Religion in the USSR:

...So much for the material side of the picture...

...There were fifty-five churches functioning in Moscow for a population of 7 million, and fourteen churches in Leningrad for 4 million...

...Postwar visitors to the Soviet Union who have attended church services in Moscow have reported that collections are taken not in plates or boxes but in large receptacles which look like laundry baskets...

...that the earth is the center of the universe, that hell is situated in its bowels...

...Some revealing facts about the present position of the Russian Orthodox Church were reported by Dr...

...There are, in all, two academies and eight seminaries in the Soviet Union...

...It figured prominently in the last big anti-religious offensive, launched in 1937 as a result of the fiasco of the population census held that year, which was intended to be a nationwide manifestation of atheism and turned out, in fact, to be a profession of faith by a far larger section of the population than the Soviet Government had expected...

...While there is a show of an offensive spirit, there is every indication of defensive tactics, and the impression one gets is that the whole campaign is an attempt on the part of the mentors of Soviet ideology to impress upon the wavering neutrals that religion is something of which the powers-that-be do not approve...

...This anti-Vatican campaign might, of course, adversely affect the small Roman Catholic minority in the Soviet Union, despite the publicity given in Moscow's foreign-language broadcasts to the freedom of worship which they are said to enjoy...

...This is the passage which the author of the preface no doubt meant, and which is printed in full in the selection: "The Creator has given mankind two books...

...The removal of the counter-revolutionary charge leaves the Soviet militant atheist with two weapons: the argument that religion is a "remnant of the capitalist past," that it can have no soil to thrive on in Soviet conditions, and the argument that it is opposed to science...

...Another new feature is the increased attention paid to the important part played by the celebration of religious rites, a function in which the Church is well within the strictest interpretation of the Soviet Constitution...

...Spies in cassocks" was the heading of one of the anti-religious articles that appeared in the Moscow press, and it reflected the mood which then prevailed...

...He said that religious services in the big towns were so well attended that the churches were not large enough...

...The clergy whom Dr...

...In this book, the Creator's good will toward our salvation is manifested...

...The mathematician is ill advised if he seeks to measure the will of God with a pair of compasses...

...In the light of this, could the present anti-religious course be regarded as a post-Stalin development...

...This article, entitled "Scientific Atheistic Propaganda Needs Wider Development," did not come completely by surprise, as anti-religious rumblings have been growing louder in the Soviet Union from the beginning of this year...

...The whole argument boils down to a refutation, based on nineteenth-century data, of views on the origin of the world held by churchmen in the Middle Ages...

...The same applied to the Church Calendar, which sometimes did not appear till Easter...

...The second book is the Holy Scripture...

...To those who have, they may be summed up in the words: "No change, slow progress continuing...

...In January, there was the report of the reopening of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism in the building of Kazan Cathedral in Leningrad, with a special section attached for organizing lectures in the countryside...

...The drafters of the Soviet Constitution obviously imagined that they held the trump card by reserving for themselves the right to conduct anti-religious propaganda and allowing the Church only the freedom to celebrate religious rites, And yet the iron rations of the Orthodox Church were always contained in its liturgy...

...The publication of the Pravda editorial, however, has put the whole subject of religion and anti-religion on a higher level, and it has been followed by a barrage of anti-religious propaganda in the press and on the radio of an intensity unknown since prewar days...

...The anti-religious campaign was accompanied by another wave of persecution and large-scale arrests of clergy...

...The Marquis de Custine even succeeded in detecting Mongol traits in the features of the Emperor Alexander I, whom he had never seen...

...But the Vatican is far away, and the Soviet anti-religious propagandist is, in fact, fencing with phantoms...

...No attempt whatever is made at a philosophical justification of the materialist outlook...

...Religious services were celebrated every day...

...In the Young Communist article referred to above, the attempt is made to prove that all Christian rites are heathen in origin, and the claim is made that religious feasts are usually accompanied by drunkenness...

...One thing appears certain: No matter how hard you scratch a Russian, you will not find an atheist...

...Let our life itself manifest unto the world the truth that Christ has risen...

...If the tenor and contents of the Church's official organ are any indication, a perusal of this year's issues of the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy will not support such a pessimistic view...

...Heinemann, President of the All-German Synod of the Evangelical Church, who had been visiting Russia lately at the invitation of the Patriarch of Moscow...

...In the light of this, one may well understand why the Russian Orthodox Church has taken great care not to become associated with any foreign religious movement in any way connected with politics, and why, in the articles published in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy about the ecumenical movement, the main criticism has been leveled at the movement's political associations...

...To those who have not been following church events in Russia during and after the war, these facts may well come as a shattering revelation...

...When we come to the spiritual side, there is the question which is invariably asked now about any aspect of life in the Soviet Union: Has there been any change as a result of Stalin's death ? Is there any sign of the easing of tension, of a breath of fresh air...

...The finances of the Church were derived entirely from the contributions of the faithful, and a priest's average income was 50 per cent higher than that of a skilled worker...

...Religious youth is no longer composed of odd individuals but is a "backward section" of the younger generation...

...Again, in a recent broadcast on the Moscow home service, it was admitted that the war had played a great part in the spread of religion...

...At that time, however, which was the time of the great purges, there was a much more formidable weapon than that of natural science: the charge of counter-revolutionary activity...

...There are plenty of other indications of this slow progress...

...Last year, on the other hand, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchy reported that repairs on one of the most famous of Russia's medieval cathedrals, the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, including restoration work on Andrei Rublev's frescoes under the direction of leading art specialists, was being carried out at the expense of the Church...

...and let all the world, Christian and non-Christian, seeing the life we lead, say with conviction: 'Verily He is risen, for indeed we see that Christ truly lives within you and that the powers that are in you are indeed worked by Him.' " The material published in the journal has become considerably more interesting and independent, and the political element has been much reduced...

...It is, in fact, a very helpful and comprehensive magazine for a practicing Christian...

...The total number of pupils in both institutions last year was 396 as compared with 320 the year before, showing an increase of 76...

...This leaves the last remaining weapon, that of natural science...

...The journal contains articles on a wide range of subjects, including the problem of Christian reunion, as well as reviews of books published abroad...

...This abundance of church funds might at first sight appear to be inexplicable, and yet the reason is simple...

...Articles in the press have been appearing with greater frequency on the prevalence of the celebration of religious rites among the younger generation and, in some cases, contrasting the attractions of a church wedding with the drabness of a Soviet registry office...

...Religion in the USSR Christianity thrives among youth and aged despite 37 years of Kremlin hostility By Ivan Bilibin A FEW WEEKS AGO, an editorial in Pravda caused people to ponder whether one chapter in the history of postwar Soviet society had come to an end: the chapter of peaceful coexistence of the Soviet state and religion...

...It is, in fact, astonishing that the Soviet anti-religious experts seem to be awakening only now to all that the Christian liturgy has meant and still means to the Russian people...

...As a result of the Church's war effort, the counter-revolutionary charge has been withdrawn and there is no indication of its being renewed...

...The samples of scientific argument against religion which are provided in the material now published and broadcast are so unbelievably naive and so exposed on every side to the simplest and easiest refutation that one can well understand that the Church is not seriously worried about its opponents' exercise of their freedom to conduct anti-religious propaganda...

...This, presumably, would be "religious propaganda"—a right not provided to the faithful by the Soviet Constitution...

...There are a few points in the present campaign which may be regarded as new...

...The best example, however, of the dangers which Soviet partisans of atheism have to face when they seek allies in the Russian past is provided by their treatment of that great genius of the eighteenth century, Lomonosov—poet, philosopher and scientist—who was closely associated with the founding of Moscow University in the reign of the Empress Elizabeth and whose name this university now bears...

...No direct attempt, however, is made to convert him by challenging the spokesmen of the atheist state on their own chosen ground of natural science...

...There has been some speculation in the countries of Western Europe as to what happens if you scratch a Russian...

...Heinemann met all professed loyalty to the present regime...

...The first argument begs the question of why religion has survived in Soviet conditions for more than thirty-five years, especially as the pretense that it prevails mainly among the older generation has been tacitly dropped...

...Emelyan Yaroslavsky, the high priest of the Militant Godless movement in its heyday, realized this only too well when he remarked shortly before the war: "It is impossible to build up communism in a society half of which believes in God while the other half is afraid of the Devil...

...In an unbeliever who may happen to lay his hands on it, it might well arouse curiosity, especially if he is disappointed with the spiritual fare supplied to him by Soviet ideology, and he may even find some material—an article on the life of a saint or an exposition of the teaching of some father of the Church—which could lead to his conversion...

...As far as the Orthodox Church is concerned, however, the contrast between now and prewar days is very marked...

...Before the war, taxes on churches were so exorbitant that the greatest amount of sacrifice on the part of parishioners was required to keep them going...

...Now this has changed and publication is punctual...

...The twelve allotted issues never failed to appear in any year, but their publication was often held up for months...

...Let us take one at random: last year's report on the state of the theological schools of Leningrad —the Academy, for advanced theological studies, and the Seminary, for the training of ordinands...

...Its influence manifests itself in page after page of Russian literature...

...The difficulties which the Church has to face in carrying out its missionary work were stated in thinly camouflaged language in the January number: "Although . in our Easter greeting 'Christ is risen!' we are today not arousing faith but rejoicing together in our common faith, nevertheless even now it is necessary that the good tidings and message of the Resurrection should proceed, if not from our lips, then from our life and from our deeds...

...The argument of natural science is placed in the foreground of the present campaign against religion...

...There was a theory that the Soviet Government's wartime and postwar policy toward religion should be credited personally to Stalin, and that he would have gone further if his hands had not been tied by the Communist die-hards...

...So, too, is a doctor of divinity if he thinks that one can learn astronomy or chemistry by the Book of Psalms...

...this is just taken for granted...

...In the one He has manifested His majesty, in the other His will...

...In a collection of essays by the nineteenth-century educationist Ushinsky, whose works have been set up as a model by no less an authority than the late President Kalinin, the Soviet reader can find a passage in which Ushinsky expresses a wish that "no Russian child should ever be deprived of the holy, joyful and educative influence of the Orthodox Church...

...To begin with, the journal appears with far greater regularity than it did in Stalin's time...

...In the preface to a selection of Lomonosov's philosophical works published in Moscow in 1950, it is stated that "Lomonosov occupies a prominent part in the history of Russian atheism" and that "Lomonosov sarcastically ridiculed the theologians who explained natural phenomena with the aid of the Book of Psalms...

...The familiar claim that "the great majority of the Soviet people have freed themselves from religious superstitions" was presented in a more guarded fashion in the Young Communist magazine last April: "Tens of millions of workers in the USSR believe neither in gods nor in religious fairy tales...

...There is no limit to what Marxian historical materialism can set off as a past writer's dependence on his environment, but some of the things that a Soviet citizen can read in books published and recommended by his authorities will amply make up for any lack of active propaganda on the part of the Church...

...The first book is the visible world He has created, in order that man, looking upon the immensity, the beauty and the harmony of His creations, should acknowledge the omnipotence of God according to the measure of perception which has been granted to him...

...It can be found in books published in Moscow today...

...The outward appearance of the journal has also changed, and the missionary role of the Church is more clearly symbolized on the cover, which shows a large cross on the background of the risen sun...

...There is, for instance, a clearer implied admission of the progress of the Church...

...The emergence of new stars is used as an argument against the divine creation of the universe...

...During the war, the taxes were reduced to a bare minimum, but the habit of contributing generously persisted...

...Let us take another indication: Soon after the end of the war, the Metropolitan of Leningrad had an opportunity to recover one of the famous churches of the former capital but could not afford to do so because of the prohibitive cost of repairs...

...80 per cent of all newly-born children were baptized at the wish of their parents...

...In the present anti-religious campaign, the part of the "spies in cassocks" is played by the wicked machinations of the Vatican...

...In the spate of anti-religious material which is being put out at present, there is much criticism of an attitude of "appeasement" toward religion, coupled with warnings not to offend the religious sentiments of believers, and numerous appeals for an improvement in the content of scientific atheistic propaganda without any indication of the lines on which this improvement should be carried out...

...In the course of his argument, the author reveals his ignorance by talking of incense being used at an Orthodox wedding—a howler which is not likely to inspire his readers with confidence...