Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Nov/84

Contributor - Albert Hoekstra

Title - To Russia: We Came From Far To Meet Our Brother

Topic -Church In The World

Recently I have had the privilege of accepting the invitation of the Russian Orthodox Church and the All Union Council of Evangelical Christians - Baptists to the American Christians. The thirteen day visit was not the usual tourist's "sight-seeing" trip, but being a member of the delegation for the National Council of the Churches of Christ, we were on a pilgrimage for peace. Our group of 266 persons represented many different faiths such as Baptist, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, Presbyterian and different Russian and Greek Orthodox clergymen from the United States. I had the honour to be one of the delegates of the Reformed Church of America.

I undertook this journey trying to be open minded regardless of all the negative reports and the great difficulty to obtain correct information regarding the Soviets. For any visitor to the Soviet Union who wants a general understanding of the Russian way of life, a basic knowledge of the Russian historical development is necessary, such as the regime under the Tsars, the Russian Orthodox Church as an extremely wealthy and powerful institution at one time, Marxism, Leninism, the present Communist Constitution and the American-Russian relations from 1917 to the present.

Having a knowledge of those "subjects" is not only helpful but a necessity, not only what happened but why it happened. We all had the opportunity to meet with Christians and worship in churches in four major cities. The ten groups were spread out to a number of different republics and cities. My own group made a circuit from Moscow to Kharkov, to Minsk, to Leningrad and back to Moscow. Each group was under the leadership of two American Christians who had previous travel experience in the Soviet Union, an Intourist guide, and a Soviet Christian, who in my group was Father Georgy Telpis, professor of New Testament at the Leningrad Theological Academy. I was greatly impressed with the guides who also acted as interpreters, not only because of the great knowledge of the different languages but their intelligence and the warm relationship they established with the groups.

What were our findings about the situation of the churches in the USSR? Regardless of the repression by the State for over sixty years and the atheist propaganda, the Church is still a very strong force in Soviet life. If I were to write a book on Russian Church history, I would dedicate a chapter to the past sixty years and entitle it "The Most Glorious Period of Russian Christianity" because in my opinion Christianity in Russia today is of the highest quality of which can be a great example to us all. We were all very impressed with their sincere faith and devotion and saw some indication of further growth. It is estimated that there are fifty million Orthodox Christians. (The Communist party by contrast can only claim a membership of eighteen million.) There are, since the church repressions under Stalin and Khruschev, only about 7,500 "working" Orthodox churches, served by 6,000 priests. The Orthodox are permitted to maintain two church academics and three seminaries. Estimates on the number of Baptist believers vary from one to three million. The All Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists claims a total membership of 350,000. There are however 1,000 Protestant congregations that remain outside the Council. Though the Baptists do not have seminaries, they are able to maintain a substantial correspondence school program for the training of pastors.

Our group visited eleven congregations - Baptist, Orthodox, Lutheran, Roman Catholic and Synagogue. In most places we found the church to be full to capacity but not due to our presence since it was unannounced in most cases so that we might attend the service in their normal setting. In the Orthodox churches, true to our expectations, older women made up the bulk of the worshippers. In past history in the Orthodox church, the so-called "babushki" were always one of the great pillars of the church. But presently, older men are a much smaller number since according to statistics of all of the men born in 1923 only one out of every 100 returned home after the second world war. The loss of over twenty million people and the horrible memories of this war, known to them as the "Patriotic War", is still very much alive today and would explain their great desire for peace and concern for the future. Whenever we came in contact with them, whether it be in church or in civil peace movements, we were always greeted with the Russian words for peace and friendship "mir e drush ba".

What about religious persecution in the USSR? According to Article fifty-two of the Constitution of the USSR adopted in 1977: "Citizens of the USSR are guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess any religion, and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda. Incitement of hostility or hatred on religious grounds is prohibited." Our itinerary was designed to bring us into contract with those Christians who have decided to work under the restrictions on religious activity. These restrictions have to do primarily with containing the dissemination of Christian truth to the buildings or publications registered with or permitted by the State. From what we observed, Christian life is flourishing despite these restrictions. There are religious groups who do oppose the registration such as some Baptists, Jehovah Witness and some extremist sects causing a conflict with the State. However, the situation is far more complex than we may be led to believe because of the sensational reporting about the underground church".

Even though we did have an overloaded schedule of meetings and contacts, we did have the opportunity to make very quick observations on the daily life in Russian society. A few visits in the food markets and department stores showed that by Western standards (the highest in the world) is quite a contrast. The necessities of life are available with very little luxury items. Public transportation was very efficient and inexpensive. (e.g. Metro at Moscow was five kapacs or seven cents to any destination.) The people in the cities looked healthy and the cities themselves seemed to be clean, flourishing places, with no signs of vandalism. I saw nothing in Soviet cities remotely comparable to what terrible conditions I saw in Harlem, New York (in so-called civilized wealthy society) or in Amsterdam as we passed through on our return trip. As a young man I was proud of the city of Amsterdam like every good Dutchman, but was shocked to see what freedom and permissiveness of our Western civilization have done. Upon our arrival in Moscow we were assured of freedom to explore on our own in the city, talk to anyone, photograph anything we were interested in with the exception of aerial shots. As a quote from our guide, "we are not a crime free society but violent crimes are very rare", therefore we had no concerns about pick-pockets, muggers, dope pushers, prostitutes, etc. The women in our group had no fear at any time or place of being assaulted. It is a police state but it gave us all a great sense of security.

The Russian people are no "smiles" and a first observation is a serious and stern expression but upon dealing with them one soon learns of a great warmth and sincerity and their hospitality has no limits. The attitude of the general public towards us was very friendly with no anti-American demonstrations or expressions of anti-Western feelings.

During our visit at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, they informed us that the Soviet press stated for some time that "Reagan wants war" calling them the "evil empire". We found a deep concern about the prospect of war with the United States wherever we went, especially since the last war left such an indelible mark on their outlook. Among the Russians there appears to be a sincere belief that their government really wants peace. It should be well understood however, that the limited time we had, even though we could relate with the common worshipper to the highest official of the Orthodox Church, H H Patriach Pimen, the common man on the street and government officials, there are still many questions remaining. As Westerners we should realize what Churchill once said of the Russians, "It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma". But one fact is certain and unnegotiable we are all Christians serving the same Lord, the King of Peace, so for us there should be no motive or excuse to destroy our brothers.

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