Murdered on Easter Morning | The Optina Monastery Tragedy

On Easter morning, April 18, 1993, celebration turned to tragedy at Optina Pustyn Monastery in Russia. As bells rang to proclaim the Resurrection of Christ, three monks were murdered in a crime that would shock the nation and leave lasting questions about faith, madness, and evil.

This video tells the full, carefully researched story of the Optina Pustyn murders — the lives of the men who died, the investigation that followed, and why this case still resonates during Russia’s post-Soviet spiritual revival.

The victims were:

• Hieromonk Vasily, born Igor Ivanovich Roslyakov, a former champion water-polo athlete and journalist who left worldly success behind to devote himself to prayer, confession, and spiritual guidance.
• Monk Trophim, born Alexei Leonidovich Tatarnikov — often listed simply as Alexei Tatarnikov — a former soldier and fisherman known for his strength, joy, and radical generosity. (In Russian tradition, the middle name reflects his father’s name, Leonid.)
• Monk Ferapont, born Vladimir Pushkariov, a quiet ascetic from Siberia whose spiritual journey included a rejection of occult practices and an uncompromising life of prayer.

After breaking their Lenten fast, the monks continued ringing the Paschal bells when a man blended into the monastery grounds and attacked. The bells stopped. Three lives were taken. And Russia was left searching for answers.

The investigation uncovered planted evidence, satanic symbols carved into weapons, eyewitness accounts of a mysterious man fleeing into the woods, and a trail that led police to a local resident with a long history of severe mental illness and religious delusions.

The man arrested was Nikolai Averin, who had previously spoken with monks at Optina about voices commanding him to act. He rejected their advice to ignore the voices and seek medical help. After his arrest, he calmly confessed — stating he did not believe he had committed violence, insisting the monks had simply “gone to God.”

This case raises questions still debated today:
 Was this severe mental illness?
 Religious delusion?
 Or something darker?

This is not just a true-crime story.
 It is a story about martyrdom, resurrection, and what happens when faith is tested at its most vulnerable moment.

Transcript

Speaker: 0:00

On a crisp spring night in April 1993, the ancient Optina Pustyn monastery stood quiet. For centuries, this monastery in the Russian countryside had been a spiritual center. It was once home to respected elders who advised writers like Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. After decades of Soviet repression, the monastery was returned to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1987 and slowly came back to life. By the early 1990s, the sounds of bells and prayers once again filled its stone walls. Orthodoxy was experiencing a revival in a country that had been officially atheist for more than 70 years. Thousands of pilgrims visited Optina to celebrate Easter, the most joyful feast of the Christian year, in 1993. Easter fell on April 18th, and as midnight struck on Pascha, the monastery erupted in radiant joy. Bells rang out across the countryside. Candles flickered in the night, and monks and pilgrims sang Christ has risen. NO ONE imagined the horror that was The unseen witness. I hope your holidays were good, right now I'm probably going to put a damper on those joyful feelings of happiness and happiness, so I'm sorry about that. But you're making that choice by continuing to watch, which lo-key I appreciate. This case is extremely gruesome. I'm not going to lie to you. It is a case that no one really talks about in America. It is for our Orthodox brothers and sisters who I have so much respect for as a Catholic. And this one goes out to you all because no one ever talks about this case. It took place in Russia. It had a huge impact. Russia has survived. They had survived horrible times. I'm sure you know the history. If you don't, leave a comment down below and I will do an episode on the history of the Christian** oppression in Russia. But yeah, let's get right into it, because I have babbled enough is babbled an English word I have yapped, I have yapped enough. So let's get right into the case. So first I'm gonna start introducing the victims, because on this podcast or on this YouTube channel, it's really, victim centered because these victims are what I classify as heroes, martyrs, etc. and I want the case to be mostly a dedication to how great and amazing they were. So I will be doing a victim centered episode on most of my episodes, so let's get to know them a little bit, because they're extremely important. Oh, quick disclaimer it's Russian, so need I say more. I don't know how to speak Russian. My pronunciations will 100% be off for some of the victims. I'm going to refer to them as their new given name from when they joined the faith. And if I do mention their first names, it's going to be just their first names, because, can't pronounce it, but I will put their names, all of their full names in the description. Okay, cool cool cool. So the first victim was Hiermonk Vasily, and his first name was Igor. He was born in Moscow in 1960. He excelled at sports and became a champion water polo player. Before embracing monastic life. He studied journalism at Moscow State University, earned a master's degree in sports, captained his university team, and even married. He also worked as a sports instructor. He had a full secular life, as you can tell. Yet this secular life left him feeling empty, as it typically does for many of us. After a divorce, he began visiting churches, and it was what drew him to prayer and writings of the Holy Fathers. When he joined Optina, Igor used his physical strength to protect the fledgling community. During the early days of rebuilding, he famously picked up some rowdy teens who were vandalizing the monastery walls and tossed them into the tall grass to teach them respect. He sensed divine grace in ordinary events. For example, during a baptism in a natural spring, he held a woman's hand and saw rays of light streaming from her eyes. Easter touched him profoundly. He would stand through two long Paschal services with tears in his eyes, and later told people that he longed to die on Easter to the sound of the church bells, which keep in mind, because this does kind of foreshadow what occurs in this case. And it's insane. The type of connection that these victims had or these martyrs had to the Lord for them to know such things and predict such things. Igor entered Optina Pustyn as a novice in 1989, and he helped rebuild the monastery. In 1990, he was tonsured and given the religious name Vasily, and tonsuring is a ceremony in which a monk symbolically renounces the world and dedicates his life fully to God. And I believe, in certain practices they either remove a part of your hair or they shave your hair off. I'm not quite sure which one occurred here. He lived an ascetic life in a modest cell, furnished with a wooden plank bed and a brick for a pillow. I mean, I couldn't even imagine that type of dedication just right off the bat. A wooden plank bed and a brick as a pillow. My goodness, he ate little. He prayed at night, and he served as a talented preacher and hymn writer and was loved for his humility and his compassion. He took on the burdens of others. He often spent up to 18 hours a day hearing confessions. He wrote down the names of those who came to him and later bowed in his room to pray for every single one of them. One worker who came to him in despair, who was planning to end his life, left after a short conversation and prayer, laughing and full of hope. He had been renewed. Shortly before his death, he took a treasured Jerusalem cross, which was a wooden cross that pilgrims had carried along the way of Christ in Jerusalem, and he asked another monk to hang it in the icon workshop. He told his brothers to keep it there for a while. He was later killed near that very cross, and weeks later, drops of holy chrism appeared on it and did not dry for many days. During the Holy Week of 1993, he worked tirelessly, hearing confessions. Exhausted, he remarked that cutting the prosphora felt as if he were cutting into his own flesh, and the prosphora is a small leavened bread baked for a Divine Liturgy, from which the Eucharist bread is taken and offered to God. Unbeknownst to him, these words would soon be proven prophetic. Now if Father Vassily could have been an Olympic champion. The second victim was built like a Viking. Alexei was born in 1954 and grew up in the far east of Russia. He served in the army and then spent years on a fishing trawler. Sailors loved him for his good nature and his deep voice. He could sing and dance for hours on deck. He stood well over six foot tall, with blond hair and blue eyes. This is describing my fiancee, and his arms were so strong that he could twist iron pokers and nails into knots. I have yet to test this on my fiancee. Yet this power never became cruelty. He used it to plow fields for frail grandmothers, lift heavy loads for neighbors, and stir laughter among workers. witnesses would see him pull sacks of grain over his shoulders and deliver them to villagers who had no sons to help them. Trofim’s inner strength, and Trofim, was the name he received after he was welcomed into the church or into the monastery. Trofim’s inner strength matched his physique. Before entering the monastic life, he worked at a stud farm and was known for his graceful way of handling horses. He could ride bareback and would let children climb up behind him. As he trotted through the village, he would drive the monastery tractor home. After long days in the fields, and groups of children and animals would follow him, because he always had a smile and a treat for them. He sometimes rebelled against the strict schedule of the monastery to help villagers plow their fields or repair the roofs. When the abbot punished him for missing services, he accepted the discipline quietly, saying he would rather be reprimanded than leave an old woman hungry. Those who knew him remember his generosity. Whenever he received his small stipend, he spent it buying scarves for grandmothers, or touching clothes to relics of saints and giving them to the sick. He stayed up after midnight prayer service to hang wet clothes, mend boots and weave rosaries for his brothers. Sometimes he did not sleep at all and would still be back on the tractor before sunrise. When novice monks felt discouraged, he encouraged them to read psalms. He said that reading out loud was like a ray of sunlight piercing an overcast sky and warming the heart. People often notice that there was no pest where he plowed, and he explained that all he did to treat the grounds was repeat, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner. And that did the magic trick. After his death, villagers took handfuls of earth from his grave and sprinkled it on their gardens, believing it that it would protect their crops. Trofim’s vocation began with a mystical sign. While visiting a monastery, he paused before an icon and saw a radiant light. He heard a gentle voice inviting him to become a monk, and he felt that each icon spoke to his heart. He told his friends that after that moment, he could not imagine living anywhere else. In 1990, he joined Optina Pustyn as a novice. His wide smile and hearty laugh drew people to the faith. He often said that belief must be lived joyfully. He kept a brightly dyed Easter egg from a previous year on his shelf as a reminder of the Pascal grace, and he would show it to visitors to lift their spirits. I, I love the part about the Easter egg. It's just so endearing and cute. Like Father Vassily, he possessed a holy stubbornness. He once wrote to his relatives, urging them to attend church and confess their sins, and to remember that earthly things are worthless. I live only for God, he wrote, and prison is a monastery of the devil. These words reveal his simple yet profound theology, and the days before Pascha, he worked even harder than usual, as if he were storing up acts of mercy for his journey back home. As Pascha approached, Trofim dropped hints that he would not be in the world for long. He told fellow monks that he felt like he only had half a year or a year remaining. He began to give away his possessions and tools, which was an unusual behavior at the time, when the monastery lacked basic supplies. He explained that simply he would not need them anymore. His normally quick stride slowed to a labor walk. Others saw him moving as if carrying a heavy burden, while others stated that they believed he was taking in every last second In his last letter to his relatives, he urged them to turn to the church, implying that they might not hear from him ever again. He cherished his brightly died Easter egg and whispered that he hoped to celebrate the resurrection forever. These actions and words later seemed like premonitions of his martyrdom to come. The third martyr is Ferapont. He had perhaps the strangest journey of all. He was born Vladimir in 1955, on a feast day dedicated to the Mother of God. His home village lay deep in the Siberian Tyga where men cut lumber for pennies and drowned their sorrows in drink. There was no church nearby, and nobody was baptized. Vladimir served in the army beyond the mandatory term and learned eastern martial arts. After his service, he studied agriculture and worked as a forestry technician near Lake Baikal. Though he never drank or smoked, his interest in mystical practices prompted some to call him a sorcerer, You see, while working as a lumberjack, he met an old man who gave him a book on magic. For fun, he began doing simple tricks, such as sending local girls into the woods to write notes and then reading them at a distance. And although this made him popular with the girls, something horrible happened to him. During one experiment, he had a terrifying out-of-body vision in which his soul seemed to travel to a kingdom of horror. An angel told him that he would be given his life back only if he promised to go to church. This vision, and his growing awareness that Eastern martial arts and yoga contained occult elements, convinced him to abandon such practices. If you want me to do an episode on yoga because I hate to break it to you, he has a point, but I'll give you a spoiler if you can do the same stretches and practices. umm I take that back. I don't know if you can do the same stretch like poses, because I know the poses all are dedicated to certain gods. If I'm correct, I can do a whole episode on it. Just let me know and let me know what your thoughts are, because a lot of people freak out when they hear this about yoga. So he was way ahead of his time. He later wrote to a friend that yoga was a swamp. He said in his village, people were intoxicated by liquor, but in yoga they were intoxicated by pride. Vladimir left the forest and traveled to Rostov on Don, a large city in southern Russia, where he could finally attend church. He took the humblest job he could find, sweeping the courtyard of the Cathedral of the Navitiy of the Mother of God. During Great Lent, he lived on crackers, proshpora, and a little holy water. For 3 years he wandered between monasteries, looking for a place to settle. At a cathedral in Keeve, the capital of Ukrainee, he begged a bishop to recommend him, saying he would even clean toilets if he meant he could become a monk. Can you think about that for a second? The fact that someone is so, like, in love with their faith and this humble lifestyle that serves God and others, they're essentially begging for a chance to become this. And we spend our life so much scrolling, Instagram, scrolling, TikTok, seeing people what they got for Christmas and feeling ungrateful, all the big houses and cars. And here we have these monks who are so dedicated to God. It's like their lifeline and, it makes me feel like the worst Christian ever, because I know I am nowhere near the level of these guys you guys...okay. He did just that for about a year, cleaning the toilets. Finally, he walked to Optina hermitage from Kaluga and was tonsured as a monk. And remember, tonsured is when they give up worldly life and part of their hair gets cut. In 1990, receiving the name Ferapont. At Optina he lived as though he barely touched the ground. Thin and silent, he prayed day and night, completing the Jesus Prayer hundreds of times and then continuing long after others had finished. His cellmate, once tried to count the number of prostration he made in a single night, but ended up falling asleep before Ferapont stopped. During Passion Week he ate nothing and rested only by leaning over a chair. Visitors sometimes mistook him for an angel. One man who doubted God said he saw the face of an angel speaking with the Lord, and pointed to Ferapont who was leaving the church. At the time, Ferapont seemed to have the gift of spiritual insight. Brothers said he could read hearts and warn of hidden dangers. On one occasion, he told a pilgrim to pray because a serious accident threatened the man's child. The pilgrim later returned to report that the child had narrowly escaped death. Ferapont would quietly ask visitors why they had come, and before they answered, he would tell them what lay on their hearts. Despite these gifts, he kept a low profile, washing dishes, carving crosses and praying. Side note as I'm reading, I'm reading a book. I don't know where the book is, but I'm reading a book, that speaks about, mystics, mysticism, saints, etc. and one thing I've noticed about them all that they all have in common is all of them have these crazy gifts, like some of them can heal others, can go from one location to another location to be with multiple dying people. Others can tell what's already on your heart before you can say them. Can fly. We covered the one of the Flying Monk. But you know what they all have in common? Every single one of them works so extremely hard to not be prideful. They humble themselves to such a high level where they're like actually cleaning floors with toothbrushes. They're repeating to themselves that this power comes from the Lord and it's nothing from them. So they go out of their way to do the same thing, like washing dishes, etc., that you see in this example right here. Just remain. I just spit... just to remain humble and to make sure that, Im sorry, my spits everywhere, to remain humble and make sure that they are obeying the Lord to his fullest capability. Because that's a very tricky line, right? Like you have all this power and you have to remember that it's not yours. Humble yourself. Anyway. Okay, the months before Pascha 1993, he acted as if he knew his end was near. Although he was normally quiet, he went around asking the brothers to pray for him. He gave away his warm clothes and carpentry carpentry tools, explaining gently that he would not need them anymore. His roommate noticed that he no longer slept, but prayed through the whole entire night. On Holy Thursday, he slipped a note into his pocket that read, if help is needed, I shall be glad to give a hand. No one knows whom this was meant for. But on the eve of Easter he stood alone in the church near the table used for memorial services for the departed. His head bowed, as though in farewell, when the bells rang for the resurrection, he was calm and joyful. Ready, it seems, to join the feast in eternity, which is crazy that he was like bowing his head in prayer, unusually, in the table of those departed. I'm telling you, like all of them had these weird things occur leading up to their death. Now, this is where we segue into joy turning into terror. The Easter service at Optina in 1983 drew roughly 10,000 people. The monks began the procession to the skeete of Saint John the Baptist, where bells pealed loudly and the midnight liturgy celebrated Christ's resurrection. After the monks had broken their Lenten fast and the crowds began to disperse, fathers Trofim and Ferapont climbed the wooden bell tower

at about 6: 19:08

10 a.m., to continue the joyful Easter ringing. The air was still cold and dark, but they were laughing about Ferapont’s cherished Pascal egg that he had saved from the previous year. Unbeknownst to them, a thin stranger in a great coat was watching them from below. Suddenly, as the bells pealed, Fair Pont fell silent, hit from behind by a long double edged blade. As the monks were standing back to back , Trofim felt the vibrations stopped and turned just in time to feel the same blade pierce his back. Stabbing from behind, the attacker struck both monks, so professionally that neither had time to fight back. Ferapont collapsed immediately. Trofim staggered and cried out, Lord, have mercy on us, help! And instinctively tugged the bell rope to sound the alarm. That was the last warning toll echoed across the monastery grounds. He, too, then crumbled and bled out on the floor. The killer, after killing them, pulled their hoodies down over their faces, almost as if to mask them before slipping out of the belfry. Father Vasily, hearing the strange aborted bells, rushed toward the tower. On the path, he met a man in a monk's coat. Brother. What happened? He asked. While father Vassily glanced away for a quick second. The man plunged the same blade into the priest's back, piercing his lung, kidney and heart. He then two took his hood and covered his face. At this point Vassily could still kind of see from under the hood, and he looked around at those rushing towards him. He tried standing until brothers finally were able to carry him to the Presentation Church. He survived longer than the others, but unfortunately died soon after the hospital. This gruesome sequence- Ferapont stabbed first, Trofim struck second, the ringing of the bell to the alarms and Father Vasily wounded as he went to help- took only a few minutes. It set the tone for the investigation that followed, and underscored how brutally and efficiently this murderer carried out his attacks.

At around 6: 21:20

25, just minutes after the bell ringers fell silent, someone reached the police in Kozelsk a part of Russia. I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right. An officer on duty picked up and heard an urgent report. Three monks had been attacked at Optina Pustyn, the news, traveled quickly up the chain of command. Soon an investigative team rushed to the scene. Within 15 minutes of the call, police cars were pulling up to the ancient monastery. Officers fanned out, sealed off nearby roads and began interviewing anyone still on the grounds. Although the Paschal celebration had dispersed most of the pilgrims, there were enough monks and workers nearby to provide crucial information. Now, the first accounts were confusing but chilling. Two young women carrying milk from the farm said that they had seen a slim figure vault over a fence shortly before they reached the bell tower. They thought it was a lay helper rushing off to fetch a doctor, and paid no further attention to it until they stumbled onto the blood stained floor and realized that something terrible had happened. Another pilgrim recalled seeing a man in a gray coat lurking near the bell tower during the service, but in the crowd of thousands, he hadn't thought much of it at the time. A third witness remembered hearing a bell toll three times in quick succession, and unusual signal, followed by a cry for help and then silence. Once the area was secured, investigators began a careful sweep of the bell tower, the path to the skeete and the outer wall of the monastery. What they found made it immediately clear that this was not a spontaneous act of violence. Near the base of the bell tower, lying in the grass, officers discovered the murder weapon, a crude homemade blade shaped like a short sword. It was double edged, unusually wide and still stained with the blood of the martyrs. Scratched directly into the metal were two markings. The number six, six, six, and the word Satan. This was not subtle. It looked intentional, symbolic. Following the trail away from the tower, police found a gray military overcoat hanging on a fence near the monastery wall, as if it had been discarded in a haste. inside of the coats pockets were a passport and a work record book belonging to a monastery laborer. A former convict who worked as a stoker. Now at first glance, it appeared that the killer had made a careless mistake. Right? Like who leaves their ID and their jacket and the weapon and everything out. But the assumption did not last long. This document showed no blood stains, no signs of struggle, and no witnesses confirmed that the man named in the papers had even been near the bell tower that morning. It quickly became clear the coat and the papers inside of it had been planted intentionally to set an alibi. The killer had framed an innocent man to buy time. An alibi for the killer. The real killer. Not the guy who stood up. I need to be clear about that. A second knife was later found hidden in the lining of the coat. Like the first one, it was engraved again with six, six, six and “SATAN” Investigators would later discover the same markings had been carved onto every weapon that the killer owned, even into the lining of his coat. Footprints and scuffed earth near the fence showed where the attacker had climbed over the wall and escaped into the woods. What stood out the most to detectives was the discipline of the scene. The attacker had struck quickly from behind, using professional force. He covered the monks faces with their hoods. After killing them, he had left symbols, false documents and no obvious fingerprints that they had discovered yet. Keep that in mind. This was not chaos. It was planned, and whoever had done it wanted the world to see what he believed in. The investigation moved forward, of course, and thank God with the crime scene documented, investigators widened their search. It was beyond the monastery walls at this point. Roads leading out of Kozelsk were monitored. Police units combed the surrounding forest on foot. There were no vehicle tracks near the wall, which confirmed that the attacker had escaped on foot and likely remained in the area and was hiding out the frame. The Stoker was officially cleared once his alibi was verified. The attention then turned to how these documents had been planted, and it turned out that the killer had stolen the man's belongings weeks before the attacks occurred, a sign of obvious planning for the murder to take place. The stoker had actually reported his jacket stolen. Now having no leads. Frantic specialist focused on the weapons. Although the blades itself had been wiped extremely clean, technicians noticed that the handle was wrapped in multiple layers of electrical tape. When the tape was carefully removed, a single fingerprint was recovered from beneath it. If that isn't God, I don't know what it is. The fingerprint did not belong to the frame man. Not at all. At the same time, police, canvased nearby towns and villagers asking about anyone who matched the witnesses description, thing, bearded, wearing a gray military coat, behaving aggressively or erratically, reports soon began to surface. In fact, a forester in a nearby village told police that shortly after Easter morning an armed man had forced his way into his home. The man then fired a weapon into the floor, demanded food and clothing, and fled back into the woods. Workers at a collective farm in Taluga, in Tula region reported a similar break in. The intruder stole supplies and disappeared on foot. In each case, the description matched. It was some chaotic man with the beard and scrawny ish or skinny bald, with like, deep anger and violence. So he was clearly leaving a trail. Police also contacted knife makers and metal workers in the region. Several remembered a strange customer who had insisted on the blades to be engraved with six, six, six and Satan. One craftsman said that the man seemed agitated and spoke about symbols as if they carried power. These reports, combined with the fingerprints and the other evidence, allowed investigators to narrow their search to a single individual who was already known to the authorities. quiet surveillance began. Family members and known addresses were monitored. No public statements were made to not let them know that they were onto them. A few days later, officers located the suspect at a relative's home, in Kozlesk. The killer was a 31 year old man named Nikolai Averin, averin? Averin?? He was not a stranger who appeared suddenly out of nowhere. Averin lived in the Kaluga region and had been known to local authorities for years. He grew up in a poor rural family on a collective farm. From an early age, people described him as withdrawn and inward turned, prone to long silences. In the late 1970s he was drafted into the Soviet Army and later served in Afghanistan. he was not exposed to the worst bloodshed of the war. Accounts indicate that his service did not involve prolonged front line combat Those who later tried to explain his crimes as the result of battlefield trauma alone were overlooked because of this fact. Whatever changed in Nikolai after his services cannot be traced simply to combat experience. After returning home, his mental state deteriorated steadily. Family members noticed he became increasingly unstable. He slept very little and complained of constant headaches and often spoke to himself. He said he heard voices and suffered from vivid nightmares. He drifted between jobs, studied briefly to become a film projectionist, and later worked as a stoker. Although he visited churches and spoke often about faith, his relationship with religion grew distorted. He read spiritual texts obsessively and spoke about God. Satan, judgment, and spiritual warfare in ways that unsettled those around him. And importantly, Nikolai was not unfamiliar with Optina Pustyn, not at all. In the months before the murders, he visited the monastery several times and spoke with the monks there. He told them openly about the voices he heard voices that, in his words, guided him and demanded obedience from him. These monks responded plainly and consistently. They told him not to listen to these voices. They urged him to pray and to seek medical help, and to ignore anything that pushed him towards fear or violence. But Nikolai, he rejected their advice. He later he would say that the monks did not understand him or what was happening to him. When they told him that the voices were not from God, he grew angry, Instead of interpreting the voices as illness, he began to believe that they were good, purposeful, and righteous in his mind, resisting them meant resisting divine well. By then his mental deterioration was already extremely well, extremely well documented in the early 1990s, Nikolai had committed two s*xual assaults. In the first case, a young woman had reported that he had attacked her, but she later withdrew the complaint. Investigators noted that coercive behavior and aggression took place, and that's why it was closed, because lack of testimony after he scared the poor victim out of, you know, taking her, report back. Nikolai went on to attack another woman and caused serious physical injuries again. This time the girl kept her complaint in and the case proceeded. Psychiatric. Psychiatric diagnosed him with schizophrenia. Doctors recorded auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and religious delusions. He was placed in a psychiatric hospital and later released with disability status. Despite continuing to report voices urging him to harm others, he was released and after his release, Nikolai continued speaking openly about violence. Witnesses later told investigators that he spoke casually about killing monks. He told acquaintances that he was preparing for something important. While sharpening a large blade. He openly said he wanted to kill monks. Those who heard him dismiss the statements as madness or empty talk. No one reported him. According to later testimony, Nikolai even went to Optina on an earlier occasion with the intention of killing, but left without acting because children were present and on the grounds, In his distorted moral reasoning, he believed that harming children would violate the rules of the voices had given him. He returned later, waiting for what he believed was the correct moment. In the months leading up to the Pascha in 1993, he became fixated on Optina Pustyn. He visited repeatedly, blending in among pilgrims and monks. He grew a beard and wore a monk's coat, which is why Father Vasily thought he was speaking to a monk, where he said, father, what's wrong? Or father? What happened that bothers me so much? He studied the layout. He watched how the monks moved. He learned the rhythm of the monastery. He stole a gray military coat belonging to the monastery worker and kept it for later use. He prepared weapons, a Finnish knife, a sawed off shotgun, and a homemade sword forged from scrap metal, and to each weapon he took the time to carve the same markings of the beast and to write, “Satan.” He even scratched the numbers into the freaking coat. After his arrest, Nikolai spoke calmly. During interrogation. He did not even try to deny what he had done, but investigators were unsettled by how he described it. He did not speak with anger or excitement. He did not describe his actions as far as violence at all. In his distorted thinking, he believed that no real harm had been done. He insisted that the monks had simply gone to God and that their deaths were not suffering, but a passage that he somehow granted them. He said that the voices had told him God wanted him to kill, and that obeying them was his duty. He expressed no remorse. Psychiatric later noticed that he did not perceive his actions through a moral lens at all, a hallmark of severe psychotic delusion marked by loss of moral perception, auditory hallucinations, and religious..... I hate this word grandiosity, grandiosity, grandiosity. A psychiatric commission, later declared Nikolai legally insane. He was committed to compulsory treatment in a secure psychiatric facility where he remains today. Yeah. For many at Optina, the explanation did not end with a diagnosis. Nikolai had walked the monastery paths, he had spoken with its monks, he had been warned, he had been offered help, his intentions had been voiced aloud and dismissed, and still he returned, choosing Pascha, the feast of Jesus's victory over death, to carry out his awful satanic attack. And while Nikolai believed that he had fulfilled a command, the church remembers April 18th, 1993 as a day of martyrdom where three monks died, with the resurrection still echoing in the air behind them. Even after the investigation was closed and the killer was confined to psychiatric care, questions, of course, lingered, not official conclusions, but observations that unsettled investigators, monks and those who studied the case closely. One of the first questions raised was skill. Nikolai's attacks were fast, precise and fatal. He struck all three monks from behind, targeting vital areas with efficiency. There was no hesitation, no wasted movement. For some observers, this raised doubts. Nikolai was not a trained assassin. He had not been exposed to prolonged front line combat, and yet the wounds suggested familiarity with how to incapacitate quickly. Some investigators wondered whether Nikolai had practiced extensively or whether someone had taught him. Now there was no proof of an accomplice, and there was no evidence that another person was physically present that night. But the question remained where did he learn to use the weapon? So effectively? Was there someone in his ear pushing the agenda? I mean, we had a rising number of Christians finally being able to practice their faith and with the good, you expect the opposite to also grow in resilience and resistant to the movement of the Christians, Right? So wouldn't it make sense? Obviously this is speculation, but wouldn't it make sense that there are someone training those who already have suffering occurring in their mind? I know in the podcast The Exorcism Files, great podcast, highly suggested Father Martin. He's in. He's an exorcist. He talks about demons sometimes hiding or taking advantage of those who have mental illnesses. So he says mental illness can explain what is occurring, but it doesn't mean that it's just mental illness. You have to check both of them out. So what I'm saying is, what if this is one of those cases where someone acknowledged that Nikolai had a mental illness and someone who was practicing dark work and working for Satan pushed him over the line because it makes no sense that his schizophrenia had some kind of limitation when it came to children. And then he left and then came back. Does that make sense? Or maybe I just don't know about schizophrenia enough now. Another unresolved point was preparation. Nikolai crafted multiple weapons. He engraved symbols, he wrapped handles and tape. He planted false documents to frame another man. He timed the attacks perfectly. These are not the actions of someone acting in a sudden psychotic break. They suggest planning, rehearsal and intent layered on top of illness. If you can say this led some to speculate whether someone had been encouraging or reinforcing his delusions like we just spoke about. Not necessarily directing him outright, but validating his beliefs, feeling his sense of mission or normalizing violent thoughts. No such person was ever identified, but Nikolai's openness about wanting to kill monks, statements dismissed by those around him continue to trouble those review the case. There's also the broader historical context. In the years following the Optina murders, Russia experienced a noticeable rise in ritualistic and satanic motivated crimes. Several violent incidents occurred in which perpetrators use religious symbolism, targeted clergy, or framed their actions as spiritual warfare. None of these cases were formally linked to Nikolai, but the similarities in language, symbolism and fixation raised concerns amongst clergy that the Optina murders were not an isolated phenomena, but in fact part of a wider spiritual and cultural breakdown in the post-Soviet vacuum. Some Orthodox priest quietly asked whether Nikolai had been influenced by underground occult groups or extremist circulating at the time. Others pointed out that Satanic symbolism was being trivialized and sensationalized in popular media, creating a dangerous mixture for unstable minds. Now again, no direct links were proven, but the timing unsettled many. And I think that's a very fair thing to say. Now, what makes these questions so difficult is that they exist in a space between evidence and intuition, which I feel like a lot of these cases hold true to that. the legal system closed the case with a diagnosis. The church honored the dead as martyrs, the precision of the killings, the symbolism, the planning and the later copy like crimes left a residue of unease for all those of the faith. Not proof, but warning. Because whether the danger came from a broken mind alone or from a broken mind reinforced by darker influences. The result was the same a man believed violence was holy, and no one stopped him in time. Now these unanswered questions push towards a deeper discussion, which we started a little bit earlier, but I want to break down further. Was this mental illness? Was this something darker, or could it have been both? The Catholic Church does not rush to label crimes as demonic or possession. In fact, the church is cautious to a fault before anything spiritual is ever even considered medical and psychological explanations are required, and in Nikolai's case, there is no doubt that he suffered from severe mental illness. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. He experienced auditory and auditory hallucinations, paranoia, and religious delusions. He had a documented history of violence, and it was legally declared insane From a clinical standpoint, that explains much. But priests who work in spiritual warfare, including Father Carlos Martins, host of The Exorcist Files, which we talked earlier, have repeatedly warned that mental illness and spiritual influence are not mutually exclusive. One does not cancel out the other, Father Martin explains that demons do not create mental illness, but they may exploit it. A fractured mind can become vulnerable. Delusions become reinforced voices that begin as symptoms Can be interpreted as divine, especially when filtered through distorted religious thinking. In other words, mental illness can be a doorway. Spiritual deception can be what walks through it. This framework matters because of what Nikolai himself said. He did not describe his voices as chaotic or frightening. He described them as guiding. He described them and believed they were good. He believed they were righteous, and he believed resisting them meant resisting God. This is a critical distinction, according to Exorcist, one of the most dangerous signs is not fear but false peace. A person who believes evil is holy. It's far more dangerous than someone who knows they are unwell. Father Martin's has noted that in cases of possible demonic influence, individuals often display the following religious fixation. Detached from humility. Grandiosity in the sense of mission. Here's that word again grandiosity. Obedience to voices framed as divine command. Moral inversion, where harm is no longer perceived as evil. And Nikolai, tell me yes or no right now before I tell you yes or no, did he not possess all of these based on the interview he gave during his interrogation to the police? Like, I know I'm not crazy, let me know I'm about to spoil it for you. Yes, Nikolai displayed all of these. And yet this does not mean he was possessed. Possession, according to the Catholic Church, involved specific signs, aversions to the sacred, supernatural knowledge or physical manifestations that go beyond psychology. None of these were formally documented. In this case. No exorcism was attempted. No priest declared possession. So you can see here where there's difference. It's important to understand the difference between like demonic oppression, demonic influenced, full on possession witch. Oh, if you want, I could totally make an episode on that, too. Should we go over the difference? And in Catholic theology, the difference of the different tiers so you can be aware of, let me know. Let me know, because I listen to The Exorcist files all the time. All the time. What can be said carefully is this, Nikolai’s mind was deeply disordered, his illness was real, but his choices were framed through a spiritual narrative that elevated violence into obedience. Whether the narrative arose purely from psychosis or was influenced by something darker, is a question that the church leaves opened not because it lacks answers, but because it respects the limits of certainty. The monks of Optina themselves would likely have answered differently than modern audiences. They believed that the spiritual world was real, active and dangerous. They believed evil seeks out weakness, but they also believed responsibility remains, especially when help is offered and rejected. Nikolai was warned he was advised not to listen to the voices. He was urged to seek help and he chose another path. In the end, the church does not ask us to decide whether this was mental illness or demonic influence. The church doesn't. I know I did, the church doesn't, it asks us to recognize the warning. The untreated mental illness can become catastrophic. The spiritual pride is deadly and that evil, how everyone understands it, thrives in isolation, deception and silence. The murders Optina Pustyn did not fade quietly into the background. They landed like a shock wave across Russia. This was not just a crime scene, it was a symbol. In 1993, Russia was still reeling from the collapse of the Soviet Union. For more than 70 years, the state had officially denied God. Churches were closed, priests were imprisoned, monasteries were destroyed or repurposed, faiths survived, but underground, whispered, fragile. And then almost overnight, everything changed. By the early 1990s, orthodoxy was returned to public life. Monasteries reopened, bells rang again. People who had never been baptized lined up for confession of Optina Pustyn in particular, became a beacon, a place where people believed holiness had survived the darkest of the darkest of days. That is why these murders struck so incredibly deeply to the public in Russia. Three monks were killed on Pascha, the most joyful feast in Christian on the Christian calendar. Not in secret, not during a political unrest, but during the resurrection While bells were ringing and the words Christ is Risen were still lingering in the air from that service, many Russians. This felt like a direct assault on the country's spiritual rebirth. State media covered the case extensively. Newspapers struggled to explain it. Was this madness? Was this extremism? Was this a sign that something had gone terribly wrong in the soul of the nation? For a society emerging from enforced atheism, there was no shared language to talk about evil, suffering or faith driven violence. For believers, the interpretation was immediate and painful. The monks were not just seen as victims, but as martyrs, men who had survived persecution only to die at the moment of victory. Pilgrims flocked to Optina. Icons were painted, stories spread of miracles, answered prayers and quiet conversions sparked by the death of these three brave martyrs. For nonbelievers, the case stirred fear rather than faith. It seemed to confirm anxieties that religions, once freed, might become dangerous or irrational, which is crazy that some people took it there because I'm like, hello, it wasn't us. Some commentators warned that spiritual revival could open the door to fanaticism. Others argued the opposite that decades of moral vacuum had left people vulnerable to the exact kind of thing that happened. The case exposed a deeper fracture. Russia was rediscovering faith without having rebuilt the cultural, pastoral and psychological structures to support it. Priests were overwhelmed, mental health systems were underfunded and disorganized. People like Nikolai were unstable, searching and untreated, and they slipped through the cracks that occurred in so many different broken systems. that sense, the opening of murders became a warning, but not a warning. A faith, a warning about what happens when spiritual hunger, meat, untreated illness, a warning about ignoring cries for help because they sound strange or uncomfortable, or you just dismiss them. A warning that revival without discernment can leave the vulnerable exposed. Today, the names of Vassily, Trofim and Ferapont are spoken with reverence in the Orthodox churches. They remembered as witnesses not because they sought death, but because they lived faithfully in a time of chaos and paid the price. and for Russia, their deaths marked a grim truth. The return to faith did not mean the end of darkness, and meant learning how to confront it again, openly, honestly, and at a great cost. All right, everyone, that is going to be it for today's episode. It was a longer one. I told y'all it was going to be a longer one. And you all said in the comments they all wanted the longer one. So there you go. Do a Hail Mary for every single time I say a longer one in this episode because oh my goodness, right? Like I'm just yapping at this point, but okay. Thank you so much for joining you guys. This is going to be my last episode. If y'all forget to subscribe and follow and comment and like, it's probably not going to be my last episode because I really enjoy doing this, but I'm just trying to, like, give you that guilt, you know? But okay, I will see you all next time. Thank you so much for joining me on today's longer episode and I will see you next time. Bye.