Religious Practices in the USSR

English

With Icons and Psalms, or a Bishop in Flight from his Flock. Mass Pilgrimages in Russia in the Times of Stalin and Khrushchev

Pilgrimages to monasteries or other holy places were a traditional religious practice among Orthodox believers up to 1917. Despite the Soviet government’s proclamation of state atheism, it was only with the mass terror in the 1930s that these practices disappeared. Yet in the context of World War II and Stalin’s following policy change towards religions, believers felt encouraged to practice the pilgrimage again. This article examines a pilgrimage to the famous monastery called “Rooted solitude” (Korennaia pustyn’) by the city of Kursk (Central Russia).

The Restitution of Church Buildings in Leningrad Diocese in Postwar Decade: an Analysis of Believers’ Petitions

The paper deals with the reopening of Russian Orthodox churches after the changes of religious policy in post-war Leningrad diocese. The author draws upon the petitions written by the believers and submitted to various state agencies where they provided arguments for the re-introduction of liturgical services and parish life. The data is taken from the material in various local and central archives.

Christian Denominations in Soviet Byelorussia in 1929–1939: Active and Passive Forms of Resistance

The author presents a detailed analysis of the reactions of believers in Belorussia to the official religious policies in the 1930s; their reactions are examined through the lens of the “history of everyday life” approach. The main sources were collections of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus, fund #4p “Central Committee of the Communist Bolshevik Party of Belorussia, 1917-1941.”

“The City without Churches”: Religiosity in Magnitogorsk in 1930-s

The paper explores religiosity in a newly built Soviet city of Magnitogorsk. The author finds out that in spite of official antireligious policies and the declarative goal to create a “city without churches”, the population continued religious practices. The way religiosity was officially controlled and measured — by the number of churches, visible religious attributes, and open rituals — helped create a relatively calm life for believers with their “invisible” practices.

The Princess Olga from Chuvashia: Imposture as a Religious Practice

The purpose of this paper is to introduce new data on the phenomenon of imposture in Chuvashia in 1920s-1930s. The paper draws upon the evidences form the local NKVD archives. Aleksandra Saratova, who claimed to be Olga, a daughter of the last Russian Tsar Nicolas II, was arrested in Chuvashia; later she and a few other people were executed. The investigation proved her close connections with the movement of True Orthodox Christians — istinnopravoslavnykh khristian — an underground religious network strongly opposed to collectivization and the Soviet power in general.

The Map of Religions for the Failed 1937 Census: a Forgotten Page of Religious Studies in the USSR

The author explores the preparations for the Soviet 1937 census. (The results of this census were famously cancelled by the authorities for reasons of alleged falsification, and people involved were subsequently persecuted). In this census, for the first time in Soviet history, the question was included about the respondents’ religious affiliation. In this connection, a special reference book has been created that covered the full list of religions in the USSR.

“All Power to the Parish!” An Orthodox Revival in 1920-s

Existing scholarship on Russian Orthodoxy during the Soviet era has tended to focus on high politics, the Church (as an institution), and the clergy (especially the hierarchy). It is important, however, to shift the focus to the parish and laity, to whom the Bolsheviks (through the famous decree of 1918) gave full power over the local church and religious life.

“The Whole Life with Books”: the Soviet Jewry’s Journey from the Bible to the Library

Based on the extensive collection of interviews with Soviet, mostly Ukrainian, Jews born before World War II, the essay examines changes in their reading experience and reading priorities from Bible-centered religious booklore to kulturnost’ — a broad bookish culture of the Soviet intelligentsia. 

Taking the Holy Communion in Soviet Era: Practices of the Russian Orthodox Laity

The paper uses the method of historical anthropology to look at the evolution of the practice of the Holy Communion in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era. The author shows that the frequency of individual communion increased in 5-10 times comparing to the pre-Revolutionary period when it was usually practiced no more than once a year.

Eastern Orthodox Confession in the Soviet Period

This article traces changes in the practice of sacramental confession in the Soviet period, from 1917 to 1991. The combination of secularizing pressures, church closures, and fewer priests, meant that the routine, institutionalized aspect of confession before 1917, which had made individual confession something familiar to the average Orthodox Christian believer, vanished, replaced in most cases by the general confession. On the other hand, for religious “virtuosi,” confession became a more central element of religious life.

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