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[AUDIO OUT] --reaction to it. I find-- [AUDIO OUT]

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I think it's a very good read apart from anything else. It's quite easy to read. And it gives us the case histories of six or eight people in the Soviet Union

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who are suffering for their faith, people who are, I think Michael, one could say really saints and martyrs in the early Christian sense. What's the significance, though, of the title you've given it, "Risen Indeed"? That's the traditional Russian Easter greeting.

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It begins in church with the priest or the deacon facing the congregation and saying, "Christ is risen." And everyone then takes up the chant and say, "Christ is risen indeed." It's as though the waves from within the service go out over the Soviet Union.

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It's amazing how widespread that greeting still is, despite 65 years of Soviet atheism. It's been unable to kill the faith, it rises again. Oh, completely, yes. Now why is it that in a state which believes that religion is ridiculous and exploded,

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these people are nevertheless regarded as so dangerous? It must be because Christians in Russia are an alternative ideology. In fact, the only legal alternative in the Soviet Union, although you wouldn't sometimes think it was legal the way people are treated for an open expression of their Christian

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faith. Nevertheless, the church still is legal, and because of this, worship goes on in the open in thousands of churches, not as many as there should be, but thousands of churches throughout the Soviet Union. Michael, if I could come in just briefly. One of the things I discovered when I was

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there, when we were in Zagorsk, was the number of young men coming forward to the seminaries. I thought this was a fairly recent phenomenon, perhaps things had changed fairly dramatically in the last while. But I think it is a fact that young men coming from all parts of Russia, there was a sort of odd quota system to try and ration them. Is that correct? Yes. What has happened is that for about 40 years after the revolution leading up to the Second World War, there was no seminary training at all.

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After that, after the war, suddenly the gates of the seminary were opened. And young men like these, I mean some of them are just 17, 18 year olds, come from all over the Soviet Union. Oh yes, they do. For many years there was a great restriction on them coming in at all under Khrushchev 20 years ago. Now it's become much easier again and the number has increased.

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This is a very hopeful book. Gerald, do you share the optimism that young men like these under instruction are going to play a major part in Christianity throughout Christendom rather than just in the Soviet Union?

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Well, I think this is obviously one of the lessons of the early church, that Christianity is never more strong and vigorous when it is under persecution. I would like to ask Michael Bordeaux, he makes the point in his book that faith is in a way fashionable among the young now,

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the young now in the Soviet Union. How seriously can we take this? Yes, before I answer that question, you say that it's an optimistic book.

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Well, maybe it is from some points of view. But let's not forget that there are many hundred-- we believe at least 400-- people actually in prison for their faith in the Soviet Union at the moment.

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Yes, to some extent, the faith is fashionable. But this is just something superficial. The depth of the faith is not fashionable. the depth of the faith is something which if you express it, and people do express it,

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you're likely to suffer very greatly for it. Not only the Russian Protestants that we haven't yet talked about in this program, but Russian Orthodox people sometimes suffer for their faith as well. And this is going on right at this moment.

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So you have the two sides, the plus side with the open churches and the wonderful worship that we've seen in this program, and you have the minus side, the hidden side of the faith. Real Christianity costs a great deal in Russia today,

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and even those in training might well suffer for their faith later on. One of the outrageous things about all this is that according to Soviet constitution and Soviet law, belief is quite legal, and the persecution itself seems to be illegal. How can they get away with it? What charges do they make?

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They make a charge of anti-Soviet activity. What on earth does that mean? It means absolutely nothing. It means precisely what the prosecutor wants it to mean

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on the given occasion and to fit the given facts. It doesn't fit the facts. You can read transcripts of people's trials in which it becomes obvious.

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I was reading one earlier on today, as a matter of fact, Vladimir Poresh, a young man from who founded an organization called the Christian Seminar, discussion group.

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That's what all it was for young members of the Orthodox Church. He testified in his trial that he'd never done anything political or anti-Soviet in those terms at all,

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and yet he's undergoing a lengthy prison sentence at this very moment. There's one question I think many people must be asking at this moment. What can we do for these people? There are some very important things that we can do.

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First of all, we have to be informed. And if we're informed, we can pray and add our spiritual weight to this cause. And if one is informed through the work of Keston College, just outside London in Kent, then one will get the facts straight.

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Because you dedicate yourselves to the collection of information from inside the Soviet Union. Yes, indeed we do, and I've personally spent the last 20 years of my life doing just that. This seems a rather risky business. How do you go about it? The risks are taken by Russian Christians who write about their own situation,

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or Czech Christians, or Polish Christians for that matter. Many of them are prepared to take risks in order that we should know the truth. All we claim to be is a voice for the suffering church. Can you give us an example of a modern Russian saint

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who we might bear in our prayers at the moment? Well, if I had to pick out one, I would mention the name of Father Gleb Yakunin, a Russian Orthodox priest. He's my own age, to the very same month, as a matter of fact.

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He's been in prison since 1979 for doing nothing other than fighting for religious liberty. He spent 20 years doing that before he was imprisoned, and during that time he was prepared to take any risk.

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He is deprived of being with his family. He has three children. The children are suffering very greatly because the family has no breadwinner.

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There's no such thing as social security in the Soviet Union. Here, a prisoner will be supported by the state, or his family will, not in the Soviet Union. and this man the other day wrote me personally and I received the letter

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begging to put my weight behind asking the Soviet authorities for this man to have the right to receive and to read a Bible. Well, let's hope that at least that minimum privilege can be granted him. Michael, thank you very much. Gerald, thank you as well.