Schools, hospitals, and other charitable institutions which had been organized by Jesus followers were closed and destroyed. Because of their beliefs, Jesus followers were denied opportunities to study at universities.
The worst persecution was between 1917 and 1941. Although the Soviet government claimed to offer freedom of belief to its citizens, it also established the elimination of any belief except materialistic atheism as one of its domestic goals.
The most brutal efforts to remove any trace of Jesus from Russian society were made under Lenin’s rule. Lenin rigidly adhered to the view that materialistic atheism was the only acceptable intellectual foundation for the dictatorship he established.
Stalin, who took control after Lenin’s death in 1924, at first continued Lenin’s policies, and more than one hundred thousand Jesus followers were executed during the first decade or two of Stalin’s rule. But after 1943, Stalin moderated his efforts to eliminate the Jesus movement.
At the worst phases of the persecution, thousands of Jesus followers were executed. In following decades, the anti-Jesus activity was still severe, but not quite as ruthless as in the pre-1943 era. In 1982, Martin Scharlemann wrote:
In the Soviet Union only the Russian Orthodox clergy are given a little measure of liberty as they operate under the over-all supervision of the Ministry of Culture; for the Soviets owe a massive debt to the Russian Orthodox Church from the days of World War II. And thereby hangs an interesting tale!
The turning point, which slightly lessened the government’s actions against Jesus followers, came after Hitler’s 1941 attack on the Soviet Union.
The Nazis were well-armed and well-trained. The Soviet troops were pushed eastward back hundreds of miles, from their western border deep into the Russian interior. The situation looked grim for the Soviets.
In September 1943, Stalin met with Patriarch Sergius of Moscow, Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow, and Metropolitan Nicholas of Kiev. Stalin needed the help of the Jesus followers, even though they were the people whom Stalin had thrown into jail, tortured, beaten, and killed.
At a time when the German armies were within a few miles of Moscow, Stalin did a most extraordinary thing: he fetched the patriarch and a few other prelates from the very labor camps to which he had sent them some years before just because of their church activities. He now (1943) summoned them to the Kremlin and set them up in business. That is to say, he reestablished the Russian Orthodox Church; for Stalin knew that, to get the Russian people to fight to the end for their motherland, with their backs to the wall, he needed more than Marxist materialism. He was also perceptive enough to realize that the Party could use the Russian Orthodox Church to worm its way into the Middle East and into Manchuria. (Historical footnote: the present patriarch in Istanbul, who is the spiritual leader and ranking member of all Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, was and is the Russian nominee for that office unlike his predecessor, who was an American citizen before being selected as “His All-Holiness.”)
In fact, when Martin Scharlemann wrote this in 1982, Demetrios I was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople; he served his group of Jesus followers from July 1972 to October 1991. His predecessor was Athenagoras I, who was patriarch from November 1948 to July 1972. Bartholomew I became patriarch in October 1991.
The Soviets, especially those after Lenin, were opportunists. Although they resented Jesus and those who wanted to be Jesus followers, they also knew when they could benefit from these people.
There was an uptick in the persecution of Jesus followers, after Stalin’s death, during the rules of Khrushchev and Brezhnev. But even then, large percentages of babies were baptized, and Jesus followers conducted a large number of funerals. By some estimates, a majority - more than 50% of babies were baptized, and more than 50% of burials were conducted by Jesus followers.
Apocryphal stories describe how high-ranking members of the Communist Party inside the Soviet Union secretly had their children baptized by Jesus followers.
The history of Jesus followers in the Soviet Union is complex: it is a history of merciless persecution by militant atheists, but also a story of grudging accommodation by a realistic government, and a story of resilient survival in which the influence of Jesus remained widespread and was passed on to new generations.
