On October 15th, 1895, I was called up for conscription.  When my turn came to draw the lot I said I would not do so.  The officials looked at me, consulted together, and asked me why I refused.

I answered that it was because I was not going either to take the oath or to carry a gun.

They said that that would be seen to later, but now I must draw the lot.

I refused once more.  Then they told the village Elder to draw the lot.  He did so and number 674 came out.  It was written down.

The military commander entered, called me into his office, and asked, “Who taught you all this – that you don’t want to take the oath?”

“I learned it myself by reading the Gospel,” I answered.

“I don’t think you are able to understand the Gospel,” he replied.  “Everything there is incomprehensible.  To understand it one has to learn a great deal.”

To this I said that Jesus did not teach anything incomprehensible, for even the simplest uneducated people understood his teaching.

Then he told a soldier to take me to the barracks.  I went to the kitchen with him and we had dinner there.

After dinner they asked me why I had not taken the oath.

“Because it is said in the Gospel, ‘Swear not at all,’” I replied.

They were astonished.  Then they asked me, “Is that really in the Gospel?  Find it for us.”

I found the passage, read it out, and they listened.

“But even if it is there,” they said, “you can’t refuse to take the oath or you’ll be tortured.”

“He who loses his earthly life will inherit eternal life,” I replied…

On the 20th I was placed in a row with other young soldiers, and the military rules were explained to us.  I told them that I would fulfill nothing of this.  They asked why.

I said, “Because as a Christian I will not bear arms or defend myself from enemies, for Christ commanded us to love even our enemies.”

“But are you the only Christian?” they asked.  “Why, we are all Christians!”

“I know nothing about others,” I replied.  “I only know for myself that Jesus told us to do what I am now doing.”

The commander said, “If you won’t drill, I’ll let you rot in prison.”

To this I replied, “Do what you like with me, but I won’t serve.”

Today a commission examined me.  The general said to the officers, “What opinions has this suckling got hold of that he refuses service?  Millions serve, and he alone refuses.  Have him well flogged; then he will change his views…”
(A letter from a Russian peasant who refused military service)

Olkhovík was transported to the Amur.  On the steamer everybody fasted during Lent, but he refused.  The soldiers asked him why.  He explained.  Another soldier (Seredá) joined in the conversation.  Olkhovík opened the Gospel and began to read the fifth chapter of Matthew.  Having read it, he said, “Jesus forbids the oath, courts of justice, and war, but all this is done among us and is considered legitimate.” A crowd of soldiers had collected around, and remarked that Seredá was not wearing a cross on his neck.  “Where is your cross?” they asked.

“In my box,” he answered.

They asked again, “Why don’t you wear it?”

“Because I love Jesus,” he replied, “and so I can’t wear the thing on which he was crucified.”

Then two non-commissioned officers came up and began talking to Seredá.  They asked, “How is it that not long ago you used to fast, but now you have taken off your cross?”

He replied, “Because I was then in the dark and did not see the light, but now I have begun to read the Gospel and have learned that a Christian need not do all that.”

Then they asked, “Does this mean that, like Olkhovík, you won’t serve?”

“Yes,” he replied.

They asked why, and he answered, “Because I am a Christian, and Christians must not take arms against men.”

Seredá was arrested and, together with Olkhovík, was exiled to the province of Yakútsk, where they now are.  The Letters of P. V. Olkhovík

On January 27th, 1894, in the Vorónezh prison hospital, a man named Drozhín, formerly a village teacher in Kursk province, died of pneumonia.  His body was thrown into a grave in the prison cemetery like the bodies of all the criminals who die in the prison.  Yet he was one of the saintliest, purest, and most truthful men that ever lived.

In August 1891 he was called up for conscription, but, considering all men to be his brothers and regarding murder and violence as the greatest sins against conscience and the will of God, he refused to be a soldier or to bear arms.  Also, considering it a sin to surrender his will into the power of others who might demand evil actions of him, he refused to take the oath.  Men whose lives are founded on violence and murder condemned him first to one year’s solitary confinement in Khárkov, but later he was transferred to the Vorónezh penal battalion where for fifteen months he was tortured by cold, hunger, and solitary confinement.  Finally, when consumption developed from his incessant sufferings and privations and he was recognized as unfit for military service, he was transferred to the civil prison where he was to remain confined for another nine years.  But while being transferred from the penal battalion to the prison on an extremely frosty day, the police officials neglected to furnish him with a warm coat.  The party remained for a long time in the street in front of the police station, and this caused him to catch such a cold that pneumonia set in, from which he died twenty-two days later.

The day before his death, Drozhín said to the doctor, “Though I have not lived long, I die with a consciousness of having acted in accord with my convictions and my conscience.  Others of course may judge about this better than I can.  Perhaps…  No, I think that I am right,” he concluded.  The Life and Death of Drozhín

Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.  Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place.  Ephesians 6:11-14

But I shall be asked, “How are we to act now – immediately – among ourselves in Russia at this moment, when our foes are already attacking us, killing our people, and threatening us?  How is a Russian soldier, officer, general, Czar, or private individual, to act?  Are we really to let our enemies ruin our dominions, seize the products of our labor, carry off prisoners, and kill our men?  What are we to do now that this thing has begun?”

“But before the work of war began,” every man who has reflected should reply, “before all else, the work of my life had begun.”  The work of my life has nothing to do with recognition of the rights of the Chinese, Japanese, or Russians to Port Arthur.  The work of my life consists in fulfilling the will of Him who sent me into this life.  And that will is known to me.  That will is that I should love my neighbor and serve him.  Then why should I – following temporary, casual demands that are cruel and irrational – deviate from the eternal and changeless law of my whole life?  If there is a God, He will not ask me when I die (which may happen at any moment) whether I retained Chinnampo with its timber stores, or Port Arthur, or even that conglomeration which is called the Russian Empire, which He did not entrust to my care.  He will ask me what I have done with that life which He has put at my disposal.  Did I use it for the purpose for which it was intended and under whose conditions it was entrusted to me?  Have I fulfilled His law?

To this question as to what is to be done now that war has begun, for me, a man who understands his vocation, whatever position I may occupy, there can be no other answer than this: that whatever the circumstances may be, whether the war has begun or not, whether thousands of Russians or Japanese have been killed, whether not only Port Arthur but St. Petersburg and Moscow have been captured – I cannot act otherwise than as God demands of me, and that therefore I as a man cannot either directly or indirectly, whether by organizing, helping, or inciting to it, take part in war.  I cannot, I do not wish to, and I will not.  I do not and cannot know what will happen immediately or later from my ceasing to do what is contrary to the will of God, but I believe that nothing can follow from fulfilling the will of God but what is good for me and for all men.

You speak with horror of what would happen if we Russians at once ceased to fight and yielded to the Japanese all that they wish of us.  But if it is true that the salvation of mankind from brutalization and self-destruction lies solely in the establishment among men of true religion, demanding that we should love our neighbor and serve him (with which it is impossible to disagree), then every war, every hour of war, and my participation in it only renders the realization of this only possible means of salvation more difficult and remote.  Even looking at it from your precarious point of view – appraising actions by their presumed consequences – even so, a yielding by the Russians to the Japanese of all that they desire of us, apart from the unquestionable advantage of ending the ruin and slaughter, would be an advance toward the only means of saving mankind from destruction, whereas the continuance of the war, however it may end, would hinder that only means of salvation.

“But even if this were so,” people reply, “wars can cease only when all men, or the majority of them, refuse to participate in them.  The refusal of one man, whether he is Czar or soldier, would only unnecessarily ruin his life, without the least advantage to anyone.  If the Russian Czar were now to renounce the war, he would be dethroned or perhaps killed to get rid of him.  If an ordinary man were to refuse military service, he would be sent to a penal battalion or perhaps shot.  Why then uselessly throw away one’s life, which might be of use to society?”  This is usually said by those who do not think of the vocation of their whole life, and therefore do not understand it.

But this is not what is said and felt by a man who understands the purpose of his life, that is, by a religious man.  Such a one is guided in his activity, not by the conjectural consequences of his actions, but by the consciousness of the purpose of his life.  A factory workman goes to the factory and in it does the work allotted to him without considering what will be the consequence of his work.  In the same way a soldier acts, carrying out the will of his commanders.  So acts a religious man, doing the work prescribed to him by God without arguing as to just what will come of his work.  And so for a religious man there is no question as to whether many or few men act as he does, or of what may happen to him if he does what he should do.  He knows that nothing can happen besides life and death, and that life and death are in the hands of God, whom he obeys.

A religious man acts so and not otherwise, not because he wishes to act thus or because it is advantageous to him or to others, but because, believing that his life is in the hands of God, he cannot do otherwise.  In this lies the speciality of the activity of religious men.  And so the salvation of men from the ills they inflict upon themselves will be accomplished only to the extent to which they are guided in their lives, not by advantages or arguments, but by religious consciousness.