Dmitry S. Likhachev

Historically, the Russian people have been devout followers of the Russian Orthodox Church, a branch of Christianity similar to Greek Orthodoxy. The leaders of the Church, who are called metropolitans and who perform the same role as archbishops, were all appointed by the tsars. In turn, the metropolitans gave legitimacy to the tsar's rule. When the Communists came to power in 1917, it quickly became clear that, in order to destroy the power of the tsar, it was also necessary to destroy the power of the metropolitans. The persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church began shortly thereafter, and it intensified after Josef Stalin came to power in 1924. By 1930, most church congregations had either disbanded or gone underground.

After many years as a Soviet political prisoner, Dmitry S. Likhachev became a noted Russian literary and cultural historian. He was a student at the...