Religion has two functions: a social one (it consolidates a group of followers) and a personal one (psychological). In modern times, the social function of religion has been taken over by ideologies. Socialism is one of such ideologies. The creators of Marxism called their version of socialism scientific socialism, but their vision of the course of history (‘from capitalism to communism’) has become the foundation of a new religion and a new church. The author calls this church ‘Marxo-Leninism’. The text shows similarities between the Catholic Church and the Marxo-Leninism (or the Stalinist church), as well as the analogies between the Jesuit order and the ‘Len-Party’ (i.e. the Leninisttype party).
Józef Kowalewski, a founding father of Mongolian studies in Russia, stayed in Beijing from November 1830 until July 1831. He stayed with the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission and, being a Catholic himself, Kowalewski was very interested in the history and current state of Catholicism in China. In those years Catholicism in China faced severe persecution. All European missionaries were expelled from China with the exception of Bishop Gaetano Pirès Pereira, who was allowed to stay at the Russian Mission because of his old age. Kowalewski is said to have written a history of Catholicism in China which was destroyed by fire. However, unpublished diaries of Kowalewski, which survive in the Russian archives, contain much interesting information about Catholic cemeteries in Beijing, the life of Chinese converts, the Jesuit library and records of his talks with the last Catholic bishop.
Jesuits arrived in the land of the New Kingdom of Grande (Colombia) at the beginning of the 17th century. They founded colleges in all most important towns and began the mis-sionary service among Indians, according to the scheme of so-called ‘doctrinas’, i.e. villages inhabited by autochthons. During the years 1605-1660 they worked in a few doctrines on Altiplano in the surroundings of Bogota and Tunja and on eastern slopes of the Andes. Their service was usually very effective and carried out according to the established methodology of the missionary work. They were appealing to the following rules: systematic and regular religious education, knowledge of the local languages by missionaries, development of the educational system including study of the singing and the music, practising solemn liturgy based on solid and well equipped churches. The past experience of the work in ‘doctrinas’ was used in the second half of the 17th century during the establishment of Jesuits’ reductions in Casanare, Meta and Orinoko.