Part 1: Selections from Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia

The year 2020 marks the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Agreement on the Autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in America between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Greek Catholic Church of America, the “Metropolia.” To help commemorate this event, the Diocese of the West will be posting a series of articles and interviews on two priests who served in our Diocese before, during, and after the reception of autocephaly. They are: Archpriest Nikolajs Vieglais, longtime rector of St John the Baptist Church in Berkeley, CA, and Archpriest George Benigsen who served in Berkeley, at Holy Trinity Cathedral in San Francisco, at Transfiguration of Christ Cathedral in Denver, CO, at St Nicholas Church in Saratoga, CA, and at Holy Assumption Monastery in Calistoga (Fr George also served as Diocesan Chancellor).

These articles are taken from the second edition of Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia by Deacon John Dibs of the Antiochian Archdiocese, who has also served in the Diocese of the West. We are very indebted to Dn John for allowing us full access and permission to his work. 

An electronic version of the out-of-print text was made possible through the efforts and generosity of All American Printers in Petaluma, CA.

Please find below Fr Dn John’s preface, and check back weekly for episodic installments of some truly fascinating history!

In August 1941, amidst the dangers and uncertainties of the Second World War, a group of church missionaries set out from Riga, Latvia to the German-occupied city of Pskov and the surrounding regions. Blessed by Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky, the Patriarchate of Moscow’s exarch in the Baltic States, the first group of 15 priests, followed afterward by dozens of newly-ordained clergy as well as laymen, helped organize church communities in a large area of Western Russia starved of religious life under the Soviet regime. Over a period of two and a half years, these faithful men witnessed and participated in a great revival of church life and the reopening of a large number of churches.

This work presents the recollections of three priests who took part in the mission: Archpriest Nikolajs Vieglais (d. 1992), who labored tirelessly to support the mission from Riga, Latvia; Archpriest George Benigsen (d. 1993), who served as secretary of the mission in Pskov and organized a school and an orphanage there; and Archpriest Alexei Yonov (d. 1977), who was among the first priests to arrive in Pskov and who served in the Ostrov and Gdov districts. The memories shared by these honored archpriests reveal their remarkable faith and heroic struggle to serve God during truly difficult times.

I was privileged to know Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais in the early 1980s, as a student at the University of California, Berkeley. In late 1989 and early 1990, I conducted several interviews with him at the rectory of St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church on Essex Street in Berkeley, California. As the stories of Latvia, the war, and his own life unfolded, I witnessed a treasure of living faith in this wonderful priest. While discussing the events of the Second World War and the Latvian Church’s involvement in the Pskov mission, Fr. Nikolajs suggested that I speak with Fr. George Benigsen. I interviewed Fr. George at the Orthodox Religious Center on Washington Street in Calistoga, California. Not only were these two archpriests contemporaries, but their lives interwove both in Latvia and later as émigrés in the United States.

Fr. Nikolajs pursued a lifelong interest in publishing and distributing texts of church services, music and religious articles. He gave me a copy of a pamphlet published in Russian containing vivid and captivating first-hand accounts of Fr. Alexei Yonov’s missionary experiences in German-occupied Russia. A translation of this publication, Reflections of a Missionary, is presented in this book. Of the three distinguished priests whose memories are shared here, only Fr. Nikolajs was Latvian by background. Fr. George was born in Kazan, Russia, and as a boy moved to the city of Dvinsk (Daugavpils) in Eastern Latvia, the same city where Fr. Alexei Yonov was born. Latvia, which enjoyed independent statehood from 1918–1940, became the adopted home of many Russians in first half of the twentieth century. In terms of their service to the Orthodox Church, however, these three archpriests did share in common a rare honor: the mitre, or highest ecclesiastical award for those in the priesthood.

The oral history interviews with Fr. Nikolajs and Fr. George differ in scope. Those with Fr. Nikolajs cover the events in his entire life, though only touching on his more than 40 years as pastor at St. John the Baptist Orthodox Church in Berkeley. The interviews with Fr. George solely address the Soviet and German occupations of Latvia and the mission to Pskov. Fr. Nikolajs and Fr. George shared memories of Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky, whom they both assisted until his assassination in 1944. Fr. Nikolajs and Fr. George also shared their first-hand memories of the miracle-working Tikhvin Mother of God icon, an ancient icon widely venerated by Orthodox Christians. Fr. George witnessed the icon’s arrival in Pskov in late 1941 and its veneration by the local population. Before the Germans retreated from Pskov in February 1944, the icon was carried to Riga and received by Bishop John Garklavs. In September of that year, when Fr. Nikolajs and his family were ordered to leave Riga under armed escort, the German soldiers insisted that he take with him the icon, which was then at Holy Trinity Convent. The Vieglais family joined Bishop John and the families of several other evacuated clergy in the port city of Liepaja. Throughout the group’s journey in Eastern Czechoslovakia, Bavaria, the Displaced Person camps and finally the United States, the icon was the Mother of God’s help and protection. The Tikhvin Mother of God icon was returned to its homeland in June 2004.

The oral history interviews, conducted in English, were recorded on casette tapes. Fr. Nikolajs was interviewed on November 15 and 22, 1989, December 7 and 14, 1989, and January 3, 1990. Fr. George was interviewed on February 6 and March 2, 1990. The interview transcriptions were edited for clarity and the material organized in chronological sequence.
The material in the footnotes on pages 46, 104 and 112 was collected from interviews, conducted in Russian (through a translator), with Matushka Ludmilla Chillo in Warsaw, Poland on May 18 and 27, 1993. An effort was made in this second edition (see the footnotes on pages 24 and 25) to offer some historical notes regarding the unsolved murder of Archbishop John Pommer in Riga in 1943. Sources for other background information are cited within specific footnotes.
In the oral history transcriptions, abbreviations indicate who is speaking — NV (Nikolajs Vieglais); GB (George Benigsen), and Q
(John Dibs, the interviewer) —, square brackets enclose editorial comments inserted for clarification, and italics are used for foreign and technical words. I express heartfelt thanks to the many friends and individuals who reviewed drafts of the interview transcriptions, clarified foreign words, place names, and names of people, and provided valuable background information and photographs: Mrs. Marina Alva, the daughter of Fr. Nikolajs; Professor Olga Raevsky-Hughes of Berkeley; V. Rev. Sergei Garklavs, the adopted son of Bishop John Garklavs; Mr. Alexis Liberovsky, Director of the Department of History and Archives of the Orthodox Church in America; the nuns at Our Lady of Kazan Skete in Santa Rosa, California for translating Fr. Alexei’s reflections. Special thanks also to V. Rev. Victor Sokolov and other historians who reviewed the first edition of this publication and offered helpful comments.

Two beloved priest wives were aware of this project before their deaths. While visiting Poland in 1993, I interviewed Ludmilla Chillo (d. 2001), who lived in Lithuania during the Second World War. Metropolitan Sergius Voskresensky often visited Matushka Ludmilla and her husband, Fr. Lev (d. 1946), in Vilnius, and was in their home just four days before his untimely death. Ludmilla’s sister was married to Fr. Nikolai Demjanovich, a member of the Baltic Exarchate. Matushka Ludmilla gave me prints of photographs of members of the Baltic Exarchate’s meeting in April 1944 that appear in this publication. I also spoke about the project with Helen Benigsen (d. 2004) a few years after her husband’s death. Matushka Helen was widely known for her devotion to the church laboring beside Fr. George, and for her capable work as a church musician.

May the memories and examples of these three blessed priests inspire Orthodox clergy and laity to hold their Christian faith with authentic missionary zeal.

– Deacon John Dibs, February 2006 –

Click for the other parts in the series:

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8