Regarding Theodore Goncharov (Goncharenko), Anatoly Krasnov-Levitin, who was incarcerated
in the Gavrilova Polyana camp (together with Theodore) wrote:
“He lived in a khutor. He father had managed with great difficulty to get himself out of the collective
farm… By the time of the war his son Theodore had grown up. He was exceptionally religious.
And very firm…
Both under the Germans and under the Russians he categorically refused, for religious reasons, to enter the collective farm. At first he received three years for not being able to pay his taxes. He refused to work in camp, quoting the words of the Gospel: ‘One cannot serve two masters.’ In camp he received another term – ten years for sabotage in accordance with article 58-10. For his refusal to go to work he was often beaten to the verge of death. He got yet another term – 25 years.
I have been with monks from my childhood. I know this group of the population thoroughly. But perhaps the strictest monk of all those I have seen I met in camp. And he was, moreover, a simple, illiterate layman. That was Theodore. He categorically refused to take a mattress and underwear from the store-room. He slept on bare boards. He prayed all through the night every night, on his knees, making prostrations to the ground. He was a very strict faster. He was barely literate. But it was difficult to believe that when one looked at his nervous face edged with a black beard, at his expressive, burning eyes. His face was radiant with thought, inspired, gleaming with an
inner light. He did not want to work.
But there was no resentment in him. It was from a deep principle: ‘One cannot serve two masters.’
If a friend would ask him for something, he would immediately do it. If someone was in trouble with
something and did not ask for help – he would go up and do it. When it was necessary to clean the
barracks, he was the first to run for water, clean the floor, seep and scrub. This was not for the bosses
– it was for the comrades.
For a long time he refused to write a petition for his release. But when they wrote it, for a long time he did not take it to the bosses. But then, nevertheless, they took it to the boss of the camp. The reply came in three weeks: exonerate him in everything, release him… He lived in the village with his sister doing handiwork. He was counted as an invalid.”
Until 1958 he corresponded with Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov. Nothing more is known about him.
in the Gavrilova Polyana camp (together with Theodore) wrote:
“He lived in a khutor. He father had managed with great difficulty to get himself out of the collective
farm… By the time of the war his son Theodore had grown up. He was exceptionally religious.
And very firm…
Both under the Germans and under the Russians he categorically refused, for religious reasons, to enter the collective farm. At first he received three years for not being able to pay his taxes. He refused to work in camp, quoting the words of the Gospel: ‘One cannot serve two masters.’ In camp he received another term – ten years for sabotage in accordance with article 58-10. For his refusal to go to work he was often beaten to the verge of death. He got yet another term – 25 years.
I have been with monks from my childhood. I know this group of the population thoroughly. But perhaps the strictest monk of all those I have seen I met in camp. And he was, moreover, a simple, illiterate layman. That was Theodore. He categorically refused to take a mattress and underwear from the store-room. He slept on bare boards. He prayed all through the night every night, on his knees, making prostrations to the ground. He was a very strict faster. He was barely literate. But it was difficult to believe that when one looked at his nervous face edged with a black beard, at his expressive, burning eyes. His face was radiant with thought, inspired, gleaming with an
inner light. He did not want to work.
But there was no resentment in him. It was from a deep principle: ‘One cannot serve two masters.’
If a friend would ask him for something, he would immediately do it. If someone was in trouble with
something and did not ask for help – he would go up and do it. When it was necessary to clean the
barracks, he was the first to run for water, clean the floor, seep and scrub. This was not for the bosses
– it was for the comrades.
For a long time he refused to write a petition for his release. But when they wrote it, for a long time he did not take it to the bosses. But then, nevertheless, they took it to the boss of the camp. The reply came in three weeks: exonerate him in everything, release him… He lived in the village with his sister doing handiwork. He was counted as an invalid.”
Until 1958 he corresponded with Anatoly Levitin-Krasnov. Nothing more is known about him.