Soviets Now See Religion as Stabilizing Force : Ministries: On the eve of Orthodox Easter, a wide variety of celebrations are planned and U.S. input is growing.

Signs abound of continued enthusiasm for religion in the Soviet Union on the eve of the Orthodox Easter this Sunday--with little slowing of the input from U.S. Christian groups.

* A weeklong festival will start today in Red Square with a candlelight prayer service. Thousands of orphans and handicapped children will attend ballet, circus and puppet theater performances. “These might be hard times, but they don’t need to be bad times in Moscow,” said the Rev. J.W. Canty, a U.S. Episcopal priest and co-chairman of the sponsoring group, the Soviet-U.S. Joint Conference on Charitable Cooperation.

* Services and music today and Sunday in and around the Kremlin, organized by Campus Crusade for Christ and featuring founder-president Bill Bright of San Bernardino, will be edited into a one-hour religious program to be aired Sunday on nationwide Soviet television. The Russian Orthodox Church hierarchy assisted in obtaining permission for the TV production.

* A U.S.-based evangelical group says it will start broadcasting in Moscow on Sunday over what is believed to be the first Christian radio station in the Soviet Union. The Christian Liberty Broadcasting Network established the 50,000-watt facility with a transmitter and equipment donated by four Arizona stations.

The developments illustrate what religious figures say is the unflagging Soviet receptiveness to foreign Christian ministries despite the economic, political and ethnic turmoil in that country. Indeed, religion is seen as a stabilizing force in the face of trouble, they say.

“Religion is no longer considered the enemy of the state, but its potential ally,” said Rabbi Arthur Schneier of New York, president of the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, after a recent visit to the Soviet Union. “At a time of widespread loss of faith in Marxism . . . Soviet citizens are searching for a new anchor,” Schneier said.

After seven decades of promoting atheism, the Soviet Union under President Mikhail S. Gorbachev dramatically changed its official attitude on religion. A new law on religious freedom adopted last year gave greater latitude for religious activities. But as some Soviet republics seek to break away from the federal government, Gorbachev has sought support for national unity from Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish and Muslim leaders.

American Protestant ministries that have established links with Soviet religious authorities are generally still finding open doors.

Trans World Radio, an evangelical ministry based in Cary, N.C., opened the first Christian studio for radio programming in the Soviet Union last summer in Leningrad. It has since opened studios in two more cities and is finishing facilities in Minsk, Kiev, Odessa and other cities, a spokesman said.

“We haven’t experienced any turnaround,” said the Rev. Alan Travers, a vice president at the ministry. “We have to jump through more hoops than we used to, but that probably reflects the fact that (Soviet officials) have their act together (in the religious field).”

One notable setback in the trend toward Soviet openness to Western ministries has been attributed to political happenstance: Soviet officials in January canceled a planned series of 12 monthly, 20-minute talks on Soviet television by the Rev. Robert H. Schuller of Garden Grove’s Crystal Cathedral. Only his first program, in December, actually aired.

That ballyhooed breakthrough--the first American pastor to be seen regularly on Soviet television--was reached last year with the Soviet broadcasting agency Gosteleradio by Schuller’s representatives and the late philanthropist Armand Hammer. But the leadership of the government agency changed in January, and Schuller’s programs for January, February and March did not run as scheduled, with no subsequent explanation from Moscow.

Rob Owen, a spokesman for Schuller, said this week that the ministry has not given up. Owen said he hopes to arrange a meeting between Schuller and the new chief for Soviet television. Owen said that the ministry has also considered dealing with individual republics rather than with officials at the national level.

That was the approach of the Christian Liberty Broadcasting Network, which has approval from the Russian Republic to launch its Radio Radonezh broadcasts Sunday with music and congratulatory messages from Vice President Dan Quayle and some U.S. congressmen.

Paul D. Lindstrom, president of the Christian network based in Arlington Heights, Ill., said that his ministry has dealt with the Russian Republic, from whom it has the necessary license to broadcast. His ministry already runs five Christian schools in Moscow with an enrollment of 600 and a waiting list of 1,500, he said.

Lindstrom said that Soviet education officials wanted to close down the schools, but that officials of the Russian Republic said the schools would stay open. The Russian Republic, led by populist figure Boris Yeltsin, is seeking to assert a degree of political independence from the Soviet government.