Holy Russia and the Soviet Fatherland

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet state are both preparing for the commemoration of the "Baptism of Rus' ", but they do so in different ways. The church, in her very limited publications, emphasises the great importance of this occasion for the Russian people, while the Soviet authorities use their extensive propaganda apparatus to do all they can to minimise this. An important methodological difference in their approach is that the church avoids any confrontation, and certainly expresses no criticism of the Soviet point of view, while the Soviet authors subject the church's view to a frontal attack, accusing her of using the jubilee for "propaganda". The large number and polemical character of the Soviet publications indicates that the political authorities consider the celebration of a thousand years of Christianity in Russia to be of great importance in the struggle for Russian national consciousness. By re-interpreting and annexing the past, the Soviet government wishes to represent itself as the legitimate heir of Russian history. The Russian Orthodox Church, in her turn, by accentuating her solidarity throughout the centuries with the weal and woe of the Russian nation, wishes to justify her present patriotic stance towards the ruling powers. In this . article I shall examine the publications of the Russian Orthodox Church on the millennium of Christianity in Russia. * The publications of the Russian Church on the subject are limited to a few articles in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarch ate (JMP), the only regularly-published journal of the Russian Orthodox Church; 1 a long article by Archbishop Pitirim (the jou~nal's editor-in-chief), which appeared elsewhere; 2'and a two-page introduction in the church