Render unto Caesar
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Alenco98
Not too sore, are you?
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October 8, 1917
Petrograd, Russia
Afternoon
Father Sergey Eldarevich Patruchev swept the stone steps of his church with the slow, practiced rhythm of habit. It was the same work he had done for years: sweeping the entrance, scrubbing soot off the brass railings, patching leaks in the roof when they came, preparing for the next mass. Being a priest was not a job but a life — prayers and liturgies, feast days and burials, sermons and confessions, and, when no one was looking, sweeping dust from the church's cracked old flagstones.
And now, even after revolution had turned the city upside down, the work went on. Masses still needed saying, candles still needed trimming, icons still needed dusting. The prayers remained the same — only the world outside had changed.
But the change stood guard at his very door. Four men in black coats and red armbands loitered there, rifles slung across their shoulders, the new masters of the street. The Revolutionary Guard Corps. They said they were there to "protect" the church, and every other church, mosque, synagogue, and temple in Petrograd. Protect — a strange word, Sergey thought. Soldiers with bayonets rarely came to protect. They came to remind.
He bent to sweep the steps again, the broom whispering against stone, when he heard the sound that made his stomach tighten: the boots. A hundred times he had heard them, heavy and deliberate, the thudding march of men drilled to stomp the earth in unison. The goose-step of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He froze. He knew who it would be.
It was not Sunday, but a Monday. Still, the man came. The man who had routed and butchered a Cossack host only two days ago. The man who, just yesterday, had sat in the confessional and described — with disarming cheer — how he had forced prisoners to kill their comrades with stones and bayonets if they wished to live. Sergey had thought then, as he thought now: only a monster could imagine such a thing.
And then Mikheil Jugashvili appeared, he looked nothing like a monster. He walked with the confidence of a man who had never doubted his own steps, who smiled as if he were greeting friends on a summer morning, not dragging shadows behind him. He was short, but broad-shouldered, with neatly combed hair, a handsome face free of the pockmarks smallpox had carved into so many others. A man who looked more like a charming actor in a play than a butcher.
"Father Patruchev, hello!" he said brightly, clapping Sergey on the shoulder as though they were old friends meeting at market. Without asking, he plucked the broom from Sergey's hand and passed it to one of his guards. "Sweep for him." The order was casual, like telling a servant to fetch tea. The Guard obeyed instantly, and Sergey could only stare as the man began to sweep, awkward and grim-faced with a rifle still slung over his back.
"Come, Father," Mikheil said, ushering him inside. The doors shut behind them with a hollow echo, shutting out the city and leaving only candlelight.
Sergey's throat was dry. "What… what brings you here, Comrade Jugashvili?"
"I have a favor to ask of you."
Here we go, Sergey thought. His fingers curled around the sleeves of his cassock, gripping tight.
"What sort of favor?" he asked carefully.
Mikheil leaned against a pew, smiling as if they discussed the weather. "Well, you see, I'm no longer just commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. I've been appointed head of the Commissariat of Religious Affairs."
Sergey felt the blood drain from his face. The Commissariat of Religious Affairs. The name itself sounded like a warning.
"Religious affairs?" he repeated, though he dreaded the answer.
"Exactly." Mikheil nodded with mock solemnity, then brightened again. "My new job is very simple: register every church, mosque, temple, synagogue, and shrine in Petrograd. Make sure no one preaches counter-revolution. Just paperwork, really. Forms, signatures, stamps." He grinned. "The Almighty is no longer the only one keeping records."
"I… I see." Sergey swallowed, too afraid to probe further.
But Mikheil was already ahead of him, pacing between the pews like a man inspecting a factory floor. "Father, this is good news. For you, for your priests, for all of your faith. Because I'm not only in the commissariat now — I am a sitting member of the Central Committee. One of the most powerful men in the government. And, more importantly, the only one in there who practices the Orthodox faith."
He turned suddenly, his smile fading to something harder. "Do you know what the others wanted to do with your church? With all the churches? With the mosques, the synagogues, the temples?"
Sergey opened his mouth, but Mikheil cut him off, voice still cheerful but edged with iron.
"They wanted to seize the land, confiscate the wealth, declare state atheism. Some even wanted to ban religion altogether. Imagine that! I told them it would be madness. People love their faith too much. Even with your… issues" — he waved a hand vaguely, as though the sins of the clergy were an untidy room — "you are a net positive for society. You keep the people calm, you bury the dead, you marry the living, you sing the songs that make them believe life isn't just shoveling manure until they die. That's valuable."
He smiled again, bright and easy, as though he had just offered praise.
"So I told them: leave religion alone. Let it exist, as long as it does not cause trouble. Which," he said, stepping closer, "is why I am here. I am here to offer you a job."
Sergey blinked. "A… job?"
"Exactly!" Mikheil's grin widened, his teeth flashing white. "I will be leaving the city on a mission. A secret mission. Very important, very dangerous. But while I'm gone, I need someone to run the Commissariat in my place. Someone who is respected, honest, apolitical. Who better than my priest?"
He clapped Sergey on the back again, as though congratulating him. "You will be Under-Commissar for Religious Affairs. You'll do my job while I'm away."
Sergey's hands tightened on the folds of his cassock. The candles flickered. Outside, the muffled scrape of a broom against stone continued.
A job. He almost laughed at the word.
Father Sergey swallowed. "You… you would make me a commissar?"
"Under‑commissar," Mikheil corrected cheerfully, wagging a finger. "Let's not inflate titles. That's how tsars get made." He leaned back against the altar rail, hands clasped as though in prayer. "But yes. You. Who better? You're literate, sober, respected. The people listen to you when you talk. And unlike half my comrades, you don't smell like you've bathed in vodka and slept in a pigsty. You'd be surprised how rare that is in government."
Sergey tried to answer but the words stuck. He thought of the council in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, of Peter and Paul debating how far one might bend before breaking. Could a priest serve Caesar without betraying Christ? Could he serve Bolsheviks without betraying God?
Mikheil saw his hesitation and raised a hand as though calming a child. "Now, don't make that face. This isn't a bargain with the Devil, Father. I won't ask you to renounce God. No oaths, no spitting on icons, no parades of blasphemy. That was what the others wanted." He grinned. "I told them that was idiotic. Why pick a fight with Heaven when you already have so many on Earth?"
He took a step closer, his boots clicking softly on the stone floor. "The only pledge required is simple: you do not preach counter‑revolution. No sermons about wicked Bolsheviks, no 'anointed tsars,' no muttering about God's vengeance on the proletariat. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto Lenin what is Lenin's." He chuckled. "Same difference."
Sergey stiffened. "And… render unto God?"
"Oh, absolutely," Mikheil said warmly, as if reassuring a nervous guest. "You may render unto God all the incense, prayers, and funeral hymns you want. Keep the peasants pious, give them something to believe in beyond bread rations and cold barracks. That's useful. That's stabilizing. But…" His smile thinned. "If you start talking about a 'Holy War' against us, Father, then I'll have to nail your wife to the church door. And believe me, even Luther never tried that."
Sergey's heart pounded. He wanted to shout that the Church belonged to God alone, that Christ had no equal in Lenin or in Caesar. But he was staring into the eyes of a man who had forced Cossacks to kill their own brothers with their bare hands. A man who smiled as he spoke of it, who smelled faintly of wine and soap but carried death around him like incense.
"And the Party?" Sergey asked carefully.
"Yes," Mikheil said, clapping his hands once. "The Party. You will have to join. But think of it this way: You don't even have to believe. Just sign the book, stand when they say stand, clap when they say clap. We don't need your heart, Father, just your silence."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping lower, almost intimate. "And really, what is one more pledge? You already wear a cassock and call yourself a servant of God. Is it so hard to add another line? 'Servant of God, loyal member of the Party'? Seems manageable."
Sergey's palms were sweating. He wanted to refuse. But behind Mikheil's easy grin he saw the corpses at Pulikovo Heights, the eyes of men forced to kill their own brothers, the news that even the Junkers had been butchered to the last cadet under Dzerzhinsky's hand.
Mikheil spread his arms as though concluding a sermon. "So here's the good news: your church stays open, your flock keeps their sacraments, and your God gets His incense. All you have to do is help out the Party while you're at it." He winked. "Metaphorically."
Sergey thought of the guard outside, awkwardly pushing a broom over stone steps with a rifle at his back. He thought of Christ silent before Pilate.
Father Sergey then swallowed, fingers tight around his wooden cross. He had expected blasphemy, desecration, some grotesque oath to the Devil dressed up in Bolshevik red. Instead, Mikheil spoke with the ease of a man ordering dinner.
"You look tense, Father. Don't." Mikheil smiled, all teeth, his eyes too sharp to be friendly. "Let me reassure you once again, I'm not asking you to spit on God or burn your icons. That's not my game. No midnight orgies with goat‑headed idols, no tearing Bibles into toilet paper. Your job will be boring. Census work." He mimed writing on an invisible ledger. "Every church, every mosque, every synagogue — counted, registered, filed away like good livestock."
Sergey flinched at the word.
"Soft secularism, Father," Mikheil continued, as if he were explaining tax law to a child. "French style. Reasonable. The churches will keep their properties. No bonfires of relics, no nuns thrown into the streets. But…" He raised a finger. "Those properties will be taxed. Their schools, charities, hospitals — still yours, still church‑run. But the Party will have men inside. Not to preach, not to interfere, just to make sure you're healing bodies, not fermenting counter‑revolution in the back pews. Think of it like the jizya under Islam, only gentler. Less whips for believers, more clipboards for administrators."
He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "And the taxes will be reasonable, Father. Not the old tsarist extortions. Just enough to remind you who's boss." He tapped Sergey's chest lightly with a gloved finger. "Spoiler alert: it's us."
Sergey forced himself to speak. "And if… if I refuse?"
Mikheil laughed, a quick bark that echoed against the church walls. "Refuse? Oh, Father, I would be upset. I would have to hand your file to Zinoviev or Kamenev, and they'd get their wish — shutter the churches, confiscate the land, turn your altars into pig troughs. They've been pushing state atheism since day one. They'd burn you all for kindling if I let them. But I argued you were useful. That people love you too much to lose you. And for now, Lenin listens. For now."
Sergey felt his mouth go dry. "So… I am only spared by your favor?"
"Yes!" Mikheil beamed, as though announcing a prize. "Exactly. And you know why? Because you're the only priest I know well enough not to bore me. I'd have picked Father Saba from my hometown back in Georgia — kind man, used to slip me wine from the chalice when I was a boy — but Georgia is too far away and this is urgent." He shrugged. "So here you are. My priest. My under‑commissar."
Sergey lowered his head, staring at the floorboards. He thought of Christ's warning: render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. Mikheil had twisted that verse until it bent around the Party like iron around a wheel. He had offered survival in exchange for silence, power in exchange for complicity.
Mikheil, seeing his hesitation, patted him on the shoulder. "Father, this is compromise. Compromise keeps people alive. You preach the Gospel, we audit the books. You bury the dead, we collect the taxes. No one has to die. Unless, of course, you choose otherwise."
Sergey raised his eyes and saw the smile — warm, easy, casual — but behind it lay Pulikovo Heights, the corpses, the blood in the mud.
And he understood then, with dreadful clarity, that Mikheil's offer was not mercy. It was a trap disguised as mercy, a noose dressed up as a handshake.
But still, he heard his own voice, hollow and faint, say: "I accept."
Mikheil clapped his hands together, delighted. "Wonderful! God stays God, Lenin stays Lenin, and I get to sleep at night without worrying about your sermons turning my men into holy martyrs. Everybody wins!"
Sergey nodded stiffly, wondering if Heaven would ever forgive him.
Father Sergey braced himself for blasphemy, for the sneer of the atheist who despises all faith. Instead, Mikheil leaned back against the pew, casual as a parishioner waiting for vespers.
"Father, you're thinking too hard. You look like you swallowed a live frog." He chuckled. "Let me put you at ease for the third time now. The churches will be free to do as they please — bells ringing, incense burning, icons kissed, the whole package — so long as they don't preach counter‑revolution. That's the line in the sand. Pray for the poor, feed the hungry, lecture about sin all you like. Just don't sermonize about overthrowing the workers' state, and we'll get along famously."
Sergey blinked, uncertain if it was kindness or bait.
Mikheil's smile widened. "In fact, I've already passed a few decrees as commissar. You'll like this one: attacking or desecrating a place of worship? Punishable by service in a punishment brigade. Digging trenches in the Arctic, sweeping mines in the Baltic. Very educational work. And murdering priests, imams, rabbis, or any other holy men?" He raised a finger like a schoolteacher. "Capital offense. Immediate execution. No appeals. Bullet to the head, straight justice."
Sergey's heart gave a sudden, bewildered lurch. It was protection, yes — protection by threat of iron and gunpowder.
"And here's my favorite," Mikheil said, lowering his voice as though sharing a family secret. "Speaking badly of any religion in public — any religion — is punishable by whipping. Twenty lashes for the first offense, forty for the second, and if they still don't learn their manners, well…" He shrugged. "Whips can be remarkably persuasive. Nothing like a welted back to remind you to keep your clever little mouth shut."
Sergey stared, trying to reconcile the warm, almost jovial tone with the savagery of the laws. Mikheil spoke as if he were describing a new school curriculum, not state violence wrapped in a smile.
The commissar tapped the arm of the pew. "See, Father? I'm your best friend in that Central Committee. Zinoviev wanted to seize your churches and turn them into canteens. Kamenev wanted to burn the relics. Trotsky, well, Trotsky just sneers — I think he finds God unfashionable. But me? I put laws in place. Hard laws. Laws that make harming you a capital offense. Laws that keep the mobs at bay. It's protection money, really. Think of me as your patron saint with a revolver."
Sergey's lips moved before he realized he was speaking. "And what does Heaven make of such protection?"
Mikheil's grin sharpened. "Heaven can lodge a complaint with Lenin, Father. Until then, you've got me."
Petrograd, Russia
Afternoon
Father Sergey Eldarevich Patruchev swept the stone steps of his church with the slow, practiced rhythm of habit. It was the same work he had done for years: sweeping the entrance, scrubbing soot off the brass railings, patching leaks in the roof when they came, preparing for the next mass. Being a priest was not a job but a life — prayers and liturgies, feast days and burials, sermons and confessions, and, when no one was looking, sweeping dust from the church's cracked old flagstones.
And now, even after revolution had turned the city upside down, the work went on. Masses still needed saying, candles still needed trimming, icons still needed dusting. The prayers remained the same — only the world outside had changed.
But the change stood guard at his very door. Four men in black coats and red armbands loitered there, rifles slung across their shoulders, the new masters of the street. The Revolutionary Guard Corps. They said they were there to "protect" the church, and every other church, mosque, synagogue, and temple in Petrograd. Protect — a strange word, Sergey thought. Soldiers with bayonets rarely came to protect. They came to remind.
He bent to sweep the steps again, the broom whispering against stone, when he heard the sound that made his stomach tighten: the boots. A hundred times he had heard them, heavy and deliberate, the thudding march of men drilled to stomp the earth in unison. The goose-step of the Revolutionary Guard Corps.
He froze. He knew who it would be.
It was not Sunday, but a Monday. Still, the man came. The man who had routed and butchered a Cossack host only two days ago. The man who, just yesterday, had sat in the confessional and described — with disarming cheer — how he had forced prisoners to kill their comrades with stones and bayonets if they wished to live. Sergey had thought then, as he thought now: only a monster could imagine such a thing.
And then Mikheil Jugashvili appeared, he looked nothing like a monster. He walked with the confidence of a man who had never doubted his own steps, who smiled as if he were greeting friends on a summer morning, not dragging shadows behind him. He was short, but broad-shouldered, with neatly combed hair, a handsome face free of the pockmarks smallpox had carved into so many others. A man who looked more like a charming actor in a play than a butcher.
"Father Patruchev, hello!" he said brightly, clapping Sergey on the shoulder as though they were old friends meeting at market. Without asking, he plucked the broom from Sergey's hand and passed it to one of his guards. "Sweep for him." The order was casual, like telling a servant to fetch tea. The Guard obeyed instantly, and Sergey could only stare as the man began to sweep, awkward and grim-faced with a rifle still slung over his back.
"Come, Father," Mikheil said, ushering him inside. The doors shut behind them with a hollow echo, shutting out the city and leaving only candlelight.
Sergey's throat was dry. "What… what brings you here, Comrade Jugashvili?"
"I have a favor to ask of you."
Here we go, Sergey thought. His fingers curled around the sleeves of his cassock, gripping tight.
"What sort of favor?" he asked carefully.
Mikheil leaned against a pew, smiling as if they discussed the weather. "Well, you see, I'm no longer just commander of the Revolutionary Guard Corps. I've been appointed head of the Commissariat of Religious Affairs."
Sergey felt the blood drain from his face. The Commissariat of Religious Affairs. The name itself sounded like a warning.
"Religious affairs?" he repeated, though he dreaded the answer.
"Exactly." Mikheil nodded with mock solemnity, then brightened again. "My new job is very simple: register every church, mosque, temple, synagogue, and shrine in Petrograd. Make sure no one preaches counter-revolution. Just paperwork, really. Forms, signatures, stamps." He grinned. "The Almighty is no longer the only one keeping records."
"I… I see." Sergey swallowed, too afraid to probe further.
But Mikheil was already ahead of him, pacing between the pews like a man inspecting a factory floor. "Father, this is good news. For you, for your priests, for all of your faith. Because I'm not only in the commissariat now — I am a sitting member of the Central Committee. One of the most powerful men in the government. And, more importantly, the only one in there who practices the Orthodox faith."
He turned suddenly, his smile fading to something harder. "Do you know what the others wanted to do with your church? With all the churches? With the mosques, the synagogues, the temples?"
Sergey opened his mouth, but Mikheil cut him off, voice still cheerful but edged with iron.
"They wanted to seize the land, confiscate the wealth, declare state atheism. Some even wanted to ban religion altogether. Imagine that! I told them it would be madness. People love their faith too much. Even with your… issues" — he waved a hand vaguely, as though the sins of the clergy were an untidy room — "you are a net positive for society. You keep the people calm, you bury the dead, you marry the living, you sing the songs that make them believe life isn't just shoveling manure until they die. That's valuable."
He smiled again, bright and easy, as though he had just offered praise.
"So I told them: leave religion alone. Let it exist, as long as it does not cause trouble. Which," he said, stepping closer, "is why I am here. I am here to offer you a job."
Sergey blinked. "A… job?"
"Exactly!" Mikheil's grin widened, his teeth flashing white. "I will be leaving the city on a mission. A secret mission. Very important, very dangerous. But while I'm gone, I need someone to run the Commissariat in my place. Someone who is respected, honest, apolitical. Who better than my priest?"
He clapped Sergey on the back again, as though congratulating him. "You will be Under-Commissar for Religious Affairs. You'll do my job while I'm away."
Sergey's hands tightened on the folds of his cassock. The candles flickered. Outside, the muffled scrape of a broom against stone continued.
A job. He almost laughed at the word.
Father Sergey swallowed. "You… you would make me a commissar?"
"Under‑commissar," Mikheil corrected cheerfully, wagging a finger. "Let's not inflate titles. That's how tsars get made." He leaned back against the altar rail, hands clasped as though in prayer. "But yes. You. Who better? You're literate, sober, respected. The people listen to you when you talk. And unlike half my comrades, you don't smell like you've bathed in vodka and slept in a pigsty. You'd be surprised how rare that is in government."
Sergey tried to answer but the words stuck. He thought of the council in Jerusalem two thousand years ago, of Peter and Paul debating how far one might bend before breaking. Could a priest serve Caesar without betraying Christ? Could he serve Bolsheviks without betraying God?
Mikheil saw his hesitation and raised a hand as though calming a child. "Now, don't make that face. This isn't a bargain with the Devil, Father. I won't ask you to renounce God. No oaths, no spitting on icons, no parades of blasphemy. That was what the others wanted." He grinned. "I told them that was idiotic. Why pick a fight with Heaven when you already have so many on Earth?"
He took a step closer, his boots clicking softly on the stone floor. "The only pledge required is simple: you do not preach counter‑revolution. No sermons about wicked Bolsheviks, no 'anointed tsars,' no muttering about God's vengeance on the proletariat. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, render unto Lenin what is Lenin's." He chuckled. "Same difference."
Sergey stiffened. "And… render unto God?"
"Oh, absolutely," Mikheil said warmly, as if reassuring a nervous guest. "You may render unto God all the incense, prayers, and funeral hymns you want. Keep the peasants pious, give them something to believe in beyond bread rations and cold barracks. That's useful. That's stabilizing. But…" His smile thinned. "If you start talking about a 'Holy War' against us, Father, then I'll have to nail your wife to the church door. And believe me, even Luther never tried that."
Sergey's heart pounded. He wanted to shout that the Church belonged to God alone, that Christ had no equal in Lenin or in Caesar. But he was staring into the eyes of a man who had forced Cossacks to kill their own brothers with their bare hands. A man who smiled as he spoke of it, who smelled faintly of wine and soap but carried death around him like incense.
"And the Party?" Sergey asked carefully.
"Yes," Mikheil said, clapping his hands once. "The Party. You will have to join. But think of it this way: You don't even have to believe. Just sign the book, stand when they say stand, clap when they say clap. We don't need your heart, Father, just your silence."
He leaned forward, his voice dropping lower, almost intimate. "And really, what is one more pledge? You already wear a cassock and call yourself a servant of God. Is it so hard to add another line? 'Servant of God, loyal member of the Party'? Seems manageable."
Sergey's palms were sweating. He wanted to refuse. But behind Mikheil's easy grin he saw the corpses at Pulikovo Heights, the eyes of men forced to kill their own brothers, the news that even the Junkers had been butchered to the last cadet under Dzerzhinsky's hand.
Mikheil spread his arms as though concluding a sermon. "So here's the good news: your church stays open, your flock keeps their sacraments, and your God gets His incense. All you have to do is help out the Party while you're at it." He winked. "Metaphorically."
Sergey thought of the guard outside, awkwardly pushing a broom over stone steps with a rifle at his back. He thought of Christ silent before Pilate.
Father Sergey then swallowed, fingers tight around his wooden cross. He had expected blasphemy, desecration, some grotesque oath to the Devil dressed up in Bolshevik red. Instead, Mikheil spoke with the ease of a man ordering dinner.
"You look tense, Father. Don't." Mikheil smiled, all teeth, his eyes too sharp to be friendly. "Let me reassure you once again, I'm not asking you to spit on God or burn your icons. That's not my game. No midnight orgies with goat‑headed idols, no tearing Bibles into toilet paper. Your job will be boring. Census work." He mimed writing on an invisible ledger. "Every church, every mosque, every synagogue — counted, registered, filed away like good livestock."
Sergey flinched at the word.
"Soft secularism, Father," Mikheil continued, as if he were explaining tax law to a child. "French style. Reasonable. The churches will keep their properties. No bonfires of relics, no nuns thrown into the streets. But…" He raised a finger. "Those properties will be taxed. Their schools, charities, hospitals — still yours, still church‑run. But the Party will have men inside. Not to preach, not to interfere, just to make sure you're healing bodies, not fermenting counter‑revolution in the back pews. Think of it like the jizya under Islam, only gentler. Less whips for believers, more clipboards for administrators."
He leaned closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "And the taxes will be reasonable, Father. Not the old tsarist extortions. Just enough to remind you who's boss." He tapped Sergey's chest lightly with a gloved finger. "Spoiler alert: it's us."
Sergey forced himself to speak. "And if… if I refuse?"
Mikheil laughed, a quick bark that echoed against the church walls. "Refuse? Oh, Father, I would be upset. I would have to hand your file to Zinoviev or Kamenev, and they'd get their wish — shutter the churches, confiscate the land, turn your altars into pig troughs. They've been pushing state atheism since day one. They'd burn you all for kindling if I let them. But I argued you were useful. That people love you too much to lose you. And for now, Lenin listens. For now."
Sergey felt his mouth go dry. "So… I am only spared by your favor?"
"Yes!" Mikheil beamed, as though announcing a prize. "Exactly. And you know why? Because you're the only priest I know well enough not to bore me. I'd have picked Father Saba from my hometown back in Georgia — kind man, used to slip me wine from the chalice when I was a boy — but Georgia is too far away and this is urgent." He shrugged. "So here you are. My priest. My under‑commissar."
Sergey lowered his head, staring at the floorboards. He thought of Christ's warning: render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, and unto God what is God's. Mikheil had twisted that verse until it bent around the Party like iron around a wheel. He had offered survival in exchange for silence, power in exchange for complicity.
Mikheil, seeing his hesitation, patted him on the shoulder. "Father, this is compromise. Compromise keeps people alive. You preach the Gospel, we audit the books. You bury the dead, we collect the taxes. No one has to die. Unless, of course, you choose otherwise."
Sergey raised his eyes and saw the smile — warm, easy, casual — but behind it lay Pulikovo Heights, the corpses, the blood in the mud.
And he understood then, with dreadful clarity, that Mikheil's offer was not mercy. It was a trap disguised as mercy, a noose dressed up as a handshake.
But still, he heard his own voice, hollow and faint, say: "I accept."
Mikheil clapped his hands together, delighted. "Wonderful! God stays God, Lenin stays Lenin, and I get to sleep at night without worrying about your sermons turning my men into holy martyrs. Everybody wins!"
Sergey nodded stiffly, wondering if Heaven would ever forgive him.
Father Sergey braced himself for blasphemy, for the sneer of the atheist who despises all faith. Instead, Mikheil leaned back against the pew, casual as a parishioner waiting for vespers.
"Father, you're thinking too hard. You look like you swallowed a live frog." He chuckled. "Let me put you at ease for the third time now. The churches will be free to do as they please — bells ringing, incense burning, icons kissed, the whole package — so long as they don't preach counter‑revolution. That's the line in the sand. Pray for the poor, feed the hungry, lecture about sin all you like. Just don't sermonize about overthrowing the workers' state, and we'll get along famously."
Sergey blinked, uncertain if it was kindness or bait.
Mikheil's smile widened. "In fact, I've already passed a few decrees as commissar. You'll like this one: attacking or desecrating a place of worship? Punishable by service in a punishment brigade. Digging trenches in the Arctic, sweeping mines in the Baltic. Very educational work. And murdering priests, imams, rabbis, or any other holy men?" He raised a finger like a schoolteacher. "Capital offense. Immediate execution. No appeals. Bullet to the head, straight justice."
Sergey's heart gave a sudden, bewildered lurch. It was protection, yes — protection by threat of iron and gunpowder.
"And here's my favorite," Mikheil said, lowering his voice as though sharing a family secret. "Speaking badly of any religion in public — any religion — is punishable by whipping. Twenty lashes for the first offense, forty for the second, and if they still don't learn their manners, well…" He shrugged. "Whips can be remarkably persuasive. Nothing like a welted back to remind you to keep your clever little mouth shut."
Sergey stared, trying to reconcile the warm, almost jovial tone with the savagery of the laws. Mikheil spoke as if he were describing a new school curriculum, not state violence wrapped in a smile.
The commissar tapped the arm of the pew. "See, Father? I'm your best friend in that Central Committee. Zinoviev wanted to seize your churches and turn them into canteens. Kamenev wanted to burn the relics. Trotsky, well, Trotsky just sneers — I think he finds God unfashionable. But me? I put laws in place. Hard laws. Laws that make harming you a capital offense. Laws that keep the mobs at bay. It's protection money, really. Think of me as your patron saint with a revolver."
Sergey's lips moved before he realized he was speaking. "And what does Heaven make of such protection?"
Mikheil's grin sharpened. "Heaven can lodge a complaint with Lenin, Father. Until then, you've got me."
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