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| Vladyka Michael Yershov (in the center) |
Vladyka Michael (Yershov) was born on September 17 (or October 12), 1911... His father, whose name was Basil, had taken part in the Russo-Japanese War, the First World War and the Civil War. From 1920 he had become a cobbler and president of the committee of poverty in the village. There were five children in the family, four daughters and a son. Michael’s mother was called Daria.
Michael finished two classes at elementary school, and at the age of ten began to help his father, working as a cobbler. He went to church services and sang in the choir. When he was twelve years old, as he was receiving communion in a church in Chistopol, an elder saw him and said: "This lad will take upon himself the sins of the whole people."
From 1929 the church was closed and his father became president of the village soviet and began to persecute his son for reading service books and constantly praying at home. As a result of this he went blind. Afterwards, when he repented, he recovered his sight.
In November, 1930, Michael left his father’s home because he did not agree with the family’s joining the collective farm. At some time during that year. He arrived in Chistopol, where he fell seriously ill. On recovering, he got to know Elder Plato, who told him: “You will suffer very much for the name of God and for the people. Only don’t seek anything from anyone, rely only on Almighty God. By the mercy of God I knew about you before.”
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| The future Fr. Michael (left) with his spiritual Father, the Hieromonk and Martyr, Plato |
[Hieromonk Plato (Vasilyevich Vasilyev) was born in 1878 in the village of Pereputye, Chistopol canton into a peasant family. An invalid from birth, he was raised and lived until 1917 in the house of the merchant Chukashev in Chistopol. In the 1920s his legs were paralyzed, and he could not walk; he had to be carried and looked after by acquaintances, among whom he was known as Elder Plato. He had no constant domicile and had to live on alms. He was the spiritual father of Fr. Michael Yershov. On March 7, 1931 he was arrested for being “a member of a counter-revolutionary monarchist organization”. On July 9 he was sentenced to death, and on July 12 he was shot.]
Together they went round the villages taking part in prayer-services. Fr. Michael was ordained to the priesthood in 1930 by the Catacomb Archbishop and future Hieromartyr Nectary (Trezvinsky) in Kazan. He was a fervent opponent of the Sergianist church organization (which after 1943 began to be called the Moscow Patriarchate), and believed that it was wrong to have any contact with it.
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| St. Nektary, Archbishop of Yaransk |
Fr. Michael and Elder Plato were arrested on March 3, 1931 in Chistopol, but he was released on the 1st of May. A few days later, he was arrested again in Kazan, but was released after twelve days. He then went underground, wandering round the villages and earning his bread as a cobbler. He walked in chains, carried out prayer services and healed the sick and the demon-possessed.
In April, 1933 he was arrested in the village of Aksubayevo, but was released in July. On June 7, 1934 he was arrested in Bilyarsk, taken by convoy to Chistopol, then to Kazan and on July 10 condemned to eight years in the camps for anti-Soviet agitation. He served his term in the Mariinsk and Baikal-Amur camps, and then in Ulan-Ude and near Murmansk, doing general work.
In 1940 he was transferred to Kandalaksha, where they were building a railway. He worked in the refectory. In May, 1942 he was sent to Tataria to work on the Ulyanovsk-Sviyazhsk railway. There he worked in the field hospital. On September 25 he was sent for defensive works in the village of Stepanovka, Buinsk region, from where he escaped to Chistopol, then to Aksubayevo region. On October 16 (17), 1942 he was arrested and cast into Chistopol prison. On January 23, 1943 he was sentenced “for desertion from defensive works” to seven (eight) years in prison. On February 16, 1943, according to one source, he was released, but according to another he was sent to call-up, but, not wishing to serve in the army, escaped. After this he served secretly in the village of Yelantovo, Sheremetyevo region.
He celebrated Pascha on April 12, 1943 in a tent on a hill not far from Yelantovo with a group of twelve women. Later those attending the services in the tent rose to sixty. In September, during a service on the hill, the police arrived and drove away the believers; some were arrested and sent to the camps. On December 12 (or 15 or 26), 1943 he was arrested again for church preaching and cast into Chistopol prison. He was accused of being “a leader of the anti-Soviet activity of the underground of the True Orthodox Church of Tikhonite tendency in Tataria”, and on August 18, 1944 was sentenced to death by shooting. He spent 81 days in the death cell; they starved him the whole time.
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| A prison picture of Fr. Michael Yershov |
On October 25, 1944, they commuted the death sentence to fifteen years' hard labour, of which he was informed on November 9. He was sent to Vorkutlag, where he worked in the mines, and later – in the cobblers’ workshop. In 1945 he appealed for clemency to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, but his request was declined.
In October, 1946 he got to know Basil Kalinin (see his life below), healing him from an illness of the spine which had paralyzed him completely for three years. He came up to him, took him by the hand and said: "Get up and walk."
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| Basil Kalinin |
He also healed the withered hand of John Kokarev and the leprous face of Gregory Rusakov (the future Hieromonk Philaret), which was already stinking. He took the whole crust from his face.
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| Hieromonk Philaret Rusakov with some of his spiritual children |
Fr. Michael passed through almost all the prisons of the Soviet Gulag: Kazan, Arzamas, Vorkuta, Olga, Bannino, Sakhalin, Nagayeva, Magadan, Suman, Kolyma, Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Bratsk, Taipet...
It is said that in the 1950s Fr. Michael was secretly consecrated Bishop of Chistopol* in the camps, and in this capacity took part, according to one source, in the Nikolsky Council of the Catacomb Church in 1961 through Monk John. However, the real existence of this Council is doubted by many.
*There are varying beliefs about whether Fr. Michael was made a bishop in the camps. Thus according to an article of Alexei Kiselev, based on an interview with Anatoly Levitin (Krasnov), when Osipov was in a concentration camp in the 1960’s “he met a strange old man whom all the prisoners called ‘Vladyka.’ This was Michael, a bishop of the True-Orthodox Church. He made a powerful impression on Osipov and this encounter, it may be, is what turned him to religion.” However according to Eugene Vagin, "Hieromonk Michael Vasielich Yershov, whom many also called 'Vladyka,' was not a bishop".
On August 3, 1950 he was transferred to Sevvostoklag (Kolyma, North-East Siberia), where he worked in the gold-fields. On November 15, 1954 he was recorded in his personal file as having worked only 54 days, while there was a series of decrees casting him into the isolator for between three and ten days for refusing to work. On July 14, 1954 his sentenced was reduced by one-third.
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| Vladyka Michael Yershov |
In December, 1954 he was transferred from Kolyma to the camp section Sovietskaya Gavan, Khabarovsk district. On May 29, 1956 he was transferred to a prison regime for one year, and was sent to prison in Blagoveschensk. On July 4, 1958 the follow report was written about him: “During his stay in prison he behaved satisfactorily, and did not violate the prison regime, was a cleaner in the corridors of the prison, and carried out his work. A religious fanatic, he did not work on days that were, in his opinion, festal.”
On April 11, he was transferred to the inner prison of the KGB in Kazan for investigation in connection with a church case. On July 18 he was indicted for being “the leader of the anti-Soviet underground of the True Orthodox Church in Tataria. By means of written and personal links with those who think like him, he gave instructions on preaching the ideas of the True Orthodox Church, called on people to refuse to participate in political enterprises and decline from service in the Soviet Army, in collective farms, in state institutions and undertakings. He gave instructions on preparing new secret priests, and on acquiring houses and equipment for an illegal church.”
On August 11-14, 1958 he was sentenced to twenty-five years in the camps with five years disenfranchisement, and was sent to Dubravlag, Potma, Mordovia. “At eight in the morning they brought Vladyka Michael (Yershov)in a ‘black raven’. He raised his hand like this, crossed himself and bowed to the earth. ‘Pray and fear not. The victory will be with the True Orthodox Christians!’. Then they took him away.
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| Vladyka Michael with some of his spiritual children |
After him they brought in Basil Vladimirovich, and he also said: ‘All of you pray for us, pray. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ Then they brought in Fr. Philaret, and after him Ivan, and the last was Nadezhda Vasilyevna (see her life below). They brought them through, and they all shouted: ‘Pray! The victory will be with the True Orthodox Christians!’. They gave them twenty-five years 'strict regime'.”
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| Nun Nadezhda Vasilyevna (left), Vladyka Michael Yershov (center), Basil Kalinin (right) |
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| Nun Nadezhda Vasilyevna (left), Vladyka Michael Yershov (center), Basil Kalinin (right) |
Vladyka Michael spent fifteen years in irons. According to the accounts of prisoners, he spent whole nights standing in prayer. He healed many criminals, possessed, lame, blind and sick people, and gave them instructions on how to live well. He also had the gift of prophecy.
On August 13, 1973 he declared a hunger strike in the camp. In October he was transferred to the seventeenth section of the Temnikov camp (Potma). In the spring of 1974 they pulled out all his hair and all the hairs of his beard one by one with manacles, after which he was paralyzed.
A.S. Dubina reported that he died in camp on June 4, 1977. According to another report, however, he died in a special prison hospital in Kazan on June 4, 1974. However, his relatives heard that he had been transferred to the Kazan special psychiatric hospital. It seems that the secret was let out by the procurator of the town of Kazan when he was receiving his relatives. It is possible that the authorities wanted to hide him from the believing people because of his great popularity - he was known as "the Tsar of Mordovia" and people came to catch a glimpse of him through the barbed wire from all over the Soviet Union.
Vladyka Michael himself prophesied that they were going to hide him, and he ordered them not to believe the story of his death. All his spiritual children were convinced that he had been hidden away in a psychiatric hospital* so as to be annihilated there.
*It is written concerning these Soviet psychiatric hospitals: "When people were arrested and sent to Gulags, there had to be a legal procedure, documents had to be issued, interrogations had to be conducted, it was burdensome for the authorities, so, they devised a short cut to that procedure - declaring them crazy and sending them to the pshikushka which were the special "psychiatric hospitals" run by the military. A simple order from the authorities was enough to send people to the pshikushka, they were stripped of all their rights, locked in without a term, and given very powerful psychiatric drugs, subjected to brain surgeries, electro-shocks, and dreadful human experiments.
It is written that Vladyka Michael spent over 43 years imprisoned for the "crime" of refusing to recognize the Sergianist Moscow Patriarchate. Eugene Vagin reveals that he "does not know of another believer with such a astronomical term of confinement in the camps".
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| Vladyka Michael Yershov with a picture of his grave |
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The life of Basil Kalinin:
Basil Vladimirovich Kalinin was born in 1917 at Kubansky khutor, Belorechensky uyezd, Krasnodar region into a peasant family. He finished one class of elementary school. In 1929 his family was dekulakized and he was exiled to Stavropol, later to Sverdlovsk. In 1932 his family fled from exile, and his father began preaching in the villages of the Kuban about the coming of the last time and of the Antichrist.
In 1933, together with his father, Vladimir Markovich, he was arrested, but soon released, while his father was sent to a camp. He married, and in 1938 a daughter Tatyana was born to him, and in 1940 – a son Michael. In 1940 he was called up into the army and was sent to the northern fleet. At the beginning of the war he operated a machinegun. In 1943 he was preparing to go over to the Germans, but then he received a letter from his brother and understood that “I’m doing something very stupid. If I betray the Homeland, then because of me my whole family will perish, and I am particularly sorry for my children.” In 1943 he was arrested in Polyarny and was accused that, “while on military service in the period 1942-43, he systematically made anti-Soviet statements and, besides, recruited like-minded people from among the other soldiers with the aim of going over to the Germans and organizing on their side an armed struggle against Soviet power. At the same time he aimed to hand over spy material to the Germans and carry out diversionary and terrorist acts at the moment of passing over to the enemy.” On January 5, 1944 he was sentenced to death, but in March his sentence was commuted to twenty years’ hard labour.
He was sent to a camp, where he got to know Fr. Michael Yershov. On October 6, 1956 he was pardoned and released from camp, and on the instructions of Fr. Michael went to Yelantovo in Tataria, where he established links with the underground True Orthodox Church. In March, 1957 he went, on the instructions of Fr. Michael, to Krasnodar district, where, on March 25, 1958 he was arrested. He was accused of “joining the anti-Soviet underground of the True Orthodox Church of Tikhonite orientation and taking an active part in carrying out counter-revolutionary agitation among the population, calling people to boycott political state enterprises and decline from socially useful work. Also he drew new people into the underground.”
On August 11-14 he was sentenced to twenty-five years in the camps with disenfranchisement for five years with confiscation of property. On October 5 he arrived in Dubravlag, and on October 20, 1960 he was transferred to Temnikov camp. On March 30, 1961 he was recognized to be “an especially dangerous recidivist”, and in February, 1974 he was sent for twelve days to a penal isolator “for absence from physical exercise” (at that time he was praying in the barracks). On August 30, 1974 the head of the camp gave him a negative report and said that he had not started on the path of correction. On March 25, 1983 he was released and returned to Yelantovo, where, on February 18, 1995, he died.
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| Basil Kalinin |
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The life of Nun Nadezhda Vasilyevna:
Nadezhda Vasilyevna Yershova was born in 1921 in the village of Barskoye, Yenaruskino, Aksubayevo region into a peasant family, and finished six classes at secondary school. She did not enter the collective farm, and in 1934, after her family moved to Aksubayevo she did housework.
In 1945, after the death of her mother, she destroyed her passport and went underground, leading a wandering form of life. On December 30, 1948 she was arrested in a group case of True Orthodox Christians and was incarcerated for further investigation in Kazan prison. On January 18, 1949 she was indicated, and on February 8, 1949, in a closed session, she was sentenced to twenty years in the camps with disenfranchisement for five years. On October 16, 1949 she was sent under convoy to Sevvostoklag (Magadan), and was in the camp section in the village of Nizhni Semchan. On November 17, 1954 her punishment was reduced to seven years. On December 30, 1955 she was released and went to live in Starosheshminsk, Sheremetyevo region.
Soon she moved to Staroye Mokshino, and then to Balanda. On March 28, 1958 she was arrested and accused of “joining the anti-Soviet underground of the True Orthodox Church and taking part in illegal meetings”. In spite of the fact that she was deaf and spoke thickly, she was also accused of “distributing anti-Soviet judgements” and “attracting new people into the underground of the True Orthodox Church”.
On August 11-14 August, 1958 she was sentenced to ten years in the camps with disenfranchisement for five years and confiscation of property. She was sent to Ozerlag. On November 10, 1960 her sentence was commuted to three years in prison, and she was sent to Vladimir prison. On March 22, 1961 she was recognized to be “an especially dangerous recidivist”, and on November 25 was sent to Dubravlag. On August 17, 1966 she was released from camp and returned to her homeland. Later she lived in Aksubayevo, where, on January 8, 2005, she died.
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| Nun Nadezhda Vasilyevna |