The head of a visiting delegation of Soviet churchmen, Archbishop Nikodim of the Russian Orthodox Church, today told a press conference that if some Soviet newspapers denounce synagogues and the Jewish faith the same organs say even worse things about the Russian Orthodox church.
Archbishop Nikodim added that he could say only that the position of the Jews in the Soviet Union was stated “very clearly” by Premier Khrushchev in a recent letter to British philosopher Bertrand Russell. He amplified this, however, by commenting that events affecting “individuals” were not based on religion or nationality of the individual but “entirely on their personal qualities.” He suggested that prosecution, as for economic crimes, was linked not with religion but only with the deeds of the “particular persons involved.”
The Archbishop’s comments were in reply to questions he had been asked as to what Soviet Christians could do about the denunciation by official Soviet publications of the Jewish religion and defamation of synagogues as alleged centers of crime. The Russian delegation arrived here as guests of the National Council of Churches. From 1957 to 1959 the Archbishop served first as a member and then as head of the Russian church mission in Jerusalem, Israel. He was subsequently elevated to the position of Archbishop of Jaroslavl and Rostov.
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