Sampson Sievers - Second Arrest and Deportation To Svirlag Concentration Camp

Second Arrest and Deportation To Svirlag Concentration Camp

When closing down Alexandro-Nevsky Lavra in 1932 all monks had been arrested, father Symeon was taken to SvirLAG and later to Uzbekistan.

In 1928 (1932?) the monk of Alexandre Nevsky Lavra had been arrested. Surprising enough is that a few hours prior to the arrest, Symeon had a vision in dream with appearance of blessed Serafim of Sarov who read the litany to the All-merciful Lady, Virgin Mary praying for help, guardship and forgiveness. Having woke up the elder immediately wrote down the prayer and in three hours he was arrested. The documents of Archives of Russian Federal Security Offices in Leningrad region definitely tell that from 1932 the monk was in Svirlag (Svirskiy Concentration Camp of Forced Labour) on the river Svir (Leningrad oblast).

The mentioned prayer to Virgin Lady, as the elder said, guarded him till the last days. Elder Sampson was telling how at Svirlag, he together with other inmates was thrown into icy cellar, inhabited by rats accustomed to human meat. In order that people would not oppose the rats, they were bound in such a way that they could not move. The rats consumed the humans alive. From the recollections of elder Sampson: "The cold was the most cruel and rats everywhere. I prayed: " All merciful, my Lady..." I read and heard as people cried when they had been eaten up rats. To me, on the other hand, the rats gnawed only my heels."

In the morning when they lifted the cage and discovered that the elder remained unharmed, they became scared of his faith and he was freed from forced labour.

The elder was also telling how once in winter time, when the criminal convicts lost him in play-cards, he had to stand naked for a few hours in frost. Thanks to the prayers, he remained alive.

Afterwards, Sievers was transferred to imprisonment in the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan. On Victory Day May 9, father S. Sievers drowned in the Great Fergana Canal named after Joseph Stalin. Kolkhoz workers pulled him out, called the policeman to make the death protocol and afterwards he was taken to the cemetery. When on the way to the cemetery, water spilled because of shaking, the dead man came back to life and sat at the cart. The Moslem Uzbeks who were driving him started shouting in fear: "Russian God resurrected!".