Orthodox Parables and Stories: Standing before Antichrist

A group of nuns of the Shamordinsky monastery in the Solovetsky concentration camp
In the summer of 1929 on about. Solovki, in a concentration camp, arrived a stage of nuns, about 30 people, most of the arrivals were “Shamorda nuns”, i.e. nuns of the Shamordinsky Convent located near the famous Optina Desert.

A whole story has come out with these nuns at the camp administration, characterizing some aspects of the religious struggle against Bolshevism in the late 1920s, the confrontation between Christ and Veliar.

These nuns were not placed in the general female corps, but were kept separately from everyone.

Upon their arrival, a serious incident broke out. When, as was usually accepted, they began to be checked and questioned to draw up a form for them, they refused to give themselves the so-called “installation data”, i.e. answer questions about surname, name, patronymic, year and place of birth, education, profession, criminal record, article, term of punishment, etc.

To questions about the surname, they answered only their first names: "mother Maria, mother Anastasia, mother Eugene", etc. They did not answer the remaining questions at all. After gross screams at them and threats, they began to beat them rather brutally, but then they completely shut up and even stopped calling their names.

They were put in a punishment cell, tormented by hunger, dampness, cold, thirst. Lack of sleep, even beatings with self-mutilation, i.e. almost all methods of “influence” applied to them, applied in such places by the “new government”, but they remained adamant in their perseverance and even dared categorically refuse all forced labor (an extremely rare fact in a concentration camp, prisoners whom they sometimes feared even move in the presence of the "citizen" of the head).

After a while, I, a doctor’s prisoner, together with Professor Dr. Zhizhilenko (who was exiled to Solovki for secretly accepting monasticism and became a bishop), was called to the head of the medical unit, where the Head of the entire camp was, and privately asked us to make the medical  examination of these nuns, hinting that, if possible, it is advisable to declare them incapable of work, in order to have official grounds to free them from forced hard physical labor, which they did not want to perform.

For the first time in the history of the Solovetsky concentration camp, his administration was in such an unusual, predicament. Usually, those who refused hard work (for the most part this happened to criminals) did not stand on ceremony, they were treated without any pity: after a severe beating, they sent him to the penalty area about. Anzer, whence no one came back alive. Sometimes the case was limited to a cold punishment cell on the Sekirka (The Sekirnaya Gora - a place of special mockery of prisoners, from which rarely anyone returned alive). After 2-3 months of stay in this punishment cell, those who returned from there became “silk” alive and unconditionally obeyed any requirements of the administration.

Why the nuns were not sent to either Anzer or the Sekirku was incomprehensible.

After the head of the camp left, we doctors asked the head of the medical unit about this, also a doctor who, after serving his term in the camp for some criminal offense, remained “civilian” and held administrative posts, heading the sanitary part of the camp.

He explained to us that “the matter is complicated” with the nuns, because their silent and restrained protest does not at all provoke an aggressive response, it does not look like the protest that sometimes criminals allowed themselves. The latter usually caused a scandal, shouting, swearing, hooligans. And these are silent, simple, humble and unusually meek. Not a single scream, resentment, bitterness, not a single word of complaint.

“They are some fanatical martyrs, as if suffering,” the head of the medical unit said, “these are, in my opinion, psycho masochistic psychopaths. But God, how unbearably sorry for them ... I could not see their humility and meekness with which they endure "influences" ... And I was not alone ... Even ... Vladimir Yegorovich (camp leader) also could not bear this spectacle. He even quarreled with the head of the ISO (information and investigative department) ... And now he wants to somehow soften and settle this matter. If you recognize them as unfit for physical work, they will be left alone. ”

“I ask you to release me from this commission,” Professor Zhizhilenko asked, “I myself would not want to inspect monks and women, and even nuns ...”

Professor Zhizhilenko was released from this commission, and I alone went to testify to these nuns.

When I entered the hut where they were assembled, I saw extremely sedate women, calm and restrained, in old, worn, patched, but clean black monastic robes.

There were about 30 of them. All of them were similar to each other and according to their age they could be given what is called the “eternal 30 years,” although they were undoubtedly younger and older. All of them were like a selection, beautiful thoroughbred Russian women, with moderate graceful fullness, firmly and harmoniously folded, clean and healthy, like porcini mushrooms, not touched by any wormhole. In all their faces there was something from the expression of the face of the grieving Mother of God, and this inaudible grief was so exalted, so restrained and as if bashful, that Tyutchev’s verses about the autumn sufferings of a passionless nature, compared with the sufferings of deeply exalted human souls, were completely involuntarily recalled.

“Damage, exhaustion, and all

That meek smile of wilting,

That in a rational being we call

Sublime bashfulness of suffering "...

Here in front of me were these very “rational beings” with “sublime bashfulness of suffering”.

These were Russians, namely the best Russian women, whom the poet defined as:

"All the outgoing Russian tribe

long-suffering mother. "

All these nuns were amazingly beautiful. They could not help but admire. In them was all the charm of unspent “eternal femininity”, and all the beauty of an acquired chaste virginity, and at the same time something from the aesthetic perfection of the cold marble of ancient statues. The main thing is the amazing harmony and purity of the spirit that elevates their bodily appearance to a spiritual beauty that cannot evoke other feelings than deep emotion and reverence. Truly the Brides of Christ prepared for the Wedding Feast in the Kingdom ...

“In order not to embarrass them, I’d better leave, the doctor,” said the head of the business trip, who was supposed to be present as the chairman of the Medical Commission, having looked down at me. Such modesty was never observed. Obviously, even before the bloody, pokey-stricken Chekist soul, the grace of modesty and chastity emanating from these extraordinary nuns somehow inexplicably touched. I was left alone with them.

“Hello mothers,” I bowed low to them. They silently answered me with a deep waist-deep Russian bow.

"I am a doctor. Sent to testify you "...

“We are healthy, we do not need to testify,” several voices stopped me.

"I myself am a believer, an Orthodox Christian and am sitting here on church matters."

“Thank God,” several voices answered me again at once.

“I understand your embarrassment,” I continued, “but I will not examine you ... You just tell me what you are complaining about, and I will determine the category of disability” ...

“We're not complaining about anything.” We are healthy. ”

“But you can be sent to unusually hard physical work without determining the category of working capacity ...”

"We will not work anyway, neither on heavy nor light work."

"Why?" I was surprised.

"Because we will not work for anti-Christ power ..."

"What are you talking about?" I became agitated. "Because there are many bishops and priests here on Solovki who were exiled here for confession (mainly Februaryists who were involved in oath-crime - approx. Ed.), They all work as hard as they can. For example, Bishop Viktor Vyatsky works as a bookkeeper at a cable factory, and many priests work at Rybzverprom. They weave webs ... After all, this is an apostolic occupation. On Fridays, they work the whole day, day and night to complete the task overtime and thus free themselves time for prayer - evening on Saturday and Sunday morning ..."

"We do not blame them. That is their right. We do not blame anyone, one of the older nuns replied sedately, “but we will not work to coerce the anti-christ authorities.”

“Well then, without inspection, I will write to you all some diagnoses and give a conclusion that you are not capable of hard work ... I will give you all the 2nd category of disability ...”

"No, it’s not necessary. Forgive us, but we will have to admit that you wrote a lie ... We are healthy, we can work, but we do not want to work; and we won’t work for the anti-Christ authorities, even if they killed us for this ..."

“They will not kill, but they will torture you slowly," in a quiet whisper, risking being overheard I said with heartache.

“God will help us and endure torment,” one of the nuns, the youngest, said just as quietly.

Tears came into my eyes, a lump came up to my throat.

I bowed silently to them ... I wanted to bow to them to the ground and kiss their feet ...

A week later, the camp commandant came to our medical unit’s doctors’ cell and reported:

“Well, we were tormented with these nuns ... But now they agreed to work the same way: they sew and quilt blankets for the central infirmary. Only the conditions the nuns were set so that they all could be together, and that they would sing some kind of psalms during the work ... The head of the camp allowed. Now they sing and work. ”

These nuns were so isolated that even we, medical doctors, who enjoyed relative “freedom” to move around the camp, despite our “connections” and “acquaintances” with the world of all kinds of “bosses,” could not receive any news about them .

And only a month later we received the following news.

The fifth act of the nuns tragedy was this:

In one of the stages, one Priest was delivered to Solovki, who turned out to be the confessor of some of the nuns. And although communication between the confessor and his children seemed completely impossible in the conditions of a concentration camp, the nuns somehow managed to nevertheless request instructions from their mentor.

The essence of the request was as follows: We, they say, arrived at the camp for suffering, but here we feel good. Together, we sing prayers, we work to our liking: we quilt blankets for the sick ... Do we act correctly that we agreed to work under conditions of anti-Christ power in the camps? Should we not abandon this work?

The confessor turned out to be even more fanatical (as it seems to the liberal Orthodox consciousness) than his spiritual daughters, and answered with a categorical prohibition to work this work.

And the nuns refused all work.

The authorities found out who was to blame. The priest, of course, was shot. But when the nuns were informed of this, they said: "Now no one on earth can free us from his prohibition." Then the authorities lost all patience and went mad.

The nuns were separated from each other and taken away alone. Despite all our efforts, we could not get any more news about them.

They perished without a trace.

It has been many years since those events.

In the perspective of time, much has been smoothed out, forgotten, cluttered, but the images of these nuns stand in front of me brightly in pain and evoke always the same complex feeling.

Well aware that in their actions was extreme fanaticism , with which it would be entirely tantamount to condemning the confessor martyrs who died in concentration camp work, at the same time I cannot but bow before their firm position of refusing to work under the antichrist power, and I see in this refusal the strongest of all protests against Bolshevism (which is the "forerunner of the Antichrist" - note).

If all of us Russians had had at least a drop of such strength of spirit - Bolshevism could not have existed.