Religious Policy in the Soviet Union

This 1992 book contains contributions from fifteen of the West's leading scholars of religion in the USSR.

Sabrina Petra Ramet (Edited by)

9780521416436, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 12 November 1992

384 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm, 0.73 kg

"...opens a new stage in the study of religion in the USSR, no longer as a subject of political science but of historical research." Serhii Plokhy, Canadian Slavonic Papers

Church-state relations have undergone a number of changes during the seven decades of the existence of the Soviet Union. In the 1920s the state was politically and financially weak and its edicts often ignored, but the 1930s saw the beginning of an era of systematic anti-religious persecution. There was some relaxation in the last decade of Stalin's rule, but under Khrushchev the pressure on the Church was again stepped up. In the Brezhev period this was moderated to a policy of slow strangulation of religion, and Gorbachev's leadership saw a thorough liberalization and re-legitimation of religion. This 1992 book brings together fifteen of the West's leading scholars of religion in the USSR. Bringing much hitherto unknown material to light, the authors discuss the policy apparatus, programmes of atheisation and socialisation, cults and sects, and the world of Christianity.

Preface Sabrina Petra Ramet
Part I. Introduction: 1. A survey of Soviet religious policy Philip Walters
2. Religious policy in the era of Gorbachev Sabrina Petra Ramet

Part II. Policy Apparatus: 3. The Council for Religious Affairs Otto Luchterhandt
4. Some reflections about religious policy under Kharchev Jane Ellis
5. The state, the church, and the oikumene: the Russian Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches, 1948–85 J. A. Hebly
Part III. Education, Socialisation, and Values: 6. Fear no evil: schools and religion in Soviet Russia, 1917–41 Larry E. Holmes
7. Soviet schools, atheism and religion John Dunstan
8. The Ten Commandments as values in Soviet people's consciousness Sameul A. Kliger and Paul H. De Vries
9. Out of the kitchen, out of the temple: religion, atheism and women in the Soviet Union John Anderson
Part IV. Cults and Sects: 10. Dilemmas of the spirit: religion and atheism in the Yakut-Sakha Republic Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer
11. The spread of modern cults in the USSR Oxana Antic
Part V. The World of Christianity: 12. The Russian Orthodox Renovationist Movement and its Russian historiography during the Soviet period Anatolii Levitin-Krasnov
13. The re-emergence of the Ukrainian (Greek) Catholic Church in the USSR Myroslaw Tataryn
14. Protestantism in the USSR Walter Sawatsky
15. Epilogue: religion after the collapse Sabrina Petra Ramet
Appendix
Index.

Subject Areas: Religious groups: social & cultural aspects [JFSR]