History of Christianity Warning: You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you log in or create an account, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.Anti-spam check. Do not fill this in! ====Russian Orthodoxy==== {{Further|Religion in the Soviet Union}}The [[Russian Orthodox Church]] held a privileged position in the [[Russian Empire]], expressed in the motto of the late empire from 1833: [[Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Populism]]. Nevertheless, the [[Church reform of Peter I]] in the early 18th century had placed the Orthodox authorities under the control of the [[tsar]]. An ober-procurator appointed by the tsar ran the committee which governed the Church between 1721 and 1918: the [[Most Holy Synod]]. The Church became involved in the various campaigns of [[russification]] and contributed to antisemitism.{{sfn|Shlikhta|2004|pp=361β273}}{{sfn|Klier|Lambroza|2004|p=306}} [[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|Demolition of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in Moscow on the orders of [[Joseph Stalin]], 5 December 1931, consistent with the doctrine of [[state atheism]] in the USSR|alt=image of "Cathedral of Christ the Savior" in Moscow turning to dust as it collapses on the orders of Joseph Stalin in 1931.{{sfn|Rappaport|1999|p=201, 223}}]] The [[Bolsheviks]] and other Russian revolutionaries saw the Church, like the tsarist state, as an [[enemy of the people]]. Criticism of atheism was strictly forbidden and sometimes led to imprisonment.{{sfn|Calciu-Dumitreasa|1983|pp=5β8}}{{sfn|Eidintas|2001|p= 23}} Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers included torture, being sent to [[gulags|prison camps]], [[sharashka|labour camps]] or [[Psikhushka|mental hospitals]], as well as execution.{{sfn|Bouteneff|1998|pp=viβ1}}{{sfn|Sullivan|2006}} Historian Scott Kenworthy describes the persecution of the church under communism as "unparalleled by any in Christian history".{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} In the first five years after the [[October Revolution]], one journalist reported 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.{{sfn|Ostling|2001}} This included former nobility like the [[Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna]], at this point a nun, the [[Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich]], the Princes [[Ioann Konstantinovich of Russia|Ioann Konstantinvich]], [[Prince Constantine Constantinovich of Russia|Konstantin Konstantinovich]], [[Igor Konstantinovich of Russia|Igor Konstantinovich]] and [[Vladimir Paley|Vladimir Pavlovich Paley]], Grand Duke Sergei's secretary, Fyodor Remez; and [[Varvara Yakovleva]], a sister from the Grand Duchess Elizabeth's convent. Other scholarship reports that 8,000 were killed in 1922 during the conflict over church valuables.{{sfn|Pipes|1995|p=356}} Under the [[state atheism]] of the [[Soviet Union]] and the [[Eastern Bloc]], the [[League of Militant Atheists]] aided in the persecution of many Christian denominations, with many churches and monasteries being destroyed, as well as clergy being executed.{{refn|group=note|"One of the first assignments of state atheism was the eradication of religion. In their attempt to destroy faith in God, Soviet authorities used all means of persecution, arrests and trials, imprisonment in psychiatric hospitals, house raids and searches, confiscations of Bibles and New Testaments and other Christian literature, disruption of worship services by the militia and KGB, slander campaigns against Christians in magazines and newspapers, on TV and radio. Persecution of Evangelical Baptists was intensified in the early 1960s and continues to the present".{{sfn|United States Congress|1985|p=129}}{{paragraph break}}"In the Soviet Union the Russian Orthodox Church was suffering unprecedented persecution. The closing and destruction of churches and monasteries, the sate atheism imposed on all aspects of life, the arrest, imprisonment, exile and execution of bishops, clergy, monastics, theologians and tens of thousands of active members had brought the Church to prostration. The voice of the Church in society as silenced, its teaching mocked, its extinction predicted".{{sfn|Cunningham|Theokritoff|2008|p=261}}{{paragraph break}}"One of the main activities of the League of Militant Atheists was the publication of massive quantities of anti-religious literature, comprising regular journals and newspapers as well as books and pamphlets. The number of printed pages rose from 12 million in 1927 to 800 million in 1930. All these legislative and publicistic efforts were, however, only incidental to the events of the 1930s. During this period religion, was quite simply, to be eliminated by means of violence. With the end of NEP came the start of forced collectivisation in 1929, and with it the terror, which encompassed ''kulaks'' and class enemies of all kinds, including bishops, priests, and lay believers, who were arrested, shot and sent to labour camps. Churches were closed down, destroyed, converted to other uses. The League of Militant Atheists apparently adopted a five-year plan in 1932 aimed at the total eradication of religion by 1937".{{sfn|Walters|2005|pp=14β15}}}} Despite centuries of oppression and martyrdom under hostile rule, the Orthodox churches of the twentieth century have continued to contribute to theology, spirituality, liturgy, music, and art.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=178}} <blockquote>Important movements within the church have been the revival of a Eucharistic ecclesiology, of traditional iconography, of monastic life and spiritual traditions such as [[Hesychasm]], and the rediscovery of the Greek Church Fathers.{{sfn|Kenworthy|2008|p=177}}</blockquote> Summary: Please note that all contributions to Christianpedia may be edited, altered, or removed by other contributors. If you do not want your writing to be edited mercilessly, then do not submit it here. 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