17 Russia and the Vatican

It would be a mistake to think that the Vatican has considered Russia to be one of the greatest enemies of the Catholic Church only since that country became Communist. Far from it. Rome regarded Russia with the deepest hostility even when the Czar ruled supreme in that country. But whereas the Vatican’s hostility to Soviet Russia was due to its economic, social, political and cultural structure, its hostility to Czarist Russia was mainly a religious antagonism. It was the animosity of one powerful Church, the Roman Catholic, against another powerful and rival Church, the Orthodox Church.

This enmity had existed for centuries, but, owing to the comparative isolation of Orthodox Russia, it had lain dormant except in those Catholic countries on the borders of Russia or whose territories had, on occasion, been subject to Russian occupation.

Towards the end of the last century and during the first decade of the twentieth century the Vatican began to regard Russia with greater interest than before, and started, in fact, to formulate plans for an “eventual conversion of Orthodox Russia to Catholicism.” To expiate on those plans is not the task of this book. It suffices to say that the Vatican was becoming alive to the persecution of the Catholic Church by the Orthodox Church in Russia itself and in Russian-occupied territory. Protests were lodged with the Russian Government and the oppression exercised by the Orthodox Church was denounced to the world.

That the Orthodox Church persecuted the little isles of Catholicism is true enough. It is also true, on the other hand that the Catholic Church persecuted the Orthodox Church whenever she could.

Two characteristics distinguished the two Churches and lent a particular importance to their hostility. In the first place the Orthodox Church was, by comparison, very corrupt and her clergy were ignorant and superstitious. Secondly, and this is equally important, it was a National Church―or, rather, it had been transformed into little more than an adjunct to the military caste and the Czar. It co-operated with those who desired to keep the Russian people on the lowest possible cultural and spiritual level and thereby to secure a continuation of the Czarist regime. It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Orthodox Church had become a powerful instrument of the Czarist regime, and, in turn, the Czarist regime had become a powerful instrument of the Orthodox Church. Each was dependent on the other for a continuation of its rule and for eventual survival. The fall of one would, in fact, have involved the fall of the other.

Although the Catholic Church has always sponsored a centralized and absolute Government, as was that of the Czar, nevertheless it hoped that Czarism might be swept away, in one manner or another. This was not because the Catholic Church was hostile to the Czarist regime itself but in absolute Czarism the Catholic Church saw the main obstacle to its plans, as being the great supporter of the rival Orthodox Church.

When, in 1905, the Czar was compelled to grant concessions permitting the practice of any religion, the Holy Synod made such religious liberties inaccessible to the Roman Catholic. Thus it was that, on the outbreak of the First World War, the Vatican strove to hamper the alliance existing between Czarist Russia and the other Allies, for in every military or political Russian move the Vatican saw only a move of the Orthodox Church. During the war this attitude became obvious when the Vatican made it understood that the Czarist plan for seizing Constantinople was, perhaps, the greatest factor hindering the consideration of Papal peace terms.

The Vatican emphasized that, so long as Russia maintained her imperialist claims, the Allies could not find a just basis for peace negotiations. The Vatican could give no benediction to the Western Allies while Russia, Orthodox Russia, remained in the Entente. In the matter of Constantinople the Vatican greatly feared that if that town fell under Russian domination, the Orthodox Church would create there a great centre of the Orthodox Faith, in rivalry with that of Rome.

At that time the Vatican’s hostility to Russia was due to the Orthodox Church in the background. Hence the words of Cardinal Gasparri, Secretary of State at the Vatican:

“The victory of Czarist Russia, to whom France and England have made so many promises, would constitute for the Vatican a disaster greater than the reformation.” (Cardinal Gasparri to Historian Ferrero.) More than twenty- five years later, in the time of another Secretary of State and another Pope, this sentence of Cardinal Gasparri was repeated over and over again, but on these occasions the reference was to Bolshevism. Thus, when in 1917 the Czarist regime collapsed in utter ruin and was supplanted by Bolshevism, the news was received with great hopes and even rejoicing at the Vatican. In view of what has since happened, this might seem strange: but happen it did. The Vatican rejoiced at the realization of its long hopes. The fall of the Czar involved the fall of Rome’s great rival, the Orthodox Church, since Nicholas II was also head of the Russian Church.

It is true that the assumption of power by Bolshevism was not very encouraging; but at that time the Vatican considered Bolshevism to be the lesser of the two evils, especially as the separation of Church and State became at last a reality, under the rule of Kerensky. Although this separation endangered the situation, still it bequeathed religious equality to Russia, which meant that henceforth-ward Catholicism would be on equal terms with the Orthodox Church. Thus there would be opened up to Rome a tremendous vista of religious activity in that vast Russian territory hitherto sealed against the missionary zeal of the Catholic Church. The Vatican during those years was, in fact, seriously contemplating the conversion of the whole country to Rome. Count Sforza, who was in the close contact with the Vatican, related that:

At the Vatican, Bolshevism was at the beginning viewed as a horrible evil undoubtedly, but also a necessary evil, which might possibly have salutary consequences. The structure of the Russian Church would never have given way so long as Czarism lasted. Among the ruins accumulated by Bolshevism there was room for everything, even for a religious revival in which the influence of the Roman Church might have made itself felt.

Immediately after the First World War the Vatican entered into contact with the Bolsheviks, with the object of reaching an agreement allowing Catholic activities in the new Russia. This was done while, simultaneously, the Catholic Church was fulminating against the ideology and the “acts of terrorism” promoted by Bolshevism throughout Europe, including Russia herself.

But although the Catholic Church was condemning Bolshevism wherever found, it refrained from such condemnation during negotiations with the Soviet Republic. It tolerated, and even negotiated with, Bolshevism in order to destroy that great religious enemy the Orthodox Church―or rather, after the Revolution, to supplant it permanently.

One of the first great moves of the Vatican was effected through the agency of Mgr. Ropp, Bishop of Vilna, a refugee from Czarist Russia. Mgr. Ropp, in 1920, having established his headquarters to Berlin, summoned numerous meetings of Russian emigres, including adherents of the Orthodox Church, converted Catholics, Balts, and Germans, with the aim of effecting a union between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church. Mgr. Ropp made three demands from the Soviet-permission to return; liberty of conscience in religion and religious education; and the restitution of church edifices and other property to the Church. The Vatican thus expressed its views on this effort: “The moment has arrived propitious for rapprochement, inasmuch as the iron circle of Caesaro-papism, which hermetically closed Russian religious life to all Roman influences, has been broken.

(Osservatore Romano).

The Vatican was very hopeful that Bolshevism would not last very long. “Actual political conditions (inside Russia) form a grave obstacle, but this obstacle has a temporary character” (Osservatore Romano). There was open talk of “converting” a country of 90,000,000 people to the true religion.” Diplomatic negotiations between the Kremlin and the Vatican continued, sometimes openly and sometimes secretly.

The Soviet leaders, meanwhile, were pursuing crafty tactics. Although they assured the Catholic and the Orthodox alike that religion was untrammeled, they started a gigantic anti-religious campaign. To both Churches liberty and privileges were promised, and these promises were extended to Protestant bodies, especially to American Protestants. At that period Soviet Russia, obedient to the dictum “divide and rule,” was allowing simultaneously the formation of a large Catholic group, the formation of a powerful Atheistic centre, and the resuscitation of the Orthodox Church. From this last sprang eventually the Soviet-inspired Living Church, with Bishop Vedensky as the first Patriarch, and various powerful Protestant groups. All these were to fight each other in order to save the souls of 90,000,000 Russians.

These diplomatic, political, and religious machinations reached a climax, as far as concerns the Catholic Church, in 1922, during the Conference of Genoa. At a dinner the Bolshevik Minister for Foreign Affairs, Chicherin, and the Archbishop of Genoa toasted each other. They had been discussing the future relationship of the Vatican and Soviet Russia. Chicherin emphasized that any religion had ample scope in Russia, since the Soviet Republic had separated Church and State. But when the Vatican later proposed concrete plans for “Catholicizing Russia” it incurred great difficulties. The moribund Orthodox Church was moribund indeed, but it was not yet dead.

The Vatican next approached the various nations then having representatives at Genoa and sent a Papal messenger bearing a letter from the Secretary of State. This missive asked the Powers not to sign any treaty with Russia unless freedom to practice any religion was guaranteed by it, together with the restoration of all Church property. Meanwhile the Genoa Conference failed―and the Vatican abandoned its plan.

But soon the plan was resumed in Rome. The Papal representative, Mgr. Pizzardo, negotiated with the Bolshevik Minister, Vorowsky, with satisfactory results. The Vatican was allowed to send missionaries into Russia to prepare a great plan for feeding and clothing the population. The first group consisted of eleven priests, who took with them 1,000,000 parcels bearing the inscription: “To the children of Russia from the Pope in Rome.” It should be noted that the Vatican had promised Vorowsky to abstain from all “propaganda.”

Then the Vatican appointed Father Walsh as head of the Papal relief mission and representative of the Vatican, at the time when the American relief expedition arrived in Moscow. Father Walsh joined forces with Colonel Haskell, chief of the Hoover American Relief Administration. An interminable series of disputes arose between the Soviet Republic and the Catholics, each accusing the other of employing “propaganda.”

The “implacable and undisguised enmity” of Father Walsh soon caused difficulties and he became “the chief obstacle to the successful consummation of the Pope’s plan for winning Russia to Catholicism” (Louis Fischer).

This strained relationship reached a climax when fifteen priests were arrested on the charge of having aided the enemy, to wit Catholic Poland, during the war of 1920; and one was sentenced to death.

Father Walsh and the Vatican used every effort to arouse the world against Russia. The Anglican Church sympathized with the Vatican, and finally the protest assumed the form of a concrete menace when the Catholic Polish General, Sikorsky, threatened another invasion. Relations between the Ctican and Moscow were broken off, but both sides tried once more to mend their relationships. A conference was held in Rome between the Soviet representative Jordansky and Father Tacchi-Venturi, the assistant to the head of the Jesuit Order Ledochovski. The conference was without result.

Meanwhile other events had occurred in the international field. A strong Government and new politico-social ideology created, as it claimed, to fight Bolshevism at home and abroad, had arisen in Italy. That movement was called Fascism. We have already seen how the Catholic Church quickly realized that this movement would be useful to her in fighting Socialism and Bolshevism, and from the beginning supported it, foreseeing, amongst other things, that the significance of Fascism would not be confined to the internal policy of Italy. It soon became clear that the international repercussions would follow, and its economic and social ideology would counterbalance the ideology of Bolshevism―this, above all, in view of the fact that powerful elements throughout the world were hostile to the new Russia, and that such hostility was increasing with the passing of the years.

Thus the Vatican, instead of listening to the numerous overtures of the Soviet Republic, developed another plan. This plan sought to utilize the old Czarist Russians on their return to their own country from their present exile abroad. The Church initiated a great drive for their conversion, and by 1924 it had already made numerous converts in Berlin, Paris, Brussels, and elsewhere. When the Soviet Republic again proposed a meeting to the Vatican, the Vatican refused. In the next year, 1925, Chicherin made contact with the Papal nuncio in Berlin, Cardinal Pacelli, to whom he gave the guarantee that the Catholic Church and all other Churches, would have the amplest liberty in Soviet Russia. Chicherin went so far as to give to Pacelli a dossier on ecclesiastical matters, containing detailed plans for regulating the appointment of bishops and the education of children. The one point the Soviet Republic demanded from the Vatican was the banning of Polish Catholic priests from Russia.

Once more the Vatican refused compliance and broke off relationships with the Kremlin. It is notable that the Vatican’s refusals became increasingly frequent in proportion to the strengthening of Fascism in Italy and the growth of similar movements in other countries.

In 1927, while Fascism, being well established in Italy, promised that Communism and Socialism should be stamped out and that great privileges should be granted to the Church, the Vatican for the last time declared its dissatisfaction with “the Soviet proposals.” Since that date there have been no direct communications between the Vatican and Moscow.

By 1930 the Pope was openly condemning Soviet Russia and indicted her before the world. In one of his speeches he declared that if, at the Genoa Conference, the nations had followed his advice not to recognize Soviet Russia unless that country gave guarantees of religious freedom, the world would have been more happily situated. The Pope indicted Russia on account of her religious persecutions, without mentioning the religious persecutions enacted in Catholic Poland against the Orthodox, the Jews, and the Socialists (see the chapter on The Vatican and Poland), and he went so far as to appoint a Special Commission for Russia, by increasing the activities of the Institute of Oriental Studies. Meetings were held in London, Paris, Geneva, Prague, and other towns. This crusade was followed by that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Grand Rabbi of France, the National Council of the Free Churches, and similar bodies.

The years 1930-31 saw the world “emotionally roused to war against Soviet Godless Russia.”

During the following ten years, from 1930 to 1939-40 (as already seen), the main task of the Vatican was to establish powerful political and military blocs designed to oppose and finally to destroy Bolshevism in its various forms.

The Catholic Church’s aim was twofold, and had to be accomplished in two definite stages. First, to encourage and support certain political bodies

within the various nations of Europe, directed to the destruction of Socialism and Bolshevism within a given country; and secondly, to support and exploit the diplomatic and political power, and finally the military might, of such groups, later Governments, for the purpose of war against Russia.

Powerful economic, social, and financial forces throughout the world assisted the Vatican in this double purpose, rendering its task infinitely easier. Religious, ethical, economic, social, national, and other factors together formed an efficient bulwark against Bolshevism at home and Bolshevism abroad (Soviet Russia). The same combination, in the brief space of a decade, was able to establish Fascism almost throughout Europe, and thus the way was prepared for the outbreak of the Second World War.

In Italy, by 1930, this was an accomplished fact, while in Germany Nazism also was growing in strength, and, like Italian Fascism, was largely inspired by enmity against Bolshevism and Soviet Russia. By the end of 1933 two great European nations had been transformed into two powerful armed blocks whose internal and external policy was based on their hostility to the USSR. But although the hostility of the world to Soviet Russia was still tremendous, there was already a steady, even if slow, recognition of her sincere desire for peace and of her various efforts to co-operate in establishing an international authority charged with the preservation of that peace.

Thus it came about that the League of Nations proposed the admission of Russia, hitherto an outcast from the family of nations to that Assembly. There were strenuous protests from all over the world; and these protests came mainly from Catholic individuals, Catholic Governments, or Catholic bodies, beginning with the Vatican. Within the League itself the loudest opponents to Russia’s admission were the spokesman of Catholic de Valera and the Catholic representative of Austria, where Catholicism had just machine-gunned Vienna’s Socialists. With them ranked the Catholic delegate from Switzerland, whose violent speech against Russia’s admission was fully reproduced in the Catholic Press and praised by the Osservatore Romano (October 5), which profoundly admired “his nobility of sentiment and rectitude of Christian and civic conscience.”

This boycott of Soviet Russia by Catholics at that period was meant to further the grand plan conceived by the Vatican―namely, to enclose her in an iron ring from the West and the East. This policy took concrete shape when finally a powerful Nazi Germany on the one side, and an aggressive Japan on the other, began to draw closer together, chiefly as a result of their common interest in hampering and eventually destroying the Red Colossus.

To show the attitude of the Catholic Church on the matter it should suffice to quote a significant comment of the Catholic Times (November 23, 1934):

In the event of a war between Japan and Russia, Catholics would sympathize with Japan, at least in so far as religion in concerned, so let us beware of any Anglo-American bloc against Japan involving us on the side of Russia.

This at a period when Hitler was voicing his ambition of acquiring the Ukraine, and the Catholic Church was indirectly supporting his claims by loudly proclaiming that no Christian nation should ever dream of helping Russia in the event of an attack upon her by either Germany or Japan.”Let Russia fight its own battle” became the refrain of the Catholic world at this stage, “for the undoing of Godless Sovietism is no evil at all.”

This campaign was fought by the Vatican simultaneously on many fronts. For while the Pope was thundering against “Godless” Bolshevism, the Catholic Press was depicting its horrors, first in Mexico, and then in Spain, and Vatican diplomacy was busy trying to weaken the ties of friendship and mutual assistance which linked France and Soviet Russia.

This last-named attempt failed, chiefly, because France herself turned Red with the formation of the Popular Front. We had already seen the Catholic Church’s reaction to this, first in sponsoring various French Fascist movements, and finally in taking part in a vast plot, led by clerical Fascist elements, to bring about the downfall of the Third Republic.

It is worth recalling the sequence of events, for each one was a stepping- stone, not only to the establishment of a dictatorship, but to an ultimate attack on Russia.

The rise of Hitler to power in 1933 was followed, in 1934, by the establishment of a Catholic dictatorship in Austria. In 1935 came Fascist Italy’s attack on Abyssinia, which drew Europe’s attention away from Hitler’s first aggressive moves in the Rhineland. In 1936 Catholic Fascist movements appeared in France, and in the summer of that year Franco began the Civil War in Spain. In 1938 Austria was incorporated into Germany, and in 1939 Czechoslovakia suffered the same fate, the result being the outbreak of the Second World War with the attack on Poland. Practically the whole of Europe had been converted into a Fascist block whose fundamental policy was the annihilation of Communism and its incarnation, Soviet Russia. This while Germany, Italy, and Japan solemnly bound themselves, through the Anti-Comintern Pact, to direct their energies against Soviet Russia; and while Japan went from one aggression to another in Asia.

And it should be remembered that in each of those major events the Vatican had played its hand, either directly or indirectly, with the set purpose of striving forces and countries towards its final goal; war on Russia.

We have also seen the activities and anxieties of the Vatican immediately before and after the outbreak of the Second World War, which did not start on the Russian border, as the Vatican had hoped, but between the two Christian countries of Nazi Germany and Catholic Poland; and we know also of the negotiations which went on between the Pope and Hitler, with the latter continually repeating that one day he would attack Russia.

Remembering all this, it might be of interest to glance at a particular stage of that period―namely, beginning with the partition of Poland―and bringing into relief the relationship existing between the Catholic Church and the Soviet Union.

The first blow which the Vatican received directly from Soviet Russia, against whom it had mobilized Europe, occurred when Catholic Poland was jointly occupied by the armies of Nazi Germany and Russia. That occupation in 1939 involved a reality such as the Vatican had never dared to envisage, in that half of Catholic Poland fell under the rule of Atheist Russia. At the close of 1939 over 9,000,000 Catholic Poles were, in fact, under the domination of Moscow.

Such a set-back to the policy of the Vatican acted only as a spur to its activities all over Europe, designed to procure the recovery of Catholic Poland and the final destruction of the U.S.S.R.

We have already seen the part played by the Vatican in the capitulation of Belgium and France in 1940, every action being directed to smoothing the path of Nazi Germany so that it would be possible for that country to attack Russia; the transformation of France, under Petain; and how, in June 1941, the great news was published to the world that the Soviet Union had at last been attacked.

We have already related the actions of the Vatican from this point onwards, and how, as the Nazi armies advanced, Catholic legions from the various Catholic countries were dispatched to the Russian Front to “fight Bolshevik Russia.”

Although things at that time looked very hopeful for Germany, the Vatican was deeply concerned at the possible Allied victory, and could never forget that Soviet Russia was one of the foremost Allies. Thus the Pope made numerous demarches in London and Washington, asking for “assurances that they would not allow Bolshevism to spread and conquer Europe.”

During this time Catholic Poland, being on the side of the Allies, was, paradoxically, fighting hand in hand with Soviet Russia against the Nazi enemy. The Catholic Poles were in continuous communication with the Vatican, and the latter continually emphasized to the Allies that Poland would preserve in fighting only if assured that Catholic Poland should never become a prey to Bolshevism.

We have already seen, in the chapters devoted to Germany, what the negotiations were. It suffices to state here that Stalin, in 1942, made several attempts towards a rapprochement with the Vatican, giving guarantees that religion and the freedom of the Catholic Church in Poland would be scrupulously respected. Stalin also assured the Pope that “the present war is not being waged for the expansion of Communism or for the territorial aggrandizement of Russia.”

The Vatican, however, rejected all these offers and continued to emphasize to Great Britain and the United States of America “the threat which Soviet Russia constituted, in case of German defeat.”

At the same time the Vatican became more and more outspoken and critical of the Allies for allowing Communist propaganda and for permitting their Press to praise “Atheist Russia.”

“The Comintern considers the possibility of world-revolution greater than before, ” reiterated the Vatican.”The Western Nations should beware of such a dangerous ally; Soviet Russia will eventually destroy the structure of the Western Nations. The Western Nations will become ripe for Communism” (extract from Osservatore Romano).

“The Anglo-Saxons have carried the war so far that they are interested in, and sponsoring, Communist propaganda, which will weaken Germany as it did in the last war, ” was the significant remark of the Papal Secretary of State (February 2, 1942).

To arouse the Western Allies’ horror of Russia, the Vatican gave figures illustrating the treatment of Catholics by Soviet Russia. Thus in 1917 Russia possessed over 46,000, Orthodox churches, 890 monasteries with 52, 022 monks, and 50, 960 priests. There remained in October 1935 only a few “Communist priests.”

During the same period there were, in Russia, 610 Catholic churches, 8 Catholic bishops, and 810 priests. By 1939 there remained only 107 Catholic priests (Vatican Radio, 1942).

The year 1942 witnessed an event of great importance. Great Britain and Soviet Russia signed a pact, binding the two countries for twenty years.

The Vatican raised further protest in Washington and London, accusing Britain of “having offered Christian Europe to Atheist Moscow.” It became outspoken concerning the secret clauses of the pact, and in its immediate circle it was said that by virtue of these secret clauses the Soviet Union “would have political and military control of Europe, in the event of an Allied victory, but nothing had been said about the religious future of the Continent.”

To the reproaches of the Allies the Vatican made answer that “nobody can accuse the Pope of alarmism, because it is common knowledge that, ideologically, the Bolsheviks do not recognize Religion, and wherever they put their foot they persecute it.”

The Vatican insisted that the Western Allies should make the Pope privy to the secret clauses of the Anglo-Soviet Pact, “in connection with religious freedom.” The strange answer was returned that the political and military pact had been signed with the Soviets, but that in connection with religion the Vatican would have to deal directly with the Bolsheviks.

The Vatican accused the Allies of having left out the Catholic Church in the planning of post-war Europe; or rather, of “not having taken measures for safeguarding Christian Catholic Europe from the Bolsheviks.”

President Roosevelt advised the Pope to make a direct approach to Stalin, but the Pope refused. Roosevelt then asked Stalin to make overtures to the Pope “in view of the great spiritual influence the Vatican exerts on many territories liberated by the Soviet armies.” Stalin once more made proposals, assuring the Vatican of his willingness to come to terms.

Stalin then abolished the Comintern with the design of making things easier for the Vatican and for those Catholic countries and armies fighting alongside the Soviet Republic and the Allies. Political and military reasons, of course, were not without weight. This move was welcomed with sarcasm by the Vatican, which warned the Allies not to trust Russia because that was “a move the better to deceive the Western Powers.”

Once more, in the spring of 1943, Stalin made approaches and Roosevelt urged the Vatican to come to terms with Moscow.

In May, June, and July 1943 the Soviet Republic again contacted the Vatican, desiring to restart “negotiations for a renewal of normal contacts and eventually for starting diplomatic relations.”

This time London and Washington, in their official capacity, sponsored the move of Moscow.

Roosevelt and Great Britain gave the Vatican to understand that it was their sincere wish to counterbalance the influence of the Soviet Republic by the “maintenance of a strong bloc of Catholic countries, under the Anglo- American sphere of influence.” Spain and Italy were the Catholic countries in view.

In spite of all efforts from Moscow, London and Washington, in spite even of a personal letter addressed by Stalin to the Pope previous to all these negotiations, the Vatican refused either a discussion or an exchange of representatives.

Meanwhile the Soviet armies were entering vast territories whose population were wholly or partially Catholics. The greatest of such territories was again Poland. There the Catholic Poles were in a dilemma. They had been liberated from the Nazis by the Soviet armies. Should they welcome the Bolsheviks as liberators? The situation became very difficult for the Poles, for the Western Allies, for Russia, and for the Vatican itself.

Again Stalin, with the support of Roosevelt, approached the Vatican with a view to a final understanding with the Catholic Church. Moscow, indeed, sent a memorandum to the Pope himself “offering a co-ordinated action between Moscow and the Holy See on post-war organization for the solution of moral and social problems” ( Osservatore Romano, August 14, 1944).

Stalin reiterated his assurances to the Pope that he would be ready to exchange views, “to facilitate the work of peace, ” and that “Soviet Russia does not desire to set up any social order by force or violence, but is on the contrary opposed to such measures.” The memorandum asserted that “Russia hopes to reach her aims through peaceful channels and in a democratic and peaceful manner.”

But the Vatican spurned all these approaches and, at the same time, again attacked Russia, accusing her on this occasion of having betrayed the Poles in the rising of Warsaw. Before the rising the Pope had, in a speech, given moral backing to the Poles, and in a private audience granted to General Sosnokowski had expressed his anxiety concerning the “menace to European civilization from Bolshevism, ” and his “regretful surprise at the friendship between the Anglo-Saxon Powers and Russia.”

During these approaches, and after having repeated that the Catholic Church would find ample scope in Russia, Moscow went so far as to propose a kind of “United Front” between the Vatican and the Soviet, in order to solve the common problems created by the fact that many millions of Catholics were living in territories occupied by the Red armies.

Several of the cardinals at the Vatican, remembering that in Rome there existed an organization called “Pro-Russia, ” which had been establishing with the express purpose of converting that country to Catholicism, were in favor of the opening of negotiations, as were the leaders of the above organizations, being hopeful that their opportunity had come at last. But, as usual, the Pope rejected the proposal, alleging he did so because of Russia’s persecution of the Poles. Of what did this persecution consist? Simply of the fact that Soviet Russia had countercharged many Poles, who had fought against the Germans, with having turned on the Russians as soon as they had been freed from Nazi domination, averring that Polish soldiers had even organized an underground army with this intent, and, further, that plans were in preparation for the creation of an “anti-Soviet block” which would include Britain and even Germany.

That these allegations were no mere invention of the Soviet Government was found out in the following year, when the accusations were proved. At the Moscow trials in June 1945 sixteen Poles, led by General Okulicki, formerly Commander of the Polish Home Army, confessed to having planned an “anti-Soviet bloc, beginning with the period of the Warsaw uprising. (August 1944).”

“A Soviet victory over Germany, ” Okulicki stated, “will threaten not only the interests of Britain in Europe, but will place all Europe in fear, Britain, taking into consideration her interests on the Continent, will have to mobilize the Powers in Europe against the USSR. It is clear that we should be in the front row of this anti-Soviet block, and it is impossible to conceive this bloc, which will be controlled by Britain, without the participation of Germany.”

How much the Vatican knew about this plot, hatched by Catholic Poles while the Soviet armies were in the act of liberating them, it is difficult to state. But the incident, nevertheless, was of the greatest value, for it threw light on activities which were too consonant with the inter-war foreign policy of Catholic Poland, whose chief characteristic had always been relentless hostility towards her great Eastern neighbor. In addition, it gave the Vatican another excuse for refusing, for the hundredth time, the offer of compromise which, during the previous couple of years, Moscow had been trying to persuade the Pope to accept.

Why did the Catholic Church so persistently refuse to reach agreement with Moscow, in spite of the goodwill by the Soviets, the advice and good services of President Roosevelt, the millions of Catholics who had passed under Soviet rule, and the fact that Red Russia was no longer “persecuting” religion, and remembering moreover, that, after all, in the years following the First World War the Vatican and the Kremlin had negotiated and had even reached a working compromise on several problems? Was there present some other factor, more important even than that of the Communist ideology and practice, which prevented the Vatican from reaching a satisfactory agreement with Stalin?

Yes; a resurrected and combative Orthodox Church. In addition to the political, social, and ethical principles involved, a great stumbling-block to some kind of agreement being reached between the Vatican and Soviet Russia was the question of the Orthodox Church.

The Vatican has never lost sight of the revival of the Orthodox Church in Russia, and since its downfall, after the First World War, it has incessantly feared its return. It was therefore with great concern that it saw the Soviet Government grant freedom in religion worship throughout Soviet territory, for it realized that such freedom entailed the resurrection of its ancient enemy, the Orthodox Church, which would become the main opponent of its own missionary plan in that country.

This religious freedom was granted as far back as January 23, 1918. By a decree issued on that day, the citizens of the USSR were guaranteed freedom of conscience and of religious worship: but freedom was also granted for the publication of anti-religious propaganda. By the same decree the Orthodox Church was separated from the State, and the school from the Church. All religious organizations were placed on the same level, as private societies. A citizen might profess any religion or no religion at all. This enactment was so thoroughly put in practice that all reference to the religious affiliation of any citizen was deleted from Government acts and documents.

Article 124 of the Constitution reads: “In order to ensure its citizens freedom of conscience, the Church in the USSR is separated from the State, and the school from the Church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of antireligious propaganda is recognized for all citizens.”

Thus every citizen of the Soviet Union was free to choose his religion, to profess any religion he pleased, and furthermore to enjoy all the rights of citizenship irrespective of his religious beliefs. Nobody in Soviet Russia was expected to furnish information as to his religious beliefs on taking up employment or on joining any public organization or society. No distinction was drawn between believers and unbelievers.

Paper was supplied from Government stores for the printing of religious literature. Of course this complete freedom in the religious field was exploited, during the first years of the Revolution, by all those who had rebelled against the Church as an instrument of obscurantism and of political influence employed by the old regime. Nevertheless, with the passing of time the forces of religious and of anti-religious propaganda became nearly equalized. Although each faction used the freedom according to its belief or unbelief, each began to tolerate the other.

Little by little the Orthodox Church reappeared in the life of Russia. This did not please the Vatican, which, in spite of all disappointments, still entertained hope that one day it might be allowed to “convert Russia to Catholicism.” The reappearance of its rival, the Orthodox Church, constituted an obstacle potentially more formidable than all the social and political tenets of Communism.

The Vatican therefore, after all hopes of coming to an agreement with the Kremlin failed, in the years immediately following the First World War―as we saw―started to support anti-Communist movements, such as Fascism, and, as a natural sequence, entered upon a definite and world-wide campaign which, although apparently aimed solely against Communist Russia as such, in reality was also directed against the resurgent Orthodox Church, its ancient foe.

Strangely enough, the Vatican mobilized the Catholic forces of the world against Soviet Russia just when Russia was granting religious equality and liberty to her citizens. It is certainly not edifying to realize that the Catholic Church was intensifying her campaign against Soviet Russia just when the freedom of religion and of the Church was entering into that country’s new life; the Vatican was preaching to the world that Soviet Russia must be destroyed “because she persecuted religion.”

This campaign reached its climax in the decade preceding the outbreak of the Second World War and was continued throughout that conflict.

During the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9, just when the Soviets were passing further legislation guaranteeing religious freedom, the Vatican initiated a world-wide campaign against Communism in general, and Soviet Russia in particular, on the charge that the Reds persecuted religion.

This while Article 130 of the Stalin Constitution obliged all citizens to observe the Law and to respect the rules of Socialist intercourse, which prohibit any limitations of rights, any form of persecution for religious convictions or insult to religious susceptibilities, and at a time when religious freedom in the Soviet Union was reflected in the unhampered performance of religious service and rites, in the publication of periodicals and other religious literature, and in the existence of seminaries for training the clergy.

When striving to convert Europe into a Fascist bloc, in the hope that Fascism would rule the Continent and the century, the Vatican made it clear that its enmity towards Communism was not inspired by its political doctrines only. There was, in addition, the knowledge that behind the Russian Government stood once more the Orthodox Church. The Vatican, in fact, accused the Orthodox Church of seeking a renewed attachment to the Civil Power in order to further her religious influence; while simultaneously the Soviet Government was accused of reviving the Orthodox Church as a tool for the Government’s political ends.

For the Vatican, therefore, the destruction of Bolshevism was not enough; the destruction of the revived Orthodox Church was essential. Thus, in the bargain between Hitler and the Vatican, as we have already demonstrated, it was provided that the Catholic Church should supplant the Orthodox Church throughout the Soviet territories occupied by Germany.

Hitler, needing in his turn the help of Rome, answered that the Vatican would be permitted to convert the Russians to the true faith, but “only through the German Catholic Hierarchy.”

It was during these negotiations that the Vatican became strenuous in the field of propaganda dealing with Russian matters. It reorganized and brought up to date the Institution known as “Pro-Russia, ” provided it with funds, priests, and propaganda of all kinds. All concerned were advised to “keep ready for the great missionary work of redemption.”

While this was going on, the Vatican was awaiting the day when the gates of Soviet Russia would be opened by the impetus of the Nazi armies. To ensure that the Nazis should be victorious the Vatican advised numerous Catholic Fascist Governments, many of whom did not need any encouragement, to provide active help to Nazi Germany for the destruction of the Bolshevik dragon. We have seen that the Vatican refused to sponsor officially a campaign against Russia, fearing the reaction of the Catholics in the Allied countries; but unofficially, activity in advocating that every assistance should be given by all good Catholic countries did not cease for a moment.

As a result, numerous Catholic Fascist countries, or parties, organized anti- Bolshevik legions which, one after another, were dispatched to the Eastern Front to fight side by side with the Nazis, the list being headed by Franco’s Catholic Spain, with its Blue Division, followed by Catholic Portugal, Catholic Belgium Rexists, and French Catholic Fascists, with contingents from Holland and elsewhere.

Before and even during this active campaign against Soviet Russia the Soviet Government tried repeatedly to reach an agreement with the Vatican regarding the Catholics who had passed into Soviet jurisdiction in 1939, during the Nazi-Soviet partition of Poland. The intractability of the Vatican, however, made all efforts on the part of Russia futile.

One of the main reasons given by the Vatican for its refusal to treat with Russia, in addition to its mortal enmity to the socio-political principles of Communism, was that “the renewed influence of the Orthodox Church in Poland is putting obstacles before, and, persecuting, the Catholic Church in that country” (Cardinal Lhond, March 1941).

The Cardinal Secretary of State of that period declared that “the Holy See, although gravely anxious about the spiritual and material welfare of the Catholics in Poland, is unable to reach any agreement with the Soviet Government, owing also to the revival of the Orthodox Church, whose hostility has never ceased to show itself against the Catholic Church.” What was the reason that compelled the Vatican to speak so bluntly about the Orthodox Church?

The fact that the Soviet Government, in order to unify the spiritual and physical resources of the nation and of the Army, had encouraged the Orthodox Church to appeal to the Russian people for the continuation of the fight against Nazism.

The Orthodox Church before the war, although entirely free, was yet in the background. With the advent of war it came quickly into the foreground and exercised an active part in the formation of the front against German invasion. This development was supported by the Soviet Government for two salient reasons; first, because the new Orthodox Church was an agency which united and encouraged the Russian people to fight; and secondly, in view of the continued hostility of the Catholic Church to Russia, it was desired to counterbalance the solid spiritual bloc of Rome with a solid Orthodox bloc. The plan would eventually operate in all countries which housed members of the Orthodox religion.

This second point carried also a long-view policy and entered into the postwar world. At this particular stage, Moscow was leaving nothing to chance. Having seen Catholic Europe converted into a solid anti-Soviet bloc, she prepared to create a similar religious bloc designed to confront Catholicism during and after the Second World War.

It was thanks to such factors that the Orthodox Church began to assume a wider and ever more important influence in Russian affairs, soon becoming a powerful entity with a religious and indirectly a political, significance. Hence it was inevitable that the Orthodox Church, when inciting the Russian Faithful to fight against the Fascist enemies―that is to say, not only against Hitler, but she against his various allies, the anti-Bolshevik legions provided by Catholic Spain, Portugal, Italy, Catholic France under the sway of Petain, and such-like―should emphasize that these were Catholic legions enjoying the support of Catholic Rome. The issue, therefore, was not merely a patriotic defense of the Russian Fatherland, but also the annihilation of religious enemies, the Catholics, bent on Russia’s destruction.

Accordingly the appeal made by the Orthodox Church from this time onwards struck a political as well as a religious note. Once again, as in pre- Revolution Russia, Church and State became close confederates, and the Church grew in influence. Her voice was heard not in Russia only, but beyond; by none was it heard more loudly than by the Vatican.

The Orthodox Church thus began to organize itself under the aegis of the Soviet Government and became a great national spiritual institution working hand in hand with the Government. This religious institution received an even more official recognition when, in September 1943, a convocation of bishops of the Orthodox Church elected a Patriarch of Moscow and of all the Russias and set up a Holy Synod. In this connection the Soviet Government, in October 1943, appointed a Council for Russian Orthodox Church Affairs to act as a link between the Government and the Patriarch of Moscow and of all the Russias on ecclesiastical matters. The representatives on the Council were to act, in all republics, territories, and regions, as links between the local government authorities and the local religious bodies.

The religious, and especially the political, significance of this move did not escape the notice of the Vatican, and it certainly did not escape that of Hitler, who asked the high prelates hostile to the Soviet regime to declare the election of Moscow “invalid.”

Between thirty and fifty prelates, mostly from German-occupied Europe, led by Dr. Serafin Lade, the Metropolitan of Greater Germany who from the very beginning had cooperated with Hitler, assembled in Vienna to discuss the election to the Patriarchal Throne of Moscow. They declared the election invalid, including the excommunication decreed by the Synod of Moscow of all Orthodox prelates opposing the Soviet regime, proclaiming Bolshevism to be irreconcilable with Christianity.

In 1944 the Soviet Government set up a council to deal with the affairs of religious societies other than the Russian Orthodox Church. It was the function of this council to act as a link with such bodies as the Greek Catholics, Mohammedans, Jewish and evangelical bodies, as well as Roman Catholics.

The new Russian Orthodox Church became more and more prominent in the nation’s affairs. Orthodox clergy received official decorations from the Government, notably a group of Orthodox priests from Moscow and Tula in 1944.

The Church, in turn, organized politico-religious ceremonies of public prayer to God for help, for the protection of Soviet Russia and for the defeat of her enemies.”The Russian clergy will not cease to offer prayers for the victory of Russian arms.” The support of the clergy was promised by the Church to the “Soviet Fatherland.” “The entire Russian Church will serve its beloved Fatherland with all its strength in the difficult days of war and in the days of prosperity to come.”

The Orthodox Church went even further, and, in 1944, when it was seen that Nazi Germany would be defeated and that Russia was emerging as one of the great military Powers of the world, the head of the Orthodox Church declared that he “considered Stalin as the God-chosen head of Holy Russia. ” These were the words of Mgr. Alexis, who had just succeeded the Metropolitan Sergius as Patriarch of the USSR, written in a letter addressed to the Soviet Government in May 1944, thus echoing the declaration of Pius XI that “Mussolini was the man sent by Divine Providence.”

Meanwhile the Soviet Government, desiring even closer co-operation with the Orthodox Church, attached the chairman of the Council for Affairs of the Orthodox Church to the Council of Peoples’ Commissars of the USSR (1944).

A journal of the Moscow Patriarchate was sponsored by the Government. Next, to encourage Orthodox believers, the head of the Soviet Council for Orthodox Affairs reiterated on many occasions that all who wished to open churches and to muster congregations were permitted to do so. Any persons in Soviet Russia might ask for a church, and churches were given free provided a congregation existed.

[After the Second World War (January 1946), according to Fr. Leopold Braun, who had lived in Russia during the preceding twelve years, “twothirds of the people of Russia, 150,000,000 souls, were believers in God”; while anyone wanting to become a priest could do so―witness Archbishop Sergei, of the Russian Orthodox Church, who, during a speech in which he described Stalin as one of the outstanding protectors of religion, made the following statement: “Anybody who wants to become a priest in Russia can do so. there is no interference whatsoever… The Communist Party is very co-operative” (August 1946). In 1946 there were 22,000 Russian Catholics in Moscow, and 30,000 in Leningrad. ]

By 1944 a theological school had already been established in Moscow. In the town of Zagorak a seminary was opened, supported by the believers. The students, besides receiving a theological education were trained on a scientific basis, and to this Orthodox Church agreed.

With the passing of time the Orthodox Church assumed gradually the role it had played in pre-Revolution Russia. The Metropolitan of Leningrad, in a message to religious believers, declared in 1944: “Our Orthodox Church has ever shared her people’s destiny. With them she has borne their trials and rejoiced in their successes. She will not desert her people to-day.” And when, finally, Germany was defeated, the same dignitary declared: “The Orthodox Church did not pray in vain; God’s blessing gave victorious force to the Russian arms.”

This ever-closer co-operation of Church and State culminated in an officially recognized Congress of the Russian Church, held at the end of 1944 in Moscow. This Conference was pregnant with meaning. The Orthodox Church met, in fact, to issue an invitation to all other Churches having a Christian basis to form a union with itself. Thus would be created a great religious bloc, not only within the Soviet Union, but extending outside it to include the Orthodox Church in Greece, the Near East, Africa, and elsewhere.

The Conference was held in November 1944, in Moscow, and thirty-nine bishops took part. It sent invitations and proposals for the formation of a huge spiritual bloc to the Occumenical Patriarch and Archbishop of Constantinople, to Alexander III, Patriarch of Antioch and all the East; to Cristophoros, Patriarch of Alexandria; to Timothy, Patriarch of Jerusalem; and to Callistratus, Catholicos of Georgia.

Behind the renewed vigor of the resurrected Synod of Moscow since its intimate cooperation with the Soviet Government, the aim of restoring Russia’s traditional role as protector of Orthodox Christianity throughout Russia, the Near East, and in Eastern Europe, became every day more apparent.

Soviet Russia was not only taking the role of Czarist Russia of former days, but was going farther, in her sponsoring of the Orthodox Church. She desired to unite the Orthodox and other Churches under one had as a counterblast to Catholicism.

In the following year, 1945, this policy of forming a huge spiritual block, under the headship of the Patriarch of Moscow, began to give results, of which a few significant examples may be quoted. As a first-fruit of the Conference there arrived in Moscow a delegation of Rutherian clergy bringing a letter from the Archbishop of Chust requesting admission to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow. Hitherto the Church of Ruthenia had been attached to the Serbian Patriarchate, which now gave its consent for transference of the Ruthenian Church to the spiritual leadership of the Patriarch of Moscow. The Serbian Patriarchate went farther than this and actually put itself under the spiritual jurisdiction of Moscow.

The Polish Orthodox Church made the same request and sent the Polish Orthodox Metropolitan of Lvov to Moscow on a like mission. This was likewise a very significant act, as the Orthodox Church in Poland had hitherto been an independent body, having its own Patriarch.

Further, the Occumenical Patriarch of Constantinople sent a delegation to Moscow and an agreement was reached by which the Patriarch of Moscow was recognized as the supreme leader of the great spiritual bloc under the Soviet aegis.

Now the Orthodox Church became largely preoccupied with the interchange of interests and tidings with other religious bodies, especially with such great Protestant Churches as the Church of England. Invitations were sent to various English Protestant dignitaries to visit Moscow, and Orthodox religious leaders visited Great Britain in 1945 as guests of the Protestant leaders of that country.

The Patriarch of Moscow in person set out on an extreme tour of the East to visit various Christian communities. In June 1945 the Patriarch announced in Cairo: “My visit aims at renewing once more the spiritual ties which have always united the Orthodox Churches.”

A few months before, in February 1945, the Russian Orthodox Assembly had sat in Moscow, under the presidency of the Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod, to select a Patriarch. Forty-five delegates from all over the Soviet Union were in attendance. With them were representatives of the Orthodox Church throughout the world, including the Metropolitan Benjamin of New York. Alexander III, Patriarch of Antioch, Archbishop Benjamin, Patriarch of Constantinople, Patriarch Cristophoros of Alexandria, and the Patriarch Timothy of Jerusalem.

No wonder that the Vatican observed the ever-growing influence of the resurrected Orthodox Church with dismay. Such feelings were not limited to the precincts of the Vatican only, but were shared, in much lesser degree, by Washington and even by London, both the United States of America and Great Britain being inclined to see in the moves of the Orthodox Church, not only a spiritual revival in the Soviet world, but also a potential spiritual instrument to be used for the political interests of Soviet Russia in Eastern Europe, in other parts of the world, and, above all, in the Near East.

Thus once more the interests of the Vatican, of the United States of America, and of Great Britain were running parallel, notwithstanding the fact that although their ultimate goal was the same, all three saw the matter from a different point of view.

Unlike the Vatican, such great Powers as the United States of America and Great Britain regarded the revival and the growing influence of the Orthodox Church, both within and without the confines of Russia, merely from a political point of view. Their concern in the matter was made known to the Soviet Government. They pointed out that the anxiety caused by the increasing activity of the Orthodox Church was hampering the harmonious relations of the Allies. It would be a source of embarrassment in the necessary cooperation of the post-war world.

Roosevelt once tried to influence the Soviet Government to search for, at least, a modus vivendi between Russia and the Vatican. The Soviet Government answered that it was more than ready to do so. As the Vatican continued in its refusal to negotiate with Russia, the Soviet Government, aided by America, went so far as to employ an “unofficial emissary” to render the approach easier. Thus it was that an American-Polish priest, Father Orlemansky, was invited to Moscow, where he had long conferences with Stalin. Orlemansky was charged to offer, on behalf of Russia, liberal terms to the Catholic Church. He received assurances, for conveyance to the American State Department, that Soviet Russia was more than ready to cooperate with the Vatican in the settlement of religious disputes. He was assured that the Kremlin was ready to start negotiations with the Vatican on the questions of religious freedom and on the status of the Catholic Church in territories occupied by Russian armies.

Father Orlemansky returned to America with these proposals, which President Roosevelt begged the Pope to accept. Hopes were entertained in Catholic circles that, at last, some agreement would be reached. The Catholic papers, although notorious for their rabid anti-Soviet spirit, wrote that perhaps the Vatican and the Kremlin after all might work together, each in order to safeguard its own interest.

“Wherever there is a body of Catholics in a geographical area, it is to be presumed that the Holy See will endeavor to establish such relations of convenience, with its rules, as will enable it to maintain their spiritual and material interests. This is quite irrespective of the nature of the regime and commits the Holy Father to no condemnation of it” (The Universe, August 18, 1944).”We have always recognized, therefore, that the unchanging condemnation of Atheistic Communism need not compel Rome to leave any Catholics who may be incorporated in the Soviet Union unprotected” (The Universe, August 18, 1944).

But the Pope once more refused and rejected all offers. Father Orlemansky, on his return, was immediately suspended from his priestly functions―an act which, in the Catholic world as well as in Washington, was taken “as a Vatican rebuff to Stalin’s peace offer.”

The advance of the Soviet armies and the immensity of the territories they occupied, with the defeat of Germany obviously in sight, rendered the problem doubly urgent. Accordingly Roosevelt again tried to influence the Vatican. As late as March 1945, only two months before the collapse of Germany, he sent his personal envoy, Mr. Flynn, to Moscow and thence to Rome. Mr. Flynn carried a renewed peace offer from Stalin, once again to meet with rejection from the Vatican.

Meanwhile the Soviet Government, certain of the unbounded hostility of the Vatican, had not ceased its support of the Orthodox Church. The Catholic Church was already preparing to sponsor the revival of semi-Fascist movements, as in Italy, with a view to the post-war world. Therefore the Soviet Government made it clear that it would not support the anti-Roman plans of the Orthodox Church. Church and State were to work in the fullest concord against the machinations of their political as well as their religious and spiritual enemy.

This policy had been assuming greater prominence ever since 1944, when the Orthodox Church began to display ever-increasing hostility to the Vatican, accusing it of enmity towards Soviet Russia and the Orthodox Church.

These attacks, owing to their nature and the quarter from which they originated, were very ominous. It was very significant that the Orthodox Church felt sufficiently strong and united to launch them; and it was especially significant that they very often coincided with the onslaughts of the Soviet Government, which employed such official organs as Pravda and Izvestia to accuse the Vatican of Fascist and anti-Soviet policy.

We illustrate a few of those attacks, appearing in rapid succession towards the end of the war and after the cessation of hostilities.

In January and February of 1944 the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, in conjunction with other high dignitaries visiting Moscow, published a statement accusing the Vatican of affording protection to Nazi Germany. The statement, significantly addressed to the people “of the world, ” and not only to the people of Russia, said:

Bearing in mind the present international situation, we are raising our voices against the efforts of those, and especially of the Vatican, who are trying to safeguard the Hitlerite Germany from the responsibility for all her crimes and calling for mercy for the Hitlerites… who want, in this way, to leave on the earth after the war a Fascist, man-hating, anti- Christian teaching and its propagators (published in the Soviet papers in the first week of February 1944).

This attack by the Orthodox Church was followed by an attack in Izvestia, broadcast by Radio Moscow:

The Vatican has adopted an attitude of direct support of Fascism. The inglorious part played by the Vatican in Hitler and Mussolini’s Spanish adventure is common knowledge, while silence was maintained by the Vatican when Italy attacked France in June 1940. Franco is the Vatican’s pet, and Franco’s Spain is the image of the clerical State’s post-war Europe.

A few months later the Orthodox Church charged the Catholic Church full tilt and denied the authority of the Pope in the religious field, stating that the Pope held no commission to represent Christ. The challenge was delivered by the Patriarch Sergei, head of the Orthodox Church, in the Moscow Bulletin of April 1944. The Patriarch’s statement not only shows that the Orthodox Church, led by the revival Holy Synod, remain faithful to the old tradition of Orthodoxy’s and is working in close touch with the Soviet Government, but also, and especially, its high political significance is demonstrated. It shows that the Holy Synod and the Kremlin are working hand in hand; and this is proved by the fact that the doctrinal attack of the Orthodox Church is reinforced once more by a political attack on the Vatican, published in Izvestia. The Patriarch’s statement is entitled, “Does the Vicar of Christ exist in the Church? ”

In the Patriarchal view the mystical marriage between Christ and His Church renders the existence of an intermediary Vicar of Christ on earth altogether inconceivable… The Gospel teaches us that Our Lord Jesus, while quitting the world bodily, had no thought whatever of handing over His Church to the care of anyone else… He sent His Apostles and their successors, the Orthodox bishops, that they may preach the Gospel and lead the Faithful.

This attack was received with concern at the Vatican, as well as at Washington and in London, on account of its political significance. The Catholic Press all over the world, not excluding the British and American Press, protested. In this they saw only the Bolshevik monster, bolstered by their great enemy the Orthodox Church. The matter was rendered even more serious, in the eyes of the Vatican, by the fact that Anglican England manifested solidarity with that new philo-Bolshevik institution, the Holy Synod. Moreover, the chorus of Anglican approval of the Patriarch’s words was echoed by the United States of America.

An English religious personality, the Archbishop of York, was prominent on this occasion, declaring that he “manifested his admiration for the Muscovite Patriarch’s challenge to the Vicar of Christ on Earth.” The Archbishop added: “The Russian Church, as the Anglican, has repudiated the affirmation of the Roman Church about the ‘status’ of the Pope.”

A few months before the end, in Europe, of the Second World War, the prelates of the Orthodox Churches attended a General Assembly of the Orthodox Church is Moscow (February 1945). They then issued another appeal to the world, strongly criticizing the Vatican for its attitude towards the coming peace. Their appeal began thus:

The representatives of the Orthodox Churches attending the General Assembly of the Russian Orthodox Church held in Moscow… lift their voices against the efforts of those, and particularly of the Vatican… who are attempting to absolve Hitler’s Germany from responsibility for all the abominable deeds she has committed… and are seeking to allow the continued existence on earth, after the war, of the unchristian Fascist doctrine and its agents.

Replying to these attacks, the Osservatore Romano answered:

The Pope is the Universal Father, who, on June 12, 1939, said: “We have before our eyes the Russia of yesterday, of to-day, and of tomorrow. That Russia for which we never cease to pray, and ask prayers for, and, in which we fervently believe.”

But the Pope, at a private audience, referring to the attacks of Soviet Russia and the Orthodox Church against the Vatican, said:

There is nobody who does not see in this episode one of the most sinister shadows cast by the present conflict on the future fate of civilization (Digest 1362. 5. 2. A25).

However, the most significant remark made concerning the relations of the Vatican and the Orthodox Church came from the acting Secretary of State, who at the end of the Second World War declared:

We must pray God for guidance in this overwhelming time. One event above all would give sound hope of securing a lasting solution of the world’s difficulties of today, the conversion of Russia to the Faith (April 28, 1945).

A few weeks earlier President Roosevelt had died. The immediate result of his loss, as far as relations between the Vatican and Moscow were concerned, was a visible and speedy deterioration of the already shaky intercourse between the Pope and Stalin. The Polish question, more acute since the liberation of Poland from Nazi Germany, aggravated matters. This was due to the Soviet Government sponsoring a provisional Government in Lublin, in substitution for the reactionary Catholic Polish Government in London, whose activities (it was disclosed a month after the end of the war) were mainly directed to preparations for sabotaging Left-wing movements and all those Polish political forces which, at home, were trying to establish a true friendship with Russia.

Great Britain and the United States, after some hesitation and in spite of protests from the Vatican, gave recognition to the new Polish Government and disavowed the exiled Government in London. The latter lost no time in publicly appealing to the Pope to find for it a new asylum, either in French Catholic Canada or in Catholic Ireland, from which to continue its work.

Pope, cardinals, and bishops spoke against the “arbitrary action” of Moscow, denouncing Soviet Russia, Communism, and the new injustice committed against “Catholic Poland, ” while the Catholic Press all over the world continued for months to add vituperation to insult against that ally who had so greatly helped to win the war.

Then, with the collapse of Japan and the gradual gearing up of the tired nations from war to peace, the Vatican and its Hierarchy, with all the worldwide machinery at their disposal, turned their attention to the political life of the victors as well as the of the defeated. Catholics parties dashed into the political arena in Italy, France, Belgium, Austria, and Germany, once again shouting the old slogans against Atheist Bolshevism, Soviet Russia, and all those forces working for the destruction of Christian civilization.

It was the beginning of a new chapter to the same old story: the mortal enmity of the Catholic Church towards Communism and its political embodiment―the USSR. How could it be otherwise? The political and social history of Europe between the two world wars revolved, as far as our study is concerned, around the relentless struggle between the religious and moral principles taught by the Catholic Church, and the social, economic, and political system advocated by Socialism.

It was this open and hidden conflict of contrasting ideologies which, in unison with forces of various natures and elements hostile to one another, and with economic, national, and other factors, contributed and greatly helped to drive great and small countries, and finally the whole of Europe and the world, into the abyss of a global war. We have seen, country by country, how enmity towards the Socialist ideology and hatred against Russia have been amongst the main motives which have moved mighty forces, and how the role of the Catholic Church has been to direct these forces towards the annihilation of Socialist ideals and the destruction of Russia.

[During the Second World War Russia lost at least 6,000,000 and possibly as many as 15,000,000 dead and wounded―anywhere from twenty to fifty times the losses suffered by her Allies (Collier’s, June 29, 1946).]

Now we have encountered another cause which has contributed and will continue to contribute, to the hostility which the Catholic Church entertains against the USSR― namely, the resurrected Orthodox Church.

If Soviet Russia incurred such odium from the Vatican during the period between the two world wars owing to that country having adopted the hated Socialist ideology, how much greater will it be how that the Vatican’s Orthodox rival has come to fight by the side of Moscow? and if the Catholic Church, through its unceasing exertions, succeeded in arraigning mighty social and political currents against Red Russia when the latter was comparatively weak, snubbed by the world and sponsoring simply an inimical economic system, that is from 1917 until 1939, what will it not try to do to a Red Russia emerging victorious―indeed, the second greatest Power in the post-Second-World-War period― and who, in addition to upholding her Socialist ideology and helping to spread it to other nations, at the same time counter-opposes to the centre of Catholicism, Rome, the centre of Orthodoxy, Moscow, thus continuing the fight, not on one, but on two fronts: the political and the religious?

The answer to that was given long before the war ended, first with the intrigues in Italy, the fall of Mussolini, the creation of Catholic parties everywhere, the renewed energy of political Catholicism which has suddenly re-emerged in a combative and trenchant spirit, to shape the social and political life of the nations and of the world in the future. And from the symptoms already visible, there can be but one forecast: that the renewal of an ancient struggle and the resumption of an unfinished fight may once again greatly contribute to leading mankind to a third world catastrophe.