Religion: Methodists and Bolshevists

” I am not a Bolshevist and I am not a reactionary, thank God! I am a little of both.” Such was the defense and the argument of the Rt. Rev. Edgar Blake, of the American Methodist Episcopal Church, for giving aid and comfort to the Living Church of Soviet Russia.

The Board of Bishops of the Methodist Church at its Fall meeting in Brooklyn had many important questions to discuss. But there was none in the long run likely to prove so far-reaching, so dramatic as the question of relations with the Russian Church. Bishop Blake had been summoned home for trafficking with the Russian Church. He faced censure for his acts and opinions, and he came off, not only without censure, but with a measure of commendation.

The inception of the matter was last Spring when the Methodist Church, at the request of the Soviet Government, appointed a board to aid in the reorganization of the Russian Church (TIME, March 3). The board was later recalled, but Bishop Blake, resident Bishop of Paris, attended in private capacity the Russian Church conference which unfrocked Patriarch Tikhon. He pledged $51,000 to that body to educate its young priests, made an address defending the Soviet Government. For these activities he was ordered” from Moscow by the Methodist Church.

Bishop Blake was attacked before The Board of Bishops for advocating interlocking relations with a Church which supports a Government (the Soviet) avowedly atheistic and seeking the overthrow of the U. S. Government.

In reply Bishop Blake used the following arguments for supporting the Living Church:

1) It is backed by the majority of the Russian people.

2) It is strengthened by official toleration.

3) It is working away from hierarchical Catholicism towards an approximate Methodism.

4) It is necessary for the Methodists to extend aid to the Russian Church to forestall Roman Catholic overtures.

5) Relic worship is discouraged and the abolition of celibacy for the clergy* proposed.

6) The Living Church is saving religion for Russia by keeping the churches open and functioning through its 50,000 priests.

He asked that the Methodist Church officially support his stand, and that it contribute to the fund of $51,000 that he had promised to the Russian Church.

The Bishops considered Bishop Blake’s defense in closed session and passed a resolution thanking him as well as Bishop John L. Nuelson of Zurich (in whose area Russia lies) and Bishop Anton Bast of Copenhagen for “fidelity and devotion ” in carrying out “a delicate mission.” No contribution to the fund of $51,000 was promised, however, nor was there any endorsement of the Living Church.

In speaking of his acts Bishop Blake said: ” I think we ought to sacrifice our denominationalism to save religion in Russia. Methodism holds the destiny of Russia in its hands. . . .

” I think personal property is more secure in Moscow than in Brooklyn.”

Said Bishop F. J. McConnell of Pittsburgh: ” I take my stand at the side of the brother who saw 150,000,000 people in need and struck out in their direction. That’s the way great missionaries have always done. His pledge of $50,000 was $50,000 worth of mighty fine

gesture.”

Bishop Blake announced that he had raised $27,050.47 toward the three annual payments of $17,000 each which he had promised the Living Church, and that he expects to get a grand total of $100,000.

At one time, speaking of the sorry case of Russia and other European countries he held up a roll of depreciated currency, once worth $325,000,000, now worth $2.95, and declared : “If I had had this wad ten years ago, I assure you, gentlemen, I would not have been a Methodist clergyman.”

If the Methodist Bishops had officially offered support to the Living Church, or reorganized Russian Church, they would have directly opposed the attitude taken by the American Protestant Episcopal churches. The Episcopalians have favored that faction of the Russian Orthodox Church which upheld Patriarch Tikhon whom the other faction, or Living Church, unfrocked.

* Press despatches reported Bishop Blake as making this statement. It is widely known that the Roman is the only important branch of the Catholic Church which requires celibacy of the clergy.