No Longer Godless Communism

By Richard N. Ostling

We must engage in a most decisive battle against reactionary clergy and suppress their resistance with such cruelty that they will remember it for several decades to come.

-- Lenin

The founder of the Soviet state wrote those words in 1922, but they were only made public last April -- at a time when Lenin's heirs were finally giving up their long antireligion battle. Perhaps the most startling evidence of the change was the celebration of the first Eucharist since 1918 in the Kremlin's Cathedral of the Assumption, barely three weeks ago. While Anatoli Lukyanov, the Chairman of the Supreme Soviet, and Ivan Silayev, prime minister of the Russian republic, and other Communist dignitaries looked on, Alexi II, Patriarch of All Russia, conducted services in the formerly pre-eminent church of Russia. The Patriarch then led the first Procession of the Cross in 70 years from the Kremlin through downtown Moscow to the Church of the Great Ascension, restored after decades of use as a workshop and potato warehouse.

Last week the renewed religious freedom that Alexi had so publicly celebrated finally became official. Culminating a two-year thaw, the Soviet parliament passed a new Law on Freedom of Conscience by a vote of 341 to 2. The statute bestowed great opportunities on believers, estimated to number as many as 131 million, who have maintained their faith despite the oppression of Lenin and his successors. But with freedom come some grievous problems, principally shortages of money, trained clergy and just about everything else needed for religious restoration. At the same time, ugly sectarian conflicts, also long repressed, are boiling up within and among religious factions.

The new law removes the most formidable barriers to church life, starting with the absence of property rights for religious groups. Previously, houses of worship existed at the whim of Communist bureaucrats, who confiscated tens of thousands of churches and mosques. Charitable and pastoral work beyond church walls was forbidden, while atheists had power to meddle in church affairs and propagandize against belief in God in schools and the media. Seminary training was severely restricted, and rank-and-file clergy were even cut off from formal food privileges. No faith could conduct religious education of children.

All that is gone, but certain limitations remain. The parliament did not allow voluntary religious classes in state-run schools. Until a new legal regime for conscientious objectors is developed, they will still be drafted by the Soviet military. The law leaves intact a less powerful version of the Council for Religious Affairs, through which the KGB previously controlled religious organizations. But all of that may soon change further. The Russian republic, for one, plans an even more liberal religious statute of its own.

Freedom may prove a mixed blessing for the predominant Russian Orthodox Church, which retained prerogatives under the old Soviet regime in return for passivity before a heavy-handed state. The Soviet government has returned more than 1,000 churches, but money for needed repairs is sorely lacking. Though disenchanted atheists are flocking to the old faith, there are too few trained priests to greet them. Father Alexander Borisov, a Moscow city councilman, says many lay churchgoers "have never even read the Gospels." Little wonder: scarce Bibles still sell in Moscow churches for 200 rubles (roughly one month's pay).

Religious glasnost has had the same effect within the Orthodox church as within Soviet society as a whole: conservative "stagnators" and "reformers" are struggling for church control. In addition, some conservatives in Orthodoxy are joining forces with unreconstructed Communists and right-wing nationalists. Their goal: revival of old-style Russian chauvinism, both religious and secular, within the boundaries of the Soviet multinational empire. Rumors are rife in Moscow that the right-wing movement inspired the murder a month ago of Father Alexander Menn, an outstanding church progressive assailed by anti-Semites for his Jewish descent.

Russian Orthodoxy is also meeting competition from other creeds, particularly in the Ukraine, long the source of the majority of Orthodox priests and much of the church's income. A schismatic bishop has proclaimed the rebirth of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, which spurns Moscow's centralized religious rule. Even more threatening is the sudden resurgence of Eastern Rite Catholicism in the western Ukraine. The millions of Catholic believers follow Orthodox liturgy but are loyal to the Pope. After World War II, the Eastern Rite church was abolished at a Stalinist-controlled synod, followed by a bloody repression in which church property was given to the Russian Orthodox. Somehow Catholicism survived.

After Mikhail Gorbachev met with Pope John Paul II in Rome last December, he gave tacit recognition to Ukrainian Catholics. They have since formed at least 1,600 parishes, many of them using formerly Catholic buildings seized from Orthodox congregations. Talks between the Catholics and the Moscow patriarchate over the property disputes have broken down twice this year.

The Soviet Union's small Protestant minority is not squabbling; it is growing. Stadiums in Moscow and Leningrad have been filled for revival meetings, and later this month 850 activists from around the country will meet to plan evangelistic strategy. Soviet Muslims are likewise heartened. "A revival of Islam is taking place," says Hajji Rais, the muezzin of Moscow. He notes, however, that his mosque is alone in serving 600,000 believers in the area.

There is also a thaw for Soviet Jews, who have long suffered a double burden of religious suppression and persecution as suspected "agents of Zionism." They are now able to take Hebrew lessons. The state has given back a number of synagogues, but few Soviet Jews remain regular worshipers. Numbers will dwindle further because of emigration, which reached an all-time high last month. Moscow's Chief Rabbi, Adolf Shayevich, says Jews no longer leave because of religious restrictions but because of economic decline and fear of anti-Semitism.

Religious ferment is bound to continue, along with the other changes reshaping the U.S.S.R. But it is uncertain whether the emerging society will be, in the phrase of 19th century writer Nikolai Leskov, "baptized but not enlightened" -- formally religious but narrowly sectarian in outlook. The odds on enlightenment have been lengthened greatly, however, by the ability of the country's deeply spiritual people to embrace and expand their beliefs in public.

CHART: NOT AVAILABLE

CREDIT: TIME Chart by Joe Lertola

CAPTION: FAITH AND DOUBT

With reporting by Yuri Zarakhovich/Moscow, with other bureaus