It was either a bold gesture of courage or an act of supreme foolishness. The occasion was the state funeral of Leonid Brezhnev, leader of the Soviet Union.

            For days and nights, the mourners had been filing by his open casket in solemn procession. First ordinary citizens, then party functionaries, then generals, ambassadors and members of the Politburo and finally heads of state of foreign lands. All had come to pay their respects to a man, whom, if not widely loved, had been widely feared.

            Last of all came Brezhnev’s widow. An honor guard of elite soldiers in full dress uniform stepped crisply forward. They stood at attention, ready to ceremonially close the casket. The eyes of all were upon Madame Brezhnev as she stood in silent reflection.

            The widow made as if to move on, and the soldiers reached out to close the coffin lid — but at the last possible moment, Madame Brezhnev darted back and did an extraordinary thing: She made the sign of the cross on her husband’s chest.

            There in the citadel of official state atheism, the wife of the man who had run that godless bureaucracy said in effect to all the world that she hoped he was wrong. It was possibly one of the most daring — and profound — acts of civil disobedience ever committed.

            All this took place nearly two thousand years after an itinerant Galilean rabbi staggered down a Jerusalem street, the weight of a cross upon his back. That the sign of the cross — the instrument of Jesus’ torture and execution — would be traced by the widow of a head of state upon her husband’s chest, many miles and centuries removed, is eloquent testimony to the enduring influence of this man Jesus Christ: to his life and death and resurrection.

Our confession

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