Books: Dissident for Life: Alexander Ogorodnikov and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Russia, by Koenraad De Wolf

A Day in the Life of 

a Russian Christian Dissident

By Faith J. H. McDonnell

Those of us who worry about such things today see Islamist supremacism as the greatest threat to freedom in general and to religious freedom in particular. Not long ago, though, that particular honor belonged to Soviet-style Communism. The Soviet Union seemed unstoppable. And freedom for those who languished in the Gulag? Many prayed for this, but when freedom came it was still quite a shock.

I still remember the shock of joy I felt at the news of the release of one such prisoner in February of 1987. Christian dissident Alexander Ogorodnikov had spent almost nine years in the Gulag for his leadership of the Christian Seminar, an underground movement that had sprung up in answer to the needs of young Christians of many denominations who had found faith in Jesus Christ and were hungry for a way of following Him in their daily lives that the institutional churches could not offer. It was because of this authenticity and practicality that the movement, which encompassed thousands across Russia, so threatened the Communist authorities that they arrested and imprisoned its leaders.

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A new biography Dissident for Life: Alexander Ogorodnikov and the Struggle for Religious Freedom in Russia, by Koenraad De Wolf (English edition 2013, Eerdmans) is a tribute to Ogorodnikov and all of those steadfast believers – in freedom, in human dignity, in God – “crushed, but not destroyed” by the Soviets. Their oppression and persecution was eloquent testimony, exposing the lies at the foundation of the Communism system and helping to bring down its edifice.

Dissident for Life brought back all the memories of my own experience of Alexander Ogorodnikov. But it also made me reflect on the significance of that experience as I had never realized while it was happening and wonder what experiences, what relationships in today’s ongoing cosmological fight for our freedom may ultimately be those that will make a similar difference.

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