Alexandre Soljénitsyne

This article publishes the open letter that Alexander Solzhenitsyn addressed to Patriarch Pimen of Moscow, a text belonging to Samizdat literature and presented as part of a dossier on the situation of the Orthodox Church in the U.S.S.R. Drawing on prophetic witness and public denunciation, the letter describes with precision the conditions of existence of the Russian Church under the Soviet regime: the effective prohibition of religious education for children, civil registration of baptisms, the closure and destruction of churches, and the subordination of ecclesiastical administration to atheist authorities. The main contribution of the text is to directly challenge the Orthodox hierarchy regarding its own responsibility in this state of affairs, by distinguishing between the external constraints imposed by the State and the internal capitulation of the institution, and by raising the question of evangelical faithfulness as a condition for the spiritual survival of the Church.