Flickerings Of Religion Still Exist In Russia

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31089, 18 June 1966, Page 5

Flickerings Of Religion Still Exist In Russia

(By ELENA KORENEVSKA YA, of the Novosti Press agency, Moscow) BEAUTIFUL spring day. The Moscow side-street in the vicinity of the Kremlin is dotted with white kerchievs and paper flowers—the traditional way of keeping “kulich,” the Easter cake which, according to Russian Orthodox Church rites, must be blessed by a priest in the church.

The 17th century Church of All Suffering Joy with its golden onion domes is filled by the congregation. People who could not get inside, crowd the pavements listening to the choir, the singing of which comes through the open door.

This is not a scene from the past. Anyone who happens to be in Moscow at Easter or at the time of some other religious event can witness the scene—just going to Ordynka street, a few steps from Red Square.

For the sake of objectivity I have to mention at the outset that over-packed churches are not typical of everyday life in Russia. Furthermore, you have to take into account that among the people who packed the Church of All Suffering Joy and the crowd outside, there were quite a few non-believers who had come only to see the religious ceremony. Most of the congregation was composed of people over 50. Still the question remains: how does this activity of the Russian Orthodox Church, a main religious body in this country, coincide with the slogan proclaimed by the Communist Party on the incompatability of its philosophy with religious dogmas and the necessity of an intensive atheistic propaganda? Dying Slowly These two phenomena are not so contradictory as they seem to be at the first glance. More than that—they reflect exactly what is written in the Soviet Constitution which proclaims freedom of religion and at the same time freedom of anti-religious propaganda.

Article 124 of the Soviet Constitution says: “To guarantee freedom of conscience for all Soviet citizens the church is separated from the State and school is separated from the church. Freedom of religion and freedom of antireligious propaganda is also guaranteed for all citizens.” This constitutional freedom finds its reflection in the absence of religious beliefs in the Soviet documents. The religious statistics is almost non-existent here. By mere observation it is noticeable that the number of believers is constantly reducing, but at the same time it is clear that religious beliefs do not die quickly.

Gone are the extremists in an atheistic campaign of early post-revolutionary days who naively believed that the end of the old regime automatically meant the end of religion. At that time many churches were closed down, but to militant atheists’ dismay religion still existed. War Reaction During the Second World War, due to a lot of suffering, and famine losses in every family a certain degree of resurrection of religious feelings occurred in Russia. It left its imprint in the appearance of new churches and theological seminaries which started functioning to fill the vacancies in the churches, and also in the printing of religious publications. And all this was true not only of the Russian Orthodox Church, but also of the Baptists, the Pentacostals, Moslems and Jews and other religions. It is difficult to find another country with so many various religious groups as here.

Most of the people at the Easter service in the Church of All Suffering Joy are old women, although here and there you can observe a

young face, too. Who are they? What do they believe? What is God to them? Once it was hoped that religion—“opium for the people”—would disappear with scientific knowledge reaching down to masses. But today with scores of sputniks circling the earth and space vehicles speeding to distant Venus, people still attend religious services. Census Of Thought Metropolitan Kupriyan (Mikhail Zernov) who used to be the dean of the Church of All Suffering Joy, thinks that “while the mystery of death exists, we shall have people coming to the church.” The atheists disagree with him. Some of them discard the religion as mere “superstitions of the past” indicating at the same time that they do not die so quickly as wanted: others believe that only shortcomings in antireligious campaign leaves the field to the clergy.

In my opinion, the truth yet lies somewhere between the two points. No doubt there are incomparably less church-goers in the Soviet Union compared with the old Russia. Certainly young people brought up at atheis-

tic schools mostly do not believe in God. But older people cling to religion and go to church. To find the “whys” and to discover where the truth lies, some scientific attempts were recently made here. One of them has been undertaken in the mid-Russian town of Shuj’a. The results were described in the recent issue of the magazine “Kommunist” by A. Yudin, secretary of the local Communist Party committee. The magazine is published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Thus it is a very authoritative organ. Shuya is a small industrial town in central Russia with a few textile mills. It may well be considered as a fairly typical community. A special poll taken in Shuya included 13,000 families, about 30,000 people, half the town’s population. The polsters tried to find the percentage of firm believers and to differentiate between them and habitual churchgoers. Voting was voluntary. Varying Beliefs The over-all results showed that about 3000 persons were believers with various degrees of religious feelings. Some were deeply religious. Some believed in God, but knew only vaguely the dogmas of the church. Others accepted the

church’s rites only for the tradition or because of other people’s insistence. Asked about the ikons in her home, one of the workers from a Shuya factory of synthetical fibre said: “Perhaps I should have put them up when I was presented with them. Now somehow I cannot raise my hands in some indescribable fear.” Elders’ Influence There were other examples. Tatyana, a 27-year-old worker, dreams of going into a monastery. Although she spent seven years at school, she refuses to read books of non-religious character, does not go to the cinema and limits all her interests by religion only. A careful study of the poll results show that out of every five believers, one could be regarded as a deeply religious person.

The poll also disclosed that many school-children were influenced by their religious parents or more often by grandparents, “Babushka," granny—the legendary figure in the Russian family, where with a working mother she is the person mainly responsible for the children’s up-bringing —often insists on taking the children to the church. After Babushka’s religious lullabyes, children who were easily impressed wrote in their school-compositions; “I am afraid of God, he punishes those who do not believe in Him.” One other said “Babushka tells frightening stories and I obey when she insists cn taking me to the church.” obey when she insists on taking me to the church.” Baptisms But perhaps the most revealing figure cited by A. Yudin was that 70 per cent of all newly-born babies in Shuya were baptised in the Church. Most parents, admit that they had baptised their babies only because of tradition. The idea, “if not baptised —he is not Russian” still persists among some people. The main reason why there are still so many believers in Shuya, according to Yudin is the great difference between the approaches of the clergy and atheistic propagators. While the former work on individuals to attract them to church, the latter mainly work “with masses” and fail to achieve any influence on believers. Direct Approach Strange as it may sound, many of the anti-religious propagators are sometimes afraid to try the individual approach. Faced with such arguments as “Faith does not make any harm to our regime” or “My belief in God does not affect my work badly and I fill my quota,” some of the not-so-well educated atheists are at a loss to find a proper answer.

The writer in “Kommunist” gave examples of when people who should fight religion showed a lack of understanding. A school history teacher in Shuya said bluntly: “The church does not influence people greatly and there is nothing to be afraid of.” On the other hand Yudin warns against over-zealous and clumsy efforts to combat religion with administrative measures. For example, the party functionary of one of the mills urged the administration to fire an employee just because he was a churchgoer. These “suffering” victims have become martyrs and attract more people to religion. Yudin rejects both extremes: negligence and over-zealous attacks. “Disproving” Dogma What are the conclusions drawn from the Shuya poll? According to Yudin the effectiveness of further atheistic work should be based on the individual approach. Attempts should be made to spot out lonely people and people in distress and to try to prevent them from seeking refuge in the realm of the church. Yudin also advises that people engaged in antireligious work should be well versed in religious dogma to be able to disprove them while talking to believers. It is interesting to note that after the Shuya poll more “atheistic faculties” were established at night schools in many other towns.

Need For Fact The polsters understood that they must display the utmost tact in their atheistic activities and not to insult believers’ feelings while, trying to win their confidence. And Yudin stresses the importance of combating not the clergy and church-goers, but religious outlook and dogma.