ANTI-GOD CAMPAIGN

Otago Witness, Issue 3958, 21 January 1930, Page 25

ANTI-GOD CAMPAIGN

EFFORTS OF THE SOVIET

MELTING DOWN OF BELLS. LONDON, Januarv 17

The Riga correspondent of The Times states that what is described as the biggest bell ever hung, namely, the 65 ton bell at Troitske monastry, 40 miles from Moscow, has been unhung in accordance with the Soviet campaign to melt down church bells for industrial purposes as a part of its anti-God policy. The bell's lip is 30 inches thick. It is not the biggest bell ever cast, as the Russians made one weighing 193 tons for the Kremlin, but it fell during hoisting, and it was smashed.

Thousands of bells have been unhung the last few weeks under the supervision of the Anti-God Society. The Soviet has issued a decree empowering local authorities to inaugurate bell funds and to superintend melting operations.

The Soviet authorities, in order to dissipate the impression that the antiGod campaign is directed only against Christians, has begun closing synagogues and mosques on a large scale. They cannot sequestrate bells in these cases, but have begun an intensive raiding of candlesticks. The authorities have also sentenced two doctors in Petrozavodsk for performing a Jewish religious rite at the request of Hebrew parents. The Presidium of the Leningrad Soviet has closed the great Leningrad synagogue, the Lutheranians church, the Evangelist church, and four others in the centre of the city in order to convert them into offices for anti-God

clubs for soldiers, Communists’ children, and workmen. He also decreed the removal of crosses in the churchyard cemetery and the railings, announcing that these yield “ thousands of tons of east iron.”

Communist reports from Moscow’ declare that January promises a ” record advance in the anti-God front,” since the confiscation of church treasures in 1922.

The Leningrad Soviet has decreed the removal of the bells of the famous St. Isaac's orthodox cathedral, but these cannot be shifted whole, therefoie the workmen are sawing them in pieces where they hang. They are expected t(. yield 100 tons of pure copper. Tl •» cathedral becomes “ the great central anti-God museum.”