RELIGION IN RUSSIA

Arawa Guerilla, Issue 16, 1 July 1943, Page 7

RELIGION IN RUSSIA

THE PADRE SAYS — PROBABLY one of the most controversial subjects of the day is the religious situation in Russia. But in order to understand its present peculiarities it is necessary to glance at the historical background. Following his baptism into the Greek Orthodox branch of the Christian Church in 988, the Czar Vladimir destroyed the people’s idols, and ordered the inhabitants of Kiev to gather at the Dnieper and be baptised. Thus Christianity was imposed on an ignorant and superstitious peasantry. A Thousand Years. For nearly a thousand years the Czarist regime depended on the Orthodox Church for the enforcement of its claims to Divine Right and rule by royal decrees. In return the Church was rewarded by financial assistance of the State and the petty persecution of religious minorities.

Six months after the revolution, the Bolsheviks modified the, theory of religious liberty by prohibiting the teaching of the Christian doctrine to the young; while at the same time the religious dogma of atheism replaced the service of a personal God with the service of a class, i.e., the worker, as the supreme function in life. Thus atheism replaced orthodox Christianity as the established faith of the Soviet Republic. The militant Godless movement had enormous funds for anti-religious propaganda and banned the Bible from the nation.

Baptists Gain.

It has been said that “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” Russia was no exception to the rule. For instance, in spite of ruthless persecution, the membership of the Baptist Church increased. This revival of genuine Christianity has had repercussions in the orthodox church itself, destroying much of the corruption. To-day Russia is a nation fighting for her life. Her ruler has been wise enough to seek the co-operation of

every party and denomination. The franchise has been restored to the clergy, and State aid withdrawn from the Godless movement. A. religion without a personal God has proved of little comfort to soldiers dying in defence of their homes and loved ones.

Perhaps the day is not far distant when the nation which has adopted the communistic system will turn again to the Book in which it discovered the principles of brotherly love, and find a God who changes hearts as well as systems.

Chaplain.

THE EDITOR SAYS — THE important thing to remember about religion in Russia is that the Orthodox Church was a State church—a political church, and inextricably tied up with the Tsarist regime. This church threw all its resources into the counter-revolution-ary . war and as a consequence suffered, not because it was a church, but for obvious military and State reasons. It was at this time that the clergy was deprived of the franchise because they had largely committed themselves to the enemy in the civil war. Civil rights were restored to the priests, not as the Padre implicitly suggests as a result of the present war, but in 1936 when it was felt that the clergy had ceased to feel that their allegiance was due to the old regime. Purely Personal Matter. The Soviet attitude to religion has always been stated, “as far as the State is concerned religion is a purely personal matter.” The Soviet Government once,, after a wave of “persecution” stories had been going the rounds, asked for evidence of any case where a person had been per-

secuted for holding any religious view. There was no response to the challenge. Education was made secular (as it is supposed to be in New Zealand) and it was made an offence for any person other than the parents to teach religious doctrine to the child. Almost No Education. Education had been almost entirely in the hands of the clergy, which meant that there was almost no education in Russia, a little church doctrine was considered a sufficient educational weapon for all the vicissitudes of life. A modern educational system had to be introduced and “competition” from the priests avoided. The authorities said that,

anyway, the time for decision about religious beliefs was on maturity when the individual was capable of thinking for himselfnot in infancy having his grandmother’s ideas forced on him. Many people in this country hold this view. In his final .paragraph the Padre speaks of brotherly love, Here he falls into the Christian habit of assuming that all virtue arises out of Christianity. Most of the Christian virtues are common to all peoples and religions. For people to be able to live together in any form of society a minimum number of social graces must be common to all. Was there no brotherly love before the year 1 A.D. ?

You have read the two opinions. What do you say? Send your opinion to “Guerilla.”