Winston Churchill famously declared in October 1939 that Russia is “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.”

That description is equally apt for today’s Russian Orthodox Church.

In a splendid article in National Geographic magazine, Russian-American journalist Serge Schmemann ponders the mystery that is the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church.

Schmemann is uniquely equipped for the assignment: The son of a Russian Orthodox emigré priest who was featured in Cold War broadcasts through the Iron Curtain by Radio Liberty, Schmemann served as Moscow bureau chief of The New York Times in the late 1980s as Communism collapsed there and the Orthodox Church began to reassert itself after decades of totalitarian repression.

Not only that, Schmemann is the direct descendant of St. Juliana of Lazarevo, a mother of 13 children who was canonized after her death in 1604 by the Orthodox Church as a model of faith and charity.

In a ten-page article rich in Orthodox anecdote past and present, Schmemann applies his saintly lineage and his journalistic expertise to the question of whether the resurgence of Orthodoxy has been positive or pernicious for post-Communist Russia.

His verdict is a split decision.

“In offering little or no resistance to the ‘dark and threatening authoritarianism’ James H. Billington warned of 15 years ago, the church has failed a crucial test,” Schmemann writes. “Yet no one who has witnessed the enormous love and labor that has gone into restoring churches and reviving charitable work can doubt that something good and promising has also awakened in Russia.”