Posts from — January 2010

Jesus visits Russia

The eradication and subsequent rebirth of Russian Orthodoxy, first at the hands of Stalin’s cronies and then at the hands of their children, provides some insight into the nature of religion. It is often said that religion cannot possibly not be; that whenever it is destroyed it returns, and that whensoever it fades away, it finds new ways to adapt to the climate. For over half a century, Russian Orthodoxy was officially finished. Those who felt strong ties to it were unable to practice, church attendance was impossible because churches were wastefully destroyed or reappropriated, and one could not pass on the tradition to one’s children for fear of placing the lives of loved ones in immense danger. Could anyone predict its astonishing post-1991 resurgence? If Communism had outlasted Solidarność and perestroika, if it had pushed on a half millennium into the future then collapsed, would Orthodoxy return then? Or might another religion have taken its place? Would Orthodoxy have been replaced by Communism in the religious mind? [Read more →]