Religion: Catacomb Church

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Metaphysical Revolution. No one knows just how many secret priests are in Russia today. Lying ill last week in a monastery near Cologne was black-bearded bespectacled Father Kurt Szekalla, who, like Father George, successfully penetrated the Iron Curtain and got out again. But many are not so lucky. German-born Father Szekalla says he knows of seven fellow priests who entered Russia between 1939 and 1946, disguised as artisans or peasants. None has returned. At least one, a Czech priest named Father Romza, Szekalla knows to have been executed.

Father Szekalla reports that he found clandestine congregations of the Roman Catholic "catacomb church" almost, everywhere he went—even at high bureaucratic levels. In Leningrad, he says, one group customarily celebrated Mass within the Naval Academy while unsuspecting guards stood sentry duty outside. Father Szekalla is optimistic about Russia's eventual conversion: "I think that the revolution in Russia which began in the social order will end in the metaphysical order. The new resistance of the Russian people as .evidenced in their catacomb church will one day reassert itself . . . Religion will come back to Russia—but by evolution instead of revolution."