“…Beyond the religious sphere, "relic-like" behavior has persisted into the modern era, especially in societies with a Catholic or Orthodox Christian heritage. The "political religions" of Soviet communism and German National Socialism provide the most striking examples of how these early Christian cultural scripts for remembering the revered dead were transposed into the political realm (Maier, 2006). In the former case, Bolsheviks had deliberately undermined religious belief, and attacked the Orthodox Church, by opening graves and destroying shrines; but when Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin died, political leaders reverted to the very cultic rituals they had denigrated by embalming his body and laying it to rest in a mausoleum for public veneration.…”