Section 03: Priest Under Persecution

This section covers the turn from surgeon to priest in revolutionary Tashkent. The two files trace, first, the ordination of 1921 — the diocesan assembly where the professor-surgeon spoke, the bishop’s startling words “Doctor, you ought to be a priest!” and his instant assent, and his consecration to the priesthood on the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord amid the civil war; and second, the choice that his priesthood forced upon him — to operate and lecture in cassock and pectoral cross, with an icon in the operating theatre, at the cost of his university chair, in a state that demanded he hide or surrender his faith. Here the surgeon becomes the priest-surgeon, and the confession begins.

Tradition: Russian Orthodox / New Martyrs and Confessors (canonized 2000)

Contents

File Topic
Ordination in Tashkent (1921) Tashkent in the civil war; the diocesan assembly and Valentin’s speech; Bishop Innokenty’s “Doctor, you ought to be a priest!” and the answer “Very well, Vladyko! I will be a priest if it is pleasing to God!”; ordination deacon, then priest on the Meeting of the Lord, 15 February 1921
The Choice Operating and lecturing in the riasa with a cross on his breast; the icon in the operating theatre; “I read my lectures in a cassock”; the student petition and the loss of his university chair; refusing to separate the priesthood from the surgery

How to Use

  • Read Ordination in Tashkent (1921) for the call to the priesthood and the circumstances of his ordination amid revolution and civil war.
  • Read The Choice for what the priesthood cost him in the Soviet academy and for the witness of the cassock in the operating theatre.
  • The episcopacy and arrests that followed are treated in Section 04: Bishop and Prisoner.

Cross-References