The Russian Orthodox Church
One factor that must be kept in mind in the propaganda war now being waged between Catholicism and Communism is the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church. This Orthodox Catholicism, which is hated by Roman Catholicism with equal intensity as is Communism. The Orthodox Church with her 150,000,000 adherents is a formidable rival to Roman Catholicism for religious control of the Balkans, the Middle East, and the whole of Russian herself.
In her attacks on "Bolshevism", let it be remembered always that Roman Catholicism has a two-fold purpose - one open and obvvious, the other hidden and concealed. That one that is plain to everybody, and which Romanism would desire to make appear the only purpose, is the destruction of "godless Communism." The other purpose, the hidden one, is the destruction of the Orthodox Catholic Church.
Newspapers here in America, controlled for the most part by Roman Catholics, rarely ever mention the Russian Orthodox Church. The picture the average reader here would get of Russia is that it is one seething mass of godless atheism, a land in which every vestige of religion is ruthlessly "liquidated." Yet, contrary to that picture, the Russian government recently opened a number of theological seminaries, and provided the necessary buildings and equipment for their operation. The Orthodox Church is permitted in rural districts to maintain "one church per forty-eight square miles." That means, if the churches are actually maintained, as by law they can be, that nobody in the vast territory of Russia needs be more than five miles from a church. Thus it appears that the pre-revolutionary distribution of parish churches had been virtually restored.
It would seem from this new factor that Rome must now devise some sort of new approach in her efforts to fan the flames of American patriotism into a "holy crusade" against the "godless" Russian state. It will be interesting to see what tack she now takes in her efforts.
Lest somebody be deceived by this Russian maneuver let us hasten to add that Rome is probably right in attributing mercenary and political motives to the Kremlin for this relaxing of the ban against religion. The Communism which is known in Russia is fundamentally atheistic and godless. It is even militantly so. The Russian leaders are cynical men who appear to be totally devoid of moral principles or conviction. But they have seen a neat way to trap Rome in her own propaganda net; and they have done it.
Jennings Perry, writing in the Daily Compass of New York City, acidly comments, "After all, a church that is the established church in Spain, and has been the established church in many other lands, cannot complain too loudly of what it takes to be the establishment of an other church, to which it formerly was allied, in Russia. It can continue to complain that it is being discriminated against in Russia, as the Protestants are discriminated against in Spain; but it no longer can scourge as "Red atheists" those several million loyal believers who was merely Orthodox."
American readers should keep these facts in mind.
One factor that must be kept in mind in the propaganda war now being waged between Catholicism and Communism is the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church. This is Orthodox Catholicism, which is hated by Roman Catholicism with equal intensity, as is Communism. The Orthodox Church with her 150,000,000 adherents is a formidable rival to Roman Catholicism for religious control of the Balkans, the Middle East, and the whole of Russia herself.
In her attacks on "Bolshevism", let it be remembered always that Roman Catholicism has a two-fold purpose—one open and obvious, the other hidden and concealed.
Americans are not obligated to "choose between Roman Catholicism and godless Communism," as the Romanists heatedly insist. If a choice must needs be made, it can now be between "ruthless Romanism" and "religious Communism!" For let no mistake be made about it: Romanism's leaders are as cynical and as ruthless in driving toward their goal as are Russia's leaders. The one will persecute and torture and kill an opposer as quickly as will the other. The history of each of them shows that abundantly. There is nothing to choose between them on that score.
— F. Y. T.