Holy Hieromartyr John Steblin-Kamensky “A weak man carries out a lofty ministry,” this is how Archpriest John Steblin-Kamensky (1887–1930; main feast: July 20/August 2), who is now ranked among the New martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church, described himself.
What ministry did he have in mind—priestly, pastoral? It would be more accurate to say that he meant his whole life, since he did not separate the “pastoral” from the “other part”. As you read his letters, you get the impression of an amazing integrity, an inseparable unity of personality, and it is in this unity, in complete subordination to one high task, that the power of the holy Hieromartyr John is manifested. In unity, yes, but also in the wise sobriety with which he did not rely on his own strength and qualities, but rather considering himself a weak and vulnerable man, entrusted himself to the work of the grace of God.
Ivan Georgievich Steblin-Kamensky was ordained at a terrible time for Russia. But it should be noted that his previous service also required extraordinary courage. He was a navy man by family tradition. In 1908, he graduated from the Naval Cadet Corps and was awarded the Admiral Nakhimov Medal for his exemplary achievements. He began his service on the Bogatyr (“epic hero”) armored cruiser—that warship was one of the first to come to the aid of the victims of the terrible Messina Earthquake (December 1908). Among other Russian rescue sailors, Ivan Steblin-Kamensky received an Italian award. In 1909, he was transferred to the First Baltic Fleet, to the torpedo boats division, on trial. Then he served as an officer on the Admiral Makarov cruiser. In 1914 and in 1915, for his participation in the First World War, he was awarded the orders of St. Stanislav of the third degree with swords and a bow, and of St. Anna of the third degree with swords and a bow. He retired “for health reasons” in the summer of 1917—perhaps he simply deemed it morally impossible to continue his service.
Monument to Russian sailors in Messina In 1919–1921, Ivan Georgievich, mobilized by the new Government, served as assistant director of the lighthouses of the Baltic Fleet and simultaneously as a church reader, and then, after ordination in 1920, as a deacon at the Holy Trinity Church on Stremyannaya Street in Petrograd (later he would write that this church became the “sheep’s pool” (cf. Jn. 5:2) for him—a place of spiritual healing. In 1921, Deacon John was arrested for the first time, and in 1923 he became a priest of the church on Stremyannaya Street.
He was happy, he loved his flock dearly, but he did not communicate with them directly for long—his second arrest followed in 1924. Thirty-five people, priests and active laypeople, were on trial, and the main charge was illegal religious gatherings in apartments… The sentence was three years in the Solovki labor camp. This is where we begin to read Fr. John’s letters.
“My beloved, why do I still feel a mournful note in your letters? Truly, all of us who live amid the evil and vanity of the world have many sorrows, but aren’t our sorrows absorbed by faith in the ever renewing, enlightening and revitalizing grace of God? Do you grieve from the awareness of your unworthiness? Then rejoice in the mercy of God, which is given only to the unworthy. Does the injustice in life upset you? This shows that you love the people who wallow in it and feel sorry for them. And if you love and pity them, obviously intuitively feeling the presence of a grain of goodness in every human being, then do you know that the Lord, Who is omniscient and all–seeing, will not allow even a small particle of these grains to perish, but somehow He will unite all that is good together? Our joy is the opportunity to serve this unity; our sorrow is the awareness of our weakness in this service. But this sorrow is healed by faith in the Lord Who helps all those who seek help. And joy cannot be overshadowed by our unworthiness, because serving the Lord is not alien even to dumb animals and inanimate nature itself. The possibility of conscious service is always open to everybody...”
Holy Trinity Church on Stremyannaya Street in Petrograd Why do we need the experience of the sufferers, ascetics, and confessors of the godless era today? So that we won’t lose the sight of what Christianity is and what it means to be a Christian. We can lose this understanding imperceptibly, without realizing it. After all, outwardly we will be all right: We will continue to go to church, have our babies baptized and the funerals celebrated over our deceased, observe fasts and read the daily prayer rule. We will even try to sin less… What else is needed? Actually, we need to live with and in Christ. Let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me (Lk. 9:23).
But don’t think that I’m ready for this myself, that I’ve already taken up my cross myself… I took it up, but immediately put it on the ground—that’s my trouble; that’s why I’m seeking spiritual help from the Russian martyrs, that’s why I’m trying to somehow learn their lessons. I must say that these lessons are simple... but at the same time, difficult. They require determination. It was labor camp conditions, coupled with the formidable uncertainty of the future, that helped Hieromartyr John realize “how wrong the usual semi–utilitarian approach to faith in God is.” After all, in order to be a true friend of the Lord (cf. Jn. 15:15) you need to participate in His work. And what is it? “In overcoming malice with love, in uncomplainingly accepting death on the Cross from the people for who He had shown such great favor...” In order to follow Christ we must “kill selfishness in ourselves, or at least renounce it.” Lastly, we need to really trust God so that sorrows
“Can be drowned in reverent worship of Divine Wisdom, in perfect confidence in His Omnipotent Power.” After all, “Great Joy awaits all people, while still in humiliation, in the animal manger. It will guide you through all earthly sorrows and trials, through death itself and will bring you to the endless valley of light and joy, of pure love and eternal life,” Fr. John wrote to his spiritual children, greeting them on the Nativity of Christ.
This was very characteristic of him—not to talk about punishment or the wrath of God to depressed and grumbling people, but about the happiness that the Lord has prepared for them. The Christianity of Fr. John is truly that of joy:
“The joy of well-being is intensified by a joyful feeling of gratitude for the mercy of the Lord, and the sorrow of difficult experiences through the power of faith is abated or even abundantly covered by the joy of the Resurrection of Christ.”
Just in case, let me remind you that he wrote this in the labor camp—although it was the early 1920s, a “humane” period by Bolshevik standards, when they were still even allowing priests to celebrate services on Solovki, thank God there were many of those who could serve:
“The Passion service was performed by eleven, and the Paschal Matins—by twelve omophoria.1 The service ended at six o’clock. I had to read a lot on Holy Week, including the last midnight service with the canon.”
Of course, then Pascha on Solovki was very special. So clear, so close to the prisoners was the despair of the disciples who witnessed the death of their Teacher… And their spiritual resurrection from this sorrow happened when they saw the Teacher alive again and realized that He was beyond the teeth of death:
“We know that those who hunger for righteousness and are faithful to love are strengthened in the most difficult moments of their lives,” Fr. John writes, “when both righteousness and love seem to be lying in the tomb. ‘Weep not for Me, O Mother, seeing thy Son in the tomb... For I shall arise and be glorified...’ Each of us hears this in our hearts at such moments, and the joyful thrill of strong faith in the Resurrection of Christ pours new strength into us for further life.”
I noticed the “inappropriate” (as it seemed to me at first) phrase: “the thrill of strong faith.” But in fact, here is an accurate description of the faith of the holy Hieromartyr John: as hard as a diamond, yet living, trembling like a leaf on a branch.
How his letters helped his spiritual children going through this terrible time! They helped them get out of their state of extreme perplexity: “Why is all this happening? Why does the Lord allow it?”:
“If the Lord allows all kinds of unrighteousness to be committed on earth, is it not because He gave man free will, and is it not in order to encourage a person to labor to restore the disturbed law and order in his inner world by an example of a more noticeable external disorder? So, at the sight of human injustice, you should not get angry or condemn people who are already doomed to judgment, who do not know what they are doing. Rather you should be terrified by the madness to which sin, which is partly in us, too, leads, and pray to the Lord for the grace-filled, undeserved enlightenment of our consciousness.”
The lessons of Fr. John are vital to each one of us—in our ordinary (as it seems to us) lives, which are so stressful, so rich in sorrows and disorder. Who of us never despairs? It seems that all the efforts of our will directed towards good are useless, that everything we once built has collapsed… And so, we hear the voice of the holy Hieromartyr:
“No, dear ones, if you and I know that in the material world, which is subject to corruption, nothing disappears without trace, then, undoubtedly, every effort of our will, every strain of our thought driven by the search for truth, every manifestation of love is even more abundant in consequences. Nothing disappears without trace, although the trace is often invisible to us.”
Finding ourselves in unfavorable, difficult circumstances, we tend to rush the time: “I wish it would end soon!” We forget that every minute of our lives is, firstly, irrevocable, and secondly, that it was given to us for a reason. Time should not be rushed—it should be used correctly. This is what Fr. John wrote about his experiences in prison:
“Sometimes I wish that time would pass sooner so that the moment of my meeting with you all would come sooner; but as I think about the meaning of life and the irrevocability of every moment of time, I even begin to fear for those days, hours and minutes that we waste thoughtlessly without any benefit. The time is approaching when I may return to active pastoral work again. Am I ready for it? Have I used every opportunity to prepare for it properly? Alas, no! And I’m afraid the remaining months will fly by as fruitlessly as the past ones...”
With all this, the prisoner was very tired (his last letters from Solovki make this obvious), he missed people close to him, his spiritual children, and wanted to be free, as the hart panteth after the water brooks (Ps. 41:1). And at the same time, he understood that the end of the prison term was not a guarantee of release. The pastor wanted his spiritual children to be ready for any turn of events and accept it as befits true Christians:
“My only desire now is that the Lord strengthen all of you in perfect obedience to His holy will and strong faith in the goodness of His Providence for us, so if it pleases Him to send me a new trial instead of returning me to you, none of you should become unfaithful to God by word or thought because of me or darken your consciousness with the assumption that something could happen to us that the All-merciful Lord, the Heavenly Father Who loves us, does not wish...”
And from another letter:
“If it pleases Him to send me to the world’s end, then neither I nor (as I hope) you will doubt that in this case His good will is always aimed at our benefit.”
We cannot but recall the words of Christ addressed to Pilate: Thou couldest have no power at all against Me, except it were given thee from above (Jn. 19:11).
New Hieromartyr Peter (Zverev) In the autumn of 1927, Steblin-Kamensky was released from Solovki, but was not allowed to live in Leningrad—he was sent into administrative exile to Voronezh, where he became rector of the Church of the Holy Protection Convent, founded back in 1623. The convent as such had already been dissolved, the monastic buildings had been given over to the families of workers to move into, but the Transfiguration Church was still in use. Both laypeople and nuns would gather there for services. Orthodox Voronezh honored the holy memory of Archbishop Peter (Zverev), who was convicted and sent to Solovki as well; the spiritual and moral authority of Vladyka Peter2 was enormous, and the Renovationists were unable to resist his influence. Thanks to Archbishop Peter, most of the churches previously occupied by the Renovationists returned to the Church. In the person of Fr. John the pious Voronezh residents saw a true spiritual successor to St. Peter.
“Living in the workers’ settlement, Priest John Georgievich Steblin-Kamensky enjoyed great authority among believers. A great many believers always gathered at his apartment and around him wherever he was. All the former ‘Zverevites’ were grouped around Priest Kamensky,” a witness in the criminal case against Ivan Georgievich Steblin–Kamensky would testify a little later.
Transfiguration Cathedral of the Holy Protection Convent in Voronezh Of course, the “force of workers and peasants” could not tolerate Fr. John’s influence. The campaign of slander that began, even against the background of that era, was notorious for its frenzy. The reason is the fact that in the “workers’ settlement”, into which the authorities wanted to turn the area of the Holy Protection Convent—there were newly settled workers, the nuns who had not yet been evicted, and “Priest Kamensky”, to whom “the nuns teach workers’ children to come for his blessing” and who “is visited by the wives of arrested counter-revolutionaries”. At meetings the agitators talked about “Zverevism, which has raised its head again” and that it should be “destroyed through the GPU [the Soviet secret police agency.—Trans.].” According to speakers and correspondents of the Communist Party’s local press, the convent’s area should belong entirely to workers, and not to “counterrevolutionary nuns”, who “impede cultural development of the younger generation and win the sympathy of residents not only within the convent’s walls, but also far beyond its walls.” Fr. John was called the “leader of the counterrevolutionary elements” and “Bishop Zverev’s protege.”
Fr. John was arrested again in May 1929. He uttered the words that I put in the title at the very first interrogation:
“Since I do not know any other weapon except the cross, both in the past and now I consider the only right decision to be treating the masses in a placatory way. <...> For me there is no doubt that faith in the crucified Christ is invincible and that the alleged triumph of materialism is a temporary phenomenon <...>, I consider myself to be one of the faithful pastors of the Church of Christ, obliged by word, life, spirit, faith and purity to be a model for the faithful and to protect them from the darkness of unbelief, and I confess that according to my faith not only materialism, but also the ‘gates of hell’ (Mt. 16:18) themselves will not prevail against the Church of Christ.”
From the Voronezh prison Fr. John sent his flock—the nuns and laypeople—a letter that begins with a quote from the Gospel: Holy Father, keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given Me (Jn. 17:11)—this is how Christ prays to the Father for His disciples left on earth:
“The One Who sits at the right hand of the Father knows the sorrow of the separation of the shepherd from his beloved flock. The Good Shepherd knows with the mournful force with a prayer escapes us in a moment of separation: Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me. God Who knows our hearts knows what is happening in my heart when I am separated from you my orphans, beloved in Christ—sisters of the Holy Protection Convent and all the parishioners of the Transfiguration Church, faithful to the Lord. Will I be able to forget those with whom I was comforted in prayer and service to Christ our Lord? <...> Do I really need to call each of you by name so that you can know that I bear all of you and each one individually in my heart, grieving and rejoicing with you? Or can letters and words tell you more than your own hearts have told you and are telling you? <…>
“Remember that by enduring our sorrows patiently we are going to meet Him Who came down to us from Heaven and died on the Cross for our sake. Open your hearts to Him so that He may enter into them, so that He may sup with you and you with Him. Be patient to the end. In your feeble vessels you have managed to carry the precious and saving Orthodox faith a long way and overcome great obstacles. Do not break these vessels at the end so that the Water of life not be spilled and all your labors be in vain. Remember that by sending tribulations, the Lord brings His faithful closer to Himself, to His Cross. Do not let anger, or even disappointment into your hearts. To achieved this, first of all, try to live in love and peace with each other, forgiving one another all offenses <...> Seek the Lord from the bottom of your hearts, and He will open to you joyfully and radiantly. Seek the Lord, because He is not far from each one of us. Seek the Lord, and you will know the joy of finding Him. You will know joy yourself and you will make me a partaker of this joy. Don’t ignore these words of mine or think them empty—find a place for them in your hearts. After all, these words are a part of my soul. Let at least this part of my soul remain living in Voronezh, let it abide in your hearts, live, and not die, brothers and sisters. If you are grieving over separation from me, if it pains you to think that maybe over time we will become strangers to each other, then give special attention to your spiritual life, be faithful to Christ Crucified, and at the foot of His Cross (I want to believe it) you will always find me, unworthy as I am...”
Our hero’s mother, Olga Alexandrovna, nee Gendre, daughter of a hero of the defense of Sevastopol (1854), Vice Admiral Alexander Pavlovich Gendre, died when her son Ivan was about fifteen; but he followed her moral precepts all his life, trying to be worthy of the love invested in him. At his mother’s grave, yesterday’s naval officer sought her blessing for the priesthood—and felt this blessing with his whole being; and, of course, the mother did not forsake her son in all his wanderings through earthly torments... Symbolically, he lived on earth for forty-two years, just like her.
Then, in 1929, Fr. John was sent to Solovki, which he had already known, but very soon—in April 1930—he was returned to the Voronezh prison. Here he was charged with:
“Spreading various kinds of anti-Soviet provocative rumors and campaigning against all measures of the Soviet Government in the spheres of collectivization and industrialization of the USSR, with the ultimate goal of preparing the religious masses to revolt against the Soviet Government, overthrow it and restore the monarchy. As a result of the above, there were mass demonstrations of the population against the Soviet Government and its activities in many areas of the Central Black Earth region.”
His accusers failed to understand that the reason for those demonstrations was not Fr. John at all. If I could, I would have advised those individuals in power to learn to listen to the people…
August 2 is the day of the martyrdom of Priest John Steblin-Kamensky. According to Archimandrite Damaskin (Orlovsky): Archimandrite Tikhon (Krechkov) of St. Alexei’s-Akatov Monastery in Voronezh, hieromonks George (Pozharov) and Kosma (Vyaznikov), Priests Sergei Gortinsky, Fyodor Yakovlev, Alexander Arkhangelsky, George Nikitin, the laymen Evfimy Grebenshchikov and Peter Vyaznikov were shot together with him.
Here are words in a letter of the holy Hieromartyr John from the second Solovki “series”:
“It’s not the way of the cross that scares me, but on the contrary, I am scared when everything is going too well in my life. I always fear I may have turned off the narrow path leading to Life and strayed onto the wide road, which is tempting only for a while...”
It seems unfathomable that this is the sentiment of a man who had already seen so many terrible things and who could be sure that he would be alive tomorrow…. But that is the reality—was truly confessed by a holy Christian martyr. It is Christianity that we Christians should always know about—just know what it exists.
