I had heard reports that Mikhail Gorbachev had become a Christian and I was thinking about blogging about it but held back after hearing Hitchens on Hewitt’s show:

Christopher Hitchens, our mutual friend, Peter Robinson, has asked me to say hello to you. He sends along news from the London Mirror tonight that Mikhail Gorbachev is a Christian, and spent thirty minutes on his knees in front of the tomb of St. Francis. We think you’re next.
CH: Well, in that respect, he joins his wonderful successor, Vladimir Putin, Crucifix flaunter to the gentry, and the man whom, if you remember, by just bodyguarding himself with Russian orthodox thuggery, he managed to impress our very own President.
HH: So you’re not thinking that Gorbachev is sincere?
CH: I’m fearing that it’s another case of Russian orthodox chauvinism, a thing that’s growing like a huge virus through Russia at the moment, and is returning the country to the days of a quasi-czarism, which is what I think Vladimir Putin would like to see in any case.

I wondered if his Christianity was more about nationalism than Christ so I didn’t bother blogging about it. Well, it turns out it was a good thing I didn’t because he rejects the report and reaffirmed that he was still an atheist:

“Over the last few days some media have been disseminating fantasies—I can’t use any other word—about my secret Catholicism, citing my visit to the Sacro Convento friary, where the remains of St. Francis of Assisi lie,” Gorbachev said. Instead he insisted that he undertook the trip, not as a pilgrim, but as “tourist.”
[…]
In the past he visited Orthodox monasteries in Russia and abroad, Catholic and Protestant churches, synagogues in Israel and mosques in Arab countries as well as Buddhist monasteries, but “nobody related me to this or that belief during all these years. To avoid misunderstandings I would like to say—I was atheist and I stay atheist”.

Though it appears there are some who aren’t giving up hope:

“In Italy, he spoke in emotional terms, rather than in terms of faith,” a Patriarchate spokesman said. “He is still on his way to Christianity.”