- Dec 13, 2004
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It was Pascha of the first year after the Communist October Revolution. In front of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, Lunaciarski was holding an atheist conference. This founder of the "bezbojnik" (without God) movement had declared openly a couple of months earlier that God should disappear completely from the vast Soviet territories. He had made a solemn commitment in the presence of the Soviet Communist party. On that day the meeting was of great size. Country people and workmen from surrounding areas and from far away had been brought forcibly to attend...There were thousands of Bolsheviks applauding and thundering slogans against God. The orator was in his glory.
To make the argument more powerful, an inflamed group of Communists surprised an old priest on the street; they beat him, spat upon him, pulled his beard and brought him on the stage. Lunaciarski looked at him and said, "Do you see these multitudes? From now on, they do not believe in God; they believe in me, in what I tell them. Look, I give you the floor. If in five minutes, you do not convince them that God exists, I will execute you." The priest turned to the people, and, this being Pascha, he felt in his heart a flow of warm love and compassion for these people. He cleared his voice and cried out with a supernatural force, "BRETHREN, CHRIST IS RISEN!" There were a few seconds of dead silence, and then as if from the depths or even from heaven, the answer of tens of thousands of Bolsheviks reverberated through the air: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!" The old man made the sign of the cross in the presence of the speaker and said, "Your Excellency, my demonstration is finished." Then he slipped away through the crowd and disappeared. The writer Nicholas Arseniev, who was an eyewitness, later related the facts of this event in his memoirs when he was in exile.
This incident effected some changes in the tactics and methods used against religion by the Soviets, because later in his correspondence with Lenin, Lunaciarski wrote these terrible words: "If you want to convince people, first kill their inner life; for they speak one thing and believe another." The devil had whispered to Lunaciarski that somewhere in the depths of man, God Himself dwells — God who was crucified, and resurrected — and that this dominion is inexpugnable. People under persecution do not lose their faith; on the contrary, God is more present today on the other side of the Iron Curtain than in the so-called “free world.” People like Solzenitsyn, Zacharov and Paul Goma have demonstrated to all the Communists in the world that human intimacy cannot be killed or controlled.
The resurrection of our Lord poses a problem for the entire Christian world. There are people who believe in God, but their spirit is dead; their mind is dead, their hope is dead. We need a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, a renewal of our life.
What is Pascha for us? Is it an occasion to wear beautiful clothes? A solemn commemoration of a past event? No! Pascha should be a permanent experience for each one of us. Christ can resurrect us even now, if this is what we want, giving us a new quality of life, a new perspective, a new peace, a new joy, a new love. Christ made Paul into an apostle from a persecutor; Zacchaeus was transformed from a dishonest and greedy tax collector into a philanthropist; Mary Magdalene was raised to a level of sanctity from being a woman of the streets — this is the true resurrection. We think of this kind of renewal when we answer from the depth of our heart, HE IS RISEN INDEED. (Pascha, April 1977)
- From the book “On the way of faith” by Archimandrite Roman Braga
To make the argument more powerful, an inflamed group of Communists surprised an old priest on the street; they beat him, spat upon him, pulled his beard and brought him on the stage. Lunaciarski looked at him and said, "Do you see these multitudes? From now on, they do not believe in God; they believe in me, in what I tell them. Look, I give you the floor. If in five minutes, you do not convince them that God exists, I will execute you." The priest turned to the people, and, this being Pascha, he felt in his heart a flow of warm love and compassion for these people. He cleared his voice and cried out with a supernatural force, "BRETHREN, CHRIST IS RISEN!" There were a few seconds of dead silence, and then as if from the depths or even from heaven, the answer of tens of thousands of Bolsheviks reverberated through the air: "HE IS RISEN INDEED!" The old man made the sign of the cross in the presence of the speaker and said, "Your Excellency, my demonstration is finished." Then he slipped away through the crowd and disappeared. The writer Nicholas Arseniev, who was an eyewitness, later related the facts of this event in his memoirs when he was in exile.
This incident effected some changes in the tactics and methods used against religion by the Soviets, because later in his correspondence with Lenin, Lunaciarski wrote these terrible words: "If you want to convince people, first kill their inner life; for they speak one thing and believe another." The devil had whispered to Lunaciarski that somewhere in the depths of man, God Himself dwells — God who was crucified, and resurrected — and that this dominion is inexpugnable. People under persecution do not lose their faith; on the contrary, God is more present today on the other side of the Iron Curtain than in the so-called “free world.” People like Solzenitsyn, Zacharov and Paul Goma have demonstrated to all the Communists in the world that human intimacy cannot be killed or controlled.
The resurrection of our Lord poses a problem for the entire Christian world. There are people who believe in God, but their spirit is dead; their mind is dead, their hope is dead. We need a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, a renewal of our life.
What is Pascha for us? Is it an occasion to wear beautiful clothes? A solemn commemoration of a past event? No! Pascha should be a permanent experience for each one of us. Christ can resurrect us even now, if this is what we want, giving us a new quality of life, a new perspective, a new peace, a new joy, a new love. Christ made Paul into an apostle from a persecutor; Zacchaeus was transformed from a dishonest and greedy tax collector into a philanthropist; Mary Magdalene was raised to a level of sanctity from being a woman of the streets — this is the true resurrection. We think of this kind of renewal when we answer from the depth of our heart, HE IS RISEN INDEED. (Pascha, April 1977)
- From the book “On the way of faith” by Archimandrite Roman Braga
