As Soviet troops moved into White-held territory, they often made no distinction between the civilians and the people they were fighting. If a village was controlled by their enemies, then they assumed that the people who lived there supported them. This meant that they could be considered enemies as well. Often, this meant waves of executions. And priests, monks, and nuns were frequent targets. Monasteries and churches were sacked, and those inside were often taken to secluded areas nearby where they were often forced to dig their own graves before being shot.
In one case, a priest who tried to cross himself before his execution had his arm cut off. Other killings were even more brutal. Priests were crucified in a mocking imitation of Jesus. Others were given molten lead to consume as communion. In Voronezh, soldiers got wind that one convent of nuns had been praying for a White victory. They broke down the door to the convent and reportedly boiled the nuns alive in hot tar. In another case, a priest was arrested and dressed in women’s clothing. The soldiers then ordered him to dance. And when he refused, he was murdered.
In Petrograd, a priest was discovered performing a ceremony for people murdered by the Bolsheviks. He and 32 others were driven to a cliff overlooking the sea. There, he was allowed to perform last rites for the victims one-by-one before they were shot and pushed over into the water. In the city of Perm, a priest was arrested by the Cheka for supporting the Whites. They paraded him through the streets before slicing out his eyes. After hours of torture, he was buried alive. Meanwhile, the city’s archbishop performed a rite of anathema on the Bolsheviks for their crimes. A mass-killing of the city’s clergy followed shortly afterward as revenge.
Anyone who spoke out against the murders was targeted for death. And often, even trying to collect the body of a murdered priest for burial was a death sentence. In one case, the wife of an Orthodox priest came to the Cheka to ask for her husband’s body. She was murdered on the spot, and her body was mutilated before being left to rot. Meanwhile, the Soviets were beginning to shut down Orthodox churches and putting them to new use as warehouses or Bolshevik headquarters. There were even reports of drunken orgies taking place in the shuttered buildings.
Everywhere, the Bolsheviks were attempting to stamp out centuries of Russian religious culture. Medieval churches and cathedrals were simply dynamited. The bodies of saints were exhumed and declared to be nothing but dusty bones. The persecution against the Church continued past the end of the Civil War. It wasn’t until WWII, when the Soviets realized the power of the Church to help unite the Russian nation, that the persecution was relaxed. Tens of thousands of priests were arrested and murdered in the meantime. But the Church endured through the years of violence. Religion too was a powerful idea, and not even the Soviets could destroy it.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
“Russian Revolution of 1917.” Encyclopædia Britannica. March 2018.
“When Christianity Becomes a Crime.” Johnathan Luxmoore, Catholic Herald. June 2016.