An essay in universal history

24. THE “THEOLOGY OF PEACE”

Paralleling the Soviets’ new-found enthusiasm for ecumenism was ther rather older enthusiasm for “peace”. The origins of the so-called “movement for peace” and “theology of peace” can be traced at least to the founding of NATO to defend Europe against Soviet aggression in 1949: from the viewpoint of Marxism-Leninism, NATO was not a defensive organization but a threat to world peace. The Soviets proved masters at insinuating the idea that they were the real peacemakers – while steadily and consistently pursuing war against the free world. In this connection, Revel points to “the KGB’s slow penetration of Christian churches, panicked by their declining spiritual influence over modern socieiteis, nudging them into adopting a fresh theme, one more ‘public-spirited’ than religion: the struggle for peace, or, in the Third World, the ‘theology of liberation’. A bishop is always a bigger draw on such subjects than the Soviet embassy’s press attaché.”³⁰⁸

Thus the MP – which, as we have seen, is not so much “penetrated” by the KGB, as a branch of it - organized a series of ecumenical conferences “in defence of peace” with representatives not only of the Christian confessions, but also of Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Shintoism and Sikhism. Insofar as these religious “fighters for peace” worshipped completely different gods or (in the case of Buddhism) no god at all, there was no place at these conferences for the specifically Christian understanding of peace. Thus there was no mention of the fact that peace on earth is possible only if there is peace with God, which is obtained only through faith in the redeeming work of Christ, Who “is our peace” (Ephesians 2.14), and through a constant struggle with evil in all its forms, including atheism and communism. Moreover, as Kurochkin writes, “on the pages of the ecclesiastical press and on the lips of those speaking before the believers, the similarity and closeness of the communist and Christian social and moral ideals was proclaimed more and more often.” And so the cult of Stalin was transformed into the cult of communism; for “the patriarchal church, having conquered the renovationists, was forced to assimilate the heritage of the conquered not only in the field of political re-orientation, but also in the sphere of ideological reconstruction.”³⁰⁹
The gospel of “Communist Christianity” appeared in an encyclical of the patriarchate “in connection with the Great October Socialist Revolution”, which supposedly “turned into reality the dreams of many generations of people. It made all the natural riches of the land and means of production into the inheritance of the people. It changed the very essence of human relations, making all our citizens equal and excluding from our society any possibility of enmity between peoples of difference races and nationalities, of different persuasions, faiths and social conditions.”³¹⁰
Insofar as the MP confessed that the revolution “changed the very essence of human relations” for the better, it renounced the Christian Faith for that of the faith of the Antichrist. This aspect of the MP’s apostasy is often forgotten. And of course now, since the fall of communism, the MP no longer talks about its enthusiasm for the antichristian creed of communism. But by any normal definition of words, the hierarchs of the MP ceased to be, not only Orthodox in any meaningful sense, but also Christian at this time…
“The so-called ‘theology of peace’,” wrote Protopresbyter George Grabbe, “is in essence the chiliastic preaching of the Kingdom of God on earth, with the help of the planting of communist socialism. In their address to the Moscow council before the election of the patriarch in 1971 the Priest Nicholas Gainov and three laymen raised questions in relation to the speeches of Metropolitan Nikodem [of Leningrad] and his co-workers. They cited his words on the union of people amongst themselves in ‘the service of reconciliation’ with the aim thereby of ‘seizing the Kingdom of God that is coming in strength’. The Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate wrote: ‘For the Christian religion there can be no indifferent or neutral spheres of activity. The changes that are taking place in the world are viewed by Christianity as the action of the Providence of God, the manifestation of the power of God with the aim of establishing the Kingdom of God on earth’ (1962, № 12, p. 12).
“The peace which the Moscow patriarchate is clamouring for is not spiritual peace, but political peace, and moreover, a false peace, for the so-called ‘theology of peace’ is linked with the deceptive propaganda of the Soviets. In trying to echo communist propaganda, the patriarchate is involuntarily falling into the preaching of a certain kind of chiliasm, that is, the attainment of a golden age and general peace by human means of a political character. If the Saviour said: ‘Seek first of all the Kingdom of God, and all the rest will be added to you,’ the Moscow patriarchate puts the question in the reverse order: the Kingdom of God must be attained through the external means of the communist social order.
“That is why, in his report ‘Peace and Freedom’ at the local conference of the movement for peace in Holland in 1963, Metropolitan Nikodem called for the Church to come closer to this world. ‘From ancient times,’ he said, ‘the apologists of the unchangeability of social relations have begun to incline the thoughts of Christians to complete alienation from the world with the aim of drawing them away from burning social problems, for the struggle for the reconstruction of society on the principles of justice. Under the long influence of this pseudo-Christian preaching whole generations of narrow fanatics have been educated and grown up with distorted ideas about Christianity’ (J.M.P., 1963, № 1, p. 40).
“What is Metropolitan Nikodem renouncing in these words? He is renouncing the patristic and ascetic past, he is trying to turn the Church from striving for heaven to the path of earthly social tasks. His Kingdom of God on earth is the communist order.
“He is echoed by Protopriest V.M. Borovoj, who expressed himself still more vividly: ‘Systematic theology and the historical churches have never been on the side of the revolution for the simple reason that they were prisoners of the cosmo-centric understanding of reality, prisoners of the static understanding of an order established once and for all on earth. Only in the last decades, when profound changes, a kind of revolution, have taken place in philosophical, theological and scientific thought as the result of an anthropocentric view of the cosmos, an evolutionary conception of the universe and a new rethinking of the whole history of humanity – only after all this has there appeared the possibility of working out a theology of development and revolution’ (J.M.P., 1966, № 9, p. 78)…
“By moving in this apostatic direction the Moscow patriarchate has already lost Christianity itself, replacing it with the religion of this world. Contrary to the word of the Saviour (Matthew 6.24), it is trying to serve two masters, and, as the Saviour warned, it has arrived at the point where it is careless with regard to Christianity but ardent in serving atheist communism.”³¹¹