Russian priest in a gulag to protest loss of Bible

A dissident Russian Orthodox priest serving a five-year term in a Soviet labor camp says he will go on a hunger strike because prison guards have confiscated his Bible.

The Rev. Gleb Yakunin, convicted of anti-Soviet agitation for his work with a religious-rights group, said in a not smuggled out of the Urals camp where he is held that he was told by camp authorities he has no right to religious literature, because church and state were separate bodies under the Soviet Constitution and because the camp is a state body.