Father Gleb: for a “post-Communist spiritual revival” in Russia.

The Lesson of Father Gleb

by Faith J. H. McDonnell

Father Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin, 80, former Soviet Prisoner of Conscience who became a member of parliament in the first post-Soviet legislature, died on Christmas Day in Moscow. He is survived by his wife, Iraida, his children, Maria, Anna, and Alexander, and six grandchildren.

Born in Moscow, March 4, 1934, Yakunin was an iconic figure in the fight for religious freedom and democracy in the Soviet Union. With the same integrity that he risked his freedom – and even his life – speaking against the Communists, he also spoke against the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) leadership’s collusion with both Soviet and post-Soviet governments. Yakunin’s courageous confrontation with a co-opted Church was largely ignored by churches in the West, even after his accusations proved true – and just the tip of the iceberg, at that!

Ordained in 1962 during Khrushchev’s virulent antireligious crusade, Yakunin saw mass closures of churches and monasteries, and the shameful silence of the Church authorities in the face of Communist oppression. His spiritual mentor and inspiration for entering the priesthood was Father Alexander Men. Men, who was murdered in 1990, was “one of the spiritual giants of Orthdoxy,” according to Russia expert Dr. Kent R. Hill in his book The Puzzle of the Soviet Church: An Inside Look at Christianity & Glastnost.

Yakunin’s first public confrontation with State and Church was in 1965. He and another priest, Nikolai Eshliman, sent an open letter to ROC leader Patriarch Aleksy and to the Soviet government. The 40-page letter decried “not only the persecution of believers but de facto church collusion in this persecution,” according to a memorial tribute by Cathy Young in The Daily Beast.

Kent Hill reveals that this “bold action by the brave priests” was supported by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who said:

I had been delighted to read the protest written by two priests, Eshliman and Yakunin, a courageous, pure, and honest voice in defense of a church which of old had lacked and lacks now both the skill and the will to defend itself. I read, and was envious. Why had I not done something like this myself, why was I so unenterprising?. . . I must do something similar!

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