The text below is excerpted from the writings of Archimandrite Constantine Zaitsev of Jordanville. In it he reveals the Soviet plan to evolve Communism through a contrived "religious rebirth" in order to realize her social ideals. It was written in 1960.
"The fall of Russia signaled a beginning to the pre Antichrist epoch through which we are currently living. This cataclysm did away with the 'restraining power' in the world, setting Satan free from his temporary ('thousand-year', as the Scriptures allegorically call it) bondage. It is one thing to evaluate the causes of this catastrophe; quite another to evaluate how it actually progresses and what are its apparent results. It is evident to Church consciousness that it came about as a result of the 'dechurchification' of Holy Russia.
But it brought forth a saving reaction: the great vitality of Russian holiness was manifested. The New Testament Church arose upon the blood of the Martyrs, and this blood was again shed in abundance by Martyrs in the Russian land. One would expect that it would enrich the soil of Holy Russia towards a new flowering of the Church. The brightest hopes were justified: Did it not seem that through this blood the Church's anathema hanging over the Soviet ('Living'?) Church and all connected with her in spirit could be fully satisfied? Could not this blood bring about a saving grant of spiritual wings to all those reborn to a new life within the True Church? Did not this outpouring of the blood of the faithful promise the coming of a new epoch, in which the generation of Cain-ites who had seized Russia would have to seek safety in flight, shaking and groaning? But why did nothing of the sort take place?
The year 1927 was the fateful date. Orthodox Russia split. One part became 'legalized': it exchanged its martyric endurance of the Soviet yoke for a compliant 'legal' recognition of illegal Soviet authority, giving away the Church not just to control by the Soviet satanocracy, but placing it wholly beneath its dominion.
Consequently, the other part, the True Church, necessarily drank to the bottom the cup of martyrdom, forced for the sake of its very existence to withdraw into the catacombs. But all this satanic maneuvering did not free the 'legalized' Church from extreme miseries and sorrows. Terrible destruction and extermination visited the external Church - but could this be 'lawful' martyrdom? Only by the mercy of God could it serve for the personal salvation of some of the repentant sufferers.
The condition of the Second World War radically changed matters, bringing about sympathetic attention on the part of the Bolsheviks towards the remnants of the Church. There began a relative flowering of the Church under the watchful eye of Soviet satanocracy. From that moment, the so-called Soviet Church began to appear with ever-increasing distinctiveness in two evil-conveying forms.
Inwardly, there was a progressive 'sovietization' of the clergy, which more and more transformed that sole true thing left to the Church - that is to say, the Church services and the Mysteries, limited by the space of the church building itself - into something inauthentic, artificial, and falsified. Outwardly, on the other hand, the Church made its appearance with an utterly false countenance, carrying out a most responsible Soviet assignment, upon the course of which the fate of the entire universe depends.
The Soviet Church is compelled to lay paths of good-will and voluntary association between the Red Kremlin and all the churches of the free world, and through this with the whole free social of the world. Although in its internal life the Soviet Church is only becoming an anti-Church through a certain process which manifests itself as something we knowingly accept as something complex, externally the Soviet Church does not appear at all ambiguous: in its universe-organizing, in its universally-maneuvering satanic assignment, it is an anti-Church, unambiguously and absolutely.
In such a manner arose something terrible which with certain justification can be called a spiritual NEP [The New Economic Politics proclaimed by the Soviets in the twenties had as its aim to provoke all latently existing elements of social life to the surface, in order to eliminate them.] This is capable of transforming the martyric blood which has abundantly bedewed the Russian land from a promise of a saving rebirth through it towards a new historical life, into a fragrant incense of martyric blood arising to Heaven, invoking God's judgement.
The successes of this spiritual NEP are manifested more clearly with each succeeding year. Analogous processes different in specifics but moving in the same direction are taking place in the free world.
The forefront of church-social life is occupied by so-called ecumenism. It’s task is to unify “Christianity” through a horizontal agreement, with a devaluation of any historical churchness. Openly, the task is not posed as one which would give rise to an image of some Super-Church [at least not as early as 1960!]. This would scare away everybody and be unworkable in any case: ecumenism has no Church-constructive capabilities. But in a scheme of destruction its opportunities are tremendous. And this all the more is so, since in its destructive activity the ecumenistic movement is leaning on general strivings peculiar to our age.
One can distinguish 2 pernicious ideas here. The 1st is the negation of the Church as an unrepeatable historic entity, as the Body of Christ, with the resultant transformation of churchness into a matter of free agreement inspired by self-willed fancy. The 2nd is the transformation of Christianity into an entity of this world, with the resultant transformation of even its final attainments into something unifying humanity on earth, and elimination of the perspective of a twofold Eternity – that of blessedness or damnation... But here Heaven itself is denounced!
Here it is timely for us to give consideration to the ecclesial nature of this spiritual NEP. In its enticement, it enchants not only those who, taking the path of the evil ones, willingly succumb to this enchantment - but also those who are ready to run towards any tiny flame of apparent Orthodoxy which betokens to them. They do not take account of how deceitful evil can be, outflanking people 'from the right'.
In order not to fall prey to disinformation regarding what is taking place in Russia on the religious front, one should first of all become confirmed in the following: that in the Soviet Union the Lie rules in a totalitarian manner. Everything that is allowed tocome through from the 'Soviet Paradise' is imprinted with the mark of the Lie. If something originating 'from there' produces a certain impression, one should first of all consider whether the task of the entrepreneurs of information was precisely to produce such an impression...
...however, there is another chain of phenomena manifesting an initial evolution of Communism in the direction of 'religious rebirth'. Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Berdyaev - here are the rulers of the minds of the Soviet intelligentsia, ready to religiously realize their social ideas...
[Thus one priest revealed:] 'We (Russians) may yet have to teach the Western religious world how to work together. We have more co-operation [in, and with, the 'blessing' of the Antichrist USSR!] amongst faiths here than you have in the United States.'
They (the leaders of the Kremlin) are wise enough to know that if they can win the minds of men through impressive scientific achievements, they may win the souls of men by a gradual transition from atheistic Communism to agnostic Communism. All such manifestations of religiousness are far removed from Christ; moreover, they are inimical to Him.
All that has been related to us ... will help us to clarity in confronting the multitude of phenomena taking place on the religious front in the USSR - in their real essence, not only consoling, but also threatening with regard to the future descent into the darkness of Antichrist, which increasingly takes on the semblance of light.
The spiritual NEP! ... Of course, for Communism Soviet religious politics is a tactical maneuver, utilizing the fundamental elements of a religion which dwells in the people for its own aims, in order at some opportune moment to bring to naught all which has been yielded, and all that proceeded from this - and to return to godless totalitarian Communism.
But it is impossible to exclude from one's attention the fact that we are witnesses of and participants in such a time of the unfolding of contemporary Apostasy, when Communism in its crude primitive form of militant atheistic materialism will outlive itself, giving place to more subtle forms of struggle with Christ. In so doing, it will bring us right up to the manifestation of the Antichrist in its final concrete form.
The Antichrist is by no means either a communist or a materialist, but rather a form of the spirit of Evil appearing quasi-benevolent. It receives its final incarnation in some man who is to present himself as the alleged composite embodiment of all humanity, which has fully ripened not to outright struggle with Christ, but rather to a deceitful Christ-emulating self-affirmation in Evil.
Therefore it is not necessary to think of the resolution of the contemporary 'spiritual' NEP as taking the form of an annihilating persecution of faith which must arise anew... And the very allowance of the manifestation of phenomena that give evidence of a 'religious revival' in the USSR alone does not say anything concerning an authentic spiritual rebirth. On the contrary, it may indicate the direct opposite, the success of the spiritual NEP in its new, qualitative status.
The falseness of the 'official' Russian Orthodox Church now reveals itself completely, in both its phases. On the one hand, we see its internal task of creating an appearance of church life, realized by the appointees of a Christ-betraying hierarchy. On the other hand, we see its external task, which has a universally organizing character: the actualization of Soviet 'ecumenism'. Both show forth its true Antichrist features...
What then is the all-inclusive task for a 'sovietified Christian' consciousness? The setting up of a state of well being on earth, realized simultaneously by both the faithful and atheists. But this is precisely the contemporary task of the communists! In addition, for both these and the others there exists a kind of common 'evil', opposed to both, with which they are jointing struggling. Such is the concise, condensed, exhaustive formula of the spiritual NEP. In its odd originality, it is a transitory stage of the growing apostasy which is already submerging 'historical' Communism into the bygone past.
Let us note that the most advanced religious thought of the West is beginning to understand Communism in such a manner. It is already not content with a tactical acceptance of the principle of 'co-existence', but it is prepared to invest communism with a positive religious purpose...
But the most terrible for us comes not from the free world which surrounds us, but from Satan who arrays himself in the image of an angel of light within our Homeland in bondage."