Pope Pius XII last week challenged the unholy alliance between Atheist Joseph Stalin and his tame churchman, the Patriarch Alexei of Moscow, head of the Orthodox Church in Russia. The Pope charged that Russia was ruthlessly stamping out Roman Catholicism in Ruthenia, implied that Alexei was Stalin's eager catspaw.
In a 10,000-word encyclical devoted wholly to the situation in Ruthenia, a Czechoslovak province ceded to Russia last June, the Pope asked: "Who doesn't know that Patriarch Alexei, recently elected by the dissident Russian bishops, directed a letter to-the Ruthenian Church, which...