He went on to prophesy:
It is already certain that, whatever else the twenty-first century may bring to the Soviet Union, Christianity will be a formative influence, perhaps more so than is yet surmised, even by those with inside knowledge ... It hardly needs stressing that if real Christian unity should make strides in the Soviet Union, this would be something of immense significance for the future, both of that country and of the world.6
Alexandr Ogorodnikov
One of the prisoners of conscience whom Keston and the Jubilee Campaign worked for was Alexandr Ogorodnikov. Freed from jail in 1988, he was elected as the first leader and Chairman of the Christian Democratic Union of Russia. Before a visit in January 1990 to the Soviet Union, to attend the World Global Forum on the Environment, Hodder and Stoughton had asked me to act as postman and to deliver a contract for a book to Ogorodnikov, whom I had not previously met. I had also been asked by Father Dick Rodgers, an Anglican clergyman from Birmingham, to help secure the import of a printing machine. Paid for by British Christians it had already been returned to London once already by Soviet officials. In 1986 and 1988 Father Rodgers had led public protests on behalf of Ogorodnikov. He was helped by a monk, Brother Aidan. Throughout Lent 1988 he had fasted and lived in a cage the size of Ogorodnikov's cell, erected at the London church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. At the end of the fast Father Rodgers and Brother Aidan were given the news of Ogorodnikov's release. In 1990, after our arrival in Moscow with Mark Tedder, a young Baptist, we set off in bitterly cold conditions to try to locate Ogorodnikov. Over the days which followed the three of us spent hours together at Moscow Airport cajoling officials. We successfully imported the first ever offset-litho printing machine to be obtained by a Russian citizen, and subsequently persuaded the machine to churn out its first pieces of paper. I also had the chance to hear from Alexandr personally about his vision for the Soviet Union. Later in the year he and his son, Dimitri, travelled to Britain to spend three weeks here as my guests. Gerald Coates and his church in Cobham, Surrey, raised the funds to cover travel