ABSTRACT
The Council for Religious Affairs compiled statistics on the education, age, and time of ordination of Orthodox clergy in early 1946. Since World War II, the Russian Orthodox Church has lacked a sufficient supply of clergy to staff its parish churches and meet the needs of Orthodox people in their long struggle to preserve their faith. The church emerged from the war with about 2,000 fewer priests than churches. The numbers of seminary and academy graduates have not been sufficient over the years to replenish the ranks of the clergy, at least according to the statistics already given. The overall body of the clergy was getting younger — a favorable development. The median age of the clergy peaked just before the Khrushchev anti-religious drive and went steadily down until 1988. Senior clerics from widely separated locations have complained loudly over the years about not receiving substantial numbers of seminary and academy graduates and of grievous shortages of priests.
