Warlords
Under scrutiny
Superstition and belief
Stalin |
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An excellent pupil at school, Stalin won a scholarship to the Russian Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary when he was 14. He never seems to have had any serious religious leaning, however, attending the seminary only in the absence of other educational opportunities in tsarist Russia. When he reached power, he ordered the levelling of hundreds of churches and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns, many of whom died, until the Russian Orthodox Church was close to extinction. However, during the war, it was allowed some activity, being considered a patriotic institution. There is an intriguing story, apparently passed on by the priest responsible, that Stalin went to confession four times – in 1941, 1943, 1945 and 1948 – but there is no hard evidence to back this up.
