Religion

Was God against the USSR?

For those who wonder about the reasons behind the Soviet collapse, religious Russians have what might be the plainest answer. The Soviet Union was doomed from the start, they say, as it was an unprecedented attempt at creating a society of godless people. But is that really true? After all, President Mikhail Gorbachev ”legalized“ religion in the USSR as part of the perestroika reforms.

In the 20 years since the break-up of the Soviet Union, thousands of Orthodox churches and Muslim mosques, hundreds of Protestant oratories and dozens of synagogues and Buddhist centers have sprouted across Russia and other post-Soviet states. While Soviet landmarks and the Communist legacy fell into decay or obsolescence, houses of prayer were enjoying a boom. While post-Soviet industry and agriculture are in a pathetic condition practically all over the former USSR, religion is making a big comeback. But there is an interesting paradox as regards Russia´s predominant religious perception, in that while the Soviet legacy is sinking ever deeper into oblivion, religious Russians are coming to realize that socialist society was, in fact, more charitable and righteous than the present-day free market economy. Post-Soviet Russians are increasingly coming to embrace Che Guevara´s opinion: ”Once Christians join the social revolution, it will become unstoppable.“

”Opium of the people“

Religion was in an ambivalent situation in the Soviet Union, as regards the regime´s official attitude and popular informal religious practices. The Communist Party´s official ideology predicted that religions would eventually die out in the course of history. Russia´s Communist identity was based largely on materialism, whereas religion was considered to be ”the opium of the people,“ in the words of Karl Marx.

”Religion is dope for the people“

”Religion is poison - keep the children safe“

”Imperialistic puppet“ by Dmitry Moor, for the ”Atheist at the Machine“ magazine, 1928

Soviet ideology allowed for part of the populace to be religious, and it even tolerated the existence of religious organizations in the USSR. The official Communist narrative, however, maintained that religion was an outdated remnant of the Old Regime, which would gradually fall into oblivion as the world evolved into a Communist society. The Communist outlook expected future citizens of the Socialist utopia to abandon the notion of an afterlife and a soul to be saved, and focus on improving present reality.

The Diocesan Assembly of clergy and laity that
elected Metropolitan Tikhon Patriarch of the
Russian Orthodox Church in 1917

The Soviet regime essentially displayed something akin to jealousy of God in its handling of religious people. A religious person recognizes no authority apart from the Maker, and puts his or her religious affiliation above national or ideological fealty. Such individual estrangement was believed to undermine the public influence of the Communist Party, and was therefore seen as detrimental to the ambitious Communist concept of improving the individual and society.

Meanwhile, freedom of religion has always been an essential part of the popular mentality in Russia. The more pressure the government would exert to sustain its claim to people´s faith and beliefs, the greater the urge for believers to defy the incursion.

Patriarch Tikhon

It was rather telling that the Russian Orthodox Church reinstated the office of Patriarch on 18 November 1917 (5th November according to Russia´s old Julian calendar), just as Russia was in the middle of the Bolshevik revolution. As Russia was abolishing the monarchy, the Church ended its 200-year period of submission to the state, when the tsar was formally titled head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The core purpose of the Soviet project was to reform human nature and produce a new type of individual, a community person driven by principles and forming a society as yet unseen in human history. In setting such an ambitious goal, the Soviet government was understandably unwilling to tolerate the existence of independent religious communities with considerable influence on the popular mind. That is why the Socialist Revolution of 1917 was promptly followed by a period of ferocious oppression of religious communities, the clergy and individual believers in the 1920s-1930s.

The government primarily targeted the kind of communities that could exist independently from the state in terms of economics, political activity and social support

Splitting the Church

The Russian Orthodox Church was exposed to the most profound and brutal oppression owing to its status as Russia´s largest and strongest religious community. The Bolshevik regime was keen on taking advantage of whatever controversies arose among the clergy to undermine and eventually crush the Church.

The Soviet authorities expropriate
objects of value from the Church
(Image from regels.org)

Patriarch Tikhon was put on trial by the Bolsheviks on charges of ”counter-revolutionary activity.“ The patriarch died in mysterious circumstances in 1925, and members of his entourage subsequently claimed he had been poisoned.

To gain leverage against the Orthodox Church, the Communist government struck occasional alliances with Russia´s Old Believers, Protestants and even Catholics, to an extent. It welcomed and encouraged every form of schism or dissent within the Church. It got to a point in the mid-1920s where most of Russia´s Orthodox churches were arbitrarily handed over to Old Believers or other dissenter communities, with the Russian Orthodox Church remaining in control of only a few cathedrals. However, the Russian laity was predominantly reluctant to join dissenter parishes, so the newly-transferred churches mostly stood empty.

It should be observed that the Soviet government and its secret police had a profound understanding of religious issues and disputes, and whatever action they undertook against the Church was always elaborate and well-targeted.

Bolshevik anti-Church policies and intrigues culminated in a declaration pledging the Church´s absolute loyalty to the Soviet government issued by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) in 1927.

Sergius´ declaration caused a major split within the Russian Orthodox community while the formal primate of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky), was in jail. Sergius published his declaration without consulting any of the Church´s governing bodies or hierarchs. He may, in any case, have been unable to do so as most Orthodox bishops had already been imprisoned by then, and Orthodox parishes had no opportunity for convening to discuss anything. Meanwhile, the Soviet government promptly started pressurizing bishops, parish priests and ordinary believers alike into subscribing to Sergius´ declaration.

”Arrest of Patriarch Tikhon“ by F. Moskvitin

Pavel Korin´s ”Requiem: A Farewell to Rus“ depicts
Christians who made the pilgrimage to Patriarch
Tikhon´s funeral in Moscow

A large share of the Orthodox community, clerics and laity included, reacted by going underground rather than concede and cooperate with what they saw as a godless regime. The Orthodox priests and community members who had followed the White movement into exile by the end of the Civil War announced that they no longer regarded Metropolitan Sergius and his followers as Orthodox Christians. These diaspora parishes were subsequently united into what was known as the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR). The breakaway church formed its own Synod, which was initially based in Serbia, until World War Two forced it to relocate to New York, where it has been headquartered ever since.

Post comment

By posting your comment, you agree to abide by our posting rules

Name*
Country, City
Valid e-mail*
Text*
Enter digits below*
	*Required fields