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
Prešov, 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. ==Sources==