A Mighty Fortress ...

"Religion," said Marx, "is the opium of the people"--and he certainly never expected it to become part of the political pharmacopoeia of the first Marxist state. Yet Stalin's Russia has made good use of the once-banned Orthodox Church in Europe and the Middle East, and recently appeared as the defender of the faith in China as well.

As the Communist press of Russia and China cheered, the Soviet consul general in Shanghai rescued from a Chinese jail an Orthodox archbishop who once fought with the Czarist armies, but was absolved last fall when he became a Soviet citizen and declared allegiance to Moscow's Patriarch Alexei, who follows the Kremlin political line. The Chinese who had arrested Archbishop Victor had accused him of helping the Japs. So did some of the anti-Soviet followers of Victor's Shanghai rival, Archbishop John of the Orthodox Church in Exile.

Archbishop John, whose mahogany-colored beard is as silky and flowing as Victor's is square cut and bristly, took the Christian view of his rival's plight. Said he: "Archbishop Victor is a good man, well known for his charity and his love of the people. All members of the Church regret the misfortune that has befallen him, and we shall pray for his early release."

But when Victor was freed (on 20 million CN dollars bail, or U.S. $6,000), he gave little credit to the prayers of his own followers or of John's. The Soviet news agency Tass, jubilantly reporting the Archbishop's "liberation" and a service celebrating it, said Victor told "thousands of believers": "Behind us like a cliff stands Soviet power!"

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