of
Bolshevism would have been impossible but for the utter enfeeblement of
the religious life of the nation"; but--and this is the point of
interest--"thanks to the persecutions which the revolution has set on
foot, there has come into being a genuine religious revival. . . . The
Church, pillaged and persecuted, lost all the material advantages it
had hitherto enjoyed: in return, the loss of all these relative values
was made good by the absolute value of spiritual independence. . . .
This it is that explains the growing influence of the Church on the
masses of the people: the blood of the new martyrs won their
hearts. . . . These awful sufferings are becoming a source of new
power to religion in Russia." The Prince then describes the complete
reorganisation of the church which was carried through at Moscow in
1917-18, and the restoration of the patriarchal power in the person of
the Archbishop Tykone (now Patriarch), a man of great personal courage,
high spirituality, and remarkable sweetness of disposition. The people
rallied round him in enormous numbers, attracted by his courageous
resistance to the Bolshevist movement--(a resistance which had then
frequently endangered his life, and may since have ended it)--and by
his determined avoidance of all pomp and ostentation. In the great
religious processions which took place at that time, hundreds of
thousands passed before him, but he had no bishops and very few clergy
in his retinue, only one priest and one deacon. When urged to adopt
more ceremony and display in his public appearances, he replied, "For
the love of God, don't make an idol of me." He was always ready with a
humorous word, and filled with a serene and unshakable confidence, even
in the most dangerous situations. The people looked upon him as "Holy
Russia" personified, and said that "the persecutors who would have
buried her for ever had brought her back to life."

In an appendix to the above-quoted article appears a statement "from a
responsible British source in Siberia" to the effect that "a strong
religious movement has begun among the laity and clergy of the Russian
Church. . . . The _moujiks_ are convinced that Lenin is Anti-Christ;"
and an urgent appeal for Russian Testaments and Bibles to be sent from
England, the writer having been told by a prominent ecclesiastic that
"Russian Bibles are now almost unprocurable."

Thus, having long revolted from orthodoxy in the day of its material
p