During the Communist-era religious believers behind the Iron Curtain faced constant persecution from political regimes that, while officially atheistic, also claimed to respect freedom of conscience. The Reverend Dr Canon Michael Bourdeaux, who died in March of this year, founded Keston College in 1969 to study and disseminate the truth about the situation of religion in the communist bloc. Keston was so successful in this mission, and proved such a thorn in the Kremlin’s side that Oleg Gordievsky claimed it was second only to Amnesty International in the hierarchy of the KGB’s most hated human rights organisations.
As well as being co-founder and chair of the Keston Institute, Xenia Dennen is also the founder and former editor of its journal, Religion in Communist Lands – now known as Religion, State and Society – and the organisation’s former Moscow representative. Xenia Dennen holds an MSc in Russian politics from the LSE and an MA in modern languages from the University of Oxford.