You are in Home > Philanthropy Columns

Article Name : Religion in Russia


If you follow history, you may know that the Russian dictator Stalin was a mass murderer. According to the Library of Congress, Stalin sent tens of millions of people to their deaths in slave labor camps or prison. Stalin was also the first leader in history ever to try to annihilate the spiritual life of a people.

Among his targets for destruction were some of Russia’s most beloved churches. The Kazan Cathedral in Red Square was 300 years old and treasured by Russians not only as a religious building, but also for its long history.

Stalin not only blew up the church, but over its rubble, he built a complex of urinals to service visitors to Red Square. The symbolism of this could not have been more infuriating to those who cherished their religion and their sense of national identity.

He also destroyed Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It was built to memorialize the tens of thousands who lost their lives defending Russia against Napoleon’s invasion back in 1812.

To the Russians, this building held a place in their hearts comparable to how we feel about Arlington Cemetery, the Statue of Liberty, and the National Cathedral, combined.

It took 45 years to build. It took Stalin 45 seconds to blow it up.

According to documents from the Library of Congress, Stalin caused more than 50,000 churches, temples and mosques to be destroyed. By 1939, only 500 remained open. And as for the monasteries and seminaries, when he didn’t have them dynamited, he turned them into prisons.

For three generations in the Soviet Union, religion was discouraged with all the force the State could muster. Religious buildings were destroyed. Religious leaders were shot. The Bible was treated as pornography. Atheism was taught in the schools.

So, how successful were Stalin and his cronies in their efforts to stamp out religion?

The answer came after the fall of Communism in 1991. These were harsh economic times, when many were living on pensions of less (often far less) than $40 a month. Food was scarce and the basic necessities of life were hard to come by.

Even so, people donated money that they couldn’t afford in a national effort to rebuild the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. It took almost five years, but today, if you visit Moscow, you can see the cathedral restored to its former glory, its beautiful onion domes gleaming over the city.

The same thing has happened all over the Former Soviet Union. The Kazan Cathedral has been rebuilt, along with 14,000 other houses of worship and more than 550 monasteries.

And it’s not just the old churches that have been restored. Russian Patriarch Alexy II, head of the Russian Orthodox Church, said in a recent interview that when he recently visited the new oil regions of the Former Soviet Union, he learned that 50 new churches had been built in the area.

What’s impressive about this is that there had never been any churches there before. The whole region sprang up after the Communists had come to power.

Stalin and his cronies tried everything they could to stamp out the spiritual life of their nation. But it didn’t work. Today, people in the Former Soviet Union practice their religion with a commitment that inspires awe.

Patriarch Alexy’s Wish for the United States

He wishes that we’d focus more on spiritual values, including the sacredness of the family. For him, the family is central because it’s here that children can be taught the importance of the spiritual side of life and the morals and respect that go with it. He feels that the family that values the spiritual side of life is vaccinated against social ills such as drugs and alcoholism.

-END- .