Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Kremlin cathedrals reclaim glory days Date: Mon, 16 Nov 92 17:03:26 EST Message-ID: \SE A \SS (WS) \HD Kremlin cathedrals reclaim glory days \SH Russia returns edifices to church \BY REUTERS \DT MOSCOW MOSCOW (Reuters) - The golden onion-domed cathedrals of the Kremlin, hostage for decades of an atheist communist regime, were returned to the Orthodox Church yesterday by the Russian state. The churches were surrendered under an agreement signed by the head of the Orthodox Church, Patriarch Aleksii, and Culture Minister Yevgeny Sidorov, according to Itar-Tass news agency. The agreement, a year after the Red Flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time, means full services can be performed for the first time in 75 years at churches, including the cathedrals of the Annunciation and of Archangel Michael. St. Basil's Cathedral, perhaps the most famous of the churches, with its brightly colored onion domes, was also returned. It stands on Red Square, just outside the red-brick Kremlin walls and 50 yards from the mausoleum that houses the embalmed corpse of Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. "It is with a special feeling we perform services in the Kremlin Cathedrals where our ancestors prayed," the patriarch said. "For believers, these are holy places, but for all of us they are also historic monuments of the motherland." When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, churches were taken over as part of a bitter atheistic campaign. Many clergymen died in camps, churches were ransacked and burned to the ground, Christian teaching banned as reactionary. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM