Gleb Yakunin
| Gleb Yakunin | |
|---|---|
Gleb Yakunin at a Moscow opposition rally November 3, 2012
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| Member of the Supreme Soviet of Russia (1990-1993) | |
| Member of the State Duma (1993-1995) | |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin 4 March 1936 Moscow, Soviet Union |
| Died | 25 December 2014 (aged 78) Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Political party | Democratic Choice of Russia |
| Religion | Russian Orthodox |
Gleb Pavlovich Yakunin (Russian: Глеб Па́влович Яку́нин; 4 March 1936 – 25 December 2014) was a Russian priest and dissident, who fought for the principle of freedom of conscience in the Soviet Union. He was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group, and was elected member of the Russian Parliament from 1990 to 1995.
Gleb Yakunin was born into a musical family. He studied biology at Irkutsk Agricultural Institute. He converted to Christianity at the end of the 1950s, after coming into contact with Alexander Men, and graduated from the Moscow Theological Seminary of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1959. In August 1962 he was ordained a priest and was appointed to the parish church in the city of Dmitrov near Moscow.
Together with the priest Nikolai Eschliman, Yakunin wrote an open letter in 1965 to the Patriarch of Moscow, Alexius I, where he argued that the Church must be liberated from the total control of the Soviet state. The letter was published as a samizdat ("self-published", i.e., underground press). In retaliation for this, he was forbidden to continue his priestly ministry in the parish in May 1966. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn supported Gleb Yakunin and Nikolai Eschliman in his letter to Patriarch Alexius.
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