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                      October 25, 1941                      
 
                             RELIGIOUS SITUATION IN     R U S S I A  
                                                            
 
 
The religious persecution has not diminished during the  
   year 1940 and the first semester of the current year.    
 
                                                            
 
 
1. The only Catholic church now open in Moscow, the Church  
of St. Louis, enjoys the protection of the French Embassy and  
is under the direction of Father Leopold Braun, an American  
citizen; it is frequented by the Catholic diplomats accredited to Moscow.   
notwithstanding these facts, this church, in the  
course of a few months, was violated five times by nocturnal  
thefts and sacrilegious profanations, and this in spite of  
the fact that the church is situated directly in front of the  
People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, which is always  
guarded by the police. Only when diplomatic representatives especially   
the Embassy of the United States of America- made  
official representations to the Soviet Authorities, did the  
police decide to take an interest in the matter, and it was  
then very easy to track down and arrest the guilty parties, -  
"professional thieves", in the words of the People's Commissar-  
iat for Foreign Affairs, in a note to the American Embaasy,  
dated March 18, 1941- and recover a large part of the stolen  
                           goods.                           
 
                                                            
 
 
2. In Leningrad, only one Catholic church is open; it is  
cared for by a priest who is a French citizen, but who has been  
        forbidden to preach in the Russian language.        
 
                                                            
 
 
3.In the other cities of Russia, practically no edifice  
devoted to Catholic worship is now open: at Smolensk the  
church was converted into an archive, at Astrakan, into a  
            granary, at Kamieniec into a cinema.