Gleb Yakunin

Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin (Russian Глеб Павлович Якунин; born March 4, 1934 in Moscow ) is a former Russian Orthodox priest. The radical democratic dissident stood up for religious freedom in the Soviet Union. From 1990 to 1999 he was a member of the Russian parliament.

Life

The son of a musician graduated first from a degree in biology at the Agricultural Institute in Irkutsk. In the late 1950s he turned to Christianity. 1958 to 1959 he studied at the Theological Seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in Moscow. In August 1962, he was ordained a priest. In 1963 he was appointed priest of the town of Dimitrov in Moscow.

In 1965, he co-wrote with the priest Nikolai Eschliman an open letter to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Alexei I., accused the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate the right to betray the interests of the Church and to cooperate with the government in the prosecution of the Church. The script was also published in samizdat. May, 1966 him the exercise of the priestly ministry was prohibited until he had done penance.

In 1976 he founded the Christian Committee for the Protection of believers in the USSR. He published hundreds of fonts that documented the massive suppression of religious freedom in the Soviet Union and fought for religious dissidents of all faiths, including Lithuanian Catholics.

On November 1, 1979 Yakunin was arrested and on 28 August 1980 after paragraph 70, section 1 sentenced for anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda. By 1985 he was already in prison, first in Lefortovo, then the labor camp Perm 37 After his release, he was exiled to Yakutia. There he had to live in a self-built hut at -50 degrees Celsius in winter. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, he was pardoned in March 1987. He was allowed to return to Moscow and worked until 1992 as a priest again. In October 1991 he was rehabilitated by order of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation.

In 1990 he became a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Russian Federation and vice-chairman of the parliamentary committee for freedom of conscience. He was co-author of the law on the freedom of religious denominations, stood up for the opening of churches and monasteries. From 1991 to 1992 he was a member of the committee of inquiry to investigate the anti- democratic coup in August 1991.

In March 1992, he released archive materials, which occupied a collaboration of the KGB and the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate. The press soon found the real names of KGB agents in the Orthodox Church out: It was the Patriarch Alexy II and Metropolitan Filaret of Kiev and Pitrim of Volokolamsk. The church retaliates 1993 with the anathema Jakunins. He joined the Ukrainian Autonomous Orthodox Church.

In 1993 he was again for the radical democratic election alliance of Russia and 1996 for the Democratic Party Russia ( DR) Member of Parliament. He revealed the involvement of the Russian Orthodox Church in tobacco smuggling with which they cheated the state for taxes in the billions. In 1995 he founded the Social Committee for the Protection of freedom of conscience. In September 2000, he teamed up with the Metropolitan Stefan Linnizki and Kiriak Temerzidi the Orthodox Church of rebirth. Goal of the church is a reform of the Russian Orthodox Church. You shall be liberated from red tape and empty rituals. Yakunin is there secretary of the Synod of Bishops and high priest for Moscow.

Yakunin is married to Matushka Iraida and has three children: Mary, Alexander and Anna.

Writings

  • Call Christians under Communist rule, how we reply: Gleb Yakunin, Lev Regelson? Appeal to d 5th General Assembly of the World Council d d churches. Faith in the 2nd world Küsnacht 1978
  • Gleb Yakunin, Lev Regelson: Letters from Moscow: religion and human rights in the USSR. Keston College, Keston / San Francisco 1978
  • Gleb Yakunin: O sovremennom polozhenii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi i perspektivakh religioznogo Vozrozhdeniya Rossii: doklad Khristianskomu Komitetu zashchitu prav veruyushchikh v SSSR. Posev, Frankfurt am Main 1979
  • Sergei Pushkarev, Vladimir Rusak, Gleb Yakunin: Christianity and government in Russia and the Soviet Union: Reflections on the millennium. Westview Press, Boulder / London, 1989, ISBN 0-8133-7524- X
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