The Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Evangelical Movement in the Soviet Union, 1956-1965

March 8, 2011 · Adam Bondaruk, Baptists, Victor Belykh, AUCECB, Persecution, Interview, KGB, Books, Unregistered Pentecostals, Nikolay Kotyakov, On Emigration, United Church of Evangelical Christians, Vestibule, Petr Saenko, Pentecostals, Religious Mafia, Slavik Radchuk, Contemporary Persecution, Security Services

The political changes that followed the 20th Congress of the CPSU in the Soviet Union, and the beginning of the struggle against Stalin’s personality cult, had an impact on the religious situation in the country. The authorities publicly promised, within the framework of the democratization process, to grant the petitions of religious associations. Millions of believers awaited these changes. At first, the “thaw” in state religious policy manifested itself in an increase in the number of applications for registration from religious citizens and in the number of registered religious communities. No special obstacles were placed in the way of groups operating without official registration either.

The year 1956 was a year of revitalization for many religious movements, which sought, under the conditions of the “thaw,” to restore and develop their activities. This was unequivocally evidenced by numerous materials received by the central apparatus of the Council for Religious Cults from its Commissioners. For example, S.N. Kolesnik, the Commissioner for the Moldavian SSR, reported: “in the second half of 1956, Pentecostals intensified their activities. In just half a year, they created more than 30 communities and groups”[1].

All such information was summarized by the Council in February 1957 in a special memorandum “On Facts Indicating the Revitalization of Religious Activities by Sectarian Religious Societies and Groups in Certain Locations, as well as Violations of Legislation on Cults in 1956.”[2] Its compiler, the head of the “sectarian” department, N.V. Koltsov, singled out the following characteristic phenomena as elements of “religious revival”:

• the formation of new groups of believers operating on an unregistered basis
• persistent petitions by unregistered groups for their registration
• the intensification of religious propaganda and the use of its diverse forms by believers and associations
• an increase in the number of violations of legislation on cults by religious organizations.

To corroborate his conclusions, the department head cited statistics of applications received by the Council for the opening of prayer houses. These showed that activity was displayed, first and foremost, by evangelical churches:

Table No. 1

To this it can be added that in 1956, the Council was visited on issues of registering societies and opening prayer houses by more than 100 delegations of believers from the majority of the republics of the USSR.

The fact of a “revitalization of the religious movement” in the Soviet Union was recorded in numerous documents not only by the Chairman of the Council for Religious Cults (I.V. Polyansky) but also by the Council for Russian Orthodox Church Affairs (G.G. Karpov), as well as by staff of their central apparatuses and Commissioners in the regions of the USSR. However, the attitude toward this real phenomenon was ambivalent.

Assessing the possible political consequences of this “revitalization,” the Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, in a circular letter to the Commissioners (1956, August), indicated that there was “material showing that the majority of ministers of cult and religious activists returned from places of detention behave loyally, not violating the legislation on cults. A certain part of these persons, however, carries out active religious propaganda among the population. They often exploit the religious convictions of believers, creating unhealthy attitudes among them towards the activities of the authorities. In a number of places, these persons act as organizers of all kinds of groups of believers, engage in discussions within these groups regarding the procedures established by the state, interfere in the activities of registered religious societies, seeking to steer them towards violating Soviet laws on cults.”[3]

In the Council’s opinion, this applied to the greatest extent to evangelical churches, and among them, primarily to the Pentecostal churches. Precisely for that reason, the Council demanded that the Commissioners take measures to stop or significantly restrict the religious activities of persons returned from detention; to place each of them under surveillance, regularly summoning them for talks at government bodies and Commissioners’ offices; and to constantly inform Party-Soviet bodies of everything occurring within the Pentecostal movement.

However, Karpov and Polyansky themselves, considering the issue of religious freedom from the perspective of the execution of existing laws on religious cults by the authorities, believed that under the conditions of the “thaw,” it was not only possible but necessary to take steps toward the democratization of legislation on religious cults and toward granting greater freedom to religious organizations. And they themselves set an example in this, officially supporting the petitions of the leaders of religious organizations:

• for the opening of churches in the Armenian SSR
• for the construction of new and the restoration of churches and monasteries destroyed during the war in the Baltic states
• for granting legal entity rights to religious societies
• for the opening of additional theological educational institutions
• for transferring one of the state printing houses and the complex of buildings of the Donskoy Monastery to the Moscow Patriarchate
• for the establishment of new religious centers
• for the registration of additional religious societies
• for the opening of prayer houses.

However, the shifts in the spiritual atmosphere of society, the increased activity of religious associations, the freer expression of people’s religious convictions, and the practical work of the Councils became a kind of catalyst for the intensifying struggle within the party-Soviet elite over the religious question. That segment of the elite which, as early as 1946-1948, had advocated a hardline approach in resolving fundamental issues of state-church relations, undertook new efforts to achieve its goals. In 1957, it “remembered” the Councils and resolved to introduce corrections into their activities, defining their main direction not as providing assistance and protecting the interests of religious organizations, but as assisting the Communist Party in the struggle for the “withering away of the religious feelings of the population.”

The results of this pressure are easy to “read” in the texts of the Councils’ documents, as they were forced to maneuver and concede in order to preserve at least a minimum of freedom for religious associations. As an example, here is an excerpt from the Instructional Letter of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (April 1957), in which the Commissioners were required to tighten control over the activities of religious associations, specifically:

a) to prevent the travel of orchestras, choirs, and preachers to other
prayer houses;

b) to take measures to halt “special work” among youth and women (the creation of Bible study circles, the holding of Bible study hours and youth evenings, the organization of arts and music evenings, etc.);

c) to decisively influence the leadership of the societies with the aim of ending the charitable practices carried out by religious organizations[4].

As best they could, both Councils resisted the church policy course being imposed upon them, which was manifested, above all, in their striving to preserve the quantitative indicators of the religious situation in the Soviet Union. As confirmation, here are data on official religious statistics in the USSR:

Table No. 2

Evidence of the publicly expressed positions of the Council Chairmen has also been preserved. For instance, in May 1957, at a meeting of Commissioners, G.G. Karpov, internally disagreeing with the course of action being forced upon him, polemicized with those in authority and outlined his own understanding of the Council’s tasks as follows: “The main thing—this is essentially what the Council was formed for, but it is very often, unfortunately, forgotten, and not only locally—is to ensure stable, normal relations between the state and the church, and through liaison with the patriarch and other church leaders in the person of bishops… to ensure that the church, as a religious association in the country, and the clergy, as its cadres, do not slide or return to the positions of long-past years, i.e., to positions of reactionary policy toward the state. And it will be not just impermissible, but criminal, if this were to happen as a result of our incorrect, ill-considered, hasty, or some other erroneous actions”[5].

It is clear that with such views, the Chairman drew fire upon himself. Beginning in 1956-1957, Karpov was “under the hood” of the CPSU Central Committee apparatus, which established total control over the Council. In essence, he was placed under suspicion of disloyalty to the ruling regime. And although he remained in his post for some time, he could no longer truly influence church policy. He was tolerated, but his fate was sealed. There is no doubt that the authorities’ attitude toward Polyansky was the same. It appears that only his sudden death in the autumn of 1956 saved him from “measures of influence.”

Under pressure from party organs, which continued to think in terms of the 1920s and 1930s and saw the leading figures of religious centers as “ideological and political enemies,” the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults also undertook their search. In a letter to the KGB, the new Chairman of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, A.A. Puzin*, who assumed his duties in May 1957, wrote: “By way of studying the leading figures of church-sectarian associations and their spiritual centers, the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults needs information characterizing their political past, data on convictions for anti-Soviet activity, if possible, on their present political attitudes, and other characterizing and compromising information.” Among the “persons” of interest to the Council were named members and candidate members of the AUCECB, and members of the AUCECB audit commission—20 people in total.

The enforcement actions of judicial and other government bodies carried out during 1955-1958 against A.I. Bidash, his supporters, and Pentecostal communities unwilling to join the AUCECB can serve as confirmation of the “anti-sectarian emphasis” in the state’s religious policy. Constant pressure forced unregistered Pentecostals to change the tactics of their activity. As the Commissioner of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults for the Ukrainian SSR, P.A. Vilkhovoy, wrote: “If earlier the majority of Pentecostal groups strongly sought independent registration of their societies and openly conducted their work, at present the overwhelming majority of religious groups of this sect have switched to illegal activity. Having broken up into smaller groups, they continue to operate underground”[6].

By the autumn of 1958, the victory of the advocates of continuing the “war on religion” had been definitively established within the CPSU Central Committee, and the desire to implement it through a frontal assault on religious organizations had matured. It was to take the form of economic strangulation, legal infringement, organizational weakening, and the mass closure of prayer buildings and religious institutions. In September, the Propaganda and Agitation Department for the Union Republics of the CPSU Central Committee submitted to the Secretariat of the CPSU Central Committee a note “On the Shortcomings of Scientific-Atheist Propaganda” (See: Document No. 1):

Document No. 1

From a Note of the CPSU Central Committee Department

12 September 1958

Meanwhile, the clergy have recently stepped up their activities in a number of areas:

a) At present, a characteristic feature of the activities of churchmen and sectarians is that they are adapting in every possible way to modern conditions. They show inventiveness in applying new, more effective forms of drawing the population, and especially young people and children, into the church, religious communities, and sects. The clergy have intensified missionary-preaching work among individuals and small groups of both believers and non-believers. Alongside official clergy, preaching is also carried out by a specially trained activist core from among the believers. Such a core, for example, has been created in the sectarian associations of Evangelical Christians-Baptists and Seventh-day Adventists. In all such registered societies alone, there are more than fifteen thousand preachers.

e) It should be noted that in recent years there has been an intensification of activity and a certain quantitative growth among sectarians. If, for example, there were 92,000 sectarians in Ukraine in 1954, then in 1957 there were 103,000; in the RSFSR, there were 32,000 in 1954 and 40,000 in 1957. In Moldavia, the number of sectarians increased over the same period by 15 percent; in Latvia, by 17 percent.

g) Recently, instances where the activities of churchmen and sectarians have begun to go beyond the religious framework have become more frequent. There are facts of clergy illegally organizing groups of believers to study religious dogmas, arbitrarily opening and building new churches and prayer houses, and creating various societies, groups, and sects that are prohibited by Soviet laws. Facts of anti-Soviet actions and statements by clergymen and sectarians have been established (Lithuania, Latvia, western regions of the Belorussian SSR).

Sects prohibited by Soviet legislation have particularly intensified their anti-Soviet activities. At present, according to incomplete data, 1,715 such sects operate on the territory of the USSR, including 450 groups of Jehovah’s Witnesses. In the Komi ASSR in 1957, a group of leaders of an underground anti-Soviet organization of Jehovah’s Witnesses was exposed. It was connected with the Jehovah’s Witnesses center located in Brooklyn (USA), systematically received counterrevolutionary literature from abroad, and distributed it among the republic’s population. This underground included preachers who carried out individual indoctrination of Soviet citizens. In the first half of 1957 alone, 147 such preachers from the Inta and Vorkuta sects visited 2,811 citizens and held conversations with them.

…Attention should be drawn to the circumstance that the leaders of a number of religious centers are using, above all, clergy who have returned from places of imprisonment through amnesty or upon serving their sentences for anti-Soviet activity. This category of clergy is hostile to Soviet power and shows particular activity in its work. In the western regions of Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Latvia, the Catholic clergy was replenished by 370 persons from this category, constituting 29 percent of its active personnel; in sectarian organizations, the number of clergy who have returned from places of imprisonment is 22 percent.

Often, anti-Soviet-minded sectarians and churchmen receive support from imperialist forces carrying out ideological sabotage against the countries of the socialist camp. For instance, the activities of the Catholic clergy are directed by the Vatican, and such sectarian organizations as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mennonites — from the USA and West Germany.

RGANI. F. 4. Op. 16. D. 554. L. 5–13.

***

It was considered at a meeting of the Secretariat on 4 October 1958. The note was devoted to an analysis of the activities of Party, Soviet, and public organizations in implementing the Central Committee Resolutions of 7 July* and 10 November 1954** and to an assessment of the contemporary religious situation in the country. On the whole, the Party’s and state’s “antireligious activity” was given a most unflattering assessment. It was observed that the Party resolutions “are not being fulfilled by certain Party organizations, ideological institutions, and departments; instead of strengthening scientific-atheist propaganda, they have significantly weakened it and in a number of places have stopped it altogether.”

A long list of “pretensions” against “churchmen and sectarians” was put forward, boiling down to the following:

· intensified missionary-preaching activity to attract the population, especially young people and children, into religious organizations

· conducting religious propaganda not only by clergy but also by an activist core from among ordinary believers

· expanding the contingent of students in theological educational institutions

· constant growth in the income of religious organizations

· active improvement and repair of churches and monasteries

· increase in the number of applications for the opening of churches, prayer houses, and the registration of new religious associations*

· increase in the number of participants in divine services and other religious ceremonies in places of worship

· intensification of the activities of “sectarians” and the growth in the number of “sectarian” associations

· an increase in the number of religious ceremonies attended by young people, representatives of party and Soviet bodies

· the manifestation of charity by religious associations

· the active functioning of holy sites, visited by a significant number of citizens

· the growth in the number of actually operating unregistered (“underground”) places of worship and theological schools

· the presence of instances of “anti-Soviet activity” among clergy and believers

· active religious activity on the part of clerics and church workers who had returned from places of imprisonment under amnesty or after serving their sentences

· the growing support for “sectarians and churchmen from imperialist forces, carrying out ideological subversion against the countries of the socialist camp.”

Among those “guilty” for such a catastrophic situation, in the opinion of the CPSU Central Committee, besides party, Soviet, trade union, Komsomol, and educational organizations, were also named the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults. For the first time, these state bodies were subjected to public criticism by the party for poorly performing their functions; for, as the party document asserted, following the clergy’s lead and supporting their unjustified demands, and for failing to inform party and Soviet bodies in a timely manner about the activities of church ministers, religious sects, and communities.

The department’s note and the Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee adopted on its basis were sent for discussion to all oblast and krai committees of the CPSU, the central committees of the communist parties of the union republics, and central ideological organizations. In October–November 1958, meetings of the heads of central ideological organizations and institutions were held at the CPSU Central Committee. Similar meetings were held in all republics of the USSR, at which plans were adopted to intensify anti-religious work.

The Communist Party’s complaints about the activities of both Councils and the measures to correct them were discussed at all-union conferences of the commissioners[7].

In November 1958, the commissioners of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults were gathered in Moscow. Council Chairman A.A. Puzin, presenting a report “On Certain Questions of the Soviet State’s Policy Toward Religion and the Church and the Tasks of the Council,” particularly emphasized the Council’s “political mistakes” in previous years, expressed in an overly liberal attitude toward the activities of registered religious organizations. Here is how it appeared in the text of the report:

“Council staff reasoned approximately as follows. During the war, the church took patriotic positions. After the war, the clergy has been conducting patriotic activities. Consequently, the church is no longer an enemy of the Soviet government. As a result, the need for harsh measures to restrict the church’s activities disappeared. The time has come to grant the clergy greater freedom of action and, on this basis, to establish good relations between the state and the church. The Council staff saw this as their main task. All Council documents explicitly stated: the Council was created to normalize relations between the church and the state. The normalization of relations was understood as the necessity of concessions to the church from the state. That is where all the troubles came from”[8].

The speaker called upon the commissioners to focus their attention and efforts on the following tasks with regard to registered associations:

· depriving religious societies of all rights of a legal entity

· restricting the activities of religious organizations and clergy exclusively to the performance of religious worship within the walls of prayer premises

· forbidding any “special work” among children, youth, and women

· reducing the number of theological educational institutions and the number of students therein

· tightening the legislation on religious cults.

The Council Chairman also touched on that aspect of the Council’s work concerning unregistered religious associations. In his opinion, the Council had previously been insufficiently active in countering “sects of a fanatical and anti-state character,” the total number of which in the country had reached 1,715. In this regard, he said: Should we be dealing with the activities of these religious associations? Yes, we should. The Council’s previous opinion that all unregistered religious societies and groups of believers “cannot be the object of its work either politically or methodologically” should be considered incorrect. We must not turn a blind eye and hide behind other state bodies in this matter. They do their job, and we do ours, and together we must achieve the results we need, helping each other in our work. Council staff and commissioners must show interest in matters related to the activities of church and religious organizations [9].

With regard to unregistered “sectarianism” and especially “anti-state sects,” A. Puzin set the task of constant tough struggle using various administrative and criminal measures. The main theme became the struggle against the Pentecostal movement (See: Document No. 2):

Document No. 2

From the report of A.A. Puzin

at the All-Union Conference of the Council’s Commissioners

November 25, 1958

Pentecostals and some other sects also cannot be registered due to the fanatical and extremely mystical nature of their doctrine.

You know that a significant portion of Pentecostals renounced the most harmful aspects of their doctrine and united with the sect of Evangelical Christians-Baptists.

They refused, but not all. Many Pentecostal sects did not recognize the unification agreement and continue to operate independently, without registration. Many groups of Pentecostals that had previously united with the Baptists have recently begun to break away from them and are petitioning for registration as an independent sect. To date, a total of 845 Pentecostal groups (about 23,000 people) are accounted for, operating independently without registration. The largest number of Pentecostals operates in the Ukrainian SSR: 654 groups (about 17,000 people). Pentecostals have no prayer houses of their own, and prayer meetings are held in believers’ apartments. Many groups of the Pentecostal sect are going underground, holding prayer meetings secretly, often at night.

We refuse, and will continue to refuse, registration to Pentecostals, and this must be firmly stated to all leaders of these sectarian associations. Every member of the Pentecostal sect must know that the activity of this sect is illegal. The commissioners and local authorities must see to this. The sectarians must be made to understand that the Soviet state cannot and will not permit the propaganda of a creed that contradicts the Constitution of the USSR.

The Soviet state also cannot and will not permit such fanatical actions that mutilate people and harm their health. This is how we must deal with all sects of this kind. The leaders and clergy responsible for the activities of these groups must be summoned to local authorities to be warned about illegal activity and responsibility for violating the legislation on cults.

Appropriate measures should also be taken against householders who provide premises for prayer meetings to these religious associations.

GA RF. F. R.- 6991. Op. 3. D. 165. L. 27ob.–28.

***

The line of administrative pressure and persecution of Pentecostals was unreservedly endorsed, along with the need to seek repressive measures, primarily against leaders – the “parasitic layer,” in the opinion of the meeting participants. To confirm this, let us quote the words of the Commissioner for the Crimean Region, Rudakov, who literally implored: “Something must be done about the Pentecostals too. It has come to the point that not only are we placed in an awkward position, but so are our agencies. We summon the Pentecostal leaders to the militia, but they leave and then continue their line. We summon them up to three times, then fine them 25 percent of their wages for violating Soviet laws, yet they gather again. What are we to do next? We cannot admit our impotence. There is no law to imprison them. I personally was waiting for the speaker to clarify this question and say what to do with them. I believe that more repressive measures must after all be applied to such people who do not submit to our Soviet laws.”

The discussion around the Pentecostal issue continued during the meeting of the Conference section “on the activities of Christian sects.” Here, the complex problem of the state’s relationship with believers and unregistered religious associations was again simplistically reduced to attitudes toward one or another Pentecostal leader, in particular A.I. Bidash. It seemed to those who took part in the discussion that it would be enough to “remove the troublemaker” Bidash and all the difficulties and contradictions that the authorities and the VSEKhB had encountered in implementing the plan to unite Pentecostals with Evangelical Christian-Baptists would disappear by themselves.

An analysis of the documents and materials of the all-union conferences of Commissioners allows us to assert that the authorities declared all the positive achievements in state-church relations since 1943 to be a “deformation of the church policy” of the socialist state, an “incorrect political and tactical line” that led to the strengthening of religion and the church, to the creation of favorable conditions for the propaganda of “reactionary” ideology, and for the activities of numerous “overt and covert enemies of Soviet power” among the clergy. The previous state course on the religious question was branded with the stamp of “Stalinism,” and on this basis it was proposed to take a new look at the role of the party in state-church relations. It was then, in our postwar history, that the “dissolution” of the state church policy proper into party directives on the goal, means, and purpose of “antireligious work” began, and the legal approach to problems of freedom of conscience came to be supplanted by an ideological approach.

The year 1958 was a watershed in the relations between the state and religious associations. The “Khrushchev Thaw” brought nothing constructive to the system of state-church relations and did not expand the possibilities for citizens of the USSR to freely hold and express religious convictions. Moreover, it opened one of the most tragic periods in the life of religious associations in the postwar history of the Soviet Union. In essence, the principles, approaches, and methods of a rigid state religious policy formulated at that time remained unchanged until the mid‑1980s, the era of “perestroika and glasnost.”

The fervor of the struggle against Pentecostals, which permeated the documents of the all-union conference and the decisions and agreements adopted there, was transferred to the republics of the Soviet Union and implemented through concrete steps against unregistered Pentecostalism. Each region developed its own plan and method of struggle.

Because the bulk of unregistered Pentecostals operated on the territory of Ukraine, this was the main front of the struggle. As early as February 1959, on the instructions of Vilkhovoy, a comprehensive collection of data began on each of the non-aligned Pentecostal groups: their leaders, the membership and activists of the communities, the places where religious meetings and other rites and ceremonies were held, facts of violations of the legislation on cults, and measures applied by the authorities, etc. A list of articles from the Administrative Code and other legislative acts was sent down to the commissioners, which they were to use as a guide not only to bring believers to administrative responsibility, but also to gather material for subsequent criminal prosecution for “vagrancy and parasitism, incitement of religious fanaticism and illegal work among young people, and instigation to disobey the laws and orders of the authorities.”

It was planned to completely and finally “liquidate” the unregistered Pentecostal groups within three to five years. Alongside coercive measures, the active use of judicial measures was also proposed. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, an endless series of trials of “sectarians” took place. All of them were routinely charged with “grave crimes against the state and the Soviet people,” under which were subsumed: activity of unregistered associations, religious activity of Pentecostal leaders, production, storage and distribution of religious literature, teaching religion to children, refusal on religious grounds to serve in the army, etc.

The pressure measures against Pentecostals were part of the general policy of reducing the number of religious organizations and the scope of their influence over the population. This, for example, clearly follows from the January 1960 report to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine by K. Polonnik, who in mid-1959 replaced P.A. Vilkhovoy as the Council for Religious Cults’ Commissioner for the Ukrainian SSR. It was reported that both the republic’s Commissioner and the commissioners in the regions set themselves the task of “cutting back religious organizations as much as possible” and, in this connection, had already carried out the following measures:

· ministers of cults were forbidden to travel outside their parishes* to serve communities to which they were not assigned

· pompous, ceremonial trips and receptions of leaders of religious associations — bishops, senior presbyters — were forbidden; moreover, any trip by a minister of cult into another parish could take place only with our permission

· Jewish communities were deprived of the right independently to invite cantors, and cantors were, as a rule, not permitted to tour synagogues

· through the financial authorities, taxation of all ministers of cults was introduced and widely applied, regardless of whether they received a salary for their ministry in a house of prayer (incidentally, this was done only in Ukraine; in other republics ECB community presbyters are not taxed if they do not receive a salary, but here they are taxed)

· Catholic clergy were made strictly dependent on the “twenties”

· new Catholic ministers of cults are not registered, despite requests from the communities

· religious centers appoint ministers of cults to one or another post, and their subsequent registration occurs exclusively with the consent of the Commissioners

· the sale of printed publications with religious content in prayer premises is forbidden

· major repairs of religious buildings are carried out only with the permission of local authorities and the commissioners

· newly built (purchased) houses of prayer, the construction of which was arranged in the names of private individuals, have been and continue to be confiscated through the courts

· any religious work with young people and children is forbidden.

It is curious that all this is presented as a strict observance of the current legislation on cults. Yet much of what the “Ukrainians” allegedly introduced had no basis in Soviet legislation on cults and proceeded exclusively from their desire to “disadvantage” religious associations.

In Ukraine, among the pressure measures, “public meetings” were actively employed, both on law-enforcement bodies and courts and on the “sectarians”. For example, A. Yushchenko, the Commissioner for the Kherson region, reported: “The resolutions of the general meetings had a condemnatory and demanding character; they ordered the cessation of the antisocial activity of the Pentecostal sectarians and their inclusion in active economic work. The sectarians have been warned that, should they continue to violate Soviet legislation, the most severe measures will be taken against them by the appropriate organs. The public raises the question of taking children away from sectarian parents who maim them by improper upbringing and of transferring these children to boarding schools, where their maintenance and upbringing would be carried out at the parents’ expense. The decisions of the general meetings held are brought to the notice of all institutions and enterprises where the Pentecostal sectarians work, so as to acquaint the collectives of these institutions and enterprises with the antisocial activity of the Pentecostals and to take appropriate measures.”

The “anti-sectarian” emphasis of state religious policy was fuelled and determined, as we have already noted, by the ideology of the ruling party. And this was not hidden by the chairmen of both Councils; on the contrary, the need to “follow the party’s course” was constantly stressed. (See: Document No. 3):

Document No. 3

From the report of A.A. Puzin

at the All-Union Conference of Council Representatives

April 18, 1960

The CPSU Central Committee draws the attention of local Party, Soviet, Komsomol, and trade union bodies to the need to intensify the struggle against religious sectarianism of an anti-state and fanatical nature (Jehovists, Pentecostals, etc.).

Sometimes it is asked: in which law or Government Decree is it stated that the activity of these sects is prohibited?

As you know, no law or Government Decree of the USSR mentions the sects of Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals. The activity of these sects is prohibited because their doctrine and the character of their activity contradict the USSR Constitution and other laws of the state.

According to the Constitution, every citizen is obliged to obey the laws of the state, to honestly regard public duty, to respect the rules of socialist community life. No one may, invoking his religious views, evade the fulfillment of his civic duties.

Jehovah’s Witnesses and Pentecostals incite believers not to recognize the laws of the Soviet state, prompt them to refuse to comply with these laws. They refuse, for example, to perform military service, forbid believers to take up arms to defend the socialist Fatherland, which contradicts the USSR Constitution.

The Soviet state naturally cannot permit the propaganda of such a doctrine that incites believers to violate the Constitution.

The Pentecostal sect is also prohibited because members of this sect engage in fanatical acts that physically maim people. Undoubtedly, the Soviet state cannot be indifferent to such actions by sectarians.

According to our information, currently more than 600 groups of Pentecostals operate on the territory of the USSR, with about 25 thousand members.

GA RF. F.R.- 6991. Op. 3. D. 208. L. 14-15.

***

From the end of the 1950s, ideas from the 1930s about a classless, religionless society and the special role of anti-religious propaganda in its construction came back into the country’s public life in a broad stream. They were easier for the party-Soviet aktiv, brought up on these concepts, to embrace. On the pages of magazines, newspapers, and on the radio, a massive anti-religious offensive began with accusations, threats, and mockery directed at religion, believers, and the clergy. Although a considerable part of it concerned the Russian Church, nevertheless on the whole the anti-religious campaign had a distinctly “anti-sect” character.

N.S. Khrushchev, who promised to show the Soviet people “the last priest,” to put an end to “religious intoxication,” and to build a communist society within the next twenty years, considered the party’s anti-religious work one of the primary tasks. In the report of the CPSU Central Committee to the 22nd Party Congress (1961), it was specially emphasized that “communist education” presupposes: “liberation of consciousness from religious prejudices and superstitions which still prevent some Soviet people from fully manifesting their creative powers. What is needed is a thought-out and coherent system of scientific-atheistic education that would encompass all strata and groups of the population, preventing the spread of religious views, especially among children and adolescents”[10].

In the CPSU Charter, adopted at the congress, the list of duties of a Communist Party member was supplemented with “resolute struggle against religious prejudices.” Point 2 of the Charter stated: “A party member is obliged… to master Marxist-Leninist theory, to raise his ideological level, to contribute to the formation and education of the person of communist society. To wage a resolute struggle against any manifestations of bourgeois ideology, against remnants of private-property psychology, religious prejudices, and other survivals of the past, to observe the principles of communist morality, to place public interests above personal ones” [11].

Anti-religious work was recognized as the main lever in shaping a scientific-materialist worldview. The construction of a “society without religion,” and in the very nearest future, was proclaimed a programmatic goal. The program of the party’s atheistic activity was most fully presented in the report of the Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee L.F. Ilyichev, “The Immediate Tasks of the Party’s Ideological Work,” at the CPSU Central Committee plenum in 1963. “Religion,” it was said, “is the main enemy of the scientific worldview inside the country, one of the most tenacious survivals of the past from which significant strata of the population have still not freed themselves. In our country the social roots of religion have long been cut, but religious views still exist as a survival of the past… We have no classes and social strata hostile to socialism, but there are still conscious and unconscious bearers of the views and mores of classes hostile to socialism, consequently, there are people whose cast of thought and actions are alien to socialism, who carry water to the enemy’s mill”[12]. The plenum’s resolution called for “waging a persistent struggle against religious survivals, broadening scientific-atheistic work”[13].

And subsequently, in the decisions and resolutions of congresses and plenums of the Communist Party, anti-religious work was pushed to the forefront in the general party-ideological activity of party committees, local Soviets of Working People’s Deputies, trade unions, the Komsomol, and other public organizations. All this testified that the state’s policy toward religious associations was becoming more and more a hostage of party ideology. To justify such an approach and vision of state policy toward religions, churches, and believers, the party ideologists advanced the following propositions:

· the “crisis of religions” was reduced exclusively to quantitative indicators of religious statistics

· the development of religious life was presented only as a progressively accelerating process of “extinction” of religion

· the existence of objective conditions and preconditions in the USSR for the emergence of “new religions” or “revival, rebirth” of seemingly extinct cults was denied

· the path of administrative-command regulation and pressure in the sphere of relations between religious associations and government bodies continued to be used as a priority in the process of secularizing society

· the assertion that the number of registered societies adequately reflected the state and needs of believers in a given region was accepted as an axiom

· the principle of “sufficiency” of the number of registered associations of the leading confession in a given region of the country was advanced and justified, which boiled down to the fact that in a “Muslim” region no mosques should be registered, while in an “Orthodox” one – churches, etc.

From ideological postulates of this kind coming from the official party-state authorities, only one conclusion can be drawn: the legal approach to problems of freedom of conscience was definitively replaced by an ideological approach. This found expression also in the emerging practice of adopting joint resolutions of the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR on issues of atheistic activity and oversight of the activities of religious associations. One of the first was the Resolution “On Strengthening Control over the Implementation of Legislation on Cults” (March 1961). Both Councils were required to execute such resolutions unconditionally and on their own initiative. In their annual reports to party-soviet bodies, the Councils themselves described in detail their work to implement the adopted “anti-religious” resolutions. For example, the report of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults for 1961 stated that in fulfillment of party decisions three monasteries, one madrasah, were closed, the All-Union Council of Seventh-day Adventists was struck off the register, the number of students was reduced in Catholic seminaries and the academy of the Armenian Church, and 651 church buildings were shut down.

Party resolutions became a constant subject of discussion at all-union conferences of the commissioners of both Councils, where the place of these bodies in the overall course of the state and party regarding religion, churches, and believers was determined. Thus, in April 1961 the Instruction on the Application of Legislation on Cults was discussed in detail at the conferences. Its drafting had been carried out in the central apparatuses of the Councils since 1960. Drafts of the Instruction were repeatedly submitted for approval to central and republican party-soviet bodies, to the Legal Commission under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, the Prosecutor’s Office of the USSR, and the Supreme Court of the USSR. In November 1960, along with a memorandum by the chairmen of the Councils A.A. Puzin and V.A. Kuroyedov, the final draft was presented to the Central Committee of the CPSU. After approval, in March 1961 the Instruction was confirmed by a joint act of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults and thus became the legal foundation for the new state policy in religious matters.

An acquaintance with the memorandum reveals that, firstly, it completed the search for and elaboration of a new state policy in confessional matters and, secondly, it established a definitive break with the period of ‘religious revival’ that had occurred in 1943–1955. This was expressed primarily in proposals to repeal or substantially amend previously adopted Government acts that regulated the activities of religious organizations and defined the rights and powers of the Councils for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and for the Affairs of Religious Cults (See: Document No. 4):

Document No. 4

From the Memorandum

by A.A. Puzin and V.A. Kuroyedov

To the Central Committee of the CPSU

November 4, 1960

1. Resolutions of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR adopted in 1945–1946 concerning the granting of limited legal personality rights to church bodies.

According to the decree of the Soviet government “On the Separation of Church from State and School from Church,” signed by V.I. Lenin, the church cannot own property; it has no rights of a juridical person. This is one of the fundamental provisions of Soviet legislation on cults: all property used by religious associations, including property newly acquired by them, is, under Soviet law, nationalized and must be registered with local government bodies. Consequently, the above-mentioned resolutions of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR contradict Soviet legislation on cults.

In this connection, we consider it expedient to establish that all property newly acquired by organs of religious cults must be on the register of local government bodies and not be the property of the church. It would also be advisable to establish a uniform procedure for granting religious bodies permits to acquire property, produce articles of worship, etc. In the resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR concerning the Russian Orthodox Church, the right to issue such permits is granted to the regional and republican Commissioners of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, whereas in the resolution concerning other religious cults this right is granted only to the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR. It is necessary to establish that such permits may be issued only by the Councils for the Affairs of Religious Cults and for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

2. In 1944 the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution according to which local Soviet bodies could not, without the permission of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, resolve questions concerning the use and conversion of inactive churches for other purposes, or the demolition and dismantling of churches. In 1946 a similar resolution was adopted with respect to all other prayer buildings and houses.

We consider it expedient to transfer the resolution of these questions to the Councils of Ministers of the republics and the executive committees of krai and oblast Soviets.

3. In 1945, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR submitted to the Government of the USSR proposals concerning the adoption of the Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church, drafted by the Moscow Patriarchate. The Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR issued the following decree on this matter: “To approve the proposals of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR regarding the draft Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church.” Consequently, the Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church acquired the force of a document approved by the Government of the USSR, which was not necessary. Moreover, certain provisions of this Statute contradict Soviet legislation on cults.

Under Soviet law, the right to decide all issues concerning the internal life of a religious society, the use of cult property, monetary funds, etc., belongs to the believers who formed the religious society, not to the clergy. The functions of ministers of worship are limited to performing religious rites. The Statute on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church grants ministers of worship the right to exercise sole management over religious societies. It should be noted that the clergy of other religious cults have no such right, which places the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church in a privileged position.

4. In 1945, the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR adopted a decree under which republican and regional bodies of state power and administration were forbidden to hinder communities of the Russian Orthodox Church from acquiring bells or ringing them. In 1946, a similar decree was adopted for other religious cults as well.

We consider it advisable to revoke these decrees for the following reasons: the population is requesting this; believers know the times of church services even without bell ringing (bell ringing has no other significance).

State Archive of the Russian Federation. F. R-6991. Op. 3. D. 210. L. 35–40

In this same memorandum, for the first time the task was set to conduct a one-time census of all religious associations, prayer buildings, and church property actually functioning on the territory of the USSR. Explaining the necessity for this, the authors wrote: “The accumulation of church property has led to the creation of a large staff of service personnel maintained by the church: construction workers, craftsmen and workers for repairing and manufacturing church utensils and objects of religious worship, furniture, clothing, linen; drivers of trucks and cars; accountants, bookkeepers, supply managers, watchmen, cleaners, candle sellers, and so on.”

Although the reports of A.A. Puzin[14] and V.A. Kuroedov, which they delivered before the Authorized Representatives, claimed that the new Instruction “reinstated Leninist principles of attitude toward religion and the church, removing the Stalinist legacy,” in reality this demagogy concealed the desire to involve not only Party committees, trade-union and Komsomol organizations, but also Soviet bodies in the “struggle against religious ideology,” i.e., to make maximum use of the state’s possibilities for implementing the ruling party’s ideological tasks. The practical content of this church policy in fact revived the forms and methods of the Soviet state’s antireligious activity of the 1930s. This is easily seen if one examines the proposed “innovations” in regulating the activities of religious associations:

· mandatory registration of ministers of worship
· exclusion of clergy from the financial and economic activities of religious associations
· tightening the taxation regime for church and senior clergy
· restriction of bell ringing
· approval of a list of “forbidden sects”
· granting the right to register societies to local authorities.

At the same time, the Instruction defined the “supervisory functions” of the Soviets and their Authorized Representatives, setting before them such tasks as:

· “plugging” the channels through which the church could “enrich itself”
· combating “splendor” in churches
· combating all forms of charitable activities
· eliminating pilgrimages to holy places
· controlling church rites
· selecting and placing persons dependent on the authorities into church councils.

All the foregoing gives us grounds to say that in 1961 the state was completing a change of course in its church policy, definitively discarding the remnants of “liberalism” and reorienting itself exclusively toward harsh administrative measures. It would have been logical to suppose that the state would provide the interested organizations—centers, diocesan administrations, church councils—with an explanation of the reasons that prompted it to undertake such a substantial change in its former church policy. But this did not happen. The newly adopted Instruction, as a document of “top secret” importance, was kept hidden from religious organizations, the clergy, and believers.

As part of the implementation of Party decisions, by the beginning of 1962 a one-time census was completed of all religious associations (both registered and unregistered) then functioning in the USSR, the clergy and laypeople working in them, and the property at their disposal. Information was collected using questionnaires specially developed by both Councils, which local authorities filled out for each religious association operating on their territory. It turned out that in the Soviet Union at the beginning of 1962 there were a total of 10,910 non-Orthodox associations*. Of these: registered—4,424 (40.5%); unregistered—6,486 (59.5%).

All unregistered associations were entirely dependent on the will of local authorities, who could “show mercy,” and the societies, though unregistered, continued to operate; but they could also “not show mercy,” in which case the societies were immediately disbanded, and their leaders faced judicial and extrajudicial persecution.

The results of the one-time census also provided a picture of the ratio of registered to unregistered associations within each religious movement operating in the USSR. The selective data below demonstrates that in a number of cults, the number of unregistered (in the terminology of those years—illegally (underground) operating) groups sometimes significantly exceeded the number of registered ones:

Table No. 3

Let us add that all those associations (100%25), numbering 2,200, which the authorities placed on the list of “prohibited sects” (in party-Soviet leadership terminology—“anti-Soviet, anti-state, fanatical sects”) were without registration. Among them were: Pentecostals—994; Jehovah’s Witnesses—607 (societies); True Orthodox Christians-True Orthodox Church—199; Mennonites—128; Adventist Reformists—49; Khlysts—47; Subbotniki—36; Pure Baptists—32; Ioannites—21; Innokentievtsy—15.

A final report on the results of the one-time census for one such organization, the Pentecostals, stated the following: “994 religious associations were identified, of which 391 have more than 20 members each and 603 associations have fewer than 20 members each. Total believers—26,231*, 1,165 ministers of worship. The Pentecostal sect is spread mainly on the territory of the Ukrainian SSR (569 associations), the RSFSR (380 associations), and the Byelorussian SSR (64 associations). Unlike the ECB, the Pentecostal sect rejects defense of the fatherland with arms in hand. It permits fanaticism at prayer gatherings (speaking in ‘other tongues,’ shaking—driving people into a frenzy and causing psychological trauma)”[15].

It should be emphasized that the absolute majority of unregistered associations were forced to operate in a semi-legal state not because they did not wish to be registered, but because, after submitting registration applications for many years, they received unjustified refusals from the authorities. Thus, the “religious underground” was to a large extent the doing of the authorities themselves—the result of their targeted policy, which allowed them, on the one hand, to report on the “successes” of atheistic work and the reduction of believers and religious organizations in the region, and on the other, to conceal the true picture in this area and avoid the need to take steps to improve the situation.

The materials of the one-time census, with its information on each unregistered community, became a resource for the Commissioners and local authorities of the regions of Ukraine, the Russian Federation, and Byelorussia in their struggle against Pentecostal associations. The methods remained the same: administrative and criminal prosecution. The line to reduce the number of unregistered associations was pursued with particular severity, especially for those classified as so-called anti-state and fanatical sects. The Instruction on the application of cult legislation (paragraph 23) specified and codified as such: Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, True Orthodox Christians, the True Orthodox Church, Adventist Reformists, Murashkovites[16]. Commissioners of both Councils were obliged to report annually on the number of religious associations operating without registration and on measures taken for their “liquidation.”

Believers reacted differently to the changing situation. One part of the communities went underground and concealed their existence in every way. Some sought to appeal to representatives of foreign states. In particular, members of the Chernogorsk community and Karaganda addressed embassies of the USA, China, and the FRG with letters about persecution and their desire to leave the USSR due to religious persecution.

In 1961-1964, the Council of Ministers of the USSR, union ministries, and agencies adopted various acts, including those defining the procedure for taxation and pension services for workers and employees of religious organizations; a list of persons working in religious organizations to whom labor legislation applied was approved. All these measures clearly expressed a line of legislative restriction and administrative containment of the activities of believers and societies, creating additional opportunities and conditions for local authorities interested in implementing this line.

Party ideology and the new content of state confessional policy developed on its basis predetermined the administrative onslaught on religious associations. It was especially harsh in 1961-1965, as evidenced by aggregated data on the state of the religious associations network. (See: Table No. 4. p.). The information preserved in the Council’s archives also allows for a comparative analysis of the reduction of the religious network over five years for specific churches and associations. (See: Table No. 5. p.)

The period from 1958 to 1965 was especially difficult for the leadership of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christians-Baptists (AUCECB). Having received, like other religious centers, the right to exist from the state during the harsh war years, the AUCECB could not be entirely consistent, autonomous, and independent. This was primarily evident in its relations with Pentecostal communities, both those that joined the AUCECB and those that sought to preserve their independence. At times it seemed that the AUCECB’s actions were a predetermined “reflection” of the state’s intentions and a kind of “ideological support” for them.

While in 1957–1958 trials were underway and Pentecostal leaders ended up in camps, the senior presbyter of the AUCECB for Ukraine, A.L. Andreev, held a meeting in Kiev on May 28–30, 1958, with former Pentecostal leaders. The discussion focused on the “matter of unification” in each of the regions of Ukraine. The floor was given both to those who had long since joined the AUCECB and to those who had recently joined — for example, A.A. Nesteruk, A.I. Kalitvintsev, V.E. Bernadsky, I.S. Vorobets and others.

From Andreev’s opening address it was clear that the AUCECB still saw Bidash’s activities as the main obstacle to unification. “Despite all the measures taken,” said Andreev, “so that he too could be together and work with other brothers for the benefit of unity, he nevertheless pursued a divisive course… Both he and his followers, trusting in various prophecies, hoped that a separate union of CEF would be formed and that CEF communities would be registered separately. Bidash and his followers tried everywhere to introduce division and to hold back from unity those who intended to be in unity. However, as is well known, his work had no success, and he himself ended up in a pitiable state, and those who to some extent trusted him soon realized that all Bidash’s promises and assurances came to nothing. You must understand that if this division were according to God’s will, it would have succeeded, but since it went against God’s will, it brought no blessing but only caused some needless sorrow and distress.”[17]

The participants in the meeting addressed an Appeal to those remaining outside unity. It said, in part: “beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, we ask you, according to the word of the Lord, to come to unity and follow our personal example, as well as the example of many thousands of CEF believers who have joined the ECB union, so that together with all God’s children we may glorify the Lord who redeemed us and serve Him.”[18]

In 1959, the AUCECB again addressed the problem of unification. The journal “Bratsky Vestnik” reported on a meeting held on August 20–24 with the leaders of the Christians of Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) and stated that “it was established at the meeting that a significant number of CEF members had joined the AUCECB. A number of members remained outside unity. After hearing a report on the state of unity, a whole series of proposals was made to intensify the educational work aimed at drawing the Christians of Evangelical Faith who remained outside unity into the common ECB brotherhood.”[19]

From the surviving minutes of the meeting it follows that by January 1, 1959, there were officially 18,194 people in unity — 204 independent CEF communities that had joined unity (14,424 persons), and 3,770 persons were members of 227 united communities. There were also 3,303 persons from conditionally united communities but not officially registered. Altogether — 21,497 persons. According to the AUCECB, there still remained 295 groups and communities of CEF outside unity with a total membership of 7,618 persons. This showed that the process of unification, planned for a year or two, dragged on for decades, yielded no visible results, and there was not even a prospect of its completion.

The meeting participants returned home armed with a “Memo for senior presbyters and presbyters of AUCECB communities on questions of unity,” which prescribed painstaking daily work for unity; not to allow any sermons from the pulpit that criticized the views of believers who were part of the united brotherhood; to report instances of disruption of unity to the AUCECB; to work with the ununited and seek to bring them into the brotherhood; to admit only “moderate Pentecostals” into the communities; to hold explanatory conversations with “extreme Pentecostals”; and to introduce representatives of the CEF into church councils of the communities.

Table No. 4

Data

on religious associations in the USSR

(as of January 1 of the current year)

***

Data

on the number of religious associations in the USSR**

(as of January 1 of the current year)

Circular letters were regularly sent from the AUCECB to senior presbyters, obliging them not to forget about ongoing work on the issue of unification. In February 1960, a letter was sent to all Evangelical Christian-Baptist congregations requesting information on the real state of affairs in relations between Evangelical Christians-Baptists and unmerged Pentecostals. The response was discouraging. From August 1945 to January 1960, about 25,000 Pentecostals had joined Evangelical Christian-Baptist congregations, and the AUCECB counted up to 300 Pentecostal congregations in total. Meanwhile, outside the Union, by that time there were over a thousand unregistered groups with a total of about 200,000 believers, the majority of whom did not desire union with the AUCECB.

The AUCECB Plenum of February 23–27, 1961, again examined the question of the results of unification. Official documents noted: “The Plenum noted the necessity to intensify work on strengthening unity in the congregations. Regarding unity with Christians of the Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals), it was decided to continue educational work and the merging of Pentecostals with AUCECB congregations”[20]. Relations between the AUCECB and Pentecostal associations were further complicated by a severe schism within the Evangelical Christian movement (August 1961). The very existence of the union of the three religious currents that had merged in 1945 was threatened.

Obviously, under these conditions, the leaders of the AUCECB were forced by circumstances to demonstrate the “success of the unification effort” in order to arrest the centrifugal processes developing among Evangelical Christians-Baptists. Considerable attention was given to this in 1963 during the preparations for the 38th Congress of the AUCECB, scheduled for December 1963. To this end, on December 4–6 in Kyiv, a republican conference was held with workers of the former Union of Christians of the Evangelical Faith, inviting a number of ministers who had not yet joined the AUCECB. The adopted Appeal, distributed throughout all regions of Ukraine, contained a call to the unmerged to join the AUCECB, and senior presbyters were urged to more actively work for unification.

In the report of the 38th Congress, in the section “The Cause of Unity,” a description of the unification process was given, and the main actions of the AUCECB aimed at this were listed. It was reported that “there is a large number of merged CFE” and that “there is a certain number of persons” unmerged. It was also stated that “the merged CFE over the past period have observed the August Agreement on Unity. No significant violations were observed. We can note that year by year the unity is growing stronger and stronger, and the Lord is blessing the fellowship of His children. As for unmerged CFE, there have been no particular shifts toward unity with them in recent years”[21].

In the unanimously adopted “Fraternal Epistle to All Evangelical Christians-Baptists, Christians of the Evangelical Faith, and Mennonites,” it was said: “We have resolved in this our Fraternal Epistle to address all Evangelical Christians, all Christians of the Evangelical Faith, all Mennonite brothers and sisters long striving in our brotherhood for the evangelical faith, all children of God who for various reasons are outside of unity with us, with a fervent fraternal call to forget all differences and to treasure the precious words of Christ: ‘that they all may be one,’ and the words full of great truth: ‘In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, love.’”

The departure of N.S. Khrushchev from the political arena and the accession of L.I. Brezhnev to the leadership of the party and the country somewhat changed the overall situation in the religious sphere and reduced the degree of state pressure on religious associations. For the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, a moment came when it could more or less freely assess what was happening in the country’s religious situation. In order to eliminate the consequences of the policy of persecution and pressure on religious associations, data were collected on the number of convicted believers across the Soviet Union for 1961–1964[22]: they indicated that 806 persons were held criminally liable:

Table No. 6

To this we add that, according to the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR and other Union republics “On Strengthening the Struggle with Persons Avoiding Socially Useful Labor and Leading an Anti-Social Parasitic Way of Life” and resolutions of general meetings of the public, in 1958–1961 over 400 persons were exiled (according to incomplete data) to remote regions of the USSR. This measure affected 351 persons in the RSFSR, 25 in the Kazakh SSR, 13 in the Ukrainian SSR, 13 in the Byelorussian SSR, 4 in the Turkmen SSR.

Throughout the entire period under study, the Council received complaints from believers, both those convicted and exiled, from their parents and relatives, who asserted that people were often judged not for specific offenses, but “for their faith, religious convictions, and performing religious rituals.” The Council repeatedly forwarded these letters to law enforcement agencies with a request for review, but most often they did not yield a positive result for the believers, and the court decisions remained unchanged.

In October 1964, a conference was held at the Supreme Court of the USSR with the participation of members of the Plenums of the Supreme Court of the USSR, representatives of the Supreme Courts of the Union republics, the USSR Prosecutor’s Office and the Prosecutor’s Offices of the Union republics, the Council for Religious Cults, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, and staff from central party publications. The question put forward for consideration was “On Certain Issues of Judicial Practice in Criminal Cases Related to Violations of the Legislation on the Separation of Church from State and on Religious Cults.” From a report prepared by a member of the Council summarizing the results of the conference, we learn that, based on a study of judicial practice in a number of Union republics, the Supreme Court of the USSR reached the conclusion that there were gross violations of the legislation on cults in effect at that time. These violations manifested themselves in: the unjustified conviction of citizens who were members of unregistered, and in some cases even registered, religious associations; unjustifiably harsh punitive measures; unjustified facts of deprivation of parental rights and dismissal from work. It was decided to send, through the USSR Prosecutor’s Office, the Supreme Court of the USSR, and the Councils, instructions to the local authorities to eliminate the errors that had been identified. The Supreme Courts of the Union republics were recommended to review all those criminal cases in which clergymen and church officials, members of religious associations, had been brought to justice[23].

In January 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR addressed the question of observing legality with regard to believers and religious associations. A special resolution was adopted, “On Certain Facts of Violations of Socialist Legality in Relation to Believers,” which condemned the violations of the legislation regarding believers and religious associations and called for their elimination. Similar resolutions were subsequently adopted in the Union republics as well.

In March 1965, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the USSR and the Department for Supervision over the Consideration of Criminal Cases in the Courts of the USSR Prosecutor’s Office distributed to local bodies a compiled “Review of the Practice of Application of the Legislation on the Separation of Church from State and School from Church and on Religious Cults,” pointing out the most typical deficiencies in the work of law-enforcement and judicial bodies and demanding the elimination of the revealed departures from the laws.

The Council for Religious Cults could not stay aloof from these processes. An All-Union Conference of the Council’s Commissioners was devoted to the implementation of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR resolution*. All Commissioners were required to prepare and send detailed information on facts of violations of the rights of believers and religious associations and on the measures taken by the Commissioners to eliminate them. (See: Document No. 5).

The information received by the Council, which was, unfortunately, in many respects clearly insufficient, was summarized by the central apparatus in the form of an analytical note. From it, it followed that in 1961–1965, 1,234 persons were convicted in the USSR. The table below shows that these were primarily members of such associations as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Pentecostals, Evangelical Christians, Mennonites, True Orthodox Christians, as well as Adventists, Muslims, the True Orthodox Church, Murashkovtsy, and Catholics (shown under the “other cults” column):

From the same report it also followed that during 1965, 207 people in the Soviet Union were released from imprisonment or escaped criminal and administrative prosecution. By Union republics, this looked as follows: in the RSFSR — 110 people; in the Ukrainian SSR — 45; in the Kazakh SSR — 36; in the Byelorussian SSR — 3; in the Lithuanian SSR — 2. In individual cases, officials who had permitted violations of the laws on religious cults were subjected to sanctions.

Document No. 5

Information Letter

of the Council for Religious Cults

June 1965

The Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers of the USSR is preparing a report on the implementation of the Resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of 27 January 1965 “On Certain Facts of Violations of Socialist Legality in Relation to Believers.”

In connection with this, the Council obliges you, within one week of receiving this letter, to prepare and send to the Council detailed information on the implementation of this resolution in your region (republic). The information must provide answers to the following questions.

1. What specifically have you, as the Council’s commissioner, done to implement the above-mentioned resolution.

2. What measures have been taken by republican, regional, and other bodies to stop administrative excesses in relation to believers and to correct the mistakes that were made; have there been any instances of administrative high-handedness this year, and what measures have been taken to protect the lawful rights and interests of believers.

3. Measures taken through the Prosecution Office, the courts, and other administrative bodies: how many court sentences were overturned due to the absence of corpus delicti, how many court sentences were upheld, how many deportation orders were revoked, and whether all cases of convicted and deported believers have been reviewed.

4. What violations of legality are committed by religious associations, believers, and clergy (specific facts only), and what measures are being taken to eliminate these violations. In doing so, pay special attention to the description of the activities of the Baptist schismatics and the experience of combating violations of legality, indicating the number of societies, groups, and believers who support the “orgkomitet”.

5. What issues remained unresolved, and what, in your opinion, should be done to fully correct the mistakes made and prevent them in the future.

GA RF. F. R-6991. Inv. 4. File 170. Sheet 14b.

***

The theme of the necessity to observe legislation with regard to believers and the associations they created became a constant in the public speeches of the Chairman of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, A. A. Puzin. For instance, speaking in August 1965 at a course for party officials responsible for conducting atheistic work in the regions of the USSR, he addressed the most frequent violations:

· unjustified closure of prayer houses actively supported by large numbers of believers

· unlawful refusal to register religious associations

· dispersal of prayer meetings of believers by police and volunteer squads

· arbitrary searches in the homes of believers and in prayer houses

· confiscation of religious literature

· illegal arrests of believers

· unwarranted criminal and administrative prosecution

· deprivation of believers of parental rights.

“Why have such lawless actions against sectarian believers become possible?” Puzin asked. And he answered: “The fact is that many officials have formed incorrect ideas about sectarians and the methods of combating sectarian teachings. All sectarians are often portrayed as enemies of the Soviet state, as moral monsters and parasites.” In the Chairman’s opinion, it was necessary “to change attitudes toward sectarians, to stop the dissemination of all sorts of fabrications about sectarians that unjustly defame believers and their organizations, to change the methods of combating sectarian beliefs, and to abandon administrative means of struggle. It must not be forgotten that the overwhelming majority of sectarian believers are honest Soviet people, and their incorrect views and errors do not justify treating them as persons undeserving of political trust.”

In this and other speeches, Puzin directly raised before the party bodies and the Commissioners in the republics, krais, and oblasts of the USSR the need to amend legislative acts so as to shield believers from unlawful persecution and protect their rights. In doing so, he proceeded from the principle: if believers and the associations they create acknowledge and do not violate the laws, they must be registered.

At meetings organized by the Council with the participation of representatives of scholarly institutions, jurists, party and state officials, concrete possible steps to improve the legislation on cults were discussed, including with regard to unregistered religious associations.

On September 30, 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decree “On Lifting the Special-Settlement Restrictions from Members of the Sects ‘Jehovah’s Witnesses,’ ‘True Orthodox Christians,’ ‘Innokentievites,’ ‘Reform Adventists,’ and Their Families” [24]. According to this secret decree, members of the so-called “anti-Soviet sects” were released from administrative supervision and could leave the place of special settlement. However, the decree was an inconsistent step by the state, for, first, it concerned representatives of a limited number of religious associations, and second, it linked the possibility of people returning to their native places to the permission of the corresponding local authorities. Naturally, in most cases they did not grant such permission.

The mid-1960s became a period when human rights issues, including religious freedom, were actively discussed by the United Nations and its various committees, and the drafting of fundamental international instruments on this subject proceeded. The Soviet Union, beginning from the period of the so-called “Khrushchev Thaw,” no longer took a “detached position” but became involved in debating the most diverse bills on human rights. As a rule, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults were given draft bills on religious freedom prepared by international organizations for consideration, and were instructed to submit proposals to be introduced on behalf of the Soviet side.

A study of the archival holdings of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults shows that these proposals boiled down to the exclusion from the international bills of several norms that significantly expanded the rights and possibilities of religious associations and were inconsistent with Soviet legislation on religious cults. For example, the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults, in a memorandum to the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the draft Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Religious Intolerance, pointed out: “it would be appropriate to exclude the provision establishing ‘the creation and maintenance of charitable and educational institutions,’ since in the USSR religious associations are not granted the right to form such institutions” [25]. At the same time, in special information materials prepared by the central apparatus of the Council for the commissioners in the republics, krais, and oblasts of the USSR, the task was set to demonstrate the full conformity of Soviet legislation on cults with international instruments on religious freedom, and consequently, the needlessness of any changes to it.

It is also worth noting that the country’s mass media published virtually no information about the USSR’s participation in creating an international legal framework on human rights issues, just as information about the activities of religious associations in the USSR was in general restricted as much as possible within the framework of specially adopted Lists of Information Not Subject to Publication.

In December 1965, as part of a general campaign to reduce the state apparatus, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults were merged into a single body—the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers (1965–1991), established “for the purpose of consistently implementing the Soviet state’s policy toward religions.” V.A. Kuroyedov was placed at the head of the Council, and his name would be associated with the state’s church policy for the next twenty years.

* Prior to his appointment as Chairman of the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers, he worked at the USSR Ministry of Culture and was a member of the Ministry’s Collegium.

* This refers to the Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee “On Major Shortcomings in Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda and Measures for Its Improvement.”

** This refers to the Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee “On Errors in the Conduct of Scientific-Atheistic Propaganda Among the Population.”

* In 1954, the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church received 985 petitions to open churches; in 1957 — 2,265. The Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults received 1,157 petitions in 1955 and 1,633 in 1957.

* Parish — a term designating the territory where members of a registered religious association reside and which is served by a minister of religion registered with that association.

* They were served by 14,002 ministers of religion, of whom 6,032 were not registered.

* According to the Pentecostals’ own data, unregistered communities numbered about 200,000 members.

* Associations of all religious denominations are counted.

** Both registered and unregistered associations are counted.

* This resolution was also discussed at the All-Union Conference of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church.

** 1 — number of convicts

*** Including: 2 — Jehovah’s Witnesses; 3 — Pentecostals; 4 — Evangelical Christians-Baptists and Mennonites; 5 — True Orthodox Christians; 6 — other cults

NOTES

[1] State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). F. R-6991. Op. 3. D. 521. L. 1.

[2] Ibid. D. 132. L. 1-11.

[3] Ibid. D. 131. L. 6-7.

[4] Ibid. D. 149. L. 3-4.

[5] Cit. from: Odintsov M.I. State and Church in Russia. The 20th Century. Moscow, 1994. Pp. 117–118.

[6] Cit. from: Franchuk V.I. Russia Asked the Lord for Rain. Kiev, 2003. Vol. 3. P. 414.

[7] On the All-Union Conference of Plenipotentiaries of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church held in January 1959, see: Odintsov M.I. Religious Policy of the Soviet State, 1939–1958 / Power and Church in the USSR and Eastern European Countries, 1939–1958. Debatable Aspects. Moscow, 2003.

[8] For the text of the report, see: GARF. F. R-6991. Op. 3. D. 165. L 3-33a.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Materials of the 22nd Congress of the CPSU. Moscow, 1962. Pp. 111-112.

[11] Ibid. P. 430.

[12] Ilyichev L.F. Immediate Tasks of the Party’s Ideological Work. Moscow, 1963. P. 46.

[13] See: Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, June 18–21, 1963. Verbatim Report. Moscow, 1964. P. 308.

[14] For example, A.A. Puzin said: “The common basis of Union and republican legislation on cults is, as is well known, together with the USSR Constitution, Lenin’s Decree ‘On the Separation of Church from State.’ Not a single provision of that decree has lost its significance to this day. It sets forth the party and state line toward religion and the church, the correctness of which has been tested by decades of struggle for the transformation of society on communist principles. The significance of the new Instruction on the Application of Legislation on Cults consists, first and foremost, in clarifying the meaning of this Leninist Decree under present conditions.”

[15] GARF. F. R-6991. Op. 4. D. 428. L. 39.

[16] See: Legislation on Religious Cults. Moscow, 1971. P. 157.

[17] GARF. F. R-6991. Op. 4. D. 94. L. 67-76.

[18] Ibid. L. 77-79.

[19] Bratsky Vestnik. 1963. No. 6. P. 13.

[20] Ibid.

[21] Bratskiy Vestnik. 1963. No. 6. P. 22.

[22] GA RF. F. R-6991. Op. 4. D. 173. L. 187-196.

[23] Ibid. L. 266-270.

[24] Ibid. D. 119. L. 15.

[25] Ibid. D. 172. L. 12.

Print, save, letter .pdf

Share

Similar articles

1. Letter from the Chairman of the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers A.A. Luzin to the Deputy Chairman of the KGB under the USSR Council of Ministers K.F. Lunev No. 23-113с, 8 August 1957. Secret. The Council for Religious Cults is encountering certain difficulties…
2. Memorandum from the Chairmen of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers G.G. Karpov and I.V. Polyansky to the USSR Council of Ministers No. 2-110с, 5 February 1955. Secret. Beginning in 1948 on the territory of the USSR…
3. “On the Activities of Pentecostal Religious Groups” Circular Letter of the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers No. 4-112с 31 May 1957. The Council for Religious Cults reviewed the materials of the Commissioners characterizing what had taken place…
4. Application from A.I. Bidash and leaders of Pentecostal communities requesting registration, received by the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers 12 October 1956. (The date of delivery of the message during a meeting with Bishop A.I. Bidash at the Council is indicated….
5. Information from the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers to the Council’s Commissioners in the republics, territories, and regions of the Soviet Union No. 7-112с, 17 August 1957. Secret. In May of this year in Dnepropetrovsk a trial took place against…
6. Circular letter from the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers to the Council’s Commissioners in the republics, territories, and regions of the Soviet Union No. 5-109с, 25 August 1956. Secret. The Council for Religious Cults under the Council of Ministers…
7. M. A. Fedorova. On Believers in Sverdlovsk Region: Report of the Commissioner for Religious Cults under the USSR Government (1954) This publication presents a document on the activities of the commissioner for Sverdlovsk Region of the Council for Religious…
8. Archives: The Commissioner of Primorye to the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers on the trial of Boris Perchatkin For official use. To the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers, city of Moscow. In addition…
9. Section “Pentecostals” from the memorandum of the head of the instructors’ group of the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers, Frolov Section II, 156. To the Chairman of the Council I.V. Polyansky (January) 1956. Groups of Pentecostals are widespread in the Ukrainian…
10. Record of reception at the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers of Bishop of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith A.I. Bidash and the persons accompanying him 13 October 1956. Bidash, who arrived from Pyatikhatki, introduced himself as the bishop of the Union of CEF, and Levchuk and…
11. Documentary materials on the activities of associations of Christians of Evangelical Faith in the Soviet Union (1943–1965), held in the State Archive of the Russian Federation State-church relations were one of the essential elements of the political history of the Soviet Union. Directly, the state’s policy in…
12. Record of reception at the Council for Religious Cults under the USSR Council of Ministers of Bishop of the Church of Christians of Evangelical Faith A.I. Bidash 25 October 1956. To the Council, together with Bidash, arrived without prior arrangement, as had…