Oops. I guess you forgot about Stalin, GUEST. Honest mistake, I'm sure. Maybe someone forgot to tell Stalin about the 1918 Constitution. Or maybe someone forgot to tell all those dead and imprisoned priests, monks, and nuns about Stalin.

Talk about splitting nose hairs.

Stalin

Stalin and religion

"Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in near-extinction: by 1939 active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been levelled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks, and nuns were dead or imprisoned. During WWII, however, the Church was allowed a partial revival, as a patriotic organisation: thousands of parishes were reactivated until a further round of suppression in Khrushchev's time. The Church Synod's recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia that remains not fully healed to the present day."