It was an improbable scenario: an American clergyman preaching an evangelistic sermon in the Soviet Union amid the gilded trappings of a staid Russian Orthodox cathedral; a bearded prelate in golden robes and miter standing approvingly at his side; and Soviet government leaders, Roman Catholic cardinals, and liberal Protestant leaders of the World Council of Churches sprinkled among the thousands fortunate enough to be shoehorned inside.
It happened during last month’s millennial celebration of the Russian Orthodox Church, whose estimated 70 million adherents make it the largest Orthodox body in the world. The event, featuring evangelist Billy Graham at Saint Vladimir Cathedral in Kiev, capsulized some of the dramatic changes apparently taking place both in the church and in Soviet church-and-state relationships.
Seasoned Soviet Union watchers, however, warn that the atmosphere is volatile. They say the few improvements could vaporize overnight, especially if hard-liners succeed in derailing Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev’s efforts at reform through glasnost (openness).
Trying To Forget The Past
Russian Orthodoxy traces its roots to 988, when Prince Vladimir, ruler of the Kievan Rus’ and a convert to Christianity, had his subjects baptized in the Dnieper River near what is today Kiev (pop. 3 million) in Ukraine.
In tsarist times, the Russian Orthodox Church was the state church; by the early 1900s it had more than 70,000 parish churches. But heavy persecution followed the Communist revolution of 1917. Thousands of Orthodox clergy and lay leaders were killed or died in labor camps; monasteries, seminaries, and most of the churches were closed. Stalin ordered a reprieve during World War II to gain the support of the church against the Nazis, but Nikita Khrushchev reignited the fires of persecution in 1959. More than half of the remaining 17,000 or so churches were closed.
Under laws passed in 1929, the church still has no legal standing as a separate entity but is divided into parish associations that govern local worship. In legal matters, the church must be represented by the Council for Religious Affairs (CRA,) the government body that regulates churches. The CRA exercises its control through its 100-staff headquarters in Moscow, regional offices, and local “representatives.”
Under Gorbachev, new officials were appointed to lead the CRA’s Moscow headquarters. Churchmen say this is an improvement, but that local representatives continue to pose problems for rural churches.
The Orthodox celebrations began last month with a sobor, a church-wide deliberative council (the first since 1971) that brought together 272 ranking clerics from 67 dioceses in the Soviet Union and 9 abroad. Presided over by Patriarch Pimen, the ailing leader of Russian Orthodoxy, it was held at a church complex in Zagorsk, about 50 miles north of Moscow. Among the reports: There are now 6,893 parishes, 60 of them opened this year, with 67,674 priests and 723 deacons. Mention was made of the need for more Bibles, prayer books, and other literature, including church periodicals.
Joining the celebrations were 490 religious leaders and dignitaries from 90 countries. They were invited to attend the sobor’s opening and closing sessions.
An important action was the reinstatement of power to parish priests to administer their work. Previously, they were little more than paid employees of government-controlled parish councils.
Outbursts of applause greeted the June 7 announcement that the Ukrainian government was returning to the church a portion of the Caves, site of Orthodox catacombs in Kiev.
Attracting most press attention were the Roman Catholic delegations, led by ten cardinals, representing both the Vatican and the church. On their agenda were matters involving the welfare of Catholic minorities in the former Baltic states and elsewhere in the Soviet Union, along with the status of nearly 5 million Catholic Uniates in Ukraine, who make up the second-largest denomination in the country but whose existence and activities have been declared illegal. Two of the underground bishops, clad in black robes, and several priests met with Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, the Vatican secretary of state, and other high-ranking Catholics at the Sovetskaya Hotel in Moscow. Sources said the government is amenable to working out something acceptable to Rome, but Orthodox leaders, especially in Ukraine, stiffly resist the notion of legalizing the Eastern-rite Catholics.
An Evangelist In Moscow
Graham, the most prominent evangelical taking part in the celebrations, preached to overflow crowds at Baptist and Orthodox churches in both Moscow and Kiev. The crowd at Saint Vladimir Cathedral, estimated by Orthodox officials at between 12,000 and 15,000, was his largest in three preaching visits to the Soviet Union. Another large crowd greeted him at Yamskaya Street Baptist Church.
The evangelist, who met with high-ranking government officials and controversial church activists alike, told reporters he was pleased by the changes he found since his visits in 1982 and 1984, and he expressed hope for further improvements. Some new policies, including relaxed restrictions on Bibles and other literature imports, were among reforms he had suggested in letters and private meetings with officials in his earlier visits, he said. He added that he is still pressing for greater opportunities for Soviet Baptists, including the right for them to build and operate a seminary.
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Helping to fuel the fires of perestroika (restructuring)—and the church cause—are movies like Repentance, produced by filmmaker Tengiz Abuladze of Soviet Georgia. Languishing on censors’ shelves for four years, it was kept alive by video versions circulated discreetly among the nation’s avant-garde. Upon seeing it, Gorbachev ordered it released, and millions have seen the film. It exposes the horrors under Stalin and many past lies, comes close to indicting even the Leninist foundations of Soviet society, and concludes with the suggestion that the answers Soviets are seeking might be found within Christianity and the church.
That is one of the reasons, said several youths in interviews, why growing numbers of young adults have been showing up at church services.
By Edward E. Plowman in Moscow.
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