The struggle for the opening of Orthodox churches during the reign of Leonid Brezhnev 1964–1982 (based on the materials of the coll. P6991 of the State Archive of the Russian Federation)

Abstract

In this article, based on archival documents, the process of the struggle for temples during the reign of L. I. Brezhnev will be considered. Although this General Secretary was less belligerent towards religion, the legislation created under N. S. Khrushchev continued to operate, and the activities of religious organizations were significantly hampered. "Scientific atheism" remained the state ideology, and religion was still viewed as a dying form of worldview. The experience of Khrushchev's anti-religious campaign has shown that reducing the number of churches does not reduce the level of religiosity of the population, but in some cases, on the contrary, increases interest. In this regard, the main emphasis was placed on ideological work with the population, but the opening of churches remained an undesirable phenomenon and required considerable efforts on the part of parish communities. Petition campaigns by particularly active believers remained the main form of struggle for churches. The information in the article is systematized according to the following subsections: 1) Continuation of repression; 2) Lag in the development of church buildings; 3) Successful petitions of believers and protection of their rights; 4) Deception in attempts to open churches.