Dmitri Dudko, 82, Foe of Stalin Who Recanted and Praised Him, Dies
By SOPHIA KISHKOVSKY
Published: July 1, 2004
MOSCOW, June 30 - The Rev. Dmitri Dudko, a Russian Orthodox priest who spent years in prison for anti-Soviet activity but in his later years praised Stalin and grew close to nationalists who dreamed of restoring the Soviet Union, died in Moscow on Monday, the Moscow Patriarchate announced. He was 82.
Father Dudko, an elfin man with a gentle manner and beaming smile, rose to prominence in the 1970's for his powerful sermons, which grew into question-and-answer sessions about Christianity and faith at a time when religious inquiry was a crime punishable by Soviet law. More than anything, he spoke out against godlessness.
He attracted young intellectuals and profoundly affected many of them, some of whom he baptized and some of whom became religious dissidents and were imprisoned for their faith.
St. Vladimir's Seminary Press in Crestwood, N.Y., published a collection of Father Dudko's sermons in 1977 under the title "Our Hope.''
His activities led to his arrest in 1980. He was accused of giving "slanderous materials'' to Christopher S. Wren, a correspondent for The New York Times in Moscow, as well as to an American professor and other foreigners.
In a blow to many of his followers, he recanted on Soviet television six months after his arrest.
"I repudiate what I have done and assess my so-called struggle against godlessness as a struggle against the Soviet power,'' he said, reading from a typewritten statement.
Father Dudko had already spent eight years in prison as a young man. He was arrested in 1948, when he was a student at the Moscow Theological Academy, charged retroactively with disseminating "anti-Soviet propaganda'' for religious poetry he had written during World War II.
He finished his theological studies in 1960 and became a parish priest.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, he became closely associated with nationalists grouped around Aleksandr Prokhanov, a writer and editor of a newspaper called Zavtra. In Christmas and Easter messages he wrote for the newspaper he was identified as its dukhovnik, or spiritual father.
The newspaper is known for defending the Soviet empire and Stalinism, views Father Dudko came to share even though his father, a peasant, was arrested in 1937, at the height of Stalin's repression, for refusing to join a collective farm.
Father Dudko said, "The time has come to rehabilitate Stalin,'' praised him for his asceticism and forging of a powerful state, and added, "I even pray for the repose of his soul.'' He condemned Russia's democratic reformers as well as Western capitalists for worshiping mammon and driving the Russian people into poverty. He campaigned for Gennadi Zyuganov, the Communist presidential candidate, and called for a "real union of believers and Communists.''
In an interview on Wednesday, Mr. Prokhanov, who is usually known for fiery, flowery rhetoric, enumerated the same qualities in Father Dudko that drew Soviet dissidents.
"Love emanated from him,'' Mr. Prokhanov said. "He came to us with a blissful, constant smile. He said, 'Love one another.' ''
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/01/inter ... ALTAVISTA1