When you are facing a life sentence: a church journalist's diary in prison

Valeriy Stupnytsky in court. Photo: UOJ

We all know the saying "Never say never to prison or poverty," but we consider it something far from our own experience. And we are completely wrong to think so. During the war in Ukraine, many people have lost their homes and shelter. At least they still have their freedom. But what happens to an ordinary man, who has never committed any crime, when he is suddenly seized and thrown into prison with the prospect of spending 15 years there, or perhaps the rest of his life?

We publish some diary entries of UOJ journalist Valeriy Stupnytsky, made in the first months behind bars.

12 April

The most difficult moment in the cell is waking up. Especially if you had a dream before, because any dream is powered by freedom. Always. It could be communication with your wife, children, or even just walking down the street.

Freedom. How little we think about how much of a blessing it is. When you want, you can stay home; when you want, you can go outside and walk in any direction. At any moment, you can see anyone, hug your loved one, pick up your child, hold them close and feel their scent.

In prison, your living space is narrowed down to a room of 25-30 square metres, which you can never leave under any circumstances. You are forced to interact with 25-27 people who are locked up with you. To someone "from the outside", all of this might sound trivial, like something described in dozens of novels, memoirs or movies. But when you're inside, it's very difficult not to succumb to a panic attack, especially when it “hits”.

"It hit" – this phrase is in almost everyone's vocabulary. It means that a dark cloud of despondency and despair has overcast you. It’s almost physically palpable. You suddenly realise that you are here forever, that you will never be able to return to your former, so blissfully happy (as you now understand) life. This cloud engulfs you for an hour or even more. The key is to endure and not let these thoughts overwhelm you, which are literally forced into your head.

12 April marks one month since my arrest. It doesn’t seem like much time, but my old life is faded and seen as through a foggy glass.

My beloved congratulated me on the occasion, but I didn’t immediately remember what it was. On 12 April 2002, six months after our wedding, we officially registered our marriage at the civil registry office. I remember sitting in the corridor, waiting for our turn, and everyone thought we had come to get divorced because we were wearing rings. Today, the ring is no longer on my finger. It was removed before I was sent to pretrial detention; it’s at home now. When will I be able to wear it again?

At 7:00 p.m., my cellmate was called to the lawyer. He left in great surprise. When he returned, he told me what happened. A message had been sent from his cell phone (illegal, of course) to his wife, saying that he had no more strength and was going to take his own life. Naturally, he hadn’t sent anything like that – our law enforcers did their best. What moral level does one have to do such a thing? I warned my family that if they receive such a message from me, they shouldn’t believe it.

Today, I’ve finally decided to talk to Varia (Valeriy's younger daughter – Ed). I had been afraid for an entire month that it would be too hard for me. So it was. At her first words, tears started to well up in my eyes, so I couldn’t speak for long. My wife said that Varia was also crying during the talk, so she was responding in short, simple phrases. And this, despite the fact that officially I’m "on a business trip". I don’t know what to do next.

13 April

Day off, Saturday. Strangely enough, the prisoners sense the arrival of the weekend.

On these days, no lawyers come, and there are no summonses. There is another important thing – on Saturdays and Sundays, you are not afraid of searches. Therefore, almost all prisoners communicate with their families not late in the evening but almost all day (illegally, of course. Phones are passed secretly, and they are of great value). It may sound strange enough but in the ward there is an atmosphere of relaxation (as far as this word is appropriate in a cell). But I still speak to my beloved in the evening. So, my Saturday, like any other day in the pre-trial detention centre, passes under the sign of waiting for our conversation. This is the event for which I live through another day here.

And of course, I talk to my mother. I don’t even know how she bears the fact that I’m in prison.

14 April

I found out that it is possible to transfer e-books to the pre-trial detention centre. A little joy. We generally live in anticipation of joys. But outside, there are so many of them, and therefore they are very little appreciated by us. In prison, the smallest joy that lies ahead is a treasure. The upcoming walk is a joy, a possible transfer to a better cell is a mega event. So, the possibility to own an e-book, to download and read any works is a lot.

I try not to think about the possibility of house arrest. It is such a lofty dream that it would be too painful to be disappointed in it. So, we take small steps. The anticipation of the holiday is more important than the holiday itself, because anticipation is an analogue of eternity, while the holiday is just a fleeting moment.

15 April

Continuing yesterday's thought, I want to say that everything pushes me towards the thought that the most important holiday that awaits me ahead is death. Rather, the transition to Eternal Life, which, despite my obvious spiritual poverty, I still hope for. And I constantly encounter signs that this transition is only possible through grief and suffering. I. Shakhovskoy writes that "through great sorrow a person grows out of himself, surpasses his animal nature, burns the mortal within, and finds Eternal Life. Such is the value of the penitence, leading to the purification of human sorrow, to be with God, to be in God's truth."

Will I be able to endure my sorrow even for such a goal? I very much doubt it. I don't feel the strength of a confessor in me. Today, they took my fingerprints again (the first time was when I was admitted to the pre-trial detention centre). They did not tell me what it meant.

17 April

My beloved wife is a great comfort to me. I live each day to hear her voice. I can only imagine how hard it is for her to endure all this, especially when, instead of waiting for comfort herself, she has to support me, a poor wretch. She is an undeserved gift from God. I thank Him for this great mercy. Never before have my relations with my beloved been so deep, close and all-encompassing. We have truly become one. The Bible speaks of "one flesh", and here it is more like "one soul". Although, to be honest, we still miss the "one flesh" part – there's no denying it. But now between us is the malevolent idol of the state, like Siegfried’s sword.

I’ve met with my lawyer. He had nothing comforting to say. I am increasingly convinced that any hope of being released from prison in the near future is in vain.

Today I was moved to a better cell. It turns out this is a special ward.

Here, there’s the director of a company that manufactures garden hoses, and a guy who was arrested for drug trafficking.

The first one is an intellectual, whose only fault is that, before the war, he had branches in Russia. He has been here for 9 months. For his 10-year-old sonm he is in China. This man volunteered in the first months of the war, bringing dozens of tonnes of humanitarian aid from abroad. After the first trial, he was placed under house arrest, but when leaving the remand centre, he was handed a new charge. As he puts it, this scheme is called a "carousel". From what I understand, the percentage of innocent people under Article 111 is no less than 90%. And, in fact, it’s closer to 100%.

In Cell 13, I heard about a man from Donetsk who came to Ukraine for his son’s funeral and was arrested. His only crime was that he owned a company in Donetsk providing internet services and paid taxes to the “DPR”. In another cell is the director of a large pharmaceutical company, whose products were found in the first-aid kits of Russian soldiers despite the fact that he did not supply them to Russia, and these products are available worldwide.

There are many "enemies" from the liberated territories. There are married couples in custody (naturally, in different cells). For example, I was told about a couple from Kherson, whose only crime was that they continued to work at one of the municipal enterprises during the occupation. They even got small promotions. I wonder, should they have proudly quit and gone begging? That’s the logic of the accusers. There are many "enemies" from the deoccupied Kyiv region. One person was arrested for transporting and burying people who had died from the "wrong" shelling. Or maybe it was for telling others about it.

Another person is in the pre-detention due to a neighbour’s denunciation. During the occupation of Irpin, Russians came to him and demanded that he supply them with water (he was the only one with a well supplying several blocks around). Should he have refused proudly and gone to face a firing squad? By the way, the residents of Irpin, who couldn’t flee, including that very neighbour, also took water from him.

After talking with the people in my new cell, I understood why I want to be in a ward with 26-27 people. One of the new cell-mates spoke a lot about his troubles, injustice, etc. It was clear that he wanted to offload some of his burden onto someone else. When many people are together in a cell, they inevitably take on each other’s misfortunes. And when the burden is shared by all, it becomes much lighter. "Bear one another’s burdens." In a large cell, the conditions can be hard, but it’s much easier emotionally.

20 April

For the umpteenth time, I am thinking that the notion of "the non-salvation" of all non-churched people is wrong. Last night I experienced a "breakdown": having become used to constant contact with my beloved, I could not bear the fact that she was no longer available (the possibility of calling was lost). I approached one of the inmates, explained the problem, and asked if he could make a call for me. He "shrugged it off". The second one came up to me on his own and offered his phone, saying that I "looked desperate". "I see it all," he added.

This person clearly acted according to the law of love, even if he did not connect it to God. And such people, performing Christ’s works (without even realising it), are many. Will they really not be saved? Will Catholics and Protestants not be saved? Priest Alexander Yelchaninov quotes St. Paul’s words about the afterlife fate of non-Christians. "For all who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law" (Romans 2:12). "Does this mean that those who have not sinned without the law will be justified?" Yelchaninov asks. "For they have ‘the law written in their hearts’ and their conscience."

Archbishop John Shakhovskoy writes that people seem the same, like trees in winter. "But spring will come. The moral sun will fill the world’s life, and in the end, it will become clear what lived in a person. Some will 'char', others will 'shine'.” And it seems to me that this “revelation” will not happen along the religious/non-religious line, but in whether a person has taken something from the Church for themselves. Or not.

I learned that the investigator has called my beloved for questioning as a witness. I can feel fear creeping into my soul, for we all know how the system has worked since the times of the Bolsheviks. Today you are a witness, and tomorrow – the accused.

It is now Saturday evening. For 18 years, as a choirmaster, and before that as a singer, I was always in the church at this time for the Vigil service. And, to be honest, sometimes I felt tired and wanted to skip the service, perhaps go on a pilgrimage. Today, I spend this time in my cell, with the sound of the TV in the background. How wrong I was. How I long to be in my church now, participating in the Divine Liturgy. I read my "dear" first kathisma. Much of it is about me: " Away from me, all you who do evil, for the Lord has heard my weeping" (Psalm 6:8). " O Lord my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me" (Psalm 7:1).

I recalled the words of my beloved, that the Lord has placed me in these circumstances, awaiting my change. Once I change, once God sees it, the circumstances will change too. Yelchaninov writes: "God sends us people, circumstances, deeds, from which our renewal should begin, and we ignore them, thereby resisting God’s will for us, hour after hour."

Should prison be the start of my renewal? Father Alexander Yelchaninov writes: "When a person reaches a point where all paths are closed in the horizontal plane, the road upwards opens. Water, constrained on all sides, rises upwards, and the soul, squeezed, compressed by sorrow, rises to the sky."

21 April

Today is Sunday. My family is singing the Liturgy in the church, while a dark cloud has enveloped me again. I am a "man", a "confessor", so I must "hold on". But how hard it is in these moments; how unbearable it is to sit in a locked cell behind bars. The greatest gift God gave to man is freedom. God does not restrict us. Even if we do terribly vile things. Because it is freedom. And it is desperately cherished not only by humans. Often, animals, caught in traps, will gnaw off their own leg to regain their freedom. How I understand them now. I would do the same today. Isn't this what Christ speaks about: "It is better for you to enter into life maimed, than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire" (Matthew 18:8)? But under these conditions, they won’t release me from the cell.

My cell-mates have been here for 9 months. One of them told me that at first, they prayed together morning and evening, but after another unjust court decision, they stopped. "Where is this God?" he says. "He doesn’t exist."

What can I say to that? Can I say with certainty that, after going through such trials, I will preserve my faith?

"Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours" (Mark 11:24), says Christ. But what is more important here – to ask or to believe? Does it mean that those who ask and do not receive simply do not believe enough? Is that it?

To receive what we ask for, there must there be a certain level of faith, and if it’s insufficient, nothing will happen? Every day I ask God to bring me out of here. But do I have enough faith? "Bring my soul out of prison" – how close these words are to me now.

I discussed with my cell-mate the fate of people sentenced to 15 years or life imprisonment. Specifically, how their families react to them. A person who was the breadwinner yesterday suddenly becomes a burden – someone they must support, buy for, send packages to, etc. "It’s better to be run over by a car or die of a heart attack," says my new neighbour. "You cry over, bury, and you can live on. But this? A living corpse?"

Horrible words, but there is logic in them. What strength of love must one have to support and care for a person until their grave? To give up the chance of starting a new relationship and live a full life again?

I recall the words of Father Sergey Ch., that a man in such a situation must "let go" his family. It’s very painful to "try on" such a possibility for oneself, but the thoughts keep pursuing me.

22 April

The day before, I spoke with my beloved. For the first time during all this time, her voice was nervous and anxious. She was supposed to meet with the lawyer to answer all the questions for the upcoming interrogation, but he cancelled the meeting. Poor thing, poor thing. In one moment, her whole life has been shattered. But perhaps, maybe not? All we have left is hope.

The television in the cell is now an essential thing. I’ve already been in three cells, and it’s always on. Only in the last one, they turn it off at night. However, it’s hardly ever watched. Once, when one of my cell-mates was asleep and the other was reading, I asked the latter if I could turn off the TV. He objected. “It’s more peaceful with it on,” he said. The television here is seen as a window to the world. For the inmates, it’s like a surrogate, an illusion of their old normal life, especially for those who watched it regularly when they were free. Is this good or bad?

Prison is the breaking point of your life, where you can either desperately cling to old habits or try to find a way out. There are very few who seek the way up. There were none in Cell 13. They thought that God had abandoned them, betrayed them. Can we blame them for that? If Christ Himself, hanging on the cross, cried out to the Father, “My God, why have You forsaken me?” In our minds, we understand that the suffering we face now is not going to last forever. That one day there will be either freedom or death (which is also freedom). But if Christ Himself doubted that God was with Him in His moment of suffering, what can we expect from us, poor creatures? How can we have such faith? And is it even possible to have faith regardless of everything?

The Saviour tells Peter that anyone who "leaves wife or children for my name’s sake will receive a hundredfold and inherit eternal life" (Matthew 19:29). But these words of His concern a voluntary choice. No one asked me. Should I hope for a reward?

It is simply amazing how such simple things, like the sun and physical exercise, affect your inner state. I held my face to the sunlight during the prison walk, stood there for a while, and the feeling was as if that light was driving away the dark cloud that almost always weighs on my heart. Thank God for this small comfort.

In the neighbouring cell, there is some oligarch. During the walk, he mentioned that he is arranging for a service in the chapel on the prison grounds for Easter. A maximum of 10 people. If I am still here, there’s a chance I could attend the Liturgy. P.S. My cell-mates say this is just idle talk.

24 April

I didn’t write anything yesterday because it was very difficult. I’m not sure if today will be any easier. In this small cell, despite the normal living conditions, the burden of idleness is especially felt. Two of my cellmates are loitering, not knowing how to effectively kill time – they sleep, watch TV, and, of course, and are glued to their mobiles.

For me, it’s truly hard without work. There was one evening when I had a "plane" (that’s what they call the phone in the detention centre), and I was able to work on it. I now realise that it was probably the happiest moment I’ve had in prison (if such words are appropriate here). If it were possible to live with my family, communicate with my loved ones, and work, it would be possible to somehow exist here. But right now, I have none of those things. Prayer doesn’t come to me at all. It’s probably a litmus test of my spiritual state. Yesterday, I found out that, according to the lawyers, I will be here for at least six months. For the other inmates, that’s nothing. For me, it feels like an eternity. The main thing is that these months don’t turn into years.

I spoke with my beloved wife and my eldest daughter. I feel that they have already adjusted and are getting used to living without me. I really hope that this situation doesn’t become permanent. I don’t want to become a "living corpse".

I remembered Viktor Frankl and his "Say yes to life". Despite the horrors of the concentration camp, his prisoners didn’t have time to think about their fate – they worked hard all day and fell into sleep in the evening. It’s not like that here. You spend the whole day with thoughts of your future fate running through your head. And if you wake up in the middle of the night, it’s almost impossible to fall back to sleep.

25 April

Yesterday was the hardest day in the detention centre (so far, the hardest). The perception of being in prison seemed to intensify a hundredfold. It’s like looking at the light after you’ve put some drops in your eyes that block pupil constriction. "Normal" people wouldn’t understand. Light is just light. How can it cause pain?

I feel that people on the outside are irritated by the fact that I can be dissatisfied with something here, in a good cell. Or perhaps there really is something painful in the way I perceive the situation?

Today I heard in the news that the abbot of the Sviatogorsk Lavra, Metropolitan Arseniy, has been arrested. They’re accusing him of strange things – that he informed Russia about certain objects in Kramatorsk. Certainly, on the television they made sure to say he was from the MP. It seems that the 61 billion from the US has removed the last restraints on the government regarding the UOC. Now they feel free to do anything. And I doubt Metropolitan Arseniy is the last. So, there’s no hope that we’ll be "pardoned". Everything indicates that the UOC will be brutally and demonstratively destroyed. Will I be able to endure here? Or will I break? I wonder, what does that word even mean?

Strength and Weakness

A man is supposed to be strong by default. Primarily morally strong. But what is inner strength?

Many facts suggest that a person, while acting in our familiar earthly world, simultaneously exists in another – a non-material one. It is there that the most important events of our life take place, the real interaction with people and more. After all, everyone agrees that love, hatred and all other feelings and emotions are not earthly phenomena. They are, to draw a parallel with modernity, "virtual reality".

Millions of people today spend the majority of their time on social media. In our earthly world, social media and games seem to be invisible – they are just a complex of electromagnetic waves, inaccessible to any of our senses. But that doesn’t make the internet any less real. Or any less desirable. I think every person has their own "avatar", existing in a parallel emotional or even spiritual universe. That is where our true communication lies.

"Sensitive" people, with delicate natures, orient themselves much more easily in this world, absorbing all the treasures they can find, first and foremost – love. At the same time, they are much more vulnerable to the influence of evil spirits than their more "thick-skinned" counterparts. Does this mean that "sensitive" people are weak, and "thick-skinned" people are strong?

We know that some saints, even while alive, communicated with angels and the righteous who were already in Eternity. But such a connection with the spiritual universe requires extremely powerful "equipment" – spiritual "antennas," "routers," and so on. We, poor souls, do not have that. We cannot reach such heights. Yet, the desire for communication is strong. So, we’ve created a surrogate of the spiritual universe – Telegram, Facebook, games, etc. But if you can penetrate the Heavenly world and establish a connection with it, no demonic schemes will be able to harm you. But how do you achieve this?

26 April

The evening before, we learned that our cell-mate had been placed under house arrest by the court. Today, we went through his belongings. Some things we kept, others we set aside for other co-prisoners, and some we threw away. In short, we acted as if the person had died. But he hasn’t died. On the contrary, he has returned to life. Signs of Eternity are everywhere. One just has to be able to see them.

Our "deceased" made himself known. He says that for the first time in 9 months, he woke up at home, not in prison, and cannot quite believe it. If only our departed could send us a message, even once. "I woke up at Home, in Eternity. I just can’t believe it!"

4 May

Great Saturday. One of my favourite days of the year. After Vespers and the Divine Liturgy, there comes a special time, which I have always personally felt as "pre-eternal," that is, standing just before Eternity. We have already suffered with Christ, gone through all His torments, His trials, and even the moment of His abandonment. But Great Saturday is the day when everything is behind, and you know that just a little more, and you will be overwhelmed by a wave of rejoicing. And even though today is a time of silence, within this silence already lies great joy. Soon, soon, the priest will quietly sing "Your Resurrection, O Christ Saviour," and this joy will burst forth. And all of Saturday you live in expectation, in anticipation of that moment.

But it’s not the same now. I have not been to any of the Lenten or Passion Week services. I am in prison. And the closed St Nicholas Сhurch opposite my cell is a symbol of my present state.

For about 25 years, I attended all of these (and other) services. And I remember sometimes I wanted to skip one, rest or go to another church. How wrong I was. Today, I would be happy to be in my home church, even if just for a minute.

The Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl, who survived the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, writes that at the time he imagined himself viewing those experiences from the perspective of his "future" self. As if he were writing a scientific paper, analysing that reality as a researcher many years later. It's a very interesting trick that I can apply to myself. Here I am, sitting at home several years from now, recalling and analysing my thoughts and feelings during my time in the Kyiv pre-trial detention centre.

Sometimes, you just want to look into the future, a year or two ahead, especially when things are really tough right now. Open the next page to read at least a few words. What does it say about me? Did Themis pardon me, or did I end up getting my sentence? It’s very frightening.

During Passion Week, the Book of Job is read in churches. It’s the book that most fully reveals the mystery of suffering. In response to his wife’s urging to curse God and die, Job, who has lost his children, all his possessions, and is suffering from leprosy, speaks these remarkable words: "Shall we accept good from God, and not accept evil?"

An unattainable height for me. I am not ready to accept evil from God, even knowing that it will be for my benefit.

5 May

And so, Easter has come. In a Soviet song, Victory Day was called "a joy with tears in the eyes." Perhaps this is the most accurate description of my celebration today. My girls are singing the service, while I am behind bars. For the first time in so many years, I have been not in church, not with them. But am I really not with them? At midnight, I stood by the window, and, facing the closed and dark St Nicholas Church (which is right opposite my cell), I began to sing the Paschal Matins. In a whisper, so as not to wake the others. A very strange feeling. It’s as if I am part of the great celebration of the universe, yet I am watching it through a slightly open door. Unfortunately, all hopes that Fr. Sergiy would be allowed to hold a service here proved to be in vain.

In the morning, a "priest" from the OCU appeared near the church, and in 10 minutes, he "blessed" several boxes of Easter cakes. Only about a dozen "goats" (prisoners working for the administration) were present. Another officer filmed the event on his phone. And that was the entire celebration. We, the inmates, "broke our fast". I sang the Paschal troparion. Nikolai read Psalm 139. At least we prayed like this. The soul feels a little warmer.

Since they introduced IP telephony, I’ve been talking to my beloved without restrictions for 3 days, and it’s entirely legal. It’s amazing, but we’ve become even closer. We are all used to the idea that, in any activity, a person will sooner or later reach a "ceiling". But with love, there is no ceiling. It seems that yesterday we were so close that we couldn’t be any closer. But then today comes, I hear my beloved’s voice, and I realise that we have united even more strongly. Love is not of this world. Like the Kingdom of Heaven, it "will have no end". It is infinite. It "moves the sun and the other stars".

I am struck by how closely my situation mirrors that of the deceased. Both the prisoner and the deceased, no matter how hard they try, cannot return to their former life. In both cases, a person lives in anticipation of judgment. The only difference is that, thanks to communication technology, a prisoner can still communicate with the "earthly world". The deceased is worse off – they have no such opportunity. Despite all their technology, people are unable to establish contact with the afterlife. What if such a connection became possible? Fr Alexander Yelchaninov advises the loved ones of the deceased to "step over with them into that world, to be comforted by the love of those close to them". This is exactly what my loved ones are doing now. They have "stepped over" with me into the world of the detention centre, supporting me, sending parcels, and at the same time, they comfort themselves with the love of those around them: family and our church community.

There is another similarity. After a person dies, their loved ones mourn for a month or two, and then life gradually returns to its normal course. The same happens with arrest. At first, there is shock and horror, but gradually the wound heals. Loved ones and relatives get used to living alone. And the less close ones completely forget.