[2] In 1934 Novikov was ordained as a Jesuit priest[1] and was officially a member of the Lithuanian province of the Society of Jesus.
[1] After the start of World War II he was sent as a Catholic missionary into the Soviet Union, though there is some uncertainty around the exact details.
Novikov's own account states that he was made "Exarch of Siberia" by Andrey Sheptytsky,[5] the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archbishop of Lviv who had been given authority by the Holy See to look after the Russian Greek Catholic Church due to its difficult situation.
[6] At some point after arriving in the Soviet Union, Novikov was arrested by the government and sent to a prison camp.
[5] When he was released from the camp in 1954, Novikov was sent to Belebey in the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, where he became a Latin language teacher at a medical school.