The Russian Empire and many catacombniks had already perished. However part of it, together with her first and best citizen - the Tsar, went to heaven! The rest hid underground: in pits and remote corners, among the forests and swamps of Chuvashia, the Mari Republic, Tataria, Udmurtia, as well as Siberia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In a word, Catacomb Orthodox Christians settled in the very depths of what was once imperial Russia - they were the true Orthodox Church.
For the KGB, these two names - IPH and CPI (this is what they called the Catacomb Church) -were swear words: grounds to persecute, surveyal and imprison the guiltless. It was not the catacombniks who called themselves that, but this name, which reveals the whole essence of their confrontation, came from the external, punitive bodies. Well, as often happens, they wanted to swear, but accidentally told the truth.
Often people ended up in such remote places as follows: after completing their term in the Soviet death camps, according to their punishment, they still had to live a certain number of years in exile. However, sometimes families who belonged to the Catacomb Church purposefully looked to settle in such places in order to hide from the eyes of the "authorities (in order to, more or less, live peacefully and to raise their children in a Christian way). But most importantly, living in such remote locations often put them in contact with the secret priests they so zealously sought out - in order to be able to commune of the Holy Mysteries and to hold Church services.
However there were also those who dared to openly confess the Faith; for example, Varenka Shulaeva (pictured lying down) who lived in Sergach (Hieromonk Damascene Orlovsky wrote about her in his book "Martyrs, Confessors and Ascetics of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th Century", Tver, 1992, vol. 1; but for some reason he failed to mention that Varenka belonged to the Catacomb Church, and that she had refused to accept the Soviet passport and the pension they offered her).
On holy days, dozens of people gathered in her hut. Those who did not fit inside stood outside under the windows. When they went home, they said that there was no Soviet power in Varenka's house. Varenka herself, after the adoption of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius [in 1927], boldly went into the Sergianist churches and denounced the priests for accepting the declaration. Once she even denounced a bishop who then became very angry with her.
At times the Sergianist priest Fr. John from Nizhny Novgorod (who venerated her) came to see her; she received him and when he offered to give her Communion she would say: "I have already corrected myself" (that is, she had already received the Holy Gifts). Varenka spoke thusly because she refused to receive Communion in the Soviet Church. When Fr. John died, she cried abundantly, as she knew his posthumous fate. For once the Lord showed her all of the Renovationists and Metropolitan Sergius, who were in a dark place and their hands were tied.
On one occasion the Holy Gifts were sent to her by a certain catacomb priest named Peter. He put them in a specially adapted icon. When they came to arrest Fr. Peter in the house where he was hiding, he died of a broken heart.
In Sergach the church had been destroyed, and many believers from the town and nearby area went for church services to Varenka's hut. On great feasts and at Pascha up to 70 people came to her. When there was no priest there would be services at Varenka's according to a "catacomb typicon" which took place quite openly. The authorities knew about them but did not touch her.
Varenka was too well-known, and knew too much, not only earthly things but also heavenly (in all she had spent 101 days in heaven at various times).
Over time, the Lord granted Varenka and the community around her to be looked after by the catacomb priest Fr. Philip Anikin (pictured on the right), who wandered under the guise of a stove-maker and performed secret services for the Orthodox of the Catacomb Church.
When Father Philip had first came to Varenka, she had a revelation that she should accept him and stick to him. But the catacomb archpriest Fr. Gury was the one who served her funeral service - having given her communion a week before her death. Blessed Varenka reposed on December 1/14, 1980, and was buried in the cemetery at Sergach. When they took her body past the church, everyone sensed that the space around became many-coloured and many miracles openly took place during her burial.
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Additional information concerning Blessed Varenka:
In the most terrible times of the 1920s, when the red devils, at the behest of their father, were destroying Orthodox Russia and the Church, slaughtering bishops and priests, mocking Orthodox shrines and, of course, bringing confusion and doubt into the minds of the ordinary believers, this simple village girl Varenka first appeared...
She periodically fell asleep and would remain in slumber for many days at a time. Neither her family nor the doctors were able to understand the cause of this unusual behavior. Once, after awakening, she revealed how she was taken to the abodes of Paradise - describing what and who she saw there from her village. There was no mischief in her revelations. The girl Varenka was simple, rural, and not very literate, but she was also a believer, obedient and pious.
On certain occasions she talked in her sleep revealing what she was beholding. Her words were even recorded at times. This occurred regularly for almost ten years! Crowds began to go to her.
She said that she had seen the Mother of God, and that she had been led by St. Nicholas, to where there is a fiery river which every soul must pass over after death, and she showed [upon awakening] a place on her hand which had been burned to the bone when a drop from the river had fallen on her.
The authorities heard about Varenka. Members of the Komsomol used to come to her house while she was sleeping, they even beat her in the hope of awakening her and 'uncovering the deception'. Then doctors began to come from Gorky (Nizhni-Novgorod); they gave her fast acting injections with the same aim as the komsomolites. They injected her with such strong doses and so often that when she woke up she couldn't raise her hands. But, whatever they did, the atheists were unable to break her sleep.
Then they decided to take her to a hospital so as to continue their experiments there. Once they had already come to the girl and were trying to lift her, but they found her so heavy that they couldn't tear her away from the bed.
"It doesn't matter," they said. "Tomorrow we'll come with the car and take her together with her bed."
After their departure Varenka woke up, and her mother, bitterly complaining that she could do nothing, told her what the doctors were intending to do. On the same day Varenka got her things together and left the house. And for the next several years she wandered around the holy places of the Volga region, sometimes alone, sometimes with some friends.
Once, being caught by the "authorities" - they beat her mercilessly, kicking her and hitting her with iron rods; they beat her in such a way that her face was turned into a purple mask, and blood poured from her ears and mouth. When they then were preparing to dishonour her, the Mother of God defended her - an invisible force stopped them from approaching her and they retreated. From that time Varenka was deprived of the use of her legs, and spent her next 40 years (until her death) lying down. She had control only over the upper half of her body.
May we sinners beg for her holy prayers! Saint Varenka pray unto God for us!
[The above text is excerpted and adapted from the writings of Alevtina Vladimirovna Belgorodskaya. Alevtina had been a member of the Russian Orthodox Catacomb Church while she lived in the USSR. She reposed near Holy Trinity Monastery (Jordanville NY) in 1995 after having succumbed to a terminal illness. She is buried in the Monastery Cemetery in Jordanville. May her memory be eternal!]