Billy Graham in Moscow, Will Study Reforms

Evangelist Billy Graham said Wednesday that he wants to investigate what effect Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s reform policies are having on the life of religious believers in the officially atheistic Soviet Union.

Graham, 69, arrived in Moscow at the invitation of the Russian Orthodox Church to attend celebrations marking the 1,000th anniversary of Christianity in Russia.

Representatives of most major religions, including the Roman Catholic Church, have been invited to attend the celebrations. A strong Vatican delegation of cardinals headed by Cardinal Agostino Casaroli, 73, the Vatican secretary of state, also arrived Wednesday from Rome.

Vatican sources said Cardinal Casaroli was carrying a letter from Pope John Paul II to Gorbachev.

It is the third visit to the Soviet Union for the North Carolina-born Graham. During his first visit six years ago, he created an international furor by saying the Russian Orthodox Church was freer than the Church of England.

The Russian Orthodox Church is tightly controlled by the state and the Communist Party, which approves all senior appointments.

Graham’s arrival statement Wednesday was a bit more circumspect. He said he hopes he can investigate for himself the plight of religious believers in the Soviet Union.

Graham, whose last visit to Moscow was in 1984, said he has read much about Gorbachev’s reform policies of glasnost , or openness, and perestroika , or restructuring.

“I especially look forward to learning more about the implications of these new policies for religious believers in every aspect of their lives, including their private life, their church life and their place in Soviet society,” Graham said.

While in the Soviet Union, Graham will speak at the Jubilee Act Celebrations in Moscow’s Bolshoi Theater and in the Shevchenko Theater in Kiev.