2. Within the Republic, it is prohibited to make any local laws or regulations that would restrict or restrict the freedom of conscience, or establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of the religious affiliation of citizens.
3. Every citizen may profess any religion or none. Any right deprivation associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith is canceled.
Note. From all official acts, any indication of religious affiliation and non-affiliation of citizens is eliminated.
4. The actions of the state and other public-legal public institutions are not accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies.
5. The free performance of religious rites is ensured insofar as they do not violate public order and are not accompanied by encroachment on the rights of citizens and the Soviet Republic.
Local authorities have the right to take all necessary measures to ensure public order and security in these cases.
6. No one may, referring to their religious views, evade the performance of their civic duties.
Exceptions from this provision, subject to the replacement of one civil duty by another, are allowed in each individual case by decision of the people's court.
7. Religious oath or oath is cancelled.
In necessary cases, only a solemn promise is given.
8. Civil status acts are conducted exclusively by the civil authority: the departments of registration of marriages and births.
9. The school is separated from the church.
Teaching religious beliefs in all state and public, as well as private educational institutions where general education subjects are taught is not allowed.
Citizens can teach and learn religion privately.
10. All ecclesiastical and religious societies are subject to general provisions about private societies and unions and do not enjoy any advantages or subsidies either from the state or from its local autonomous and self-governing institutions.
11. Coercive collection of dues and taxes in favor of church or religious societies, as well as measures of coercion or punishment by these societies over their members, are not allowed.
12. No ecclesiastical and religious societies have the right to own property.
They do not have legal personality.
13. All property of the church and religious societies existing in Russia is declared to be the property of the people.
Buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes are given, by special decrees of local or central state authorities, for the free use of the respective religious societies.
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin).
People's Commissars:
N. Podvoisky, V. Algasov, V. Trutovsky, A. Schlichter, P. Proshyan, V. Menzhinsky, A. Shlyapnikov, G. Petrovsky.
Business manager Vl. Bonch-Bruevich.
Secretary N. Gorbunov.
Freedom of conscience
and great freedom fighter
The decree on freedom of conscience, church and religious societies for Russia was a document of paramount importance. Formally, freedom of conscience was proclaimed immediately after the February Revolution. And the Orthodox Church actively supported the Provisional Government, welcoming it on behalf of the Holy Synod. Literally in the first days of March 1917, the Holy Synod, at its very first meeting after the February Revolution, unanimously released all believers from the oath to Nicholas II and canceled church prayer for the “most pious emperor”, and the members of the Synod personally carried the royal throne out of the meeting room.
The collapse of the monarchy was equally enthusiastically welcomed by other religious associations, including Muslims. But here the logic is clear. In the multinational and multi-confessional Russian Empire, there was not only no freedom of speech and religion, but the Orthodox Church even seemed to find itself in a privileged position, being, in essence, a state institution.
However, it is obvious that such a swift renunciation of the "God's anointed" by the Orthodox Church is connected precisely with this. The former state collapsed - it was necessary to integrate into the new reality, saving their power and their property. Spiritual influence was far from being discussed in the first place. And it has been greatly undermined. Not without reason after February, when the compulsory communion for soldiers was abolished in the army, only about 10% of those who voluntarily took communion turned out to be. In many ways, this happened precisely because the Church was part of the state, and therefore, among Russian citizens, it was associated with the acts of other state structures that led the country to the abyss.
And this is another reason why the Church itself was interested in separating from the state, if it intended to engage in the spiritual nourishment of society, as well as to independently resolve internal church issues. It was the collapse of the monarchy that made it possible to restore the patriarchy that had been canceled under Peter I.
The Bolsheviks who came to power after the Great October Socialist Revolution had a positive attitude towards such internal church processes - the first after the restoration, Patriarch Tikhon was elected in the first weeks of Soviet power.
As can be seen from the text of the decree, it first of all guaranteed citizens, both believers and non-believers, freedom of conscience and did not have any prohibitive character. On the contrary, it protected against discrimination on religious grounds, guaranteed the right to secular education, made it possible to receive religious knowledge privately.
Relations between the Church and the young Soviet state were not simple. Last year, Soviet Russia published several articles by Georgy Khmurkin, who studied in detail various aspects of this topic: the attitude of the Soviet leadership and V.I. Lenin to believing citizens, to church property, to religious cultural and historical heritage.
Here it is appropriate to cite a fragment from G.? Khmurkin's essay “Icon and Portrait. Lenin and believers.
“As an illustration of the relationship between Lenin and sincere believers, I would like to turn to one little-known episode. The assassination attempt on Lenin on August 30, 1918 stirred up the broad working masses. From everywhere came requests for his health, wishes for a speedy recovery, army men and sailors offered military outfits for the personal protection of the Leader. His absence from rallies, a break in newspaper articles gave rise to rumors about Lenin's death. “Tell me frankly, when did Vladimir Ilyich die? - asked V.D. Bonch-Bruevich is one of the Kremlin employees. - I need to know. I respect him very much ... I am a believer and I will pray to God for him immortal soul". In these troubled days, Vladimir Ilyich received a unique gift - New Testament, handed over to him by a simple believer, a certain A.S. Ponomarev. Here is what he wrote on the title page of the book: “This Most Faithful Talisman: V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin! from God Himself Loving and Almighty!!! To holy and good memory to confirm God's Truth in three messages of a non-partisan and servant of the Living God (dated August 31 [mouth], September 7 and 10 [November] 1918) A. WITH. Ponomarev in Your Name, so that you are completely healthy [o], happy on earth [and] blessed [n] there forever, - at the Feet of Your Savior [I] from now on and forever! Amen"...
The topic of the relationship of the highest church authorities to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin deserves a separate discussion. Patriarch Tikhon, mentioned above, headed the Church during the entire Leninist “five-year plan” and died a year after the departure of the Leader. The time of Tikhon's patriarchate saw the first Bolshevik transformations in the church sphere, a fierce Civil War, famine, devastation, and then the gradual return of the country's life to normal. As the first hierarch, he repeatedly expressed his assessment of what was happening, addressed the faithful and the authorities with various kinds of appeals. In this regard, his formidable Message of January 19, 1918, is usually remembered and abundantly quoted, in which he anathematized all those who committed "massacres" and was indignant at the policy of the Bolsheviks.
However, the same authors often passed over Tikhon's position in silence in the following months and years. Already at the beginning of September 1918, according to eyewitnesses, he clearly understood on whose side the sympathies of the working masses were. “As a son of the people,” recalled the famous historian of the Church A.V. Kartashev, - Patriarch Tikhon then instinctively felt the strength and duration of the popular passion for Bolshevism, did not believe in the possibility of an early victory of the white movement ... ". And a little later, in the autumn of 1919, the patriarch appealed to the Orthodox clergy and laity with an appeal not to interfere in the political struggle and to submit to Soviet power.
From 1923 until his death in 1925, His Holiness Patriarch he issued a number of appeals and decrees in which he repented of the previous "denunciations" of Soviet power, recognized its popular character, and dissociated itself from its internal and external enemies, including those who cherished hopes for the restoration of the monarchy.
The most striking document in this series, of course, is the Epistle of Patriarch Tikhon, which appeared in 1925. Today's authors are often silent about it, because it does not fit into the picture of the past that is being imposed on us today. Expanded, penetrating, this message spoke of the Soviet government as God-established and truly popular, noted the importance and correctness of the principle of freedom of conscience proclaimed by the Constitution. The Patriarch urged to fervently pray to the Almighty for sending down help to the Soviet government, which cares about the well-being of the peoples of the USSR, and once again advised to abandon attempts at counter-revolutionary resistance to it. Here are excerpts from this Epistle of the Patriarch:
“In the years of great civil devastation, by the will of God, without which nothing happens in the world, the Soviet government became the head of the Russian state, which assumed the heavy duty of eliminating the terrible consequences of a bloody war and a terrible famine.<…>It is time for believers to understand the Christian point of view that "the fate of nations is arranged by the Lord" and to accept everything that has happened as an expression of God's will. Without sinning against our faith and the church, without altering anything in them, in a word, without allowing any compromises or concessions in the field of faith, in civil relations we must be sincere in relation to the Soviet government and the work of the USSR for the common good, conforming to the order of external church life and activities with a new state system condemning any association with the enemies of Soviet power and overt or covert agitation against it.<…>Calling on the archpastors, shepherds and faithful to us (Tikhon. - G.Kh.) children of the blessing of God, we implore you with a clear conscience, without fear of sinning against the holy faith, to submit to Soviet power not for fear, but for conscience, remembering the words of the apostle: “ Let every soul be submissive to the highest authorities, for there is no authority other than from God - the existing authorities are established by God ”(Rom. XIII, I)”.
After all that has been said, the words of Patriarch Tikhon about Lenin, spoken by him on the occasion of the death of the Leader in 1924, sound completely special:
“... Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was not excommunicated from Orthodox Church the highest church authority and therefore every believer has the right and opportunity to commemorate him.
Ideologically, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and I, of course, disagreed, but I have information about him as a man of the kindest and truly Christian soul.
We believe it is appropriate here to quote the statement of the Holy Synod, the governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church, on the occasion of the death of Vladimir Ilyich:
“The Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church expresses its sincere regret to you (M.I. Kalinin. - G.Kh.) on the occasion of the death of the great liberator of our people from the realm of age-old violence and oppression, on the path of complete freedom and self-organization.
May the bright image of the great fighter and sufferer for the freedom of the oppressed, for the ideas of universal true brotherhood, live continuously in the hearts of those who remain, and shine brightly on everyone in the struggle to achieve the complete happiness of people on earth. We know that the people loved him dearly. May this grave give birth to millions of new Lenins (so in the text. - G.Kh.) and unite everyone into a single great fraternal family that no one can overcome. And the coming centuries will not erase from the memory of the people the road to this grave, the cradle of freedom for all mankind.
Having taken power, the Bolsheviks began an active struggle with the Orthodox Church. Archpriest Georgy Mitrofanov in his book "History of the Russian Orthodox Church" cites such facts.
At a time when the fate of power was still unclear, along with the laws that seemed to be necessary for power, laws were adopted that had no direct relation to the political situation, but concerned the Church. This amazing desire already in the first months to make the Church feel that it is perceived as an enemy, that it must surrender all its centuries-old positions, this is a feature of the Bolshevik rule, which, of course, speaks of their deliberate anti-church attitude.
On December 11, 1917, a decree of the People's Commissar of Education appeared, signed by Lenin for greater persuasiveness, which confiscates all educational institutions from the Church. Now, not just parochial schools are transferred to the Ministry of Education, leaving the possibility of teaching church subjects there, now everything is being liquidated: Theological Schools, Theological Seminaries, Theological Academies. They just stop all their activities. Buildings, property, capital - everything is subject to confiscation. The decree practically eliminated the possibility of the existence of a system of spiritual education in Russia. This was a blow not only to the system of spiritual education, but also a huge expropriation of the material wealth of the Church.
On December 17-18, 1917, decrees were adopted concerning issues of marriage legislation. According to these decrees, only civil marriage is recognized as legal. Registration of births, marriages, divorces and deaths is carried out only by state bodies. It was a very serious change in the whole public morality. This meant that from now on all the numerous canonical grounds for concluding and dissolving a marriage are thrown out of Russian society. The procedure of marriage and divorce becomes as simple as possible. The spouses come, pay a small fee, and they are divorced; or vice versa: they come and marry, being cousins, being people who illegally terminated their previous marriage.
At that time, the same thing happened in Russia as happened in France during the revolution in the early 90s of the 18th century. A huge wave of divorces, conclusions and dissolutions of newly concluded civil marriages has passed through the country. A colossal blow was dealt to family morality. All of you are familiar with the phenomenon of homelessness. These are the children of those who died during the Civil War, died during epidemics and from hunger. Of course, there were a lot of children who lost their parents in this way, but significant role the fact that homeless children appeared in our country was also played by the fact that the family was destroyed. Illegitimate, illegitimate children became homeless children.
The Bolsheviks were, of course, dogmatists. They considered it possible to realize communism in the way that the manifesto of Marx and Engels spoke of it, quickly and straightforwardly. The policy of war communism begins. We usually talk about it in connection with the economy, but this policy also applied to other aspects of public life. The manifesto spoke about the elimination of not only property, not only religion, but also the family. Education becomes public. Leading figures of the Bolshevik Party write articles that speak of the need to replace family education of children with public education.
As early as the beginning of the 1920s, we will be building houses of a new type. Remember the famous house "Tear of Socialism" on Troitskaya Street (now Rubinstein Street). It was built in such a way that families only had bedrooms. Dining rooms and living rooms were shared. The practice of communal apartments was not only the result of a chronic housing crisis, but also an attempt to educate a new person who is being created by society.
The task was to liquidate the family, to liquidate the marriage. Kollontai, a person of no minor importance in the Bolshevik leadership, wrote amazing articles. She wrote that bourgeois marriage based on religion must give way to free union loving friend friend of people that marriage should be based on personal affection and (very interesting wording) should contribute to the improvement of the biological level of the offspring. Socialism always comes to naturalism, what is National Socialism, what is International Socialism. The question was seriously raised that when the civil wars were over, to replace the family education of children with public education, so the family was not needed, it had to die out. In no country in the world has such a terrible blow to family morals been dealt as in Russia. We are still feeling the consequences of this blow.
Decree on freedom of conscience
On January 20, 1918, just at the moment of the opening of the second session of the Local Council, a decree appeared abolishing all state subsidies and subsidies to the Church and the clergy from March 1, 1918. The demand of the Council, which assumed that the state would finance church life, was annulled, and the Church had to exist only at its own expense.
On January 20, 1918, a decree was adopted on freedom of conscience in church and religious societies, which was to become the legislative basis for the Bolsheviks' policy towards the Church. This decree is better known as the decree on the separation of the Church from the state. This decree was of great importance, since it meant a complete revolution in church-state relations in Russia. It was the main legislative act of this kind until 1929, when new legislation was passed.
This decree was discussed at a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars. Several people prepared his project: People's Commissar of Justice Stuchko, People's Commissar of Education Lunacharsky, People's Commissar of Justice Krasikov, Professor Reisner (lawyer, father of Commissar Larisa Reisner, Raskolnikov's wife) and priest Galkin. The clergy even then, alas, began to give cadres to the persecutors of the Church as consultants. The project was prepared at the end of December 1917 and approved by the Council of People's Commissars with amendments. The meeting of the Council of People's Commissars was attended by: Lenin, Bogolepov, Menzhinsky, Trutovsky, Zaks, Pokrovsky, Steinberg, Proshyan, Kozmin, Stuchko, Krasikov, Shlyapnikov, Kozlovsky, Vronsky, Petrovsky, Schlichter, Uritsky, Sverdlov, Podvoisky, Dolgasov, Maralov, Mandelstam, Peter , Mstislavsky, Bonch-Bruevich. This is also the so-called "coalition" structure: there are Left Socialist-Revolutionaries here. So, the document came out, as they say, from the “holy of holies” of the Soviet government. Let's take a closer look at this document.
The church is separated from the state.
It is forbidden within the republic to issue any local laws or regulations that would restrict or restrict the freedom of conscience or establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of the religious affiliation of citizens.
Indeed, it is good if laws are not issued that give privileges on the basis of religious affiliation, but pay attention to the initial part: "... which would hamper or restrict freedom of conscience." This concept of “freedom of conscience” is introduced here, which is very vague from a legal point of view. The rights of religious associations and confessions are something concrete, but a free conscience is something completely vague. And if so, then the legal document, with such a vagueness of its wording, opens up the possibility for any arbitrariness.
Every citizen can profess any religion or none. Any right deprivation associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith is canceled. From all official acts, any indication of religious affiliation and non-affiliation of citizens is eliminated.
This is a qualitatively new moment. The law of the Provisional Government nevertheless provided for the mention in documents of either religion, or a non-religious state.
The actions of state or other public legal public institutions are not accompanied by any religious rites and ceremonies.
It is clear what is at stake. Religion here, first of all, means the Orthodox faith. Of course, it would be strange to accompany the meetings of the Council of People's Commissars with a prayer service or the collegium of the Cheka - a memorial service. True, looking ahead, we can say that religious symbols and religious paraphernalia will still appear among the Bolsheviks.
The free performance of religious rites is ensured insofar as they do not violate public order and are not accompanied by an infringement on the rights of citizens and the Soviet republic... Local authorities have the right to take all necessary measures to ensure public order and security in these cases.
Think about this abracadabra: "insofar as." What does it mean from a legal point of view: "They do not violate the public order"? The procession is on the road, it is already violating public order - vehicles cannot pass, and unbelieving people cannot go their own way, you need to step aside. At such an absurd level, with references to this law, claims were later made locally. The fact that for centuries in our country the social order was not violated by religious rites, no attention was paid. The decree equates this kind of action with a drinking bout or a fight that violates public order. But the most important thing here is something else - legal vagueness, which allows local authorities to do whatever they want, referring to it "insofar as". What are the steps they can take? Nothing is specified. You can do absolutely everything that local authorities deem necessary, although the law is all-Russian; local authorities are given the sanction to do whatever they want if they consider that some religious act violates public order.
No one can, referring to religious beliefs, evade the performance of his civic duties. Exemption from this provision under the condition of replacing one civil duty with another in each individual case is allowed by decision of the people's court.
Keeping in mind that the "People's Court" for the Bolsheviks was essentially not a court organ, but an organ of reprisal, one can imagine how it would resolve these issues. And most importantly, that this was ignored already in the summer of 1918, when, for example, they began to carry out forced mobilization into the Red Army, and even clergy could be mobilized. We are not talking about labor service and so on. After all, what is labor duty? When representatives of the “exploiting classes” were deprived of cards, which meant that they were deprived of their daily bread, because it was impossible to buy anything in the cities under war communism (everything was distributed by cards). They could get some kind of ration only on the condition that some elderly professor, a retired general, or the widow of some government official went to dig trenches. And only then did they get some piece of bread, a piece of roach. That's what "labor duty" is. Labor service allowed the authorities to put unwanted people in the position of prisoners, transport them from place to place and keep them in very difficult conditions. All this extended, of course, to the clergy. And the people's court could in some cases replace one labor service with another.
The religious oath or oath is revoked. In necessary cases, only a solemn promise is given.
It is not so significant if the state refused the religious consecration of its acts.
Civil status acts are conducted exclusively by the civil authorities, marriage and birth registration departments.
The Provisional Government wanted to seize these acts, the Bolsheviks did it, and this was fully justified, from their point of view.
The school is separated from the Church. The teaching of religious beliefs in all state, public and private educational institutions where general subjects are taught is not allowed. Citizens can educate and learnreligions privately.
Compare this with the corresponding paragraph of the definition on the legal status of the Church. All general education is opposed to religious education. The wonderful wording "privately" implies that theological schools cannot exist either. A priest can come to someone or invite someone to him privately and teach something there, but a group of priests, theologians, and open an educational institution (not public, but private) turns out to be impossible, based on this formulation. Indeed, when the Theological Seminaries and Theological Academies were closed in 1918, it was extremely difficult to resume the activities of theological educational institutions, at least as non-state ones.
All ecclesiastical religious societies are subject to the general provisions on private societies and associations and do not enjoy any advantages or subsidies either from the state or from its local autonomous self-governing institutions.
Any financial assistance to the Church from the state ceases and it ceased from March 1918 formally, according to the relevant law. Here is another point, it is very crafty.
Coercive collection of dues and taxes in favor of church and religious societies, as well as measures of coercion or punishment on the part of these societies over their members, is not allowed.
In practice, this gave local governments a very wide range of opportunities. It was possible at any prayer service, with such a wording, to detect a forced withdrawal of money. You got together, pray for some deliberate reason, and people donate to you, which means you are taking money from them. Similarly, the payment for the requirements.
It was enough for a parishioner not to agree with a priest on the price for baptism or a funeral service, as he quite calmly, referring to this law, could apply to state authorities and say that the priest was extorting money from him.
No ecclesiastical religious societies have the right to own property. They do not have legal personality.
We had this system until 1989. Notice the word "none". Before the revolution, parishes did not have the right of legal personality and property rights, but other church institutions could have these rights, but here all this is cancelled.
All property of the church religious societies existing in Russia is declared to be the property of the people. Buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes are given, according to special resolutions of local and central state authorities, for the free use of the respective religious societies.
Even what has not yet been practically confiscated is no longer ecclesiastical. An inventory of everything that the Church has had to take place, and then the local authorities could, in some cases, leave something to the Church for the time being, and take something right away.
The unwillingness of the Church to give something away was seen as resistance to the fulfillment of the all-Russian law, no matter how this property came to the Church. All of this immediately - state property and doomed to withdrawal.
Such was the decree on freedom of conscience.
On August 24, 1918, an instruction to the decree appeared, which provided for specific measures for its implementation. This instruction stated that in the parish the responsibility for everything rests with a group of 20 lay people. This is how the G-20s appeared, and it was a completely thought-out measure. The power of the abbot, the power of the priest in the parish, was undermined, and, moreover, he was placed under the control of the laity, this twenty, because they were responsible for any actions of the clergyman that might not please the authorities, and thus were forced to somehow control him. Naturally, it was much easier to influence a group of laity than a priest. One layman could be summoned and told that he would be deprived of his cards if he did not do what was necessary, another could be deprived of firewood, and a third sent to labor service.
The shifting of responsibility to the twenties already in the summer of 1918 assumed division within the parish, opposing the rector to the laity and influencing parish life through these very laity, which, of course, could include people associated with the authorities.
On July 10, 1918, the first Soviet constitution, with its 65th article, declared the clergy and monastics to be non-working elements deprived of voting rights, and their children, as children of "disenfranchised", were deprived, for example, of the right to enter higher educational institutions. That is, already the first worker-peasant constitution placed some social groups, including the clergy, in the category of people without rights. And this is at the level of the highest state power.
Part 15. On the strengthening of scientific-atheistic propaganda among young people (1959)
Part 16. The story of Archpriest Nikolai Ivanov "A case on the street"
Part 17
Author: Ilya Novikov
Our local Egor Kuzmich knew the history of our village very well. And on the feast of the Kazan Icon Mother of God, July 21, many students of our and neighboring villages gathered for the next lecture in the reading room of the library, which miraculously survived after the collapse of the Soviet Union
Author: hegumen Tikhon (Polyansky)
Among the many corners great Russia Now the Klin land is also glorified by the confessors of the faith. Now far from all her ascetics can be told in detail. The compilation of the canonical lives of the saints, the collection of memories and testimonies is a matter for the near future. So far, however, the news is scant and fragmentary, in the materials for the canonization of the new martyrs, brief biographical dossiers are usually published, based on documents from the investigation file. Sometimes it is difficult to find even photographs, there is only a prison photo taken before the execution. The interrogation protocols themselves by no means always reflect the true words of the holy martyrs, since the task was to "put the testimonies of the arrested under the article."
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Separation of church and state in Russia (1917-1993)
The separation of church and state in Soviet Russia was ideologically based on the Marxist understanding of freedom of conscience, which involved the elimination of political, economic and other ties between the state and the church and the abolition of church ideology as such. Formally, during this period (since 1917), freedom of conscience was proclaimed in the country and a policy of separation of church and state was pursued, but the secularism of the state was not enshrined in any of the constitutions of the Soviet period. In reality, Russia is turning into a state with a dominant atheistic ideology.
As you know, before the revolution, the Russian Orthodox Church was state. Since the time of Peter I, the church has been almost completely subordinate to the monarchy. Carrying out church reform, Peter I abolished the patriarchal rank and replaced it with the Holy Synod. Since that time, “the state controlled the church, and the emperor was legally considered its head. At the head of the highest church body - the Holy Synod was a secular official - the chief prosecutor ... The Church actually lost the possibility of an independent voice. In state affairs and in the life of society, becoming a spiritual department among other state departments, she and her servants merged in the minds of the people with representatives of the authorities and thus became responsible for all the acts of this authority, ”rightly states S. Yu Naumov.
So, Russia until 1917 was a country with a state religion, which led to a crisis in the Russian Orthodox Church itself, which had the opportunity to use police methods of conversion to the Orthodox faith (in 1901, at St. Petersburg religious and philosophical meetings, Prince S. Volkonsky expressed the following idea : "If church leaders and clergy do not understand the need to separate church from state, then this only proves the internal weakness of the church, forced to cling to outside help and resort to other people's measures to replace the impotence of its fading authority"). Until 1917, non-believers found themselves in an unprotected position in Russia, since it was mandatory to indicate their affiliation to a particular religion in the passport, and the activities of representatives of other religions, except for the Orthodox, were often prohibited.
The identification of state power and the Russian Orthodox Church in the minds of the people helped the Bolsheviks after the revolution, along with terror, to pursue a policy of splitting the Russian Orthodox Church and undermine faith in its teachings. With the loss of faith of the people in the king, the church immediately lost its former authority, and with his death it was beheaded. At the same time, millions of Orthodox believers remained in Russia after the revolution (according to official figures - 117 million), many of whom did not turn away from the Russian Orthodox Church and supported it. This fact confirms the assertion that the church is not only the clergy, but also numerous laity. The Bolsheviks had a difficult job of introducing an atheistic ideology, but since they used any means, including mass repressions, to achieve their goal (holding power), they succeeded in many ways.
The process of separation of church and state in Soviet Russia was peculiar. First of all, the clergy themselves made an attempt to reform the church. At the All-Russian Local Church Council, held from June 1917 to September 1918, the Russian Orthodox Church attempted to rebuild its independent infrastructure. At the Council, a Patriarch was elected, who became Metropolitan Tikhon (Vasily Belavin), the statutes of the cathedral structure of the entire church were adopted - from the patriarch to monasteries and self-governing parishes, with the provision of a broad initiative from below and an elective principle at all levels. The main obstacle that stopped the activities of the Council and made it impossible to carry out its decisions was the anti-religious policy of the Soviet state. The first steps in politics V.I. Lenin on the liquidation of the Russian Orthodox Church and the separation of church and state became the well-known Decree on Land of November 8, 1917 and a number of others (for example, the Decree on Land Committees), according to which all Orthodox clergy were deprived of the right to own land, including all church , specific and monastic. On December 11 (24) a Decree was adopted on the transfer of all church schools to the Commissariat of Education, and on December 18 (31) church marriage was officially annulled and civil marriage was introduced. On January 12, 1918, the Decree on the democratization of the fleet was adopted by the People's Commissariat for Maritime Affairs. It stated that all seafarers were free to express and practice their religious views. Decree of December 11, 1917 "On the transfer of upbringing and education from the spiritual department to the Commissariat for Public Education" transferred to the People's Commissariat of Education not only parochial schools, but also theological academies, seminaries, schools with all their property. Thus, the ground was prepared for the adoption of the main decree in the sphere of state-church relations of that time.
The most important legal act in this area was the Decree of January 20, 1918 on the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church4 (the abstracts of this Decree were already published in January 1918), according to which the Russian Orthodox Church was separated from states. Local authorities could not issue any laws and regulations in this area (limiting or giving privileges to any religion). Paragraph 3 of the Decree enshrined the right to freedom of conscience, it stated that “every citizen can profess any religion or not profess any. Any right deprivation associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith is canceled. From that moment on, it was not necessary to indicate religious affiliation in official acts (previously it was mandatory to indicate religion, for example, in a passport). At the same time, the Decree deprived the church of all property, movable and immovable, and the right to own it, in addition, the church was deprived of the rights of a legal entity. Church and religious organizations ceased all state subsidies. The church could receive the buildings necessary for worship only on the terms of “free use” and with the permission of the authorities. In addition, the teaching of religious beliefs was prohibited in all state, public and private educational institutions (Section 9 separates the school from the church). From now on, citizens could study religion only in private.
By itself, the decree of 1918 proclaimed the secular nature of the new state and established freedom of conscience. But the deprivation of the church of the status of a legal entity, the confiscation of property, the real actions of the Soviet government and further legislative acts testified that an atheistic state was being built in the country, where there was no place for any other faith than faith in socialist ideals. In pursuance of this Decree, by decision of the Council of People's Commissars of May 9, 1918, a special department of the People's Commissariat of Justice was created, headed by P.A. Krasikov. After the adoption of the Decree, about six thousand churches and monasteries were confiscated from the church and all bank accounts of religious associations were closed.
In the first years of the struggle with the church, the Soviet government, following the teachings of K. Marx about religion as a superstructure of the material basis, tried to take away its material base. Only the help of true believers to the clergy, classified by the Soviet authorities among the dispossessed, helped many to avoid starvation. “When by 1921 it becomes clear that the Church is not going to wither away, measures of direct centralized persecution begin to be applied.”
It is known that the drought of 1920-1921. led to unprecedented famine throughout the country. In August 1921, Patriarch Tikhon appealed to the heads of the Christian churches outside of Russia. The All-Russian Church Committee for Assistance to the Starving was created, donations began to be collected.
The Soviet government, under the pretext of helping the starving, launches a broad anti-religious campaign. So, by order of the Government, the All-Russian Church Committee for Assistance to the Starving was closed, and the funds raised were transferred to the Government Committee for Assistance to the Starving (Pomgol). On February 23, 1922, the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee "On the seizure of church valuables and bells" was adopted. The Soviet government recognizes this Decree as necessary because of the difficult situation in the starving regions. The true reasons were guessed by Patriarch Tikhon, who noted among them the desire to compromise the church in the eyes of the masses. This is confirmed by Lenin's "strictly secret" letter to Molotov dated March 19, 1922, regarding the events in Shuya. Here are some characteristic excerpts from it: “For us, this very moment is not only an exceptionally favorable, but in general the only moment when we can count on 99 out of 100 chances of complete success, smash the enemy utterly and provide for ourselves the necessary us position for many decades. Precisely now and only now ... we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most frenzied and merciless energy and without stopping to suppress any kind of resistance ... The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion , all the better". The content of this letter shows the true attitude of V.I. Lenin to the starving. It is clear that he tried to use the calamity of the people to further liquidate the church as an institution.
Legislation in 1922 became more and more strict. The Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of July 12, 1922 (Art. 477), the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of August 3, 1922 (Art. 622), the instruction of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of August 10, 1922 (Art. 623) introduced the principle of mandatory registration of any societies , unions and associations (including religious communities) in the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs and its local bodies, which now had the unconditional right to allow or prohibit the existence of such communities. When registering, it was mandatory to submit complete information (including party affiliation) about each member of the community, the charter of the society and a number of other documents. It provided for the refusal of registration if the registered society or union, in its goals or methods of activity, contradicts the Constitution and its laws. This understandable article actually left a lot of scope for the arbitrariness of the authorities. The "permissive" principle will become the basis of all subsequent Soviet legislation in this area.
In 1923-1925. the formalization of the legal basis for the existence of religious associations continued. Thus, on February 26, 1924, the Politburo approved the instruction on the registration of Orthodox religious societies. On March 21, 1924, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a resolution “On the termination of the case on charges of c. Belavina V.I.” . Once free, Patriarch Tikhon begins the struggle for the legalization of the bodies of the central administration of the Russian Orthodox Church. He achieves that on May 21, 1924, People's Commissar of Justice D.I. Kursky, having read the statement of the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, agreed with the requirements of the patriarch. On the same day, the patriarch, sitting with the Synod in Donskoy Monastery, decided to formalize the formation of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council and listed the personal composition of both bodies.
Thus ended at this stage the long struggle of the patriarch for the legalization of the Russian Orthodox Church, its governing bodies, its hierarchy, outlawed by the Moscow Tribunal in the verdict of May 5, 1922.
During the same period, Catholic communities were also legalized, since the Soviet government had certain hopes for the help of the Vatican in the international arena. On December 11, 1924, the Politburo approved two main legal documents legalizing Catholic organizations: the Statute of the Catholic Faith in the USSR and the Basic Provisions on the Catholic Faith in the USSR. According to these documents, the Vatican retained the right to appoint clergymen, but with the permission of the NKID for each candidate. The Soviet government retained the right to challenge, including for political reasons. Any papal messages are distributed throughout the country only with the permission of the Soviet authorities. All relations between the highest Catholic hierarchs of the country and the Vatican go only through the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
In general, in order to facilitate the task of destroying the Russian Orthodox Church, the authorities sought to secure something like an alliance with other confessions or to ensure neutrality on their part. This is confirmed by the fact that some of them were given certain privileges. For example, in 1918, the Commissariat for the Affairs of Muslim Nationalities was created. Some denominations tried to turn the current situation to their advantage. Evangelicals and Catholics at first welcomed the consolidation of the separation of church and state, assuming that the nationalization would only affect the property of the Russian Orthodox Church. But in subsequent years, all confessions experienced severe repression and persecution.
Following rather favorable acts for Muslims, such as, for example, the appeal of the Council of People's Commissars of Soviet Russia “To all the working Muslims of Russia and the East” dated November 20, 1917, two years later, quite harsh measures against Muslims followed. “In 1919, waqf lands were confiscated in Central Asia, the proceeds from which were used for religious needs (zakat) and for charitable purposes (saadaka), mektebs (comprehensive schools for Muslims) were liquidated, in Eastern Bukhara, when Soviet power was established, mosques were engaged in institutions ".
In the 1930s, many churches, many Protestant prayer houses, Muslim mosques were closed, at the same time the Buddhist datsan, the only one in Leningrad, created by the efforts of ethnic Buryats and Kalmyks in 1913, was closed. even if breaking the law than to be accused of a loyal attitude to religion - the opponent of Soviet power. The Soviet government did not need any of religious teachings, recognizing only the Marxist ideology.
Only on April 8, 1929, at a meeting of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, a resolution “On Religious Associations” was adopted, which regulated the legal status of religious associations in the Soviet Union for 60 years. But this did not improve the position of church organizations in the country. This decree limited the activities of associations to meet the religious needs of believers, and their range of action was limited to the walls of a prayer building, which was provided to them by the state (since then, a priest could not perform ritual actions at home, in a cemetery and in public places without special permission). “It legislated the exclusion of religious associations from all spheres of civil life and introduced a number of restrictions on the activities of religious societies (over 20 people) and groups of believers (less than 20 people).”
Despite the fact that the church, according to the Decree of April 8, 1929, did not receive the status of a legal entity, all religious associations operating at that time on the territory of the RSFSR were required to register. The registration procedure was very complicated and time consuming. The decision on registration was given to the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, which took it after considering the submission of the Councils of Ministers of the autonomous republics, regional executive committees, and regional Soviets of People's Deputies. In addition, local authorities had the right to refuse registration. If registration was refused, the parish was closed and the church building was taken away from the believers. However, despite the fact that the church was deprived of the status of a legal entity, the Decree "On Religious Associations" of 1929 granted them the following rights: the acquisition of vehicles, the right to lease, build and purchase buildings for their own needs (imposing all these buildings with exorbitant taxes), the acquisition and production of church utensils, objects of religious worship, as well as their sale to communities of believers. From a legal point of view, such a situation is absurd, since an organization deprived by the state of the rights of a legal entity received from it the right to own and partially dispose of property.
In accordance with the adopted resolution, it was forbidden to hold general meetings of religious societies without the permission of the authorities (Article 12); engage in charity (art. 17); convene religious congresses and meetings (Article 20). It was forbidden to teach any kind of religious beliefs in institutions not specially designed for this (Article 18). The situation with religious education in those years was deplorable, since almost all institutions specially designed for this purpose were closed. Believing parents, by mutual agreement, could themselves teach religion to children under the age of majority, but on condition that this training did not take the form of a group, but was carried out with their children individually, without inviting teachers. The clergy did not have the right, under the threat of criminal punishment (Art. 142 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR), to teach children religion.
Thus, the church was separated not only from the state, but also from the life of society as a whole, which had a negative impact on the development of many religious associations.
The only positive factor was the very fact of the adoption of this regulation, which replaced the conflicting circulars in force in this area.
The Constitution of 1936 fixed the same wording that was adopted at the XIV All-Russian Congress of Soviets in May 1929. Art. 124 of the Constitution of the USSR of 1936, it was stated: “In order to ensure the freedom of conscience for citizens, the church in the USSR is separated from the state and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda are recognized for all citizens. This Constitution was less discriminatory towards the clergy. An article that deprived the clergy of voting rights was excluded from it. In Art. 135 of the Constitution, it was established that religion does not affect the electoral rights of a citizen.
The USSR Constitution of 1977 also proclaims the separation of the state from the church. Art. 52 of this Constitution for the first time defined freedom of conscience as the right to profess any religion or not to profess any, to practice religious cults or conduct atheistic propaganda. But even in this Constitution it is forbidden to conduct religious propaganda. And for the first time, a new legal guarantee of freedom of conscience was recorded in the Constitution of the USSR: the prohibition to incite enmity and hatred in connection with religious beliefs. Freedom of conscience, enshrined in the main law of the country, as well as the principle of secularism and many other norms, were in many ways an empty formality that meant nothing to the authorities. Perhaps that is why the citizens of our country have forgotten how to respect and use its laws.
But the main changes took place on September 4, 1943, after a personal conversation between I. V. Stalin and Metropolitans Sergius, Alexis and Nikolai. During this meeting, the following decisions were made: the decision to create a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (which was supposed to communicate between the government and the patriarchy) and to appoint Colonel of State Security G. G. Karpov to the post of its chairman, the decision to convene the Local Council and the election of a patriarch who had not been elected for 18 years. I.V. Stalin also stated that from now on there will be no obstacles on the part of the government for the Moscow Patriarchate to publish its own journal, open religious educational institutions, Orthodox churches and candle factories.
So, in his policy towards the church, I.V. Stalin made some concessions. But at the same time, it must be recognized that the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was created for its total control, its representatives interfered in all the internal affairs of the church. It is also characteristic that in the instructions of the Council for the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church for the representatives of the Council on the ground of February 5, 1944, some provisions of the decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of 1929 were duplicated. For example, "due to the fact that religious communities do not enjoy the rights of a legal entity, they are prohibited from any kind of production, trade, educational, medical and other activities."
So, during the Great Patriotic War the position of the ROC was significantly strengthened, the number of churches increased, it became possible to train new cadres of clergy, its material well-being was improved, the church was restored as an institution. And yet it was under the strictest state control.
In the late 1950s, a new period of struggle against religious organizations began in the country. “During these years, the Russian Orthodox Church again lost half of the churches, monasteries, and theological seminaries returned to it. The registration of a significant part of religious communities of other confessions was cancelled. Normative acts were adopted that undermine the economic basis of the activities of religious organizations: resolutions of the Council of Ministers of the USSR of October 16, 1958 “On monasteries in the USSR”, of November 6, 1958 “On taxation of income of monasteries”, of October 16, 1958 “On tax taxation of incomes of enterprises of diocesan administrations, as well as incomes of monasteries” and others”.
In March 1961, by a decree of the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Council for the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, new instruction on the application of the legislation on cults. However, the tightened law enforcement practice in relation to religious associations during the Khrushchev era did not prevent a certain revitalization of the religious life of society.
Some stabilization of relations between the state and religious associations occurs in the 1970s. In July 1975, the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR "On introducing amendments and additions to the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 8, 1929 "On Religious Associations"" was adopted. Removing some financial restrictions, this document also granted religious organizations the following rights: the right to purchase vehicles, the right to rent, build and purchase buildings for their own needs, the right to produce and sell church utensils and religious objects. Thus, another step was taken in the state to obtain the rights of a legal entity for religious organizations, but this was not enshrined in law. Therefore, the introduction of such changes in the resolutions as a whole did not change the anti-church essence of state policy.
The 1977 constitution changed little. In fact, only the term “anti-religious propaganda” was replaced by the more euphonious “atheistic propaganda” in it. At this time, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR "On the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church" continues to operate unchanged. Real change began to take place only in the mid-1980s. In a legal sense, everything changed with the adoption in 1990 of two new laws.
In 1990, the Committee for Freedom of Conscience, Religion and Charity was formed, which was part of the newly elected Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, which was entrusted with control and administrative functions in relation to religious associations. It was this body that developed new legislation in the field of state-church relations. In connection with the creation of such a structure, by order of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR of August 24, 1990, the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR was liquidated.
Already on October 1, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted the Law of the USSR "On Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations", and on October 25, 1990, the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted the Law "On Freedom of Religion". In connection with the adoption of these laws, the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of January 23, 1918 "On the separation of the church from the state and the school from the church" and the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of April 8, 1929 "On religious associations" were declared invalid.
In fact, the adoption of these two laws served as the first step towards building a secular state because they really ensured freedom of conscience by lifting discriminatory prohibitions and restrictions that offend any believer. The state reduced interference in religious activities to a minimum. The clergy were equal in civil rights with workers and employees of state and public institutions and organizations. And most importantly, religious associations finally received full legal capacity as a legal entity, and it was possible to obtain it as a result of a simplified procedure for registering the charter of a religious organization. The law secured for religious organizations the right to property in full, as well as the right to protect their rights in court. All the rights of believers were now protected at the level of the law, and not a by-law. On the other hand, due to the fact that the institution of mandatory registration of a religious association was abolished, and the notification of authorities about the creation of a religious organization was declared optional, a stream of pseudo-religious organizations poured into the country, in modern terminology - totalitarian sects, posing a great threat to society. In general, these laws have created normal conditions for the activities of religious organizations.
It is rather difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of the studied material, since until recently the Soviet period was considered only from the positive side, and now exclusively negative assessments have prevailed. However, the indisputable fact is that the policy of the Soviet state was aimed at building an atheistic state. Confirmation of this is the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of January 23, 1918, adopted already at the beginning of the coming to power of the Soviets, which deprived religious societies of property and the rights of a legal entity. The first Soviet Constitution was discriminatory towards clergy, as it deprived them of voting rights, which were restored only by the Constitution of 1936. The Law of April 8, 1929 contained many restrictions that prevented the activities of religious organizations from the very beginning. The brutal repressions and anti-religious propaganda aimed at eradicating faith in our country speak for themselves. They tried to separate the church not only from the state, but also from the life of society, to enclose it in a reservation and wait for it to self-destruct.
Progressive, in our opinion, in that period was the fact of the separation of church and state. The Russian Orthodox Church no longer interfered in the politics of the state. Legal sources of the Soviet period clearly confirm the existence of the process of formation of a secular state. In legislation, starting from the very first Decree "On the separation of church from state and school from church", the ideas of freedom of conscience were proclaimed. If the state followed the democratic path of development, then perhaps it would put these ideas into practice. But their consolidation in the legislation turned out to be only formal.
The legal acts of that time, devoted to state-church relations, were quite contradictory and of low quality. The very fact that four constitutions were adopted in a short period of time testifies to their imperfection, although this was largely due to the personal factor and the state policy that changed in connection with this.
After Patriarch Alexy announced at the recent Christmas Readings that the state and the church should join forces to plant Orthodoxy in Russia, the relationship between church and state has again become a subject of discussion. And there is nothing to be surprised. In Russia, the church has actually been part of the state for the last three hundred years. And only once did it really want to separate it, and the church was really ready to separate. That's how it was.20 million schismatics
On April 7, 1905, Nicholas II signed a decree "On strengthening the principles of religious tolerance", which equalized the rights of representatives of all faiths. Now the transition from one religion to another was allowed (previously, "falling away from Orthodoxy" entailed criminal liability), restrictions were lifted on the construction of non-Orthodox churches, prayer houses, on the publication of religious literature, etc.
This decree put the Orthodox in an extremely disadvantageous position. While other denominations received freedom, the life of the Orthodox Church, as was established by Peter the Great, remained under the control of the state. This guardianship became an anachronism already after the reform of 1861, when the economic sovereignty of a significant part of the population of the empire became a fact of their spiritual life. The shadow of discredited power lay on state religion, and the new Russians (free peasants, entrepreneurs, lawyers, cultural figures) preferred to look for answers to questions about the meaning of life not in Orthodox churches, and among the Old Believers or in numerous sects: it was then that the movements of the Doukhobors, Stundists, Beguns, Khlysts, Nemolyaks, Mennonites, Molokans, Baptists, etc., became widespread in Russia. According to the historian Pavel Milyukov, the official church in those years lost about 20 million parishioners.
The clergy and laity, who were acutely in crisis, were looking for a way out of the situation, which was complicated by the fact that the church performed a number of state functions. Thus, the parishes conducted civil status acts, and the Synod was in charge of more than 44% of primary schools financed from the state budget, which was approved by the Duma.
The development of a model of church-state relations has become the subject of a wide public discussion. It was assumed that new forms of church government would be developed at the Local Council, the convocation of which, however, was postponed.
The council was convened only after the February Revolution. The provisional government supported the church's desire for self-determination. It gave the Orthodox Church a special place in the state, which, however, was based on the principles of freedom of conscience. The Decree of the Provisional Government of June 14, 1917 proclaimed that the political and civil rights of the inhabitants of Russia do not depend on their religion.
The local cathedral of the Russian Orthodox Church opened in August 1917. The entire Orthodox population of the country participated in the election of delegates to the council, therefore, after the Bolsheviks came to power and the Constituent Assembly was dispersed, the cathedral for some time remained the only public institution whose legality of election was not in doubt. The Council developed a scheme of church administration and a model of church-state relations. The synodal government was replaced by the patriarchal one, the church became self-governing. However, at the same time, it was supposed to preserve all the privileges of Orthodoxy as the dominant confession: the head of state had to be Orthodox, the Law of God remained a compulsory school subject, and church holidays- state.
But the reaction of the church was late. Power in the country already belonged to the Bolsheviks.
Galkinsky decree on the separation of the church
It is believed that at the time of coming to power, the Bolsheviks already had a program of church-state relations, involving the separation of church and state. But it's not. Known, for example, are orders from units of the Red Army declaring Christmas and Easter as revolutionary holidays: Jesus, according to the commissars, led the uprising of the poor against the power of the rich, which means "ours." The entire policy of the Bolsheviks at that time was reduced to open interference in church affairs in the worst traditions of the synodal era. Numerous complaints were sent from the provinces to the center against the commissars, who forced the priests to violate church canons. Representatives of the Soviet authorities, for example, threatened the priest with execution for refusing to remarry those whose divorce was approved by civil law, but not recognized by the church. The refusal of the priest in this case was seen as a counter-revolutionary activity.
The situation was changing rapidly. Soon the Bolsheviks moved from threats to action. In January 1918, Commissar of Public Charity Alexandra Kollontai, with a detachment of sailors, attempted to requisition the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. At the alarm, a crowd of believers gathered, and the requisition of the Lavra had to be postponed. After the unsuccessful capture of the Lavra in Petrograd, which was then still the capital, a grand procession took place. The Bolsheviks were frightened by this action. The question of the need for a legislative settlement of church-state relations became a priority. Alexandra Kollontai recalled how Lenin, scolding her for arbitrariness, sentenced that it was time to pass a law on the separation of church and state.
In the first post-revolutionary months, priest Mikhail Galkin took up the problem of church-state relations on a private initiative. In November 1917, he offered his services to the Council of People's Commissars, and soon Pravda published Mikhail Galkin's article "First Steps towards the Separation of Church and State."
The program of the revolutionary priest looked like this.
Religion is declared a private affair of each person. The ecclesiastical and religious communities become private unions, completely free to manage their own affairs. Teaching the Law of God in high, middle and low schools is optional. Metrication of births, marriages and deaths is transferred from the order of the churches to special state authorities. It depends on the free conscience of each one whether to commit this or that church rite or not. Consequently, non-religious state would become the norm. The institute of civil marriages is established. Cemetery authorities of all faiths do not have the right to put any obstacles to the organization of civil funerals on the territory of cemeteries. Cremation of corpses was allowed.
In the performance of monetary and in-kind duties, according to Galkin, clergy of all confessions, as well as monastics, should be equated with all citizens of the Russian Republic. These people - in accordance with their age - can be involved in military service, which they have the right to serve in non-combatant companies (orderlies, clerks, telephone operators, etc.). All loans for the maintenance of the church and its clergy were supposed to be closed. Metropolitans, archbishops, bishops, archimandrites and archpriests must immediately hand over gold, silver, diamonds and other valuables "to the people's treasury, which was empty in the time of the greatest upheavals." Priest Galkin recommended that all the clergy wear their cassocks only in churches when on duty. On the streets, squares and in general in the meetings of citizens of the Russian Republic - to appear in a general civil dress. Finally, from January 7, 1918, it was proposed to introduce the Gregorian calendar everywhere in the Russian Republic.
Almost the entire Galkin program was implemented. Already in early December 1917, the Council of People's Commissars discussed the issue of prohibiting the issuance of funds to church institutions. On December 18 and 19, decrees were adopted recognizing legal force only for civil marriage. In January 1918, registry offices were established under local councils. In February, the People's Commissariat of Education published a decree abolishing the position of a teacher of the law in schools, and the State Commission on Education adopted a decree on a secular school, according to which the state cannot take over the religious education of children. The Gregorian calendar was introduced in February. On July 7/20, a decree of the Council of People's Commissars on conscription into the rear militia was promulgated, recognizing priests and monks as liable for military service. In September, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee issued a circular on the abolition of the "religion" column in passports.
"Reforms will remain unshakable"
All these decisions, resolutions and decrees were given legal force by a document known as Lenin's decree on the separation of church and state. It was published on January 21/February 3, 1918 and was called rather liberally: "The Decree on Freedom of Conscience, Church and Religious Societies."
The main author of this document, as well as the entire concept of the religious policy of the Bolsheviks, is V. I. Lenin, although it is known that his role in the preparation of this document is not so great. The draft decree was developed by a commission, which included A. V. Lunacharsky, P. I. Stuchka, P. A. Krasikov, M. A. Reisner (father of the "woman of the Russian revolution" Larisa Reisner) and priest M. Galkin. VI Lenin made several amendments to the document. The most significant of them is the wording of the first paragraph of the decree - on the separation of church and state, which literally repeats the formula of a similar decree of the Paris Commune.
The Decree (with the "Instruction on the Implementation of the Decree on the Separation of Church and State" supplemented by it) became not so much a legislative act of the new government as a manifesto of a new religious policy.
The reaction to the manifesto was sharp and stormy (let's not forget that the attack on the church was carried out against the backdrop of the Local Council continuing to work). Some saw it as a legal justification for the persecution of the church (depriving the church of the rights of a legal entity), others hoped that the adoption of the law, albeit imperfect, would allow civilized polemics with the Bolsheviks, and still others rejoiced at the very fact of the separation of the church from the state.
A leaflet that appeared on the streets of Moscow shortly after the publication of the decree (published for the first time)
Russian people!
The Bolsheviks are shedding fraternal blood, handing over Russian land to the Germans, ruining towns and villages, destroying industry and trade; dispersed the Constituent Assembly, destroyed the court.
But all this is not enough for them. In October and November they destroyed the shrines of the Kremlin, and now they finally decided to destroy the church in Russia.
Render what is Caesar's to Caesar, and God's to God,” said the Savior. And the Bolsheviks have taken away everything that is Caesar's and are taking away everything that is God's. They decided to take away churches, church property, even sacred objects.
According to their new decree, neither the cross, nor the chalice with the Holy Gifts, nor the icons, nor the relics of the Saints belong to the church. All this belongs to the Bolshevik commissars, who themselves do not profess any religion, do not recognize any sacraments.
Caesar's - to Caesar, therefore the Bolshevik commissar Ms. Kollontai can marry as much as she likes without a church, in a civil marriage, with sailors, but God's - to God, and therefore Ms. Kollontai has no right to commit abuse and seize the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, as she did it.
Caesar's - to Caesar, therefore Lenin-Ulyanov and Trotsky-Bronstein, imagining themselves to be Caesars, can rob banks, but God's - to God, and therefore they do not dare to rob your shrine, Russian people! They don't dare to turn the temple into places of meetings and cinemas, they don't dare to forbid you to teach children the Law of God in schools. Not Lenin and not Trotsky-Bronstein to host in the altar of the temple.
Churches destroyed. Requisitioned Lavra. Archpriest killed. Searches were carried out at the patriarch's own place, and believers were already asking him to appoint a successor in case of a possible martyr's death.
They swear at all the saints. Are you going to let me do that too? Can it be that you, the Russian people, will not intercede here too ?!
From the speech of Metropolitan Arseny (Stadnitsky) at a meeting of the cathedral on August 18/30, 1918
We could not imagine that the general idea of the decree could be carried out with such consistency, but it turned out that the decrees concerning the Church that have appeared recently were, as it were, a preparatory step for that decisive order that appeared yesterday ... The Church in her earthly manifestation (with charitable, educational side) is destroyed not only because it loses property, which, of course, is not indifferent to the life of the Church, but here is a blow to the Church as a grace-filled power. Here we are deprived of everything: the right to reveal religious feelings, the right to have a beneficial influence on the flock - there is no possibility for such an influence now, because the churches are no longer ours. We are deprived of what is our sacred duty, the right to preach, we will be watched so that we do not say anything against the Soviet regime, and we know that everyone sees what he wants ... We are experiencing the only moment, not having an example not only in the history of the Russian state, but also in the world.
From an article by V. Desnitsky, editor of the Socialist-Revolutionary newspaper " New life"
By decrees of the Council of People's Commissars, the question of the separation of church and state with all the ensuing consequences has been resolved, and, presumably, resolved irrevocably and definitively. Whatever revolutionary-democratic power may come to replace the Council of People's Commissars, it cannot and should not regard all the measures of the Bolshevik era as an unconditional and resolute rejection of them. AND church reform will have to become part of the revolutionary legacy that the departed Bolshevik government will leave new Russia reborn from the horrors of war and from the "socialist" leapfrog of Smolny. There may be a question about some corrections, about additions, about processing details. But the main provisions of the reform will remain unshakable.
Ministers with candles
The Social Revolutionary journalist turned out to be right: the main provisions of the Bolshevik policy towards the church remained unshakable - they did not change from 1917 until perestroika, when, under the patronage of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the church celebrated the millennium of the baptism of Rus'.
For seventy years, Orthodoxy in the USSR was under the strict control of the authorities and the KGB, since it was believed that we should have one religion - communist. Trying to survive in the conditions of this uncontested competition, the primate of the Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), in 1927 published a well-known declaration calling on the clergy and believers to cooperate with the godless authorities. In 1943, Stalin, seeking to expand the "patriotic base" in the fight against fascism and to ennoble the image of the Bolsheviks in the eyes of the West, allowed the Church to participate in public activities, but at the same time change its former name - Russian - to a narrower one - Russian (which from a religious point of view is not harmless: the "nationalization" of Christianity is the sin of apostasy - falling away from Christ). Both Khrushchev and Brezhnev tried to command the church through the Council for Religious Affairs created by Stalin under the Council of Ministers.
Problems in the relationship between church and state after 1991 have changed, but have not lost their sharpness. Calling on the state to drastically limit the activity of foreign preachers in Russia and grant the Orthodox Church a special status, the Moscow Patriarchate, critics say, appeals to traditions dating back to the synodal era and depriving the church of autonomous moral authority. The gesture of the patriarch, who preferred a meeting with President Putin and Chancellor Schroeder to the Christmas service, caused shock among many believers, and caustic journalists immediately remembered the former absolute subordination of the church to the secular state.
However, the state religious policy remains unclear. Ministers in temples with candles in right hand(who is supposed to be baptized) is more of a carnival with the participation of "those who see by order" rather than politics. And the bureaucratic flirting with Orthodoxy (represented in Russia, by the way, by several registered confessions) in front of 15 million astonished Russian Muslims, whose ancestors prayed to Allah on this earth a thousand years ago, looks completely absurd. Against this background, the anti-church policy of the Bolsheviks looks at least consistent.
ALEXANDER MALAKHOV
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From the editor. Unfortunately, a mistake crept into the caption for the picture published in the previous issue of the magazine on page 61. The people depicted on it, along with Yuri Andropov, are not related to the KGB "department of murders". We apologize to their families and friends.
1. The church is separated from the state.
2. Within the Republic, it is prohibited to make any local laws or regulations that would restrict or restrict the freedom of conscience, or establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of the religious affiliation of citizens.
3. Every citizen may profess any religion or none. Any right deprivation associated with the confession of any faith or non-profession of any faith is canceled.
Note. From all official acts, any indication of religious affiliation and non-affiliation of citizens is eliminated.
4. The actions of the state and other public-legal public institutions are not accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies.
5. The free performance of religious rites is ensured insofar as they do not violate public order and are not accompanied by encroachments on the rights of citizens of the Soviet Republic.
Local authorities have the right to take all necessary measures to ensure public order and security in these cases.
6. No one may, referring to their religious views, evade the performance of their civic duties.
Exceptions to this provision, subject to the replacement of one civil duty by another, are allowed in each individual case by decision of the people's court.
7. Religious oath or oath is cancelled.
In necessary cases, only a solemn promise is given.
8. Civil status acts are conducted exclusively by the civil authority: the departments of registration of marriages and births.
9. The school is separated from the church.
The teaching of religious beliefs in all state and public, as well as private educational institutions where general education subjects are taught, is not allowed.
Citizens can teach and learn religion privately.
10. All ecclesiastical and religious societies are subject to the general provisions on private societies and associations and do not enjoy any advantages and subsidies either from the state or from its local autonomous and self-governing institutions.
11. Coercive collection of dues and taxes in favor of church and religious societies, as well as measures of coercion or punishment on the part of these societies over their members are not allowed.
12. No ecclesiastical and religious societies have the right to own property.
They do not have legal personality.
13. All property of the church and religious societies existing in Russia is declared to be the property of the people.
Buildings and objects intended specifically for liturgical purposes are given, by special decrees of local or central state authorities, for the free use of the respective religious societies.
Signed by: Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Ulyanov (Lenin).
People's Commissars: Podvoisky, Algasov, Trutovsky, Schlichter, Proshyan, Menzhinsky, Shlyapnikov, Petrovsky.
Managing Director of the Council of People's Commissars Bonch-Bruevich.
