Dance or Die: The Shaping of Estonian Baptist Identity under Communism

2010

2010

The post-Stalinist decade resulted in a temporary liberalization in Soviet religious policy in 1956-1957, followed by an intensification of administrative suppression of religious life during the years 1958-1964. A close evaluation of archival sources reveals the quiet two-faced tendencies of Soviet religious policies vis-a-vis the Orthodox Church of occupied Estonia: on one hand, the dozens of orthodox congregations at the local level were forcibly liquidated and the number of clerics decreased rapidly; on the other hand, the patriotic and ecumenical activities of the administration of the Estonian Eparchy increased dramatically and achieved its "golden era" during the tenure of its new bishop of Tallinn, Aleksii Ridiger (the future patriarch Aleksii II of Moscow). This study describes in detail the gradual increase in the interference of Soviet propaganda with the ecumenical and patriotic activity of the Estonian Eparchy from 1959. In the course of subsequent restrictions and the persecution of religion under Khrushchev, the Estonian Diocese of the Moscow Patriarchate was integrated into the larger scheme of Soviet peace propaganda and ecumenical cooperation. This took the form mainly of the joint reception of foreign church delegations which coincided with the tenure of Bishop Aleksii, who played a big role in the Moscow hierarchy as well as in the external affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church. Visits of Church delegations in Tallinn and Kuremae monastery became a kind of "show piece" of religious freedom and played their part in Soviet peace propaganda. In conclusion, the rise and ebb of the patriotic and ecumenical activity of the Orthodox diocese in occupied Estonia were influenced by the changes, which took place among the USSR's highest authorities in the religious policies level and by the transition from Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship toward Nikita Khrushchev's more oligarchical system.

Politics and Religion, 2012

Journal of Baltic Studies, 2019

Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism, 2021

Behind the Iron Curtain, 2015

The author demonstrates that the implementation of state policy on religion was not particularly effective in the Estonian SSR. It was mild compared to several other regions of the Soviet Union, and particular campaigns “on the religious front” frequently depended on the discretion of local officials. Soviet policy on religion directed a great deal of attention toward new secular Soviet ceremonies and managed rather effectively to graft new rites into society.

SZRKG/RSHRC/RSSRC, 115 (2021), 57–79, 2021

This article focuses on the tendencies and trends in the development of international contacts of Soviet evangelicals at the turn of the 1960s–1970s. The 1970s are a special period in the history of Cold War communications, when the number of actors increases, and the international public human rights organizations acquire a new meaning. The focus of this study will be aimed at examining at the formation of a «response» to anti-communist initiatives from the intra-Soviet context of church-state relations. Based on the analysis of reports compiled by the staff of the All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists (AUCECB), we will show how the Baptist leaders in the USSR sought to win over the interest of the Soviet leadership with their international activities. We suggest that the struggle against the anti-communist movement (literally personified, at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, by the figure of Richard Wurmbrand, reflected in the Soviet Baptist sources) was an important pretext, thanks to which the international contacts of Soviet Baptists were activated. Moreover, thanks to the struggle against the concept of the «underground church» within the USSR, the geographical area open to visits by evangelical delegations expanded, and the number of registered ECB communities that were meant to be «shown» to foreigners noticeably increased.

The Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 2011