Aleksey Timofeyevich & The Russian Underground Church

Philip All right, welcome to All Are Yours. My name’s Philip.

Sean I am Sean.

Philip We are back with episode 10. So that makes it an even two digits. We’ve entered a new realm.

Sean Who knew we would make it this far?

Philip Yes, we’ve entered a new realm. And that also means that it’s coming up on a year. If we do two more months of this, it’ll be a whole year of us. Of All Are Yours.

Sean Wow.

Philip So —

Sean All the months are yours.

Philip That’s right. And then we’d have really taken off. We’re on the runway.

So, for this time around — we were talking about what to discuss, and earlier this week my grandpa passed. He was ninety-three, so it was coming; it wasn’t sudden. And he does have a story to be told, and a lot that God has done through him and continues to do. And so we thought maybe it’d be good to talk a little bit about his story, and how that even connects to our own generational thinking, our own thinking about battle and building and all of that.

Sean Yeah. I would say even usually we talk about what a good subject, what a good ball to hit, would be for each given recording, and I would actually say I don’t usually come up with ideas as much as I agree with you. But this is actually something that I am even more interested in hearing you talk about, because I’ve heard you talk about your grandfather multiple times since you and I have met — all of the stories of his life, his willingness to sacrifice, the things that he went through, and then even moving his family from Russia.

So these are all parts of his story, but also the various ways that you have spoken of him, even for things that you don’t do exactly like him. So, as you stand on his shoulders and see some other things because of it. Not that you are upset at where he was standing at all, but you have been able to see some more because of him.

And the way that you’ve always spoken of him — praising the Lord for him, honoring your fathers in that respect — seemed like a great way to, both in my mind, give an example of how to be thankful for those that have given us much of what we have, as well as then even just the direct encouragement that many of the parts of his life actually are. So it’s a great example, it’s a great story, and to be able to tell it and pass that on seems appropriate, again, as an example for everybody.

Philip Right, yes. And so, just a little bit of the statistics.

He passed this Wednesday, so a few days from when we’re recording. He was ninety-three, and on the day of his passing — assuming he was still alive — he would have had living in his lineage one hundred thirty-five souls. So 135 people: that is children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren.

Sean Yeah.

Philip So on top of those 135, eight in his family died before him. So total would have been 143.

And so he had eleven kids. Two of his kids passed. He has forty-one grandkids, so I’m one of forty-one.

Sean Okay. So you have —

Philip — forty cousins there, yes.

Sean So when Americans make jokes about how Russians are all related to each other —

Philip That is true. Yes. The stereotypes are true.

So, forty-one grandkids. Of those forty-one grandkids, twenty are married — so I’m like in the middle, and so I still have a lot of younger cousins; not all of them are married. Twenty are married, and of those twenty, there’s fifty-three great-grandkids within that.

Sean You’ve got three of those?

Philip Yes, I have three of those. That’s correct.

And then, of those fifty-three great-grandkids, two are married, and so there’s three great-great-grandkids. So my grandpa has pictures of him holding his great-great-grandkids. So I think that’s pretty neat in and of itself, seeing God’s blessing in that capacity.

Sean Yeah. Has anybody drawn that out? Like, you’ve got the stats there for —

Philip I have a spreadsheet.

Sean Okay.

Philip Yeah, I did it. I have a whole spreadsheet, and it sums up all of the categories of who’s dead and who’s alive. And it’s a complicated family. I mean, not just the size of the whole thing — it is becoming kind of like a little tribe — but also, I mean, our family’s not as complicated as Jacob’s was.

Sean Okay.

Philip And so, you know, he had not just the amount of people, but also all the sin and the inner-family dynamics. So we have not had any kind of Judah-Tamar situation. But there is —

Sean Praise the Lord.

Philip Yes. But again, there are complications.

I was thinking about it earlier this week: I don’t think there’s anybody in our family who explicitly rejects Christ. So everybody would call themselves a Christian and is expecting to go to heaven. We do have some people who are not consistent, maybe, in their life — their obedience isn’t consistent with their confession. So there is that, there is brokenness kind of throughout all of that.

And so, even looking at the picture — just saying the numbers sounds great, and it is great, numbers are a blessing — and also there is sin and brokenness and everything that comes with the world that we’re living in as well.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And I do think that part of that is even connected to my grandpa being in prison for twelve years, and how all that reflected on his family. And then also just different kinds of approaches to biblical application in life, maybe, how that all plays out.

Sean Yeah. And what is his name?

Philip So this is the one thing that — nobody will ever know the full story of his name.

Sean Okay.

Philip So —

Sean Not even us right now.

Philip Not even us. Not me, not any of his kids.

Sean All right.

Philip So his parents named him Leonty.

Sean Leonty?

Philip Leonty, yeah. I don’t know how you would say that not in Russian. Leonty. So, Leon. Leon, I guess. Leo.

So his family always called him Lonya for short.

Sean And does that have anything to do with a lion?

Philip I haven’t looked it up. Maybe.

Sean Okay.

Philip Yeah, maybe. But Leo, yeah — so maybe that’d be even more interesting.

Sean Yeah.

Philip But so, Leonty, Lonya. So to me he was dedushka Lyonya, so Grandpa Lyonya.

But during the war — so he was born in 1931, so he was like ten or so in the war — his documents were lost. So his birth certificate, passport, all of that.

And then later in his life, sometime after the war, maybe in his young adult life, he ended up making new documents and renamed himself to Aleksey. So he gave himself the name Aleksey. And that kept being his formal name for the rest of his life: Aleksey. And so everybody called him Aleksey Timofeyevich Kozorezov. That’s what he was known as. That’s the name he’d be charged under. That’s his pastor’s name.

And so, five years ago, when he had his stroke and then he ended up getting better, I did ask him, like, hey, you almost died —

Sean What’s the deal?

Philip Yeah, what’s the deal? You’re going to die at some point. Can you tell us the story of your name? Why did you change it to a different name?

Sean Yeah.

Philip What is going on? Why do we call you Lonya and everybody else calls you Aleksey?

And he says he had his reasons. He did not want to say why. He said that the reasons will die with him.

Sean Interesting.

Philip And —

Sean Mysterious.

Philip Mysterious, yeah. He did say it’s better for us not to know. So I don’t know why. This is a piece of the whole puzzle. I don’t know if he’s protecting someone, something to do with the Russian government. Was he a spy? I don’t know.

Sean Well, I interrupted where you were going, because I asked about his name. But you were talking about how many of the seeds that he planted have been blessed with the fruit — not just of the numbers, but of even the faith of many of the family.

That said, not every seed maybe that was planted. Some of his application was potentially things that we learn from. As we see other people and we learn from them, or even from previous generations, our own parents, we can also see things that maybe we need to grow in.

Philip Right.

Sean But his sacrifices in particular would not have been fake. So whatever he was, and whatever he was hiding with his name —

Philip Right.

Sean — he paid the price for his faith in Jesus. And no wonder, then, he’s been honored with great blessings in his family.

So he was born in Russia. You said thirty-six, though?

Philip Thirty-one. Nineteen thirty-one he was born.

And so, yeah, he was I think one of six kids. He was the second to the two youngest. So he had three brothers.

Sean And do you know the city?

Philip I don’t know, I need to check. It might have been Bryansk where he was at least raised. But then, when they were married, he raised his own family in Siberia — like central Siberia, in a city called Omsk. And then later —

Sean Our American movies make it sound like Siberia is where you get sent when you don’t want to be seen anymore.

Philip There are places in Siberia like that, yes. That’s right. When you change your name.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Yes. And so, his dad was in Tsar Nikolai’s army. Tsar Nikolai was the last tsar of Russia, right? He was unseated, and then eventually killed in nineteen eighteen. So that would have been just thirteen years before my grandpa was born. So my great-grandpa was in Tsar Nikolai’s army. And he eventually came to the faith there.

And the Russian church in general, I think, has a big story that is mostly in the future. Because — so, with the split of the Roman Empire, right, the Byzantine Empire stayed on the east side there, and so the Russian Orthodox Church is that. And so you have the Catholic Church and the Byzantine Church, or the Orthodox Church.

And so the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century took over Western Europe and the Catholic Church, and never made it to the Russian Church. And so the Protestant faith — only a sliver of it was introduced in 1865, with German Mennonites who made it over there as missionaries, and so Baptists was the result of that.

And so you had — in Russian it’s ЕХБ, so that’s Evangelical Christian Baptists.

Sean Okay.

Philip So that was the group, the denomination, the church — the Evangelical Christian Baptists. And they were from the beginning persecuted by the Orthodox Church.

Sean Which was connected with the government.

Philip The government, right. So it was a state church, yes. And so this was a split the same way how, in the Protestant Reformation, there was state persecution against the reformers.

Sean And that was connected with — in the countries where Catholicism was in bed with the state.

Philip And so, 1865, the Christian Baptists were persecuted there up until the Russian Revolution, and then the persecution just changed to be the atheist state.

So the church — Russia in general is a much more dark and somber tone than normal Russia. And so even when Westerners think of Russia as a dark place, that’s also an accurate stereotype.

Sean They’re not wrong.

Philip They’re not wrong. They are a sad group of people. Their novels are sad.

Sean Long and sad.

Philip That’s right. There’s like a meme, you know, you have four novelists, and one is French, English, American, and Russian. And it says, on the French, it’s “we will die for love.” On the American, it’s “we will die for liberty.” On the British, “we will die for honor.” And on the Russian: “we will die.”

So, yes, death is the theme of Russia. And so that is definitely throughout the history. And so the church, the Baptist church in Russia — that is still the theme. That remains the overall tone of it all.

Sean Which, I mean, on one hand, not just from weather.

Philip Right.

Sean But when you think about people who are just constantly, generationally, being persecuted — hope obviously is a word that you read in the Bible, whatever “hope” is in Russian. But definitely when generationally you’re not given a wide open field to sow and reap and then see great harvest — even when you’d get harvest, when you see the gospel seed getting planted in good soil and it grows up and it’s being fruitful, it still had to be more hidden. So you could see it, you’d be thankful for it, but it wasn’t like then it was changing culture.

Philip Right.

Sean And it’s both easy to imagine, then, why people would be more pessimistic as a whole.

Philip Right.

Sean But also, even when you see the cultural things — not just the persecution, but when you see the godlessness, or even the idolatry parts of what is not then the Baptist preaching of Scripture. You see the results of idolatry, when those without eyes can’t see and those who don’t have ears don’t hear. And they take it out on each other, let alone persecute those who actually are salt and light.

Philip Right.

Sean It’s painful.

Philip Well, and yeah, I do remember growing up complaining: why are all the songs we sing sad?

Sean Because you were not born in —

Philip I was born here. Yes.

Sean By your parents. They were born in the —

Philip Correct. Yeah. My grandpa is my mom’s dad.

But then now I appreciate all of these songs.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Like, I would almost rather sing these sad, somber songs, the minor tones.

Sean Yeah, right. I prefer songs in many ways with the minor chords.

Philip Right.

Sean But that could be just a personal problem.

Philip Right. But then also — yeah, I remember, again, growing up in America, it was a big contrast from the stories that you hear. And so there’d be a lot of childish, youthful naivety of, you know, we’ve just got to lighten up. But you wouldn’t tell that to Jeremiah, or to Elijah.

Sean Even in America. My grandparents — in particular I’m thinking of one grandma, who grew up in the Depression in the United States, and she never really got over how little they had. And so even when abundance was kind of right around her and available to her, like accessible, her mindset never really got out of the Depression attitude.

Philip Right.

Sean And scrimping, saving, scraping every possible little thing out. Her second husband — so I never actually met that biological grandpa, but her second husband, and maybe it was actually her first husband, would make jokes like, that she would skin a nickel to get the lard out of it, kind of thing. So that stays with you.

Philip Right. Yeah. So my grandpa was born in nineteen thirty-one.

And from the explanation, I guess, when under Lenin — so after the revolution in nineteen eighteen, those first ten years or so, the people’s representative, the elected official, was Lenin. And he’s quoted to have said something like, you know, God says that he will be persecuted, and —

Sean “So let me help.”

Philip No, he leaned the other way, saying, I will not do what God has told you. And so he ended up being very open to the churches at that point — even in the sense of allowing Christians to have an exemption from the military draft.

Sean Okay.

Philip And so if you were a Baptist believer, you were allowed to be exempt from the draft. And so the churches were flooded with a bunch of unbelievers.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Too.

Sean Who wanted the exemption.

Philip Right, wanted the exemption. And supposedly this was part of the strategy. And so you had a lot of unbelieving, pagan men flooding the churches, intermarrying with the Christian women, who were pretending to be Christians.

Sean So when you’re saying strategy, you mean Lenin’s strategy? To ruin the church —

Philip That’s what —

Sean — by not persecuting?

Philip Right. By giving them the leniency. And also, that’s what the church’s story is of it all. And so a lot of Christians were even pulled out of the church during that time because of that.

And so this all is part of the Russian skepticism of everybody. Like, you don’t ever trust anybody.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Even if they’re being kind to you. It’s like, well, what’s the catch?

Sean Yeah.

Philip What’s the string there? And so I even have that.

Sean Yeah, that’s like the Trojan horse of freedom.

Philip Right, exactly right.

Sean Quote unquote freedom.

Philip So, again, there’s reasons why we don’t trust people. It’s in our stories.

Sean Yeah. Because generally speaking, still, even younger Russians are not known for their smiling, laughing, joking attitudes. So I think I can think of a couple of men who are younger Russian Slavic people who I think regularly I see them smile.

Philip Right.

Sean And maybe that literally is two. You’d be one of them.

Philip Right. Yes. And I was born here. But in my mind I definitely am always looking at —

Sean Yeah, you got the skepticism genes.

Philip One hundred percent. Yes, that’s right.

And so then, under Stalin’s reign, all that ended. Stalin closed down all churches. And so I think he came into power like right at the turn of the decade.

Sean Okay.

Philip In the thirties, into the thirties. And so I think there was some leniency, or some agreement, with the state church. But the Evangelical Baptists — that was a no-go. All of that was not allowed.

And so Stalin brought in persecution not just for Christians; it was for all the people of the entire Soviet Union, so all the fifteen republics. So it was Stalin’s famines in Ukraine, in the early thirties, when a third of the Ukrainian population died because Stalin took their grain. So every kind of grain production, he was just taking from Ukraine, and that was part of his plan, was to control the population growth. So his intention was murder.

And so my grandpa was born in that. So, 1931. So his childhood is famine. And so he has a lot of stories of growing up with nothing to eat.

His dad was arrested — so, this would be my great-grandfather. He worked for a government official, somehow connected with grain production, and had asked, or requested, for some kind of understanding to be able to feed his family. And so that was denied. So he ended up stealing grain. And he was arrested for that, so he was in jail for a few years. So it was just my great-grandmother with her six kids.

So that was my grandpa’s childhood, was kind of without his dad for a few years growing up.

And so our family — this 135 people — right now is pretty big on singing. Like, we sing a lot. We like to sing. We’ve always grown up singing; that has always been the case. My grandpa had a very loud voice.

And a lot of the roots of that is during this period, when those six kids were growing up, to forget the pain in their stomach, their mom would have them sing. So they would sing a lot — so as to not think about being hungry, they would sing. And a lot of that even ended up translating. So even my second cousins — there’s a lot; this 135 is just within my direct cousin group, but I have a lot more outside of that — and so the whole family is very big on singing in that way.

But yeah, so famine was a big thing they remember. Because in the Russian houses you’d have a pechka, like — it’s not a stove, like maybe a fireplace — in the middle of the room.

Sean Okay.

Philip But on top of it you would cook, you would sleep, you’d kind of do everything with that. And so they would —

Sean What do you mean, you would sleep?

Philip So it’d be covered, right? And so at night, it’d be cold there —

Sean Okay.

Philip — so they’d keep it warm, so you’d put your mattress and blanket on top of it and you’d sleep on top of it to stay warm.

Sean Okay.

Philip So it wouldn’t be hot by that point. But then during the day it’d be a fire roaring inside of it, so you’d cook on it and it’d heat the house as well.

And so they would lay on top of that thing to, again, make the stomach pain go away. But because they were singing a lot, their village neighbors suspected them, accused them of hiding money. Like, why are they so happy? Why are they singing? Like, we’re all hungry — why is this one family singing? They must be hiding food and hiding money.

So there was a lot of tension in that way as well. So, to the outside world they looked very happy.

And I do think that that joy — again, even with that somber undertone — I do think my grandpa had legitimate, real joy in the faith, and the whole family, all his siblings, had that as well. And it wasn’t frivolous or light; it was serious joy.

He never grumbled or complained. I never heard that from him about God’s plan for him, the way God had directed his life. There was deep humility and gratitude every time he would pray or talk about any of that. So somehow, even throughout all that, his mom was able to instill not a spirit of grumbling in the famine, but a spirit of gratitude and thankfulness and visible joy — that other neighbors were accusing them of hiding money.

Sean Because your great-grandpa and grandma, they were part of the Baptist church?

Philip Yes.

Sean So they were professing believers.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And neighbors who were jealous. This is where jealousability cuts both ways.

Philip Right.

Sean They would have said that they were Christians, or they would have said that they were not Christians?

Philip All right. So, I think the phrase was, when he was talking about it, that they would accuse them of hiding bread. And they would say, yes, we have the bread of life. So that was their intelligence.

Sean Apologetics.

Philip Right.

Sean Yeah. First Peter 3:15: when they ask for the hope that is in you, be ready with an answer.

Philip Right.

Sean That’s a good answer.

Philip Exactly right.

So that was his beginning. And then that led into World War II, so the forties. World War II, he was a teenager during that time, or maybe beginning teenager. And yeah, he would say that when the Nazis took over, it became easier. There was still persecution there, but it was more just against Russians. There wasn’t specific against Christians, like there was. And so there were things that were easier when the Nazis came.

Sean Like, just in terms of, well, now we’re all fighting the same enemy.

Philip Yeah.

Sean Sort of like in the United States, when we stopped griping about each other after 9/11. So whatever was behind it, we at least felt like we had a common enemy. And so we had some nationalism — as a shout-out to our last episode.

Philip There you go, yes.

Yeah, and then he said after the war, a lot of men returned, and so the churches were filling up during that time.

Sean For good reasons.

Philip For good reasons, yes. And so there was a lot of life in the church during that time.

And then, part of the Yalta Conference — so this was Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt in the Yalta Conference after the war, when they were splitting up Europe and deciding what to do with Germany — part of the stipulations for Stalin to get Eastern Europe was that he had to open the churches. So that was part of the conditions, requirements, that the Western governments required of him.

And so Stalin had opened the churches. This was late forties. But he required them all to register with the government. So you could be open, but you must register with the government.

And there was no specific stipulations or conditions or strings attached at that point to register this church with the government. But there were some Christians who were opposed to that — again, the spirit of mistrust, or skepticism, or whatever it is.

And so there was a lot of conversation pertaining to, like, Romans 13, right? Submitting to the government officials. And so my grandpa, him and his three brothers, all had disagreements. The three brothers were on the side of, yes, we must submit and register. My grandpa was questioning the reasons for all of that.

And so there was a group — the majority of the Russian Baptists did register their churches with the government, but there was a minority group who did not, and they would be called the separatists. So, otdelyonnye in Russian — so, separatists. They separated themselves from that, and that was the underground Russian church.

And so my grandpa — again, this is throughout the fifties, there was a lot of that kind of upheaval going on, and figuring out how to do all that. So it was illegal to gather with Christians if you’re not registered with the government. And that was his whole stipulation: that the government is not over the church. The church does not report to the state. We don’t have to get permission from the state to gather to worship.

And so in the sixties — this would be under Nikita Khrushchev, so after Stalin; Stalin’s regime ended in the late fifties when he died, and then Nikita Khrushchev came to power — the persecution really picked up then, in the sixties under Khrushchev.

Khrushchev was quoted to have said, “By 1980 we will show you the last Christian in Russia on TV.” So it was an active agenda to exterminate Christians from Russia. And there was a lot of —

Sean And conveniently they had a list of a whole bunch of people who were —

Philip Exactly right. They knew where they were, they knew who they were. Exactly right.

And so, yeah, there was a lot of that active agenda. And so the propaganda was — because this was deep Cold War — the propaganda was that Baptists were Western spies. They were American spies. They were NATO spies. And so, to get all the neighbors to turn against the Baptists, that was the agenda.

So they were able to hide their church gatherings. And there is the human element in all of it, right? So even within persecution, you end up figuring out how to live under that kind of regime. And so some government officials would be lazy to enforce. Some of them would be much more stringent, and with a chip on their shoulder. And so depending on what area you’re in, what territory, what official oversees that territory, the persecution could have been stronger or lesser.

So people would know who the Baptists are, and so they would have to follow some sort of proceedings in order to catch them in their gatherings.

Sean And were they taking them straight to jail?

Philip It would be a court, that then they would be charged and convicted, and then to prison. Either to the gulags or to the state prison.

Sean No way to get — what were sentences? Like, sentenced to life, sentenced for ten years, sentenced to however much we feel like until you have been —

Philip Re—

Sean — educated.

Philip Right. Depends. I think it depends on the presented legitimacy of the case, right? And so there would be different charges. So it would be illegal gatherings.

Sean Okay.

Philip So, these are illegal gatherings. Where we have in America the freedom to assemble, there’s nothing like that. And so the government tells you what kind of assemblies are legal and what are not. So, assemblies of American spies are not legal gatherings. These are illegal gatherings. So, yeah, you could call it Christians or Baptists if you want, but that’s not — we know who you really are, right? So that was the propaganda there.

Or, slander against the government. So, we have freedom of speech; nothing like that there. So my grandpa was charged with — those were some of the charges thrown against him.

Sean So, yeah, because he argued with his brothers about this at least previously, before Khrushchev.

Philip Yeah. And with Khrushchev, part of his persecution ended up — again, because he had that list, so he knew where they all were — he ended up bringing a lot of burden on the registered churches.

Sean But your grandpa, he was not part of that. When did he become a leader, or pastor even, in some of the —

Philip Yeah, I’m about to get to that.

So under Khrushchev, he brought weight on the registered churches. And so eventually, by the end of the sixties, there was a stipulation that you had to have a government official oversee all the church proceedings, so, approve what was said during church. Nobody under eighteen was allowed to assemble with the church, so no kids. And you’re not allowed to have any baptisms. So those were some of the stipulations.

Sean That’s all?

Philip Right. So, no big deal.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Right. And so, again, the idea there is to kill the church. So kids are not coming, new Christians are not forming — no, no baptism — and the government is overseeing what is said. So the idea is, by 1980, for the church to be dead.

And so that’s when a lot of even the registered Christians started to be persecuted as well, right? Because they ended up then realizing that, okay, this actually is not good for us.

And so, like, we read the book Live Not by Lies, by Robert Dreher —

Sean Rod?

Philip Rod Dreher, sorry, yes.

And so, some of the people he talked about there were people from these registered churches who were opposing people like my grandpa, who were dissidents, or separatists, before all of this. And it was very — it wasn’t just disagreements. It was accusatory. Like, you are in sin by not registering your church, because you are being disobedient to the governing official here.

Sean That doesn’t sound like anything we’ve heard in the last four years or so.

Philip Yes. Exactly right.

So then, yeah — again, in America, the negative world, right? Positive world — that’s the word.

Sean Yep.

Philip So that’s Aaron Renn. And so, yes, we’re very much used to positive world, maybe a little bit of neutral world. Negative world for Christians in America is new. But throughout history that has been a big part of the church, living in the negative world, where Christianity is persecuted, it’s not advantageous. And so even today, outside of America, there’s a lot of that happening.

But yes, in the Russian church, that was there. And so I think the conversations that are being had now in the American church, even following 2020, of submitting to the government, and how those spheres overlap, are good. And also, these conversations have been had before, so we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We’re able to look back and learn from history and what the church did — and even some of the books we were reading, Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos and all of that, is good.

But the Russians had none of that. The blessed people, or the privileged people, would have a copy of the book of Psalms and the New Testament, or just the four gospels, if that, right? And so if somebody had a full Bible, that was — Bibles would get passed around from household to household, so that people had access to the word, were able to read it. They did not have any of this church history to learn from.

Sean Yeah, one of my favorites — and I don’t think that I pronounce it in its Russian way — but samizdat. Because Dreher talks about it.

Philip Oh, samizdat.

Sean And it’s like underground printing.

Philip Yes, yes. Samizdat. That kind of means self-published. So you’re making it yourself. So izdat means to create, and sam is yourself — so, self-created. Yes.

Sean Yeah, so there were the stories of little printings going on to share whatever. But it was definitely not like you had a big library that you could have out and use as a resource. And obviously at that point there wouldn’t have been cell phones where you’re getting on Google or Wikipedia.

Philip Yep. So part of the illegal activity was also to have Christian literature — just to possess it in your home. You were not allowed to possess the Bible or any Christian literature.

So, you’d have KGB officers raid houses, and so, like, my grandpa’s house was raided a few times. And they would take even notes that said “Jesus” on it — on a handwritten note, they would take that as evidence. So yes, all of that was not allowed.

So, the Bible — I like my grandpa’s approach, his elevation, the way he treated the Bible. Like, in my memory, it was like the most treasured possession. God’s word for him was always very treasured. And yeah, a lot of the time when he would just be reading from it or preaching from it, his voice would get shaky.

But yeah, growing up that was definitely a category: that the Bible is this treasured possession, in its own category. Like, all else fails; this is what’s most important.

And so, people knew who were the Baptists, so it wasn’t necessarily illegal to identify as that, and it wasn’t illegal to not be a Communist member, but it was very clear who was and who wasn’t. So they were not able to keep their kids out of the government schools. That was, again — there were some things they were able to hide; they weren’t able to hide their kids out of the schools. Because if your kids aren’t going to the schools, that becomes very clear and evident, that there’s kids not in school.

So yes, all the Christians did send their kids to the state schools. They were explicitly atheist schools. And so the Communist Party started from when you’re a child. So, as a child, it’s the earlier version of a Communist Party member, and so you’d wear like a red bandana to identify. Then you’d be a Pioneer — Pioneer as a teenager — and so you’d get like a bigger bandana, or a bigger tie, or something like that. So you’re trained in the party to be a party member from the very, very beginning. So, loyalty to the state, loyalty to the party.

And so the Baptists in school, the kids, would not wear these bandanas. So it was very, very clear who was not part of the inner group. And so there was a lot of pressure, bullying — not just from other kids, but from the teachers. Like, how dare you? You’re not one of us. You’re an outsider.

Sean Isn’t that — that has been your Twitter bio, isn’t it?

Philip That’s right.

Sean “Being an outsider is a family tradition.”

Philip Correct. “Being an outsider is a family tradition.” And that’s made to sound funny, because “tradition” means you’re not an outsider, you’re an insider, you value what came before you. But part of my family tradition is being an outsider.

Sean Yeah. So I appreciate the tongue in cheek.

Philip Yeah. So, again, the underground separatists, right? That also — so you’re an outsider from the Christians, but then also from the broad culture there as well. So we’re used to being on the outside.

So a lot of Christian kids left the faith because of the government schools. Like, one hundred percent. My parents, my mom in this case, went through the government schools, and a lot of her Christian friends now are not Christians. They’re completely pagan. They’re in the world. And so that part of it was successful. Christians sending their kids to the atheist schools there — a minority came out okay.

And so, all of my grandpa’s kids are believers. So, all eleven.

And yeah, I was talking to my mom a bit ago about that experience. And so she’d say, you know, in first or second grade — so, a six-, seven-year-old girl — they would bring her into the headmaster’s office, with the teacher there, to ask her questions about her family, her house. And so they’re trying to find material evidence to arrest her parents. So, like, do you go to church? Do you assemble? Do you gather with other Christians? Do your parents read the Bible at home? Do you have any books about Jesus at home? Right, all of that.

And so, I mean, a six-, seven-year-old little girl — you’re going to get information out of her. And so I asked her, how did you resist?

So her parents trained them to just stay quiet. Like, don’t answer any questions. They’re going to be nice and kind to you. Don’t answer any questions. Stay quiet. And so that’s what she did. She would just stay quiet. And she said that they start being nice and smiley, and eventually get meaner and meaner and meaner, to scare the kid.

And so, as kids, they’d have to learn to resist that as well. And so, again, a lot of kids were not able to resist that. A lot of them would unintentionally turn their parents in. And so then they would have testimony witnesses of their parents doing illegal activity, by gathering, or bringing their kids to church, or having literature — so then their houses would be raided and they’d be taken away.

So, like, 1984, right? The parents being scared of their own kids, because the kids are loyal party members.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And in this case, it’s maybe not loyal party members, but they were able to be tricked into bearing witness against their parents. So, yeah, a lot of that.

So, that’s even — I see God’s hand of protection big time over my grandpa’s kids. And, like, a big reason why my kids are able to be believers is because God protected my mom in situations like that. Like, he held her steadfast as a little girl. And so that is a lot of God’s grace poured out in that way.

And so, yeah, in nineteen sixty-six — 1966, so my grandpa would have been thirty-five — that was the first, like, protest against the state that I’m able to look back on. I don’t remember what triggered it.

Sean It was a gather—

Philip It was a gathering, like a public gathering, against the state officials, calling them out for wickedness, for what they’re doing. So it wasn’t just like an underground church gathering, but it was a public protest. 1966.

And so, by that time my grandpa would have had — I want to say maybe five kids. Maybe five or six kids. And he was a part of that. And so I think everybody there was arrested.

Sean He was a part because he also spoke, even.

Philip Yes. He was one of the — I don’t know, leaders of the —

Sean Platform.

Philip On the platform. And, or even before that, of the underground separatist church. He was one of the leaders in that separatist movement.

Sean As far as you know — because, did he feel a calling to that? Or was he just convicted that it was so right?

Philip Yeah, I remember him talking about it, where his mindset was: who else is going to go?

Sean Okay.

Philip If I don’t go, who else is going to go? And so, I can’t expect other people to talk on my behalf and me sit at home. I have to go speak on other people’s behalf. And so he felt a burden to not let other people represent him in a time of danger, but for him to step in in front of others.

Sean So it was not necessarily feeling at that point like a calling to be a pastor. That is just Christian conviction as a man.

Philip Right. He wasn’t a pastor yet by that point. I think he was ordained in the late seventies, like ’77 or ’78.

Sean Okay.

Philip By that time he had already been in prison a couple times. And yeah, so that was his first prison sentence, was at that point.

Sean After the gathering in ’66.

Philip Right. And so he had a total of four prison sentences, totaling twelve years. So it wasn’t twelve consecutive years. I think that the longest term was four years, and I think that was the last term, prison sentence, that he got out of jail in nineteen eighty-six, I want to say.

So between ’66 to ’86, of those twenty years, twelve of those years he was in jail. So when he would come out of jail, he’d be on like a year probation. And during his probation he’d have certain rules that they would give to all prisoners, whether or not you were Christian. But part of his rules was that he wasn’t, again, allowed to gather with other believers.

And so, the last prison sentence, when he was there for almost four years — he came to church. And the church was at people’s houses. And I think in this case, he came wearing — because they would wear a suit to church — but he brought his baggie of his prison uniform, folded neatly, with him, expecting them to take him and ready to go.

And so it is kind of a — in some senses, I’m not scared, right? I’m ready, come and take me. But in another sense — he definitely always had a very stubborn nature. And even to the point of, you know, maybe sin, or maybe at least being difficult.

Sean Sure.

Philip And so, like, I will let you know that you are wrong, and I will stand here, and you will — like, you will know that you have not won. You did not beat me. And so, him bringing that prison uniform that he just wore for four years, ready to put it on again, is that kind of sign of, I am not won. Like, you did not beat me.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, yeah, there’s some of that. And he did not get taken away then. And I think in some sense, already by the late eighties the government had other problems. So that was Reagan, that was Thatcher, in America and Britain, and Gorbachev in Russia, and so eventually the fall of the Soviet Union — the fall of the wall in eighty-nine and the fall of the Soviet Union in ninety-one.

And so, yeah, there was a lot of that. And even in the churches, during those twenty years, there would be KGB members who would infiltrate the church to become church members, or at least attendees as well, and then that’s how they would find out where they were gathered. So, like, my mom remembers — I mean, this happened all the time — in the sense of their youth gatherings would be raided while they’re there. And so they’d have to flee from that.

They’d have baptisms, like, in the winter in the woods. And so they would cut out of the ice, or it’d be in the river. So it’d be freezing water temperatures. But that’d be the only way that they would be able to do the baptism.

Sean Who’d be so crazy to go out there and do that?

Philip Right, exactly right.

And so, yes, a lot of that, and a lot of that kind of culture. But I was born after the Soviet Union fell, so ’92. And so that was already all here. And so the whole family ended up moving over here.

Sean Yeah. So he got out of prison the fourth time in eighty-six, you said?

Philip Yeah.

Sean And so then, what led to the move?

Philip Yeah, so when the Soviet Union fell, a lot of — even unbelievers, but mostly a lot of the believers — ended up leaving. And there were disagreements on that part as well. Like, should we stay and fight? Should we go?

Sean Don’t have any of those kinds of conversations today, in blue states, red states, even here.

Philip Right, exactly right. And yeah, I think people had different convictions, and I don’t think there was necessarily one right, one wrong.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Like, God does call people to different things.

Sean It’s interesting, because John Bunyan was in prison two times for a total of twelve years.

Philip Okay.

Sean And then he’s got a — I forget what book it’s from, but it’s one that I have come back to a lot. Just a comment, like, if you think that you should — I think it’s “fight or flee.”

He’s like, if you think you should fight, then stay and fight and laugh. If you think that you should flee, then run and flee and laugh, and trust God — because you don’t actually know what he’s going to do either way. So go with what you think you need to do to honor him.

Philip Right.

Sean And then trust him. And again, fighting, you might win; fighting, you might lose. Fleeing, you might escape successfully, and you might not. It might not be better.

So yeah, I was thinking about Bunyan with the twelve years in prison in particular. And yeah — Christians disagreeing about, should we tell the government who we are, or should we register with them or not?

Philip Right.

Sean Christians disagreeing. The Christians can’t even get on the same page.

Philip Right.

Sean And I think that’s probably how it’s going to be until the Lord returns.

Philip Right.

Sean Even First Corinthians 11 talks about how there are factions, and there must needs be, to demonstrate who are the genuine. In that sense, it doesn’t mean that the people who left Russia were obviously then the true ones, or the ones who stayed were obviously the true ones. But the fact that there are those disagreements must be something in the Lord’s plan.

Philip Right.

Sean That he either is judgment on us for not obeying him in the small things, so he doesn’t give us the unity in the big things — but I mean, since Jesus is praying that we would be one, as he and his Father are one, it’s going to happen.

Philip Right.

Sean But not yet.

Philip Right. Well, then, in some sense, God again draws straight with crooked lines.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so you could have disagreements, and then you have Christians here and there, and end up doing God’s work here and there, even though maybe there was bad blood for why they’re there.

Sean Well, and this podcast wouldn’t exist unless your grandpa left.

Philip Right, yes.

And so, yeah, by that time — my mom is the oldest of eleven, and his youngest son was born in nineteen seventy-seven, I think. And my mom had had her first kid in ’78.

Sean Okay.

Philip So my sister and my uncle were peers growing up. So by the time they came to America, they were already grandkids. And so they came here as a tribe.

I guess I haven’t counted how many were there when they came. So, when Jacob came to Egypt, there was seventy-seven.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Maybe there was seventy-seven by that point. I’m not sure.

Sean And immediately from Russia to the West Coast?

Philip Yes. Yeah, the West Coast here.

There was a church in Seattle, a Russian church in Seattle — I’m not sure what it was called at that point, but it was Christians that ended up escaping from the Soviet Union in the sixties, I think like through Israel into Brazil, that ended up coming into America as Brazilians. They changed their name, they changed their citizenship there. And so they landed in Seattle. And so they were here from the sixties, but they had to pretend they weren’t Russians here in America, because it was the Cold War. So, why are there Russians here?

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so they were hiding. So you have to hide there, you have to hide here.

Sean Man, talk about a crooked line. From Russia to Israel to Brazil to Seattle.

Philip Right. So somehow they landed here, yes.

And so, in Ballard, by the time everybody came in ninety-one, ninety-two, there was already a Russian church in Ballard. And that’s the church that I was raised in. So my grandpa became the pastor of that church, then my dad was the pastor of that church.

And yeah, I remember there being this group — by that time there’s already a few people that we called the old immigrants, staryye immigranty, old immigrants, who were here from the sixties. And so they were there from the church. And so we flooded the church with new blood then.

And eventually — because a lot of the Russians ended up landing on the coasts, so either along the Pacific coast, here in the Puget Sound, or down in California, or on the east side; Philadelphia, there’s a good chunk of Russians there as well. And so everybody who came in the Seattle, in the Northwest area, were part of this original church. So this was the Seattle Slavic Baptist Church. And then more and more came, people started splitting up, and so they were forming a lot of different Russian, Slavic, Ukrainian churches.

Sean That were in a network, a denomination even.

Philip Yes, that’s right. And so then there ended up being the Pacific Coast denomination.

Sean Okay.

Philip And so that ended up being all the Slavic churches along the Pacific coast. And then that ended up forming a Northwest Baptist denomination as well.

Sean That’s still going?

Philip That’s still going. Both of these denominations are still going. They’re active and alive.

And so, yeah, all the Russian churches here in the Puget Sound area have their roots from this Seattle Slavic Baptist Church, when they first came. So that’s kind of the story with that.

Yeah, so there’s a lot more details to all of it. But his story, to me, has the question of what makes one person capitulate and another remain strong in those moments. And so, working that through, working that out of — you know, which way do you flinch, which way do you lean?

Sean Yeah. Well, and so his reverence for God’s word, in terms of the things you’ve already said that are, like, big pieces of his story. So: the question of flinch, or fight, or at least stay strong. Reverence for God’s word. The good and potential challenges of being so differentiated —

Philip Mm-hmm.

Sean — and letting other people know that you are differentiated from them. Sort of standing out as you stand up against what you think is wrong.

Philip Right.

Sean Any other things that already you know are big?

Philip Yeah. I think that, for sure. And a big part of maybe in both of those — reverence for God’s word, and being differentiated — is a fear of God over a fear of man.

And again, that could go astray, where you just become a jerk, but, like, I don’t care what people think of me, I care what God thinks of me. And he definitely had a lot of that. I think that is one of the things I would categorize his life by: not caring what people think, and really, really caring what God thinks. At least in the areas that he understood, right?

And so, again, we’re all sinners and we’re all inconsistent in some way, and generations will follow and criticize where we got it wrong. And so I’m able to see certain places where my grandpa maybe got it wrong. And that’s not a stone to throw at him. That’s me appreciating, like you said, the strong shoulders I’m standing on, and am able to see further because of him.

But that sense of fearing God, really caring about what God thinks about what I do, I think has a lot to do with it.

Sean Yeah. Because it seems like even in the discussions that you and I have had over the last few years, especially related to reading the Bible — when you start with the reverence, this is God’s word and I care what he says, no matter what other people that I even like, let alone other people that are opposed to it, who are going to persecute me for it, but even people that I like who are maybe persuasive — what does God’s word have to say?

And so, that has been one of your obvious convictions since I have known you. What does the Bible actually say?

And sometimes when we look back — I think it’s been said about the sixteenth century Protestant reformers, that they had certain fights that were taking up the majority of their time, and then we don’t necessarily look to them for answers on some other things. Their battles in their generation —

Philip Right.

Sean — were necessary and consuming.

Philip Right.

Sean And even for your grandpa. Being in prison for twelve years of your life when you’ve got a wife and kids.

Philip Yeah.

Sean And then the upsetting nature — because even in a best case scenario, you move your family to another country because that’s going to be better, it’s not actually awesome.

Philip Right. No language, no culture, no money.

Sean Yeah. And it’s way better.

Philip Right.

Sean But that’s a step up from survival, but not actually by much.

Philip Right.

Sean And so, what he has opportunities to give his attention to needs to be much more survival.

Philip Right.

Sean Pleasing the Lord — like you said, fearing the Lord first of all, trusting him to provide. But then, you’re probably not really trying to develop your recipes.

Philip Right.

Sean You’re trying to get food on the table.

Philip Right, exactly right.

Sean And so, even at the beginning when we’re talking of, you know, not all of his biblical application got pushed out in all the ways — and yet some of why you can even say that is because of where you’re starting from, that he enabled.

Philip Right. And yeah, if it wasn’t for his battle, I wouldn’t have any place to start from.

Sean Yeah.

Philip Absolutely. And so, again, there is only gratitude and honor. Like, he made it easy for me to honor him. And so, in a lot of ways I wish I could be like him. And there’s still a lot of —

Sean Do you want to go to jail?

Philip That’s right.

And there’s still a lot of his story to tell.

Sean Yeah. So who recorded the interviews? How many hours of interviews do you have?

Philip Yeah, there’s about like twenty, twenty-five hours of interviews. This guy — I forget his name — he interviewed a lot of the separatist leaders kind of throughout the movement, and he just recorded their interviews. And so in nineteen eighty-six he sat down with my grandpa for a couple —

Sean So this was in Russia.

Philip This is like right after he came out of his last prison sentence.

Sean Okay.

Philip And so he recorded, over the course of a few days, my grandpa’s whole life story. And then also some of the conversations that he was having with the church upon coming back after prison. So some of the recordings are not him asking him questions, but my grandpa talking with the church and telling them about what just happened.

Sean And you’ve got access?

Philip And I have access to all this, yes.

Sean And you have started tra— because they’re all in Russian.

Philip They’re all Russian, yeah. And so, no, I haven’t translated anything.

But yeah, there’s a lot there, because he talks a lot about his experience in prison. And a lot of that was just God’s protection over him there. It’s just him with criminals. And so there were murder threats against him by other prisoners, by other inmates, and how God delivered him from those situations. And so a lot of that — in those couple decades where his prison sentences were spread out into, a lot of that was him and God. God leading him through that.

And then there’s a lot about even my grandma. So my grandma headed up something called the Council of Prisoners’ Relatives. And so they would — it was mostly a group of women, so wives and mothers, who were part of this underground publishing, that they would write letters to the Russian government kind of on behalf. So they were like lawyers. My grandma was really educated; she was a doctor by education.

Sean Okay.

Philip And so they would write mediation letters to the government on behalf of specific people — like, there was a technical problem in this, they were arrested not correctly, or whatever, to try to get them out of prison. And then also they were trying to send letters to the West, to America and to Western Europe, to let them know what is happening. Because a lot of that was either unknown or at least silenced.

Sean How do you say his name — Solzhenitsyn?

Philip Solzhenitsyn.

Sean Yeah. Because he was living during that time, and writing, and writing to the West and trying to get the West to pay attention as well, right?

Philip Yes, exactly right.

Sean Because he’s the one who says “live not by lies.” So Dreher’s book is using his —

Philip Yep.

Sean So in some ways Live Not by Lies is actually looking at the Russian history for example. And even when we read through that with the men at our church, you were able to point out that that wasn’t necessarily the full story in there.

Philip Right.

Sean But it was at least highlighting a lot of that history that you just talked about.

Philip Yeah, exactly right.

And so my grandma was heading up a lot of that. And so a lot of even her kids, the upbringing of them, she was helped by her parents in that. So my great-grandparents on my grandma’s side lived with them, and so there was a kind of intergenerational living there, which allowed her to also do these other things.

So there’s a lot of that, and it’s definitely a big story. And so this guy, he interviewed a few different people from the separatist movement. And even now, I would like to make it over there, to Russia. He — at least he did; I’m not sure if he’s still doing it — he leads like a historical tour of the separatist movement and the Russian underground church.

Sean Through, like, many cities?

Philip Through — I’m not sure.

Sean Okay.

Philip But he kind of has a whole story that he tells. And so I think it’d be great.

Sean So the guy who did the recordings in ’86, he’s still alive and still giving tours?

Philip Yes. At least he was a few years ago.

And so, yeah — I would really like, and I’ve told you this before, to write a biography about my grandpa, and to tell his story. And I think, apart from honoring him, I also think it’s a good story, and would be helpful even for a lot of the Christians here in the West maybe entering this kind of negative world.

Sean Yeah.

Philip And so, how to lean in the direction of strength, and how to navigate through the different complications of all of that. So I think there’s enough there worthy to be told.

Sean I mean, we got some opportunity to talk about it today. So clearly there’s —

Philip Right.

Sean — there’s something there.

Philip That’s right. So there’s more, and so it’d be great to be able to tell that. But we’ll see how that goes.

Sean Got to get after that.

Philip That’s right. All right, well, we could end it off there.

Sean Ten!

Philip Yes, all right.

Sean Ten are done.

Philip There you go. And now you know a little bit of my history, my family’s history, and the Russian separatist underground.

Sean So, All Are Yours in Russian is said how?

Philip I don’t know how it says it in the Bible there. I should check. But vsyo vashe would be translated “all are yours.”

Sean Okay. I mean.

Philip I mean, there you go. All right.