The Orthodox Church in Soviet Russia

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CHRISTIANITY entered Russia from Byzantium. In the year 988, Prince Vladimir was baptized in the River Dnieper, with all the inhabitants of Kiev, and the pagan statues were destroyed. Thus was born the Russian Orthodox Church, and thus Byzantine theology, liturgical forms and church-state relationships were established as basic characteristics of popular religion in Russia. Since this missionary enterprise took place at the height of the quarrel between the Patriarch of the East and the Pope of the West, the Russian Church and people inherited the Eastern Church's antagonism to Rome and the West and shared its isolation from the Renaissance, the Reformation and the rise of modern concepts of social Christianity. Instead, the Russian Orthodox Church entered the twentieth century with the religious outlook developed no later than the Seventh Ecumenical Council, held in 787. The Russians claim with pride that the Orthodox Church is the true Church of the Apostles, the Scripture, the creeds and the canons accepted in the first seven Councils, and they look gingerly at all other churches, which, they say, separated from it at the time of the Great Schism.

What is the present status of this Russian Orthodox Church in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics? Statistics are meager, but the Patriarchate has declared that there are now 22,000 churches, served by about 25,000 clergy. There are 73 diocesan bishops, 69 monasteries and convents, eight lower and two higher theological schools, with more applicants each year than classroom seats. The Soviet census omits the item of religious affiliation, and the Patriarchate has been persistently hesitant when asked about the total number of adherents; estimates run from 25,000,000 to 50,000,000 Orthodox faithful. It is easier to reconcile these figures with the impression held abroad that the Church has been driven underground when we remember that from 1918 to World War II the Communist Party's efforts to destroy the Church were violent and effective, but that the change in policy in 1941 has resulted in a significant resuscitation. It was Stalin who directed both the policy of destruction and the change...