Religion: Taking A Firm Stand Against Faith

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There are no reliable statistics on how many Soviet Muslims still practice their faith. But a political report adopted last year by the 16th Congress of the Kazakhstan Communist Party noted that Islam is "still strong and growing." A Kazakh newspaper told of mullahs holding unauthorized prayer meetings, while another daily in neighboring Uzbekistan attacked local party leaders who permit people to gather at traditional holy sites. Such informal gatherings suggest that the number of believers far exceeds the capacity of the country's 300 to 500 legally registered mosques (there were 24,000 before the Communist takeover).

Other recent newspaper articles that contain evidence of Muslim activity complain about elaborate funerals and workers fasting during the holy month of Ramadan. According to one article, some who follow the "old reactionary rituals" try to make the practices more acceptable to the Soviets by using coded terminology. Thus fasting is called dieting, and the five daily prayers of prostration are termed calisthenics.

Ethnicity as well as religion lay behind mid-December rioting in Alma Ata, capital of Kazakhstan, after the Kremlin replaced veteran Party Leader Dinmukhammed Kunayev, a Kazakh, with a Russian. The ousted Kunayev was no ^ believer, but he did little to suppress his people's religious practices. His removal served as a focus for Kazakh and Muslim resentment of postwar Russian newcomers who have made the Kazakhs a minority in their own republic.

During the year ahead, Gorbachev's policy toward religion should become clearer. Communist officials are privately debating how to celebrate in 1988 the 1,000th anniversary of Prince Vladimir of Kiev's choice of Christianity as the faith of his people. In a sense next year marks the millennium not just of Russian Orthodoxy but of the Russian nation. Pope John Paul II is even exploring the possibility of a visit, though the Kremlin is unlikely to comply with his request to go to Lithuania and the Ukraine. The Soviet regime has already permitted the Russian Orthodox Church to renovate a historic Moscow monastery and open a press office. Such gestures, however, are a far cry from recognizing Christianity's role in national life, either 1,000 years ago or today.