Religion: Dibelius Ex-vited

Last September the Russian Orthodox Patriarch Alexei, an obedient servant of Joe Stalin, invited Berlin’s Protestant Bishop Otto Dibelius to visit him in Moscow. German Protestants are proud of bearded Bishop Dibelius, a courageous prelate who has again & again sharply attacked the Communists from the pulpit, and they hoped that he would make a more forceful impression on the Russians than Pastor Martin Niemöller, a political neutralist, who deprecated stories about Soviet religious persecution after his visit to Moscow in January (TIME, Jan. 14). While packing his bags, Bishop Dibelius made it plain that he intended to ask for the release of German war prisoners. Said he: “Without the hope of being able to do something for the release of prisoners of war, I would not travel to Moscow.” At the same time West German papers published a letter Dibelius had written to Stalin last year protesting against the Communists’ tyrannical rule in East Germany. Moscow’s reaction was swift. Last week, the day before the bishop and five other German churchmen were due to leave, a wire arrived from Moscow’s Bishop Nikolai: “I regret deeply to have to inform you that the Very Holy Patriarch is sick. This makes it impossible to receive you as planned.” Germans were incensed at the turndown. Headlined West Berlin’s Neue Zeitung: DIBELIUS EX-VITED. Added Der Tagesspiegel: “That’s what we call Soviet coordination. Stalin runs a fever and the Patriarch has to take to his bed.”