Stalin's daughter took communion from Ilia II in 1980s

Moscow, January 26, 2012

Yakov Nemstsveridze, who knew Svetlana Alliluyeva well, told about religious sight of her life.

In 1984, Stalin's daughter returned to the USSR. Nemstsveridze tried to help her settle down in her Motherland and accompanied her everywhere. Then he worked at the Representation of the Georgian SSR at the USSR Council of Ministers.

Alliluyeva spent two years in the country and always carried an icon of the Mother of God in a cheap copper frame with her, the Krestovsky Most Orthodox paper quotes Nemstsveridze as saying.

"I often saw this icon in her hands. I couldn't understand how one can grow up in such a family and be a believer. Once I asked her about it and she said: "It doesn't depend on you and your family. When God considers you worthy to be a believer, He will call you Himself," he said.

According to Alliluyeva's friend, when she visited Georgia she wished to meet with Georgian Patriarch Ilia II. The meeting took place, she communed and then asked to leave her alone with the Patriarch.

Then Ilia II invited her to all church feasts, they were friends. When Alliluyeva failed to find common language with Georgian party officials and decided to return to the West she said good-bye only to the Patriarch.

Stalin's daughter was secretly baptized at the age of 36 in a Moscow church. 

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