Back from 17 days of traveling, talking and trenchering through Russia, a five-man delegation representing the World Council of Churches last week reported that, despite repression, religion in the U.S.S.R. is remarkably "rich and intensive," and that Russian Christians have an "ardent desire" to make contact with their fellow Christians in the West.
The trip was the latest move in a slow warmup of relations with Russian Orthodoxy that has been going on since the World Council's Evanston Assembly in 1954. The makeup of the World Council's delegation to Russia was well designed to disprove any lingering notions Moscow's Patriarch Alexis might have that the W.C.C. was "a political tool of Western imperialism." Under the leadership of World Council General Secretary Willem Visser 't Hooft (Dutch Reformed), the delegation consisted of: British Anglican Francis House; U.S. Lutheran Dr. O. Frederick Nolde, director of the W.C.C.'s Commission on International Affairs; Greek Orthodox Dr. Nick Nissiotis; and Burma Baptist U Kyaw Than, administrative secretary of the East Asia Christian Conference.
Songs of Welcome. The junketing World Councilmen ranged from Moscow to Leningrad, to Riga in satellite Latvia, to Etchmiadzin in Soviet Armenia, for two days of talks with Vazgen I, Supreme Catholicos of the Armenian Church, within view of Mt. Ararat, one of the traditional sites of the landing place of Noah's Ark. There were banquets and church services, meetings with Patriarch Alexis and Metropolitan Nikolai (Russian Orthodoxy's foreign expert), talks with leaders of the Russian Baptists (who claim a membership of 3,000,000) and the Lutheran churches of the Baltic States.
Back in Geneva and jaunty in a Russian fur hat. Secretary Visser 't Hooft last week described the "songs and shouts of welcome, the waving of handkerchiefs, and the joy of being with Christians of other churches, the sincere desire for closer contacts with those from other lands." How was Christianity doing? Orthodox leaders estimated church membership at about 25 million (total pop. 208,826,000), and the theological seminaries were well-filled with high-caliber students. Congregations are surprisingly large (as many as 10,000 in one service at Leningrad), but the question is how long they will continue under the Communists' strict policy of cutting off young people from the church. "There are no Sunday schools, no religious youth movements, and it is a fact that most of those we saw in church were over 35 years old, with a majority of them women."
Truths for Troubled Times. Church leaders are under close supervision by officials of the Soviet Government's Council for Religious Affairs. "These are full-blooded Marxists, of course," said Visser 't Hooft. "But some of these atheist supervisors have developed a real liking for their job and show a deep interest in church affairs and history. After all, there may be found in England and Sweden and elsewhere government functionaries in charge of church affairs who are agnostics as well."