Mr. Simons further testified as follows:
Senator King. “Has there been a confiscation of church property and buildings?”
Mr. Simons. “Yes, sir; and in quite a number of instances monasteries, with their wealth, have been taken, and all kinds of indecent things have been done by certain Bolshevik officials.
“I have some data showing that they have turned certain churches and monasteries into dancing halls, and one instance has been reported to me where a certain Bolshevik official went into a church while the people were there waiting for the sacrament, and threw the priest out, so I am told, and himself put on the clerical garb, and then went on the altar and made a comedy of the ritual, which stirred up the religious sense of the people to that extent that they threatened—of course, among themselves—that they would yet kill that man. He happened to be an apostate Jew.”
Mr. Roger E. Simmons testified as follows in regard to the Russian priest who was put in the same prison with him by the Bolsheviki:
“A high priest of the church was there. He had been preaching sermons publicly denouncing the immorality of the Bolsheviki. They imprisoned him and shot him. This priest told me that he was a great admirer of Dr. Mott of America.”
Senator Nelson. “Do you not think that the church in the end will prove the rallying center for the anti-Bolshevik forces?”
Mr. Simmons. “I think it certainly will be one of the principal factors; no doubt of it. That priest took the occasion, knowing that I was an official of the American Government, thinking that it was the last duty he could perhaps perform for Russia, to beg me to go back and tell the American people, ‘For God’s sake, send us help.’ He was speaking, gentlemen, not for himself, but for the large class of people that he represented.”20