The attitude of believers to the confessional policy of the Soviet regime in Lithuania in 1944–1953

Kokkuvõte

The attitude of believers to the confessional policy of the Soviet regime in Lithuania in 1944–1953

The article analyzes the reaction of Lithuania’s Catholics and believers of religious minorities to the anti-religious policies of the Soviet regime in the Stalinism period (1944–1953). The largest campaigns of persecuting the Churches coincided with the apogee of the terrorization of the whole society – the large-scale deportations, the suppression of the partisan resistance, the establishment of collective farms and the nationalization of property in 1948–1949. Therefore, the intimidated faithful tried to defend their interests by peaceful methods – tried to put pressure on the government institutions with various requests, demands, that emphasized the rights guaranteed in the Stalinist constitution. The methods with which the parishioners tried to defend the arrested clergy and to save the churches designated for closing are investigated in greater detail.

Confronted with the obvious hostility of government representatives and being unable to legalize their communities and houses of worship according to the requirements of Soviet laws, the faithful of various confessions (especially, the small religious minorities) continued their religious life illegally in the underground. Such an underground had already been formed in the years of Stalinism and helped the churches to ensure the continuity of their activities and structure. The inertia, with which the Lithuanian faithful encountered the confessional policies of the Soviet regime, their efforts to ignore the constraints of religious life or to circumvent them, to resist slowed the process of making society atheistic.