MOCKING RELIGION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXI, Issue 21912, 22 September 1934, Page 15

MOCKING RELIGION

THE SOVIET CAMPAIGN RELENTLESS PERSECUTION ATHEIST "SHOCK TROOPS"

BY RIGHT REV. .TAMES M. LISTON, D.D.

1. The determination of the Soviet State to make the exercise of religious worship gradually become impossible may be seen in the provisions of the Decree of 1929 regulating the use of church buildings. A church cannot remain ojien unless at least 20 adult trustees renew and present their signatures each year. The trustees are responsible for the upkeep of the buildings and the preservation of the furniture, etc., which is now national property. If burglars rifle a church (a guard during the night is not allowed), the trustees must pay a fino and replace the stolen objects. The fine goes to the members of the local Soviet, and these are often the burglars!

Right from the beginning and now more than ever the Government has used every possible pretext for closing churches. During the days of the revolution many wooden churches —the mo.st numerous class —disappeared. After the "peace" and "freedom of conscience to worship" in 1918, all chapels in private houses, in confiscated monasteries and convents, in hospitals, schools, orphanages, asylums were prohibited in the name ot the same freedom of conscience! Next, public churches were dealt with: they were convened into schools, more often into clubs, cinema houses, and especially halls for atheist associations. According to official statistics 134 churches were closed in 1927, 592 in 1928, and during 1929 there were closed or confiscated 1119 churches, 126 synagogues and 124 mosques. They were "needed for public purposes," or confiscated "on demand by the local peasants and workers," or for non-pay-ment of taxes (sometimes 50 per cent per annum of the total value), or "liquidated." A church is liquidated for a Communist club because the parishioners do not repair the leaking roof —-permission to do so having bepn already refused. Relentless Campaign

2. It is true that the visitor to Russia may here and there see open churches to "worshippers, and may hear of Stalin's decree of March, 1930, calling a halt on "physical warfare against God." But the campaign of extermination of all religion goes on relentlessly, with the battle raging on the front occupied bv the Association of the Militant Godless. From the beginning of its reign the Soviet Government has. taken complete charge of education and has svstematicallv imposed atheism on the schools; it has made itself master of life and death by the terrorism of the G.P.U., sole proprietor of printing presses, landlord of all houses, arbitrary distributor pf ration cards to all citizens. In 1925 it set up .the league of atheists as the shock troops. The league has over 25,000 "cells;' in factories, shops, public institutions, clubs, the armv, the navy, schools, It was estimated to have over OjUUUjUUU members in 1931 and aimed at having 17,000,000 by the end of the Five Year Plan.

The output of the league is enormous. Some 34 million copies of pamphlets appeared in 1929, and blasphemous periodicals bv the million have reached homes and schools. In 1929 the league claimed to have over. 5500 atheist journalists, who had graduated as professionals from training schools under State supervision. There are universities to provide education for anti-religious propagandists. Stage, radio and lecture platform have been organised; there are public debates lampooning sacred things, anti-religious museums, processions, games, posters, operas, musical comedies, children's plays, all mocking religion. . A favourite farce is the Judgment against God. The Soviet tribunal summons the Almighty and charges Him with the evils of the world. As He does not appear. He is condemned for contumacy, amid ribald and blasphemous laughter. , . In 1929 the Association of the Godless presented to the Government an aeroplane, "The Atheist," the function of which, according to the deed of gift, is "to make war on heaven." It cruises over Moscow on the lookout for God. Victims of Persecution 3 It is impossible to give complete statistics of the victims by exile, imprisonment, starvation, death, of the religious persecution in Russia since 1917", but attention may be drawn to some facts. . In the year 1927 the Ce-Ka. or Soviet Secret Police (later called the Ogpu) published on the occasion of its tenth anniversarv an official list of its victims. This list includes only thofce for whose death the Ce-Ka formally accepted responsibility. The number from December. 1917, to September 1921, is given as 1.649,749, and from 1921 to 1927 as 94!925. Competent authorities add another million to account for those who were got rid of surreptitiously. This would make the total number: of victims during ten years some 3.(KM).UUU. As the clear purpose of the Bolshevist regime has all along been the destruction of religion, we may justly conclude that a large number of the \ ictims or this almost incredible holocaust have been put to death because of their lovaltv to their God. It is known that in the first years of the revolution over 6000 bishops and priests of the Orthodox Church (the Church of the overwhelming mass of the Russian people before 1917) were put to death. Though the Catholics in Russia are only a small minority, they have suffered most from the religious persecution. According to the most recent reports, supplied to Rome by competent observers in 1931. almost all the Catholic bishops and priests have now been put to death or are imprisoned, the majority of the prisoners, clerical and lav. are deported to the camp of Solovctskv Monasvr or*" to some distant part of Siberia, Turkestan or the Caucasus, where death soon comes as a merciful relief to their sufferings. But some linger on for years in conditions that are worse than death. A Spiritual Pogrom

The Protestant religions have not escaped the common fury, and the names are known of brave pastors who arc in prison or have disappeared. The followers of Mohammed appealed in 1930 to Pope Pins XI. as the chief representative of Christianity, "to raise his voice in defence of the religion of Islam." " Our mosques are being closed by thousands, our priests are being cast into prison, deported or executed because of their faith and their lovaltv to the religion of our ancestors." The Pope's letter of February 2. 1930. had already included them in its appeal, for "the other victims who retain their belief in God. The Jewish religion meets with hatred as do the Christian. The Chief Rabbi of England, Dr. J. H. Hertz, in a letter to the London Times of February 14, 1930, protests against the "strangulation of religious instruction" in Russia. and calls Rykov's assurance of religious freedom "a cruel jest." Appealing to right-minded Englishman, the Kabbi concludes: "Let them voice their indignation and horror at this spiritual pogrom. For what is trampled under foot under Soviet rule to-da.v is conscience, religious liberty, and everything that is most divine in the human spirit."