Just what influenced Tikon and made him so much more democratic than most of his colleagues, I do not know. My own opinion, after a conversation with him, is that he is somewhat of a student of history and a philosopher, as well as a priest. It is the opinion of many people, inside and outside of Russia, that it was his long residence in America which made him so liberal. Of one thing I feel sure. He would have resisted the Soviet Government if he had believed that it was better for the future of the church. I do not think he refrained because of any personal fears, but because he actually saw a real revival of religion in the fire through which the church was passing. No one could have expected the church to embrace the revolution. The nobility and the clergy had walked too many centuries hand in hand. The nobility perished in the course of events and the church survived, as it did in France. And the church will continue to survive--merely the poorer by a few jewels or a few thousand acres of land. But it will never wield the same power that it once did or that it could wield if there was a return to Tsardom. It cannot be as strong, for example, as the Church of Rome is in Italy. The real menace to the power of the Russian church lies in its own medieval outlook on life. It has scarcely anything to do with anti-church propagandists or with opposition by force or by requisition. The youth of Russia is interested in reconstruction and the government for the first time. The young people have learned to read and to think. They are no longer content with the old forms; they are repelled by dissolute or un-Christlike priests. If the church wishes to be strong and to have an influence in the life of the nation it cannot gain that influence by haggling over a pile of rubies and diamonds and emeralds while thousands of children are dying of hunger. The old peasants might follow Tikon when he says that the famine is the business of God, but the young people will not. It is almost inconceivable that a man can follow the lowly Christ in such a proud way. Certainly, the young Russians, who have so passionately defended the revolution, will never be satisfied with such a conception. It seems very sad, from the religious point of view, that Tikon, who steered his church through the long period of fighting and destruction, should lose his equilibrium in the period of adjustment. He was able to smile through all the worst days of terror and suspicion. He could joke about the Cheka guard outside his door, he could calm his agitated congregations, but he could not sacrifice form. When I interviewed him he wore a gorgeous robe and jewels.