope of Rome..."
Tragically, to this very day this request has not been fulfilled. This man of prayer was knocked over by a car in Brussels, where he died soon after on 19 May 1962. God in His mercy did not let him see the opening of the Second Vatican Council some four months later at which the appeasement of the Moscow régime and its puppet church was to set the keynote from the very opening speech, to which the Ukrainian bishops protested publicly.

Blessed Exarch Leonid Feodorov 1879 - 1935

Early years

Leonid Ivanovich Feodorov was born at Saint Petersburg on 4 November 1879, in an Orthodox family. He lost his father when he was very young, after a serious reverse of fortune. He was brought up by his mother, Liubova Dimitrievna,who spared nothing to give Leonid a good education.

In the autumn of 1890 Leonid entered the second imperial gymna-sium at Saint Petersburg, and when he finished his classical studies he enrolled in the Orthodox Ecclesiastical Academy in 1901. He only stayed two years at the Academy; his lively intelligence led him to sift every question to the roots. The study of church history and of certain writings of the Fathers inclined him more and more toward monasticism, towards the priesthood, and also towards Catholicism.


His professors and his colleagues were perfectly well aware of his Catholic leanings. From time to time they saw him attending the sermons given at the Roman Catholic Church of Saint Catherine, which was an international parish. The parish priest at the time (1901-1905) Father Jan Szyslawski, was very friendly and had a good library that he gladly opened to everyone interested. Leonid had chosen a question involving Catholic dogma for his thesis; he went to Szyslawski and became one of Szyslawski's devoted disciples.

These contacts gave Leonid the desire to go abroad to finish his education, and at the same time his doubts about Orthodoxy were growing stronger. When he asked the permission of the Rector of the Academy, Archimandrite Theophan, the venerable old man answered: "I know where you wish to go, and why. Go, and may God go with you!" Theophan was quite convinced of the truth of Catholicism, but like a number of others he could not bring himself to take the definite step.

At the beginning of the summer of 1902, Leonid left for Rome. He stayed eight days in L'viv, as the guest of the Servant of God, Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky (1865 - 1944), and opened his heart to him. The Metropolitan could appreciate the elevated sentiments of this youth and the rectitude of his intentions; he arranged to meet him in Rome and gave him letters of recommendation. Leonid was already more than half Catholic; his conversations with the Metropolitan convinced him.

A Russian rite Catholic priest, monk and Confessor.
On 31 July, 1902, the feast of Saint Ignatius Loyola, he was united to the Catholic Church at the Gesu in Rome. Metropolitan Sheptytsky presented him to Pope Leo XIII and he was admitted to the Pontifical College at Anagni. Leo XIII had the free disposition of several scholarships; he gave Leonid one and he was registered under the name of Leonid Pierre, so as not to arouse too much suspicion.

He did not know a word of Italian and was not accustomed to express himself in Latin, but after four years he had so mastered the language that he could write it with the greatest facility and even elegance. On 9 August 1903 he assisted at the coronation of Saint Pius X in Saint Peter's. In 1905 he became Doctor of Philosophy and in 1907 Bachelor of Theology.

On 12 February 1908 he was one of the acolytes at the solemn Pontifical Divine Liturgy concelebrated in the presence and with the participation of Pope Saint Pius X: the chief celebrants were the Melkite Patriarch Cyril VIII of Antioch and the Servant of God, Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytsky; the ceremony marked the fifteenth centenary of the death of Saint John Chrysostom.

In view of Leonid's future apostolate, Kyr Andrew thought it better that he should not be ordained by any Ukrainian bishop, and so he was ordained by Bishop Michael Mirov, the Bulgarian Greek-Catholic Bishop at Constantinople who also represented Bulgaria at the Ottoman court. Kyr Michael ordained Leonid deacon on 22 March 1911 and priest on 25 March of the same year.

Since Leonid was fourteen he had felt called to the monastic life. Metroplitan Sheptytsky sent him to Bosnia to begin his novitiate on 20 May 1912 under the direction of the starets or Elder Josaphat. On 12 February 1913 Father Josaphat gave Leonid the monastic tonsure and admitted him to the first degree of Eastern monasticism, the degree of archairos rassophor, which is a preparatory state for the "Little Habit" or lesser schema. Leonid took the monastic name of Father Leontios.

The Serbs disliked the presence of a Catholic monastery, even as humble as this one, and in December 1913 they caused so much trouble that it had to be given up. Leonid went back to the Studion in L'viv. The assassination at Sarajevo happened on 28 June 1914. In July peace was so fragile that he thought it best to go back to Russia, both for his own security and in view of his future apostolate. To avoid arousing suspicions, he went by way of Constantinople. He had no sooner arrived in Saint Petersburg than he was arrested as the "secretary of Metropolitan Sheptytsky" and sent into exile in Tobolsk, beyond the Ural Mountains. He remained there for three years, until March 1917.

The first Russian Catholic Exarch.
The Russian Revolution happened on 12 March 1917. On 29 March, the Provisional Government of Prince George Evgenievich Lvov proclaimed a total amnesty for all those imprisoned on political or religious charges. Without losing a moment, the six priests in Petrograd who constituted all the Russian Greek-Catholic clergy reopened their little church on Barmaleieva Street. A few days later Metropolitan Andrew arrived from Yaroslavl. The Metropolitan had already told his priests that Father Leonid would be named Exarch.

The three-day Russian rite Greek-Catholic Synod presided over by the Met-ropolitan opened on Monday, 29 May. Besides the Russian clergy, the principal Roman Catholic dignitaries of the capital were there. The Metropolitan showed everyone the authenticated copy of the pontifical document written by Pope Saint Pius X which authorised him to exercise his jurisdiction in Russia. He announced the nomination of the Exarch with episcopal jurisdiction. The nomination was at once recognized by the Provisional Government. Presumably the episcopal consecration of the Exarch was done in private for reasons which can easily be guessed and a public announcement that Exarch Leonid was a bishop could easily have condemned him to death.

Up until then the existence of the Russian rite Catholic Church was strictly prohib-ited by the Tsarist government. It seemed that a new religious era was beginning for Russia. But they were to see the truth of the words that Exarch Leonid had said one day to one day to a companion at Anagni: "Russia will not repent without travelling the Red Sea of the blood of her martyrs and numerous sufferings of her apostles." The coup d'etat of 25 October 1917 was the prelude.

Christ Persecuted.
Duly confirmed, the Exarch was only able to exercise his apostolate for five years, with difficulties. The Bolsheviks had seized exclusive power in October 1917; the decree of separation of church and state was proclaimed on 23 January 1918, and Lenin's first Soviet constitution was proclaimed on 5 February 1918. Violent persecution began in 1922.

The Bolsheviks had scarcely taken power when they began their measures against religion. The two Russian Greek-Catholic communities at Petrograd and Moscow could not escape from all these measures. The Bolsheviks understood very well that the strongest force of resistance was in the Catholic Church. The Catholic priests remained united in their opposition to the maxims of Bolshevism and continued to teach Christian doctrine, even though it was forbidden to do so to anyone under eighteen years of age. On 5 December 1922 all the Catholic churches in Petrograd were closed down and in January 1923 Msgr. Jan Cieplak, the Auxiliary Bishop of Mohiliov, was arrested along with fourteen priests including the Exarch Leonid. In the night of 2-3 March, they were told that they were being transferred to Moscow for trial.

The public sessions went from 21 to 25 March in the grand hall of what had been the club for the nobility. It was filled to the rafters because of the quality of the accused. To the great surprise of the spectators, amongst the Roman cassocks and the characteristic appearance of the Polish bishops and priests they saw the Exarch Leonid, wearing his Russian riasa. This was itself a statement: many people asked why this bearded priest, evidently a Catholic, was not dressed like the others; thus they learned of the existence of Russian rite Catholicism. The indict-ment was very long. They were all accused of opposing the Revolution and resisting Soviet laws. In his address to the court the public prosecutor, Nicholas Vasilievich Krylenko, depicted the Exarch as a fanatic organizer of a common front against Communism. The verdict was death for Bishop Jan Cieplak and Msgr Constantine Budkiewicz, parish priest of Saint Catherine's in Petrograd. The Exarch was sentenced to ten years in prison; the other priests were each sentenced to ten years or three years.

No sooner was the sentence given than the diplomats tried to obtain a commutation for those sentenced to death, because the execution was set for 29 March. The interventions succeeded only for Bishop Cieplak; a year later he was exchanged for three noted Bolsheviks and expelled from Russia. Afraid that these interventions would also succeed in favour of Msgr Budkiewicz, who had already obtained a stay of execution, the most bloodthirsty Bolsheviks took him to the sub-basement of the prison during the night of 31 March and shot him dead with their revolvers as he blessed his assassins- it was the night of Easter.

Exile.
In 1926 the Polish priests were exchanged for an equal number of Communists detained in Poland and elsewhere. The occasion was taken to ask that the Exarch also be released. After two months the response was that instead of complete liberty he was given the category of "minus six," which meant that he might not reside in the six principal cities: Petrograd, Moscow, Kiev, Kazan, Nizhni-Novgorod, (also Warsaw before the Revolution), or any maritime town. The Exarch decided to live in Kaluga, where the Roman rite parish priest, Father Jan Pawlowicz, welcomed him like a brother. Here the Exarch could offer the Russian rite Mass without persecutions.

A return to Mohiliov was closest to the Exarch's heart. He had been very well received there in 1922; the Russian-Catholic population there had no priest and they appealed to him insistently. These good people of Belarus had originally been Greek-Catholic. The Semashko apostasy of 1839 had forced them into schism, but they would easily return to their old faith. Finally, Exarch Leonid made up his mind, but he committed the same crime for which he had been sentenced: spreading the idea of church union among the Orthodox. The Exarch was arrested and deported to the central prison at Solovetsky to finish his ten-year sentence.


Solovki's Prisoners for the Love of Christ and the Conversion of Russia.
Solovetsky was a great monastery, very famous in Russian history, where there were still a certain number of monks. The buildings are noteworthy. It had become a huge penitentiary, but the Bolsheviks had not occupied the whole complex. Near the Kremlin or citadel, in the cemetery, there was a church where the monks could hold their services; about a hundred detained Orthodox ecclesiastics attended this church. The Catholics used a small chapel three kilometres from the monastery Kremlin.

Wine was scarce, even though the relatives of the prisoners who were themselves still at liberty took care to send wine from time to time; the guards often drank it. Then the Catholics remembered that altar wine can be made from dry raisins, so they had raisins sent. Mass was celebrated almost every day at a very early hour of the morning because of the forced labour from which no one was exempt. Exarch Leonid strongly supported this early morning Mass, saying that this could be the only sacrifice offered that day in Russia for Russia.

Little by little, with the poor resources they had, they repaired the chapel and adorned it as best they could. Eventually, they had four complete sets of vestments. They obtained permission to have the Vigil (Vespers, Matins, Lauds, and Prime) on Saturday evenings. They preached, of course, and the former directress of a women's institution who had been deported because of her religious fervour became a zealous Catholic. They went to confession on the road, or elsewhere, appearing just to hold a private conversation without giving any exterior sign of a religious ritual.

During the summer of 1926 the first Roman rite priest arrived, Father Leon Baranowski, the dean of Vitebsk, who eventually died in exile at Narym in Siberia. After much hesitation he agreed to say Mass, and in a short time they were able to concoct everything necessary for the Roman rite, even to make proper hosts. After that there was also a Roman rite Mass, and even several when the number of deported priests grew. Little by little twenty Roman rite priests came; they began to say Mass secretly in their rooms, at a very early hour. On alternate Sundays they sang either the Russian rite or the Roman rite Mass, and there was a sermon either in Russian or in Polish.

In July 1928 Bishop Boleslas Sloskans arrived at Solovetsky. Since he was a bishop, he ordained a Russian seminarian to the diaconate and the priesthood in September. So there was one more Russian Greek-Catholic priest.

Eventually all this reached the ears of the GPU of Solovetsky. They were angry that the Catholics remained dignified, calm, and in full possession of their intellectual faculties instead of letting themselves be broken and brutalized like so many other detainees. The September ordination served as a pretext; in November 1928 the use of the chapel was stopped. Now there were only secret services in various rooms, and to bring Holy Communion to the women, kept in separate quarters, they resorted to stratagems used in the primitive Church during violent persecution. The evening of 19 January 1929 (the Feast of the Epiphany) there was a general search: many utensils for worship were confiscated by the prison authorities, but they were able to save the most necessary vessels. The Catholics were then scattered amongst different rooms, mingled with other political detainees and even with common criminals. Nevertheless the priests continued to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice as best they could: one in the museum where he was the watchman, after obtaining the night duty; another in the work-shops where he could go at night since he was an electrician; another in the carpentry shop, or in the disinfection room, in a mill, in a cave, in the forest using a flat stone for an altar. The Exarch continued to say that they had to do even the impossible so that there would be at least one Holy Mass each day.

On the Russian rite Easter Sunday of 1929, since the GPU allowed the Orthodox and the Jews to celebrate their feast days, they did not dare refuse the Russian Catholics, although they did forbid the Roman Catholics since their Easter was already passed. It was the last time that they were able to have a public Divine Liturgy.

One after the other the priests who had been held in the central penitentiary were sent to the island of Anzer. Yet, for two more years they were not deprived of their secret Holy Masses. They used only seven or eight drops of wine and a drop of water for the Holy Sacrifice. They were permitted to celebrate without vestments. The detainees had become very clever at hiding everything from the Soviet commissars, who never completely succeeded in the one supreme aim of stopping the Mass.

This long detention of Russian and Roman rite Catholic priests, and the mutual help which they gave each other had the result that in the Catholic community of Solovetsky, every-thing was held in common. The other detainees looked to the Catholics as a model of organization, which greatly irritated the Soviet authorities who could not overcome it; they were all united in the same bond of love.

Here we quote some reflections of the Polish priest Father Donat Novitski, which was written in 1934 after he was freed:

"Here is how one could consider the mentality of the Russian rite Catholics before their incarceration in 1923 and during the nine years of suffering that followed, from 1923 to 1932. They accepted the perse-cution of their missionary work as well as their personal sufferings in a strictly objective way and in the purest spirit of faith. It is evident, they say, that the Soviet power is striving to prevent any direct influence of the Catholic Church on the Russian people, but God, on the contrary, is making it no less clear that He desires the repentance of Russia. So it follows, despite the enslavement of Russia by the enemies of the Church, that it is our duty to work for her spiritual rebirth. The means of working for God in Russia are very reduced; for the moment it is impossible to think of a direct work of propaganda and still less of struggle, and it is difficult to foresee when the moment will come that this direct propaganda can be-gin. However the Russian rite Catholics are per-suaded that even in the present circumstances it is their duty to remain firmly at their post, to suffer and pray, even, say some, if God wishes to make use of all this suffering and all these sacrifices for other peoples of the world in-stead of for the Russians... The Roman rite priests who have had occasion to come in touch with those of the Russian rite during these years of suffering are unanimous in recognizing their profound Christian con-victions, their courage, their inexhaustible energy and their readiness to suffer in the spirit of sacrifice to the very last extremity. ..."

The Exarch had no possibility of going very far from the Solovetsky islands, under the arctic circle. At the penitentiary, the mortality rate at one time reached 60% of the detainees. To escape required a special endurance and an experience of evasion. Although he was still young, the Exarch could not have succeeded; he had no intention of trying.

Brutally despoiled of his clerical garb, clothed in rags, with coarse, insufficient food, locked at night in a barracks which could normally have held 400 or 500 men but which sometimes held 2,000, in continual contact with people from every class, including the lowest and most vulgar, he had to spend his days working at very tiring forced labour: chopping down and carrying big trees, sawing them into pieces, pushing them to the shore and making them into rafts so they could be sent by water; or working with heavy beams, even in snow and intense cold. All the great accomplishments which the well-named agents of Intourist invited naive people who came on tours to the USSR to admire were done thanks to the unpaid hand labour of mostly political and innocent prisoners. When they celebrated Holy Mass during the night in the attic everyone had to kneel throughout, even the priest.

Last Exile and Death for the Love of Christ and the Conversion of Russia.
On 6 August 1929, Exarch Leonid was transferred from the central penitentiary of Solovetsky to a small village near the market-town of Pinega, in the same province of Arkhangelsk. He was lodged in an izba, a log hut where there was already a detained Orthodox priest, Father Parthenios Kiuglikov. He was not completely exempt from labour; he had to work making charcoal from wood, but he had a little more freedom to write letters. After contacting the Orthodox priest of Pinega, he was able to use that priest's small library, to have a little class for young boys and catechism for the older ones. All this zeal did not please Father Parthenios; he said that such occupations were dangerous not only for the Bolsheviks but also for the Church. He added that the Exarch himself had shaken his convictions - but still he admired the Exarch. When the Bolsheviks noticed this activity they transferred the Exarch, first to Arkhangelsk, then to Kotlas (a small town in the province of Vologda), and finally to a village called Poltava, fifteen kilometres from Kotlas.

Fedorov's death in Viatka.
The last hour was drawing near. Worn out from so much suffering, the Exarch's robust health was ruined. He already felt sick at Pinega; he had cardiac asthma, gastritis, a cough, and difficulty in speaking. The GPU declared him an invalid and exempted him from forced labour not long before his sentence ended in August 1932. He asked for a GPU certificate that he had served his sentence, and received it in November 1933, but his exile was prolonged for three years in the form of "minus twelve," the prohibition of residing in the twelve principal cities of the USSR. He chose to live in Viatka where exiles often went to live in Tsarist times. He hoped to find help and to meet some released companions there. He felt so feeble that he was unable to do anything. He died on 7 March 1935, in utter destitution, alone, without even a priest to assist him in his last moments. He was only fifty-five years old! Some good peasants buried him. Sophia Likilariova, his biographer to whom we owe many of the details given above, says that the location of his grave is known.

Such was the "falling-asleep" of the first Russian rite Greek-Catholic Exarch. He has certainly earned a place among the ispoviedniki or "confessors" of the Catholic Church. He was declared a Servant of God in November 1997 and his cause for Beatification is opended, with Bishop Charnetsky, as one of the "Companions" of Metropolitan Andrew Sheptytski.