Religion: Giddy Days for the Russian Church

Under crystal skies and a brilliant sun, temperatures in Moscow soared near 100 degrees F last week. The exceptional climate was an appropriate accompaniment to the unprecedented warmth that emanated from Mikhail Gorbachev's Kremlin during the celebrations marking the country's 1,000th year of Christianity. Church bells, so rarely heard in the land of Lenin, pealed joyously as rituals unfolded in the gilded Russian Orthodox sanctuaries. Some 500 spiritual dignitaries from 100 nations were in attendance. Among them: Anglican Leader Robert Runcie, the Archbishop of Canterbury, American Evangelist Billy Graham, and no fewer than nine Cardinals and 27 bishops, the largest and clearly the most estimable Roman Catholic assemblage ever to visit the Soviet Union. In a remarkable display of glasnost, night after night the officially sanctioned events of the Christian millennium were featured on the 9 o'clock newscasts and on television specials after midnight.

For one giddy moment, at least, belief seemed almost respectable. "It's like a honeymoon. We feel drunk and hope we don't ever wake up," enthused Father Viktor Petluchenko, a teacher from Odessa assigned to shepherd the international church guests. "From our TV screens we heard that the church is the heart of our nation and we need it. Can you imagine? It's wonderful."

Moscow kitchen workers, soldiers and maids waited in long lines at hotels to snap up costly and usually unavailable religious books, medals and icon reproductions. At the celebrated 14th century monastic center at Zagorsk, 40 miles northeast of Moscow, the crowds and food stalls lent a carnival air. An aged woman who had come from Leningrad said, "I'm no longer afraid to tell people I'm a Christian," as tears streamed down her cheeks. A young mother held the hands of her two youngsters and remarked, "I hope they can wear their crosses with pride."

So intent was the Communist regime on honoring the occasion that it consigned the Bolshoi Theater, that secular holy of holies, to be the site of one of the major celebrations. The curtain, emblazoned with hammer and sickle, parted to reveal not ballet sets but black-robed churchmen, representatives from numerous faiths, state officials and, wonder of wonders, Raisa Gorbachev. "Your presence here is more than symbolic," New York's Rabbi Arthur Schneier told her.

The Bolshoi highlight was a carefully hewed speech by Agostino Cardinal Casaroli, the brilliant diplomat who years ago fashioned the Vatican outreach to the Communist world and is now the Secretary of State (prime minister) of Pope John Paul's Vatican. Religion, Casaroli asserted, is an "uncontestable reality" in daily life and "cannot be neglected" by authorities. Some of the Bolshoi festivities were carried to a nationwide TV audience, a fact that impressed one visiting churchman: "What do you think it says to millions of faithful in the Soviet Union? It means the government thinks religion is not 'the opium of the people.' It's a clear break with classic Marxist ideology."