Paul Portnyagin

Father Paul Portnyagin (1903-1977) was a Greek-Catholic priest, teacher and orientalist.

Portnyagin was born in Vladivostok, Russia. In 1930, he converted from the Eastern Orthodox Church to the Catholic faith shortly after migrating to China during the Russian Civil War. There he took part in the Trans-Himalayan expedition of Nicholas Roerich and taught Russian to high school students at Saint Nicholas in Harbin. Later, he studied at the Russicum and the Gregorian University in Rome, but because of health problems was transferred to the Theological Seminary in Presov, where he was ordained a priest of the Byzantine Rite.

In 1937, Portnyagin returned to Harbin and taught Russian, literature and philosophy. He was arrested by Chinese authorities in 1948 and sent to the Soviet Union, where he was imprisoned in forced labor camps for twenty-five years, until his release in 1956. He lived in Samarkand, where he worked as a translator at the Institute of Karakul. Portnyagin was rehabilitated by Soviet authorities in 1960 and died in Samarkand in 1977.