“The clergy were persecuted very violently. Those who were permitted to stay were subjected to humiliation, were paralyzed in the exercise of their pastoral duties and were stripped of parochial benefices and of all their rights. They were entirely at the mercy of the Gestapo. . . . It is like the Apocalyptic vision of the Fides Depopulata.”
On the territory of the Soviet Union the persecution of religion and clergy took the form of sacrilegious desecration of churches, destruction of shrines connected with the patriotic feelings of the Russian people, and the murder of priests.
I beg the Tribunal to call the witness of the Soviet Prosecution, the Archdean of the churches of the City of Leningrad, the Very Reverend Nikolai Ivanovitch Lomakin.
[The witness Lomakin took the stand.]
THE PRESIDENT: Would you tell me your name?
THE VERY REVEREND NIKOLAI IVANOVITCH LOMAKIN (Witness): Nikolai Ivanovitch Lomakin.
THE PRESIDENT: Is it the practice for you to take an oath before giving evidence or not?
LOMAKIN: I am an Orthodox priest.
THE PRESIDENT: Will you take the oath?
LOMAKIN: I belong to the Orthodox Church, and when I entered the priesthood in 1917 I took the oath to tell the truth all my life. This oath I remember even to the present day.