The problem of reopening churches in Stavropol and Baku dioceses in 1943–1948
Abstract
The issue of the reopening of churches in the territory of Stavropol and Baku dioceses at the end of World War II and during the fi rst post-war years is connected with problems of the “new deal” (Russ. «новый курс») in state-church relations in the USSR. A correlation of macro- and micro-historical phenomena in a single problem fi eld allows us to regard this issue as a complex system of interactions. The starting point for the analysis of the position of acting fi gures of the events in question is the initiative of Orthodox church communities that had been forced out of the legal fi eld in the course of antireligious policy of the previous period. The article traces important changes in religious life of regional communities in war-time conditions and draws on the material of Stavropol region, autonomous republics of the Caucasus and Azerbaij an. After the Battle for the Caucasus and Stalingrad Battle, the state faced the necessity to reverse the process of large-scale seizure of church buildings, which for a quarter of a century accompanied its religious policy. The state with an offi cial atheistic ideology came to be a donor to the religious community, providing it with buildings for the worship. This ideological paradox is determined by the direct involvement of top leadership of the Soviet Union in the issue of reopening of churches, as well as an active position of the Chairman of the Council for Aff airs of the Russian Orthodox Church and representatives of local authorities. The almost simultaneous election of patriarch of Moscow and all Russia and the enthronement of archbishop Anthony (Romanovsky) in Stavropol See complements the picture of historical interactions from the side of church hierarchy, the main mediator between communities of believers and state authorities in solving the problem of reopening of churches. On the basis of archival documents, the article makes conclusions as to the nature of concessions of the government in the issue of officially recognised extension of the social base of the church. The article also provides evidence that the “new deal” in fact continued pre-war practices of antireligious policy; it also reveals forms and methods of resisting religious revival in the centre and in the periphery, reconstructs the model of implementing the impeding strategy and summarises results of the established status quo in church life of the North Caucasus and Eastern Transcaucasia at the moment of completion of the so-called “new deal”.
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