Religion and the Church in the CIS

On the territory of CIS there exist Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and some denomination groups as well.

The most widespread religion among believers is Christianity which has more than 10 independent churches, a number of denominations, and non-registered groups in great numbers.

The Russian Orthodox Church is the largest religious organization both in CIS and among independent Orthodox Churches of the world. Its supreme power belongs to the Synod. It is convened as required in the presence of all the bishops, including foreign ones, who are under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchy, and the representatives of the secular clergy and believers.

Old Belief is historically divided into three independent trends: Church of Belokrinitsa Concord headed by Moscow and all Russian Archbishop; Church of Beglopopov Concord, i.e. the church accepting the clergy who passed on from Greek-Oriental (Orthodox) Church and which is headed by Novozybkovsky, Moscow and All Russian Archbishop; Church of Bespopov Persuasion ignoring church hierarchy functions in different regions independently, but in Lithuania it is governed by Supreme Old Belief Council.

Georgian Orthodox Church is governed by a Patriarch under the guidance of whom Mtsheta Theological Seminary functions.

Armenian-Georgian Church unites eparchies and religious communities of Armenian believers living in CIS and abroad. The Church is headed by All Armenian Patriach. The Theological Academy is also under his guidance.

On the territory of Ukraine there is the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and the Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church represented mainly in the Western regions of Ukraine.

The Roman-Catholic Church has communities of different types. Thus, in Lithuania Catholic parishes are divided between six religious centers: Vilnius Archeparchy, Vilkavishkis, Kaunas, Kaishadoris, Panevezhis and Telshai Eparchies. In Latvia Catholic parishes are united by Riga Archdiocese. In Zakarpattya there is vicarage of Roman-Catholic Church (its residence is in Uzhgorod). There are Catholic parishes in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan as well, but this Church does not have a united center.

Evangelic-Lutheran Church (of the Augsburg denomination) is functioning in Baltic regions. It has three independent centers-consistories. In Latvia and Estonia they are headed by archbishops, and in Lithuania – by Consistory Chairman-President.

The Church of Evangelic Christian Baptists is headed by the All Union Council (its residence is in Moscow) which is elected at the congresses of believers.

In Lithuania there are communities of believers of Evangelic-Reformatory Church headed by Consistory and its President; in Estonia – of Methodist Church headed by Council Chairman-Superintendent; and in Zakarpattya – of Reformatory (Calvinist) Church headed by Bishop.

In some regions of CIS there are religious groupings: followers of old forms of Russian religious dissidence (dukhobors, molokans, holy eunuchs), and also confessions of West European origin of Protestant type (7th day Adventists, Pentecostals and others). They were spread on the territory of Russian Empire at the end of the nineteenth, beginning of the twentieth centuries.

The second most widespread religion (after Christianity) is Islam. It has two trends. Sunnite beliefs are spread mainly in Middle Asian states, Kazakhstan, autonomous republics of North Caucasus, Volga regions, and in a number of Russian Federation regions; Shiite is represented in Azerbaijan. The religious activities of Muslims are governed by four independent religious centers – Councils of Muslims of Middle Asia and Kazakhstan; of European part of CIS and Siberia; North Caucasus and Trans-Caucasus.

Buddhism in the form of Lamaism is spread in Buryatia, Tuva, Kalmykia, Irkutsk and Chita regions of Asia. It is headed by Central Buddhist Council of the CIS.

Judaism is the religion spread mainly among the Jewish population of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia and some other regions of the Commonwealth.

Religious Senkritism (paganism in theological terminology) combines elements of animistic, totemistic, and fetishistic ideas, ancestral cult and shamanism. It is spread in some regions of Siberia and Far East.

In May, 1988, Council of Religious Affairs of the USSR Soviet of Ministers registered the Moscow Krishna Society. It is the organization created with the aim of satisfying the religious needs of believers of Vaishnav Persuasion and joint performance of religious rites.

The Road 70 Years Long: From Confrontation To Cooperation

(The relationships between the state and the church in the history of the Soviet society)

Lately we have witnessed the process of pulling down the secret taboo for discussing the problems connected with the activities of the religious organizations. At the same time there appeared the necessity of giving an account of the post-Revolutionary history of the relationship between the church and the Soviet state. It is not only the performance of our duty to the past but also a pledge of our success in moving forward. It is impossible to work out and to follow a new course in the relationships between the church and the state without looking into what has occurred since establishing the power of workers and peasants in the Soviet country, without answering the questions of what the church policy depended on and when and how the deformation of the post-Revolutionary principles as to religion, church and believers started.

1918-1929

On January 20, 1918, Sovnarkom of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) adopted a decree “On Liberty of Conscience, Church, and Religious Societies” which became the basis of the church policy. It was not easy to implement it into the existing system at the very beginning. On the one hand, it was opposed by the clergy and the religious centers; on the other hand, the local Soviet authorities lacked enough self-control and presence of mind. They wanted to solve all the problems as soon as possible. The only way out they thought was applying administrative pressure. It was with this purpose that the Joint Committee Commission was found in April, 1918, to carry out the decision on disestablishing the church. On May 8 this committee resigned its commission to the special department of the People’s Commissariat of Justice. This delicate mission was carried out successfully on the whole by the 8th Department of Narkomyust (People’s Commissariat of Justice). The church had been basically disestablished by the middle 20’s. At the same time mutual understanding and normalization of the relationships between the state and the majority of religious organizations had been reached. Moslems and Old Believers, Lutherans and Baptists, Armenian-Gregorian Church and Patriarch Orthodox Church announced their loyalty to the Soviet Power and called their believers to fulfilling their civil duties.

It should be noted that there were constant difficulties and misunderstandings in the relationships between the church and the state, and it was quite natural, because there had been no experience in the working out of relationships between the socialist state and the church. Many conflicts were usually figured out experimentally.

The 8th Department of Narkomyust had not existed long. In August, 1924, it was abolished. Soon after Lenin’s death the only central organ which regulated the relationships in a most delicate sphere ceased its existence.

In 1924-1929 “church policy” was carried out by the notorious Narkomat Vnutrennikh Dyel (People’s Commissariat of Home Affairs). The attempts made to work out Union legislation about religious cults in 1926-1929 failed. There appeared the necessity of lawlessness instead of laws.

Since the late 20’s the activities of the religious organizations had been severely limited. Attempts were made to move them aside to the periphery of social life, to isolate them from the population, and to make them concentrate on purely religious questions. For example, in the instructions of the late 20’s the local authorities were ordered “to forbid discussing and solving the questions not referring to religion during religious meetings and sectarian congresses.”

First the limits were established and later a ban was imposed on all kinds of economic activities and on charity work as well. Violations were administratively and criminally punished.

It was justified by the famous lines of Stalin about the aggravation of class struggle in the process of building Socialism. Religious organizations were declared conductors of bourgeois influence, “kulak-nepman” agents who supposedly “mobilize reactionary and lacking class consciousness elements of the country with the aim of counter-attack the Soviet Power and the Communist Party.” There were calls to fight religion – not an abstract idea of “God” but “the counter-revolutionary force.”

Early in 1929 it was decided that the Union legislation on religious cults was useless. A special letter signed by L. Kaganovich “On the Measures on Intensifying Anti-religious Work” was sent out. Practically it functioned “force pressure” on the religious societies. This was done in spite of the repeated statements of the religious organizations about their loyalty to the Soviet Power.

Information about prayer houses and religious societies

(The table was made according to the NKVD (KGB) data which is not always exact)

Number of prayer buildings
1917 1928
CULT Total Used for
religious aims
Russian Orthodox 77,767 29,584 28,560
Old Believers 1,268 1,707 1,679
Catholics 4,233 137 128
Jews 6,059 265 261
Moslems 24,582 2,376 2,293
Evangelical Christians,
Baptists 2,447 714 701

1929-1930

“Equal legal rights for both atheistic and religious propaganda are necessary” – this demand can be heard today whene discussing the draft of the law “On Liberty of Conscience.” This problem was being solved in the Constitution of the RSFSR in 1918, adopted when Lenin was alive. Nevertheless, in May, 1929, at the 11th All Russian Congress of Soviets amendments and changes were introduced into Article 4 of the Constitution. The necessity of amendments was explained in the following way: “This amendment is introduced with the aim of limiting the spreading of religious prejudices by propaganda which is used with counter-revolutionary aims very often.”

The Sovnarkom Chairman Rykov A. I. stressed in his report that “the supporters of the fight with the religious ideology are not going to apply any measures of compulsion against religion… that such struggle can be successful only if it is connected with the rise of the masses, with the application of scientific knowledge and changing the living conditions.” Violence extremes were condemned.

The idea of overcoming religion found more and more advocates among the local leaders. Nikitin, a representative of Vladimirskaya Province declared, “The question is that we do not need propaganda alone but maybe also a proletarian worker’s hand; and maybe in some places we have to give a blow to religion and whip it properly.”

Rykov objected, warned against the attempts to replace ideological struggle with a club; but the administrative-repressive measures were gathering strength.

After the ideological attack on religions, campaign on closing the prayer houses developed. In the Moscow region alone 696 churches were closed in winter 1929-1930. More and more often the local authorities asked for introduction of more drastic measures. They demanded limiting the journeying of bishops, banning religious meetings, closing the church libraries at the religious societies, and passing the religious literature into waste-paper.

The Commission on Questions of Cults, yielding to pressure, found it expedient to give the local authorities the right to close prayer houses in January, 1930. The next step was a ban on religious Congresses and believers meetings.

There were occurrences, however, that in those complicated times there were certain people in the Party and in the Government who were against such policy.

Information about the state of religious societies and prayer houses in the RSFSR for December 1, 1933

Closed Number in 1931 Closed prayer houses # of % to
CULTS 1918- Religious Prayer in in in pr. hs. # of
1931 societies Houses 1931 1932 1933 in 1933 total
Russian Orthodox
Tikhonovtsy 8,568 24,843 23,213 171 224 142 22,676 63.0
Obnovlentsy 1,488 4,367 4,159 2 – – 4,157 11.6
Catholics 112 217 188 1 – – 187 0.5
Lutherans 662 945 828 4 1 – 823 2.0
Moslems 3,552 5,269 4,863 4 1 2 4,856 13.5
Jews 247 223 200 6 3 1 190 0.5
Buddhists 44 234 231 – – – 231 0.6
Armenian Church 49 59 56 – – – 56 0.2
Old Believers 706 1,484 1,335 5 8 1 1,321 3.6
Evangelists 225 1,130 711 – – – 711 2.0
Baptists 224 878 549 – – – 549 1.5
Religious groups 110 349 232 – – 1 231 0.6
Greek Churches 1 23 22 – – – 22 0.1
Total: 15,988 40,021 36,587 193 237 147 36,010 100.0

This table was made by the specialists on cult questions at the Presidium VCIK on the basis of statistical data from NKVD (KGB) and from different regions of Russia.

1930-1938

By Spring of 1930 the situation in “the question of religion” was critical. Collectivization was accompanied by dispossession of the priests and ministers, by closing churches and prayer houses. This called forth a rising tide of discontent from both believers and non-believers. The participants of these rebellions were peasants of average means, poor peasants, women, ex-service men and even the representatives of local authorities.

That is why the Central Committee of the All Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks passed the resolution “On Distortions of the Party Lines in the Collective Farm Movement” (March 14, 1930). It commanded the authorities ”to stop closing churches immediately by administrative order.” The process of closing churches was somewhat held up; some of the illegal decisions were abolished. For example, in the Moscow region 545 churches were re-opened right away. Nevertheless, the Commission failed to change the situation. The Party “apparatchiks” were guided by a policy of dictation in solving the question of religion. In February, 1933, under the pressure of a GPU representative the Commission was forced to pass the resolution, “On the Status of Religious Organizations.” It demanded that authorities “redouble vigilance” to “limit the possibilities of ministers’ influence in the workers’ masses.” Such appeals reduced the number of religion societies, limiting the ministers’ activities. Suspiciousness and hostility toward the clergy was justified by the Party line.

In preparing the new Constitution in 1936 a number of suggestions were directed to the Constitution Commission to ban all the religious rites, to deprive the ministers of their civil rights, and to outlaw all unofficial societies. The Commission tried to block the way to such militant recommendations.

After the adoption of the new Constitution Krasikov addressed the Central Committees of the Union Republics pointing to the troubles in the sphere of religion and the reduction of the number of functioning churches. Thus, in Ukraine there were only 9% of the pre-Revolutionary number of churches left, in Azerbaijan – 4.3%, in Armenia – 6.4%, in Uzbekistan – 31%, in Belorussia – 10.9%, in RSFSR – 35.6%, totaling in the USSR mere 28.5%. The Commission demanded returning the churches which had been taken away illegally back to the believers.

However, in the middle of 1937 the active Party and Soviet members demanded to put an end to the hostile religious organizations. In April, 1938, the Commission was abolished. This resulted in the elimination of the horrible contacts between the Government and the religious organizations.

Information about the number of religious societies in the USSR for the period from 1917 to 1933

The number Buildings Buildings Out of them
Republics of buildings closed not closed # of Non-
in 1917* by 1936 by 1936 acting acting
RSFSR 39,530 20,318 19,212 14,090 5,122
Uzbek SSR 14,905 9,193 5,712 4,830 882
Ukrainian SSR 12,380 7,341 4,487 1,116 3,371
Belorussian SSR 2,183 1,706 477 239 238
Georgian SSR 1,767 1,403 364 281 83
Azerbaijan SSR 1,581 1,375 206 69 137
Kirgiz SSR 843 524 319 243 76
Armenian SSR 617 532 85 40 45

*There is no information as to the number of religion societies in Tadjik, Kazakh, and Turkmen Republics.
**In the territorial borders of 1936.

1939-1954

At the beginning of the 40’s hundreds of towns and villages were without churches and therefore were counted as “atheistic.” In 25 Russian regions there were no Orthodox churches. In 20 regions there were no more than 5 churches. In the Ukraine in the Vinnitsa, Donetsk, Kirovograd and Nikolayev regions there were no churches at all. There was only one church in the Lugansk, Poltava, and Kharkov regions. The network of churches in the territories which became part of the USSR before the war was yet large. However, the experience of regulating the relationships between the church and the state resulted in nationalization of printing houses, bookstores, educational institutions, and different Catholic organizations. Some of the Catholic ministers were deported.
Nevertheless, on June 22, 1941, when the war was threatening the country, the Head of the Russian Orthodox Church Metropolitan Sergei appealed to all the believers to defend the country. Money was gathered for the defense. Evangelical Christians-Baptists gathered money for the transport airplanes and Armenian-Gregorian Church – for the tanks.

For the cooperation with the fascists some of the ministers were excommunicated. After this the government had to be more benevolent to the believers. Some religious publishing activity (books, fliers) was permitted, even though limited. Mass public services and ceremonies were also somewhat permitted. Some prayer houses and churches were being opened, though still unofficially. The religious centers were recognized; however, they were still de-facto. It is understood, of course, that all this was caused by both home and foreign factors out of the necessity of uniting all the anti-fascist forces and opening the second front against Nazi Germany.

According to the information of Karpov G. G., by September, 1943, the number of Orthodox churches amounted to 9,829 (6,500 of them were on the occupied territory). In 1944, 208 churches were opened and in 1945, 510. Thus, by 1946, 10,547 Orthodox churches had been registered (in Ukraine 6,677, in RSFSR – 2,816, in Belorussia – 621, in Moldavia – 582, in Baltic Republics – 343). On December 5, 1944, the resolution about opening of 7 mosques was adopted (in Uzbekistan and in Omsk).

In 1943-1948 the relationships between the church and the state were developing in the constructive direction on the whole (this concerns mainly the period of the war). In 1943-1948 Moslem Congresses took place in Baku, Tashkent, and Buinaksk. The Boards of Clergy were elected for the regions of the European part of the USSR, Middle Asia, Kazakhstan, and North Caucasus. In 1944-1945 Evangelical Christians and Baptists united. The All Union Center of 7th Day Adventist Church renewed its activities. Buddhist, Judaist, Lutheran, Old Belief and other denominations’ centers came into existence at this time. It was during these years that the authorities even returned the icons and the wonder-working relics of saints’ bodies confiscated in the 20-30’s; thus, the relics traveled from the storerooms of the museums back into the acting churches.

However, these changes did not include all the existing denominations and were manifested differently in the Union republics. As an example let us take the situation of the Uniat (Greek Catholic) Church in western Ukraine. In December, 1944, Greek Catholic Church delegation arrived in Moscow. They came with the task of regulating the relationships between the state and the Uniat Church, to ask the Government not to block the activities of the Uniat churches, monasteries and theological institutions. However, in response they were told that all the religions were equal before the state; therefore, there would be no exceptions for the Greek Catholic Church. However, in March, 1945, the relationship toward this church suddenly changed. The Uniat Church was now being viewed as a Vatican agent, and Vatican was considered an advocate of fascism. In Lithuania right after World War II (!) a considerable number of churches, prayer houses, and chapels were closed, and in 1947 all the monasteries were closed. About one third of all the priests were exiled. After the victorious ending of the war, the Soviet Government could finally take off their “mask of loyalty” to the “religious question;” and already from 1948 the normalization of the relationships between the church and the state was fully stopped. Voroshilov K. E. recommended treating the registration of new societies with restraint. He claimed, “Opening new mosques will make a smoldering log burn.” He also objected to establishing All Union centers of Muslims, Jews, and Old Believers. The Council on Religious Affairs worked out the following rules of registration: “depending on the situation” to open Armenian-Gregorian Churches, Moslem, and Buddhist societies and “in extremely exceptional cases” to open Roman-Catholic, Lutheran, Judaist and other religious societies. Beginning from 1949 the number of religious societies was steadily being reduced; their registration was stopped. By 1948 religious societies numbered 20,459 (14,189 of them were Orthodox), by 1954 – 18,475 (13,423 – Orthodox).

1954-1990

During the first years after Stalin’s death the church policy was carried out along well-trodden path; but in 1954 the questions of the relationships between the church and the state were gradually transferred under the Party auspices. Now they were solved in the light of “anti-religious work.” The number of acting religious societies was constantly being reduced.

In the 1960’s-1970’s atheistic work was acknowledged as the key factor in the formation of the scientific materialist outlook. “The struggle for uprooting the survivals of the past from people’s minds” found its application in atheistic work. Such orientation called forth index-hunting. In 1961, there were 16,050 religion societies (10,960 of them – Orthodox), and in 1971 – 11,749 and 7,224, correspondingly.

It was only in the middle of the 1970’s that the attitude which held the religious sphere unimportant began to change. The decree of the Supreme Soviet of RSFSR adopted in 1975 was of great importance. The changes and amendments introduced into the resolution “On Religious Societies” somewhat extended the possibilities of the religious organizations and to some extent relieved them from constant watch of authorities. However, the realization of the principle “liberty of conscience” under the conditions of stagnation and the pre-crisis state of the society stumbled on the predominant idea that the prohibitive measures were preferable in solving problems in the religion sphere. Practically no headway had been made in this matter. The number of religious societies still kept diminishing. In 1976 their number was 11,615 (6,983 of them Orthodox).

By the middle of 1980’s this contradiction was more and more realized by Party workers, clergy representatives, believers and by various strata of society. It was always the weak spot of the Soviet home policy, and it negatively reflected on the foreign policy prestige of the country as well.

In the history of every country there are times when it is necessary to ponder over the results of social development. In April, 1985, this time came; the process of radical changes and renewal of the Soviet society started.

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Gorbachev M. S. and other Party leaders repeatedly raised the question of the relationships between the state and the church. These questions were discussed at the 1st Congress of the People’s Deputies and at the meeting of the Ideology Commission discussing the draft of the law about the liberty of conscience.

The celebration of the Millennium of Russia’s Christening not only became great event for the believers, but also an outstanding phenomenon in the social and political life of the country; it found broad response in other countries of the world as well. In the jubilee celebrations which took place on June 4-16, 1988, the representatives of all the world religions and the heads of the religion organizations took part.

The jubilee celebrations were the first to testify to the beginning of rebuilding the relationships between the church and the state. It should be noted that this process did not exclude religious confessions different from the Russian Orthodox Church. Beginning from 1985, over two thousand religious organizations were registered (among them Orthodox, Catholic, Moslem, Protestant, and others). Many of them were given some possibilities of building or acquiring churches. Some theological institutions are being opened gradually; publishing activity is permitted for the religious organizations. All religious organizations were given somewhat broadened possibilities for social activities.

1990-present

From 1990 to approximately second half of 1993 there was a period of unrestricted freedom for all kinds of domestic and foreign religious activities. Missionaries from such foreign religions as Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, New Age, etc., as well as Western Protestant denominations were allowed to introduce the masses to their ideas. However, toward the end of 1993 it appeared the people were tending to drift away from the foreign religious trends toward the domestic, traditional, centuries-old, and “their own” religion – the Russian Orthodox Church.

With Russia as an example, we can see that the leading role in religious life of the country gradually starts shifting to one dominating religion. Authorities giving in on this issue follow the practices of other countries, i.e., European (Poland, Spain, Italy – Catholicism) as well as Eastern (Iran – Islam). And who knows, perhaps we will be witnessing other countries of the CIS following Russia’s example.