It has recently been learn ed that Orthodox Christian Nikolai Serebrennikov, 33, was released earlier this year from forced confinement in Tomsk psychiatric hospital where he had been since August 1986.

    Serebrennikov was arrested shortly after writing an “Appeal to Believers in Christ” dated August 2, 1986, concerning the forthcoming Millennium of Christianity in Russia. Earlier he had written open letters to Gorbachov, calling for an amnesty for political prisoners in the year of the Millennium, 1988, to Patriarch Pimen suggesting the proclamation of “a thousand days of prayer” to mark the anniversary and to UNESCO calling for 1988 to be proclaimed “The Year of the Russian Church.”              (KNS 6/11/87)

The release of some political prisoners in the USSR is, truly, a great victory, but also great in the danger that it encompasses –the danger of slackening our wigilance, of weakening our determination.

–recently released Orthodox prisoner  of conscience. Valery Senderov