RELIGION IN EAST EUROPE
SIR,—May I answer the questions that Mr. Herbert Ashley addressed to me in your columns ? (1) Why do I " rush to the defence of Com-
munist regimes in Eastern Europe" ? The form of the question is interesting. I "rushed ":,(if that is the word) to the defence of the Russian Orthodox Church and pointed out that it is not true that organised religion has disappeared in the U.S.S.R. To do this no doubt removes one of the false arguments used in attacking that country. Is it, therefore, a wrong thing to do ? Have we reached the stage when Christians must hate C.omtnunists so much that they must not tell the truth about their fellow-churchmen ?
(2) What is the relevance to the present issue of the fact that Roman Catholics were once perseciited in England? Surely it is to demonstrate that when the policy of a Church compels disloyalty to a State it is not surprising that a State takes measures to defend itself. Christian thinking should be as concerned to demand justice to the civil organisation of the community as to the Church .
(3) What is the strength of the Russian Church ? According to the Abbot Seraphim Rodionoff of Paris, who visited Russia in 1947, the Orthodox Church now has 30,000 parishes and 33,000 priests and deacons. There are no statistics of lay membership available, but it is worth recalling that Yaroslaysky estimated before the war that one-third of the town population and two-thirds of the village population were " believers." The attitude of the Orthodox Church to the State was described by Archbishop Luke of Simferopol in an article in the journal of the Moscow Patriarchy, in which he said: "We have no causes whatever for enmity to our Government, for it has given complete freedom to the Church and does not interfere in its internal affairs. We, of course, utterly deny materialism, the ideological basis of Communism. But that does not prevent us seeing all the good, all the great social truths, which our new State structure has given us."
As to whether 'or not the throwing of stones is sometimes more justifiable than the throwing of bouquets, I can only submit that there is weighty Christian authority for taking the view that he who projects the initial stone should first review his own position with some care.—
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