A testimony on the spiritual renaissance in Russia

This article takes the form of a personal testimony by Tatiana Goritcheva, a Soviet Christian philosopher and activist, on the spiritual renaissance underway within the Russian intelligentsia during the Soviet era. The author describes her own conversion, which occurred in a context of radical institutional atheism, as well as the clandestine emergence of Orthodox Christian communities in Leningrad. She outlines the conditions of persecution faced by believers — KGB surveillance, psychiatric internment, religious prohibitions — and shows how prayer, particularly the prayer of the heart, constitutes the central resource of this spiritual resistance. The article provides first-hand insight into the role of startsy, monasteries, and underground seminaries in the transmission of the Orthodox faith, as well as into the feminist and mystical dimension of a Christian renewal developing on the margins of any official structure.