Russians in Church

On the red-hot question of religion-in-Russia a new voice spoke. It belonged to Dr. Ralph Washington Sockman, whose Sunday morning Radio Pulpit (NBC) pulls 4,000 letters a week. Back from the same Soviet-sponsored tour of the U.S.S.R. that convinced Southern Baptist Louie D. Newton that Russia was in a fair way to hit the sawdust trail (TIME, Aug. 26), Park Avenue Methodist Sockman, writing in the Christian Century, stuck prudently to factual reporting, left the enthusiasm to Baptist Louie. Excerpts:

"On our first Sunday in Moscow our delegation of seven divided its attendance between the Russian Orthodox Cathedral and a Baptist church. At the former we arrived a little after ten o'clock to find long queues at every entrance. The cathedral was so packed with standing worshipers that ushers were engaged in helping some people to make their way to the exits so that others could enter. . . .

"Youth is absent in the congregation. . . . When asked the reason for their alienation from the church, they made it clear that their antipathy was to what they believed was the antisocial attitude of the church rather than to the unscientific nature of religious teaching. It would perhaps be more accurate to describe the attitude of the young people whom we met as indifference to the church rather than as antipathy toward it.

"Some idea of the people's devotion to the church may be gained from the incomes of the priests. . . . The average income of a village priest is from 3,000 to 6,000 rubles a month, while his colleague in a city parish averages from 10,000 to 12,000 rubles a month, and bishops rate as high as 25,000 to 40,000 rubles per month. With the official exchange rate of 12 rubles to a dollar, such salaries look pretty tempting even to prosperous Americans. . . . What these figures mean in Russia may be gauged by comparison with the average earnings of unskilled workers, which in one factory were given as 480 rubles per month; of skilled workers, 900 to 1,100 rubles per month; of engineers, 1,500 to 2,000 rubles per month."

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