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Friends United Meeting |
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May 1999
How the Quaker Faith Came to Russia
An interview with Tatiana Pavlova by Johan Maurer
Tatiana Pavlova was one of the first modern Russians to introduce Quaker faith to Russia. Here, Johan Maurer interviews her about how she became a Friend.
Tatiana was born in Moscow just before the start of the Second World War, and was raised by her mother and aunt. She studied in the history and literature department of the Moscow City Pedagogical University. In 1969, she defended her dissertation on the theme, The Second English Republic (1658-1660), Social-economic and Political Struggle.
Her only son was born in that year. Since 1966, Tatiana has worked at the Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 1990, she studied at Pendle Hill, the Quaker study center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and became a member of the Society of Friends.
For five years Tatiana has worked as a volunteer with alcoholics and drug addicts, conducting Bible study classes with them. Since 1992, she has been assisting poor retirees using money contributed by Friends from around the world.
Translated by Thomas Anthony
QL When you chose your academic specialty, did you know that there would be spiritual meaning for you?
Yes, of course. I have believed in God and been interested in spiritual matters since childhood. When I was a student in the history and literature department of Moscow City Pedagogical University, I was especially interested in the history of world religions and of early Christianity. I chose the English Revolution of the 17th century as the theme for my graduate study because it was the last European revolution in which religion played an important role.
QL So you were a believer from childhood?
Yes, I was born into a religious family, and fortunately my parents baptized me and raised me in a Christian spirit from an early age.
QL How did your family influence you spiritually?
They told me about Christ, about his life, death and resurrection, and introduced me to his teachings. I went to church with my mother and aunt (my father died when I was very young), and we celebrated church holidays together. Easter was always the most important holiday. I remember the unusually silent, calm, dark crowd around the church on the night before Easter. It was simply impossible to go inside-the church was filled to overflowing, and people stood in a silent crowd on the square. Everyone had a candle in their hand. Not long before midnight everyone began to light their candles one from the other, and the entire
square was covered with tiny living flames. My aunt held me up in the air, and I saw how at midnight the doors
of the church opened and out shone a special golden light. The priest came out through the door and said three times to the crowd, "Christ has risen!" And the entire crowd answered him in one voice, "He has truly risen!" I will never forget this.
QL Who were the most spiritually influential people in your youth? And the books?
Actually, as a young person I strayed from my childhood faith. I was still interested in spiritual issues, but more on an intellectual, scientific level. I became an agnostic for all intents and purposes. I read world literature, was interested in poetry, and wrote poems myself. But this all had an essentially romantic character. I would say that the key role in my return to faith was played by my husband, Platon Pavlov, who came from an Anthroposophic family (followers of Rudolf Steiner). He acquatinted me with religious literature, including eastern religious literature, and my interest in spiritual matters was reborn with new strength.
QL Was church life important in those years? What form did it take?
I didn't go to church at all from when I was 17 until I turned 25. The place of church was taken by discussions of religion and spiritual life with friends of my husband-my new friends. During those years I read a lot of Russian and western religious thinkers and thought intensively about the life of the spirit and the place of religion in people's lives.
QL What drew you especially to the study of the revolutionary era in England?
The Russia in which I was born and lived was a country of a victorious revolution. It completely rearranged the lives and way of thinking of our entire nation. Thus anything related to revolutions in other countries was interesting to me. And as I have already mentioned, the English Revolution of the 17th century was especially closely related to religious and spiritual searching, and to the Bible.
QL What stood out for you about Friends in revolutionary England?
I was struck most of all by the purity, sincerity and strength of their faith. They, like myself, were not involved in searches for theological doctrines, but in striving to live in keeping with the spirit of Christ-to live in truth and kindness, in continual oneness with Him, to live in light and love. I was also surprised by one petition which I discovered while researching historical documents. One hundred sixty-seven Quakers petitioned Parliament to be sent to prison in the place of 167 other Friends who had been suffering in prisons for a long time already, and who were tired and sick, and missed their families. That level of sacrifice simply amazed me. The history of our country is full of imprisonment and mass repression, but I had never heard of people voluntarily asking to be sent to prison in order to free their friends.
QL How did this discovery affect your own faith, especially at that time?
Just at that time of intense spiritual searching something happened to me which I would not be so bold as to call an opening but which transformed my relationship to my faith. My husband said to me that sooner or later every person decides one question for themselves: what is my relationship to God? What do I believe in? What is the reason for and goal of my existence? Soon after this my husband went away somewhere, and that evening as I fell asleep I thought about his words and about what God meant for me. I suddenly remembered that I had been christened into Christian faith, and thus no matter what I thought or decided in my intellect, the grace of God had passed into me in the act of christening. I was no longer alone, there was someone to care for me, the Lord knows me and lives within me, and He is always with me and will not leave me in my hour of need. I will never forget this wonderful warm feeling, the feeling of having found the Father. From this moment on I have felt a conscious faith in Christ, and I have never since felt any sense of doubt.
At about this time I learned of the Society of Friends from books, historical sources which I was studying for my work, and it felt very close to my soul. I felt depth and authenticity in it.
QL Based on your experience, what do you wish modern Friends would remember more clearly from our own past?
I truly wish that Friends would not forget about their pure roots and the original motivation of their movement-the experience of the Light of Christ within oneself. This was the fundamental basis of their faith. It would probably be useful to read the founders of the movement more often, such as George Fox, Isaac Pennington, Edward Burrough, Robert Barclay and William Penn.
QL What is your life like today and what gives you hope?
Life now is very difficult for me, as for the majority of my fellow Russians. Because of the economic crisis in our country, we are not paid our salaries, and we are not able to buy basic necessities. I have the feeling that all of us, the ordinary people of Russia, have been tricked and robbed, and not just for the first time. I don't have faith in our government-they don't think about the good of the people. I don't have faith that our people will be wise enough to choose worthy and honest people in elections, that laws will be followed, or that the Mafia will cease to exist. To speak plainly, I don't have faith in people and in their actions. I have faith that God, who is able to help in a completely unexpected way, will act through people. Surely He lives in each one of us.
Copyright (c) 1999 Friends United Meeting