Religion: Questionable Mission to Moscow

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At a conference, Billy Graham glosses over Soviet persecution

When the Rev. Billy Graham first saw the light, he also spied the devil. Satan, he asserted years ago, is the god of Communism. "Either Communism must die, or Christianity must die," he wrote in 1954, "because it is actually a battle between Christ and the anti-Christ." But in 1979 Graham seemed to view the situation in a different light. A vision of the world destroyed by a nuclear Armageddon replaced Communism as the greatest evil. And it was this revelation that was on display during Graham's appearance last week at a Kremlin-approved anti-nuclear conference in Moscow—a series of sermons, meetings and dinners that seemed to dazzle and delude the globetrotting evangelist. "In the U.S., only a millionaire could afford caviar," Graham noted, "and here I have had caviar with every meal."

The World Conference of Religious Workers for Saving the Sacred Gift of Life from Nuclear Catastrophe, sponsored by the Russian Orthodox Church, invited Graham, as well as some 600 other distinguished clergy from around the world. Even Pope John Paul II sent two observers from the Vatican's Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. Despite the impressive invitation list, Reagan Administration officials had urged Graham not to accept, insisting that the conference was a forum for endorsing Soviet foreign policy and a not so subtle public relations ploy designed to demonstrate religious tolerance in the U.S.S.R. Graham, they feared, would become an unwitting prophet of Soviet propaganda.

As the week's events unfolded, their worst fears seemed to be realized. Speeding from appointment to appointment through Moscow's wide streets in a black, chauffeur-driven Chaika limousine, Graham saw only what his hosts wanted him to see. Moreover, he seemed to say only what his hosts wanted him to say. At the end of a hectic schedule, which included a sermon at the only Baptist church in Moscow, a homily at the opulent Yelokhovsky Orthodox Cathedral, a speech at the conference (held in Moscow's World Trade Center) and a meeting with the six Pentecostalists taking refuge at the U.S. embassy, Graham earnestly commented that he had seen no evidence of religious repression. Questioned on the point at a Moscow press conference, he said: "There are differences, of course, in religion as it is practiced here and, let's say, in the U.S. But that doesn't mean there is no religious freedom." He later added that "in 'Great Britain, they have a state church. Here the church is not a state church. It is a free church."

During his sermon at the Baptist church, Graham told a well-dressed congregation that the Bible calls on citizens "to obey the authorities," and that Jesus gave "man the power to be a better worker, a loyal citizen." One woman in the congregation disobeyed; she draped a banner over the balcony that read, "We have more than 150 prisoners for the work of the gospel." She was quietly escorted out of the church by several men in plain clothes and was presumably detained for questioning. Asked his opinion of the incident later, Graham replied: "We detain people in the United States if we catch them doing things wrong."