Potapy Emelianov

Pyotr Andreevich Emelianov was born in Ufa Governorate around 1889 into a peasant family of Bezpopovtsy, or Priestless Old Believers. In about 1901, a nine year old Pyotr and his family were received into the Russian Orthodox Church as Edinovertsy, or Old Ritualist Orthodox, by the Bishop of Ufa and Menzelinsk, Anthony (Khrapovitsky).[1][2]

When Kyr Anthony was named Bishop of Volhynia in 1902, he brought the young Pyotr Emilianov with him. He was tonsured at the Pochaiv Lavra by the Bishop, took the monastic name of Potapy, and was sent to study for the priesthood at Zhitomir.[3]

According to Deacon Vasili von Burman, "During his pastoral studies in Zhitomir, the monk Potapy became fascinated by the writings of the Holy Fathers of the Church and the proceedings of the Ecumenical Councils. He was struck most forcibly by the testimony of the Holy Fathers supporting the supremacy of the Roman Pontiff. In this way young Potapy gradually became possessed by the idea of reunion with Rome... Until this time, Potapy had never in his life met a single Catholic; consequently there could be no question of Catholic influence on him from any external source."[4]

In 1911, Potapy finished his course and was ordained to the priesthood as a hieromonk for the Pochaiv Lavra.[5]

The Bishop assigned him to the Old Ritualist Orthodox parish at Nizhnaya Bogdanovka, near Lugansk.

By 1918, Emelianov had become convinced that true Orthodoxy could not be had except through Communion with the Holy See. After learning that Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky had formed an Exarchate for Russian Rite Catholics, Emelianov travelled to St. Petersburg to meet with the Exarch, Leonid Feodorov. After questioning him closely, Feodorov received Emelianov and his entire parish into the Russian Catholic Church.

Emelianov and his parishioners underwent severe harassment and violent persecution from the Imperial German Army, the Red Guards and the White Army during the Russian Civil War.

Of his work assisting Fr. Edmund A. Walsh in distributing food and other relief to the starving during the Russian famine of 1921–1922, Fr. Potapy later recalled, "In 1922, a Papal mission arrived in the USSR and one of its representatives was in Rostov. From him, I periodically received material assistance, not only in money, but also in the form to food and clothing."[6]

On May 3, 1922, the People's Commissariat of Justice granted Father Potapy and his parishioners a church. At the time, the Old Ritualist Greek Catholic parish at Nizhnaya Bogdanovka consisted of 828 members.[7]

On January 27, 1927, he was arrested and, in a search of his rectory, GPU agents found letters from Moscow-based Catholic Bishop Pie Eugène Neveu. These letters were used to charge Father Potapy with "counterrevolutionary activity." Father Potapy's distribution of money, food, and clothing during the 1921 famine was interpreted as bribing local peasants to convert to Catholicism. Until his arrest, Father Potapy was the last priest of the Russian Greek Catholic Church still living as a free man in the USSR.[8]

An official indictment was presented to Father Potapy on August 20, 1927. In addition to allegedly bribing Orthodox peasants to convert to Catholicism, Father Potapy also stood accused of anti-Soviet agitation.[9]

On September 12, 1927, a special decree of the OGPU Collegium sentenced Father Potapy to 10 years in the GULAG.[10] On March 24, 1928, the sentence was given a sharper edge, "Amnesty in the case of Emelyanov, Potapy Andreevich, is not permissible."[11]

Emelianov arrived at Solovki prison camp on September 23, 1928, as part of a shipment of prisoners dispatched from Butyrka prison in Moscow.[12]

Father Potapy came with a special purpose, where he was held with other Catholic priests and participated in religious services. In 1929, along with other Catholic priests, he was transferred to a prison camp on Anzer Island, where he was involved in secret worship. In 1932 he took place in the case of the Catholic clergy, signed on Solovki prison camp. During the interrogation, said: "The time I have spent in the camp, did not shake my religious beliefs. I have become an even more convinced Catholic and nothing can shake me." As a result, the authorities have decided to subject him to special punishment contain the islands separately from other priests until the end of isolation.

In November 1933, Fr. Potapy was transferred to slave labor building the White Sea–Baltic Canal.