Sazetak

Abstract:

It can truly be said that, with the violent overthrow of Tsarist Russia in 1917, Holy Russia, with its long tradition of Orthodox spirituality, was brought to an end.  Thereafter all that remained was a communist wasteland. Nevertheless there persist in Russia today a number of things which directly recall the Christian past: the most visible is the physical presence everywhere of beautiful (but closed and unused) Orthodox churches; the most spiritual are the icons, which one may view in abundance in certain churches (conserved as museums) and galleries; the most important is the continuing existence (in pitifully truncated and harassed form) of the Orthodox church itself; and the most touching is the continued adherence of many Russians (including a proportion of younger people) to the Orthodox religion