RELIGION IN EAST EUROPE SIR,—May I respectfully suggest that, whatever
our political approach may be, we should be wise to try to understand the real situation in Eastern Europe today? To say, as does the author of your leader Cross or Sickle: "In the Soviet Union organised religion ... has virtually ceased to exist," is to betray an ignorance which is total. The Archbishop of York knows better and has said a good deal in public about the strength of the Russian Church. The World Council of Churches knows better, and rightly regrets the refusal of the Russian Church to take part in its discussions.
There was a time when Roman Catholicism was regarded in England, with some justice, as politically subversive. Savage penal laws were passed against the Catholics. Today the same kind of situation occurs in Eastern Europe, except that there are no penal laws. There arc adjustments of the relations between Church and State. The results are. no doubt, far from perfect. But are we members of the Church of England well disposed for throwing stones ?—Yours, &c.,
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