Women of the Catacombs
Subtitle: Memoirs of the Underground Orthodox Church in Stalin's Russia
Series: NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: March 15, 2021
Language: eng
Translated from: rus
Translation of: Katakomby XX verka: Vospominaniia
Number of pages: 246
ISBN-13: 9781501754401
Description: The memoirs presented in Women of the Catacombs offer a rare close-up account of the underground Orthodox community and its priests during some of the most difficult years in Russian history. The catacomb church in the Soviet Union came into existence in the 1920s and played a significant part in Russian national life for nearly fifty years. Adherents to the Orthodox faith often referred to the catacomb church as the "light shining in the dark." Women of the Catacombs provides a first-hand portrait of lived religion in its social, familial, and cultural setting during this tragic period.

Until now, scholars have had only brief, scattered fragments of information about Russia's illegal church organization that claimed to protect the purity of the Orthodox tradition. Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia and Elena Semenovna Men, who joined the church as young women, offer evidence on how Russian Orthodoxy remained a viable, alternative presence in Soviet society, when all political, educational, and cultural institutions attempted to indoctrinate Soviet citizens with an atheistic perspective. Wallace L. Daniel's translation not only sheds light on Russia's religious and political history, but also shows how two educated women maintained their personal integrity in times when prevailing political and social headwinds moved in an opposite direction.
Table of contents: title: List of Illustrations; title: Acknowledgements; title: Notes on Transliteration and Translation; title: Foreword; title: Editor's Introduction; title: Original Preface to Katakomby XX verka: Vospominaniia by Archpriest Aleksandr Men; label: I.
title: Fr. Serafim by Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia; title: Ante Lucem; title: One Must Take up the Cross; title: White Chrysanthemums; title: The Grace of the Holy Spirit; title: Holding on to Christ's Garments; title: Go to Sarov; title: It Will Be More Difficult; title: The War; title: The Last Days and the End; label: II.
title: Fr. Pyotr Shipkov by Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia; title: In Zagorsk During the War; title: On the End of the War; title: The Rebirth of the Church; title: Fr. Pyotr in Exile (Letters); title: Return from Exile; title: Illness and the Final Days in the Life of Fr. Pyotr; title: From the Letters of V.Ia. Vasilevskaia to N.V. Trapani; label: III.
title: My Journey by Elena Semenovna Men; label: Appendix:
title: My Childhood and Youth by Vera Iakovlevna Vasilevskaia; title: Notes; title: Index