Kryuchkov was born in the then newly renamed Stalingrad (previously Tsaritsyn, now Volgograd). In 1931, his father was sent to a labour camp for five years as a result of his faith, and was banned from living in Moscow after he was released.
He was pursued by the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) for over 25 years, and was described in his obituary in The Independent as "one of the most extraordinary of the Soviet Union"s religious leaders in the post-Stalin era". Kryuchkov was conscripted into the Red Army in 1943. He remained a soldier until 1951, when he rejoined his family in Uzlovaya, near Tula, where his father was a coal miner.
He became an electrician.
He was ordained as a Baptist pastor in 1960, but was quickly in trouble when in 1961 he joined a call to resist new and more restrictive regulations imposed on the church. He worked with its general secretary Georgi Vins.
He and Vins had met Anastas Mikoyan at the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in Moscow in 1961, in an attempt to encourage reform. The Council of Churches was formally set up as an underground body in 1965.
After a mass prayer meeting outside the building of the Communist Party Central Committee in Moscow on 16 May 1966, Kryuchkov and Vins were arrested.
After months of interrogation, they were convicted after a show trial in November 1966, and they were imprisoned in a special regime camp for three years. They were released in 1969, and went into hiding the following year, sheltered by their supporters. Despite being illegal and persecuted, the Council maintained a network of prayer houses, pastors and printing presses producing Bibles and Christian literature across the Soviet Union.
Vins was recaptured in March 1974, and deported from the Soviet Union in 1979.
Kryuchkov continued to preach and lead the Council until his death. He also wrote for the journal Herald of Truth.
Kryuchkov was hunted by the police and the Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) until 1990, with wanted posters displayed in public places. After 19 years in hiding, he reappeared in public at the Council"s annual congress at Rostov-on-Don in July 1989, in the wake of Mikhail Gorbachev"s glasnost and perestroika reforms.
After speaking, he quickly made his escape before the waiting Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti (Committee for State Security) could arrest him.
He died in Tula on 15 July 2007.
