Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky)
church historian, hagiographer, candidate of historical sciences. Secretary of the Synodal Commission of the Moscow Patriarchate for the canonization of saints.
With the advent of Soviet power, persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church began. The persecution, which began at the end of 1917, took on a mass and fierce character already in 1918, when a decree was adopted on the separation of the Church from the state, which placed the Church in a powerless position, and continued throughout the entire Soviet period, i.e., seventy years.
From 1923 to 1928, hundreds of clergy and laity were arrested, but there were almost no death sentences; the same was true from 1934 to 1936. Sometimes persecution took on an almost exclusively administrative character, as was the case in the 1970s and 1980s, when arrests of clergy and laity became sporadic.
In some periods, the authorities pursued the goal of arresting as many clergymen and laity as possible, arrests then numbered in the tens and hundreds of thousands, and for many ended in martyrdom. So it was in Russia immediately after the establishment of Soviet power, when entire districts of such dioceses as Perm, Stavropol, Kazan, were deprived of clergy. This period lasted until 1920, and in those territories where the Bolsheviks seized power later, such as in the Far East, the time of severe persecution fell on 1922. It was the same during the campaign organized by the Soviet authorities to seize church valuables in 1922, when many trials were held throughout the country, some of which ended with a death sentence.
A similar all-Russian campaign, which led to mass arrests and executions, was carried out in 1929-1931, in some areas it continued until 1933. And finally, in 1937-1938, most of the clergy and laity were arrested and almost simultaneously more than two-thirds of the churches operating in 1935 were closed.
According to some sources, 827 clergy were shot in 1918, 19 in 1919 and 69 imprisoned. According to other sources, 3,000 clergy were shot in 1918, and 1,500 were subjected to other repressions. In 1919, 1,000 clergymen were shot and 800 were subjected to other repressions.
The official data submitted to the Local Council and the Supreme Church Administration by September 20, 1918 were as follows. There were 97 people who were killed for the faith and the Church, of which the names and official position of 73 were precisely established, and the names of 24 people were unknown by that time. 118 people were under arrest at that time. Of the well-known archpastors who suffered martyrdom during this period of persecution, there were holy martyrs: Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev (Bogoyavlensky); archbishops: Perm and Kungur Andronik (Nikolsky), Omsk and Pavlodar Sylvester (Olshevsky), Astrakhan Mitrofan (Krasnopolsky); Bishops: Balakhna Lavrenty (Knyazev), Vyazemsky Macarius (Gnevushev), Kirillovsky Varsonofy (Lebedev), Tobolsk Hermogen (Dolganev), Solikamsky Feofan (Ilmensky), Selenginsky Ephraim (Kuznetsov) and others.
The first practical result of the decree was the closure in 1918 of religious educational institutions, including diocesan schools and churches attached to them. The only exception was the Kazan Theological Academy, which, thanks to the efforts of its rector Bishop Anatoly (Grisyuk) of Chistopol, continued its work until 1921, when Bishop Anatoly and the teachers of the academy were arrested on charges of violating the decree on the separation of the Church from the state. Practically since 1918 spiritual education and scientific church activity were stopped. The same can be said about printing, since 1918 any publication of Christian literature has become impossible. Only in 1944, with the permission of the authorities, the Theological Institute and pastoral courses were opened, which were transformed in 1946 into the Theological Academy and seminaries.
In accordance with the decree, the teaching of the Law of God in schools was prohibited. According to the clarification of the People's Commissariat of Education dated February 23, 1918, the teaching of religious doctrines to children under 18 years of age should not take the form of ... properly functioning educational institutions, therefore, the teaching of religious doctrines in churches and at home was prohibited. In the development of the decree, the People's Commissariat for Education of March 3, 1919, decided:
“Prohibit persons belonging to the clergy of all their clans, all faiths, to hold any positions in all schools ... Those guilty of violating this prohibition are subject to the court of the Revolutionary Tribunal.”
Meetings of parishioners took place in many cities, expressing their negative attitude towards the decree in general and, in particular, towards the issue of separating the school from the Church. February 4, 1918 general meeting parishioners of the city of Novo-Nikolaevsk unanimously decided:
“The separation of the Church from the state is considered tantamount to the separation of the soul from the body, a Russian person, as Orthodox Christian and as a citizen, he cannot be divided… The Church’s property is the property of a believing people… The removal of the Law of God from the number of compulsory school subjects is a persecution of the legitimate desire of believing parents who provide funds for the maintenance of schools, to use the organized means of teaching and educating children…”
The Peasants' Congress of the Kazan Province Decided to Recognize the Law of God compulsory subject school. The workers of Kazan, in the amount of 14,000, appealed to the Commissar for Public Education with a demand to keep the teaching of the Law of God in schools. In Orenburg, in 1918, meetings of the parents of all schools were held, who unanimously spoke in favor of the obligatory teaching of the Law of God. Similar meetings were held in Vladimir, Ryazan, Tambov, Simbirsk provinces, in some educational institutions in Moscow. None of the wishes of the people was satisfied. The Criminal Code of the RSFSR, adopted in 1922, introduced an article that provided for punishment of up to 1 year in prison for teaching “religious doctrines” to minors.
Simultaneously with the adoption of the decree on the separation of the Church from the state, the authorities tried to seize the Alexander Nevsky Lavra with the help of an armed attack, thus making it clear that they would stop at nothing in their measures to implement the decree. During the capture of the Lavra, the Archpriest of the Sorrowful Church, Pyotr Skipetrov, was mortally wounded, trying to reassure the Red Guards.
In many cities of the country in 1918 religious processions as a protest against the seizure of church property. They were held in Moscow, Petrograd, Tula, Tobolsk, Perm, Omsk and other cities. Tens of thousands of people took part in them. In some cases, such as in Tula and Omsk, the processions were shot by the Red Guards.
In April 1918, a commission was created in the People's Commissariat of Justice to implement the decree on the separation of the Church from the state, later renamed the VIII department, called the "liquidation" department. “The instruction prepared by this department dated August 24 (30), 1918 on the procedure for applying the decree already provided for a number of harsh confiscation measures, including the seizure of capital, valuables, and other property of churches and monasteries.” Moreover, during the requisition of monastic property, the monasteries themselves were to be liquidated. From 1918 to 1921, more than half of the monasteries in Russia were nationalized - 722.
In the second half of 1921, famine broke out in the country. By May 1922, about 20 million people were starving in 34 provinces of Russia and about a million died. The famine was not only the result of the drought, but also the result of the civil war that had just ended, the brutal suppression of peasant uprisings, and the merciless attitude of the authorities towards the people, which took the form of various economic experiments. The Holy Patriarch Tikhon was one of the first to respond to the people's grief and already in August 1921 he addressed the flock, to the Eastern Patriarchs, to the Pope of Rome, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of York with a message in which he called for assistance to the country dying of hunger.
The authorities were against any participation of the Orthodox Church in cooperation in helping the starving, and in the person of Dzerzhinsky they formulated the following position in December 1921:
“My opinion: the church is falling apart, therefore (hereinafter it is emphasized in the document. - I.D.) we need to help, but in no way revive it in an updated form. Therefore, the church policy of collapse should be carried out by the V.Ch.K., and not by anyone else. Official or semi-official relations with priests are unacceptable. Our bet is on communism, not religion. Only V.Ch.K. can tack. for the sole purpose - the decomposition of the priests.
On February 6, 1922, Patriarch Tikhon addressed the Orthodox Christians for the second time, urging them to help with their donations:
“Given the severity of life for each individual Christian family due to the depletion of their funds, we allow the clergy and parish councils, with the consent of the communities of believers in whose care the temple property is, to use the precious things that are in many churches that do not have liturgical use (pendants in the form of rings, chains, bracelets, necklaces and other items donated to decorate holy icons, gold and silver scrap) to help the starving.
On February 23, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a decree on the seizure of church valuables. Having received a detailed development of the Politburo and the GPU, this decree became a tool with which the authorities made an attempt to destroy the Church. On March 17, 1922, L. D. Trotsky proposed a plan for organizing the seizure of church valuables, which went far beyond the boundaries of the direct seizure of valuables. Trotsky wrote: “In the center and in the provinces, create secret leading commissions for the seizure of valuables, similar to the Moscow commission of Sapronov-Unshlikht. All these commissions must necessarily include either the secretary of the Gubkom or the head of the agitation and prop department... In provincial cities, the commissar of the division, brigade, or head of the political department is involved in the commission... At the same time, to split the clergy, showing decisive initiative in this regard and taking under the protection of the state power those priests who openly speak in favor of the withdrawal ... "
The content of the activities of the commission for the seizure of church valuables was formulated with the utmost clarity by Trotsky in a note to the Politburo: “Our entire strategy in this period should be designed for a split among the clergy on a specific issue: the seizure of valuables from churches. Since the issue is acute, the schism on this ground can and must take on a very acute character, and that part of the clergy who will speak out in favor of the withdrawal and help the withdrawal will not return back to the clique of Patriarch Tikhon. Therefore, I believe that the bloc with this part of the priests can be temporarily brought to the point of introducing them into pomgol, especially since it is necessary to eliminate any suspicions and doubts about the fact that the values allegedly seized from churches are not spent on the needs of the starving ... "
In March 1922, the commission began to confiscate valuables from churches; despite the attempts of the clergy to prevent excesses, in some places the commissions for the confiscation clashed with the faithful. Such clashes took place on March 11 in Rostov-on-Don, on March 15 in Shuya and on March 17 in Smolensk.
On March 19, Lenin wrote his famous letter, in which he finally substantiated the meaning and goals of the campaign to confiscate valuables: “All considerations indicate that we will not be able to do this later, because no other moment, except for a desperate famine, will give us such a broad mood. peasant masses, which would either secure the sympathy of this mass for us, or at least ensure that we neutralize these masses in the sense that victory in the struggle against the seizure of valuables will remain unconditionally and completely on our side ... Therefore, I come to the unconditional conclusion that it is precisely now that we must give the most decisive and merciless battle to the Black Hundred clergy and crush their resistance with such cruelty that they will not forget this for several decades. Lenin proposes that after the seizure of church valuables, several trials should be carried out, which should be completed by executions not only in Shuya, but also in Moscow and "several other spiritual centers."
And such processes were carried out. Some of them, such as Moscow, Petrograd, Smolensk, ended in death sentences for some of the accused. At that time, the Holy Martyr Veniamin (Kazansky), Metropolitan of Petrograd, Archimandrite Sergius (Shein), and laymen Yuri Novitsky and John Kovsharov were shot in Petrograd. Archpriests Alexander Zaozersky, Vasily Sokolov, Christopher Nadezhdin, Hieromonk Macarius (Telegin) and layman Sergiy Tikhomirov were shot in Moscow. The rest were sentenced to imprisonment and exile in remote wilderness places. If the first stage of the persecution of 1918-1920 most often took place without observing any legal formalities, then the persecution of 1922 was carried out with the involvement of courts and revolutionary tribunals.
As for the number of victims during this period, in one of the latest studies N. N. Pokrovsky, commenting on the data of modern historical science on this issue, writes: “The documents of the Politburo and Lubyanka do not yet make it possible to determine the numerical characteristics or the number of clashes between believers and the authorities , neither the number of those killed and wounded in these clashes, nor the number of repressed. From one work on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church to another, the testimony of an active participant in the events of the “Living Church” Protopresbyter V. Krasnitsky passes that during the seizure in 1922, 1,414 bloody incidents occurred in the country. Often (although not always accurately) the information of the priest Mikhail Polsky, who fled from Russia, is given that in 1922 the total number of victims who died in clashes and were shot in court was 2,691 white clergy, 1,962 monastics, 3,447 nuns and novices; only 8,100 victims. In the literature there are also references to the fact that in connection with the seizure of church property in 1922, 231 court cases were held in the country, in which 732 people were sentenced ... "
As a result, church items worth 4,650,810 rubles were seized. 67 k. in gold rubles. Of these funds, it was decided to spend 1 million gold rubles on the purchase of food for the starving, around which an agitation campaign was launched. The main funds were used for the seizure campaign itself, or more precisely, for the campaign to split the Russian Orthodox Church.
But the authorities did not limit themselves to direct repressions against the clergy and believers, there was a plan to destroy the church administration, and for this a group of clergy was formed into a separate organization, to which the Soviet authorities began to provide certain patronage. Trotsky, formulating the position of the Politburo on this issue, wrote:
“The Church ... now stands face to face with the proletarian revolution. What can be her further fate? Two currents are outlined: clearly, openly counter-revolutionary from the Black Hundred-monarchist ideology and - "Soviet". The ideology of the "Soviet" clergy, apparently, is similar to Smenovekhov's, that is, bourgeois-compromising. If the slow-moving bourgeois-compromising Smenovekhov wing of the church had developed and strengthened, it would have become much more dangerous for the socialist revolution than the church in its present form. For by assuming a patronizing "Soviet" coloration, the "advanced" clergy thereby opens up the possibility of penetrating into those advanced strata of the working people who constitute or should constitute our support.
Therefore, the Smenovekhi clergy must be regarded as the most dangerous enemy of tomorrow. But just tomorrow. Today it is necessary to overthrow the counter-revolutionary part of the churchmen, in whose hands the actual administration of the church is. In this struggle, we must rely on the Smenovekhi clergy, without being politically biased, and even more so in principle ...
The famine campaign is extremely beneficial for this, because it sharpens all questions on the fate of church treasures. We must, firstly, force the Smena Vekhov priests wholly and openly to link their fate with the question of the seizure of valuables; secondly, to force them to bring this campaign within the church to a complete organizational break with the Black Hundred hierarchy, to their own new council and new elections for the hierarchy.
On March 14, the GPU sent out cipher telegrams to some major provincial cities calling for the clergy to Moscow, who had agreed to cooperate with the GPU. Priests Vvedensky and Zaborovsky were called to Moscow from Petrograd, and Archbishop Evdokim from Nizhny Novgorod with the clergy who shared his views. “It was decided to hold a meeting of the “progressive clergy” in Moscow, the organization of the case was entrusted to the head of the Moscow Chekists, F.D. Medved.
On April 11, 1922, the GPU drew up an instruction on holding an organizational meeting of the “Moscow opposition group of the clergy”, which stated in particular: “The urgent task in splitting the clergy is to give the Soviet opposition some sort of formalized and organizational character, at least on a local scale to start. To this end, it is necessary, through the mediation of an unconditionally firm and resolute priest, to induce the Moscow opposition group to adopt a resolution, a statement (at least for the first time not for publication), with the following content:
Relations between the Orthodox Church and the Soviet state became absolutely impossible due to the fault of the leading hierarchs of the church. On the issue of the famine, the leaders of the church took a clearly anti-people and anti-state position and, in the person of Tikhon, essentially called on the faithful to revolt against the Soviet regime ... Salvation consists in immediately courageous decisive elements taking practical measures to renew the church hierarchy with the help of even local council, which should decide the fate of the patriarchate, the constitution of the church and its leadership ... "
On April 20, 1922, a meeting of representatives of the GPU and the “revolutionary clergy” represented by Kalinovsky, Borisov, Nikolostansky and Bishop Antonin (Granovsky) took place at the apartment of the priest S. Kalinovsky, who fully agreed with the representatives of the GPU regarding the struggle against the Patriarch and the patriarchal administration.
Describing the mechanism by which the Renovationist movement was created, as well as how and for what purposes the Renovationist cathedral was assembled, the head of the VIth Department of the Secret Department of the OGPU Tuchkov wrote: “Before the creation of the Renovationist church groups, the entire management of the church was in the hands of the former Patriarch Tikhon, and hence the tone of the church was clearly given in an anti-Soviet spirit. The moment of seizure of church valuables served in the best possible way to the formation of renovationist anti-Tikhon groups, first in Moscow, and then throughout the S.S.S.R.
Until that time, both on the part of the organs of the GPU and on the part of our party, attention was paid to the church exclusively for informational purposes, therefore, in order for the anti-Tikhon groups to master the church apparatus, it was necessary to create such an information network that could be used not only for the aforementioned purposes, but also to lead the whole church through her, which we have achieved ...
After that, and having already a whole network of information, it was possible to direct the church along the path we needed, so the first renovationist group was organized in Moscow, later called the "living church", to which Tikhon transferred temporary control of the church. It consisted of 6 people: two - bishops - Antonin and Leonid and 4 priests - Krasnitsky, Vvedensky, Stadnik and Kalinovsky ... priests by their supporters... This was the beginning of the split of the Orthodox Church and the change in the political orientation of the church apparatus...
In order to finally strengthen their position and obtain the canonical right to lead the church, the Renovationists began work on the preparation of the All-Russian Local Council, at which questions were to be decided mainly about Tikhon and his bishops abroad, the final establishment of the political line of the church and the introduction of a number of liturgical innovations into it ... »
“The council announced the deprivation of the patriarch of his rank, priesthood and even monasticism with the return “to a primitive worldly position”; the very restoration of the institution of the patriarchate by the Council of 1917–1918. was proclaimed by the Renovationists as a "counter-revolutionary act". The Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the OGPU organized a visit to the arrested patriarch by a delegation of the cathedral to present these decrees. The Patriarch inscribed on them his resolution on their non-canonicity, if only because the 74th Apostolic Canon requires his obligatory presence at the council for the possibility of justification.
The council adopted some reforms, such as the second marriage of the clergy, the white episcopate, the transition to new style, but the discussion of Krasnitsky's proposal for deeper reforms was postponed ... "
On June 26, 1923, Patriarch Tikhon was released from prison and immediately sent messages to the All-Russian flock. His main concern after his release was to overcome the renovationist split. In his message of July 15, 1923, the Patriarch outlined with utmost clarity the history of the seizure of church power by the Renovationists. “And how did they take advantage of the seized church power? wrote the Patriarch. – They did not use it to build the Church, but to sow in Her the seeds of a pernicious schism; to deprive the sees of Orthodox bishops who remained true to their duty and refused to obey them; to persecute reverent priests who, according to the canons of the church, did not obey them; to plant everywhere the so-called "Living Church", ignoring the authority of the Universal Church and striving to weaken the necessary ecclesiastical discipline; in order to give triumph to his party and forcibly, ignoring the conciliar voice of all believers, to realize its desires in life.
By all this they separated themselves from the unity of the body of the Universal Church and were deprived of the grace of God, which dwells only in the Church of Christ. And because of this, all the orders of the illegitimate power that has no canonical succession, which ruled the Church in Our absence, are invalid and void! And all the actions and sacraments performed by bishops and priests who have fallen away from the Church are without grace, and the believers who participate with them in prayer and the sacraments not only do not receive sanctification, but are condemned for participating in their sin ... "
Shortly before the death of the Patriarch, the OGPU decided to initiate proceedings against him, accusing him of compiling lists of repressed clergy. On March 21, 1925, the Patriarch was interrogated by an investigator. But the case did not develop due to the death of the Patriarch on 04/07/1925. Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) of Krutitsy, who became Patriarchal Locum Tenens after the death of Patriarch Tikhon, continued the work of healing the schism, taking a strictly ecclesiastical position towards the Renovationists. “The accession to the Holy Orthodox Church of the so-called Renovators is possible only on the condition that each of them individually renounces his delusions and brings repentance to the whole people for his falling away from the Church. And we unceasingly pray to the Lord God, that He may return the lost to the bosom of the Holy Orthodox Church…”
From October 1 to October 10, the Renovationists held their 2nd council in Moscow, which was attended by more than three hundred people. Among other things, the goal of the Renovation Council was to slander the Patriarchal Church and Metropolitan Peter. Speaking at the council, Vvedensky declared: “There will be no peace with the Tikhonovites, the top of the Tikhonovism is a counter-revolutionary tumor in the Church. To save the Church from politics, a surgical operation is needed. Only then can there be peace in the Church. Renovationism is not on the way with the top of the Tikhonovshchina!” The renovationists at the cathedral, characterizing Metropolitan Peter, said that he "relies on people who are organically connected with the old system, dissatisfied with the revolution: former homeowners and merchants who still think to reckon with the modern government."
During 1925, Metropolitan Peter made attempts to normalize relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state, trying to get a meeting with the head of the Soviet government, Rykov. At the same time, he began to draw up the text of the declaration, which was actively discussed with the bishops living in Moscow at that time.
The state has taken an irreconcilable position towards the Church, choosing only the forms and terms for its destruction. Even during the life of Patriarch Tikhon, when it became clear that the Renovationist movement had collapsed, the Anti-Religious Commission decided at a meeting on September 3, 1924: Tikhonov's hierarchy".
After the death of the Patriarch, the OGPU came to grips with organizing a new schism, which later received the name "Gregorian" after Archbishop Gregory (Yatskovsky), who headed the schismatic Provisional Supreme Church Council. After the negotiations between the OGPU and the leaders of the schism were completed, the Anti-Religious Commission decided at a meeting on November 11, 1925: in opposition to Peter ... to publish in Izvestia a number of articles compromising Peter, using for this the materials of the recently ended Renovationist Cathedral. View articles instruct vols. Steklov I.I., Krasikov P.A. and Tuchkov. They should also be instructed to review the prepared opposition group (Archbishop Gregory. - I.D.) declarations against Peter. Simultaneously with the publication of the articles, instruct the OGPU to start an investigation against Peter.
In November 1925, those bishops, priests and laity were arrested who, to one degree or another, assisted Metropolitan Peter in the management of the Church. Archbishops Procopius (Titov) and Pachomius (Kedrov), Bishops Guriy (Stepanov), Joasaph (Udalov), Parthenius (Bryansky), Ambrose (Polyansky), Damaskin (Tsedrik), Tikhon (Sharapov), German (Ryashentsev), Nikolai were arrested (Dobronravov). Among the laity, Alexander Samarin, former chief prosecutor of the Holy Synod before the revolution, and assistant chief prosecutor Pyotr Istomin were arrested.
On December 9, 1925, the Anti-Religious Commission, at a meeting that took place that day, decided to arrest Metropolitan Peter and support the group of Archbishop Gregory. In the evening of the same day, Metropolitan Peter was arrested.
On December 22, 1925, an organizational meeting of the hierarchs was held, which created the All-Russian All-Russian Central Church Council, headed by Archbishop Gregory (Yatskovsky). Having made an unsuccessful attempt to seize the highest church authority, this group of hierarchs took shape in an independent trend, and over time they “not only become even more isolated, but even dare to create their own pseudo-hierarchy, implanted by them following the example of the Renovationists, in parallel with the Orthodox episcopate, located on the territories entrusted to him. departments".
The authorities, however, in their efforts to destroy church administration were not satisfied with the Renovationist and Gregorian schisms and began to actively work to achieve a severance of relations between the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Nizhny Novgorod, and the candidate for the post of Locum Tenens according to the will of Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Agafangel of Yaroslavl ( Preobrazhensky). To achieve the goal, the OGPU detained Metropolitan Agafangel in Perm, where Tuchkov repeatedly met with him, who suggested that, in view of the arrest of Metropolitan Peter, take the post of Locum Tenens. On April 18, 1926, Metropolitan Agafangel issued a message in which he announced his accession to the post of Locum Tenens. On April 24, 1926, the Anti-Religious Commission decided: “The line pursued by the OGPU to decompose the Tikhonov part of the churchmen is recognized as correct and expedient.
Lead a line towards a split between Metropolitan Sergius (appointed by Peter as temporary Locum Tenens) and Metropolitan Agafangel, who claims to be the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, simultaneously strengthening the third Tikhonov hierarchy - the Provisional Supreme Church Council, headed by Archbishop Gregory, as an independent unit ... "
It was not possible to form a new church movement of the OGPU, already on June 12, 1926, Metropolitan Agafangel refused the post of Patriarchal Locum Tenens. But the authorities did not abandon their plan to create a new split. In 1927, their interference in church administration and in the appointment of bishops to sees, the arrests of undesirable bishops, and the declaration of loyalty published against this background by the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius on July 29, 1927, led to confusion among the Orthodox and created considerable disagreement among the hierarchs. However, in this case the authorities failed to form an unauthorized church group that would have decided to create a parallel hierarchy, and the discussion ended in the martyrdom of most of its participants.
In 1928, the authorities began to prepare for a large-scale expulsion of peasants, most of whom were Orthodox, who had preserved the old, religious way of life at the household level, that is, for whom faith was not only a way of thinking, but also a way of life corresponding to it.
In many villages, not excluding the most deaf ones, there were church elders, twenties were active, many monasteries had not yet been closed and dispersed, which in the twenties received from the authorities the legal status of cooperatives, partnerships and communes. At the end of 1928, the Politburo began preparations for the persecution, which was based on a document outlining its boundaries and scope. The document was instructed to be written by Kaganovich and Yaroslavsky; a preliminary draft version was agreed with Krupskaya and Smidovich. On January 24, 1929, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks approved the final text of the decree, which was sent to all the Central Committees of the National Communist Parties, regional committees, regional committees, provincial committees and district committees, that is, to all representatives of power in Soviet Russia. The document was called "On measures to strengthen anti-religious work."
This document marked the beginning of mass arrests of clergy, laity and the closure of churches, and it, in particular, wrote: “... the strengthening of socialist construction, the socialist offensive against the kulak-Nepman elements is causing resistance from the bourgeois-capitalist strata, which finds its vivid expression on the religious front , where there is a revival of various religious organizations, often blocking each other, using the legal status and traditional authority of the Church ...
People's Commissar Vnudel and the OGPU. Do not allow religious societies to violate Soviet law in any way, bearing in mind that religious organizations ... are the only legally operating counter-revolutionary organization that has influence on the masses. The NKVD should pay attention to the fact that until now residential commercial municipal premises are rented out as prayer houses, often in workers' districts. Schools, courts, civil registrations must be completely removed from the hands of the clergy. Party committees and executive committees need to raise questions about the use of registry offices in order to combat priesthood, church rituals and remnants of the old way of life. Cooperative organizations and collective farms should pay attention to the need to take over vegetarian canteens and other cooperative associations created by religious organizations ... Kuspromsoyuz to take care of creating new handicrafts in areas where religious objects, icon painting, etc. are made ...
The factions of the councils need to take the initiative to develop a number of measures, around which it would be possible to organize the broad masses to fight against religion, the correct use of the former monastic and church buildings and lands, the establishment of powerful agricultural communes in the former monasteries, agricultural stations, rental centers, industrial enterprises , hospitals, schools, school dormitories, etc., not allowing under any guise the existence of religious organizations in these monasteries ...
Secretary of the Central Committee L. Kaganovich
“To submit to the next Congress of Soviets of the RSFSR a proposal to amend paragraphs 4 and 12 of the Constitution of the RSFSR as follows: at the end of paragraph 4, the words “and the freedom of religious and anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens”, replace with the words “and the freedom of religious belief and anti-religious propaganda is recognized for all citizens."
On July 4, 1929, the chairman of the anti-religious commission, Yaroslavsky, submitted a memorandum to the Politburo on the activities of the anti-religious commission for 1928–29. In it, he wrote, in part:
“With regard to monasteries, the ARC instructed a special commission with the participation of the NKVD and the OGPU to find out the exact number of monasteries that have not yet been liquidated and prepare the question of turning them into Soviet institutions (for hostels, for juvenile colonies, for state farms, etc.), heading for something to dissolve the elements of monasticism concentrated in them, which still often cover up their reactionary activities with the signboard of labor communes ... "
Repressions increased, churches were closed, but from the point of view of Stalin and the Politburo, the actions of the clumsy anti-religious commission only interfered with the full-scale rollout of the persecution of the Orthodox Church, which would not only repeat the persecutions and executions of clergy in 1918 and 1922, but should have significantly exceeded them in scale, for in this case the bulk of the laity, the peasantry, was affected. On December 30, 1929, the Politburo of the Central Committee adopted a resolution on the liquidation of the anti-religious commission and the transfer of all its affairs to the secretariat of the Central Committee (subsequently, a commission on cults was created under the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee USSR). Thus, the management of persecution was going to a single center.
On February 11, 1930, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR approved the corresponding resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council People's Commissars USSR "On the fight against counter-revolutionary elements in the leading bodies of religious associations", which read:
“In order to combat attempts by elements hostile to Soviet power to use religious associations as strongholds for conducting counter-revolutionary work, the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR decide:
Propose to the governments of the Union republics to immediately instruct the bodies registering religious associations to review the composition of the governing bodies of these associations in order to exclude them from them (in accordance with Articles 7, 14 of the RSFSR Law on Religious Associations of April 8, 1929, similar articles of the laws of other republics ) - kulaks, disenfranchised people and other persons hostile to Soviet power.
Prevent further penetration into these bodies of these persons, systematically refusing to register their religious associations in the presence of the above-mentioned conditions…”
Communist newspapers began to publish materials about the closure of churches, and boasted of the breadth and scope of persecution, which, in this case, could lead to the opposite results. Unlike Trotsky, who was a supporter of agitation campaigns, both Lenin and Stalin acted with the help of secret resolutions adopted by a narrow circle of people, which were then brought to the appropriate institutions, and it was their job to carry out the campaign of closing and destroying churches resolutely and to the end. . And therefore, when the newspapers began to be overwhelmed by a wave of reports about the lawless closing of churches, on March 25, 1930, the Politburo of the Central Committee, on one of the cases of such reports, decided:
To the editors of Rabochaya Moskva. For the report published in Rabochaya Moskva on March 18 about the mass closing of churches (56 churches), reprimand the editor of the newspaper Rabochaya Moskva, comrade Lazyan, with a warning that if such reports are allowed in the future, the question of his expulsion from the party will be raised ... "
The persecution began in 1929 and continued until 1933. Many clergy during this time were arrested and exiled to camps, many were martyred there. During the period from 1929 to 1933, about forty thousand church clergy were arrested. In Moscow and the Moscow Region alone, four thousand people were arrested. Most of those arrested were sentenced to imprisonment in concentration camps, the rest were shot. Those who were sentenced to imprisonment and lived to see the persecution of 1937 suffered a martyr's death at that time.
Finally, in 1935, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks summed up the results of the anti-religious campaigns carried out over the past few years, and one of the final documents was drawn up before the start of new persecutions in 1937. In this document, the persecutors testified to the enormous spiritual strength of the Russian Orthodox Church, which allowed it, despite the constant oppression of the state, arrests, executions, the closure of churches and monasteries, collectivization, which destroyed a significant part of the active and independent laity, to keep half of all the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church. In this document, the persecutors wrote:
“Over the past period, all organizations conducting anti-religious work have sharply weakened their activities. The Union of Militant Atheists is in a state of almost complete collapse, the trade unions do not conduct anti-religious work. The Komsomol does not deal with it either. Narkompros completely abandoned this work.
Meanwhile, according to the available data, it is clear that priests and sectarians of various stripes have a dense network of strongholds for their work and not only enjoy influence among certain groups of the population, but are trying to strengthen their positions by increasing their activity.
In the Ivanovo region in 1935 there were up to 2000 prayer buildings and more than 2500 ministers of worship, in the Gorky region - up to 1500 prayer houses and more than 1500 ministers. In the Leningrad region in 1936, there were more than 1,000 churches and more than 2,000 clergy, and the church and sectarian activists in the officially registered 958 communities of the Leningrad region. there were more than 19,000 people.
Throughout the country there are at least 25,000 prayer houses of all kinds (in 1914 there were up to 50,000 churches). The following data testify to the still existing religious influences. In the city of Pskov, out of 642 people born during the 6 months of 1935, 54% were baptized in churches, and 40% of the dead were buried according to a religious rite. In the Amosovsky village council of the Pskov region, 75% of peasant children attend church. 50% of children go to confession and take communion…
An indicator of the strengthening of religious influences and the activity of believers is the growth of complaints and a sharp increase in the number of visitors to the commission on cult issues under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. The number of complaints reached 9221 in 1935 against 8229 in 1934. The number of walkers in 1935 reached 2090 people, which is twice as many as in 1934.
Until 1932, the union of atheists had 50,000 grassroots cells, about 5 million members, and about 2,000,000 members in groups of "young militant atheists" ... Out of 5 million members, barely 350 thousand remained.
... A significant influence on the weakening of anti-religious work and the collapse of the union of atheists was exerted by insufficient control and leadership on the part of local party organizations, as well as the presence of sentiments that the fight against religious influences is over and anti-religious work is already a past stage.
At the beginning of 1937, a census of the population of the USSR was carried out. For the first time, at Stalin's suggestion, the question of religion was included in this census. This question was answered by all citizens, starting from the age of sixteen. The government, and especially Stalin, wanted to know - what are their real successes in twenty years of struggle with faith and the Church, who do people call themselves, living in a state that professes militant atheism as a religious surrogate. The total population of sixteen years and older in Soviet Russia was 98.4 million people in 1937, of which 44.8 million were men and 53.6 million were women. 55.3 million identified themselves as believers, of which 19.8 million were men and 35.5 million were women. A smaller, but still quite significant part, 42.2 million, classified themselves as unbelievers, of which 24.5 are men and 17.7 are women. Only 0.9 million people did not wish to answer this question. But that was not all: 41.6 million, or 42.3% of the total adult population of the country, and 75.2% of all who called themselves believers called themselves Orthodox. 0.14 million, or 0.1% of the total adult population, identified themselves as Armenian Gregorians, 0.5 million as Catholics, 0.5 million as Protestants, 0.4 million as Christians of other confessions, 8.3 million as Mohammedans, and Jews. - 0.3 million, Buddhists and Lamaists - 0.1 million, others and inaccurately indicated religion - 3.5 million people.
From the census, it clearly followed that the population of the country remained Orthodox, retaining its national spiritual roots.
The efforts made since 1918 in the field of struggle against the Church and the people, carried out both with the help of the courts and with the help of extrajudicial administrative persecution, did not lead to the desired result, and based on the population census data, we can say that they failed.
From this census, the extent of the failure to build godless socialism in the country became obvious to Stalin, and it became clear how mercilessly and bloody a new persecution and an unprecedented war with the people must be, as a result of which - not a camp, not hard labor awaited the rebellious (and the recalcitrant not on deeds, but only ideologically, different in their faith), but sentences to death and death. Thus began a new, last such persecution, which was supposed to physically crush Orthodoxy.
At the beginning of 1937, the authorities raised the question of the existence of the Russian Orthodox Church as an All-Russian organization. As before, in cases of large-scale decisions being made, those that are called historical and national and lead to the death of millions of people (for the sake of maintaining power), Stalin entrusted the initiative to raise the issue to another, in this case Malenkov.
“It is known that the hostile activity of the clergy has seriously revived lately.
I want to draw your attention to the fact that the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 8, 1929 “On Religious Associations” contributes to the organization of churchmen. This decree creates an organizational basis for the registration of the most active part of the churchmen and sectarians.
Article 5 of this decree reads: “To register a religious society, its founders in the amount of at least 20 people submit to the bodies listed in the previous (4) article an application for registration in the form established by the NKVD of the RSFSR.”
As you can see, the very procedure for registration requires organizational formalization of the twenty most active churchmen. In the village, these people are widely known as "twenties". In Ukraine, to register a religious society requires not twenty, but fifty founders...
I consider it expedient to cancel this decree, which promotes the organization of churchmen. It seems to me that it is necessary to eliminate the "twenty" and establish a procedure for registering religious societies that would not register the most active churchmen. In the same way, it is necessary to put an end, in the form in which they have developed, with the governing bodies of the clergy.
By decree, we ourselves created a widely branched, legal organization hostile to the Soviet regime. In total, there are about six hundred thousand people in the USSR who are members of the "twenty".
Head Department of Leading Party Organs of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks Malenkov ". Stalin's resolution of May 26, 1937: "To members of the PB from comrade Malenkov." The members and candidates of the Politburo were acquainted with the note: Andreev, Voroshilov, Zhdanov, Kaganovich, Kalinin, Kosior S.T., Mikoyan, Molotov, Petrovsky, Postyshev, Stalin, Chubar, Eikhe.
N. Yezhov, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR, responded to this note by Malenkov. On June 2, 1937, he wrote to Stalin:
“Having read the letter from Comrade Malenkov regarding the need to cancel the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 8, 29, “On Religious Associations,” I think that this issue was raised quite correctly.
The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 8, 29, in Article 5 on the so-called "church twenty" strengthens the church by legitimizing the forms of organization of church activists.
From the practice of combating church counter-revolution in past years and at the present time, we know numerous facts when an anti-Soviet church activist uses the legally existing “church twenty” as ready-made organizational forms and as cover for the interests of the ongoing anti-Soviet work.
Together with the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of April 8, 29, I also find it necessary to cancel the instruction of the permanent commission under the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on cults - "On the procedure for implementing the legislation on cults."
A number of paragraphs of this instruction puts religious associations in a position almost equal to Soviet public organizations, in particular, I mean paragraphs 16 and 27 of the instruction, which allow religious street processions and ceremonies, and the convening of religious congresses ... "
According to the Government Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims political repression in 1937, 136,900 Orthodox clergymen were arrested, of which 85,300 were shot; in 1938, 28,300 were arrested, 21,500 were shot; in 1939, 1,500 were arrested, 900 were shot; in 1940, 5,100 were arrested, 1,100 were shot; in 1941, 4,000 were arrested, 1,900 were shot.
In the Tver region alone, more than two hundred priests were shot in 1937 alone. In the autumn and winter of 1937, the NKVD officers barely had time to put their signatures under the “investigative” papers, and in extracts from the acts on the execution of the death sentence, the secretary of the Troika always put 1 am, because writing this figure was spent the least time. And it turned out that all those sentenced in the Tver region were shot at the same time.
By the spring of 1938, the authorities considered that the Russian Orthodox Church had been physically destroyed and there was no need to maintain a special state apparatus to supervise the Church and enforce repressive orders. On April 16, 1938, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the SSR decided to liquidate the commission of the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the SSR on cult issues. Of the 25,000 churches in 1935, after two years of persecution in 1937 and 1938, only 1,277 churches remained in Soviet Russia, and 1,744 churches ended up on the territory of Soviet Union after the accession to it of the western regions of Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states.
Thus, in all of Russia in 1939 there were fewer churches than in Ivanovo Region alone in 1935. It can be said with certainty that the persecution that befell the Russian Orthodox Church at the end of the thirties was exceptional in its scope and cruelty, not only in the history of Russia, but also in the scale of world history.
In 1938, the Soviet government ended a twenty-year period of persecution, as a result of which the process of destruction was brought to a point of irreversibility. If the churches that were given over to warehouses or destroyed could be restored or rebuilt in the foreseeable future, then more than a hundred bishops, tens of thousands of clergy and hundreds of thousands of Orthodox laity were shot, and this loss was irreplaceable and irreplaceable. The consequences of these persecutions are felt to this day. The mass destruction of saints, enlightened and zealous pastors, many ascetics of piety lowered the moral level of society, salt was chosen from the people, which put them in a threatening position of decay. Moreover, the authorities were not going to stop the process of closing churches, it continued and it is not known what it would have come to if it had not been for the Great Patriotic War.
However, neither the beginning of the war, nor the defeat of the first months, nor the abandonment of vast territories to the enemy in the least influenced the hostile attitude of the government of the Soviet state towards the Russian Orthodox Church and did not prompt the authorities to stop the persecution. And only after it became known that the Germans condoned the opening of churches and 3,732 churches were opened in the occupied territories, that is, more than in all of Soviet Russia, and on the territory of Russia itself, without Ukraine and Belarus, the Germans contributed to the opening of 1,300 churches, - The authorities have revised their position.
On September 4, 1943, Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexy (Simansky) and Nikolai (Yarushevich) met with Stalin. On the morning of the next day, the NKGB of the USSR, on the orders of Stalin, provided a car with a driver and fuel at the disposal of Metropolitan Sergius. It took the NKGB one day to put the mansion given to the patriarchate in order, and on September 7, Metropolitan Sergius and his small staff moved to Chisty Lane. And already at eleven o'clock the next day, the opening of the Cathedral of Bishops and the elevation of Metropolitan Sergius to the rank of patriarch was scheduled.
Thus, the Soviet government demonstrated to the world a change in its attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church, that now it is loyal to it, however, having exhausted all its loyalty with an empty declaration. While churches continued to open and be restored on the territory occupied by the Germans, neither Stalin nor the Soviet government were going to open churches, limiting themselves to the benefits of representative activity of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad. Throughout the Great Patriotic War, the arrests of the clergy did not stop. In 1943, more than 1,000 Orthodox priests were arrested, 500 of them were shot. In 1944–1946, the number of executions per year was over 100.
In 1946, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church submitted to the Politburo a report on its work and on the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church and believers in Soviet Russia:
“... As you know, the Orthodox religion in our country is professed by a significant number of the population, and therefore the Russian Orthodox Church as a whole is the most powerful in comparison with other religious associations existing in the USSR.
Moreover, practice has shown that, although over 29 years undoubted and great success has been achieved in terms of a sharp decrease in religiosity in the country, religious prejudices and religion are still far from over, and the methods of rough administration, often used in a number of places, have not justified themselves ...
As of January 1, 1947, there were 13,813 Orthodox churches and prayer houses in the USSR, which is 28% compared to 1916 (excluding chapels). Of these: in the cities of the USSR there are 1352 churches and in workers' settlements, villages and villages - 12.461 churches ...
Discovered by the Germans in the occupied territory (mainly in the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian SSR) - 7,000; former Uniate parishes reunited with the Orthodox Church (western regions of the Ukrainian SSR) - 1,997.
Their distribution across the republics and regions is extremely uneven.
If on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR there are 8,815 churches, then on the territory of the RSFSR there are only 3,082, and of these, about 1,300 churches were opened during the period of occupation ... "
V explanatory note two years later, in 1948, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church gave the following data on the number of churches and prayer houses in Soviet Russia:
“... On January 1, 1948, there were 14,329 active churches and prayer houses in the USSR (11,897 churches and 2,432 prayer houses, which is 18.4% of the number of churches, prayer houses and chapels in 1914, when there were 77,767).
The number of churches in the Ukrainian SSR is 78.3% of their number in 1914, and in the RSFSR - 5.4% ...
The increase in the number of active churches and prayer houses occurred for the following reasons:
a) during the war in the territory subjected to German occupation, 7,547 churches were opened (in fact, even more, since a significant number of churches ceased to function after the war due to the departure of the clergy along with the Germans and as a result of the seizure by us of the religious communities of school, club, etc. buildings occupied by them during the occupation for prayer houses );
b) in 1946, 2,491 parishes of the Uniate (Greek Catholic) Church in the western regions of the Ukrainian SSR converted to Orthodoxy;
c) for 1944–1947 1,270 churches were reopened with the permission of the Council, mainly in the RSFSR, from where there were numerous and persistent requests from believers.
The territorial distribution of active churches is uneven. For instance. In the regions and republics that were occupied during the war, there are 12,577 active churches, or 87.7% of all churches, and 12.3% in the rest of the territory of the Union. 62.3% of all churches are in the Ukrainian SSR, with the largest number of churches in the Vinnitsa region - 814 ...
On January 1, 1948, there were 11,846 registered priests and 1,255 deacons, and a total of 13,101 people, or 19.8% of their number in 1914 ...
As of January 1, 1948, there were 85 monasteries in the USSR, which is 8.3% of the number of monasteries in 1914 (1,025 monasteries).
In 1938, there was not a single monastery in the USSR, in 1940, with the entry into the USSR of the Baltic republics, the Western regions of the Ukrainian SSR, the BSSR and Moldova, there were 64 of them.
During the occupation of the Ukrainian SSR and a number of regions of the RSFSR, up to 40 monasteries were opened.
In 1945 there were 101 monasteries, but in 1946-1947. 16 monasteries liquidated…”
From the middle of 1948 the state exerted increasing pressure on the Church. On August 25, 1948, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church forced the Holy Synod to make a decision to ban religious processions from village to village, spiritual concerts in churches during non-liturgical hours, trips of bishops to dioceses during rural work, and prayer services in the fields. Despite numerous requests from believers to open churches, from 1948 to 1953 not a single church was opened.
On November 24, 1949, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church submitted a report to Stalin stating:
“... The Council reports that in accordance with the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated December 1, 1944 No. 1643 - 48 / s, starting from 1945 (that is, the Great Patriotic War has not yet ended, and the Soviet government has already decided to close open without his permission of churches. - I. D.), and especially in the last two years, public buildings occupied by them during the occupation as prayer houses were confiscated from religious communities, based on the need to return these buildings to the Soviet authorities.
The German occupiers, widely encouraging the opening of churches (10,000 churches were opened during the war), provided religious communities for prayer purposes not only church buildings, but also premises of a purely civilian nature - clubs, schools, orphanages, as well as those converted before the war for cultural purposes. former church buildings.
In total, in the temporarily occupied territory, 1.701 such public building, of which at present, that is, by 1/X-1949, 1,150 buildings, or 67.6%, have already been withdrawn and returned to state and public organizations. Of these: in the Ukrainian SSR - 1025 out of 1445; in the BSSR - 39 out of 65, in the RSFSR and other republics - 86 out of 191.
In general, this seizure was organized and painless, however, in some cases, rudeness, haste and arbitrary actions took place, as a result of which groups of believers appealed and continue to appeal to the Council and central government bodies with complaints about the seizure of buildings and rude actions.
For example, in the Gomel region in 1948 and seven months of 1949, the Regional Executive Committee and the District Executive Committees decided to seize 39 buildings from church communities, which is 60% of all existing churches and prayer houses in the region. The Council agreed to the removal of buildings in 16 cases ... "
In turn, on July 25, 1948, Minister of the Ministry of State Security Abakumov submitted an extensive memorandum to Stalin, which outlined the essence of the relationship between the Church and the state:
“The Ministry of State Security of the USSR has materials that clergymen and sectarians have recently significantly stepped up work to cover the population with religious and hostile influence.
Under the guise of religious beliefs, church-sectarian elements are indoctrinating unstable individuals, especially young people, by drawing them into their groups and communities. Komsomol members, members and candidate members of the CPSU (b) also fall under the influence of churchmen.
A significant role in the dissemination of the doctrine and the organization of hostile work is played by persons from among the religious activists who were previously subjected to repression for anti-Soviet activities and returned to the region after serving their sentence.
Religious indoctrination of the population by churchmen and sectarians is carried out through broad religious propaganda carried out by clergy, preachers, monastic elements and fanatical believers in churches and mosques, in legally and illegally operating prayer houses.
In a number of cases they organize religious education for children and youth in illegal circles and schools.
At the same time, churchmen and sectarians, using the prejudices of believers, conduct religious indoctrination of the population by organizing religious processions, special prayers for sending down rain, "updating" icons, "prophecies", etc. with the participation of various "holy fools", hysterics, "ascetics "and" saints "...
Churchmen and sectarians, first of all, seek to use legal opportunities to expand religious activities, open new churches and prayer houses...
In a number of regions, the clergy, striving for the greatest coverage of the population with religious influence, arrange religious processions and prayers, which lead to mass absence from work of collective farmers and disruption of field work ...
It should be noted that in some cases, representatives of local authorities provide significant assistance to churchmen in opening churches, mosques and prayer houses, providing transport, building materials for the repair of church buildings, etc.
At the same time, some representatives of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for Religious Affairs under the regional executive committees do not properly perform the functions assigned to them ...
As a result of the work of the MGB bodies to identify and arrest the anti-Soviet element among churchmen and sectarians, during the period from January 1, 1947 to June 1, 1948, 1968 people were arrested in the Soviet Union for active subversive activities, of which: Orthodox churchmen - 679 people ... "
Throughout the post-war period there were arrests of Orthodox priests. According to the summary report of the GULAG on October 1, 1949, the number of priests in all camps was 3,523 people, of which 1,876 priests were in Unzhlag, 521 people were in the Temnikovsky camps (Special Camp No. 3), 266 people were in Intinlag (Special Camp No. 1) , the rest in Steplag (Special Camp No. 4) and Ozerlag (Special Camp No. 7). All of these camps belonged to the category of penal servitude camps.
In October 1948, the Chairman of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church began to urgently advise Patriarch Alexy "to think over the amount of measures that limit the activities of the Church to the church and the parish." Repeated attempts by the First Hierarch to meet with Stalin ended in failure. It also became forbidden that the Church could perform as part of its liturgical activities - processions of the cross, except for Easter, trips of the clergy to settlements for the spiritual guidance of believers, serving several churches by one priest, which in the absence of a priest could lead to their closure. The authorities endlessly diversified the forms of persecution of the Church. Thus, in 1951, the tax was increased, which began to be imposed on deductions parable in favor of the diocese, requiring the payment of this tax for the previous two years.
The process of closing temples continued. As of January 1, 1952, there were 13,786 churches in the country, of which 120 did not function, as they were used to store grain. Only in the Kursk region in 1951, during the harvest, about 40 functioning churches were covered with grain. The number of priests and deacons decreased to 12,254, leaving 62 monasteries, only in 1951 8 monasteries were closed.
On October 16, 1958, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted new resolutions directed against the Church: "On monasteries in the USSR" and "On taxation of income of enterprises of diocesan administrations, as well as income of monasteries." They provided for the reduction of land allotments and the number of monasteries. On November 28, the Central Committee of the CPSU adopted a resolution "On measures to stop the pilgrimage to the so-called" holy places ". To stop the pilgrimage of believers to the 700 holy places recorded by the authorities, they took a variety of measures - they filled up the springs and destroyed the chapels above them, they were fenced off with fences, near which police guards were placed to prevent believers. In those cases when the pilgrimage could not be stopped, its organizers were arrested.
By November 1959, 13 monasteries had been closed. Some cloisters were closed during the day. When the Rechulsky monastery was closed, about 200 nuns and a large number of believers tried to prevent this and gathered in the church. The police opened fire and killed one of the pilgrims.
Seeing the turn the new wave of persecution was taking, Patriarch Alexy made an attempt to meet with the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, to discuss the problems that had arisen in the relationship between the Church and the state, but this attempt ended in failure.
In 1959, the authorities deregistered 364 Orthodox communities, in 1960 - 1398. A blow was dealt to theological educational institutions. In 1958, in 8 seminaries and 2 academies, a little more than 1,200 people were studying in the full-time department and more than 500 in the correspondence department. The authorities took tough measures to prevent young people from entering religious educational institutions. In October 1962, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church informed the Central Committee of the CPSU that out of 560 young men who applied in 1961-1962. applications for admission to the seminary, 490 were taken away as a result of "individual work" with them. Kiev, Saratov, Stavropol, Minsk, Volyn seminaries were closed. By the autumn of 1964, the number of students compared with 1958 had more than halved. In 3 seminaries and 2 academies there were 411 full-time students and 334 part-time students.
16.03. In 1961, the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a resolution "On strengthening control over the implementation of legislation on cults", which provided for the possibility of closing churches without the consent of the Council of Ministers of the Union republics on the basis of only resolutions of the regional (territorial) executive committees, subject to the coordination of their decisions with the Council for Russian Orthodox Affairs Churches. As a result, 1,390 Orthodox parishes were deregistered in 1961, and 1,585 in 1962.
In 1961, under pressure from the authorities, the Holy Synod adopted a resolution "On measures to improve the existing system of parish life", which was then adopted by the Council of Bishops. The practical implementation of this reform led to the removal of the rector from the management of parish activities. The leaders of the entire economic life of the parish were the elders, whose candidatures were necessarily agreed with the executive committees. In 1962, strict control was introduced over the performance of trebs - baptisms, weddings and funerals. They were recorded in books with the names, passport details and addresses of the participants, which in other cases led to their persecution.
On 10/13/1962, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church informed the Central Committee of the CPSU that since January 1960 the number of churches had decreased by more than 30%, and monasteries by almost 2.5 times, while the number of complaints against the actions of local authorities had increased. In many cases, believers resisted. In the city of Klintsy, Bryansk region, a crowd of thousands of believers prevented the removal of crosses from a recently closed church. To subdue her, combatants and units of the military unit, armed with machine guns, were called. In other cases, such as, for example, when trying to close the Pochaev Lavra, thanks to the stubborn resistance of the monks and believers, it was possible to defend the monastery from closing.
On July 6, 1962, two resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU appeared, calling for the introduction of strict measures to curb the spread of religious ideas among children and youth. A proposal was put forward to deprive the parental rights of those parents who raised their children in a religious spirit. Parents were called to school and to the police, demanding that they not take their children to the temple, otherwise threatening to forcibly place the children in boarding schools.
During the first 8.5 months of 1963, 310 Orthodox communities were deregistered. In the same year, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra was closed. In 1961-1964, 1,234 people were convicted on religious grounds and sentenced to various terms of imprisonment and exile.
By January 1, 1966, the Russian Orthodox Church had 7,523 churches and 16 monasteries left. By 1971 the number of parishes was reduced to 7274. In 1967 the Russian Orthodox Church had 6694 priests and 653 deacons. In 1971 there were 6,234 priests and 618 deacons registered.
Such was the true attitude of the godless state towards the Church, far from liberalism and tolerance. Of these decades, the persecution of the first twenty years was especially cruel, but of these the most merciless and bloody were the persecutions of 1937 and 1938. These twenty years of unceasing persecution gave the Russian Orthodox Church almost the entire host of martyrs, placing it on a par with the ancient churches in the greatness of martyrdom.
Notes:
Investigation case of Patriarch Tikhon. Sat. doc. M.-Yekaterinburg. 1997, p. 15.
TsGIA. F. 833, op. 1, unit ridge 26, l. 167–168.
Samara Diocesan Gazette. 1924. No. 2.
News of the Yekaterinburg Church. 1918. No. 7.
Petrograd Church Bulletin. 1918. No. 18.
Religion and school. Petrograd. 1918. No. 5–6. S. 336.
Kremlin archives. In 2 books. / Book. 1. The Politburo and the Church. 1922–1925 M.–Novosibirsk. 1997, p. 21.
Shkarovsky M.V. Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin and Khrushchev. M. 1999. S. 77.
Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin. History of the Russian Church 1917–1997. M. 1997. S. 71–72.
Kremlin archives. In 2 books. / Book. 1. The Politburo and the Church. 1922–1925 M.–Novosibirsk. 1997, p. 9.
There. Book. 2. P. 11.
There. Book. 1. S. 133–134.
There. Book. 2. 1997. S. 51.
There. Book. 1. S. 141–142.
There. Book. 1. S. 78.
There. Book. 1. S. 81–82.
There. Book. 1. S. 162–163.
There. Book. 1. P. 44–45.
There. Book. 2. S. 185–186.
There. Book. 2. S. 395–400.
There. Book. 1. S. 99–100.
Acts of His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, later documents and correspondence on the canonical succession of the Supreme Church Authority 1917–1943. Collection. Ch. 1, 2. M.: St. Tikhonovsky Theological Institute, 1994. S. 291.
There. S. 420.
Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin. History of the Russian Church 1917–1997. M. 1997. S. 133.
Hieromonk Damaskin (Orlovsky). Martyrs, confessors and ascetics of piety of the Russian Orthodox Church of the XX century. Book. 2. Tver. 1996. S. 13.
There. S. 350.
Acts of His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, later documents and correspondence on the canonical succession of the Supreme Church Authority 1917–1943. Collection. Ch. 1, 2. M .: St. Tikhonovsky Theological Institute, 1994. S. 817.
Hieromonk Damaskin (Orlovsky). Martyrs, confessors and ascetics of piety of the Russian Orthodox Church of the XX century. Book. 2. Tver. 1996, p. 15.
APRF. F. 3, op. 60 units ridge 13, l. 56–57.
There. L. 58.
There. L. 78–79.
There. Unit ridge 14, l. 15.
There. L. 12.
I. Osipova. “Through the fire of torment and the water of tears…”. M. 1998. S. 26–27.
APRF, F. 3, op. 60 units ridge 14, l. 34–37.
There. Op. 56, unit ridge 17, l. 211–214.
There. Op. 60 units ridge 5, l. 34–35.
There. L. 36–37
Alexander N. Yakovlev. "According to the relics and oil." M. 1995. S. 94–95.
There. pp. 95–96.
APRF. F. 3, op. 60 units ridge 1, l. 27–31.
There. Unit ridge 6, l. 2–6
There. Unit ridge 11, l. 80–82.
There. Unit ridge 14, l. 62-66, 68-69, 71-76, 81-84, 89.
“I would like to name everyone by name…” According to the materials of investigation cases and camp reports of the GULAG. M. 1993. S. 193.
Shkarovsky M.V. Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin and Khrushchev. M. 1999. S. 342–346, 363, 365, 368–369, 371, 375–379, 382, 384–385, 387, 391.
Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin. History of the Russian Church 1917–1997. M. 1997. S. 417.
In the first years after the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, their religious policy changed direction several times. The desire to put an end, first of all, to the Russian Orthodox Church, as the dominant religious organization in the country at the time of the revolution, remained stable. To achieve this goal, the Bolsheviks tried, among other things, to use other religious denominations.
However, in general, religious policy was consistently aimed at eradicating religion as incompatible with Marxist ideology. As historian Tatyana Nikolskaya noted, “in the USSR, there was virtually no equality of religions, since atheism became like a state religion, endowed with many privileges, while other religions were subjected to persecution and discrimination. In fact, the Soviet Union was never a secular state, although it declared this in its legal documents.”
Legislative acts adopted immediately after the revolution had a dual character. On the one hand, a number of legislative acts corresponded to the model of a secular European state. Thus, the "Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia" provided for the abolition of "all and any national and national-religious privileges and restrictions." Later, this norm was enshrined in the first Soviet Constitution of 1918. The institution of civil (non-church) marriage was also legalized, the ROC was separated from the school.
On the other hand, from the very beginning the Bolsheviks made no secret of their hostile attitude towards religion in general and towards the Russian Orthodox Church in particular. So, in Art. 65 of the same Constitution of 1918, based on the principle of dividing society into "close" and "alien" classes, "monks and spiritual ministers of churches and cults" were deprived of voting rights.
According to the historian Dmitry Pospelovsky, initially Lenin, “being captive to Marxist ideas, according to which religion is nothing more than a superstructure on a certain material basis,” hoped to do away with the ROC by simply taking away its property. Thus, the Decree “On Land” of 1917 nationalized monastic and church lands.
The Bolsheviks did not accept the definition of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of December 2, 1917, which establishes the privileges of the Russian Orthodox Church over other confessions (primary public law position, the preservation of a number of government posts only for the Orthodox, exemption from duties of priests and monks, etc.), which is even more increased mutual antagonism. However, not all Orthodox supported the idea of continuing the privileged position of the ROC in the new state - there were those who hoped for a spiritual renewal of the church in conditions of equality.
Soon after the decision of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (dated December 2, 1917) was issued, the Bolsheviks adopted the Decree on the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church (January 23 (February 5), 1918), which consolidated the secular nature of the state. At the same time, this Decree deprived religious organizations of the right of legal personality and property rights. All buildings that previously belonged to religious organizations became the property of the state, and the organizations themselves from that time began to use them on the basis of free rent. Thus, religious organizations lost their legal and economic independence, and the state received a powerful lever to put pressure on them. This model of economic relations between church and state existed until the very fall of the Soviet system.
However, in the very first years of their power, taking into account the Civil War and the religiosity of the population, the Bolsheviks did not actively campaign to take away buildings from religious organizations.
The campaign for the opening of the relics had a propaganda character and began in the autumn of 1918 with the opening of the relics of St. Alexander Svirsky. The peak of the campaign came in 1919-1920, although some episodes took place in the 1930s.
On February 16, 1919, the collegium of the People's Commissariat of Justice adopted a resolution on organizing the opening of the relics of saints in Russia, and determined "the procedure for their inspection and confiscation by state bodies." The opening of the relics (removal of covers and vestments from them) was to be carried out by the clergy in the presence of representatives of local Soviet authorities, the Cheka and medical experts. Based on the results of the autopsy, it was prescribed to draw up an act.
The opening of the relics was accompanied by photography and filming, in some cases there was gross blasphemy on the part of the members of the commissions (during the opening of the relics of St. Savva of Zvenigorod, one of the members of the commission spat several times on the skull of the saint). Some shrines and shrines, after being examined with the participation of church representatives, ended up in state museums, nothing more was known about the fate of many made of precious metals (for example, on March 29, 1922, a many-pood silver shrine of St. Alexis of Moscow was dismantled and seized from the Donskoy Monastery) . The relics, like artefacts, were then placed under the glass showcases of various museums, as a rule, museums of atheism or local history museums.
As for Russian Protestants, they were completely satisfied with their equal rights with the Russian Orthodox Church, especially since the principle of separation of church and state is one of the key principles for Baptists and their kindred Evangelical Christians. They had little property suitable for Bolshevik expropriations. And the experience of survival and development in an atmosphere of persecution and discrimination, acquired before the overthrow of the monarchy, in the new conditions gave them certain advantages over the Russian Orthodox Church.
In addition, part of the Bolshevik leaders, headed by V. I. Lenin and the main Bolshevik "expert on sectarians" V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, according to the Soviet-Russian religious scholar L. N. Mitrokhin, "flirted" with the Protestants, trying to use them in their purposes.
“In the early years, the main task was to retain power, to achieve victory in the outbreak of civil war. Mitrokhin noted. - Therefore, the number one target remained the Russian Orthodox Church, which openly condemned the October Revolution and the cruelty of the Soviet regime.<…>Accordingly, official publications about Orthodoxy were riddled with irreconcilable enmity and class hatred. They placed special emphasis on the "counter-revolutionary" activities of the church - often very tendentiously. This tone continued after the church declared its allegiance. Articles about sectarians looked different. Although attempts to attract "indignant sectarians" to the side of the Social Democracy did not give serious results, in an atmosphere of the most severe struggle for survival, the Bolshevik leadership could not neglect the "elements of democratic protest" and tried to use them, especially in cooperative building.
On this wave, even the Decree “On exemption from military service on religious grounds” of January 4, 1919 was adopted, according to which a pacifist believer, by a court decision, had the right to replace military service with an alternative “sanitary service, mainly in infectious hospitals, or other generally useful work at the choice of the conscripted person” (p. 1) True, in practice, far from everyone was able to realize this opportunity - local authorities often did not know about this Decree or did not recognize it, punishing “deserters” up to execution.
At the same time, as noted by the historian Andrei Savin, “a loyal attitude towards the evangelical churches was never the only dominant line in Bolshevik politics. "an attempt to adapt religion to new conditions", "another form of anti-Soviet movement of kulak elements in the countryside"".
According to Dmitry Pospelovsky, in their fight against the Russian Orthodox Church, the Bolsheviks also sought support (or at least neutrality) from Muslims and Jews. For this purpose, in 1918, the Commissariat for the Affairs of Muslim Nationalities was created, headed by Mullah Hyp Vakhitov.
For the Jews, a "Jewish section" was created in the CPSU (b). True, this section did not represent Judaism as a religion, but Jews as a nationality. Moreover, this section was supposed to fight against Judaism and promote the secularization of the Jews. However, if the authorities could solve the issues of closing churches, mosques and prayer houses on the ground on their own, then it was possible to close the synagogue only with the approval of the Jewish section of the CPSU (b).
In October 1922, the first meeting of the Commission for the Separation of Church and State under the Central Committee of the RCP(b), better known as the Anti-Religious Commission under the Central Committee of the RCP(b), took place. Chekist Yevgeny Tuchkov headed the commission. Throughout the 1920s, this commission was actually solely responsible to the Politburo of the Central Committee for the development and implementation of "church" policy, for the effective struggle against religious organizations and their "harmful" ideology, for coordinating the activities of various party and Soviet bodies in this area.
In 1921-1922, due to crop failure, the damage suffered as a result of the Civil War, as well as the food policy of the Bolsheviks during the years of war communism, famine broke out in the country. The Russian Orthodox Church from the very beginning tried to organize charitable assistance to the starving. In July 1921, Patriarch Tikhon, together with the writer Maxim Gorky, appealed to the American people with a request to help those in need. The appeal was published in The New York Times and other foreign newspapers, and was also distributed by Soviet diplomats through diplomatic channels. A number of steps were taken by the Church to mitigate the effects of the famine.
Despite the position of the Church, under the pretext of fighting hunger, the Bolsheviks launched a large-scale campaign to confiscate church valuables. Later, Joseph Stalin frankly admired the skillful pushing of the Church and the starving:
“We succeeded in countering the religious aspirations of the priests with the needs of the working population. Here are the jewels in the church, you need to withdraw them, sell them and buy bread. Feelings of hunger, the interests of hunger were opposed to the religious aspirations of the priests. It was a clever question. This is not against theoretical considerations, they went to the priests, but on the basis of hunger, crop failure, crop failure in the country. Jewels in the church, give them, we will feed the people, and there is nothing to cover against this, there is nothing to object to, even the most believing person - hunger.
We talked about how relations with church organizations and clergy developed in the young Soviet Republic.
Question : Has the attitude of the Soviet state towards religion and the church changed in comparison with the first years after the October Revolution?
Answer : The anti-Soviet position of religious organizations during the period of the Great October Socialist Revolution, the civil war and intervention, as well as during the period of socialist construction in our country, showed the masses of the people the fundamental contrast between their interests and the interests of the church.
The political struggle of religious organizations against the interests of the people, against the Soviet regime led to the fact that the people began to look at church leaders as their political enemies. First, the lessons of the class struggle, and then the elimination of the class roots of religion, the cultural revolution and the building of socialism led to a mass departure of believers from the church.
Religious organizations were forced to drastically change their tactics: to embark on the path of a loyal attitude towards Soviet power. In time, this change in the policy of the church coincided with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, when the leadership of a number of religious organizations, taking into account the unprecedented patriotic upsurge of the masses, took a patriotic position. This is precisely what main reason the fact that the communist party in the USSR began to treat the church less hostile than before. Some liberal ideologists in Russia are now passing off the latter as allegedly Stalin’s surrender to the Russian Orthodox Church because, they say, the Soviet leader was afraid of the outbreak of war and could not call on the people to defend the Fatherland in any other way than through the church. In general, there are a lot of speculations and similar lies on this topic in the Russian media. But the goal of all of them is to raise the authority of the church, to convince the working people of modern Russia that then, during the war, the church helped the victory a lot. Soviet people over fascist Germany, that without it this victory would not have been possible, and at the same time belittle or even completely level the role of the communist party in organizing the resistance of the Soviet people to the mortal enemy, which was German fascism.
In fact, it was not at all like that. The role of the church during the Great Patriotic War was more than modest. In addition, not all church leaders acted like patriots. In the territory occupied by the Nazis, many churchmen took the path of betrayal of their homeland and cooperation with the enemy.
Thus, a group of church dignitaries organized a “council” in Minsk in 1942, at which a decision was made to form an autocephalous (that is, independent) Belarusian Orthodox Church, independent of the Moscow Patriarchate, and sent the following telegram to Hitler:
"Fuhrer Adolf Hitler. The first ever All-Belarusian Orthodox Church Council in Minsk, on behalf of the Orthodox Belarusians, sends you, Mr. Reich Chancellor, heartfelt gratitude for the liberation of Belarus from the Moscow-Bolshevik godless yoke ... ".
The telegram ended with a wish for "the quickest complete victory" to the Fuhrer's "invincible weapon". The telegram was signed by Archbishop Philotheus, Bishops Athanasius and Stefan.
This gang of traitors actively cooperated with the Nazis, blessed the invaders who committed wild atrocities, urged young people to voluntarily go to Nazi Germany as free slaves, etc. Filofey's "sermons", in which he praised "the great Fuhrer - Chancellor Adolf Hitler", - were broadcast by the invaders on the radio.
The facts of betrayal of the interests of the Motherland by the ministers of the church during the Great Patriotic War are not isolated.
Later, after the victory of the USSR in the war, the leadership of many religious organizations argued that communist construction was fully compatible with the principles of religious dogma. Moreover, many religious organizations (the Orthodox Church, the Church of Evangelical Christian Baptists) declared that they helped build communism, strengthening morality, etc. And today we hear the same speeches from "Orthodox Communists" like Zyuganov, who thought of to statements that Christ, it turns out, was the first communist on earth(!).
But the religious figures themselves today do not bow before communism, as before in the USSR. Now they don't need it. Today political power does not belong to the working people, but to the bourgeois class. And the priests live quite satisfyingly under the new bourgeois government, pleasing it and satisfying its needs. Moreover, it is class-native to them. Now they do not have to play up and be hypocritical in front of the ruling class - they can be themselves with it.
But in the days of the USSR, hypocrisy and servility to the church was necessary. By changing tactics, religious organizations are unable to change the very essence of their worldview, which was hostile to the scientific, Marxist worldview and norms of communist morality that prevailed in Soviet society.
Religion teaches that the world was created and controlled by God according to the laws established by him, which man is powerless to know, for "the ways of the Lord are inscrutable." The communists, on the other hand, argue that the world was not created by any of the gods, exists on its own and develops according to its own laws, which a person learns and uses to transform the world. The correctness of the Marxist worldview, the worldview of the working class and its Communist Party, has been confirmed by the entire course of history.
Religion claims that everything is in the hands of God, that God established a certain order on earth, created the rich and the poor, the oppressors and the oppressed, and it is not for a man to change this once and for all given order, he must meekly bear his cross, and the bitterer his life on earth is, the better it will be for him in the "other world." And the working people of the USSR, armed with a dialectical-materialist worldview, rose up to storm the old, exploitative society, destroyed it, and on these ruins created a new social system that gave working people happiness on earth, and not in the "other world."
Isn't this a rebuttal? religious outlook?
“The wisdom of this world is foolishness before God,” said the ministers of the church, destroying outstanding creations human mind, and in many cases their ingenious creators. A soviet man, armed with the latest achievements of science and technology, created artificial satellites of the Earth, space rockets, satellite ships, interplanetary stations, and finally, he himself rose into space.
And no matter how much theologians strive, retreating under the blows of science, to prove that religious dogmas do not contradict it, science refutes the very essence of the religious worldview. Religion, which has as its content fantastic fictions and ignorant ideas, rooted in the distant past of mankind, is incompatible with science. Spreading ignorance and superstition, it has been and remains a brake on the development of society.
The reactionary role of religion is manifested not only in its relation to the progress of science and technology. Religion, which has always sanctified the morality of the exploiters, propagates moral norms that are incompatible with the very spirit of the socialist social system, with its real humanism and communist morality.
The attitude towards the motherland, one's people, towards its enemies, the attitude towards labor, towards women, etc. - on all these issues, religious morality and communist morality occupy directly opposite positions.
Religion educates people in the spirit of obedience to fate, passivity, lack of initiative, teaches them to rely on the Lord God in everything, while the creation of communism requires active builders who transform the world with their own labor.
Therefore, the Communist Party - the ideological vanguard of Soviet society, leading the masses along the path to communism - has always opposed religion, regardless of what political position it occupied in this moment church.
But if the leaders of the church were not engaged in openly counter-revolutionary activities aimed at overthrowing political power working people, they were not considered political enemies in the Soviet Union. Ideological - yes, but not political. The ministers of the church were also Soviet people, and therefore Soviet state treated them as their full citizens. The struggle against religion in the USSR had only an ideological character. It was carried out in the form of cultural and educational work and scientific and atheistic propaganda by public organizations under the leadership of the Communist Party.
The attitude of the Soviet state to religion and the church has always been determined by Lenin's decree "On the separation of church from state and school from church." The Soviet state has always ensured freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda, taking administrative measures only against those ministers of the church who violated Soviet laws or took the path of anti-Soviet struggle. Overcoming religious prejudices in the minds of people was carried out not by administrative, prohibitive measures, but by painstaking explanatory and educational work with believers, during which the Communist Party and the Soviet state prohibited insulting the religious feelings of believers.
But what did freedom of worship look like in practice? After all, for this it was necessary to create special conditions for believers.
For example, who in the USSR owned churches, prayer houses and all religious property?
All churches, houses of worship and religious property in the USSR were state, national property. Through their local authorities The Soviet state transferred prayer buildings and religious property for free use by believers. This transfer was carried out under an agreement concluded by the local Soviet of Working People's Deputies with a group of believers, who were supposed to be at least 20 people. Representatives of the believers, who put their signatures under the contract and accepted from the local Council of Workers' Deputies a prayer building and religious property, undertook to fulfill all the conditions of the contract: to store and protect property, bear the costs associated with the possession and use of this property, repair buildings of worship, compensate for damage caused by damage to property, use it only to meet religious needs, etc.
In those cases when prayer buildings were of artistic or historical value, the Soviet state obliged the persons who accepted these buildings for use to comply with the established rules on the registration and protection of monuments of art and antiquity.
All believers who signed an agreement with the local Council had the right to participate in the management of prayer buildings and religious property. All local residents of the corresponding religion had the right to additionally sign an agreement with the local Council and then enjoy the right to manage prayer buildings and religious property on an equal basis with the persons who originally signed the agreement.
On the other hand, each believer who signed the agreement could remove his signature under it by submitting an application to the local Council with which the agreement was concluded. Prior to the submission of the application, this person was responsible for the integrity and safety of the cult property.
In the event that there were no people willing to take the prayer buildings and religious property for use, the local authorities, after the expiration of the period established by law, informed the higher organizations about this, which then decided on the further use of the buildings and religious property.
closure prayer house it was possible only in cases stipulated by law: when the prayer building was used for non-religious purposes, in case of dilapidation of the building (threat of destruction), if the religious society did not comply with the terms of the contract, if the orders of local authorities to repair the building were not followed, etc.
Local authorities could not resolve the issue of closing the prayer house. They could only initiate a petition about this before the higher authorities. Only the central authorities had the right to make a final decision on this issue. So there was no self-activity in this matter. And the proper observance of the law was monitored by local residents - the working people, whose representatives constituted the local authorities.
Another interesting point, so to speak, of a cultural and educational nature. How did the Soviet state, having separated the school from the church, ensured that the false idealistic consciousness was not spread by the clergy? For example, could religious societies create amateur art circles, organize libraries, playgrounds, provide medical care, etc. - that is, do something to attract Soviet workers into the ranks of believers?
All religious organizations in the USSR had all the necessary conditions for carrying out religious activities, for performing religious cults, but they could not do anything else.
Soviet laws forbade religious organizations to carry out any public activity, except for purely religious ones: they did not have the right to organize amateur art activities, create libraries, reading rooms, provide medical care, organize special women's, children's, and youth groups. All this was done in the USSR by other, non-religious organizations that did not allow any division of citizens on religious grounds in their activities.
This prohibition could in no way restrict or infringe on religious activity, since all of the activities listed below have nothing to do with religion. In class societies, they are used by the church only as a way to lure the oppressed and destitute masses into the ranks of believers.
Despite the prohibition, religious societies in the USSR sometimes went beyond the scope of directly religious activities, thus violating the laws of the Soviet state.
Thus, in order to attract new believers, primarily young people, Baptists often organized amateur performances with a religious repertoire, etc. This kind of activity was a gross violation of Soviet laws and was suppressed either by Soviet authorities or by the Soviet public - by the Soviet workers themselves, who religious consciousness - all these fictions and myths - were no longer required, because now they themselves could determine their own fate, without relying on the will of some higher power.
The history of the Church in the Soviet period is full of dramatic and tragic moments, it is a history of struggle and coexistence.
From the first days of the victory of the Bolshevik revolution, the Orthodox hierarchs faced a difficult choice: to start open spiritual resistance to the atheistic state, or to try to get along with the new government, despite all its hostility. The choice was made in favor of the second, but this did not mean complete submission. During the years of the Civil War, the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church more than once made angry protests against certain actions of the Soviet government. For example, the shameful Treaty of Brest-Litovsk and the execution of the Royal Family were publicly condemned.
On January 19, 1918, with the approval of the Local Council, Patriarch Tikhon issued his famous Epistle with an anathema to "madmen" who commit "massacres", although the perpetrators were not named directly.
However, the same Tikhon said "The Church recognizes and supports Soviet power, for there is no power except from God" ("Acts of Patriarch Tikhon", M. 1994, p. 296).
During the Civil War, thousands of clergy fell victim to the Red Terror.
In 1921, a campaign began to seize the property of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Seizure of church valuables, 1921: 
Mitras confiscated, 1921: 
On January 2, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution "On the liquidation of church property." On February 23, 1922, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee published a decree in which it ordered the local Soviets “... to withdraw from church property transferred to the use of groups of believers of all religions, according to inventories and contracts, all precious items made of gold, silver and stones, the seizure of which cannot significantly affect the interests the cult itself, and transfer it to the bodies of the People's Commissariat of Finance to help the starving."
In June 1922, a public trial on the case of the resistance of the clergy to the seizure of church valuables: 
The Tribunal sentenced 10 people to death, including Metropolitan Veniamin of Petrograd and Gdov, Archimandrite Sergius (Shein), lawyer I. M. Kovsharov, and Professor Yu. P. Novitsky. They were charged with "spreading ideas directed against the implementation by the Soviet government of a decree on the seizure of church property, in order to cause popular unrest in order to carry out a united front with the international bourgeoisie against the Soviet regime." The All-Russian Central Executive Committee upheld the death sentence against them, replacing six by execution with imprisonment. Other convicts received various terms of imprisonment (from one month to 5 years), 26 people were acquitted. On the night of August 12-13, 1922, the sentence against four convicts was carried out (see "Petrograd trial of 1922" in Wiki).
Closing of the Simonov Monastery. Red Army soldiers take out church valuables from the devastated monastery. 1923: 
Parsing of stolen church valuables in Gokhran. Photo from 1921 or 1922
:
Sorting of seized valuable items, 1926: 
Although the mass closure of churches began only in the late 1920s, by the middle of this decade, many of them had been "repurposed" for Soviet needs.
Working Club, 1924: 
Of particular note is the anti-bell campaign. Since 1930, bell ringing has been officially banned. Throughout the USSR, bells were dropped from belfries and sent for remelting "for the needs of industrialization": 
Around 1929, the most tragic period of the anti-church campaign began - the mass closing of churches, and then their mass destruction.
Demolition of the Cathedral of St. Nicholas in Kharkov: 
The symbolic frontier was the destruction of the memorial Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow in December 1931: 
Cathedral of Irkutsk during demolition, 1932: 
Demolition of the Church of the Vladimir Mother of God at the Vladimir Gates in Moscow, 1934: 
Demolition of the Church of Dmitry Thessalonica in Moscow, 1934: 
According to an unspoken order, at least half of the churches in each city were subject to complete demolition, most of the rest were decapitated and rebuilt for secular needs.
The peak of the orgy of demolitions fell on 1935-1938, i.e. almost coincided with the Great Terror, during which tens of thousands of clergy were exterminated and sent to camps.
Catherine's Cathedral in Tsarskoye Selo, 1938: 
On the eve of the war, the Church in the USSR was on the verge of complete annihilation. In many major cities There was only one active church left.
The heavy defeats in the first months of the Great Patriotic War forced the Soviet leadership to drastically change its policy towards the Church, since this was necessary to maintain morale population and soldiers. In a short time, thousands of churches reopened, the clergy began to participate in public life, collected funds for the construction military equipment. And some of the priests defended their homeland with weapons in their hands.
The commander of the 5th Leningrad partisan brigade, Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel Konstantin Dionisevich Karitsky presents the medal to Fyodor Puzanov: 
Father Fyodor Puzanov in combat formation: 
Archpriest Alexander Romanushko with fellow partisans: 
September 8, 1943 for the first time in Soviet time was elected Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church.
Procession on May 9, 1945 in Stavropol: 
At the Victory Parade, 1945: 
V post-war years During Stalin's lifetime, these strengthened positions of the Church were preserved. The latter, in turn, responded with complete loyalty to the Soviet government and actively participated in all its propaganda activities, incl. foreign policy.
Conference of religious associations of the USSR for the protection of peace in Zagorsk, May 1952: 
Believers were urged to tirelessly pray for the health of the leader, especially during his illness.
At the coffin of Stalin, March 1953: 
The last wave of church persecution began under Khrushchev, a fanatical atheist who declared that "we will not take the church with us into communism." In the early 1960s, thousands of churches were again closed and many hundreds were destroyed, including outstanding architectural monuments.
Horses in an abandoned temple, 1960s: 
Under Brezhnev, the situation in the USSR finally stabilized. It was an existence within a kind of social reservation under the tight control of the KGB.
At a banquet in honor of the 60th anniversary of October, 1977: 
Very interesting article. We know so little about non-Orthodox Christian witnesses. They are, after all, Christians.
Evangelical Christian Baptists create their own electronic Encyclopedia on the Internet
The Encyclopedia is a joint project of the Russian Union of ECB and the Moscow Theological Seminary of the ECB, aimed at creating a complete information base about the life and ministry of Evangelical Christian Baptists in Russia and the countries of the former Russian Empire/USSR from the moment the Evangelical movement was born to the present day. The encyclopedia is installed on the MediaWiki engine and is close in its principles of operation and technical parameters to the usual Wikipedia. Experience has shown that when writing a sufficiently large number of articles, their author later begins to spend more effort on preserving them from vandalism, incompetent or non-neutral amendments than on creating new publications. For example, the article "Khrushchev's anti-religious campaign" was twice proposed for deletion within a month, as it tells about an insignificant or non-existent phenomenon. And the author of the article had to devote more time to saving it from deletion than was spent writing it.Khrushchev's anti-religious campaign is a period of intensification of the struggle against religion in the USSR, which peaked in 1958-1964. Named after the head of the country at that time - the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU Nikita Khrushchev.Causes
The American historian Walter Zawatsky suggested two main reasons for the start of the campaign. One of them was Khrushchev's struggle for power. Against the backdrop of the exposure of Stalin's personality cult and the collective leadership of the country proclaimed after Stalin's death, Khrushchev gradually pushed his competitors out of power and began to plant his own personality cult. “If Stalin was restrained and silent, then Khrushchev was forced by his indefatigable nature to“ gush ”for all six years, until his own nominees Brezhnev and Kosygin removed him from the post of head of state,” notes V. Zavatsky.The second reason was ideological. Khrushchev was heavily criticized for the de-Stalinization of the country, and for various quirks. “But he was a staunch communist, and it was precisely his devotion to communist ideology that explains not only the excesses in educational and agricultural policy, for which Khrushchev got hit hard, but also an attack on religion that was completely unjustified from the point of view of politics ... In both cases, religion turned into an unnecessary ballast and extremely a convenient scapegoat."
In total, according to the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in 1961-1964 more than 400 believers were deported to remote areas.
Even official employment did not always save from deportation. The decree of May 4, 1961 could interpret official employment as creating the appearance of conscientious work.
So, for example, in the city of Spassk-Dalniy, Primorsky Krai, Vasily Stefanovich Lavrinov, presbyter of the local ECB community, was tried, a veteran of the Great Patriotic War, former boss local police station and communist. He was accused of living on the donations of believers and allegedly bought himself a car. During the investigation, it turned out that he does not have a car, but has a bicycle with a motor, on which he rides to the enterprise where he works as a tinsmith. However, this did not prevent him from holding a demonstrative public trial in the Palace of Culture of cement workers. Moreover, the time spent on going to the investigator was credited to him as absenteeism. As a result, he was sentenced to 5 years of exile ...
...For the Pentecostal families Vashchenko and Chmykhalov from the city of Chernogorsk Krasnoyarsk Territory Khrushchev's anti-religious campaign ended only in 1983, after five years of voluntary confinement by seven of them in a small room in the basement of the US Embassy in Moscow. Prior to that, for two decades, the members of these families had clashes with the police, prisons, deprivation of parental rights, and detention in a mental hospital. American diplomats, not having the permission of the Soviet side, could not take them out of the USSR for a long time, but they did not dare to hand over the police, because in the USA social movement in support of the "Siberian Seven" (as the Vashchenko-Chmykhalovs were nicknamed by the American press) was as strong as in the USSR - the movement in support of Angela Davis).
