Russia admits swing to Christianity

THE OFFICIAL Soviet Press . agency, Novosti, has denied the -existence of a report by the Soviet Government's Council for Religious Affairs, the'contents of ' which were made public recently by an emigre group of Russian Christians.
The contents of the 70-page report were published in Vestnik, "The Messenger" a Russian language journal issued quarterly . by the Russian Christian Students Association in Paris. Details of .she report appeared in the Herald on April 25.
According to Novosti, the Council for Religious Affairs has called Vestnik's publication "a ' fresh attempt to discredit Soviet 'policy on religion and distort the ' 'situation of the Chruch in the USSR.
'" Novosti quotes Nikity Struve, publisher of Vestnik, as having said that the Council document "accurately reflects and confirms how Soviet authorities today view and attempt to manipulate, control and crush the Church." _But, says Novosti, realities refute the findings of the report. Vestnik reveals statistics in the report to the effect that there
: were 5,994 priests in the USSR in 1974 (the report is dated 1975), ; 8,252 in 1961, and between 20,000 and 30,000 before Kruschev's purge in the 1950's. But Novosti :claims there are at present 15,000 *nests.
It gives "evidence" to the
.▪ effect that the Church is develop
, mg with a 50 per cent increase in fatudents attending religious ;educational establishments over the past five years, and the opening of 250 new churches and prayer houses.
Referring to "such frauds as the alleged 'report'," Novosti claims that "their authors do not want to understand that the clergy accepts the socialist system and even shares its principles." It further claims that, in the USSR, "the State does not interfere in the religious activities of the Church, while the Church does not meddle in political affairs."
• The Soviet authorities may allow seven Pentecostal Christians, now in the US embassy in Moscow to leave the Soviet Union soon to prevent them talking to the Western press during this summer's Olympic Games.
That was the prediction made at a press conference last week by the Rev. William Villaume, who has been Protestant chaplain in Moscow for the last two years.
The seven members of the Vaschenko and Chmykhalov families have been in the embassy for nearly two years. Now the Olympics give the authorities the best incentive yet to let them go, Rev. Villaume said Hitherto it has been to the advantage of the Soviet Union to leave the families in the embassy: their presence has been a constant source of embarrassment to the American authorities and discouraged others from following their example.
The widespread arrests of religious and other dissidents since last Autumn has been followed by advice from the KGB to those remaining at liberty to take a long summer vacation well away from Moscow before and during the Games. It seems that most dissidents are taking this advice.