E.N. How did your service further unwind?

V.E. It turned out that my service acquired still a different character. In 1987, already a year since Chernobyl, after informing representatives from some of the ranks of the Moscow Patriarchate, I organized a church-community committee(at that time this was still new) for the rebirth of the Kiev-Pecherskaja Lavra. At this time it was still a museum. I went to Kiev to establish what people’s opinions were on the benefits of opening the Kiev-Pecherskaja Lavra. I knew that I needed to explain to the people for what we wished and then they would want to open the Lavra. Within a month, I returned to Moscow, and then gathered a church-community committee and began to bombard the Ukrainian and Central authorities with letters. And then like a president or vice-president of my committee, I sent telegrams, to the surprise of the workers at the central telegraph, to the Supreme Command of the Soviet in the Ukraine. When I received the first response in my own name from the Soviet on the Activities of Religion, I knew it was a victory. You know that in June 1988 was the year of the 1000 years of the Baptism of Russia, and in connection with that was the celebration of the opening of the Kiev-Pecherskaja Lavra, even though in the beginning only the Distant Caves were opened. Then, though, I felt that my work was finished, and I let go of my committee. One day, not long after that, I organized already another [committee] and for a different walk of life. It was a church-community committee for the opening of the Chernigovskii Skit [a small secluded monastery] in the Trinity-Sergiev Lavra. This was December, that is the end of 1988, when in our monastery there were strong expectations of the apocalypse especially concerning traditions. Now, one can say that the deceased Patriarch Pimen supported this notion and thus he did not do anything to maintain the traditions. In any event, thanks to the personal trust of the deputy of the Lavra, Archimandrite Feognost, it was ordered not to bother me and not to help.