Gorky hoped that Trufanov's story on Rasputin would discredit the Tsar's family and eventually contribute to the revolutionary propaganda.

[citation needed] Sergei Trufanov was born in stanitsa Mariinskaya and grew up in a small cottage near the Don river as the son of a local deacon.

He was invited to the Peterhof Palace but scandalized his audience in a sermon, defending a land reform, which should be ordered by the Tsar.

[1] According to himself Iliodor turned against the right-wing Union of the Russian People and the Black Hundreds movement, because they believed in the Tsar's autocracy.

In 1908 he was rescued by Bishop Hermogen and appointed in Tsaritsyn, where the URP had founded its first branch and Iliodor gathered huge crowds.

Stolypin demanded Iliodor had to be banned to Novosil, and the Tsar agreed, but the abbot escaped and went back to Tsaritsyn.

In December 1911 Hermogenes and Iliodor came into conflict with Rasputin, who liked to touch and kiss and had almost free access to the Imperial family.

Hinting that Alexandra and Rasputin were lovers, he showed Makarov a satchel of letters, one written by the Tsarina and four by her daughters.

In Summer 1914, after an attack on Rasputin by Khioniya Kozmishna Guseva, he fled all the way around the Gulf of Bothnia to Christiania (present-day Oslo), Norway with the help of Grand Duke Nicholas and Maxim Gorki.

[9][10] Guseva, a fanatically religious woman, had been his adherent in earlier years and denied Iliodor's participation, declaring that she attempted to kill Rasputin because he was spreading temptation among the innocent.

Stolypin was dead, Count Kokovtsov fallen from power, Theofan of Poltava exiled, Bishop Hermogen illegally banished and Iliodor in hiding.