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 entered the civil service, obtaining a small appointment in the law courts. Later, he received a post under the Procurator of a provincial court in the Caucasus. Finally, tiring of the law, he went to the Government of Orel, where he was a landowner and a noble. His spiritual life had been tumultuous and full of trouble, and finally he entered the Troitsky-Sergevsky Monastery near Moscow. ‘In answer to his appeal for pardon, Saint Sergei, stern and angry, appeared to him twice in a vision. He left the Monastery a converted man.’

“From 1905 until the present, little is known of his activities. Articles are said to have appeared from time to time in the Russian press from his pen. A returning traveller from Siberia in August, 1919, was positive in his statement that Nilus was in Irkutsk in June of that year. Whether his final fate was that of Admiral Kolchak is not known.”

The American editor of Sergius Nilus’s book containing the “Protocols” is hiding behind anonymity. The name of the traveller from Siberia who was so positive in his statement that Nilus was in Irkutsk is also concealed. And Serge Nilus to whom Saint Sergei “appeared twice in a vision” “is said to have written articles in the Russian press” of which nobody has knowledge.

In Germany, Nilus is described as follows:

“Sergius Nilus was an employee of the Russian secret police department, of the okhrana, connected with the Church, especially relating to ‘foreign religions.’ He lived for some time at the Optina Pustina monastery. In 1901 he published a book entitled “The Great in the Small and the Anti-Christ.’ According to the Lutsch Sveta, Nilus claims to have received in 1901 a copy of the text of the Protocols from the secret archives of the Main Zionist organization in France, but he published the ‘protocols’