Part 8: Selections from Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia

Our 8th, and last, installment of ‘Three Orthodox Christian Priests from Latvia’ highlights Fr George Benigsen’s experience as a member of the Church’s mission to Russia’s Pskov region during World War II to re-catechize the Orthodox population there that had been starving spiritually due to the atheist Soviet Regime. Once again, the Diocese of the West deeply thanks Deacon John Dibs of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America (AOCANA) for allowing us to publish these interviews. We hope you have enjoyed finding out a bit more about two priests with fantastically rich life stories who happened to live amongst us in the Diocese of the West!

The Pskov Mission

GB: The mission was sent on August 19, 1941. I went there about one month later. What the mission found in Pskov was complete destruction from the point of view of the church. The city of Pskov had 46 churches before the revolution, mostly small churches in all parts of the city. The city with a population of over 40,000 had over 40 churches. When we came to Pskov there was only one church that was open, the cemetery church of St. Dimitrius of Salonika, but the last priest had been sent to the concentration camps a few months before the Germans came. He had not indicated on his income tax 100 rubles that were given to him as a names day present. For this reason he was tried and sent to the concentration camps. The church stayed open and there were some lay services held in that church. All other churches were closed.

Q: Do you know the name of this priest?

GB: He was Fr. John, but I don’t remember his last name. He was the last priest. I got a hold of the financial reports of that particular parish, because it continued existing to the very end. You see, the church did not have to pay any taxes for the property because the property was considered to be the people’s property. All property was given to the church — if it was given free of taxes. But the parishioners had to pay taxes for the priest. And for the last year of the priest’s pastorate in the church, the community had to pay the government something like a quarter of a million rubles, which in those times was almost equal to a quarter of a million dollars, so a very, very high cost. They were able to provide that money from among those people who were fearful, afraid and everything else. They were still getting money together and paying it. So people were sacrificing.

Q: So when the first priests arrived in Pskov, there were no priests in the churches?

GB: There were no priests. We were finally responsible for a very large area, from Pskov to Leningrad. One of our small parishes was in a suburb of Leningrad. In other words, this was the whole northwestern part of Russia, a very huge place. It was good luck that that particular part of Russia never had German civil government, but was always under the military government. The military government was never as bad as the civil government, because the civil government was completely party-penetrated and party-directed. The military government was under military personnel and there were a number of decent Prussian officers who understood the situation. As everywhere, Germans are people, so there are good Germans and bad Germans. The saying is true: If you find good people, life becomes easier.
Fortunately for us — and this was constantly considered to be a fortune —, wherever the church was converted into an anti-religious museum, this was good luck, because everything was there. You had to throw out all those chemical things and also every large church usually would have a pendulum hanging in the center to show everybody that the earth was not flat. No one suspected it, as a matter of fact, but at least everything was there — icons and everything. So the cathedral was immediately taken over by the mission and restored as a place for services.

Q: What cathedral are you referring to?

GB: This one [points to a picture in his office]. This is an old cathedral built in 1699 under Peter the Great. And the place around the cathedral is called the kremlin, which means fortress. So for a while I lived there and my address was Pskov, Kremlin, No. 3! This is a church with standing capacity I would say for about 6,000 people — a huge, huge place. Most of the churches in Pskov are relatively small, just for the local communities. But this was the cathedral and it was a very huge church. And when the mission came, there was a tremendous response from the people. The people started flocking back to the church immediately — children, young people and adults. Choirs formed almost spontaneously. Immediately a choir of 40 people was singing at the cathedral. All choir directors were arrested and sent away, but there was a singer who was able to direct the choir. So everything went back. And we had mass baptisms, something like 90 baptisms each Sunday. So it was a real revival.
I must say that this was a tremendous pastoral experience for me. I have never felt anything like it in my life. And there I saw the great difference between our Western Orthodoxy or Western Christianity and what was happening in the Soviet Union. For us Christianity is usually a bouquet of roses; for them it was a piece of bread. This is the main difference. I still think the Soviets made one gross mistake with the church there. They should really have given the church plenty of money and absolute freedom. It would have died its own death! Nothing helps as much as persecutions.

Q: What is the name of the cathedral in Pskov?

GB: Holy Trinity. And there was also a basement church of the same size, St. Seraphim Church. We were able to repair and restore them, because the windows were broken and after all the war, everything was all over the place.

Q: Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais gave me a copy of some memoirs of one of the members of the mission.

GB: Fr. Alexis Yonov.

Q: Could you say as well as you remember the names of the 15 original priests who went on the mission?

GB: The ones who I remember are Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais’s friend, Fr. John Legkij. They were serving together in the convent in Riga. The funny part of it is that in Latvian, vieglais means ‘the light,’ or ‘the easy one’ and legkij is the equivalent in Russian! They were the same — smaller men and very diligent priests. Then there was Fr. Kyrill Zaits who was the head of the mission. Fr. Alexei Yonov, who died in Burlingame, California in the late 70s. He was with the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), but after the autocephaly he joined the Synod. Old Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky was also there at the very beginning.

Q: You mentioned that you left a month later than the first group. Can you explain how they left? Did they go together?

GB: They went together in a large bus straight from Riga. We sent them off with a moleben and prayers and everything else. It was the feast day of Transfiguration. And they arrived in Pskov on the same day, because Pskov is not very far from Riga, about 200 miles, if not less. So they arrived in Pskov not knowing what was going to happen there. But quite soon they found that in spite of very miserable living conditions (especially during the first year of our stay, conditions were really miserable; there was real hunger for all of us), there was spiritual enthusiasm among the people. They warmly welcomed us as soon as they found out who we were.

Q: Was there a division of labor of some kind before the first priests left? How did they decide how to organize things?

GB: Yes. First of all, quite soon we started getting some sense of what the whole area was like. We started looking for clergy in the area. We did not find any. We found only one priest who belonged to one of the splinter groups of the Church of Russia who joined us, and one or two more. We found some readers, who then were called to Pskov and prepared for the priesthood and ordained simply because people needed as many priests as possible. Some new priests also joined us, having come from Latvia, a couple of people even from Estonia. But we immediately divided the mission, the whole missionary district, into subdistricts, so every major city would have a priest who would be in control of the city and its surroundings and would start working on establishing more parishes, more communities and repairing the churches. Out of 44 or 46 churches in Pskov, by the end of our stay in Pskov in February 1944, we were able to reopen 11 churches — reopen, re-equip, restore and put back into normal circulation.
So it was really organized. It was a mission. Communication was not very easy, but still we were able to retain communications. I was secretary of the mission also, so I had to keep the records and communications and everything else. Communications usually went by human contacts, because there was no telephone. Mail worked very poorly, so it was a slightly semi-underground proposition. In addition, everyone had to learn how to deal with the German authorities, which is not necessarily the easiest thing.
In my experience in Pskov, I found out that one was able to first of all find good Germans, as I said earlier, who quite often were very anti-Hitler. This anti-Hitlerism was always there and was gradually growing when they started seeing what was going on. Especially when they saw the way their own people were dealing with Russian prisoners of war. It was absolutely terrifying. They were killing them simply en masse. Thousands famished or were simply killed. In other words, what happened between Stalin and Hitler was that Hitler was sending people to Stalin and Stalin was sending people to Hitler. This was a great conflict. Also, the Germans had several security or police groups that were usually in mutual distrust and mutual conflict. So you had to find out which one to go for a particular cause or reason. And gradually you were even able to help some people.
At the very beginning of my stay in Pskov I was in the cathedral for a short time, and then I was given that last opened church which was the fourteenth century church of St. Dimitrios, a cemetery church, with a large group of people. And since it was a cemetery church, I had an unbelievable number of funerals every week. Plus, I was able to open a school, which was more important. By the end of our stay there I had about 200 kids in the school. Now Germans are peculiar people. If you were able to prove to them that the school taught only religion, they did not mind. As a matter of fact, some German soldiers were willing to look at those children as an
“employed” element. They even gave them food cards and did not mobilize them for any kind of other work. Thus we were able to save a rather sizable percentage of young people. We taught them some Russian. We taught them some Russian history, but basically it was five days, six days a week of religion, which was very useful because kids did not know anything, and they were absorbing unbelievably, like sponges, everything that was told to them about religion. They were very nice kids. So the educational opportunities were there. Things were printed. Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais was printing some things in Riga, some other places were helping us, so we used whatever was available. The metropolitan stayed in Riga, but he would come once in a while and visit Pskov.

Q: Did he have any particular prior interest in Pskov itself, or was this something that came up because of the circumstances?

GB: I think because of circumstances. But also, Pskov and Novgorod — Novgorod was also ours — are very significant entities in Russian history. The historical perspective is interesting because these two cities were early medieval democracies and very free-spirited places as well as important church places. And then Pskov fell under and still falls under the metropolitan of Leningrad. Metropolitan Alexei in Leningrad is now also the metropolitan in charge of Tallinn and Pskov. So I think the basic thing was that first of all we couldn’t go anywhere else, because Riga was under the immediate supervision of that particular military district. So we wouldn’t be able to send a priest let’s say to Kiev, or something like that. We were limited geographically.

Q: But wasn’t Kiev also under German occupation?

GB: Oh yes, but this is a separate story in itself. But you know, the Germans came as far as the suburbs of Moscow. This was an unbelievable, demonic stupidity that the Germans did. And there was a definite turning point at least in my own analysis. First, Hitler had a commander-in-chief, Field Marshal [Walther] von Brauchitsch. And things went along the lines of a tremendous German victory. The Russians were so filled with hatred for Stalin and for communism that Russian soldiers really went in millions on the German side — mostly just to be exterminated — but this was a spontaneous, massive thing.
Then, at one particular point in time, I think under the influence of his main ideologist Rosenberg, Hitler decided that the Russian element was nothing else but fertilizer for the Great German Experiment. He removed von Brauchitsch and appointed himself as commander-in-chief. Why did he do it? Because von Brauchitsch, seeing that there were so many prisoners of war that the Germans didn’t know what to do with, introduced to Hitler the idea that Russian prisoners of war from regions that were already occupied be sent home to start working on the farms and so on, and to restore the local economy. Those from districts that were not yet occupied would be challenged to join the German voluntary anti-communist army and to fight the communists. This was a sound idea because you can fight them only by their own forces, not by a foreign army. Under the influence of Rosenberg, Hitler was completely against it, and he removed von Brauchitsch and appointed himself commander-in-chief.
The next chapter was Stalingrad. And Stalingrad was the beginning of the end. It was a losing proposition. From then on, the Germans really started losing the war.

Q: Did Metropolitan Sergius have contact with von Brauchitsch?

GB: No, he did not. It was too high.

Q: What contacts did he have?

GB: As far as German names, I only remember the name of the Kommandant from Pskov, Lieutenant General von Hoffman, who was a Christian officer and therefore sympathetic to our cause.

Q: Were you appointed the secretary of the mission before you went?

GB: I was sent to the mission with that appointment. Then I also became the priest of that cemetery church, St. Dimitrios Church. I ended my stay at St. Dimitrios Church having just organized the school, but I also had an orphanage for about 40 kids, because these were times when kids were lost quite easily. Their parents were killed, the front was separating families, and so on. So I had about 40 kids who I was able to organize into an orphanage, not without help from some good German Christians at that time. But then I moved from that church together with my orphanage to an ancient historical monastery. There is the last picture on that wall. [points to picture] This is the monastery of Mirozh in Pskov. So I had my orphanage there, and then I was appointed the sacristan of the cathedral. My last months were spent between the cathedral and the place where I had my orphanage, and I wasn’t secretary any more. I don’t remember who was the secretary. I did mostly pastoral work before returning back to Latvia in the early spring of 1944.

Q: Did the idea to start a school and orphanage come about after you got there?

GB: Yes. I saw the need. It was easy, because after all, it was only 25 years since 1917, so people were not as indoctrinated as they are right now, although it seems to be easy even now, because right now I think that there is a popular healing from the plague. It was very fast. It was enough to see demonstrations in Moscow the day before yesterday, and also to see the tremendous revival of religion in the Soviet Union. But I also hope that we— the mission — did its own little share, because I think we planted some seeds. We were also able to restore some lost sentiments, to implant new ones, and to produce a very high level of revival of Orthodoxy and Orthodox Christianity on that local level; it stayed there. Because out of all those kids and everybody else who had tasted the sweetness of the church, quite a few of them from the parish remained there.

Q: When you went to the mission a month after the others, how did you travel?

GB: By German military truck, in the back of the truck. I came covered with a thick layer of dust.

Q: Were you with soldiers in the truck?

GB: There was a driver who was probably a German soldier. I don’t even remember and didn’t see much of him because I was simply given permission to ride that truck with a lay person who was also working with the mission. We had several lay people from Latvia.

Q: What was the name of the lay person you were with?

GB: Valery Karavaev, a friend. So we came together, and we came very late at night, The moon was shining, and Pskov, with all the buildings like this one [points to picture], was almost like entering into a fantasy land.

Q: No electricity, lights?

GB: Nothing much. Electricity was not working quite well. It was restored later on, but this was the very beginning, so we were cold and hungry. But this was the very end of September, so it was not too bad yet. But winter starts early, especially in those parts of Russia. October is already kind of a winter month. So we came there not knowing what was awaiting us, what to expect, what we were going to do, and so on. So we had to work by shear intuition more or less, with God’s help, naturally. God was leading us. These were very, very hungry times for us.

Q: Were you given some papers of introduction to the German military?

GB: Yes. We went to the Germans, and there is nothing the Germans would respect more than official papers, especially if it had a nicely looking, spectacular rubber stamp. You could go around just showing them your papers! There and in Germany — and I saw it later on when we had to be displaced to Germany — papers were very important. I was carrying a whole pile of papers.

Q: And those were from the bishop?

GB: From the bishop introducing us to the local authorities. When we were introduced to the local authorities, we usually tried to procure papers from them also, again, a good place that was willing to write a paper and put a stamp on it. So relations started developing gradually. I would say that these were semi-underground relations, because on the surface you really couldn’t do anything. The surface was the very dangerous, unpleasant, and harsh reality of Nazism and everything else, very anti-Russian. But going a little bit deeper and looking for people always gave the possibility to find some helping hands and some open hearts among some quite unexpected people. Sometimes you would go to the secret police and find somebody there who understood the reality of everything and saw the misery of Russia and really wanted to help, sometimes not without some personal danger involved. So really, it was possible.

Q: When you arrived in Pskov, where did you stay?

GB: We were able to join Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky who was a temporary head of the mission. Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky was a priest who was born in Pskov, but emigrated from Russia after the Russian revolution, and finally turned up in Latvia. And when he joined the mission, he went back to Pskov to his family home, only to find that his son, who had been still living there under the Soviets, was evacuated with the Soviets, and he wasn’t able to find him. But his house was there, and the house was whole and undamaged. So our first mission offices were opened in that particular house of Fr. Nicholas, which is almost a miracle again because we at least found a strong roof and everything else there and really started working from there. Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky quite soon became sick and went back to Latvia and died in Latvia, and was replaced by Fr. Kyrill Zaits, who was a very excellent priest.

Q: And at that time how many people were in this house?

GB: It was basically a male only community. There were at least two priests and about six lay people who were helping us with all of our chores: singing, reading, and so on. I was a priest at that time. Some of these lay people went through a difficult experience later on. Valery Karavaev, whose name I mentioned just now, and my personal friend, Constantine Kravchonok, who was also a lay member of the mission, decided not to be evacuated to Germany at the end of the war and stayed in Latvia. Both of them got ten years of concentration camp. Poor Constantine Kravchonok came back and had high hypertension and died in Riga, they found out. Valery Karavaev is still there, but evidently a sickly man. This is why I was very fortunate that I decided not to stay there, because my bones would be rotting some place in Siberia by now.

Q: Do you remember any other names of people there?

GB: Fr. Nicholas Zhunda was with us. Some local people also started joining us and helping us. Names are vague by now, after all, it was almost 40 years ago. And between then and now, there were so many faces, names and people around us.

Q: Was it at an early stage that the members of the original group went to different subdistricts?

GB: Quite early, as soon as possible. I think that most of the members of the group were already away when I reached Pskov.

Q: What did you do for food?

GB: The first year it was very difficult. First of all, some people were bringing us what they were able to get a hold of. Buying was a very difficult proposition. The local civil authorities and the city of Pskov, as other cities under the Germans, were beginning to organize themselves. Quite often the organization was not very pleasant, because some of the Russians who took care of organizing them were real bad. It’s interesting, because quite a few of them were former dedicated communists who immediately became very dedicated Nazis, not a very unusual situation. But at least there was some system of food stamps, which was a pretty nominal thing; stamps were there, but food was not there. So in that first year it was simply trying to get hold of whatever was available. It was very difficult. And I must say that once in a while we were really famished because it was so bad and we were so hungry. Stores were not open. The black market was there, but there was no currency except for vodka, cognac, cigarettes, butter and things like that. These things were the real currency, nothing else. So it was really difficult. But people were good, and people were caring for us, and gradually people started helping, and when somebody had something extra, they would bring it to the priest. So it was helpful.
Also, people started immediately digging up ecclesiastical things, because when churches began to be closed and destroyed after 1917, when people found out that the Bolsheviks were also destroying everything that was religious, sacramental and so on, they started hiding things. So we began to get chalices, gospel books, crosses, icons and epitaphions, and things like that, quite a volume. Sometimes we were very careful, and once in a while when somebody would come to me and say, ‘Father, I know one particular place, and it’s under those bricks. There’s a big hole, and there are some nice church things.’ I would say, ‘Don’t touch it,’ because we were so uncertain about the future. We had to look in the future and see what was going to happen, because if nothing good would happen, after being uncovered, these things would simply perish. So there were some things still there and probably they are still there now, and probably some people still know how to get them out.
In 1942 the Germans in that particular part of occupied Russia decided to try an interesting experiment. It did not happen in other parts of Russia, because German civil governments were installed in other parts of Russia. The military government was willing to take some risks. In the spring of 1942, land reform was announced and collective farms were abolished. They kept state farms for their own use, but collective farms were dispersed, abolished, disbanded. And the peasants were told that they were now free to divide the land among themselves, and they started working from their own land. The proposition was risky and pretty miserable, because first of all, peasants meant usually women, old folks and children. The men were all fighting on the front. Usually it meant one horse for about 10 houses. But in the course of one year, an agrarian miracle happened. As soon as the peasants were able to lay hands on their own little parcels of land, even under foreign occupation, even with all the terror and everything else, I would say that the land responded. And one year later, it was a complete wealth of agrarian produce and everything else. So it showed all the evil of the demonic system of the Soviets. So economic life changed. It was possible to eat better and to buy more and so on and so forth, even in those conditions.

Q: This agrarian decision was made by the Germans?

GB: By the Germans, officially announced in the great plaza in the Kremlin, with clergy and icons and everything else present! It was incredible. This is why it’s so difficult to think about writing any memoirs. I would probably immediately be tried as a German sympathizer. And by no means am I a German sympathizer, because I know how absolutely demonic the whole thing was. But as usual, everything that is demonic is always very stupid. So was Stalinism, so is communism. Now, after 72 years of communism, they have to admit that the whole thing was a failure. So why did it exist for 72 years? There was nothing to be said. Today, in the Kremlin, finally, Gorbachev will probably say that the whole thing was a bankruptcy. Now the communist party may be at least put on the line with other parties. It’s unbelievable.

Q: I’ve been talking with Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais. He was at that time acting as a secretary to the metropolitan and helping with sending supplies to the mission. What kinds of things came from Latvia?

GB: Whatever the churches had extra. For instance, I had my gospel book and my cross from the cathedral in Riga, some spare vestments. The churches immediately sent appeals for collections, not just for these things, but churches had also mass collections. Clothing, food, and so on, were supposed to be sent whenever possible to Russia or given locally. There were also prisoners of war in tremendous numbers in Riga. So the help was there, the help was organized, and charities were working.

Q: Were some supplies transported with German cooperation?

GB: No, mostly by that time, some known Germans were able to start some kind of little industry and there would be a truck available and a German permit would be granted. Private means of conveyance were used usually. Again, if there was a good German willing to do that, we would find him, but basically the supply came from the Baltic States — Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. Whatever the churches were able to share with us, they were giving to us.

Q: I also asked Fr. Nikolajs if there were other churches giving support to this mission. He mentioned the Polish Orthodox Church. At this early stage, was there any contact?

GB: The Polish Orthodox Church I presume was able to send some printed things. Also, we got some printed things from the Church in Exile indirectly, because they were printing service books and so on, a rather good quantity. So some of these things were also channeled to us, but they did not send any priests.

Q: It sounds as if you were basically on your own there?

GB: Very much so. We were on our own, yes. We had some communication with Riga and with the metropolitan, very sporadic communication, which was very difficult to get there. I think I was able to go to Riga finally at the very end of 1941 to see my son for the first time. He was born in October 1941 when I was in Pskov. So I was able to secure a place on a German train. Going by train to Riga was also something, because it was about 300 miles. But once it took me 48 hours in a freezing train, with nothing much to eat. So these were kind of heroic times! Nowadays when I see a priest who is trying to choose a nice parish, and is not quite happy with the parish that he is offered, I think about this particular experience! No one really knew what one was going for.
Once, I think it was in San Francisco, a Holy Trinity Cathedral parishioner, a friend of mine, tried to tell me that priests now are so different from those in the good old times. Today priests want a larger salary, better facilities, better cars, and so on. And he said, ‘When we came to America in the 20s, we had to become janitors, and our Fr. Sergei was working as a janitor, and no one was really demanding anything.’ And I told him, ‘My friend, I agree with you 100 percent. I am always able and willing to be as poor as my parishioners.’ But I was referring, in my mind, to the Pskov experience, where we really were as hungry and as poor and deprived of everything, except for spiritual food, which was really in abundance, because in my entire pastoral life, I have never had anything as impressive as that experience.

Q: Can you say something about the help you received from the local people?

GB: The local people were unbelievably generous. Whatever they were able to give, they gave. I remember one experience that illustrates what I am saying.
We received from the Germans the miraculous icon of Our Lady of Tikhvin. It was given by the Germans to the mission, because the Germans brought it from the city of Tikhvin, near Leningrad, where German soldiers saved it from the ruins of a burning cathedral. They brought it to Pskov, and they wanted to make of it a little propaganda act for the local religious population. So the icon was given to us in very solemn conditions. It was solemnly brought in a procession from the Kommandant’s headquarters in Pskov to the cathedral with German officers and clergy and choirs and banners and everything else. Those Germans somehow tried to understand what is good and what is bad. So it was brought there. And it was kept in the cathedral. Before it was brought to the cathedral, it was delivered to us in that mission house, Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky’s house. We kept it on a large table standing upright. It was New Year’s night of 1942 and we had our New Year moleben in front of that icon. The next day it was announced to the people in the churches that if they would like to come and venerate the icon, they were welcome to come to the mission headquarters and do so. People started coming in lines and lines, and I was standing slightly apart, and I suddenly saw money growing into a big pile on that table. The people were simply putting money without even being asked for it. They were simply putting their money, and money was coming on and on and on.
So from that point of view, people were extremely generous, everybody, just as they are doing now with the restorations in the churches in Russia. St. Daniel Monastery in Moscow was given by the Soviets a few years ago and badly needed restoration, and the restoration was done completely on the private donations of 37 million rubles. So the people are very generous.
I also remember a very funny thing. We ran out of eucharistic wine. So I announced in the church that unless we would get sweet red wine, there would be no Liturgy celebrated the Sunday after next. I only had enough for one Sunday. A couple of days later I was sitting in my parish house at that cemetery church with a couple of friends and there was a knock at the door. I opened the door. There was a little aged lady, all bundled, and she came and said, ‘Father, yesterday in the church you asked for sweet vodka. And I brought you a bottle of liquor.’ I did not use it for eucharistic purposes! But the response was always there. People really helped. People provided transportation if necessary and everything.

Q: What kind of transportation did you use?

GB: No cars. Horses. Finally I was able to get a horse and carriage for myself, so I had my own coachman.

Q: How did the older people treat this presence?

GB: The older people treated it very kindly, very enthusiastically, only the older people were very careful. You see, the Church of Russia had just gone through a very painful experience with the so-called Living Church. And since these priests were coming from elsewhere, the people were not quite certain what they were facing.

Q: Who was the Patriarch in Moscow at this time?

GB: He was locum tenens, the future Patriarch Sergius Stragorodsky. He became locum tenens quite early. In 1927 he made his declaration of loyalty, so actually he replaced the late Patriarch Tikhon. When Patriarch Tikhon died, he became locum tenens, highly criticized by the Russian Church in Exile, in vain, I think. In 1927, would Patriarch Tikhon — now Saint Tikhon — still have been alive, he would have done the same thing, because they simply did not know what was going to happen. And nominal loyalty was a necessity, because otherwise they knew only one thing: If they wouldn’t sign a paper like that, they wouldn’t know what would happen to the church and the priests. But things happened anyway, it did not save anything. But criticizing them right now is a very safe proposition from New York or wherever.
But then, you know, trust was built also by the fact that they found out from the very beginning that we belonged to the Patriarchate of Moscow, so in Pskov we prayed for locum tenens Sergius and we prayed for the metropolitan of Leningrad, Alexei, and these were already two authorities that were quite well known to the local people. If there was any dissension that they are calling nowadays a catacomb church, it was very sporadic and insignificant. We hadn’t found any. In all the two and a half years in Pskov we found only one priest who came to us and stated that he was a member of a dissident group in the church, otherwise there was no one.

Q: Did church attendance include a wide age range? Did people bring their children?

GB: We had up to 90 baptisms a Sunday, children of all ages. The same thing nowadays. I just had two visitors from Moscow, a young lawyer and his wife. He stays in San Francisco and is an intern for an American law firm, just invited for six months or something like that. They both are very dedicated, very religious people in their upper 20s in Moscow. And she said, ‘Our priests are so tired, because every Sunday, sprinkling, immersing, pulling of about 100 kids, and plenty of young people, grown ups, and children.’
The same thing then. I had a few baptisms of 90, which was a kind of merry-go-round proposition, because I had to do those simultaneously, one baptism rite, with 90 immersions!

Q: Where did you immerse them? Was it in the church itself?

GB: In the church itself. It was winter, and cold! Russian winter. Especially the winter of 1941 was extremely cold, even for Russia. I had two churches: one was a winter church and one a summer church joined together. We usually opened the doors and then went merry-go-round around the baptismal font.

Q: Did you keep records of all these baptisms and funerals?

GB: Our records were sent to Riga, so I don’t know what finally happened to them.

Q: How did you make records and get information about people when they would come for baptisms or funerals. Did you have help in this?

GB: Our lay people helped us. There was plenty to do. All the forms came from Riga. They were printed and sent to us. Otherwise we did everything. The lay people helped us, so we didn’t have to do all those things. The first Easter I tried to prepare my school for the feast day. For almost all of them, this was an unusual and first experience, Easter midnight and so on. So I was telling them in the best possible terms about the beauty of the services and everything else, and then I gave them an assignment to write about ‘How I am going to spend my first Easter night in a new Russia.’ One boy wrote in rather simplified Russian, ‘Soon there will be Easter night, and my mother and I will go to the church for a demonstration.’!This was the only thing he really knew.
But you know, it was a really fruitful experience, because they were so open, they were so absorbing, they were so anxious, and the kids especially so loving and friendly. They were just flocking around me all the time. It was really a tremendous experience, children, parents and everything else. I still have a long list of names that I have commemorated since then in my book of remembrance and I pray for them at every proskomedia.2 The ones who I remember must be about 60 or something by now. But you know, when you haven’t seen them for such a long time, just like with dead people, you remember the dead always the age when they die. So also with those children. I still remember them. In my mind they are still children as they were then.

Q: Were there older people baptized or was it mostly young children?

GB: No, I would say that at that time most of the old people were already baptized. It was still too soon after the revolution. There could be some young grown ups, but not too many of them, because most of them were baptized.
Sometimes the baptisms took some interesting forms. I found out a case of a child thrice baptized under the Soviets. Soon after his birth, his grandmother was the first one to take him to the local priest who was still functioning there, in secret from the father and mother. Next it was the mother who took the child. The father and mother were both communists. The mother took the child in secret from the grandmother and grandfather. The third was the father. So the priest had to do two conditional baptisms, because he couldn’t tell the people that the baby was already baptized, so he had to baptize the child the second and third time with a conditional baptism, ‘…if never baptized yet…’. So things like that were happening.
And don’t forget, when we were speaking about cities — Pskov, Novgorod, and other cities —, around these cities there were also all the rural communities, peasants, and plenty of them. Since mine was a last and only cemetery church, usually on Saturday — they liked having funerals on Saturdays mainly — they brought 10, 12, 15 coffins from surrounding villages.

Q: Was there a problem with the ground being frozen during the winter?

GB: Usually bon fires were lit, so the grounds were unfrozen slightly at least. But it wasn’t so bad in the wintertime. It was worse sometimes in the summertime because of the heat. You would go in the church for the funeral of 12 or 15 people, and come home and be penetrated by the smell.
It also happened sometimes that if somebody was killed by partisans or something like that and buried in the winter, he would be found in the spring, his corpse just unfrozen. So it was a kind of morbid proposition, but this is what life is about. Once in a while, living now in very comfortable western conditions with our beautiful funeral homes, I miss the smell!Because everything is perfumed and everything is just like alive. Death was a reality in those times, a reality for those who died and a reality for those who lived, because we were always walking on the borderline of death and life.

Q: You said the funerals were mostly on Saturdays?

GB: Saturdays were usually a free day for people to bring their coffins to the church, especially from some distance, but we also had funerals during the week.

Q: Baptisms were mostly on Sundays?

GB: Mostly on Sundays because everybody was free, and they were able to invite guests. Sometimes we had mass weddings, especially at the very beginning of our stay. I know of a priest who married something like 40 couples simultaneously.
So when we are speaking nowadays about evangelization and are trying to invent methods and print more pamphlets, and do some other things also, especially the art they call cryptographic (those pamphlets with graphic things where everybody looks like Martians; for some reason some people think that this is attractive to modern Americans), with all our announcements of services, and so on, it was absolutely unnecessary in Russia. It was just an existential reality that everybody knew about. It was natural even for Eastern Europeans when we were living there, Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais or myself. The main difference between our life here and our life there is that the sense of liturgical cycle, the ecclesiastical, annual cycle, was a thing that was, regardless of your practical religiosity existing or not, embedded into your subconscious. And I simply knew that I did not go to the Elevation of the Holy Cross that particular year. There were no announcements, no schedules.
When having come to the West, I saw the first add in the Russian newspaper about forthcoming services in the local church, it struck me as blasphemy. I thought, Who ever announces services in the newspaper? So, the same thing in Russia. It was so deep, somehow it continued to be deep there, and if it was not, it was growing deeper. So evangelization was nothing like a project, which is one of our familiar and favorite idioms here. There were no projects. It was a natural thing. If I would have to come for Sunday Liturgy to the great cathedral, Holy Trinity Cathedral, and people would know that Liturgy begins at 10:00 in the morning, and I would come at 8:30 or 9:00 for the proskomedia, I had to make my way through the crowd of people already having packed the cathedral, packed in such a way that at the time of the great entrance, I had to send my altar boys, and preferably big sized ones, in front of me, to make a path between the iconostas and the people who were there standing on the ambon. It was crowded all the time.

Q: As far as weekly services, what was going on in the cathedral church in Pskov?

GB: Every day, morning and evening. It wouldn’t necessarily be crowded, but it was pretty nicely filled. Liturgy every morning, vespers and matins every evening. Usually a choir singing at every service. But then, you know, it was nothing unusual for us because we had a relatively similar situation in Riga. At the cathedral in Riga where I was serving as a deacon, we had Liturgy every morning and we had vespers and matins every evening. We would sing ourselves. Even for minor feasts there would be a choir singing. So the cycle was always there.
So those were unforgettable years. Now, you know, it almost sounds as if it is somebody else’s story. It does not sound very real, although it was one of the strongest realities in my whole pastoral life. This was really the highlight of my entire pastoral life. When you felt that you are really needed, when you felt that you don’t have to run after people, that you don’t have to really propagate or advertise, to appeal, to make everything attractive. Everything was quite existentially natural. It was there and there was great demand, and there was great need.

Q: You mentioned that you went back to Riga to see your son.

GB: It was a couple of months after I left, probably in November 1941, maybe even later, because he was born in October 1941. And then we baptized him, and Metropolitan Sergius was present at the baptism. He was baptized by Fr. John Janson. And the metropolitan was standing by because he was the godfather. And then I went back to Russia again, back to Pskov. And the next time I came [back to Riga] was probably in six months. In all those two and a half years, I was able to go back home probably two or three times. The final time when I came to Riga was late February 1944.

Q: I’d like to know more about the participants in this mission. Was the first head of the mission Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky?

GB: Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky was second. The first head was Fr. Sergius Efimov, a priest from a Russian parish in a provincial city in Latvia. He was the first one who came to Pskov as the head of the mission, but he fell into a very strange and unexpected trap.
Fr. Sergius was in some senses a very traditional priest, but he had a habit to read the Holy Gospel facing the congregation. The Orthodox in Russia at that time knew that whoever read the Gospel facing the congregation must have belonged to the Living Church. He was ostracized, just like that. The people were especially careful about any liturgical innovations because they had experienced a very difficult thing with the Living Church people. The Living Church people — and this is the irony of the situation — were actually propagating some reforms that were quite healthy, but because of the political background, any kind of reform became a dangerous proposition. So the people were extremely wary of reforms as something not to be associated with true Orthodoxy. Anything new, unusual and a reform-type thing, whomever it came from, immediately provoked suspicion and resistance.
Nobody minded that we were under the Patriarchate of Moscow. On the contrary, the fact that we were praying for locum tenens Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky was our ID card, liturgically speaking. When they heard us praying for locum tenens Metropolitan Sergius of Moscow, this was the document for them to know that we were canonical and legal and that we could be trusted. And you know, we continued being under the Patriarchate of Moscow in Russia even under German occupation. Even on our rubber stamp we had the Patriarchate of Moscow indicated. So Metropolitan Sergius [Voskresensky] retained his complete faithfulness to the Patriarchate to the very end, even under those conditions.
But [the experience of Fr. Sergius Efimov] was a lesson for us; we knew that we had to be extremely careful in all these minor things. It was a question of liturgical and religious self-protection from the people, because they were suspicious. They suspected everybody, especially people coming from elsewhere. So Fr. Sergius Efimov was the first head of the mission, Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky was the second. Fr. Nicholas was a regular archpriest, a nice man. As I told you, we lived in his house in the city of Pskov. But then he became sick and he left because of his state of health, and he was replaced by Fr. Kyrill Zaits.

Q: Was Fr. Kyrill was one of the original 15 who went?

GB: No, not to my recollection. I think he came later. He was dean of the cathedral in Riga. I don’t know whether Fr. Nikolajs mentioned him to you or not, because he went through some very difficult personal or ecclesiastical regulations under Archbishop John Pommer. There were unnecessary suspicions about his dishonesty and misappropriation of funds and so on. He was finally tried and found completely innocent. He was one of the finest priests I have ever seen in my life. So he was the third and the final head of the mission. He stayed there until the very end. He returned to Riga and did not leave Latvia, but stayed there, was exiled to a concentration camp, and died there, sometime in the early 60s I think, both he and his wife.

Q: What was Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky’s responsibility in Latvia before he went to the mission?

GB: I don’t remember exactly which parish, but he was in one of the Eastern Latvian parishes. We had in Eastern Latvia a really huge Russian population and he was a priest there to the best of my recollection.

Q: You also mentioned Fr. John Legkij who was at the convent with Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais.

GB: Fr. John Legkij is in this country. He is under the Church in Exile. He must have his own recollections about it because he was very active.

Q: He stayed through the full time?

GB: He became very sick. I think he might have left a little bit earlier because he had a very bad case of typhus, which was almost epidemic. He was severely sick, and probably because of that he left earlier, though I’m not absolutely certain. He was a very fine priest. I’ve known him since I was a relatively young boy, because he was a parish priest in the parish before my ordination.

Q: You also mentioned Fr. Alexis Yonov. Where was he from?

GB: Fr. Alexei is from the city of Dvinsk [Daugavpils], Latvia. This is the city where my family came straight from Russia in 1924, so where I went for my elementary and high school education. He was older than me, and he graduated from the same high school from which I graduated, only earlier than I did. While in high school, he wasn’t a very religious young man. On the contrary, he was a rather searching, free-thinker type of gentleman. And then he happened to be invited to a retreat of the Russian Christian Student Movement held in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, which must have been sometime, I would say, in the mid 30s, probably even the early 30s. Fr. Alexei Yonov came from that particular retreat a changed man. These retreats were really powerful. I participated myself in this movement and it was really an excellent organization that gave us plenty of theological education besides everything else. So he became a changed man, and almost immediately went to St. Sergius in Paris. He graduated from St. Sergius and came back to Latvia, was looking for an appointment, and we met again.
At that time I underwent my own conscientious reconversion to Orthodoxy. And by that time I was thinking about eventual priesthood. And Fr. Alexei Yonov, who was still a very young priest, was a very helpful stimulant and factor for me to make my final decision, because he was very intelligent, he was colorful, he was modern in the best possible sense of the word. And he was appointed to a small village parish in Latgale, which is the Eastern part of Latvia populated mostly by Russians. And I and a friend of mine, Constantine Kravchonok, who died relatively recently about 10 years ago in Riga, were both by that time close to the church as altar boys, readers and so on. I sang in the choir and participated in the Christian Student Movement quite actively, led a group myself. So for three years during the summertime, Constantine and I made pilgrimages to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery. Since we did not have much money for our travel, we took the cheapest possible train to a place a few miles from where Fr. Alexei Yonov was a priest. Fr. Alexei would know in advance we were coming. He would send one of his parishioners with a horse and carriage that would take us to his rectory and we’d spend a couple of days with him, a very pleasant couple of days, because he was very anxious to have somebody from outside. We were very interested in meeting a person of his spiritual, pastoral caliber. And from his place we would walk 90 kilometers one way to the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, which was a real pilgrimage! I think 45 kilometers a day, so it was a good clip.
Then by the time of my ordination to the deaconate, which was in 1937, Fr. Alexei was already a priest in one of the main Russian Orthodox parishes in Riga. So we were close again. I participated in the baptism of his first son. We met quite frequently together with him, Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais and Fr. John Legkij and several others. We attended the Theological Faculty of the University of Riga, from which we did not quite completely graduate because of the Soviet occupation, but we spent three years studying there, all three of us. Even though Fr. Alexei had a previous much more excellent Parisian education, he still decided to take those courses as well. Then the Soviets occupied us, and during the Soviet occupation we remained very close with Fr. Alexei. For several months we lived together because he was slightly afraid of staying away, you know, because the search for criminals and so on was very active. The next time we met was in Pskov.
And the next time we met was in this country. He was rector of Our Lady of Kazan parish in Sea Cliff, New York. He was very active in the OCA, at that time called the Metropolia. He was recording secretary of the Bishops Council, highly elevated by Metropolitans Leonty and Ireney. I was a rector of the cathedral in Montreal. And Fr. Alexei came for a visit and to talk to our parishioners, highly praising the possible prospects of getting autocephaly. And at the time of the reception of autocephaly something happened in his life, as a result of which he left the Metropolia and joined the Russian Church in Exile, and stayed with that until his death. He was one of the most colorful phenomena that I have ever met in my life. He was a good priest and an excellent preacher. He was very dedicated, very devoted. He was an excellent liturgist, served quite well. He was really an outstanding person and a very powerful product of St. Sergius Theological Institute.

Q: Did he have contact with Archbishop John Pommer when he was younger?

GB: I would presume that Archbishop John Pommer ordained him, because I was ordained after the death of Archbishop John Pommer. Archbishop John Pommer died in 1934. I was ordained in 1937. So I saw him only once in my life when he came to visit my parish, the parish of which I was a member in Dvinsk. But then I didn’t see him any more, because I was ordained by Metropolitan Augustin, as I mentioned to you last time.

Q: You also mentioned Fr. Nicholas Zhunda. Was he a member of the original mission?

GB: Yes. He was also a priest in Dvinsk, in my parish church. He was an interesting priest, slightly different from everybody else, a very good priest. One of his hobbies and specialties was vestments. He liked making vestments. He liked taking care of vestments, which he did in Pskov with great pleasure and experience and art. But after we returned to Latvia and he returned to the city of Dvinsk, he became sick. I think he had typhus. And this was during the time of evacuation. And he simply disappeared. I tried to find out what happened to him, but no one knew.

Q: Was he married?

GB: He was married, with two children. Also Fr. Vladimir Yadutkin who was also from Latvia. He died either in Germany or in this country, I don’t remember any more.
Also Fr. Constantine Shahovskoy, a relative of Archbishop John, who came from the city of Pechory in Estonia. He was a Russian priest in Estonia, Prince Shahovskoy. I think he died later on under the second Soviet occupation.
Who else did we have? We had also Fr. Vasily Dushanov, who in Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais’s and my time was a deacon at the cathedral in Riga, also a St. Sergius graduate with an absolutely unbelievable, excellent tenor voice. Fr. Vasily Dushanov was accidentally shot and killed. He was in one of the provincial places. I don’t remember the name of the city right now, but he wanted to come to Pskov to speak with the central offices of the mission and to talk with us about some details. He got permission to go in a German military train, and he got into the caboose. There was a place secured for him. And he did not know one thing, which was typical for those times. This train had Franco’s Spaniards who were fighting on that front, freezing and quite mad in the wintertime. The Germans wanted to take over that train, so they got their allies out of the train, occupied the train, and one Spaniard, in a fit of anger, fired his gun and killed Fr. Vasily Dushanov. He was angry at the Germans, and did not really know who he was hitting.

Q: When was that?

GB: It was probably late 1942 already, because late 1941 was our arrival there, so it was at least a year later.

Q: Were a couple of priests in the original mission group from Estonia?

GB: Yes, I mentioned to you Fr. Constantine Shahovskoy from Pechory. I don’t remember anyone else strangely enough. Maybe I have forgotten. Shahovskoy was there.

Q: I’m curious about the Holy Trinity Cathedral in Pskov and this basement church, St. Seraphim. Were there services in both churches?

GB: Usually we had two liturgies, one upstairs, and one downstairs on Sundays. During the winter the downstairs church was much warmer, and therefore it was used more, especially for weekday services, because these services were served every morning and every evening. I have just read that the Patriarchate of Moscow has completely refurbished St. Seraphim Church with a new iconostas and new icons, I think by the famous Fr. Zenon. And this is a very large part of that writer’s article from the magazine Volga, dedicated to Fr. Zenon. He writes about him with tremendous respect, as a man, as an iconographer, as a monk. He writes also with tremendous respect in general about monasticism in Mother Russia, both male and female monasticism. In the monastery of Pyukhitsy in Estonia there are 160 nuns, half of them are 30 or younger, and a great percentage of those 30 or younger are fully university educated, mostly in technological subjects and things like that!

Q: What is the name of that writer?

GB: Dedyukhin, Boris I think. From what he writes, and he seems to be a serious, observing man, he presents himself as not necessarily very religious. He’s just a writer, definitely sympathetic, especially to the moral aspect of religious life and monastic life, but very observant, more than just sympathetic. He gives a very positive impression of modern Russian monasticism.

Q: You mentioned that Metropolitan Sergius visited now and then after the original group was sent in August 1941. How soon after they were sent did he make a first visit?

GB: Metropolitan Sergius was very active in everything and he really cared for the mission very much. He came to visit several times, served, traveled around to the possible extent (traveling w as quite a problem), and was greatly liked by people in Riga, even by those in Pskov. I know for sure that he came one year later for Transfiguration, for the anniversary, so August 19, 1942. I presume he came before that, but I don’t have any dates registering in memory right now. He came also in 1943. And we had a special mission order that was given to us, a special cross. I have it somewhere. [gets medal]

Q: This medal has the Protection of the Virgin on it. Was there any formal identification of the mission with a feast day or a saint?

GB: No. The Protection was taken because of the feast and iconography of the Protection are so popular in Russia in general and in the Pskov district in particular. There was no Russian city without a church of Pokrov, Church of the Protection; it was a very beloved feast.

Q: How long did the metropolitan stay when he visited?

GB: He would stay for a week. Usually he did not go far from Pskov because first of all it was dangerous. It was a military zone. We were living under constant danger of bombardment. Soviet bombers were flying over the city constantly and bombing us. And among the most painful and unpleasant and depressing experiences and memories of the whole of Second World War were the bombings, from Pskov to Berlin. Sitting in the cellar and listening for bombs, the only bomb that you knew you would not hear was the one that drops on you! You heard all the rest of them, and had this feeling that they wanted to kill you.
Compared to the front line condition which we experienced when the Americans came to Germany (after the transition from the German situation to the American occupation of Germany) when we had to run, with all of the bullets whistling, the American occupation was much easier, because there was activity. You could do something. You were able to run. But sitting there as a lamb ready to be slaughtered was very bad. So it was a constant situation in Pskov that they were usually flying on bright moonlit nights and dropping their bombs at random. Because it was their assignment to drop, let’s say, 50 or 100 bombs. They did not really look at where they were dropping them. So you were under pure chance of your destiny. So therefore, you see, traveling around was not a very safe proposition, and the metropolitan, as far as I remember, whenever he visited, stayed in Pskov.
We were actually in the front zone. Every night we had bombings. Eventually the partisans were around, so it was not a very safe existence. Between 1940 when the Soviets occupied us and 1945 when the Americans occupied us and Germany, we probably went through 1,000 deaths! Plenty of chances to die! So life in itself was a miracle.

Q: What kinds of things did the metropolitan do when he visited?

GB: He served, had meetings. We usually tried to get some outside clergy to come and meet him and see him. He met with the people, met with our schoolchildren and so on. He was active. He was a very sociable man. He liked visiting, he liked eating, he liked being treated properly, liked company. So it was a kind of nice association.

Q: Did he visit alone?

GB: He had a secretary who lives in Syracuse right now, Mr. Vladimir Radvil, an old friend of ours. And he became his personal secretary in those times and he would come with him. He was a civilian. They would come. I don’t remember how they came — by train probably.

Q: Did Fr. Nikolajs Vieglais come at any time?

GB: No. He never came. My family never came. I was alone there. My wife stayed in Riga and gave birth to our son. It was simply too dangerous, because it was the front lines, and especially the first year was a very difficult year. We didn’t have anything to eat. And at that time we had plenty of lice and things like that.

Q: You mentioned the Tikhvin icon and how at New Years in 1942 it was received. Can you explain its history in Pskov and what happened to it?Did it stay in the cathedral?

GB: As I told you, the Germans approached us to tell us that their own soldiers were fighting in Leningrad in the place called Tikhvino, and were able to get that icon out of the burning ruins of the Tikhvin cathedral. And they brought it to Pskov. And first they simply gave it to us. We took it to the mission, Fr. Nicholas Kolibersky’s house, displayed it there and had a New Year’s moleben in front of the icon, and the next day opened the house to people who wanted to come and see it, and I told you about the pile of money growing in front of that icon. Then the Germans re-approached us again, because they wanted to use the cathedral, they wanted to use the icon also. I think these were well-meaning Germans — they saw by that time how important religion was in Russia.
I think in all probability it was also on Sunday. To the best of my recollection, we had the same arrangement: Liturgy at the cathedral, and then processions from all respective churches, [though this time] not to the cathedral, but to the Kommandantur. The Germans had taken the icon from us to their headquarters before that. And the plan was for the Germans to give the icon to the church in front of that magnificent building of Kommandantur. So when all of the processions assembled in front of that building (there were big front steps, and the Germans had built a special holder for the icon to be carried by shoulder, a wooden stretcher), they mounted the icon on the stretcher. It was standing in one of the rooms in that building. Four corporals, I think, in full field uniforms (it was done in high-class) took the icon on their shoulders and brought it out of the building. We had everything prepared in front of the building and we had eight strong subdeacons in gold vestments who, when the icon was brought out, took their places next to the German corporals. Speeches were exchanged. I was translating for Fr. Kyrill Zaits, General Lieutenant von Hoffman made his speech telling us that the Germans want to please the population, give their shrine back to the people, and so on and so forth. Fr. Kyrill responded accordingly, and then eight subdeacons in gold robes replaced eight corporals, took the icon on their shoulders, and we all marched in a procession with German staff and generals in their dress uniforms. We were all marching to the cathedral, only this time the corporals were marching next to the subdeacons. It’s unbelievable, like a fairy tale!
At the cathedral they had special lecterns built on the plaza of the kremlin. And I was chosen to give a talk on the Russia part. There was this lectern, elevated rather high. So the big square was filled with people, and another elevated structure for the icon, so the icon and this lectern. And I was chosen to preach, and I preached. I did not say ‘brothers and sisters,’ but I used the Russian term Pskovichi, or Pskovians. And I preached on what the cupolas of that cathedral saw in their historical existence. They saw Alexander Nevsky (fighting against the Germans, but I did not quite specify this!). They also saw a number of other things, the city being occupied, and so on, and finally they probably also saw people being led to their executions by the communists, and so on and so forth.
And then finally the icon was simply given to us and was kept in the cathedral. There was a nice place in the nave of the cathedral. Fr. Nicholas Zhunda was very instrumental in making all the necessary decorations. He was a great master in that. The icon was there like a bride displayed for everybody. And people were flocking to the icon and praying, with the bombardments and everything else.

Q: In January 1942 there was a Great Blessing of water. I mention it because a large percentage of the population of Pskov took part. Can you tell what you remember from that?

GB: Oh yes, I remember quite clearly. We decided not to have water blessed in individual churches. Individual churches blessed their water on the eve at the Vesperal Liturgy, on the eve of Theophany. But on the date of Theophany — I can’t remember if it was a Sunday, or simply a day off given to the population —, we decided that all parish churches (and by that time we had about 11 of them opened in Pskov) would start their services earlier than the cathedral services so that all of them would have processions going from their respective churches to the cathedral. It was a very cold, very clear, very sunny January 19. It was so cold that the hair froze in your nostrils, and you had some difficulty in opening your eyelashes! It was brilliant, but the air was almost thick with cold. All processions came to the cathedral just at the time of the end of the Liturgy, so the cathedral procession joined everybody else.
This is the cathedral. [shows picture] The cathedral stands on a large hill, and the Velikaya River is just underneath. So the large procession started going from the cathedral to the river. The ice was thick, and we found one special craftsman who was able to make ice carvings. So they took a piece of ice to make an opening in the river, and he used that ice to carve a gospel stand, with a gospel and cross on it, and a cross behind it. Since everything was really so cold, nothing melted. And in the sunshine it really sparkled. And in the background there was Holy Trinity Cathedral just rising up. It was really very magnificent. And so with all the people around and everybody else, we blessed the water, and I would say there were probably a few thousand people. People were grabbing that water and taking it home. I don’t know, probably some of them tried to dive, as they do, in that water. But it was cold.

Q: How many priests were present there?

GB: Eleven churches, so there were probably some 12 priests. It was very impressive.
Another impressive thing there was St. Michael Day. There was a church of St. Michael there that was a venerable church, closed by the Soviets and converted into some kind of storage building. We were able to restore and reopen it. And therefore on St. Michael Day, we decided to do something very traditional for Pskov.
All the churches in Pskov used to process once a year around the city for the blessing of the whole city. We found out what the plan was, which streets and so on, because Pskov has a kremlin, but then Pskov also has walls in other places and has an ancient outline from its historical past. So we had the same thing. We had the Liturgy in the cathedral on St. Michael Day, and everybody joined us in the cathedral, and we started this big procession around the city. I was heading the procession in my capacity of sacristan of the cathedral, so was in charge of order. A number of choirs took part, and they carried all the relics and icons and banners and everything else in that procession. And the magnificent choirs, several of them, and all the clergy, and thousands of people took part, so that from the head of the procession you couldn’t see its end. It went like a snake around the city, stopping at all historical places, at all respective churches to have short molebens, and so on, coming back to the cathedral. I think it took us about two and a half hours just to process.
This was the most spectacular and the last thing that we were able to do in Pskov, because it was already late fall 1942, so next was 1943 and everything started coming down. Pskovians, as also people in Pechory, in the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery, are very fond of processions. They just love processions. They simply love for instance that Pskov would get everybody together and walk in a procession 40 miles, which is 60 kilometers, to Pechory to the monastery, have services there, spend the night, and the next day walk again in the procession back to the city of Pskov.

Q: Was that an annual event?

GB: Usually yes. Usually they would do it on or close to the feast of the Dormition, because the Pskov-Pechersky Monastery is the Dormition Monastery, the miraculous icon of the Dormition of Our Lady.

Q: You mentioned Lieutenant General von Hoffman, who you said was a Christian officer in the German military?

GB: He was a Kommandant of the city of Pskov. About his Christianity, probably, because he was a Prussian officer. And the Prussian officers’ core is a classical German organization. These were old officers that, under Hitler, were first of all suspected by Hitler of not being faithful or dedicated to him, and from their own positions were not very happy about Hitler. So a Prussian officer was a typical German, probably of a very strong Lutheran background. I couldn’t say much personally about him. I can tell you one thing about him that was interesting.
When General Vlasov, the commander-in-chief of the Russian Liberation Army, came to visit Pskov, which was already April 1943, there was a special reception for him at the Kommandantur, the German headquarters in the city of Pskov, which underwent several changes: At one time it housed noble Russians, then the Red Army, and so on, depending upon the time period. At that time it was the German Kommandantur. And there was a dinner for Vlasov, his small entourage, German general staff officers
(quite a few of them), local civil functionaries, the mayor of the city and some bureaucrats under German occupation, and clergy. The clergy — Fr. Kyrill Zaits and I and a couple more of us — were able to meet with General Vlasov the night before that and came away with a very interesting, powerful and positive impression of that man, who was himself a religious man. He was a graduate of a seminary in the good old times. Then he was very highly placed under Stalin: He was commander-in-chief of all armies on the Chinese border, and then finally he became commander-in-chief of the Russian Red Army in the Pskov district, a large district. And then he was taken prisoner, probably not against his will. And so finally after a long, very complicated story — there are books written about it by now —, he became commander-in-chief, and he came to Pskov, and we met with him that evening before the reception.
It was an interesting reception, because General Vlasov was very tall and physically a very imposing man in glasses with thick frames, in self-invented uniform, something of a cross between Red Army and Russian Imperial Army. And Lieutenant General von Hoffman was standing at the entrance to the dining hall and greeting guests. There was a long line of German officers. So the German officers would come to them and General von Hoffman would introduce to them, ‘This is General Vlasov, and this is Captain, Major, Colonel so and so.’ And the Germans would say, ‘Heil Hitler!’ And Vlasov would say, ‘Zdravstvuite’ to everyone! And finally we came into that dining hall. It was one of those famous German customs, because the Germans out of economy had a one-dish dinner, usually it was soup of some kind, and some vodka in our honor. And we were sitting across the table from Vlasov and his people. And Vlasov said to us,
‘Fathers, we are still celebrating Easter, aren’t we?’ I think it was the third week after Easter. I said, ‘Yes.’ He told me, ‘The Germans, you know, they don’t know about these things, but still, we are celebrating Easter, and we really have to start this meal with a prayer and blessing.’ I said, ‘Fine, good.’ So he called for his interpreter, a German-Russian of the White Russian émigré of a German Baltic background, some baron of some kind. I think he was a major. And he said to him, ‘Major, translate to them,’ — he always called Germans them — ‘that first of all we are in the Easter season, and second, we are Orthodox Christians, and we always start our meals with prayer and blessing. Ask them to get up on their feet.’ And he said to us, ‘Fathers, let’s sing Khristos Voskrese.’ And we sang Khristos Voskrese three times, and Fr. Kyrill Zaits blessed the food, and so this was an interesting banquet.
But the front was coming closer and closer. And finally the Germans decided that evacuation was inescapable, and they decided that the icon should be taken away from Pskov. They did not want to leave it in Pskov. We didn’t necessarily agree, because we did not think it was absolutely necessary, although it was difficult to decide, because after all, the communists were returning back, the same communists who desecrated so many things. The Germans took it to Riga. Metropolitan Sergius was already dead at that time, and Archbishop John, lately of Chicago, was the Archbishop of Riga. So the icon was transferred to him. I was still in Pskov at that time.
I left Pskov in February 1944, almost with the last possible train. One of the things I was able to do in Pskov — I told you about the school, and also told you about the orphanage —, was to take about 11 orphans with me to Riga. Finally they were distributed among some Russian families in Riga and stayed there. But this was really the last train from Pskov that we were able to get into, which was in February 1944. So it was from August 1941 to February 1944, two and a half years.
All missionaries were promised that if and when they returned to the Latvian Church, they would be assigned to their former parishes. Mine would have been a very easy one, because [before the Pskov mission] I was assigned to the cathedral as one of the clergy. But Archbishop John of Riga whom I knew when he was not yet a bishop (I knew him as a celibate priest, an interesting personality in his own way) was not for me being at the cathedral for some reason. So I was assigned to a very provincial Latvian parish. I did not object; I took that parish. But whenever I would come to Riga, I would venerate the icon, would see that people very deeply respected and venerated the icon of Our Lady of Tikhvin. When the time came for me to decide to leave, one of the last things that I did was to go to Archbishop John and ask for his blessing for me and my family to be displaced to Germany. He said, ‘I cannot forbid it, but I am not giving my blessing, because the Holy Theotokos and I will never leave. We will stay here. If you want to go, go.’
So with great sadness, I left and we went to Germany, a very adventurous situation also, and a different chapter. We went to Germany and finally found ourselves in the southern part of Germany that was Sudetenland by now, only to meet Archbishop John and the Theotokos!
The icon, at the beginning of its presence in this country, was stationed in the cathedral in New York, because Archbishop John was vicar bishop of Brooklyn at that time, so he was living there and the icon was there. When he was made Bishop of Chicago, his condition was that the icon would go with him. Metropolitan Leonty, who was a very gentle, very kind and very soft man, did not mind much, especially since he himself was a former bishop of Chicago. So the icon went to Chicago. Archbishop John traveled with the icon all over the country. He was in San Francisco a couple of times, he was everywhere. He was here and I accompanied him. Basically he was accompanied by Fr. Alexei Yonov. He was his escort for the icon. They were at private homes and in churches and parishes and the icon was highly venerated. Finally, when Archbishop John retired, or before he retired when he was not able to travel much any more, the icon was stationed in Chicago, and he did not allow anyone to take the icon anywhere.
I heard for the first time probably ten years ago that there were some messages from Russia, especially from the people of Tikhvin and the respective bishops, telling us how anxious they are to get the icon back to where it belongs.5
[Concluding] It was a joy for me, a kind of re-living. I’ve always been asked why I don’t write about it. But I must say it’s a very difficult proposition. It’s an easier proposition nowadays, but then it’s a more difficult proposition because so many things have escaped my memory by now. At the beginning it was almost not quite a safe suggestion, because in order to write very frankly about everything that was happening, you had to write very frankly about the Soviets, the Germans, and everything else. It was a risky undertaking and somehow I never came to writing memoirs, and probably never will, but things like yours and a couple of other pieces where I was sharing my experiences with other people are a useful proposition.

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