Letters, complaints, appeals of Orthodox believers of the Kama region to the authorities in the period of late socialism

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the written appeals of Orthodox believers of the Perm region as a historical source of the late socialism period. The implementation of anti-church policy by the state caused dissatisfaction among believers and forced them to turn to state and church authorities in search of justice. The analysis of the appeals made it possible to identify a wide range of problems faced by believers during the period of Brezhnev’s “stagnation”. It is noted that the authors of the letters raised mainly the problems of insufficient number of churches and protection from closing the existing ones, complained about “intra-community conflicts” related to the theft of funds, the struggle for power in the parish, the unworthy behavior of the church clergy, and also criticized the local authorities for bureaucratic work style. It is established that the authorities made attempts to reduce the number of complaints from the population through the adoption of new laws, anti-religious propaganda and personal preventive conversations. Officials treated the appeals of believers formally and solved only those problems that could compromise the central Soviet and party authorities. Therefore, in order to solve their problems, believers often attracted the attention of the general public through publications in the media and appeal to the central party and state bodies.

Keywords

• orthodoxy
• church history
• church and state
• orthodox clergy
• council for religious affairs
• the brezhnev era
• православие
• церковная история
• церковь и государство
• православное духовенство
• совет по делам религии
• брежневская эпоха