RUSSIA: Warmth in the Gulag
19/01/05 - Russian Christian prisoner tried to take his own life before letter-writing campaign
Christian letters revived Alexander Ogorodnikov’s broken spirit.
“You must see that death appears to be the only way to end my agony, the only release,” Ogorodnikov wrote his mother in 1986. “I have already committed the grave sin of attempting to commit suicide … So I beg of you again -- please appeal to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet to show me a measure of mercy by ordering my execution by firing squad in order to put an end to the prospect of lifelong, painfully slow torture.”
More than seven years in Soviet prison camps had finally accomplished their mission: Ogorodnikov’s spirit was broken.
Creative Mind, Spiritual Heart
Ogorodnikov was not an easy man to bring down. An atheist, he became an Orthodox Christian in 1971 while a student at the Cinematography Institute of Moscow. He tried to use his skills to make a film about his generation’s search for the spiritual. He was expelled from the Institute, ending his career in films.
The year following his expulsion, Ogorodnikov founded the “Christian Seminar.” Its purposes were to provide fellowship, theological study and a strong witness of Christian values to the atheistic system. Started outside Moscow, it spread to several Soviet cities. The KGB followed members of “Christian Seminar” groups, harassing, beating, and often arresting them.
‘Parasite’
Alexander was arrested in 1979 and sentenced to one year in a labour camp for “parasitism” because he could not get a job due to his Christian beliefs. Then a five-year prison term, plus six years internal exile, was added in 1980 for “anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda.”
Most of his imprisonment was spent in the Perm-36 labour camp in the Gulag, called the “death-sentenced zone.” It was one of three camps where some of the most famous dissidents served time in the 1970s and 1980s.
Everything in the camp was a form of torture. “The basic means of oppression is the exhausting, coerced slave labour for one’s ration and the camp gruel,” he wrote, “The tedious work, the regimen, the rations, the sleep, the uniformity -- all are directed at reducing you from the high calling of the image and likeness of God to a dull, apathetic slave-animal state, capable of snatching the shadow of an opportunity to stuff your sucking belly.
“The slightest violation of the regimen can result in the punishment isolation cell -- the measure of education favoured by our correctors.
“There, herded into a closed area of utter hopelessness, cut off from the world, blindly isolated in a deathly silence broken from time to time by the swearing of the guards and the rattle of keys, hounded by cold, measuring the long, tiring day in small steps, you are acutely aware of how your spirit has been pounded into your flesh, and you are only a small, pitiful creature being torn apart by hunger and cold.”
‘I Feel So Alone, So Forgotten’
Isolated from the world and his fellow prisoners, living in the cold twilight of the Siberian winter days in cells where the walls and ceilings were entirely coated with ice, deprived of his Bible and his notebooks by prison guards, deliberately and systematically humiliated, in ill health, having lost much of his eyesight and most of his teeth, the hardest thing for Ogorodnikov was the sense that he had been forgotten.
“I feel so alone, so forgotten… Those prisoners on whose behalf a lot of noise is made are not only released upon the expiration of the sentences, but receive better treatment in the camp. The less publicity, the more vulnerable [the prisoner] becomes.”
Ogorodnikov continued to receive harsh treatment. An additional five years had recently been added to his sentence, this time for “violating camp discipline” (wanting his Bible returned). He had not received one letter, not even from his wife and young son. He was forced to conclude that the Christian community had forgotten him. “Will not the universal Christian Church say at least a word in support of one of her persecuted sons --errant and sinful, but still her son?” Death seemed his only escape.
Support from Abroad
His words did not fall on deaf ears. In May 1986, Ogorodnikov’s friends in Moscow wrote an appeal to Christians in the free world to mobilise and free their suffering brother in Christ. Open Doors, along with many other organisations, started letter-writing and prayer campaigns. British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher heard of Ogorodnikov’s plight and interceded with Soviet President Gorbachev on Ogorodnikov’s behalf.
On February 14, 1987, ninety-nine months after he was arrested, less than a year after his desperate letter to his mother, years before his new release date, Ogorodnikov was picked up from the camp by his sister and her husband. The other inmates refused to start work on the second shift before they were satisfied that he had truly been allowed to leave.
“I bow my head in deepest gratitude for your prayers and compassionate activity in defence of your Russian fellow-Christians,” Ogorodnikov wrote to those who prayed and campaigned for him. “It is in the concentration camps … as you are buried in the tomb-like twilight of solitary punishment cells, when the heart begins to fail, when hunger gnaws your belly, the cold numbs your flesh and desperation courses through your blood -- then it seems that an indifferent world has already consigned you to the grave, and despair washes over you like a tide.
“But it was in these terrible moments in icy cells that I physically felt the warmth of your prayers and compassion, a force linking us by a stream of spiritual energy generated by mutual experience of faith and the mysterious bonds of fraternal unity.”
Hurdles beyond Prison
Even with his release from prison, Ogorodnikov had personal hurdles ahead. He returned to Moscow, but was given no official residency papers; reason enough for him to be re-arrested. Dima, his son, had been a baby when Ogorodnikov was initially arrested. He had missed his son’s childhood and was always concerned about the boy’s spiritual upbringing. Now physically able to be a father to his son, he found himself in a custody fight.
The fall of the Soviet regime in 1992 opened the doors for religious and other freedoms, but with it came economic upheaval, disillusionment, organized crime, drugs, and immorality. The Communist system, flawed as it was, had nonetheless provided some structure and social programs. People were used to being “taken care of” by the State. Now that was gone.
Ogorodnikov saw a need and started a soup kitchen for Moscow’s homeless. In 1992, he set up “Island of Hope,” Moscow’s first private (not state-owned) centre and orphanage for girls. As of 2001, over 400 girls had found refuge, compassion, teaching, and Orthodox Christian values there. Still considered a dissident, Moscow authorities tried to shut down “Island of Hope.”
To find out about letter writing campaigns to persecuted Christians or more about the work of Open Doors call Open Doors on 01993-885400, e-mail info@opendoorsuk.org or go to the UK web site at www.opendoorsuk.org.
Ends.
Open Doors strengthens the persecuted Christians in 50 countries across the world by
1. training church leaders and Christian workers
2. supplying Bibles and other Christian literature
3. providing livelihood training and opportunities
4. visiting, comforting and encouraging those who are suffering
5. raising awareness of the difficulties facing persecuted Christians and mobilising prayer support throughout the western world