A Focus OF THE SOVIET ATTACK-A Handmaiden of the Soviet State

Regarding the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the Soviets, Life magazine of September  14, 1959, observed: "Stalin gave some concessions to religion, and the church treated him like a czar.  Orthodoxy's  collaboration is ensured by a special government ministry and the Communists have utilized the church ever since as a arm of the Soviet state."

Matthew Spinka, an authority on Russian church affairs, confirmed the existence of a close Church-State relationship in his 1956 book, The Church in Soviet Russia.  "The present Patriarch Alexei," he wrote, "has deliberately made his Church a tool of the government."  Indeed, the Orthodox Church , in effect, survived by becoming a handmaiden of the State.  'But is that so reprehensible?'  you may ask.  Well, consider how God and Christ view the matter.

Jesus Christ said to his true disciples:  "You are no part of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world."  And God's Word pointedly asks:  "Adulteresses, do you not know that the friendship  with the world is enmity with God?"  (John 15:19; James 4:4)  Thus, as the Bible presents it, the church made itself a religious harlot with whom "the kings  of the earth committed fornication."  It has shown itself to be part of what the Bible calls "Babylon the Great, the mother of the harlots and of the disgusting things of the earth." -Revelation 17:1-6. 

Next time: A Focus ON THE SOVIET ATTACK - Church Collaboration With the Soviets 

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