Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II, Walter Sawatsky, 1981

collected a list of all the presbyters in the country including their place of service, physical and spiritual age, time spent as presbyter, and their spiritual level, This at- _ tempt to husband their resources extended also to senior presbyters who were carefully chosen in order to provide leadership to the presbyters under them, Stalin rewarded Orthodox patriotism by permitting the reestablish- ment of the patriarchate in 1948 and soon thereafter the Soviet news agency TASS announced the formation of a Council for Russian Orthodox Church Affairs (CROCA), attached to the Council of Ministers, to handle all liaison functions between the Orthodox Church and the Soviet state, In July 19444 second council, called the Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (CARC), attached to the Soviet Council of Ministers, was announced, Ivan Vasilevich Polianskii was appointed the chairman with local representatives or plenipotentiaries of the council under him. ” Clearly this indicated a shift in Soviet state religious policy in favor of the loyal churches, Only a few months later the unity congress of Evangelical Christians and Baptists took place. Although the creation of the two councils was announced almost im- mediately, their powers remained shrouded in mystery for decades, The councils did not fit into the 1929 legislation on cults which, when revised in 1932, referred to local commissions to oversee church affairs but otherwise left registration procedures to local state authorities. One eminent scholar has suggested that these two councils “represented an institutional exten- 60 Soviet Evangelicals Since World War II sion of the long-established secret police department for ‘churchmen and sectarians,’ "13 In the Soviet Encyclopedia published in 1947 a lengthy article by A. Kolosov describes the councils’ functions as follows: (1) To examine all questions put to the government by religious societies which require a state decision, such as obtaining prayer houses, issuing of materials, making printing presses available; (2) reviewing legislative proposals dealing with questions of religious societies, as well as other instructions and orders; (3) overseeing the proper execution throughout the territory of the USSR of all laws based on the strict separation of church from state with the council tak- ing necessary measures to guarantee religious freedom for Soviet citizens as provided by the constitution; (4) cooperating with religious societies in set- tling those questions which require involvement with Soviet ministries. In a statute issued in 1966 (although first made public in the West in 1976)" these duties were spelled out more clearly but till then there appeared to be no clear legislative foundation for the councils. No changes in the law were announced, although a legally binding let- ter from G. G. Karpov,