Marynovych was sent to the labor camp in 1977, one year before Karol Wojtyła was elected Bishop of Rome. He was arrested for leading the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, the first non-underground group in Ukraine tasked with docuмenting human rights abuses and monitoring the implementation of the Helsinki Accords.
He spent 1977-1984 in forced labor camps in Perm, and then three years of exile in Kazakhstan.
Marynovych learned early on in his gulag experience that he needed to guard against an unchristian contempt for the KGB officers and guards.
After an outburst while interacting with a guard when he was in solitary confinement, Marynovych reflected on his actions in his cell.
“This incarnation of anger – is it me? What about my Christianity? I didn't want to transform myself into a 'man of hatred.’”
“I started to pray. I started to walk in the cell back and forth, and...I decided, 'No, I don’t want hatred to overcome my heart.’”
After that realization, “I behaved in a way that is acceptable as a Christian. I don't need to hate people to say something that they have to hear,” said Marynovych.
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/learning-to-love-your-enemy-in-a-soviet-labor-camp-20567If this man can learn to forgive his prison guards and live as a Christian in a Soviet gulag, what can we do to live as a Christian right where we are?