Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

ad admini i ; i ministrative measures that have been taken against believers are the closure of prayer houses, refusal to register religious communities ... breaking up prayer meetings of believers forcibly with police se oad police, arbitrary searches of believers’ homes prayer houses, confiscation of religious |i i arrests of believers ... x oer — Chairman Puzin Council for Affairs of Religious Cults to Party Workers in RSFSR August 5,'1965, in AS 620 5 Crisis: The Khrushchev Campaign _ Against Religion | Was it a centenary year? Exactly 100 years earlier, in 1859, a’new era in natural science had been ushered in with the publication ‘of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. Karl Marx’s Critique of Political Economi also published in 1859, had resulted in a new political science. The aid warfare between science and religion had been joined. Put crassly, the con- flict consisted of two philosophies (or was it two faiths?) that differed on whether “people eat first and think afterward” or is it the other wa around?! Was it now time, a century later, to terminate the war of Ae with religion by dealing the latter a mortal blow? Was that what Nikita Khrushchev had in mind when he announced the schedule for the ch nge- over from socialism to full communism? on Soviet churchmen had just begun to convince a surprised Western public that the Christian church still existed in the Soviet Union wheni'a state onslaught on religion once again threatened the church's ve existence. In the first half of 1961 alone, 300 Baptist churches were sibees and worried members expressed concern that, if this rate continued all their churches would be closed within three years.? Leading Soviet churchmen not only continued to travel abroad as Soviet peace ambassa- dors but in fact increased their visits, loudly proclaiming a freedom of reli- gion that they in fact were in serious danger of losing. Before the major campaign ended following Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964, more than half the churches of both the Orthodox and the Baptists had been closed and the 132 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War Il hodox clergy had been reduced by two thirds. oS bee unotficial concordat with Stalin had never been Ge firmed by law. The 1929 law that had earlier launched the ee persecution wave was still in effect; since 1944 state saree a nares ignored its more restrictive features. Church leaders phe aloe a this could change at any moment. This accounts for their hig ; su — posture, but it damaged their reputation among their own fo cane : did not know about the nature of the concessions. The Orthodox rie chical structure had been reestablished in violation of the =e . : reigning Patriarch Alexei had already recognized in 1927 that mes ss s ‘ vival depended on the maintenance of this institutional structure. ns Be ical Christian-Baptists, on the other hand, could afford to be more flexi Once more they w