http://frontpagemag.com/2013/faith-j-h-mcdonnell/a-day-in-the-life-of-a-russian-christian-dissident/print/
Those of us who worry about such things today see Islamist supremacism as the greatest threat to freedom in general and to religious freedom in particular. Not long ago, though, that particular honor belonged to Soviet-style Communism. The Soviet Union seemed unstoppable. And freedom for those who languished in the Gulag? Many prayed for this, but when freedom came it was still quite a shock.
I still remember the shock of joy I felt at the news of the release of one such prisoner in February of 1987. Christian dissident Alexander Ogorodnikov had spent almost nine years in the Gulag for his leadership of the Christian Seminar, an underground movement that had sprung up in answer to the needs of young Christians of many denominations who had found faith in Jesus Christ and were hungry for a way of following Him in their daily lives that the institutional churches could not offer. It was because of this authenticity and practicality that the movement, which encompassed thousands across Russia, so threatened the Communist authorities that they arrested and imprisoned its leaders.
For years advocates had prayed, written letters to Congress, and sent “Return Receipt Requested” missives to Soviet government authorities and Gulag officials on Ogorodnikov’s behalf. At conferences and special gatherings we all added our names and personal messages on letters to Ogorodnikov himself – which he rarely received, but of which the Soviet authorities kept meticulous track.
In late 1986, I was one of a few dozen participants in a conference at Princeton University, hosted by Dr. Ernest Gordon, retired dean of the school’s chapel, and founder of the Christian Rescue Effort for the Emancipation of Dissidents (CREED). Rolling his R’s in disgust as only a Scotsman can do, Gordon read aloud a letter that Ogorodnikov had written to his mother in May, but only now had reached the West. As a former Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders infantry regiment officer and prisoner of the Japanese during WWII, on the Burma Railway, Gordon understood Ogorodnikov’s agony.