Solzhenitsyn and Orthodox Christian Russia’s Destiny With Truth

“Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” – Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Towards the end of the First World War, Russia was in the throes of a chaotic and savage civil war which culminated with a Bolshevik takeover of Orthodox Christian Russia. What followed was tyranny and oppression for the next seventy odd years especially on the religious way of life. There was no larger target for Lenin and the Bolsheviks than the Russian Orthodox Church which then continued under Stalin and Nikita Kurushev.

After the Bolsheviks took over they issued a decree that separated the church and state and nationalized all church property, they shut monasteries, transformed churches into schools, worker’s club, cattle yards, car repair shops and warehouses. They also seemed to derive particular pleasure from the execution of priests and hierarchs. As Solzhenitsyn would later recall that a disaster had befallen from God.

Soveit Union was not Russia rather the Soviet Union hijacked and shook the very foundations of Orthodox Christian Russia. The Soviet leaders had nothing to do with the religious way of life as Lenin would say “every religious idea, every idea of God, even every flirtation with the idea of God is unutterable vileness.” The same hatred for religion continued under a more ruthless dictator, Stalin, who proclaimed to be an atheist.

Solzhenitsyn and Soviet Russia

Born and raised as an Orthodox Christian at a time when the Bolsheviks had established the government and were poised to launch an all-out assault on the Church. One of his earlier memories was of being in the church of St. Pantaleimon with his mother when cavalrymen commanded by Semyon Budyonny burst in to confiscate everything of value. The church was willing to donate general property, but it refused to surrender holy vessels; in the textile center of Shuia, some 150 miles northeast of Moscow, believers resorted to violent resistance, ultimately in vain.

As the years rolled by under Soviet tyranny, Russia was losing all its essence of being an Orthodox Christian nation, it was being transformed into an atheist state which was showing its effect on the way of life.

Solzhenitsyn would later recall, “I was brought up in a Christian spirit but youth in the Soviet period took me away from religion entirely.” Being part of a system, Solzhenitsyn wrote in As Breathing and Consciousness Return, “which is unique in history, because over and above its physical and economic constraints, it demands of us total surrender of our souls, continuous and active participation in the general, conscious lie.”

From Lenin, Stalin inherited the system of concentration camps that Solzhenitsyn was to call the Gulag Archipelago. Most camps were set up in former monasteries: they were enclosed by strong walls had good solid buildings, and they were empty. Sacred places became secular and state power replaced church authority. The camps were nothing but death camps and most perished from brutal interrogations, hard labor and the chilling cold of the Russian winter. Solzhenitsyn left the subject of Kolyma out of the book (Gulag Archipelago) as he stated it deserved its own separate histories. Robert Conquest wrote about Kolyma was to Soviet Russia what Auschwitz was to Nazi Germany, the archetypical place of mass murder. Based upon a careful study, Conquest stated that the estimated total of perished in Kolyma was at least three million.

With the loss of moral way of life in Soviet Russia under Stalin, millions of innocent men and women were being subjugated to hard labor concentration camps. It was at that time when the war with Germany was raging (1945) that Solzhenitsyn was sentenced to eight years in prison in the Gulag where he would later experience a spiritual reawakening and restoration of his faith in the Lord God and the religious way of life. Recalling a conversation with one of the prisoners in the Gulag, Solzhenitsyn was convinced that it was the result of past sins that he ended up where he was.

Destined to survive and find truth, Solzhenitsyn recovered miraculously from a tumor which was diagnosed in his right groin. Realizing this as a crucially important event of his spiritual reawakening and his faith in God restored, Solzhenitsyn wrote:

“And now with measuring cup returned to me,

Scooping up the living water,

God of the Universe! I believe again!

Though I renounced You, You were with me!”

Solzhenitsyn on Rebuilding Russia

“The nation is mystically welded together in a community of guilt, and its inescapable destiny is common repentance” stated Solzhenitsyn and according to him true repentance and a willingness to forgive others must precede one’s own forgiveness. In order for Russia to return to her Orthodox Christian roots it had to repent for all the sins she had committed not only during the Soviet period but also for the terrible persecutions of the Old believers and often brutal serfdom of the Petersburg period (early eighteenth century to 1917).

After Solzhenitsyn’s release from the Gulag and his period in exile and after that in the West, he spoke against the tyranny and oppression of the atheist Soviet state. Solzhenitsyn spent rest of his life working on letting the world know about the atrocities committed in those concentration camps of which he himself was a testimony to and the hatred of the religious way of life in the Soviet period. Russia was transformed from an Orthodox Christian state into a completely non-religious state where the Church had to submit to the state. As Dostoevsky declared that to be a genuine Russian was “to utter the ultimate word of great, universal harmony, of the brotherly accord of all nations abiding by the law of Christ’s Gospel.”

While Solzhenitsyn was in the West he delivered various lectures addressing the people in European nations and the United States warning them of the dangers that lay ahead and the relationship of Russia with the modern western civilization, here are some of his comments:

“The West might soon be faced with a fate similar to that experienced by Russia. Westerners may say: ‘It will never happen here. This will never come to us. It is not possible here.’ It can happen. It is possible. As a Russian proverb says: ‘When it happens to you, you’ll know it’s true.’”

“We the oppressed peoples of Russia, the oppressed peoples of Eastern Europe, watch with anguish the tragic enfeeblement of Europe. We offer you the experience of our suffering; we would like you to accept it without having to pay the monstrous price of death and slavery that we have paid.”

Solzhenitsyn did not regard the West as a model for a post-communist Russia because “through deep suffering, the people in our country have now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive.”

Westerners “have placed too much hope in politics and social reforms, only to find out that [they] were being deprived of [their] most precious possession: [their] spiritual life.”

Solzhenitsyn preferred a democratic form of government that shied away from an extreme egalitarianism and that maintained a strong, but non tyrannical and non-ideological, authority. He did not deny that modern world had witnessed much progress, but it was largely confined to technology; of moral and spiritual progress he perceived little evidence. He could only hope, he concluded, that the Orthodox Church would be able to aid in the challenging work of Russia’s renewal.

Putin and Russia’s Return to Her Orthodox Christian Roots

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia descended into an economic and political turmoil for several years. In 1996, the country’s economy was in a free fall with Russia’s petroleum production, the country’s crucial sector down 47% from 1987. Boris Yelstin, the then Russian president was himself in a state of chaos with drinking issues and his deteriorating health. Finally, something had to give and Yelstin soon made way for Vladimir Putin to take over.

As soon as Putin took over he brought welcome stability and remarkable economic growth. Curbed the oligarchs. On his watch the middle class grew dramatically and the number of people below the poverty line decreased greatly. Determined to maintain a public order, he was an enemy of tyranny and ideological indoctrination. Putin based his foreign policy on the national interest of Russia, not that of Western nations. Solzhenitsyn admired Putin’s profession of Russian Orthodox faith and efforts to renew Christianity in Russia.

Putin united the Russian Orthodox Church with ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church outside Russia) and met in New York with ROCOR leaders and stated that the “godless regime is no longer there [in Russia].” He was stated as saying “You are sitting with a believing president.” Solzhenitsyn also admired Putin’s profession of Russian Orthodox faith and efforts to renew Christianity in Russia. In 1993 Putin’s mother gave him his baptismal cross; he has never taken it off since.

The Orthodox Christian Friendship and Alliance with the Muslim World

Russia has emerged from the ashes of the atheist Soviet Union which waged war on Orthodox Christian faith and church, as well as on Islam and Muslims. The Soviet Union sought to so embrace Muslims as to transform them into godless revolutionaries. But today’s Russia is not the atheist Soviet Union. Today’s Russia is returning to its Orthodox Christian heart – (The Quran and Russia’s Destiny by Imran N. Hosein).

The world of Islam through the Ottoman Empire waged unjust war on the Orthodox Christian world. In 1453, Hagia Sophia which functioned as one of the most important cathedrals of the Orthodox Christian world was converted into a mosque. In doing so, the Sultan violated the law of the Quran which states that the holy places should be protected rather than be converted. The Ottomans throughout their 600 years of imperialism massacred hundreds and thousands of Orthodox Christians which instilled great hatred for the world of Islam in the hearts of the Orthodox Christian world.

The world of Islam on the contrary has suffered equally if not greater than the Orthodox Christian world at the hands of the modern western civilization. The suffering continues with even more hostility and bloodshed as the State of Israel wages genocide on the Palestinian people in the holy land. In 1917 when General Allenby entered Jerusalem and declared that the crusades had ended, it seemed that the Crusades had achieved its master plan which was to bring the Jews back to the holy land and then create a state of Israel which would become a nuclear superpower and then eventually seek to rule the world.

The crusades were western Christian crusades and the Orthodox Christian world had nothing to do with the Crusades. The Crusades have extraordinary similarity with the behavior of the modern western civilization which has waged bogus and unjust wars on those who resist oppression and want to follow a just world order. The modern western civilization has taken control of the world politically, economically and militarily and whosoever steps out of line pays the price. This has led to the submission and embracement of most of the world leaders of Islam to the current world order ruled by Pax Americana.

Unlike the modern western civilization, Russia does not want to stamp its authority on the world and seek to rule the world by hook or crook. At this moment in time when Israel backed to the teeth by the United States is the most hostile to the Muslims, it is Russia that is getting closer in love and affection to the Muslim world. It is remarkable that signs of friendship and alliance are growing each passing day as is evident in the war between Russia and Ukraine where the Muslims and Christians are fighting alongside each other.

“You will surely find that, of all people, the most hostile to those who believe [in this divine writ] are the Jews (not all Jews) as well as those who are bent on blasphemy; and you will surely find that, of all people, they who proclaim, ‘Behold, we are Nasara (i.e. Christians),’ come closest in love and affection for those who believe [in this divine writ]: this is because there are priests and monks among them, and because these are not an arrogant people.” (al-Māʾidah, 5:82)

Russia’s Destiny with Truth

With Russia returning to its Orthodox Christian roots it now proceeds towards playing a critically important role in the end of history. The miraculous transformation of Russia from the Soviet era to the current state is further proof that Russia is now on the right side of history. A predictable alliance of the Christian world with the true Muslims in the world of Islam is destined to emerge that will look to checkmate the godless modern western civilization and the State of Israel.

It is also imperative that the Orthodox Christian world will eventually accept that the Holy Quran came from the same source as the Gospel and yet remain followers of Jesus which will cement this friendship and alliance until the end of history.

“Behold, among the Ahl al-Kitab (i.e. Christians and Jews) there are indeed such as [truly] believe in Allah, and in that which has been revealed to you (i.e., the Quran) as well as in that which has been revealed to them (i.e., the Torah and the Gospel). Standing in awe of Allah, they do not monetize the Word of God to enrich themselves with trifling gain. They shall have their dues with their Lord-God—for behold, Allah is swift in reckoning.” (Āl ʿImrān, 3:199)