“But it is strange that the greater the persecution of the Russian Church the nearer and dearer does it become to the tortured Russian people. Indeed, the priests of the Russian Church boldly denounce the Bolsheviks. Not one of the secular rulers has accused them so openly as Tikhon, the All-Russian Patriarch, over whom the Damocles sword of the Bolsheviks is always hanging. But the sword can only kill the body, and not the spirit.
“As early as last February, Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated the Bolsheviks, the excommunication being read in the churches. At that time the persecution of the clergy had already commenced, but the Patriarch had not been arrested. It was only later, in the autumn of 1918, during the universal Terror, that he was placed under domiciliary arrest in his apartments in the Kremlin, with a guard of Chinese, Letts and Red Army men, and deprived of his rations. But even as a prisoner the Patriarch issued declarations against the Bolsheviks, in which he severely denounced them.
“It is not enough,” writes the Patriarch, “that you have stained the hands of the Russian people with the blood of their brethren. You have instigated the people to open, shameless robbery. You have befogged their consciences and stifled their conviction of sin, but under whatever name you disguise an evil deed, murder, violence and robbery will always remain crimes and deeds of evil that clamor to Heaven for vengeance. Yes, we are going through a dreadful time under your dominion, and it will be long before it fades from the hearts of the nation, where it has dimmed the image of God and impressed that of the beast.