Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Soviet and Russian author and dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the USSR, especially the Gulag prison system. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize in Literature. His nonfiction work The Gulag Archipelago amounted to a head-on challenge to the Soviet state and sold tens of millions of copies.
When asked by Joseph Pearce for his opinions about the division within the Roman Catholic Church over the Second Vatican Council and the Novus Ordo Missae, Solzhenitsyn replied:
"A question peculiar to the Russian Orthodox Church is, should we continue to use Old Church Slavonic, or should we start to introduce more of the contemporary Russian language into the service? I understand the fears of both those in the Orthodox and in the Catholic Church, the wariness, the hesitation, and the fear that this is lowering the Church to the modern condition, the modern surroundings. I understand this, but alas, I fear that if religion does not allow itself to change, it will be impossible to return the world to religion because the world is incapable on its own of rising as high as the old demands of religion. Religion needs to come and meet it somewhat."
Pearce then asked Solzhenitsyn what he thought of the division caused within the Anglican Communion by the decision to ordain female priests. His answer was:
"Certainly there are many firm boundaries that should not be changed. When I speak of some sort of correlation between the cultural norms of the present, it is really only a small part of the whole thing. Certainly, I do not believe that women priests is the way to go!"
From Joseph Pearce (2011), Solzhenitsyn: A Soul in Exile, Ignatius Press.
