Nikolay Piskanovsky

"And, having lit a candle, do not put it under a vessel, but on a candlestick,
also shines all in the house" (Mf. 5.15)

Both the father, and the grandfather of the lake of Nikolay were priests. He was born on May 1 (the Art. of style) 1887. His father, the archpriest Jehoiakim Piskanovsky served in church of the village Zbirogi, near. of station of Zhabink of the Grodno province, in 15 km from Brest-Litovska (present Brest). Nikolay had two more brothers and four sisters. As well as it is necessary to the son of the priest, he comes to a theological seminary. After the termination Brest - the Lithuanian seminary in 1909 it is determined by the psalm reader in Strigovsky church, near the city of Kobrin. Greeting cards of the lake of Jehoiakim of that period are addressed to "its nobleness, the strigovsky psalm reader Nikolay Piskanovsky". At the beginning of 1913 Nikolay Piskanovsky is ordained in deacons and transferred to Saint Nikolay's temple in the Brest fortress. The same year he marries Claudia, the daughter of dear archpriest from the village Stradech of the Brest County, Pyotr Vasilyevich Kotovich.
Молодой отец Николай с супругой Клавдией и трехлетней дочкой КсениейFrom the beginning of 1 world war in Brest the hospital was organized, Saint Nikolay's church becomes the hospital temple, Nikolay continues to serve in it the deacon of the lake. At the lake of Nikolay and the mother Claudia Petrovna on February 24 / 9 March, 1915 the daughter was born. Due to the approach of the germano-Austrian troops the hospital is evacuated and transferred to Odessa, Piskanovsky' family with little Ksenia moves there. It is evacuated as well the diocese which included the hospital temple department is temporarily transferred to Moscow. At this time it was headed by the lord Tikhon (Belavin), and to him for ordination in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in priests to Saint Nicholas's church in 1915 the father Nikolay was called from Odessa. And though the temple in Brest was closed and profaned subsequently, the father Nikolay as the daughter Ksenia Nikolaevna told after it, so all life also considered himself as the prior of the Brest church of Saint Nikolay. In 1918. the hospital in Odessa was liquidated, the father Nikolay went the second priest to the Ukrainian village of Pavlysh, the Kremenchuk district. Here on November 12, 1919 the son was born – he was named Nikolay too.

  Young father Nikolay with the spouse Claudia

The time of troubles, in the village different gangs, two times of the lake to Nikolay appear execution threatened. At the end of 1919 – the beginning of 1920 in the village of Ivanovka of the neighboring Alexandria county killed the priest, the island Nikolay went to serve there. Became decent, fought against splits, went on foot on villages, acted from an ambon. The native uncle of the father Nikolay brought a wonder-working icon of the Mother of God of Valkovskaya from native places. And on the road at it stole all things, except one chest where there was an icon of the Queen Nebesnoy. With this icon of the lake Nikolay arranged religious processions.

Then the father Nikolay was transferred from Ivanovka to the regional center - the city of Alexandria. Here it served in different temples – in the cemeterial temple, in a cathedral. During this period prosecutions and persecutions of the Soviet power on church and its attendants especially became tougher. The father Nikolay who firmly opposes both zhivotserkovnik, and obnovlenets, and withdrawal of church values was pursued persistently. Repeatedly caused in OGPU, kept in a chamber till several days and even weeks, then, without bringing to court, unwillingly released. Sometimes tried to arrange provocations – unbinding, invited at the table filled with vodka and snack tried to photograph the priest in this situation and thus to compromise before parishioners.

In 1922 islands of Nikolay arrested on a high-profile case of the lake of Varsonofiya (Yurchenko), prior of the Pokrovsk temple in Alexandria who shortly before this abbot was hailed by the patriarch Tikhon. The father Varsanofy in the Alexandria district was a missionary on fight against an obnovlenchestvo, and his closest associates there were lakes Nikolay Piskanovsky and his brother-in-law, Anthony Petrovich Kotovich, the second priest of the Pokrovsk temple. In 1923, after nine-months stay in prison, the father Nikolay together with other arrested was carried to Ekaterinoslav (Dnipropetrovsk) where indicative trial over "churchmen" was arranged. O. Nikolay was sentenced to a year of prison, but in three months let out, having sent to exile to Ekaterinograd (Kirovohrad). Since then and until the end of life at the father Nikolay only two social statuses – either the prisoner, or the exiled.

Family of the lake of Nikolay – Claudia Petrovna, mother Maria Ivanovna (river of 1852) and three (!) children – still the baby Sergey appeared by then – it was wound after the father Nikolay through towns and villages without any means of livelihood. At the beginning of 1925 all after Nikolay banished by the lake moved to Ekaterinograd. Unfamiliar kind people gave a shelter and food. For example, the old woman by the name of Ksenia came to Ekaterinograde, told that she from Blessed Ksenia Rybinskaya and within a month daily brought bread, milk and other modest food. After three months in the ekaterinogradsky reference OGPU banishes the father Nikolay to Poltava. There the father Nikolay as administratively exiled had to be marked out regularly in militia – however, the state machine of repression had yet no that relentless rigidity which it gained to the middle of the 30th. In Poltava it was to be noted only once in a month enough, in principle it was also necessary to report about the departures to other cities, but persistent control of trips was not. The father Nikolay explained the trips with desire to visit relatives - for example, most often called the Poltava village of Kobelyaka where Alexey Zverev, Agafya Petrovna Kotovich's husband served in church the priest of the lake.
                                                                                                                                                                           Father Nikolay

And now time to mention that besides service in temples, the lake of Nikolay in 1925-1926, during stay in Poltava had also other obedience came. It was time of great not structures and difficulties of Russian Orthodox Church, and for its Ukrainian part problems were aggravated with local splits (Lubyansk, samosvyata). Bolsheviks mad rates conducted arrests of orthodox priests, trying to deprive of the believing most skilled vozglavitel. During campaign for withdrawal of church values in 1922 the exarch of Ukraine metropolitan Mikhail (Ermakov) was arrested. All weight of management of the Ukrainian church at this moment laid down on shoulders of the Kiev suffragan bishop Makari (Karmazin), and it with honor passed a heartrending experience. He vigorously started secret ordination of new bishops from among firmest "tikhonovets", together with the friend and the adherent bishop Ananyevsky Parfeny (Bryansk) adjusted not under control OGPU system of church management, organized activity of the initiative groups, independent of the godless power, consisting of clergy and laymen. Despite arrests, the lord Makari with the friends bishops for many years kept the influence in affairs of the Ukrainian church. Among his active adherents, besides vl. Parfeny, we will mention also Vasily (Zelentsov's) bishops and Damaskina (Tsedrika).

And provided with the person who at the lord Makari knew the organization of meetings of the episcopate safe and effective communication by special messengers and correspondence to agreed addresses, there was an island Nikolay Piskanovsky. The father Nikolay also steadily participated in the secret hirotoniya occurring in Kharkiv and then organized delivery of the acts signed by bishops of Ukraine to the signature to the Deputy Patriarchal locum tenens metropolitan Sergy (Stragorodsky) to Nizhny Novgorod. The lord Makari blessed the father Nikolay in 1926, for example, to go round bishops in Kiev, Kharkiv, Poltava, Zhytomyr, other Ukrainian cities to conduct survey on the Gregorian split. Results of poll of the Ukrainian episcopate were told to the island by Nikolay at the request of the lord Makari to the metropolitan Sergy (Stragorodsky) that strengthened positions of the patriarchal locum tenens and allowed it to take initial measures against dissenters. It in return resolutely supported the Ukrainian episcopate on a problem of Lubyansk split.

Elimination of a problem of a diarchy in management of Church of spring-summer of 1926 became successful joint action of the Ukrainian bishops and the metropolitan Sergiya during this period also. The metropolitan Agafangel, the oldest at that time on a dignity and a hirotoniya the hierarch of Russian Orthodox Church, had legitimate rights for the higher church authority: it was specified by the second candidate for Locum tenens still Patriarch Tikhon in January, 1925. However circumstances of its return from the reference (after negotiations with the chief of the 6th office of Confidential department of OGPU E. A. Tuchkov) and the hasty announcement of guarded with the Locum tenens in April, 1926 the episcopate. The metropolitan Sergy after consultations with a number of influential hierarches declared that he cannot refuse the obligations for management of Church assigned to it by an izvoleniye of the patriarchal locum tenens metropolitan Pyotr (Polyansky).

Trying to find a way out of an impasse, to Agafangel voluntarily to refuse the claims on locum-tenency the bishop Prilutsky Vasily (Zelentsov) who expressed opinion of the Ukrainian episcopate appealed on May 6, 1926 with the open letter. It was specified that "orthodox bishops recognize the metropolitan Pyotr as the Patriarchal Locum tenens, and you are asked to leave this undertaking". Signatures of other bishops in support of this letter Nikolay Piskanovsky received the lake, he also brought him on May 19 to the metropolitan Agafangel at the request of the lord Vasily. And on June 17 the lake Nikolay delivered to Agafangel the letter again – this time from the metropolitan Sergiya (Stragorodsky) with the categorical requirement to refuse the claims and thus to stop the beginning distemper. In the made lake. Nikolay the document entitled by it "Interview with the metropolitan Agafangel" tells how he zemno bowed to the metropolitan and asked it to send the refusal of locum-tenency to the metropolitan Sergy for the good of Church and as, despite the stated doubts, Agafangel handed it an envelope with refusal and the copy for the Ukrainian episcopate in the evening.

After arrest of the metropolitan Sergiya in December, 1926 and assignment of duties of the deputy locum tenens on the archbishop Uglichsky Serafim Samoylovich, to it on negotiations on blessing ep. Makari (Karmazin) at the beginning of 1927 the lake Nikolay Piskanovsky goes and brings the encouraging news of plans of carrying out church policy of the new head of Church to Ukraine.

In Poltava the exiled the priest of the lake Nikolay serves out of staff in the only remained open Trinity Church. In it before the arrest in the summer of 1926 as Ksenia Nikolaevna remembered later, the bishop Vasily (Zelentsov), the adherent and the kind friend of the lake of Nikolay, the fearless fighter for good reason of Church made remarkable sermons.

OGPU of Poltava suspects the father Nikolay of the unlawful church activity, keeps upon it continuous shadowing, causes it for interrogations. On the first two calls the mother Claudia Petrovna accompanied the husband, in the third had to remain with children. Round the corner, near management of OGPU, there was already a carrier, the father Nikolay directly from interrogation was taken away, secretly from a family, to the station and then accompanied by escorts brought to Kharkiv, directly to prison. As Ksenia Nikolaevna transfers, declared to it: "Nobody knows where you are; that we want, with you and we will make". In reply the father Nikolay told that "the wife all the same will find me and will come". The next day to a family one of parishioners of Trinity Church came and told that Claudia Petrovna is asked by some young man. It was the escort who brought the father Nikolay to Kharkiv by train and who responded to its request to transfer a news about it to a family. Probably, the father Nikolay would be kept long in prison without court, but Claudia Petrovna appeared in reception OGPU with requirements of appointment to the husband again, security officers had no sufficient bases for a consequence, and lakes of Nikolay release from prison. But did not allow to come back to Poltava to it any more, having left on receipt in Kharkiv.

OGPU understands that by then the lake of Nikolay had in Kharkiv too many congenial influential priests. With the purpose to complicate communication with adherents, the power appoints to the father Nikolay Piskanovsky the reference out of borders of Ukraine – to Voronezh (obviously, it is fall of 1927). Going to the reference, the lake Nikolay originally had to stop by in Nizhny Novgorod where after release from prison the metropolitan Sergy returned on April 2, 1927 and to transfer it the message from group of the Ukrainian hierarches. But this time the situation of a meeting developed intense unlike previous year when joint fight against splits and divisions of church management created the atmosphere of mutual trust. The matter is that the metropolitan Sergy who came back to execution of the obligations of management of Patriarchal church after difficult months in a solitary confinement of ominous Internal prison of OGPU published in "News" of July 16/29 the Declaration calling believers for loyalty of the Soviet power. This Declaration caused fierce polemic and for a long time divided the Russian society on all initial space of ROC. And if before the lake Nikolay delivered to the metropolitan Sergy of the message, proceeding from uniform understanding of tasks of the Russian church, then now the lake Nikolay carried to it the message of other sense suggesting to Sergy to reconsider the positions.

                      Father Nikolay Piskanovsky

The father Nikolay was accepted by the metropolitan, transferred him the Message, had with it conversation. According to Ksenia Nikolaevna, he "asked and convinced the metropolitan" to refuse the Declaration. It is obvious that for Sergiya there was any more no opportunity left to fulfill the requirements which are contained in the Message therefore the lake Nikolay could not accept the proposal of the metropolitan too "not to go to Voronezh, to accept good arrival and a miter in Nizhny Novgorod" and told that "will go to the space of the reference for Saint Mitrofan's cover appointed to it".

To Voronezh moved all family. The remarkable father, the lake Ioann who accepts all exiled of priests serves in small Church of the Ascension (against the Mitrofanyevsky monastery occupied then with "zhivotserkovnik"). But the father Nikolay did not happen to serve long here. The bishop Voronezh Alexy (Buoy) sends on January 9, 1928 to the metropolitan Sergy the protest appeal from the Voronezh diocese, among the lakes which signed it there are Nikolay Piskanovsky and many other priests and laymen. OGPU "takes measures", is begun large-scale process of "churchmen", in April, 1928 the father Ioann is banished to Central Asia, and the island Nikolay and one more Ukrainian priest from Church of the Ascension, the lake Alexander is arrested on May 4. Their all summer is kept in "Gubispravdom" (so began to call then in the USSR prisons, there is a photo of this building with an inscription of the lake of Nikolay), judged and sentenced to three years of ITL.

From Voronezh the father Nikolay is taken away to the Solovki on September 14, 1928. Ksenia Nikolaevna wrote: "The father very much aspired to the Solovki, wanted to tell about the declaration of the metropolitan Sergiya..." It is valid, at this time for the Russian clergy there was no more burning world outlook problem, than the relation to the Declaration of the metropolitan Sergiya. And the Solovki Camp of Special Function (SCSF) where there was collected representative and quite numerous group of influential hierarches of Russian Orthodox Church, was the large center of orthodox thought.

On the Solovki, as well as in all country at this time, orthodox clergy again as at the time of emergence of "live church", it is split in two – on iosiflyan and sergianets. These two directions are called by name the heads – the metropolitan Sergiya (Stragorodsky), the deputy locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, and the metropolitan Josef (Petrov) which was not recognizing the Declaration.

On the Solovki most of the prisoner of clergy - the iosiflena, at the head of their lord Victor Vyatsky (Ostrovidov), with it such bishops as Pyotr (Zverev), Nektary (Trezvinsky), Illarion (Belsky) are unanimous. By the time of emergence on the island of the lake of Nikolay, there were also his such colleagues across Ukraine as bishops Vasily (Zelentsov), Damaskin (Tsedrik).

Remained several post cards of the father Nikolay sent them from the Solovki camp to a family. Judging by their brevity and lack of any actual data, except for weather, censorship in camp raged and not only densely deleted objectionable lines, but also just destroyed seditious mailings. The semi-phrase it seems "Weather at us will only sometimes break... solar and silent. I bless all of you" or "Yes the Lord in standing will strengthen all of you and will give patience". On all remained cards there are stamps "USLON is checked" and as the signature "from the prisoner Piskanovsky Nikolay Akimovich" – yes employees of post department and other truly Soviet people from what criminal monsters mailings can arrive know.

Cards in own printing house of the Solovki camp, on the face various art images are printed. It can be neutral genre motives, for example "pochtarsky boats on oars on sludge ice". There are also local sights, like a tower of Solovetsky Monastery with the inscription "At an Entrance to the Kremlin" or "Elizar's chapels on the lake Anzer", and censors most likely considered what in the latter case to add to a name of Eliazar would be "St." politically incorrect and it is better "to modernize" a name. It is not recommended to mention the Lord.

O. Nikolay by the beginning of 1930 served a half of the prison sentence, and in Voronezh the new wide wave of arrests on church affairs went. Seized many exiled of priests and laymen, there were many firing sentences. On February 11 arrested the mother Claudia Petrovna, the distance is 5 years old of the Solovki. The father Nikolay, as Ksenia writes, "caused on process too, too it would be shot, but he stayed already by then more than a half of term therefore it was not taken out".

According to I.M. Andreevsky, the father Nikolay Piskanovsky is the general confessor for all episcopate and secular clergy at iosiflyan. In the memoirs published abroad he reports that the lake Nikolay received a note from the wife and the son: "we always rejoice, thinking of your sufferings for Christ and his Church. Rejoice also you about that also we were honored to be driven for the Lord again and again".

Also I.M. Andreevsky's story about secret services on the Solovki is very remarkable. "So, for example, in Great Chetvertok 1929, the service with reading 12 Gospel was made in our chamber of doctors, in the 10th company. To us came, allegedly on the case of disinfection, the Lord Victor and the lake Nikolay. Then, katakombno, served church service, having closed a door on a latch....

On Friday when we, doctors, just vernuyolis in the chambers after 12 hour working days, to us the island Nikolay came and reported: Church service – a burial rank – sostoyoitsya and will begin in an hour. "Where?" – the Lord Maxim asked. "In a big box for drying of fish which is about the wood... Conditional knock 3 and 2 times. It is better to come on one"...

In half an hour the Lord Maxim and I left our company and were sent to the specified "address". Asked patrols of the admission us twice. We, doctors, had them. But as others: Lord Victor, Lord Illarion, Lord Nektary and lake Nikolay?. The lord Victor served as an accountant at rope factory, the Lord Nektary – fished, the others – spun networks... Here and wood edge. There is a box, 4 sazhens long. Without windows. The door is hardly noticeable. Light twilight. Neyobo in dark clouds. We knock 3 and then 2 times. Opens for the island Niyokolay. Vladyka Victor and Vladyka Illarion already here... In a few minutes also the Lord Nektary comes. The interior of a box turned into church. On a floor, on walls, fir-tree branches. Several candles glimmer. Small paper icons. Small, in a palm size, the shroud is buried in verdure of branches. The praying people 10. Is later came 4-5 more, from them – two monks... Church service began. In a whisper. It seemed that we had no bodies, and were tolyyoko one souls... I do not remember – as we went "home", i.e. to the companies. The Lord covered!...

The light matins were appointed in our chamber of doctors. To 12 o'clock in the morning, under different urgent pretexts by medical part, without any written permissions, all who were going to come gathered the person about 15... After matins and a mass – mudflows razgovyolyatsya. On a table there were Easter cakes, Easter, colored eggs, snack, wine (liquid yeast with cranberry extract and sugar). About 3 hours dispersed..."

Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev writes about the Solovki period to lives of the lake Nikolay with big honoring in "Memoirs": "It was another (in comparison with the lord Victor Ostrovidov – VV). It was impossible to call it cheerful, but always in the most difficult circumstances it radiated internal tranquility. I do not remember it laughing or smiling, but always the meeting with it was some consolatory. And not only for me. I remember how he told my friend, year suffering lack of letters from the family that it suffered a little and that the letter will be, soon soon. I was not present at the same time and therefore I cannot provide exact words of the father Nikolay, but the letter came next day. I asked the father Nikolay – as he could know about the letter? And the father Nikolay answered me that he also did not know, and was so somehow uttered. But such "was uttered" there was much...". Claudia Petrovna Piskanovskaya will spend in USLONE more than three years, but on islands she will not get, having passed a stradny way on "business trips" of continental Karelia – it the Solovki management of GULAG creeps away like a cancer tumor, and it will be developed in a terrible zone of Belomorkanal soon.

 

 

The father Nikolay in the conclusion together with     edinomyslenny clergy. Voronezh 1928.

 Nevertheless, Claudia Petrovna happened to meet the husband on transit point in Kemi (Kemperpunkt) at the time of formation of a stage with which the father Nikolay was sent from the Solovki. D. S. Likhachev writes about it: "The father Nikolay knew that his wife was also arrested, and very much worried about children: what if take in children's home and will be brought up atheists! And once, when it was taken out from camp, in Kemperpunkta (Kemsky transit point) he stood in a man's queue for boiled water. Since other end besides to the crane the female turn approached. When the father Nikolay approached the crane, he saw the wife at the crane. They were covered by prisoners (it was strictly forbidden to talk to men to women), and the father Nikolay learned a message, joyful for it, – children were taken by the believing acquaintances...". Really, after arrest of the mother Claudia Petrovna her mother-in-law, Maria Ivanovna took away grandsons from Voronezh to the daughter Ekaterina Ioakimovna Domochalskaya in Korosten of the Zhytomyr region. The uncle Mischa, the daughter's husband, works as the cashier of the commodity yard local. of knot. For the aunt Kati any communication with arrested seemed too dangerous therefore she did not want to retain Ksenia who corresponds with parents and wants to go to them to appointment.

Ksenia moved to Odessa to the aunt Anna Petrovna which does not oppose to its correspondence, and comes to study to FZU of Himpromsoyuz.

The three-year imprisonment term of the father Nikolay in May, 1931 came to an end, but the Soviet power did not hurry to release the prisoner. On the contrary, she prepared for it still test, gorshy in comparison with the Solovki, – in its December, 1931 on a stage, escorted by send to a tree felling on Northern Dvina, to the district of the Old Believers' village of Kekhta.

O. Nikolay on health cannot work at heavy prinudrabota, it was established by the medical commission on the Solovki – but in the wood there are no medical boards, and for the lagernik who is not carrying out norm is not present as well food. Having received from one ssylny, former Voronezh parishioner of the Troitsk temple, the message on a desperate situation of the father Nikolay absolutely sick and the daughter who did not reach the 17 anniversary perishing for hunger, it yet, having immediately thrown the FZU in Odessa, directs to the father to the strange Northern region. Ksenia achieves the objectives, despite all difficulties of a long trip, finds for the father a corner at one poor woman having many children in the village the Red Hill near Kekhta, leaves to the father food and money and directs back to Odessa, to strive on the father's liberating. We can judge circumstances of arrival of the daughter and still high condition of spirit of the lake. Nikolay according to his autographic letter given below delivered by Ksenia to the grandmother Maria Ivanovna and the 12-year-old brother bypassing official mail and censorship.

"My dear mummy and sonny Kolenka!

I send you, the sonny Kolenka, parental blessing and hi to you from the far North. Never I forget you in the daily prayers. I ask you, be always faithful to Christ. Remember the promise made by you to mother in a dungeon on appointment at departure. Daily according to the prayer book say morning and evening prayers, and after prayers remember the family for health and upoky. Very I grieve that you have no spiritual consolation. If you have an opportunity to take communion, (nerazb.) ... Mummy, native, you do not grieve. Now it became better for me and there will be on everything a God's will. Our life here temporary. Let's ask the Lord that vouchsafed to be to us together in the Kingdom of Heaven. I ask to kiss the, Tanya and Katenka. Let will forgive that I in letters remember them a little, without wishing them to cause concerns, and always I remember them and I love. Everything, all family I kiss. Hotly I thank Ksenichka for her love how many to it, poor, it was necessary to transfer on the way griefs. I thank all for memory and love. What is with me will be, I will not renounce priesthood. I made the promise at ordination to be faithful to Christ to the death. Always I remain true St. To Orthodoxy and all new splits I reject. The Lord will forgive for all your sufferings which you patiently transfer all sins. Read, Kolenka, in Slavic and try. . "Bless psalms, to soul washing," and "Praise the Lord, to soul washing, the Lord Edinorodny the son", and to learn "Pleasure" by heart and to know an order.

Kiss Zhenya and children. Whenever possible write though it is short, about yours health. Kolenka, I send you gloves and Saint Nicholas's icon.

Blessing. I ask you, mummy, bless me with the parental blessing. Ksenichka Vam will tell how I live and that my friends write. Yes the Lord stores you. The son who is hotly loving you and the father. I kiss you. 1932"

Tanya and Katenka – the niece and the sister of the lake of Nikolay at whom there live Maria Ivanovna and Kolya

Zhenya – Evgenia Ioakimovna, lives with the daughter Tanya, her husband and grandsons in. Gorky.

Ksenia, having returned from a trip to the father to Kekhta, handles on April 21, 1932 from Odessa a request for the urgent help to Ekaterina Pavlovna Peshkova, the head of the Political Red Cross.

"Dear Ekaterina Pavlovna!

Most obediently I ask you to petition my father! The father is my priest Piskanovsky Nikolay Akimovich, it is arrested in 1928 on May 10th in Voronezh where he served at that time. It is banished by the resolution of the Moscow OGPU under article 58-10 in a concentration camp for a period of three years. Its term ended on May 10, 1931. In 1930, on February 11, I do not know for what, arrested our mother, Piskanovskaya Claudia Petrovna who fed with the work us... under article 58 banished to the Solovki for a period of 5 years where it is and now. After the father and mother there were I, yet not full age, my brother 10 years and the old woman cripple the grandmother of 80 years. After the termination of term, the father remained five months on the place of the reference in a concentration camp on forced labor, and only in its December, 1931, a stage again, sent to the wood near Arkhangelsk, near the village of Kekhta of Holmogorsky district. Long the father could not work in the wood for health reasons, and it was transferred to der. To Kekht, where the father is and now. My father since the childhood has heart disease, and in exile health its all the time worsened. Now the father is very strongly sick several months, and health its all the time worsens. Now to a heart trouble also the mental disorder increased, at night and cannot find any peace in the afternoon. If it is in such situation longer, then he will finally go crazy and heart long will not stand him. For health reasons it cannot work on prinud. works, even on the easiest. Even in the watchman and the term of the reference in a concentration camp came to an end. And on a free residence of the father for some reason do not release. After mother we were left destitute so it is difficult for me to give to the father even financial support. From the heart I ask you to petition for the father that he was released on a free residence to the inhabited place where there is a medical assistance where and I could live with the father. Though to Arkhangelsk or even as a last resort to Holmogorsk.

I ask you... petition that complied with my request as soon as possible as any delay can cost life to the father. When the result is known, I ask you, tell me. My address: Odessa, Chernomorskaya St. of 24, quarter 6. To Ksenia Nikolaevna Piskanovskaya".

On the statement from above there is an inscription "In the Moscow OGPU". It is similar to a miracle, and, maybe, and there is a real miracle, but efforts worked, and quickly enough. To the father Nikolay allowed to move to the regional center, Arkhangelsk. It was put on inspection and treatment in the Arkhangelsk city hospital.

In Piskanovsky' life there were many persecutors. But the Divine Providence also quite often sent sincere assistants and skillful spospeshnik. Alexander Aleksandrovich Levichev, the pharmacist managing provision of medicines of the Arkhangelsk hospital was one of such people. Earlier it already proved a spiritual feat, hiding at itself(himself) the prior of the Antoniyev-Siysky monastery, after revolution which headed Solovetsky Monastery - the hieromartyr Veniamin Kononov.

In hospital of the lake of Nikolay it was succeeded to treat, promote his subsequent device. Of course, exiled tolerable work in Arkhangelsk were not given, and the father Nikolay began to work as the watchman at city brick-works.

In Arkhangelsk at this time the exiled priest Alexander Filippsky who arrived from the Solovki worked as the stove-setter, it found for the father Nikolay a removable closet on an attic. The lake of Nikolay had an antimension of the hospital temple and a full linen iconostasis, and they with the lake Alexander began to serve secretly in the improvised temple together with several exiled believers.

By fall Ksenia left unfinished the doctrine in FZU in Odessa and moved to the father to Arkhangelsk to look after the sick father. She remembers that "at first employed me in Krayza, but then all exiled and a family began to be reduced, and except brick-works I could not settle anywhere - and that was accepted on acquaintance as the father worked as the watchman there. Worked there, at building, replaced someone".

Ksenia told that to them the old acquaintance of the father sometimes came, the bishop Luka (Voyno-Yasenetsky) to treat ulcers standing the island of Nikolay. But other people were the main sorabotnik of the lake of Nikolay on a church field at this time.

It was necessary for the Lord that at this particular time in Arkhangelsk the new bright picture of intensive church life - as if a prominence in the storm sky was developed. As the beginning of brisk activity of the Arkhangelsk group of "True and orthodox church" it is necessary to consider 1933 and first half of 1934. The important prerequisite for this bright Arkhangelsk flash in the history of fight of Russian Orthodox Church against the godless power - synchronous emergence in the Arkhangelsk exile at once several authoritative and vigorous bishops who created monolithic powerful group of supporters. The lord Serafim (Semyon Nikolaevich Samoylovich) who was already mentioned by us became its main figure delivered to Arkhangelsk from Kosmodemyansky prison in June, 1933. Slightly earlier on the way to Ust-Tsylma to Arkhangelsk on a stage the bishop Victor Ostrovidov was brought. Since 1933 to arrest at the beginning of 1936 in the city there was also an exiled lord Damaskin (Tsedrik). January 17, 1935. in Kimry the lord Parfeny was arrested and sent to the exile to Arkhangelsk (Bryansk). Also it turned out that with all these lords it was familiar for a long time and amicable - across Ukraine and the Solovki - the lake Nikolay Piskanovsky.

As the second important prerequisite of emergence of the Arkhangelsk prominence it is possible to consider formation of the effective leading duet which was presented by the lord Serafim and his closest associate of the lake Nikolay Piskanovsky. They knew each other since pre-revolutionary times, were quite close relatives, and also ideally supplemented each other in the spiritual and organizational plan – the ardent, resolute, active lord and the wise, quiet, perspicacious archpriest. I at first wanted to write about it that he easily counted actions on many courses forward, and right there realized that process of knowledge at the lake of Nikolay was other, to it what for the majority is tightly closed by an uncertainty veil was just conducted.

Both heads lived feeling of Lord's Omnipotence and Humility his ox. Both were obsessed with feeling of high responsibility for that vicarial mission which they were urged to execute. The lord Serafim extremely seriously estimated the primatial probation – when he headed ROC during Sergiya Stragorodsky's arrest (from December 29, 1926 to April 7, 1927), being the Deputy Patriarchal Locum tenens. And having voluntarily returned Sergiya of the right for management, it then, obviously, counted this step in the light of the subsequent actions of the metropolitan, first of all publications of his Declaration, precipitate and invalid.

However, many prominent orthodox hierarches also recognized the rights of the lord Serafim. The message of the Prelate Victor Ostrovidov dated, allegedly, 1934 in which he wrote about a vozglavleniye of the Russian Church by the Patriarchal Locum tenens Pyotr, the metropolitan Krutitsky, and his deputy Serafim, the archbishop Uglichsky is known, for example.

Even simple transfer of actions of the lord Serafim and the lake of Nikolay demonstrates that they saw the general mission in eschatological conditions of approach of Bolsheviks to Church as a vozglavleniye of the God's people – the true Christians repeating a way of Christian martyrs of Rome at the time of Neron. In the Soviet option of a catacomb turned into secret house monasteries, and arenas of circuses - in camp, prisons and special grounds of People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs.

What actions of the lord Serafim and the lake of Nikolay of that period can be qualified as belonging to a vozglavleniye of the Russian Church? From the fact that we know we will refer to such actions correspondence of 1933 of the lord Serafim with the metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov), the direction to them of "ardent urgings on", his appeals to resolute actions for return of the primatial power to the metropolitan Kirill, the first candidate for inheritance of a primatial rank according to the will of the patriarch Tikhon. However by the end of 1933 hopes completely disappeared that it will be possible to metropolitan Kirill to take resolute actions for achievement of this good purpose. Then the lord Serafim undertakes an initiative and writes the Act (of December 14/27, 1933) in which he declares the metropolitan Sergiya (Stragorodsky) "deprived of prayful communication with all orthodox bishops of the Russian Church and forbidden in a svyashchennosluzheniye for the anticanonical activity".

For the adoption of this Act the lord Serafim and the lake Nikolay organized in Arkhangelsk a cathedral of the True and Orthodox Church (TOC), a so-called "small catacomb cathedral" which solutions had to become a basis for actions of all exiled of bishops and clergy. About it "the Arkhangelsk meeting" (so in the OGPU protocol) the lord Makari (Karmazin) tells: "In May of month [yaets] of 1934. I through Piskanovsky was invited by Serafim Samoylovich to Arkhangelsk to meeting, but from this trip, for reasons of conspiracy and in order to avoid a failure of activity of IPTs and its consequences, I refused and limited to the written message to Serafim that I will not change IPTs and I will firmly carry out the work in creation in Russia of free true and orthodox church".

Constant care vl. Serafim and the lake of Nikolay there was an appointment of ruling bishops in dioceses of True and orthodox church - on interrogation on October 11, 1934 the lord Makari (Karmazin) reports: "I received the instruction in May, 1934 from the bishop Serafim (Samoylovich) through the priest Piskanovsky. In the written decree Serafim (Samoylovich) in spite of the fact that he was in exile, considering itself as Deputy Patriarchal Locum tenens, suggested to accept the Dnipropetrovsk diocese which I operated before the arrest of 1927. Later, i.e. soon after Serafim (Samoylovich's) arrest, Piskanovsky suggested me to accept the leaders of the Vyatka diocese and IPTs groups of the Ivanovo industrial region which were directed before arrest by Serafim (Samoylovich)".

Also other actions of the archpriest Piskanovsky dealing with the most important current problems of all Russian Orthodox Church are indicative. The mirovareniye problem - the great religious rite which is usually the primate's prerogative was such, for example. The father Nikolay in 1933 writes about it to the metropolitan Kirill (Smirnov), comes back to this subject in the letter of 1934 to the lord Makari (Karmazin). It is clear, that it does it first of all on behalf of the archbishop Serafim as his representative or the head of the secretariat. In protocols of interrogations many often called the island of Nikolay the secretary of the archbishop Serafim – for the Arkhangelsk period of their joint church activity it actually and was.

Analyzing what was a control system of True and orthodox church in 1934 and what role was played in this management of the lake by Nikolay, will refer to the certificate of the bishop Makari (Karmazin): "Ours... the church is headed now by the archbishop Serafim Uglichsky, the metropolitan Kazan Kirill, me — the bishop Karmazin, the bishop Glukhovsky Damaskin, the bishop Parfeny Bryanskikh, the bishop Ioasaf Zhevakhov, the bishop Afanasy Molchanovsky and the archpriest Piskanovsky Nikolay Akimovich".

Let's return to destiny of a family of Piskanovsky. The school student of the senior classes, Kolya came to Arkhangelsk, to visit the father and the sister during the summer school vacation. There is a photo of the brother and sister with the inscription "for memory to the sister in day of departure from Arkhangelsk on July 28, 1933." - Pricking comes back to Korosten to continue the school training. In the summer of the next year sixteen-year-old Kolya together with the grandmother Maria Ivanovna come from Korostenya to Arkhangelsk. In Arkhangelsk Kolya intends to leave secondary school. The mother Claudia Petrovna was released from camp in the spring of 1934, it is sent to exile to Arkhangelsk. At last, Piskanovsky' family for a short time reunited, at least and in exile. In August, 1934 all five in the photo.

The father Nikolay with a family in Arkhangelsk

Arrests of the IPTs Arkhangelsk group began in May, 1934. Seized with the first OGPU the lord Serafim (Samoylovich). The turn reached the lake of Nikolay in September. Both bishops, and at the lake of Nikolay had the same charge: "Belonging to truly orthodox church". The father Nikolay is transferred to prison hospital in the winter. Painful interrogations, confrontations follow. This time the undermined organism did not sustain – the father Nikolay dies during the investigation on April 10 (on March 28), 1935. The official diagnosis - pneumonia. Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev's opinion: "Life of the father Nikolay was continuous torture, and maybe a martyrdom".

Began to strive on receiving by a family of a body deceased. Dear people, the staff of city hospital - the pharmacist Levichev already famous to us and Dmitry Vasilyevich Nikitin took active part in efforts, besides a family. Professor Nikitin who was in the Arkhangelsk exile - the yasnopolyansky doctor of Lev Nikolaevich, the large physician-therapist among whose patients there were high ranks of regional People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. As the island Nikolay was not still condemned under sentence of court and was considered as the person under investigation, the request for extradition of a body was granted already next day after death. Ksenia writes at the same time that security officers made it that also to look who exactly will come to a funeral. In due time it was difficult to notify people on a funeral because of difficulties of a crossing through Northern Dvina and an impassability of roads, but close people (Ksenia mentions the bishop Parfeniya, the lord Damaskin, the Petrograd protodeacon Vasily, etc.) were being not specially notified. As Ksenia reports, the father Nikolay who told that it will serve dreamed them and asked to arrive to it on Friday 12/IV (30/III) 1935 is and there was a day of its funeral, the third after death. Buried the father Nikolay on a city cemetery, to the people came much.

Epilog

Grave of the hieromartyr confessor Nikolay Piskanovsky

The future of an uncommon family of Piskanovsky deserves the developed description, and I hope to acquaint in detail in the near future Orthodox community with this gloomy, but extremely dukhopodjemny history. Meanwhile I decide for those who got acquainted with the material given above, to list only the main subsequent events, the main milestones of their righteous life which I in the article in the magazine "Our Heritage" No. 87-88 of 2008 decided to call "Piskanovsky' Life".

Nikolay Piskanovsky was glorified by the Russian Foreign orthodox church on a cathedral 1/14 of November, 1981 of the lake in the new hieromartyr's face.

Claudia Petrovna together with the daughter were arrested on "church business" in 1937, are sent to camp on the Pinega River in the Arkhangelsk region. In 1940 Kseniyu judge in camp and add it term. Charge was formal is connected with the orthodox poem which was read by Ksenia, and actually with Ksenia's refusal of "cooperation" with People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs.

Kolya Piskanovsky, having received the certificate with a gold medal, entered in 1938 the Moscow electromechanical institute of engineers of railway transport of F. Dzerzhinsky (MEMIIT) on faculty of mechanization of construction and traveling works. He regularly sends to camp of a parcel of mother and the sister, managing to live on the insignificant grant and on beggarly extra earnings by the teacher of technical drawing in evening school.

But time of gorshy tests new still comes. War began. In camps letters are cancelled, also food is almost cancelled – and at liberty the population eats worse and worse what to stand on ceremony with prisoners! Due to the threat of approach of Germans part of northern concentration camps move to depth of the country, Claudia Petrovna and Ksenia appear in the Komi ASSR, in the new camp points developed along the railroad to Ukhta, prisoners cruelly starve.

Kolya Piskanovsky together with the institute in December, 1941 was evacuated to Tomsk where lessons of students were recommenced. In the spring of 1943 he brilliantly defended the degree project in Tomsk, gained the diploma of the engineer in "mechanization of construction and traveling works" and was directed to work as the mechanic in Molotov (former and present Perm). By then Kolya's correspondence with camp was resumed, and the sister tells him that the possibility to let out mother from camp is considered. "When I read, at me for pleasure heart clenched", - Kolya wrote to the answer to the sister. Of course, Ksenia could not write to it in the conditions of strict censorship that it is about "aktirovaniye", that is release under the act of camp hospital of almost hopelessly sick people.

Kolya began to prepare for arrival of mother, agrees about a corner sjema in the house of the widow of the priest on the Perm suburb, gets permission of the Executive Committee of the City Soviet of People's Deputies to entrance of mother in Molotov. At last, to the middle of July Claudia Petrovna comes to the son. A joyful meeting, it places it with the hostess, bears the passport of mother for a registration in militia. And... is refused – according to passports which owners received them "in connection with release from jails", the regional centers do not register! Violations of a passport system can cost much to both, and Kolya urgently transports mother on station in 25 kilometers by rail from Molotov and registers it there. The free days off in a wartime are given seldom, he goes to it after the long working day, together it is possible to spend no more couple of hours. "At such short appointments we do not manage to have a good long talk so only fragments. . I imagined it grown old, but such become thin I never saw it and therefore I could not present. One bones yes skin", - he writes the sister. From Kohl's mother learns that Ksenia had the next outbreak of tuberculosis recently, she was in camp hospital.

And Claudia Petrovna in February, 1944 is hospitalized, she a throat has blood, legs swell, in the evenings temperature rises, breath is brought down. In chamber Kolya is not let, mother cannot be roused any more. Claudia Petrovna died on March 29, 1944, Kolya buried her on a city cemetery, near church.

At the end of 1944 the design bureau of the Central management of engineering plants NKPS where the degree project of Kolya got, suggested it to pass to them into Moscow for work, but from Perm it was not released. It was succeeded to escape only by May, 1945, having come to postgraduate study of the institute returned by then to Moscow. Kolya successfully is engaged, for extra earnings conducts occupations with students, strives with parcels in camp to the sister. But the hidden tuberculosis gets out outside, Kolya is hospitalized, struggles with an illness, but the organism exhausted by long-term malnutrition does not maintain,

Ksenia was released from northern camps only in 1947, and that by her as to "mother", knocked off additional term in connection with the birth the same year of the daughter. The girl's father is released in 1947 too, goes to arrange divorce with a former family, but there is reconciliation, and he reports that he will not return. Ksenia cannot arrive to the brother to Moscow, restrictions on accommodation remain. In 1949 she is arrested in Uglich again, directed in Rybinsk camp, and the two-year-old daughter is hidden by orthodox compassionate "grannies". Ksenia only in 1955 was released from camp, met the daughter, but time and efforts was required to overcome the alienation which arose in six long years of separation. They live difficult, but gradually life is adjusted, the daughter receives profession of the engineer, works in Ufa and Tutaev at the plants releasing aviation engines. Live in perfect harmony, but the last years Ksenia Nikolaevna's lives are saddened by crash of the Russian aviation industry and the compelled unemployment of her workers. She died in 1997, having overcome not only incalculable deprivations of the camp and "free" years, but also the tuberculosis which was fatal to her mother and the brother. Strength of mind at this modest, deeply orthodox person was big.

The originator is Volkov Vsevolod Olegovich, 1935.
Professor, Doctor of Economics.
When writing the family archive is used
and materials of the orthodox websites of the Internet.

Source: http://www.eshatologia.org/847-sviashennomuchennik-otets-nikolay-piskanovskiy.html

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