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→Captivity and Martyr Death
==Captivity and Martyr Death==
On [[January 29]], 1996, during the First Chechen war, heFr. Anatoly, together with archpriest Sergius Zhigulin (now Archimandrite Phillip) from External Church Relations Department, was going to meet with Brigadier General Akhmed Zakayev to negotiate the release of a soldier of the Federal Forces Boris Sorokin from Chechen captivity. However, on the way to the Chechen capital from Urus-Martan, they were captured by an armed group under Doku Makhayev's command and were placed in a concentration camp of the so-called Department of State Security of the Chechen Republic Ichkeria.
In the end of the first day of the captivity the prisoners, under the offer of Fr. Anatoly partook of the Eucharist with bread that was available for them, consecrating it with their prayers to Body of Christ making it possible to partake further<ref>[http://www.stavropol-eparhia.ru/personae/clergy/chistousov/02.html Witness of Arch. Phillip (Zhigulin)]</ref>.
After the prisoners were divided from each other, Fr. Anatoly was exposed to torture, but did not surrender himself nor renounced his belief and, as a result, he was shot by bandits. He was martyred in [[February 14]], 1996.
Fr. Sergius survived and was released after 160 days of captivity.He writes,<br/>"For the first time, i saw the sun after four months... We lived in the basements of destroyed buildings... People were held captive in a burrow, which was very narrow, and people couldn't stand or move. Later on, as federal troops were advancing, we were moved to the mountains and placed into blindages, where up to 100-130 people lived. This lasted for 3.5 months. The blindages were completely flooded with rains. The hostages were sittings there as at a temperature of zero; the Chechens took our clothes away. It is just a miracle that the other people and I survived under those awful conditions."<ref>The wolves of Islam: Russia and the faces of Chechen terror, p. 245 [http://books.google.ru/books?id=_LXfR7wNWTUC&pg=PP12&lpg=PP10#v=onepage&q&f=true]</ref>
On [[April 29]], 2000 Federal Security Service of the Russia passed to Metr. [[Kyrill I (Gundyayev) of Moscow|Kyrill of Smolensk]], Chairman of the External Church Relations Department of the Moscow Patriarchate, a selection of documents testifying to destiny of the priest of Michael Archangel Church, Anatoly Chistousov, abducted by the Chechen terrorists on [[January 29]], 1996. During the period, when a history of Fr. Anatoly remained unknown, the Church hierarchy attempted to obtain the freedom of the abducted priest, as well as other clergymen and the children of Church who had been captured in Chechnya. Eventually some prisoners found freedom. In other cases, regretfully, they had been executed by the gangsters and reposed in settlements of the righteous<ref>[http://www.mospat.ru/archive/nr004261.htm Priest Anatoly Chistousov took a martyr end in the chechen captivity]</ref>.
