Religion: Christianity in Russia

Back from 17 days of traveling, talking and trenchering through Russia, a five-man delegation representing the World Council of Churches last week reported that, despite repression, religion in the U.S.S.R. is remarkably "rich and intensive," and that Russian Christians have an "ardent desire" to make contact with their fellow Christians in the West.

The trip was the latest move in a slow warmup of relations with Russian Orthodoxy that has been going on since the World Council's Evanston Assembly in 1954. The makeup of the World Council's delegation to Russia was well designed to disprove any lingering notions Moscow's Patriarch Alexis might...