Kapitanchuk is a graduate of the Chemical Institute in Moscow, where he worked many years as a junior research assistant. He became a Christian in 1965. Now the head of the Department of Scientific Restoration of the Grabar Workshop for the Restoration of Icons, he is also the author of articles published in the samizdat journal "Veche" and a supporter of the Orthodox Youth Patriotic Movement.

Active in the Christian Committee since its founding, Kapitanchuk, along with Gleb Yakunin, was warned by the authorities in December of 1977 that he would face criminal charges if he did not cease efforts on behalf of Soviet Christians. On November 1, 1979, the day of Yakunin's arrest, he was subjected to a six hour house search.

SHCHEGLOV, Vadim

A member of the Russian Orthodox church, Shcheglov is a layman who joined the Christian Committee in December of 1977. On the day of Yakunin's arrest, November 1, 1979, Shcheglov's home, and that of fellow Committee member Kapitanchuk, were searched as part of a new sweep against leading Russian Orthodox activists.

One of the leading Christian activists in the Soviet Union, Father Yakunin was trained as a forester, but instead decided to enter the church. He was ordained a priest in 1962, at the peak of Khrushchev's anti-religion campaign.

In December of 1965, he co-authored an open letter to the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church protesting Soviet state restrictions on the Church. This document was one of the first to reach the West on that subject. As a result, Father Yakunin was banned from office in 1966, forbidden to perform his duties as a priest. He then took a variety of lay jobs, but the KGB saw to it that he was eventually dismissed from this work as well.

In 1975 Father Yakunin and Lev Regelson, an Orthodox lay historian, addressed an open letter to the Fifth Assembly of World Council of Churches in which they criticized the Soviet government repressive policy against the church. This appeal is considered by some to be the single most effective and important Christian samizdat document to come out of the USSR in the last 15 years. Shortly after he founded the Christian Committee, Father Yakunin was warned that he faced arrest if he continued his activist work. In September of 1979, his apartment was searched, and numerous Christian Committee documents and archives were seized. On November 1, 1979, Father Yakunin was called in for questioning on a pretext. When he did not return, his wife was told to bring him warm clothes in prison. Now under arrest, Yakunin will probably be charged with "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda." (Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code).

A founding member of the Working Commission, Bakhmin has often spoken out in defense of human rights in the USSR, and has consequently suffered at the hands of the authorities. Bakhmin was arrested for "anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda," Article 70 of the RSFSR Criminal Code. He was held in Lefortovo prison, then released on September 29, 1970.

Bakhmin has been subjected to house searches and interrogations in connection with the case against Aleksandr Podrabinek and concerning his Working Commission activities. In addition, he was detained by the authorities after his participation in the "Human Rights Day" demonstrations on December 10, 1978.

During the summer of 1979, he was dismissed as senior engineer in the "Informelektro" Institute, a post he had held for six years. Bakhmin would not submit to a scheme in which he would first be demoted to a lab assistant and then be eased out of the Institute. As a result, he was summarily fired, allegedly due to "staff reductions.