00:00 Context
01:38 A Lenten Letter
07:11 Almost seven years have passed...

On November 7, 1917, Bolshiveks seized control of Russia in what would become known as the October Revolution. Legislation was passed in 1918 that seized all property from the church, dissolved the church as a legal entity, and excluded it from all participation in public education. In 1929 the “Law on Religious Associations” removed the church’s ability to advertise itself or defend itself from anti-religious propaganda. Thousands of churches were closed, and the few that remained open were only open for the purposes of celebrating the liturgy under the watchful eye of the militant athiest government. Bibles were outlawed. Charitable and Social work was prohibited. The only instruction that could be given to parishioners was through sermons, and even then the government spies were present with ever the threat of the priest being dragged away in the night and church doors closed if the wrong thing was said. The church became cowed and submissive. Eventually, starting in the late 1960s the people, who are the defenders of the faith, began to rise up against this tyranny with no encouragement from the Patriarch or Holy Synod. In 1965 two Moscow Priests wrote an open letter to the Patriarch saying, in part, “The Suffering Church turns to you with hope. You have been invested with the staff of primatial authority. You have the power as Patriarch to put an end to this lawlessness with one word! Do this!” The priests were suspended. In 1972 Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote his “Lenten Letter”.

Originally Published in The New York Times, translated by Ludmilla Thorne, and read for you by Christopher McCulloh.

https://www.nytimes.com/1972/04/09/ar...