"I cast all joy away —
In God alone I sought my peace,
From worldly pleasures turned to pray,
Through hardship found my soul's release."
Hieromonk Raphael Sheychenko
Rodion Sheychenko, the man who would one day be Venerable Confessor Raphael, first drew breath in 1891. He grew up in Veliko-Mikhaylovskaya, a village in the Nizhne-Oskolsky district of Kursk province. His family were Little Russian peasants. His father, Ivan, made his living by binding books and mending shoes, and he passed on both these crafts to his son. By 1906, young Rodion had finished parish church school and went on to a Zemstvo school. There, he studied for three more years before returning to his father’s side and the familiar tools of the trade.
A longing for the monastic life took root in Rodion’s heart early on. Again and again, he travelled to Optina Monastery and offered his labour there, simply for the love of God.
Yet his boyhood hope had to wait. Called up for military service in 1913, he trained as a veterinary paramedic. This knowledge served him well in later years, even saving his life on one occasion. Young Rodion clearly made his mark as a soldier; he rose to non-commissioned officer with the 6th Uhlan Volyn Regiment, where he stayed until demobilisation in 1918.
Once free from service, Rodion returned to his family briefly, only to say his goodbyes. His heart was set on Optina, where he thought he would remain for always.
Nearly forty years on, writing from the camps in the 1950s, Hieromonk Raphael recalled warmly his arrival at the monastery:
"Early on a May morning, in the prime of my youth, I reached Optina's holy gates. The bell rang out, calling everyone to early Divine Liturgy. Those gates stood open. Pilgrims with gentle faces hurried towards the church... I brought here, to the venerable feet of the elders, but above all to the foot of the Holy Cross of Christ, my will, my youth, and my life. I came here — to die to the world…"
The monastery welcomed Rodion as a novice on 26 August 1918. But he never got to take his vows. Before the year was out, the monastery was shut down. The brethren did all they could to keep it going. Even when Optina became a breeding farm, Rodion carried on as the vet, though not for long... By 1923, the authorities closed Optina for good and forced the monks to disperse. Like many of his Optina brethren, novice Rodion settled in nearby Kozelsk, cobbling shoes to get by.
Then, in 1928, a full decade after he had first walked through Optina's gates, Hieromonk Macarius (Chilikin) of Optina tonsured Novice Rodion, giving him the monastic name Raphael. This was done with the blessing of Bishop Stefan (Vinogradov) of Maloyaroslavets, who was vicar for the Kaluga diocese. That same year, Bishop Herman (Weinberg) ordained him hierodeacon and raised him to archdeacon.
Bishop Herman deeply appreciated Father Raphael’s work alongside him and tried hard to persuade him to follow him to Alma-Ata. But Raphael would not leave. He had grown to love Optina with all his heart, so he stayed put in Kozelsk.
Here began Father Raphael’s harsh road as a monk, one that he would write about much later to his spiritual children:
"For every follower of Christ — monks above all — the road to Heaven runs only through Golgotha. Cross in hand, cross on shoulder."
Archdeacon Raphael (Sheychenko)
In February 1930, Soviet officials forced Raphael into logging work. Not long after, on 9 June that same year — Pentecost, as it happened — a peasant revolt flared up in Kozelsk. The state blamed the monks of Optina for stirring up the unrest. The brethren were branded an "anti-Soviet organisation", and on 18 August 1930, scores of monks, including Father Raphael, were arrested and carted off.
Kozelsk, mid-1920s. Lower row, left to right: Hieromonk Nikon (Belyaev), Fr Geronty (Ermakov; shot in 1938). Standing: rassophore monk Kirill (Zlenko; †1932) and rassophore monk Rodion (Sheychenko)
Archdeacon Raphael, for his part, would not admit to any counter-revolutionary activities. Not a word of it was true, he insisted under questioning. The landlady of the flat he rented in Kozelsk, however, gave her account: “From talking with Raphael, I know he’s a staunch, unshakeable monk, with those old-fashioned views typical of them.”
Sure enough, on 27 November 1930, Father Raphael received a ten-year sentence. He was to serve it in the Vishera corrective labour camp, out in the settlement of Malaya Vizhaikha in the Ural region. In 1934, a transfer brought him to Dmitrov camp near Moscow. There, at least, he could put to use his skills as a veterinary paramedic. This came as a welcome relief to Father Raphael. The job also earned him extra food to add to his pitiful camp rations: he would take what was meant for the pigs, so he was not quite as hungry as many of the other prisoners.
Hieromonk Raphael openly professed his faith: he received a Gospel, a prayer book, and an icon during a visit. Living in an abandoned pigsty, he found space to pray and exchange letters with fellow believers.
The secret police (NKVD) officer would sometimes intercept his letters and report him up the chain, demanding his arrest. A search once turned up fragments of believers' letters and poems by Tatiana Grimblit, someone he had written to at an earlier camp. These became evidence of "counter-revolutionary agitation." So, in 1936, Archdeacon Raphael got another six years, this time in the frozen north: first Murmansk, then Usollag camp at Solikamsk in the Perm region.
Father Raphael finally gained his freedom on 18 November 1943. By April of the following year, he had at last made his way back to Kozelsk, where Optina Monastery had stood before its closure. The authorities offered him a bargain: stay away from church life, and they would leave him alone. Yet, on 1 October, Father Raphael accepted his ordination as a hieromonk. The same day, he became rector of Kozelsk's Annunciation Church.
Hieromonk Raphael. Annunciation Church, Kozelsk. Mid-1940s
War had left the church in ruins. The faithful rebuilt it stone by stone, with bare hands and no machinery. By 1949, through hard work and God’s grace, the church stood restored.
Having suffered persecution himself, Father Raphael did all he could to help others returning from exile and prison who came to him in need. Among them were nuns from Shamordino, whom he supported both spiritually and with whatever material help he could find. His letters to spiritual children began flowing again...
"Children are like delicate photographic film — everything leaves its imprint on them quickly and permanently..."
"Others wound us; life cuts and bruises — but why, my dear, do we hurt ourselves? That is even harder to bear... Certainly, for the conscience of a thinking person. Break the laws of the body, and illness follows. Break the laws of the spirit, and the soul suffers through conscience. Nothing can change this."
— from Father Raphael's letters
These were trying times for the church. Priests lived under constant surveillance; the authorities often planted informers amongst them. Father Sergey Georgievich Shumilin likely played this role. A decidedly odd character, he raised eyebrows among ordinary churchgoers and the Kaluga diocesan leaders alike. Many suspected ties to the Ministry of State Security (MGB), and Father Sergey never quite managed to shake off this allegation.
Annunciation Church
Father Sergey became priest at Kozelsk's Annunciation Church in 1948. The following summer, on 11 July, Father Raphael was arrested after church elder Natalia Alexandrovna denounced him. Parishioners felt sure that Father Sergey had pushed her to it, eyeing the rector's position for himself. As it happened, that is precisely what came to pass. Almost at once, Father Sergey dismissed the elder, Natalia.
The authorities charged Hieromonk Raphael with anti-Soviet agitation. During questioning, investigators pointed to things he had supposedly said in his sermons, allegedly critical of Soviet policies. When brought face-to-face with these accusers – his own parishioners, no less – Father Raphael denied every claim. On 12 September 1949, prosecutors filed formal charges.
Father Raphael stood accused of harbouring “hostility towards the social and political order of the USSR,” “spreading anti-Soviet propaganda from the pulpit,” and “stirring up believers in private conversations." They noted his influence over "backward believers and monks," and feared that might draw big, troublesome crowds to the courthouse, sparking all sorts of wild talk and rumours. So they sent his case to the Special Council under the MGB.
Within a month, the Council handed down its verdict: ten years' hard labour in a corrective labour camp.
1949, Kaluga prison. Father Raphael's third arrest
Letters began to pour into Vyatlag from parishioners. They wrote to Father Raphael, blaming his imprisonment on Father Sergey and Natalia, the church elder. But Father Raphael urged them to forgive the informers:
"Little Tonya! You write that you carry a snake of hatred in your heart for Father Sergey — that you haven't forgiven and probably never will. I cannot praise you for this. Such feelings poison the soul and go against everything Christ taught us."
"So I beg you, dear child — for my sake and for yours — let go of your anger. Don't hold it against Father Sergey or anyone else. I forgave everyone on that very day, 11 July, when sorrow struck. Until I draw my last breath, I will pray for them — not as enemies who wronged me, but as helpers on my path to salvation. May God have mercy and save them. Do likewise, and peace will fill your heart. And that, my dear, is where true happiness on this earth lies."
Natalia Alexandrovna, the church elder, wrote to him herself, full of remorse. His response brought comfort and absolution:
"Peace and salvation to your grieving soul, dear Natalia!... I could not and will not call you a traitor. Yet you will not deny that a woman’s weakness led you to speak carelessly to certain people. You know well how Father Sergey, for his own ends, skilfully twisted your words to suit himself. But God be with him, and all of them! I see only God's will in this, I see in all this nothing but God’s will and His holy hand, leading me along this way of the Cross — not with a mitre on my head and a golden cross on my chest, but with thorns on my brow and the cross upon my shoulders…”
Natalia Alexandrovna, for her part, tried to put things right. In 1953, she wrote to the Supreme Soviet for the third time, pleading for his release: "He's been falsely accused and slandered. I swear to this, and I'm ready to explain everything if needed..."
All the pleas from his parishioners and friends came to nothing: the authorities dug in their heels, worried that the priest would return to active ministry the moment they let him go.
Father Raphael spoke of the brutal camp conditions but never lost heart — and would not let his spiritual children give in to gloom either.
"We crowd together here, forty to sixty of us, like bees in a hive. Add to that the games, the rows, the squabbles, the envy and bitterness until you could forget what it means to be human… But we must endure, stay humble, and most of all give thanks to the Lord, who saves me, a sinner, through these very sufferings."
"As long as I live, I am well; all else I leave to God’s will. Glory to Him for all that comes to pass. He is God, He is the Creator and knows what each soul requires and what will do them good. By His will, even hell loses its sting — for then it ceases being hell. But for someone who has lost God's grace, who has driven God from their soul through unbelief and hardness of heart, even paradise will be hell, for they bring hell into paradise with their soul."
— from the letters of Father Raphael
One thing did weigh on him: often, his letters never reached those he wrote to. He would write them again, check with those who had received theirs. He would feel a real sorrow for not being able to send a name day greeting to one, or offer some timely words of comfort to another... Yet Father Raphael was not left to yearn for those he loved for much longer. The Lord did not let him die in loneliness, far away from home.
“I do not regret anything — only the children I hold in my heart in prayer. I want for nothing — only that the Lord might steady me, grant me a Christian death and a fair hearing for my soul at His Last Judgement! Where this will be and how, where my bones will rest — the Lord knows, and may His holy will be done. Glory to Him for all things, for all things, for all things, for ever!!!"
In 1955, as the great release of the wrongly convicted swept through the camps, Father Raphael (Sheychenko) was freed at last. He made his way back to the Annunciation Church in Kozelsk. A fresh test lay ahead: not just to forgive in words but in actions the rector, Father Sergey Shumilin. Now, Raphael was to serve under the man’s leadership.
Bishop Onesiphor (centre). Archpriest Sergey Shumilin stands immediately to his left; Father Raphael is second to his right. Kozelsk, 1950s
Of his forty years dedicated to monastic life, Hieromonk Raphael had spent more than twenty behind camp fences. The brutal conditions had broken his health. He was terribly frail. Having known real hunger, Father Raphael felt deeply for others and tried to help everyone: each Sunday he opened his door to beggars for tea. And whenever strength allowed, he served at the altar.
Trinity Saturday arrived in spring 1957, a day for remembering the dead. Father Raphael was at the cemetery from morning till dusk, saying memorial prayers for all who asked. He simply would not turn anyone away; that was the heart of his belief. That very evening, though, he came down with pneumonia…
"Love is sacrifice. Where there is no sacrifice, there is no love!"
— from a letter of Father Raphael
A final photograph of Father Raphael. Kozelsk, Annunciation Church, spring 1957
Among those close to him near the end was Elizaveta Bulgakova. She was a spiritual daughter of Archpriest Sergey Mechev (who would become a New Martyr). Elizaveta had come to Optina to visit the elders' graves. Local nuns took her to meet Father Raphael.
"Words fail me," she later remembered. "Such love, such simplicity — I'd never known anything like it. After years of hard wandering, I felt I'd come home. Not to a father, though. More like to a dear old grandmother who'd waited for me all her life."
As Father Raphael grew sicker, he asked Elizaveta to nurse him. She tried, but others blocked her. Then came a stroke, paralysing his right side and robbing him of speech. No doctor was called. They did not trust doctors, worried one might harm the priest... Years afterwards, parishioners would blame Father Sergey Shumilin for holding back medical help, perhaps for his own gain. The suspicion was that, once Hieromonk Raphael died, all his worldly goods would fall to Father Sergey.
On 19 June 1957, Father Raphael departed to the Lord. For the faithful nearby, losing their much-loved priest was a great blow. Nearly all day long, people carried his coffin from house to house — everyone wanted their goodbye. They laid Hieromonk Raphael Sheychenko to rest in Kozelsk's old cemetery.
Saying goodbye to Hieromonk Raphael Sheychenko. Kozelsk
On 22 June 2005, with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy, the relics of Confessor Raphael were moved to the brotherhood cemetery at Optina Monastery. Then, on 30 December 2007, they were brought to the Transfiguration Church.
His name was added to the Assembly of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, for universal veneration.
Confessor Raphael Sheychenko is commemorated on 19 June (6 June Old Style).
"I am as I am; sorrow, reproach, and the rest — that’s my lot. Yet they are my wisdom, my joy, my salvation. I find glory in them. For them, more than for life's every blessing, I give thanks to God. They wash away my sins. They are my ladder to Heaven — which the Lord, I firmly trust, will not deny me in His boundless mercy. Glory to Him for everything, for absolutely everything!"
"Through sorrows and sickness, God speaks to us — just as He spoke through the holy prophets of old. Wake up! He tells us. Don't let yourself drift. Don't be like a child caught up with toys that will soon break — these passing pleasures of this world."
“You are merely a passing traveller on this earth, and your life is but a brief slumber. Step beyond death's door, and there lies eternity. Here on earth, you stand as creation's finest work. You mirror the Divine; your soul lives on, unending as the One who made it. So live well, live kindly. Work now to secure your place up there... one that fits who you're meant to be. Your true home is the Kingdom of Heaven — Paradise itself. Your companions there will be angels and all the saints!"
— Father Raphael
Sources:
1. Venerable Confessor Raphael Sheychenko – Optina Monastery (optina.ru).
2. Venerable Raphael the Confessor – Vvedensky Stavropegial Men's Monastery, Optina Monastery, 2016.
3. "By the Optina Ladder — All the Way to Heaven" – film by the parish of the Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos Church, Kozelsk, Kaluga region (with support from Vvedensky Men's Monastery, Optina Pustyn).
