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Nathaniel Davis.

“The Number of Churches Before and After the Khrushchev Antireligious Drive”
Slavic Review 50:3 (1991) 612-620.

While the Bolshevik party came to power professing toleration of religious beliefs and
practices, ideological incompatibilities espoused by the Stalinist Soviet state made tangible in the anti-
religious campaigns of the late 20's and early 30's dashed any notions of peaceful coexistence between
the two institutions or Russian society and culture. This intolerance receded during the Second World
War, with Stalin's 'blessing' for the re-emergence of the Russian Orthodox Church as a means to rouse
nationalistic sentiment in the face of Nazi assault. While perhaps a prudent political move, given the
threat of possible military annihilation, this rapprochement between Church and State during the war
represented a compromise between Bolshevik ideals and led to a concern among Party leaders in the
post-war and post-Stalinist period as to the dedication, ideologically, of the Soviet populace. This was
the backdrop to Khrushchev's Anti-Religious campaign, with progress measured and exemplified in the
closing of Orthodox churches. Nathaniel Davis' article looks at the number of churches before and
after the campaign, using sources from the Council for Russian Orthodox Affairs and the Council for
the Affairs of Religious Cults. The ultimate conclusion reached is that total number of open churches
was far less than Western estimates and that the areas where closings fell primarily in territories
occupied by the German Army in World War II. Ukrainian 'Uniate' churches faced the brunt of the
closings, indicating that the campaign sought not only to curtail the presence of the Orthodox Church
but also cleanse the remaining religious presence embodied by the various offshoots of Orthodoxy.
Inflated church numbers, willingly and purposefully disseminated by Russian Orthodox
officials, served the sustain the faith's prestige among its supporters abroad. When the Russian church
applied to the World Council of Churches in 1961, it claimed numerical strength of 20,000 churches,
almost double the amount in actual existence at the time. Remarkably, despite the decline in total
church resources during the period in question, deficits incurred throughout the Soviet Union found no
equal in the Russian republic itself. In 1958, when the Soviet Union as a whole faced a shortage of
2,200 priests, the Russian Republic had 3,987 bishops and priests for 2,933 parishes. This suggests that
the Russian church used its influence within the closure process to protect what it considered more
'Russian' areas, or that the Soviet regime possessed a natural predilection towards the Russian republic.
However, while the Ukrainian parishes suffered the most under closures and priests dismissals, by 1965
over sixty percent of registered churches located in the Soviet Union hailed from Ukraine. Davis
suggests that the Russian Orthodox Church, fearful of nationalistic 'autocephalous' church ambitions,
might have been encouraged to close Ukrainian churches due to lost physical and hegemonic influence
in the area.
While Davis' article deals primary with ascertaining the actual number of churches closed from
the period of 1945-1961, the ideas presented bring new depth to the intriguing question of Soviet-
Orthodox relations. Perhaps further analysis of reports and procedures used in the actual closing
process will yield more insight into the motivations and tactics used by both parties in carrying out the
task. This work opens new angles that should be followed up by others.

Jeremy Antley
jantley@gmail.com

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