Photo: Ivan Goryachev/ Shutterstock.com
A little story about how the atheist authorities banned the Church to exist on their canonical territory, to break the centuries old way of life of the Russian population, and what impact has the ban for the authorities and civil society of our days
Author:
Ilyin Igor
8 April – a special date for those who in one way or another interfere with the Russian Orthodox Church. On this day in 1929, the Presidium of the all-Russian CEC and the CPC of the RSFSR adopted a decree “On religious associations”, which finally deprived the Church of a legal entity. Especially sharp position was held by I. V. Stalin, N. And. Bukharin, E. M. Yaroslavsky and V. M. Molotov, speaking for the rejection of the “concessions” of the NEP period.
This document can rightly be considered a model of the state policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church, which wants the current informal “the atheists Union”, consisting of a series of figures of modern art, human rights defenders, chromophobe, scientific atheists and other professionally active citizens who profess a variety of views, but somehow surprisingly United in their negative attitude to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The decree deprived the Church as a social institution legal basis for the existence and activity on the territory of the RSFSR. The new law enshrines the current practice, continuing the line, planned in 1918 the Decree “About branch of Church from state and school from Church”, which was prepared by the people’s Commissar of justice, Isaac Steinberg Sierakowice.
I. Z. Steinberg. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Specifically for Constantinople their opinions about how could be born, a law that was discriminatory in relation to most of the population of the country, Valeriy Nikolayevich Rastorguev, head of the scientific Council of the expert center ARNS:
Lawlessness performs the same function as the law in a totalitarian society. In itself, the decree was in General not necessary. The Soviet regime did not necessarily make the law, depriving the Church of a legal entity to be wiped off the face of the earth of his ideological opponents. By the way, Lenin himself believed that the written law can be wrong and wrong can become right if issued as a written law. And it will not mean the emergence of a new law, it will be a new iniquity in the form of law. So it is possible to say about the resolution “On religious associations”. The Church took away all rights, including the right to social service assistance. The word charity was SteRTO from the Russian language. Over a long period up to the present time the Church only to re-learn life in society, gradually restoring the rights themselves.
Today, when in society there is a lack of civil initiatives of solidarity and charity, is necessary to see the roots of the problem. Especially important to do this blindly nostalgic for Union citizens, since no “change of mind” will not change for the better and life of the country. The resolution is an excellent example of the policy of the Bolsheviks, which led eventually to the widespread infantilization of the population, the lack of a civil society capable of self-organization in peacetime. Bring article 17 of the Ordinance verbatim:
“17. Religious associations are forbidden:
a) to create mutual aid funds, cooperatives, production associations and generally to enjoy in their possession of property for any purposes other than the satisfaction of religious needs;
This document can rightly be considered a model of the state policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church, which wants the current informal “the atheists Union”, consisting of a series of figures of modern art, human rights defenders, chromophobe, scientific atheists and other professionally active citizens who profess a variety of views, but somehow surprisingly United in their negative attitude to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The decree deprived the Church as a social institution legal basis for the existence and activity on the territory of the RSFSR. The new law enshrines the current practice, continuing the line, planned in 1918 the Decree “About branch of Church from state and school from Church”, which was prepared by the people’s Commissar of justice, Isaac Steinberg Sierakowice.
I. Z. Steinberg. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
Specifically for Constantinople their opinions about how could be born, a law that was discriminatory in relation to most of the population of the country, Valeriy Nikolayevich Rastorguev, head of the scientific Council of the expert center ARNS:
Lawlessness performs the same function as the law in a totalitarian society. In itself, the decree was in General not necessary. The Soviet regime did not necessarily make the law, depriving the Church of a legal entity to be wiped off the face of the earth of his ideological opponents. By the way, Lenin himself believed that the written law can be wrong and wrong can become right if issued as a written law. And it will not mean the emergence of a new law, it will be a new iniquity in the form of law. So it is possible to say about the resolution “On religious associations”. The Church took away all rights, including the right to social service assistance. The word charity was SteRTO from the Russian language. Over a long period up to the present time the Church only to re-learn life in society, gradually restoring the rights themselves.
Today, when in society there is a lack of civil initiatives of solidarity and charity, is necessary to see the roots of the problem. Especially important to do this blindly nostalgic for Union citizens, since no “change of mind” will not change for the better and life of the country. The resolution is an excellent example of the policy of the Bolsheviks, which led eventually to the widespread infantilization of the population, the lack of a civil society capable of self-organization in peacetime. Bring article 17 of the Ordinance verbatim:
“17. Religious associations are forbidden:
a) to create mutual aid funds, cooperatives, production associations and generally to enjoy in their possession of property for any purposes other than the satisfaction of religious needs;
In the first 10 years, by 1939, the Soviet Union was little more than 100 operating temples (of 29 584 to 1928) and only four active bishops. Other churches were nationalized and used for other purposes or were blown up; the priests – killed, shot, deported to camps or hit the Renovationist schism. Only during the great Patriotic war, the leadership praised the Patriotic focus of the Church, and given the need to appeal to the Russian historical roots (according to the census of 1937, the believers called themselves 56,7% of the population) decided to restore the Patriarchate and to ease the pressure on the Church.
Only in October 1990 torn apart by the ideological crisis of the Soviet power brought the Church back to the legal field by adopting the law “On freedom of faith”. For the first time since 1929, the state gave the Russian Orthodox Church with the capacity of a legal entity. Now religious organizations can own property, engage in economic activities, has gained the right to freely disseminate their religious convictions, gained access to educational institutions and the right to establish their own schools, to use the media for the mission to freely distribute religious literature.
Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The Church was now free to live in accordance with its internal regulations, to manage the finances, to exercise all the rights of the public organization. The Council for religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers was stripped of powers, and the new body that oversees religious life, had not been established.
Soviet does not mean Soviet or atheistic
In our days, after the adoption in 1997 of the Federal law “On freedom of conscience and religious associations”, which replaced the Federal law of RSFSR from 25. 10. 1990 “On the freedom of conscience and religious organizations”, to build a new system of relations between Church, state and society: the atheist legacy, the age of high technology, the religious illiteracy of the overwhelming number of citizens and together with the free and independent position of the Church to form a brand new era.
70 years of humiliating, powerless position of the Church and still lead to the fact that article 14 of the Constitution is interpreted in a progressive community in the anti-clerical vein. Yes, the Russian Federation is a secular state. But it is a secular, not a Soviet or atheistic. The concept of secularism is not specified in the legislation of Russia, or anywhere else. But it’s safe to say that the secular nature of the state guarantees the faithful the right to exercise their beliefs in life is exactly the same as an unbeliever – your. Believers do not have fewer rights than non-believers. This applies to education, parenting, art, politics, government and any other sectors of society. Thank God, the current President of Russia Vladimir Putin understands this:
If we are talking about the separation of Church and state in modern conditions we should talk about the other content of this secularism, and it is, in my opinion, should be that between the state and religious organizations should be set a completely different mode of relations, a mode of partnership, mutual assistance and support.
President Of Russia Vladimir Putin. Photo: www.globallookpress.com
The uniqueness of the historical moment is that in Russia the Supreme power is interested in strengthening the position of the Russian Orthodox Church, since without it is impossible the preservation and strengthening of traditional spiritual and moral values, which required the sovereign authority as a support and justification for the implementation of an independent policy. In addition, the current statesmen saw with my own eyes what happens with the government, the state and society that declares war on God. They do not want to repeat the inglorious end of those who encroached on the Church.
