The Body of Christ: A Continual Breaking – A Conversation with Archpriest Valentine Asmus, Part 1

The modern generation of Orthodox Christians in Russia can peacefully pray in church, and live in harmony and prosperity while practicing their religion. However, we remember that not so long ago, people could not baptize a child openly, purchase a Bible or a prayer book let alone the works of Christian theologians, or even go to church without facing persecution afterwards—especially those holding government positions. We discuss how believers lived during the Soviet era with Mitred Archpriest Valentin AsmusAsmus, Valentin, Archpriest

“>Archpriest Valentin Asmus, rector of the Church of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in Krasnoye Selo, and Doctor of Theology.

—Father, you were born into a family of Moscow intellectuals at a time when faith in God was not encouraged, to say the least, because the Soviet state was busy building a paradise on earth. Your father, the well-known philosopher Valentin Ferdinandovich Asmus, was a prominent figure. How did you come to the Church? Was faith something passed down to you from your parents at birth?

—I cannot say that I was systematically taught the faith. But there were very strong impressions. My father read selected passages of the Bible to us, not only from the Old Testament but also from the New Testament. It was a large-format book with large print, bound in leather with gold embossing. I was overjoyed when, in 2018, the Pochaev Lavra reprinted that very edition and even replicated the binding, albeit with modern materials. I try to use pre-revolutionary editions of the Russian Bible. I do not recognize the usefulness of subsequent textual revisions, starting with the 1956 edition edited by the apostate Alexander Osipov, who was excommunicated from the Church in 1959 (Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, 1960, No. 2, p. 27). But the problem lies not only in the individual, though numerous, “corrections” (work on them continued for decades after the 1956 edition), but also in the catastrophic transformation, or rather, deformation, of the text during its translation into the new orthography. Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you (John 14:27) becomes less comprehensible with the disappearance of the orthographic distinction between мiръ (world, universe) and миръ (peace, reconciliation).

Icons also had a very powerful effect on my young soul. From an early age, I was taken to museums and church-museums, and at home, there were many albums with reproductions of icons. But the most profound impression I received was from a church service, which I attended at the age of seven. At the time, I didn’t yet know that I had been baptized as an infant. Once, I accidentally found the Life of Saint Barbara the Great Martyr at my grandmother’s house. I consider the reading of such (carefully selected) lives, in addition to Holy Scripture, essential for the upbringing of children.

In my upbringing, the connection between the generations of old Russia and the Russia deformed by the revolution played a significant role. My father and grandmother were both born in the nineteenth century. As a child, my father served in the altar for Father Ioann Melnikovsky, a Kiev priest. My grandmother, the granddaughter of a deacon, not only sang in the choir of her school’s chapel but also read the Epistle during the Liturgy.

At the age of nineteen, I visited the The Holy Dormition Pskov-Caves MonasteryToday, the fourth Sunday after Pentecost, we celebrate the memory of all the saints of the Pskov-Caves Monastery in Pechory, Pskov Province, Russia. This monastery became especially important to the Russian Orthodox people during Communist times, because it was the only men’s monastery in Russia that was never closed by the atheist regime, becoming an oasis of Orthodox life in a socialist desert.

“>Pskov-Caves Monastery with my mother and sister. When we returned to my father and began telling him excitedly what we had seen, my father suddenly exclaimed with deep longing, “O God, is there still a place where normal life exists?” My father had visited both the Kiev Caves Lavra and the St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery as a child, where the relics of the Great Martyr Barbara were kept at the time. He would tell us how his Protestant father would lead him to venerate the relics of the saint.

The relics of the Great Martyr Barbara in St. Vladimir’s Cathedral, Kiev     

Regardless of what my father and grandmother said—or didn’t say—they bore a deep nostalgia. Once, I asked my father which era he would have liked to live in. His response was, “To be born during the reign of Nicholas I and die during the reign of Nicholas II.”

I confessed and partook of Holy Communion For the first time on my own initiative when I was about ten years old. This happened in the Church of the Intercession in the village of Stanislav, in the Kherson region, where we spent our summers in those years. Unfortunately, it was the last year of that church’s existence. Khrushchev’s persecutions, often taking on criminal forms, were in full swing. The church was set on fire. There was little to burn, as it was a solid stone structure built in the late nineteenth century. The “firefighters” inexplicably punched a hole in the dome, after which the building was declared unfit for use. The priest suffered for several more years (churches were being closed everywhere, and there were no vacancies) until he finally received a new position. For over twenty years, the church stood abandoned until it was demolished in 1985.

The Church appeared to us as the suffering Church, “the Body of Christ, always being broken,” in the words of the ever-remembered Patriarch Alexiy I. From childhood, the Church was inseparable from the suffering of people such as Archpriest Dimitry Balutsa, rector of St. Nicholas Church in the same village of Stanislav, known as “Uncle Mitya” in my grandmother’s recollections; Father Anatoly Zhurakovsky, whom my father befriended at St. Vladimir’s University in Kiev; and Father Pavel Florensky, whom my father met later in Moscow. Reading Father Pavel’s book, The Pillar and Ground of the Truth, as a young man, I was constantly reminded that the author was a holy martyr. It was also impossible not to think of the suffering of Alexei Losev, who, in a book published in the USSR, denounced the false religion of Bolshevism: “Thus, under the force of anathema, as smoke vanishes before fire, false faith collapses—faith that, in one way or another, leads to godlessness. Complete godlessness… Complete godlessness?”

The Church of the Prophet Elijah on Obiden Lane —During your student years, you attended the Church of the Prophet Elijah on Obiden Lane. Why did you choose that particular church? Was there something special about it?

—I didn’t only attend the church on Obiden Lane. I also visited the cemetery church in Vagankovo Cemetery, which was within walking distance from our home, and the church in the Sokol district. The Obiden Church was remarkable for many reasons. The priests—Father Nikolai Tikhomirov, Father Alexander Egorov, Father Vladimir Smirnov, and Father Sergei Borzdyka—were all very different from one another, and each stood out in his own way. Books have already been written about two of them. That quiet church exuded a palpable sense of nostalgia. It is no coincidence that it was located near the spot where the Cathedral of Christ the Savior once stood.

The left choir was led by an elderly woman named Militsa, who dressed simply and modestly. But everyone knew her father once owned a shop selling Viennese chairs. At the steps of the ambo stood a small, hunchbacked old woman who had worked her whole life as a typist in some Soviet office. Yet everyone knew she was an Austrian baroness. Both the left and right choirs consisted mostly of elderly women, but they were led by the incomparable conductor Valery Georgievich, whose skill was unmatched.

—Was your choice to pursue philological education related by any chance to your Christian faith? When I read the memoirs of people who lived during that time, it seemed to me that many young people tried to connect their fate with language studies or art history, so that later, through their work, they could be closer to God by having free access to spiritual literature, which was also under restriction.

—The field I chose is called Classical Philology. It involves classical languages—Greek and Latin—and their corresponding literatures. My father had dictionaries and textbooks for these languages, along with collections of literature in them—not only philosophers but also Homer, the tragedians, and historians. Latin literature wasn’t as fully represented in its ancient form, but there were separate works not only from the medieval period but also of the modern era. Latin remained a universal language of science for a long time. But what attracted me was Christian literature. My father had two different editions of the Greek New Testament and the Vulgate—the Latin Bible. There was almost nothing by the Church Fathers, only Confessions and The City of God by Blessed Augustine. I wanted to learn to read all of this, and to in general have access to the writings of the Fathers of the Church. At the Faculty of Philology, I got what I wanted.

Breaking all our stereotypical views of the Soviet educational system, the unforgettable Professor Andrei Cheslavovich Kozarzhevsky taught us the Gospel of Matthew and the Book of Revelations in Greek. This was a special course on “The Peculiarities of the Koine Language,” which brought together a small group of historians and philologists. There was no excitement around it; no one other than we were learning Greek, and no one from the streets wanted to get involved in the cases of Greek nouns and the forms of Greek verbs.

For me, classical education was of immense significance and had a very broad meaning. To begin with, I started to understand the Russian language much better. Anyone who lives in an environment where their native language is spoken and reads many books in it feels they understand their language. But when I studied Greek and especially Latin, I felt that I didn’t fully know Russian, and the beautiful logic and detailed structure of the syntax revealed entirely new subtleties in my native tongue. I understood why the Tsarist Ministry of Public Education valued classicism so highly and why the Bolsheviks and their like hated it so much. In the late 1940s, when the “socialist camp” was formed, where there were still gymnasiums that taught Latin and even Greek, they decided to conduct an experiment in our country: They published a Latin textbook by Kondratiev and Vasnetsov and introduced Latin in the eight to tenth grades of a few schools in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Under Khrushchev, this experiment was abruptly ended. But the success was inspiring—from this ephemeral school of Latin, great scholars like Sergey Averintsev and Mikhail Gasparov emerged.

For me, classical education had immense significance and a very broad meaning.

—In 1978, you taught an incredible number of subjects in Moscow theological schools. I’ll list them: Latin, Church Slavonic, Byzantine studies, Ancient Greek, Patrology, and the History of the Local Orthodox Churches. Amazing! Did Moscow University provide you with this great wealth of knowledge?

—I taught not only in 1978 but in the years following, up until 2007. As the need arose, I was given new subjects, sometimes being relieved of the old ones. According to my university diploma, I was only qualified to teach Greek and Latin. But by 1978, I was also given Church Slavonic and French. Over the years, I passed external exams for seminary and academy studies and earned the right to teach all the subjects in the curriculum. But those in charge, in my case as well as in all others, didn’t base their decisions on formal qualifications but on the inclinations and abilities of the teacher. And you didn’t mention one of my favorite subjects—the New Testament in the fourth year of seminary (the Acts and the Apostolic Epistles).

—Forgive me, I overlooked that subject. Father Valentin, how did it come about that you became a priest? Please tell me, did you ever think as a child or in your youth that you would walk this blessed path?

—I thought about the priesthood as a child. But then I began to realize how high it was, how responsible it was, and how unworthy I was of such a ministry. It was my spiritual father, Archpriest Vsevolod ShpillerShpiller, Vsevolod, Archpriest

“>Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller, who blessed me for ordination to the diaconate. My parents had directed me to him, as they had heard about him from their friends. Father Vsevolod was, according to one elder, “a great priest.” He was an excellent preacher, a subtle theologian, and an inspired clergyman. The elder knew and appreciated all of this, but I think his brief description referred primarily to Father Vsevolod’s incomparable pastoral gift.

Father Vsevolod’s ancestry were military. His father was an architect, but all his uncles were officers. And he himself dreamed of becoming a military man. The cadet corps accepted only children from the age of ten. To prepare for the corps, young Vsevolod Dmitrievich Shpiller entered the Kiev Real School of St. Catherine, where at that time my father was studying in the senior classes. But the revolution prevented him from finishing the corps, and the young Vsevolod Shpiller became a participant in the White movement, first in the cavalry and later in artillery. In the autumn of 1919, Anton Denikin issued a fateful order to send from the front all those who had not finished their education to appropriate educational institutions, and Shpiller was enrolled in the Sergiev Artillery School, which he was able to finish only in exile, in Bulgaria.

At this time, Russian youth in Bulgaria had two elders: Archbishop Theophan (Bystrov), the former royal confessor, and Defender of Orthodoxy Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev)The newly-canonized saint, Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev) of Boguchar (Bulgaria), has been known by the faithful since his lifetime as a defender of the Orthodox faith in the face of various new trends decisions that faced the Orthodox Church worldwide during the very complicated twentieth century.

“>Bishop Seraphim (Sobolev), who was recently canonized as a saint by the Russian and Bulgarian Churches. Vsevolod Shpiller came under the spiritual guidance of Bishop Seraphim, who directed him to study at the newly opened theological faculty of Sofia University. The opening of the faculty was made possible by the arrival of Russian church scholars in Bulgaria, such as the renowned Russian biblical scholar and patrologist Nikolai Nikanorovich Glubokovsky, lawyer Mikhail Valerianovich Zizikin, archpriest of the army and navy Georgy Shavelsky, and Mikhail Emmanuilovich Posnov. At the same time, Vsevolod Shpiller became acquainted with Bulgarian monasticism and was once a novice at the glorious Rila Monastery.

Archpriest Vsevolod Shpiller     

After being appointed rector of the Russian parish in the Bulgarian town of Pazardzhik, Father Vsevolod also taught at Bulgarian educational institutions. When during World War II the Red Army entered Bulgaria, Archbishop Seraphim had to come under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. Father Vsevolod had already become deeply attached to Bulgaria, its Church, and its faithful people. But Bishop Seraphim blessed him to return to Russia, and Father Vsevolod unquestioningly returned with his family in 1950.

Life in Russia was not peaceful. For instance, that same year, the Moscow priest Father Archimandrite John (Krestiankin)

“>John Krestiankin, who later became well-known throughout Russia, was arrested. In 1951, Father Vsevolod was appointed rector of the St. Nicholas-in-Kuznetsi Church in Moscow, where he served until his death (†1984). In 1970, I came to Father Vsevolod, and from that time, I lived under his guidance. By then, I had begun to understand something of the sacred ministry. I knew that the priesthood was “great and terrible,” as one of the liturgical prayers says. But Father Vsevolod, asking me two or three times in a joking manner, “Well, why haven’t you entered the seminary yet?” began to speak seriously with me about ordination.

First he interceded for my ordination as a deacon at the Nikolo-Kuznetskaya Church, but his request was silently declined. Then, my friend Vladimir Vorobyev, a physicist, who had entered the Patriarchal Elokhovsky Theophany Cathedral in Moscow as a sacristan in order to enter the theological seminary, informed me that the cathedral needed readers and strongly advised me not to miss this opportunity. After I had been a reader for some time, the senior sacristan of the cathedral, Nikolai Semenovich Kapchuk, introduced me to his friend from his days at the theological academy, Archbishop Vladimir of Dmitrov, the rector of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary.

Archbishop Vladimir accepted me as one of the faculty members of the theological schools under his charge, where I began to work in September 1978. At the end of that year, Archbishop Vladimir called all the lay professors to receive ordination. When Father Vsevolod learned of this, he immediately instructed me to write the corresponding petition. Very soon, on February 11, 1979, I was ordained as a deacon. I became a cleric of the Protection Church of the Moscow Theological Academy and Seminary at the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, but in reality, I immediately began serving at the St. Nicholas Church in Kuznetsi. Father Vsevolod wanted me to be ordained a priest, but during his lifetime this proved impossible. Only on February 14, 1990, did Archbishop Alexey (Kutepov; now the Metropolitan of Tula and Efremov) ordain me as a priest at the request of the new rector of the St. Nicholas Church, Archpriest Vladimir Rozhkov, after the death of Father Vsevolod.

—During the years of persecution against the faith, many spiritually enlightened elders struggled and served God, the Church, and the people. Did you meet any of them? Please tell us about them.

—The Lord granted me the opportunity to meet holy elders. One of them was Hieromonk Pavel (Troitsky) from the Danilov Monastery. A book has been published about him, so I won’t speak much about his life. He used to warn me against being loquacious. When the Danilov Monastery was restored, Father Pavel strictly forbade anyone from speaking about him so that no one would try to seek him out for idle questions or sensational reports. After his release from prison he lived in strict seclusion and communicated only through letters. He was known by very few, but his flock lived in various parts of the country. He wrote: “I fear no one, but I wish to die quietly, without any honors, as millions of people guiltlessly died in camps.”

Father Pavel had the gift of discernment, which knew no boundaries. He could see external events, even if they occurred hundreds or thousands of miles away from him, and he saw them in advance, even before they took place. But most importantly, he could see the depths of the human heart, that which a person had never spoken aloud to anyone. Those who dared to approach Father Pavel did so most often to receive life-changing advice—whether spiritual or practical. His counsel was imperative: “This is God’s will,” and “This is not God’s will.” His advice was usually received with reverence and carried out meticulously. But if anyone had doubts or hesitations in difficult situations, over time, the circumstances revealed that the elder’s advice truly expressed the will of God. Meeting with Father Pavel brought immense joy, and life itself seemed filled with the feeling of an ongoing feast.

The name of another elder, sent to us by the Lord, was also Pavel—Archimandrite Pavel (Gruzdev). Many people know of him; there are numerous written testimonies, as well as many audio and video recordings about him. The two Fathers Pavel were very different. Hieromonk Pavel (Troitsky) was a very educated man, who graduated from theological seminary. He studied at the theological academy, but the First World War forced him to become an officer. Archimandrite Pavel (Gruzdev) could not study anywhere because he was born too late—by the time he reached school age, seminaries no longer existed, let alone academies. He appeared to be a “common” priest, indistinguishable from his village flock. But one day, while in Moscow, he was asked to give a sermon on a Sunday. He delivered a sermon that adhered strictly to the rules of pre-revolutionary homiletics, without the slightest trace of the folksy speech—his usual manner of speaking.

The two elders were united primarily by their profound love for their flocks. Mercy, compassion, patience, and forbearance all burned and warmed in Archimandrite Pavel, and people were drawn to him—elderly women from the countryside, the youth, and even elderly scholars. Proud and superficial critics portrayed him as a “panderer,” which he was not. He clearly spoke out against evil and strictly demanded that it be avoided. But his weapon was not harsh condemnation; it was boundless love, capable of melting even the coldest or most despairing, broken heart. And in his presence, one could feel the solemn joy of a victory that had overcome the world.

To be continued…