The officially Atheist governments of the Soviet Union and Communist China killed more innocent people than all of the worlds’ previous religious wars combined.
It was almost exactly 99 years ago today that Tikhon, the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church at that time, wrote this scathing and entirely accurate rebuke to the Soviet authorities. He wrote this in full knowledge that it would result in his imprisonment, torture, and possible execution – because the radical Left tolerates no criticism.
“For an entire year, you have been gripping the power of the government in your hands, and you are already preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the October revolution; but the rivers of the blood of our brothers, pitilessly murdered at your rallying, cry out to heaven and force us to tell you the bitter truth.
Having seized power and called the people to entrust themselves to you, what promises have you given them, and how have you kept these promises?
Truly you have given them a stone instead of bread, and a serpent instead of a fish…
You have divided the entire nation into warring camps and cast it into a fratricide unprecedented for its cruelty. You have openly exchanged love of Christ for hatred, and instead of peace you have artificially fomented enmity between the classes. And there is no end in sight to the war you’ve generated, since you aim to deliver triumph to the phantom of world revolution with the hands of Russian workers and peasants…
No one feels safe; everyone lives in constant fear of searches, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. Hundreds of defenseless people are seized, then languish for whole months in prisons, are often executed without investigation or trial, even without going to the court you have simplified. Not only those who are somehow guilty before you, but even those who are in no way guilty, but were taken only as “captives”—these unfortunate people are killed to answer for crimes committed by persons who not only are not of one mind with them, but very often your own followers or those with convictions similar to yours. Bishops, priests, monks and nuns who are guilty of nothing are executed simply because of some wild accusations of vague and indeterminate “counterrevolution”…
You promised freedom.
Is it freedom when no one can bring home food or rent an apartment without special permission, when families, and sometimes all the inhabitants of whole buildings are evicted and their possessions are thrown into the street, and when citizens are artificially divided into ranks, certain of which are consigned to hunger and being plundered? Is it freedom when no one can speak his opinion openly without fear of being accused of counterrevolution? Where is freedom of speech and press, where is freedom for preaching in church? Many bold preachers have already paid with their martyrs’ blood; the voice of social and governmental discussion and criticism is being stifled; all press, other than the narrow Bolshevik press, has been completely strangled.
Especially painful and cruel is the violation of freedom in matters of faith. Not a day goes by when the most monstrous slanders against Christ’s Church and her servants are not published in the agencies of your press, along with malicious blasphemy and mockery. You deride the servants of the altar, force bishops to dig trenches, and send priests to do dirty work…
Yes, we are experiencing terrible times in our reign, and it will not be erased from the peoples’ soul for a long time, having darkened the image of God in it and stamping in it the image of the beast. The words of the prophet have been fulfilled: Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths. (Is. 59:7).
We know that our rebukes will evoke only anger and indignation in you and that you will look for an excuse in them for accusing us of opposition to the authorities, but the higher your “column of wrath” rises, the more proven will be the testimony to the truth of our rebukes.”
From Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the United States to St. Tykhon in Russia, it has often been the religious leaders who spoke out in defense of the marginalized and oppressed.
