Women of the Catacombs

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.

Wallace L. Daniel is Distinguished University Professor of History at Mercer University. He is author of Russia's Uncommon Prophet and The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia.

Reading these textsdoes highlight the distinctiveness of Elena and Vera's perspectives as believers, providing a rare insight into an alternative culture. Thanks to the contribution of Wallace Daniel and his collaborators, the perspectives of these two remarkable women can enrich our understanding of everyday life under extraordinary circumstances.

[W]hy Christianity survived persecution in the Soviet Union, is to a great extent explained by the lives and religious faith of those presented to us in Women of the Catacombs with expert commentary and explanations in an introduction and footnotes by the editor, Dr Wallace Daniel, who also published a biography of Fr Aleksandr in 2016.

Rev. Dr. Canon Michael Bourdeaux, director emeritus of the Keston Institute, Oxford, England:

This book fulfills two roles. As a work of history, it sheds new light on the immensely important, but little-known, Catacomb Church of the 1920s and '30s. Secondly, it reveals new information regarding the spiritual formation of Father Aleksandr Men.