ATHEISM IN RUSSIA

Hokitika Guardian, 1 March 1932, Page 3

ATHEISM IN RUSSIA

DESTRUCTION of • CHURCHES

AUCKLAND, February 29

Comment has been made oh the impressions gained by Professor A, Q. B. i (Fisher, of Otago University, while on a j visit to 'Moscow, Russia, of the state of the Church in that country, by Bishop Liston, Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland. .Bishop Liston thinks that as Professor Fisher, whose stay in Russia was brief, did not have much contact ’with the Church, some facts and I observations will be of interest'. Dr Liston stir's: — .■i.- 't “Let i't’ be'remembered that LeriinI grad, Mdiscow and other large cities of Russia to .which visitors as a rule go, or are allowed to go, are but a small fraction of the immense territory of Soviet Russia. t 4.«d' even in these ' cities the traveller' can only visit the churches that still stand or are open. iprofessoi l Fisher speaks of only 'two that he visited. What of the thousands upon thousands —Catholic, Orthodox, [Protestant, Jewish and ’.Moslem—-that during the past T+ years have been demolished or closed.

WORSHIPPERS IN PERIL. “The priests of the/ Orthodox Church or the Catholic Church, whom, the visitor may have seen at the altAr, are those who are still alive or at liberty. And the worshipper's whom Professor Fisher saw in his two churc'lies-L'ap : p'a.ren'tly his only contact with religious: lTfe in huge Russia—l wonder if they 're,. at liberty to-day P I do know that'the’% members, like the ministers, of 'all 'cfiurches who remain loyal to theii,’. faith do so at peril of their, lives, their liberty and their ,happiness.’* .' f _ ... “Here are some facts’.. ’ Before 1917 there, were some 1-3,000,000 Catholics in the Russian ’ Empire 1 , served by 4600 priests. Within the existing Soviet [Russia- there were in 1917, the year of the revolution, 614 Catholic churches open and in use; to-day. 182 remain. There -were also- 581 chapels; to-day no' one of these remains. There were 810 .priests ; to-day HO are f at liberty, while over 200 are know,nftb! be .in Bolshevik prisons. The remaining 500 have died from privation and starvation or have been exiled and executed. In 1917 there were seven colleges, for the training of students for the priesthood ; to-day not one. remains. There were eight bishops; to-day they are in. exile, or have died through want. Five bishops havo since been consecrated; pi these, two are still at liberty, while;The other 'three are-in prison-at forced labour. Let it bemadded that from 1918 to 1920 no fewer, than 26 archbishops' and bishops and 1200 priest* (Orthodox and-Catholic); vvei;e massacred.

WHOLE ATTITUDE CLEAR. , “The wholeI’attitude, 1 ’attitude, of the'’Soviet Government'- toward 'religion "is as the noonday sun. Belief in God is incompatible with Communism"/ God is a personal .enemy) ‘The God-idea r .must be completely liquidated. ‘Otty programme,’ declared Comrade Zinoviev, when president of the Third International, on June 17, 1Q23, ‘is based on scientific materialism, which includes unconditionally the necessity ot propagating atheism.’ Lenin’s widow has this to any : 7 We must .make out school boys and ‘girls not merely non-reiigious, but actively and passionately anti-religious.’

“The list of formal laws embodying these principles is lengthy, comprehensive, and utterly destructive of the .most elementary rights of man,' but that, is another istoiy. Suffice it ■to say that the present generation of Soviet youth 'taken by and large, must be reckoned not merely ! as lost to relig-on, bub ns won over or forced into militant-'athe ism. The prerent probabilities are' 1 that the Bolshevik Government will succeed in its purpose of turning the Russian people into a race of atheists. Only God can avert that calamity to Europe and the world, and knowing ’that He has made the heart of man religious, all oi us who believe in Him .are confident of the issue.’’