In Communist Russia, Marxism-Leninism was regarded as the basis for the perfect society, the chart that would guide the workers to a future utopia. According to this philosophy, political leaders, wise in the proper workings of the socialist state, would quickly replace religious leaders, whose outmoded beliefs had no place in a scientifically managed nation. Religion was considered useless superstition, whereas communism was considered a science, a completely objective way of thinking and acting. In this system, each individual took responsibility for contributing to the good of all, and only the party could judge their success or failure in this regard. There was no place in Communist society for Christian doctrines that promised salvation and an afterlife in paradise for the virtuous individual, as measured by the tenets of the Bible. Under communism, the Russian Orthodox Church, the traditional church of the Russian people for nearly a thousand...