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‘Greek Catholic’–‘Orthodox’–‘Soviet’: a symbiosis or a conflict of identitites?

2004; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 32; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/0963749042000252214

1465-3974

Natalia Shlikhta,

European Politics and Security

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes * In its original form, this paper was first presented at the postgraduate history conference 'Fresh Perspectives on Conflict and Change' at the University of Sussex, UK, 17–18 June 2003. Translations from Russian and Ukrainian in this article are mine. The response to Sergi's declaration that is perhaps the best known in the scholarly literature is Poslaniye solovetskikh arkhiyereyev, written by the imprisoned Orthodox bishops. It is noteworthy for clearly distinguishing Metropolitan Sergi's demand for loyalty, which it supported, from his idea of a 'complete combination of church and state', which it rejected (CitationOdintsov, 1992, pp. 134–35). It is significant that almost all appeals from members of the religious opposition during the Soviet period contained a declaration of loyalty to 'the existing social system' and the political authorities; the aim was no doubt to pre‐empt the interpretation of their protests as 'antisoviet'. One of the best‐known manifestations of Orthodox dissent, an open letter from the Moscow priest Nikolai Eshliman and the Dmitrov priest Gleb Yakunin to Patriarch Aleksi (Simansky) in 1965, begins with the authors' self‐identification as 'loyal citizens of the USSR' (TDAHO, 1/31/2976, pp. 3–49). For further information see: CitationKolarz, 1961; CitationStark, 1966 and CitationBociurkiw, 1996. Walter Kolarz stresses the major importance of the wartime experiences: 'Communist regime and Russian nation were of course not a priori identical, but they were made identical by the policy of Adolf Hitler' (CitationKolarz, 1961, p. 49). References to documents from Ukrainian and Russian archives follow a standard form: Name of the archive (abbreviation), fond/opis'/file, page numbers. The term prisposoblenchestvo, used in official Soviet rhetoric to designate the church's attempts to accommodate to Soviet reality, had a vividly pejorative meaning. The CAROC (Sovet po delam Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi) was established in 1943 and was a visible sign of the fact that a modus vivendi had been reached between the state authorities and the leadership of the ROC. In 1965 it was combined with the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (Sovet po delam religioznykh kul'tov) to form the Council for Religious Affairs (Sovet po delam religii) (CRA). The sole exception in the post‐1943 period was a resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of 7 July 1954, Significant Shortcomings in Scientific and Atheist Propaganda and Measures for its Improvement (O sereznykh nedostatkakh v nauchno‐ateisticheskoi propagande i meropriyatiyakh po yeye uluchsheniyu), the first sign of Khrushchev's imminent antireligious campaign, which questioned the political loyalty of believers. Defining religion as a 'reactionary ideology', the resolution stated that the interests of its adherents were foreign to that of the Soviet state and society and therefore the loyalty of believers remained in question: '[Religion causes major harm] by distracting some of our citizens from conscious and active participation in the construction of communism' (CitationShtrikker, 1995, p. 10). It is noteworthy that Lenin's view on this matter was invoked as soon as Khrushchev's campaign began, in the speech by a member of the CAROC, Sivenkov, during a conference of CAROC plenipotentiaries on 20 January 1959 (TDAHO, 1/24/5028, p. 119). A striking example of this extreme solution is found in an appeal written by two Ukrainian Orthodox women in 1964. They openly rejected any identification with 'Godless communists … [who] want to build their communism on the tombs of believers' (KI, 1964, p. 1). The exceptional character of this declaration is testified to by Michael Bourdeaux's acknowledgment that reading this document gave him the final impetus to found Keston College with the aim to 'respond to the needs of the millions of suffering Christians' (CitationBourdeaux, 1983, p. 9). The term 'Uniate' was the original self‐definition of the church, but it acquired a pejorative connotation in Soviet vocabulary. In this article I therefore use it only in quotations from official Soviet documents. A fundamental reason for this kind of attitude is identified by Wilson in the quotation above; this demonstrates the validity of his analysis in certain contexts. The lexical distinction between the Russian and Ukrainian equivalents of 'priest', pop and parokh, is telling in this quotation.