Since in “Russian Atlantis” № 3 a substantial material on Vladika Nestor (Anisimov) was published, there was a feedback to my article on him by Alexander Cyrilovich Karaulov, son of the manager director of “The House of Mercy” in Harbin, Cyril Alexandrovich. Alexander Cyrilovich with the blessing of Bishop Ignatius of Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka is a member of the commission in charge of gathering materials leading to a canonization of Metropolitan Nestor, the Apostle to Kamchatka, who also became famous and for his good work in Manchuria.
At the present moment I deem it important to throw some light on my position concerning the statements that had come to my attention spoken by some people who had never lived in Harbin. They assume that, since Vladika Nestor became an intermediary in the correspondence between Harbin-Manchurian Diocese and the Moscow Patriarchate which was concluded in July 1945 with the Diocese’s acquiescence to Patriarch Alexis I, he allegedly spurred by that activity a negative reaction among the Harbin immigration. According to the opinion of one of them, who, by the way, has never lived in Harbin, the grudge of the immigrants about the submission of the Diocese to Patriarch Alexis I could had been expressed so sharply that it later may have become a reason for the mass arrests which happened in Manchuria starting from August 1945.
I was in Harbin till the end of October 1945. I knew that the immigrants in their majority approved of the Diocese’s acquiescence to the Patriarch and that the preparation for the act was done with the agreement of the ruling Hierarch Meletius and a number of others Hierarchs, and not solely by Metropolitan Nestor without their authorization. He was given the duty to take care of the correspondence without any publicity, so not to provoke the Japanese authorities of Manchukuo in blocking the contacts with the Patriarch of Moscow and all of Russia.
I am also witness to the fact that the agents of SMERSH[1] during the interrogations in Harbin and the USSR were not interested at all in the attitudes of the arrested Harbin immigrants concerning the entering of the Orthodox Diocese under the jurisdiction of Patriarch Alexis I. I know this from my personal experience and from the testimonies of many Harbiners that had been arrested in 1945.
I brought this position of mine to the notice of the commission in charge of collecting materials for canonization of Vladika Nestor through the commission member A. K. Karaulov.
[1] A department in the Secrete Service of the USSR created during World War II and responsible for contra espionage. The acronym (СМЕРШ - SMERSH) stands for the Russian phrase – Смертъ Шпионам (Death to the spies).