From Bug to Belomorya the Way of the Cross of the lake of Nikolay Piskanovsky lay

Kobrin → Outstanding persons

In the late seventies the past century the destiny presented me in Moscow acquaintance to the writer Oleg Vasilyevich Volkov. The high old man with a gray-haired beard was as though from other time. Breed in its idle time and a worthy manner of communication, slightly grassiruyushchy speech, noble neatness of shape was felt. Already much later I learned that O. V. Volkov is the author not only excellent prose about the Russian nature, but also the memoirs book "Immersion" telling about his camp Odyssey on the Stalin archipelago. The priest of the lake Nikolay Piskanovsky whose way of service of Church began to Brest-Litovske also is mentioned in series of names of this book. More detailed story about this devotee of Orthodoxy was found in the sketch "Piskanovsky' Life" written by the writer's son V. O. Volkov.

We publish a sketch in the reduced option.

N. Alexandrov

Priest N. N. Piskanovsky. Middle of the 1920th years

"In a shed on the Popovy island where from standing all night long in narrowness at me legs swelled, I was given way on plank beds at daybreak — to lie down a little because boots to me became small and legs did not hold. Surprising people — the young handsome Kabardians conceded in national clothes. One of them called Divlet Girey Albaksidovich. I remembered — because eternally to it he is grateful. Kabardians cleared two places on plank beds for old men: for the mullah and for the orthodox priest. Protected their dream from a punks impact. Seeing my state, allowed to lie down also to me. The priest who lay nearby — the Ukrainian on a nationality — told me: it is necessary to find the father Nikolay Piskanovsky on the Solovki — he will help. Why it will help and as — I did not understand. Decided about himself that the father Nikolay probably holds some important position. The assumption is the most ridiculous: priest and "responsible situation"! But everything was true and came true: "position" of the father Nikolay consisted in respect for it of all monks of the island, and I was helped by it for years".

D. Likhachev, academician, former prisoner of the Solovki

Nikolay Nikolaevich Piskanovsky (1886–1935) was born in a family of the Belarusian priest, finished a theological seminary to Brest-Litovske (here the author allowed inaccuracy – was not in B. - L.seminariya, – N. A.), it was imposed in deacons and served in church at hospital in Brest. From the beginning of World War I the hospital was evacuated to Odessa, there and the family in which, besides parents, there were three-year-old Ksenia and one-year-old Kolya by then moves.

In 1918 the father Nikolay is imposed in priests in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow as the bishop Grodno and Vilensky was evacuated to Moscow. After the father Nikolay returned to Ukraine, served in the temple of the village of Alexandria Kherson. When persecutions of the Soviet power began, the family moves at first to Poltava, then to Voronezh.

The father Nikolay firmly opposes also withdrawal of church values, and zhivotserkovnik. The first arrest belongs to 1923, and further the father Nikolay has only two social statuses — either the prisoner, or the exiled. In 1927 the father Nikolay is sent to the Solovki. At this time orthodox clergy again as at the time of emergence of "live church", it is split in two — on iosiflyan and sergianets, by name the heads — the metropolitan Sergiya, the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne which issued the Declaration on recognition of the Soviet power by church and the metropolitan Josef who was not recognizing the Declaration. On the Solovki most of the prisoner of clergy to the iosiflena, at the head of their lord Victor Vyatsky (Ostrovidov). The father Nikolay, of course, among them. About it exhausted by the previous arrests and exiles, but strong in spirit, Dmitry Sergeyevich Likhachev writes in "Memoirs".

"It was another (in comparison with the lord Victor. — B.B.). 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 … The cemeterial Onufriyevsky church … was sergiansky (therefore, the father Nikolay could not go to pray there. — B.B.) … The father Nikolay had an antimension, and he in a whisper made a liturgy in the 6th, "priestly", a company. The father Nikolay knew that his wife was also arrested, and very much worried about children: what if is taken in children's home and 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 in the late twenties Ksenia and Kolya were sheltered by relatives in Korostena of the Zhytomyr region. However Ksenia does not want to refuse correspondence with the arrested parents and trips with transfers to mother, and for relatives communication with arrested seemed too dangerous, and she should go to Odessa where it comes to FZU. But to graduate from school it did not turn out — in 1931 the father Nikolay from the Solovki is sent to exile to Arkhangelsk, it is very sick, behind it leaving is required, and the daughter directs to the father. The father Nikolay again does not go to the only operating church in the city (to a cemetery) — it sergiansky, and to the iosiflena cannot consist in prayful communication with sergianets. Ksenia artlessly told how it was difficult for her when it was sent on some household questions to the father's acquaintance bishop Voyno-Yasenetsky who was since May, 1931 in exile in Arkhangelsk and operated in out-patient clinic of hospital on 40 people for reception. The bishop of Onions "could not without temple", sometimes went to services to the sergiansky temple therefore Ksenia, communicating with the lord, it was necessary to avoid to approach under his blessing.

The Soviet power continued to pursue the father Nikolay mercilessly. Based on quiet, without any tragic element Ksenia's story, I will tell of future of a family. Exiled tolerable work in Arkhangelsk were not given, the father Nikolay worked as the watchman at brick-works, and Ksenia "on protection" was arranged the unskilled worker there, then it worked at building. In the spring of 1934 from the Solovki to Arkhangelsk sent "mother", there comes also the sixteen-year-old brother Kolya — at last the family reunited, at least and in exile. But soon, at the beginning of 1935, the father Nikolay is again arrested — he served at home, and, obviously, it also was the main charge against it. This time the undermined organism did not sustain — the father Nikolay dies on April 10, 1935 in prison during the investigation. Dmitry Sergeyevich's opinion: "Life of the father Nikolay was continuous torture, and maybe a martyrdom". With a funeral the spiritual children of the father Nikolay who had access to prison hospital helped — most likely, it was the exiled professor Nikitin, the yasnopolyansky doctor of Lev Nikolaevich, the large physician among whose patients there were high ranks of regional People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs. The body is given to a family for burial, and on a city cemetery there is a modest grave with an inscription on a cross "N. N. Piskanovsky" and the previous letter "about" which is not especially attracting attention small …

V. Volkov, "the Brest Courier", on May 20, 2010

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