Religious Persecution in the Former Soviet Union. A Russian Orthodox Priest's Story — Transcript

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1. 0:01[Music]
2. 0:13it started right after revolution lenan
3. 0:16uh signed a decree of Separation State
4. 0:18and the church and they started
5. 0:21persecute leaders of the church Bishops
6. 0:23and Priests and also destroying the
7. 0:24churches
8. 0:29[Music]
9. 0:57oh
10. 1:12priests were against this uh you know
11. 1:14acts of vandalism so they were arrested
12. 1:18and just arrested put to prison or many
13. 1:20executed just killed and especially in
14. 1:2437 36 1936 1937 thousands of priests
15. 1:29work killed or late people without trial
16. 1:34[Music]
17. 1:52[Music]
18. 2:09they wanted to control you know life of
19. 2:11the church to to wipe out the church in
20. 2:13the future and even Cru show he said
21. 2:15like in 80s there will be no like we the
22. 2:18last priest I will show you on TV this
23. 2:20is what kuso said so they were thinking
24. 2:23that this uh um ideology of U atheistic
25. 2:28eliminate faith and slowly it will come
26. 2:31to the end and those who are working
27. 2:34like teachers or maybe doctors they
28. 2:36cannot go openly to the church because
29. 2:38uh then they will be fired from their
30. 2:41work and then if somebody saw that you
31. 2:43were in the church next day somebody
32. 2:46reported it like in school or in college
33. 2:48or whatever and then it will be trouble
34. 2:50you know for those students or the
35. 2:53pupils of school you know who came the
36. 2:56authorities tried to prevent kids coming
37. 2:58to the church and for for example we had
38. 3:01midnight services so there were like
39. 3:03cordons of um like militaries and like
40. 3:07police uh don't allow youth come to the
41. 3:09church when they see youth coming no no
42. 3:12go back they allowed only older people
43. 3:15like uh older women you know come but
44. 3:19you know no kids actually my father he
45. 3:21was a priest Orthodox priest and he also
46. 3:24had such a kind of pressure from
47. 3:26authorities once he was stopped by like
48. 3:29people from security and they took him
49. 3:31and for a couple days they kept him
50. 3:33didn't let him to sleep my mother his
51. 3:36wife didn't know where he he was and
52. 3:39tried to push on him that he cooperate
53. 3:41with them and like reported everything
54. 3:44what he hears he refused to do it and he
55. 3:47was very afraid after that so it it was
56. 3:50a cross real cross for those priests who
57. 3:52wanted to be faithful to God and to be a
58. 3:56soet time it was not easy at all