Vladimir Shelkov (December 20, 1895 – January 27, 1980) was a

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι ...

preacher A preacher is a person who delivers sermons or homilies on religious topics to an assembly of people. Less common are preachers who preach on the street, or those whose message is not necessarily religious, but who preach components such as a ...

and

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church is an Adventism, Adventist Protestantism, Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the Names of the days of the week#Numbered days of the week, seventh day of the ...

leader in the former

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

. He headed the Church of True and Free Seventh-day Adventists, which rejected any government interference in the activities. Vladimir was born in Velyka Vyska village of

Kherson Governorate The Kherson Governorate (1802–1922; russian: Херсонская губерния, translit.: ''Khersonskaya guberniya''; uk, Херсонська губернія, translit=Khersonska huberniia), was an administrative territorial unit (als ...

in today

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

. In 1931 Shelkov was imprisoned for the first time by the Soviet regime and spent almost all his life in prisons and camps.''Letter to the President of the USA Mr. JIMMY CARTER, to the Congress and the Senate from The All-USSR Council of the Church Of the True and Free Seventh-Day Adventists, "Memorial" society, March 1978'' In 1946 Shelkov had been sentenced to

capital punishment Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, which later was changed for 10 years imprisonment. His last confinement began in 1979, when a Soviet court in

Tashkent Tashkent (, uz, Toshkent, Тошкент/, ) (from russian: Ташкент), or Toshkent (; ), also historically known as Chach is the capital and largest city of Uzbekistan. It is the most populous city in Central Asia, with a population of ...

sentenced him (then a delicate eighty-three-year-old man) to five years of hard labor camps. He died in a labor camp Tabaga near

Yakutsk Yakutsk (russian: Якутск, p=jɪˈkutsk; sah, Дьокуускай, translit=Djokuuskay, ) is the capital city of the Sakha Republic, Russia, located about south of the Arctic Circle. Fueled by the mining industry, Yakutsk has become one of ...

in 1980.

References

1895 births 1980 deaths People from Kirovohrad Oblast People from Yelisavetgradsky Uyezd Ukrainian Christian religious leaders Former Seventh-day Adventists Soviet dissidents {{Ukraine-bio-stub