Crucea.ro

HOLY NEW MARTYR PROFESSOR IVAN VASILYEVICH POPOV
by Vladimir Moss

Ivan Vasilyevich Popov was born on January 17, 1867 in the city of Vyazma, Smolensk province in the family of the priest of the Resurrection church, Fr. Basil Mikhailovich Popov and his wife Vera Ivanovna. On January 19 he was baptized in the Saviour-Transfiguration church by his grandfather, Protopriest Michael Popov. In 1888 Ivan Vasilyevich finished his studies at the Smolensk theological seminary, and in 1892 – at the Moscow Theological Academy. In 1893 he was appointed temporary lecturer in the faculty of patristics. He read his first lecture on Tertullian. In 1897 he defended his master’s dissertation on “The Natural Moral Law (the psychological bases of morality)”. In 1898 was appointed extraordinary professor in the faculty of patristics.
In 1901-1902 Ivan Vasilyevch was sent abroad to listen to lectures in theology in Berlin and Munich. Returning to Russia in 1903, he was appointed editor of “The Theological Herald”. With the outbreak of the 1905 this journal was accused of liberalism, and Ivan Vasilyevich petitioned to be relieved of the duties of editor. From 1907 he became a lecturer of the historico-philological faculty of Moscow University in the department of the history of the Church. In 1910 he was appointed professor of the first faculty of patrology in connection with the introduction of a new constitution.
In 1904 Ivan Vasilyevich published “The Religious Ideal of St. Athanasius of Alexandria”, and in 1908 – “St. John Chrysostom and his Enemies”. In 1911-1912 there came out his book “Outline of Lectures on Patrology”. In 1917 he defended his doctor’s dissertation, “The Personality and Teaching of Blessed Augustine”.
Ivan Vasilyevich was a member of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917-1918 representing the Moscow Theological Academy, and was deputy president of the section on the theological academies.
He continued to teach in the Academy until its closure in 1920, after which he taught in Moscow University in the faculty of the philosophy of the Middle Ages, which was transformed into the Philosophical Investigatory Institute.
In his holidays he went to the village of Samuilovo, Gzhatsk uyezd, Smolensk province, from where he corresponded with many people.
In about 1924, with the blessing of Patriarch Tikhon, and with the help of Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), Ivan Vasilyevich began to compose lists of the canonical and renovationist hierarchs of the Russian Church. It was supposed that if a Council of the Orthodox Churches would be held in 1925, he would be sent there as a delegate.
On December 10, 1924 Ivan Vasilyevich was arrested and imprisoned in Moscow. In all his years in prison he always displayed strength of spirit, bearing all privations with the courage of a confessor. Immediately after his arrest, he was interrogated about the list of hierarchs he had composed, and also about his attitude to Soviet power. He replied:
“As a Christian, I do not sympathize with the antireligious and amoral tendencies in the present order of things; the latter in part derives from the former. Besides, I do not like the absence, in the Soviet state, of certain institutions that exist in other states, like: freedom of speech, the inviolability of the personality, and so on. In general, I am a principled opponent of all dictatorship. I consider that for the resolution of social problems the evolutionary method is preferable to the revolutionary, and that the tasks of the socialist revolution would be better resolves by the first path. But in general I submit unquestioningly to Soviet power.”
As regards how his work on drawing up the list of hierarchs was carried out, he said: “I have reasons for thinking that if the question of the preparation came before the Patriarch, he would refer to me as to one of the few professors of the academy that are still alive. It seemed to me that for the work of the Council on liquidating the renovationist schism and its information on the relationship between the Church and the state such a list could be useful…
In order to acquire information for the completion and correction of the list I turned to some acquaintances of mine, including Anthony Maximovich Tyevar, my former pupil, whom I know to be devoted to the cause of the Church, and who is interested in contemporary Church life and theological science… I asked Tyevar to collect, when he could, information for the list, which he did to a very small degree, limiting himself to passing on the necessary information in words. The list was composed, in the main, only by me: from personal information, from the press, and in a personal manner from certain people whose names I have difficulty in remembering, since this information was collected in my head in the course of several years…”

At the end of December, 1924 the investigator again asked the professor, among other things:

“What did you say… concerning the means of sending the lists to the Ecumenical Council?”
“I supposed that the Patriarch would appoint me to the Ecumenical Council as a specialist in theology, and these lists would be material for me; it was not clear how I would use them. If the interests of the Church demanded it, I would publish the lists in full at the Ecumenical Council.”
“Give the name of the person to whom you have given the list for safe-keeping.”
“No, I will not say.”
After an interval, and after the death of Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Peter became patriarchal locum tenens in April, 1925. At the end of April the interrogations resumed.
“Can you vouch for the fact that the lists drawn up by you are correct?”
“No, I cannot vouch for that, since I have not finished the lists. My intention was to compose them as accurately as possible. This was necessary so as not to lead the Ecumenical Council astray.”
“Do you accept that, in thinking to publicize the lists of the episcopate abroad, and emphasizing in the list the bishops that were arrested and exiled by Soviet power, without explaining why this took place, you thereby elicited a hostile attitude towards Soviet power on the part of the Capitalist states?”

“I thought to do this in the interests of the Church; how the civil authorities of the Capitalist states could interpret this did not concern me. I personally think that the official acts of the government, judicial and otherwise, cannot compromise the power. I think that the law does not lay upon citizens the obligation to keep quiet about these acts.”
On April 27 Ivan Vasilyevich was accused of being “guilty of relations with representatives of foreign states with a view to eliciting on the part of the latter intervention against Soviet power, with which aim Popov gave the latter false and incorrect information about persecutions… against the church and the episcopate on the part of Soviet power”. On the back of the indictment Ivan Vasilyevich wrote: “I do not agree with the form of the indictment. I shall expound my objections after I have been given the opportunity to read the formulation of the cited articles in the codex of laws.
On June 19, 1925 the OGPU sentenced Ivan Vasilyevich to three years’ imprisonment, and he was sent to the Solovki camps. His pupil Anthony Tyevar was also sent there.
Protopriest Michael Polsky, who was with Ivan Vasilyevich on Solovki, wrote:
“Ivan Vasilyevich was the teacher of a school of literacy in the Solovki camp … It is a separate and special task to speak of the scientific-theological work of Ivan Vasilyevich Popov. In any case, patrology as a science was first created by him… In characterizing his scholarship, Bishop Hilarion (Troitsky) said: ‘If we were to put all of our and your knowledge together, Fathers and Brothers, this would be nothing before the knowledge of Ivan Vasilyevich.’”
Ivan Vasilyevich was the author of a text sent by the Orthodox bishops to the government of the USSR and entitled, “Memorial Note of the Solovki Bishops”, which acquired its final form after it had been discussed by imprisoned hierarchs on Solovki on June 7, 1926. The Note defined the relationship of the Church to the Communist state as follows: “In spite of the fundamental law of the Soviet constitution guaranteeing believers full freedom of conscience, religious assemblies and preaching, the Orthodox Russian Church has until now experienced very substantial restraints on Her activity and religious life.
She has not received permission to open correctly functioning organs of central and diocesan administration; She cannot transfer Her activity to Her historical centre – Moscow; Her bishops are either not allowed to enter their dioceses at all, or, while allowed there, are forced to abstain from the most essential duties of their service – preaching in church, the visitation of communities recognizing their spiritual authority, sometimes even blessing services. The locum tenens of the patriarchal throne and about half the Orthodox bishops languish in prisons, in exile or in forced labour. Without denying the veracity of the facts, the government organs explain them on political grounds, accusing the Orthodox episcopate and clergy of counter-revolutionary activity in their secret thoughts, directed to the overthrow of Soviet power and the re-establishment of the old order. Already many times the Orthodox Church, beginning with the person of the reposed Patriarch Tikhon, and then in the person of his deputies, has tried in official declarations to the government to dispel the atmosphere of distrust that envelops Her.
“Their lack of success and sincere desire to put an end to the grievous misunderstandings between the Church and Soviet power, which is burdensome for the Church and needlessly complicates the State’s execution of its tasks, arouses the governing organ of the Orthodox Church, once more and with complete justification, to lay before the government the principles defining Her relationship to the State.
“The signatories of the present declaration are fully aware of how difficult the establishment of mutually reliable relations between the Church and the State in the conditions of present-day actuality are, and they do not consider it possible to be silent about it. It would not be right, it would not correspond to the dignity of the Church, and would therefore be pointless and unpersuasive, if they began to assert that between the Orthodox Church and the State power of the Soviet republics there were no discrepancies of any kind.
But this discrepancy does not consist in what political suspicion wishes to see or the slander of the enemies of the Church points to. The Church is not concerned with the redistribution of wealth or in its collectivization, since She has always recognized that to be the right of the State, for whose actions She is not responsible. The Church is not concerned, either, with the political organization of power, for She is loyal with regard to the government of all the countries within whose frontiers She has members. She gets on with all forms of State structure from the eastern despotism of old Turkey to the republics of the North-American States. This discrepancy lies in the irreconcilability of the religious teaching of the Church with materialism, the official philosophy of the Communist Party and of the government of the Soviet republics which is led by it.
“The Church recognizes spiritual principles of existence; Communism rejects them. The Church believes in the living God, the Creator of the world, the Leader of Her life and destinies; Communism denies His existence, believing in the spontaneity of the world’s existence and in the absence of rational, ultimate causes of its history. The Church assumes that the purpose of human life is in the heavenly fatherland, even if She lives in conditions of the highest development of material culture and general well-being; Communism refuses to recognize any other purpose of mankind’s existence than terrestrial welfare. The ideological differences between the Church and the State descend from the apex of philosophical observations to the region of immediately practical significance, the sphere of ethics, justice and law, which Communism considers the conditional result of class struggle, assessing phenomena in the moral sphere exclusively in terms of utility. The Church preaches love and mercy; Communism – camaraderie and merciless struggle. The Church instils in believers humility, which elevates the person; Communism debases man by pride.
The Church preserves chastity of the body and the sacredness of reproduction; Communism sees nothing else in marital relations than the satisfaction of the instincts. The Church sees in religion a life-bearing force which does not only guarantee for men his eternal, foreordained destiny, but also serves as the source of all the greatness of man’s creativity, as the basis of his earthly happiness, sanity and welfare; Communism sees religion as opium, inebriating the people and relaxing their energies, as the source of their suffering and poverty. The Church wants to see religion flourish; Communism wants its death.
Such a deep contradiction in the very basis of their Weltanschauungen precludes any intrinsic approximation or reconciliation between the Church and the State, as there cannot be any between affirmation and negation, between yes and no, because the very soul of the Church, the condition of Her existence and the sense of Her being, is that which is categorically denied by Communism.
“The Church cannot attain such an approximation by any compromises or concessions, by any partial changes in Her teaching or reinterpretation of it in the spirit of Communism. Pitiful attempts of this kind were made by the renovationists: one of them declared it his task to instil into the consciousness of believers the idea that Communism is in its essence indistinguishable from Christianity, and that the Communist State strives for the attainment of the same aims as the Gospel, but by its own means, that is, not by the power of religious conviction, but by the path of compulsion. Others recommended a review of Christian dogmatics in such a way that its teaching about the relationship of God to the world would not remind one of the relationship of a monarch to his subjects and would rather correspond to republican conceptions. Yet others demanded the exclusion from the calendar of saints ‘of bourgeois origin’ and their removal from church veneration. These attempts, which were obviously insincere, produced a profound feeling of indignation among believing people.
“The Orthodox Church will never stand upon this unworthy path and will never, either in whole or in part, renounce her teaching of the Faith that has been winnowed through the holiness of past centuries, for one of the eternally shifting moods of society…”
On November 4, 1927 Ivan Vasilyevich was sentenced to three years in exile, and was sent to the river Ob near Surgut. At first conditions were difficult for him, and he was not able to do scientific work, but gathered and dried mushrooms, sending thme to his friends in the centre of Russia, from where he received parcels. Within a few months he was sent to another place where conditions were better and he was able to work on a composition on St. Gregory of Nyssa. With him in exile was Bishop Onuphrius (Gagalyuk), who was very loving towards him.
While in exile, Ivan Vasilyevich corresponded with Metropolitan Peter, whom he already knew well.
On December 11, 1930 Ivan Vasilyevich’s term of exile came to an end, but he was not released. At the end of December a new case was drawn up against him, and on February 8 he was sentenced to deprivation of the right of domicile in a series of regions of Russia, being forced to stay in one place for three years. On the same day he was again arrested and imprisoned in Surgut on the charge of conducting anti-Soviet agitation. “While I was sitting in the Surgut house of arrest,” he wrote, “a group of peasant emigrants was arrested in Surgut in accordance with article 58-11 (the forming of an organization with the aim of overthrowing Soviet power in Surgut). I was accounted a member of this group… In March I was despatched with them to Tobolsk prison. The investigation lasted the whole summer, it came to an end at the end of September, and two weeks later I was released from prison and received three years’ exile in Samarovo, Tobolsk province…” Later his place of exile became the village of Repolovo, Tyumen province.
In July, 1927 Metropolitan Sergius issued his notorious declaration, which placed the Church in submission to the God-hating atheists. The former secretary of the Holy Synod, Michael Grebinsky, who knew Metropolitan Sergius and Ivan Vasilyevich well, wrote to the latter, saying that he was unconditionally in favour of the declaration, since it gave the Church the possibility of physical survival. But for Ivan Vasilyevich it was unacceptable cunning, whatever “good” aim it pursued, and he replied to Grebinsky quite sharply:
“His act is unforgiveable, and no advantages can justify it. His shameful and shameless lie is clear to any street loafer. It delivers a blow to the very essence of the cause that cannot be compensated by any external acquisitions. The weakening [of persecution] which you write about is, first, completely insignificant by comparison with the harm it inflicts, and secondly, did not appear ‘ because’ but ‘in spite of it’. I don’t know what form my opposition will take, but the question of my relationship to S. is completely clear. He is Sarzis [a personage of Armenian mythology who took on the functions of a god of wind and storm], a collaborator and accomplice.”
Although this letter was personal, Grebinsky made several copies of it and began to send them to people who did not agree with the anti-sergianist stan of Ivan Vasilyevich, including Metropolitan Sergius himself and Bishop Seraphim (Mescheryakov) of Stavropol. One of the copies was found on Grebinsky during a search by the OGPU, and although it was not clear from the signature who had written it, he said that it was written by Ivan Vasilyevich. Later Ivan Vasilyevich was very closely interrogated about this letter.
On returning from exile in 1934, Ivan Vasilyevich settled in Lyubertsy, near Moscow, and re-established contacts with his surviving acquaintances and pupils. Meetings often took place at the flat of Archbishop Bartholomew (Remov), who invited several hierarchs who had arrived for sessions of the Synod. In June and again in September, 1934 Ivan Vasilyevich met there with Metropolitan Arsenius (Stadnitsky) and Archbishop Nicholas (Dobronravov), and discussed church matters with them. In February, 1935 Metropolitan Anatolius (Grisyuk) was also there.
According to a witness given under interrogation by Archbishop Bartholomew, at these meetings “they said that the Russian Church would perish. Archbishop Nicholas (Dobronravov) was shocked by the behaviour of Metropolitan Sergius, who, instead of defending the interests of the Church as behoved her head, was conducting a policy of appeasement in relation to Soviet power, and thereby aiding her destruction. The interlocutors agreed with Archbishop Nicholas’ thesis. In conversation it became clear that Popov was corresponding with Metropolitan Arsenius and sent letters to him in Tashkent, signing them, for reasons of secrecy, as if he were his nephew.”
In February, 1935 twenty-two people were arrested with Archbishop Bartholomew. On February 21, soon after the meeting with the hierarchs, Ivan Vasilyevich was also arrested. He was taken to the isolator at the Lubyanka, and then to Butyrki prison. On February 26 the interrogator asked him:
“Where did the meeting with Metropolitan Arsenius take place in 1934?”
“I was at his dacha in Pushkino.”
“I mean the other meeting with Arsenius.”
“The other meeting took place in the flat of Archbishop Remov in All Saints in the autumn of 1934.”
“Who was there also?”
“Besides Metropolitan Arsenius, Archbishop Bartholomew and myself, there was Archbishop Nicholas.”
“Was the meeting agreed on beforehand?”
“Yes.”
“What questions were discussed then and in 1935?”
“No questions were discussed. The conversations were purely everyday.”
“I insist again on truthful replies. I have evidence that these meetings were in essence conferences at which the position of the Church in the USSR was discussed.”
“I deny that.”
“How can you deny that when at these conferences, in which you took part, all those present agreed on the destructiveness of Metropolitan Sergius’ policy for the Church?”
“I repeat: we did not touch on these questions.”
At this the interrogation came to an end. On April 26 Ivan Vasilyevich was sentenced to five years’ exile in Krasnoyarsk region. He arrived at the village of Volokovskoye, Pirovsky district, Krasnoyarsk region on November 28, 1935.
Later he was transferred to the village of Ignatovo in the same district and settled in the house of a shepherd. The house consisted of two halves. Ivan Vasilyevich was given a separate room, and the wife of the master of the house prepared his food. In exile he had many books sent to him by his friends, so to some extent he was able to continue scientific work. But persecutions recommenced, and on October 7, 1937 he was arrested and imprisoned in Yeniseisk.
The owner of the house in which he had lived, and one of the exiles by the name of Violovich, witnessed under interrogation that Ivan Vasilyevich had expressed anti-Soviet opinions. On October 12 Ivan Vasilyevich himself was interrogated:
“Which of your acquaintances lives abroad, give their names, surnames and addresses.”
“Of my acquaintances abroad, for example, my former colleague from the academy, Metropolitan Eulogius Georgievich, lives in Paris; Ivan Alexandrovich Ilyin, former professor of the Moscow Theological Academy, lives in Switzerland; and Paul Ivanovich Novgorodtsev lives in Prague. I have no links with them.”
“How do you know these people, their addresses, and where they live?”
“Someone told me where Novgorodtsev and Ilyin live, or I heard it in Moscow, I don’t remember exactly now. As regards Metropolitan Eulogius Georgievich, I knew from the correspondence he conducted with Metropolitan Sergius, the deputy of the patriarchal locum tenens. I know Sergius from the academy, at that time he was a professor of the Theological Academy, and then inspector. Besides, I saw him in 1934 in Moscow.”
“Did you have conversations on political subjects?”
“The conversations were about our former work and studies. The whole conversation was devoted to reminiscences of the life of the academy. There was also talk about the expedition to the North Pole. I also had a conversation with Vilovich on this subject: I said that ‘they devote too much attention in the newspapers to the flying expedition to the North Pole. They all write one and the same ting, so it becomes boring to read.”
“The investigation has evidence that you and Vilovich conducted agitation of a counter-revolutionary character on the question of the the Stakhanovite methods of labour. Tell the investigation about this.”
“I have never been interested in the Stakhanovite methods of labour, since they are far from my interests, and it is boring for me to read and talk about this. I am occupied in abstract science.”
“The investigation demands that you give a truthful statement on this question.”
“I tell only the truth and can add nothing more.”
“The investigation has established that you expressed counter-revolutionary views on the question of the new constitution, in particular on the repressions. Tell us what happened.”
“As regards the new constitution, I said that together with the confirmation of the constitution there should be a change in the criminal code in the direction of a softening of repressions. This is now fulfilled in part by the constitution, but it is not completely put into action in all the articles. On the national question I said that there have been changes in part of the development of national culture. As regards counter-revolutionary agitation, I did not do this.”
“According to the statements of Pavlova and others it has been established that you expressed dissatisfaction with the politics of the Communist Party and Soviet power, and that in the Soviet Union religion is supposedly annihilated by force. Do you confirm this?”
“I do not remember when or where, but I said that religion in the Soviet Union has been placed in a very difficult position, that there are still many religious people who would like to pray in church, but in view of the large taxes they are not able to open a church. I did not conduct any other conversations of a counter-revolutionary character.”
“Were there conversations on the question of unemployment, and what have you said on this score up to the present day?”
“Yes, there was a conversation on unemployment, and I said personally from myself that, on my return from exile in 1934, I could not find work for a long time, and that later I found work, but with big breaks. But such a situation can take place both after release from exile and now. I said nothing about unemployment in the Soviet Union.”
“The investigation has evidence that you uttered slanderous words against the leaders of the party and the Soviet government. Tell us what elicited this.”
“I don’t remember any such conversations. Perhaps I said something about the suppression of criticism – much has been written about that in the newspapers in recent times.”
“The investigation insists that you give sincere statements with regards to the slanders against the leaders of the party and the Soviet government.”
“I said that I do not now remember any such conversations and cannot offer any clarification on this question.”
“The investigation has established that in relation to the recent trial of the eight Fascist spies you expressed pity for them, and spoke about the instability of the Communist Party and the divisions in it.”
“There was a conversation about the shooting of these eight men, but I did not pity them. But as regards the instability and dividedness of the party, that is true, insofar as three fractions have been formed in the party: the Trotskyites, the Zinovievites and the Bukharinites. It is clear that with such differences of opinion the party cannot be monolithic.”
On November 6, as he wound up the case, the investigator summoned Ivan Vasilyevich to an interrogation and asked him: “Did you work in the Theological Academy and prepare candidates for the priesthood?”
“Yes, during the thirty years of my service in the Theological Academy I mainly prepared and educated clergy, since the aim of the Academy was to produce bishops and priests.”
On December 2 there was a confrontation with a false witness, who confirmed all the statements he had given earlier, after which the investigator asked the professor: “Do you confirm the statements of the witness?”
“No, I do not confirm the witnesses, and do not consider myself guilty.”
When they had taken away the witness, the investigator again asked Ivan Vasilyevich: “Do you admit your guilt with regard to the charges brought against you?”
“I do not admit myself to be guilty with regard to the charge that has been read out to me in the decree.”
On December 3, 1937 the investigation came to an end. Ivan Vasilyevich celebrated his birthday in Yeniseisk prison. On February 5, 1938 a troika of the NKVD sentenced him to be shot. He was shot on February 8 at 9 p.m., on the eve of the feast of St. John Chrysostom, whose name, it seems, he bore.
One of the witnesses of Ivan Vasilyevich’s life on Solovki wrote: “In his secular calling Ivan Vasilyevich was a true monk, celibate and virginal, a humble worker, abstinent in food and drink, who prayed piously to God. All those who knew him are witnesses of this. Having the gift of the grace of God, ‘the word of knowledge’ (I Corinthians 12.8), he multiplied his talent by his labours tenfold, and by them served the Church with great benefit, and glorified her by his martyric death.