Out of an airplane in Moscow last Sunday stepped a benign ecclesiasticin a purple cassock and cap. He was Britain’s No. 2 primate, Dr. CyrilForster Garbett, Archbishop of York. He came to visit PatriarchSergius, Metropolitan of All Russia, a fortnight after Joseph Stalinhad given his blessing to the Russian Orthodox Church (TIME, Sept. 13),a few days after the 76-year-old Patriarch had been enthroned in hisjampacked Cathedral with Ritualistic pomp not seen in Russia since theBolshevik revolution. Following his enthronement, the Metropolitanblessed the Soviet Government (whose members, like all Communists, areatheists), and invoked the dire penalty of excommunication on Orthodoxpriests and laity anywhere in the world who by cooperating with theNazis have been guilty of “Judas treason.” In London, meanwhile, theArchbishop of Canterbury, was “most happy” over the renewed relationsbetween the Church of England and the Russian Church, hoped theRussians would return the visit soon.
> Flying to China, India, Australia was famed writer and preacher DanielA. Poling. Pastor of Philadelphia’s Baptist Temple, president of theWorld’s Christian Endeavor Union, a worldwide youth organization,Poling will visit U.S. chaplains and troops, write articles for theChristian Science Monitor and the widely read monthly Christian Herald,of which he is editor in chief.