By Gretchen Keiser

A group of four Russian church representatives came to Atlanta in early May as part of a face-to-face encounter that will continue when 20 Atlantans visit the Soviet Union in June.

The reciprocal arrangement has been set up by the National Council of Churches, as part of an exchange that began in 1956. This year 20 Russians came to the United States, visiting various parts of the country.

The four who came to Atlanta were hosted by the Christian Council of Metropolitan Atlanta and spent the time from May 8 to 11 meeting with various religious leaders and taking part in ecumenical services in a number of Atlanta churches.

During a visit to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center and gravesite, the four answered reporters’ questions speaking through an interpreter. Asked whether there were restrictions on their religious freedom in the Soviet Union, the four said that they were free to practice their religion and denied that there were restrictions on the printing and sale of Bibles and other religious publications. One of the group, Mrs. Klavdiya Pilipyuk, identified as an interpreter of the All Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists, pulled an English copy of the Soviet Constitution from her handbag and showed a reporter Article 52, which says Soviet citizens are “guaranteed freedom of conscience, that is, the right to profess or not to profess any religion and to conduct religious worship or atheistic propaganda.”

“There is freedom of conscience,” said Metropolitan David of Sukhumi and Abkhazia, the Georgian Orthodox Church.

However, this viewpoint was sharply challenged by Sister Ann Gillen, the executive director of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, in Chicago, who was contacted later in a telephone interview. Sister Gillen, who visited the Soviet Union twice in the 1970s during her work for the human rights groups, said “religion is still severely repressed in the Soviet Union,” particularly outside of major cities and outside of approved churches which have accepted compromises with the government in order to continue functioning. “For those who challenge restrictions, there is still very severe repression, even persecution,” she said, citing Lithuania where outspoken Catholic priests have been jailed recently. The Russian Orthodox Church, which once had 54,000 churches, now has only 7,000, she said.

“I think Westerners have to realize these church leaders are not free to speak,” she said, referring to the visiting delegation. “At the same time,” she said, “they do have to report back what they hear” so she said concern for religious freedom expressed by Westerners could have an impact within the Soviet Union.

Sister Kathleen Tomlin, C.S.J., who will be a coleader of the Atlanta group traveling to the Soviet Union, said that questions about religious rights in the Soviet Union came up several times during the visit to Atlanta, including during a meeting with faculty from Columbia theological Seminary and with faculty and campus ministry staff at Emory University.

She said that the major purpose of the visit was to bring American and Soviet Christians together so that there could be an experience of unity among Christians from the two countries and a chance to express “our desires for peace between the people of our nations.”

The hope was to see the Russians as “real people” and to break down some of the barriers between the two countries, she said.

During the visit to the King Center, the delegation met Mrs. Coretta Scott King and told her that they had shared her grief when her husband was slain. “We participated in your sorrows when Dr. King was killed. We prayed for you,” they said.