Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism (Memory Politics and Transitional Justice) 3030560627, 9783030560621

Table of contents :
Introduction
Contents
Notes on Contributors
List of Tables
Part I Central Europe
1 Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany
The Catholic Church in Opposition to the Communist Regime
Official and Unofficial Contacts Between Catholic Church and State Security
Consequences of Contacts Between the Catholic Church and State Security
Initiatives of the Catholic Church After 1989
Conclusion
Bibliography
2 Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland
Collaborators, Secret Informers, and Operational Contacts Within the Church
Agents, Whistle Blowers, Ultras, and Progressives (2005–2009)
The Multiple Posthumous Lives of Reverend Henryk Jankowski
Conclusion
Bibliography
3 Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic
Religious Repression During Communist Rule
Collaboration and Resistance
Post-Communist Transitional Justice
Lustration and Court Trials
The Underground Church
Rehabilitations and Memorialization
Property Restitution
Conclusion
References
4 Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past
Repression and Persecution
Church Collaboration
Post-Communist Developments
Transitional Justice
Conclusion
References
Part II The Balkans
5 The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History
The Establishment of the Communist Regime
The “Red” Patriarchs
Collaboration of Other Orthodox Church Members
Orthodox Resistance
Re-evaluation of the Past
Conclusion
References
6 Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past
The Communist State and the Orthodox Church: Repression, Resistance, Collaboration
Post-communist Challenges and Missed Opportunities
Conclusion
References
7 Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania
Via Dolorosa of the Catholic Church of Albania
A National Catholic Church—Faithful to the Government?
Albania’s Flawed Laws
Redeemed by Martyrs and Saints—The Catholic Church After the Fall of Communism
Conclusion
References
Part III The Baltic Republics
8 Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era
Historical Overview: Restrictions, Repressions, and Losses
“Administering” the Believers
The Soviet Ideological Assault
Repressions, Resistance, and Cooperation
The EELC—Victim or Collaborator of the Soviet Regime?
The EELC Since 1991
Conclusion
References
9 The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia
The Latvian Lutherans and Roman Catholics During Soviet Times
A Time for Change
Looking Back at Soviet Times
Conclusion
References
10 The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past
Contradictory Experiences of Soviet Oppression
The Long Road to Undo Soviet Legacies
The Victims Ask for Pardon
Conclusion
References
Part IV Former Soviet Republics in Europe
11 The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past
The Former KGB Agents
Canonizations and Martyrs
Conclusion
References
12 Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus
The Belarusian Orthodoxy and Soviet Repression
The Collaboration with KGB Comes to Light
State Sovereignty and Religious Dependency
Remembering the Victims
Property Restitution
The Alternative Orthodox Churches
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Conclusion
Roman Catholicism: Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania
Eastern Orthodoxy: Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus
Protestantism: Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia
Index

Citation preview

MIGRATION, MEMORY POLITICS AND TRANSITIONAL JUSTICE DIASPORAS AND CITIZENSHIP

Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism Edited by Lucian Turcescu · Lavinia Stan

Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

Series Editors Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK Jelena Subotic, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA Tsveta Petrova, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA

The interdisciplinary fields of Memory Studies and Transitional Justice have largely developed in parallel to one another despite both focusing on efforts of societies to confront and (re—)appropriate their past. While scholars working on memory have come mostly from historical, literary, sociological, or anthropological traditions, transitional justice has attracted primarily scholarship from political science and the law. This series bridges this divide: it promotes work that combines a deep understanding of the contexts that have allowed for injustice to occur with an analysis of how legacies of such injustice in political and historical memory influence contemporary projects of redress, acknowledgment, or new cycles of denial. The titles in the series are of interest not only to academics and students but also practitioners in the related fields. The Memory Politics and Transitional Justice series promotes critical dialogue among different theoretical and methodological approaches and among scholarship on different regions. The editors welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines— including political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies— that confront critical questions at the intersection of memory politics and transitional justice in national, comparative, and global perspective. This series is indexed in Scopus. Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Book Series (Palgrave) Co-editors: Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London), Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University), Tsveta Petrova (Columbia University) Editorial Board Paige Arthur, New York University Center on International Cooperation Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota Orli Fridman, Singidunum University Belgrade Carol Gluck, Columbia University Katherine Hite, Vassar College Alexander Karn, Colgate University Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Bronwyn Leebaw, University of California, Riverside Jan-Werner Mueller, Princeton University Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia Kathy Powers, University of New Mexico Joanna R. Quinn, Western University Jeremy Sarkin, University of South Africa Leslie Vinjamuri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Sarah Wagner, George Washington University

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14807

Lucian Turcescu · Lavinia Stan Editors

Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism

Editors Lucian Turcescu Department of Theology Concordia University Montréal, QC, Canada

Lavinia Stan Department of Political Science St Francis Xavier University Antigonish, NS, Canada

ISSN 2731-3840 ISSN 2731-3859 (electronic) Memory Politics and Transitional Justice ISBN 978-3-030-56062-1 ISBN 978-3-030-56063-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Alan Gignoux/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Introduction

Transitional justice measures and memorypolitics in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union have been closely analyzed by scholars and policy practitioners since the collapse of communism in 1989/1991. This literature has documented the adoption of specific programs designed to offer truth, justice, and reconciliation; the political negotiations that shaped, facilitated, or stalled reckoning programs; the electoral reasons that prompted some political actors to support (or oppose) specific transitional justice initiatives; the continued influence of former communist officials over the transitional justice agenda in some post-communist settings; the impact of the local legalculture on the adoption and implementation of such programs; the importance of timing and sequencing in enlarging or limiting transitional justice in a given country; the role of reckoning entrepreneurs, whistle-blowers and vigilante individuals in disclosing sensitive information to the general public; the input of international actors; as well as the lessons that some post-communist countries could teach others.1 Theoretically driven studies have linked transitional justice (or its absence) and various aspects of post-communist democratization, or identified the factors accounting for differences in scope and pace among national transitional justice programs.2 All these investigations give us an understanding of when accountability and reckoning programs are legislated and implemented, by which state and/or international actors, as well as for what kind of reasons. v

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Less studied have been the input of non-state actors and the effects of transitional justice and memorypolitics on socialactors and civil society groups other than the political parties, politicians, and judges who formulate, adopt, and implement reckoning-related laws and policies. The few studies published to date that have examined such actors (especially non-governmental organizations representing former victims, artists and members of theater companies, or scholarly associations involved in historiography and interested in gaining access to valuable state archives) remain unable to adequately map non-state initiatives in the region or explain how state-led reckoning efforts have impacted the larger society.3 To address this gap, the present volume investigates the way in which religious denominations have engaged in and been affected by transitional justice in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The past that is considered here is the communist past. In some post-communist settings, religious denominations—and especially the majority Catholic, Lutheran or Orthodox Churches—have proven to be formidable social actors capable of unduly shaping public policy and public opinion, making or breaking the careers of various luminaries, decisively influencing the outcome of elections at various levels, and mobilizing their followers in support of their initiatives and in opposition to other groups’ proposals. Even in countries where levels of religiosity are reportedly low, majority churches have drawn considerable legitimacy and influence both with the general public and with the political elites from their historical role in nation- and state-building.4 Regardless of their social and political importance during post-communist times, majority and minority religious denominations present in the region have had to contend with the legacy of their actions under communist rule, which ranged from overt collaboration with the authorities and support for their religious policies to heroic resistance against self-avowed atheistic regimes and willingness to protect dissidents and provide a space free of officialpropaganda for the faithful. The way in which denominations have pursued memorypolitics and transitional justice is the focus of this volume. To this end, this volume’s contributors were asked to focus on the country of their expertise while keeping a common set of questions in mind. The twelve chapters included here cover a broad selection of postcommunist European countries where processes of church reckoning with the communist past have gained the attention of the general public after 1989. The book looks at seven Central and Eastern European countries

INTRODUCTION

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(Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania) and five Former Soviet Union republics (Russia and Belarus, as well as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). These are all countries not rocked by the prolonged post-communist conflict that would have dampened the appetite for rectifying communist wrongs (as was the case of the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Georgia, or Armenia, for instance). As such, the countries included here have had close to three decades of postcommunism to reassess and address the numerous human rights abuses perpetrated by the repressive communist regimes. In order to strengthen our theoretical and methodological mileage, we excluded formerly Soviet republics where Christianity is not the majority religion, democratization has been protracted or even stalled, and the Soviet human rights abuses have often been downplayed (even justified!) in the name of nation- and state-building. We feel that the eleven countries included in this volume offer enough diversity in the social role of dominant churches, while retaining enough similarities in terms of the dominant role of Christianity, the pace of secularization, and their progress in effecting democratization, to offer strong theoretical lessons.5 These lessons are outlined in the Conclusion. We have chosen to structure the chapters along country, rather than denominational, lines. This is the reason why we included a single chapter for each country, rather than multiple chapters on various religious groups present in the same state. The book’s focus, therefore, is primarily on the main religious denomination(s) in each country, although religious minorities are not overlooked, if they have made significant efforts after 1989/1991 to reassess the legacies of their past relationship with the communist regime. As opposed to a denominational focus, the country focus allowed us to include a larger number of country cases, and to avoid unnecessary overlap of material. The country focus further allowed chapters to make visible the necessary connections between transitional justice and church–state relations, although not always in an explicit way, and thus to contribute to these two important, but to date largely disconnected, bodies of literatures. As individual chapters are dedicated to individual countries, the volume then orders them into regions: Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic states, and the European, formerly Soviet republics. The Russian occupation of Crimea in spring 2014 and the turmoil that still divides some of its other regions preclude a meaningful analysis of Ukraine, and therefore no chapter on that country was included in this volume.

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INTRODUCTION

Edited volumes often consist of chapters of uneven quality that rest on disparate theoretical and methodological perspectives, and are only loosely tied together by the introduction and conclusion. In the case of these edited works, chapters often raise quite different research questions, are structured differently, and might adopt divergent normative or empirical viewpoints that depend on the contributors’ preferences. The material (and the cases, methods, or countries) that is not covered occasionally becomes as important as the points that do receive attention. This, however, is not the case here. Our team applies a single set of research questions, draws on comparable research methods (analysis of church documents and statements, work in relevant secret and state archives, as well as personal interviews with church and state officials, academics, and civil society representatives), and examines the same transitional justice programs, methods, and practices (lustration, access to secret files, public identifications of former communist-era secret informers, compensation and rehabilitation, property restitution, history commissions, as well as memorialization). This unitary focus is further strengthened by the careful revision of chapters by editors, to make sure that country investigations are complete and comparable to the fullest extent possible. This volume’s contributors were asked to structure their chapters similarly while focusing on the country of their expertise. Given country differences in religious make-up, history of church–state relations and communist rule, as well as post-communist reckoning inclinations, this similarity was reflected in the structure of individual chapters only to some extent. However, the way in which research was conducted followed the same broad pattern. First, the contributors investigated the historical events related to church collaboration with or resistance to the communist regime, including the main state policies directed against religious groups, estimates of numbers of church members/leaders who became victims, explanations of the way in which victimization took place (deportation, arrest and imprisonment, assignment of forced domicile, defrocking, surveillance, recruitment as secretinformers, etc.), and descriptions of the forms of collaboration. These historical overviews provided the foundation for the analysis undertaken in the remainder of each chapter. Second, the chapters examined ways in which after 1989 churches have re-evaluated their communist past. Contributors were encouraged to consider the following questions: Have denominations re-examined their past involvement with the communist regime, party, and secret

INTRODUCTION

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services? Was there a discussion within the religious groups on the communist past? Were there clergy members, faithful and/or intellectuals who questioned the religious groups’ collaboration with the communist regime and its repression policies? Did some church leaders/members dismiss such discussions as unimportant or undermining the group’s credibility/legitimacy? Have church members tried to identify priests or faithful who facilitated communist repression by providing information to the communist secret services? Has the church adopted any document condemning collaboration with repressive regimes? Last, the contributors considered the way in which transitional justice programs initiated and implemented by state actors have affected religious denominations. Among the programs relevant for this discussion were the following: property restitution, lustration, and public identification of former secret informers, access to secret files, court trials, rehabilitation of former politicalprisoners, memorialization initiatives, and commemorations, to name just a few. To what extent have churches been affected by lustration, property restitution, compensation, and the like? Have churches tried to exempt themselves from these reckoning processes? In which ways, when exactly, and why? Have churches used and misused transitional justice to undermine the public standing of other churches they perceive as competitors? More broadly, have churches publicly claimed victim status or accepted and justified their past collaboration? Which arguments did they put forth in their defense? These questions were answered to the extent to which they were relevant for each of the selected countries. Many chapters rest on empirical data collected through research into the archives of the communist political police forces and of the Communist Party; personal interviews conducted with church members, political actors, local academics, and civil society representatives; examinations of official and unofficial statements and communiques published in the local press (including church periodicals); as well as reviews of already published secondary literature in English and also local languages. All contributors know intimately the language of the country they write on and have access to the local archives and the relevant literature published locally, and therefore their analyses add accuracy, detail, and nuance to the project. The two editors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for generously funding research for this book, and two previous programs on which they had collaborated after 1998. This financial help as well as the confidence the Council has placed

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INTRODUCTION

in us as researchers have been essential in moving our work on religion and politics in post-communism forward and have allowed some of the contributors to visit the countries examined here. This research project also signifies a milestone in the 35-year-long collaboration of the two editors. We are grateful for the support, love, and trust we gave each other over the years, and we look optimistically toward the future. Lavinia Stan would like to dedicate this book to our son, Luc, for the support he has given to her during these difficult times. I am so proud of you, Luc! Lavinia Stan

Notes 1. Among others, Brian Grodsky, The Costs of Justice: How New Leaders Respond to Previous Rights Abuses (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), Eva Clarita Pettai, Memory and Pluralism in the Baltic States (London: Routledge, 2011), Lavinia Stan and Nadya Nedelsky, eds., PostCommunist Transitional Justice: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Eva Clarita Pettai and Vello Pettai, Transitional and Retrospective Justice in the Baltic States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, eds., Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017), as well as Cynthia Horne and Lavinia Stan, eds., Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking Forward to the Future (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 2. See Lavinia Stan, ed., Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2009), Monika Nalepa, Skeletons in the Closet. Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Cynthia M. Horne, Building Trust and Democracy: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Countries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), as well as Lavinia Stan, Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), among others. Also related titles on memory politics: Marta Rabikowska, The Everyday of Memory: Between Communism and Post-Communism (London: Peter Lang, 2014), and Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, eds., Twenty Years After Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), to name a few.

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3. To date, only one volume engages with this topic, considering only a sub-set of post-communist countries: Olivera Simic and Zala Volcic, eds., Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans (New York: Springer, 2013). There are other articles and book chapters discussing selected civil society groups. The interplay between religion and transitional justice has been discussed in relation to countries outside of the region in Daniel Philpott, ed., The Politics of Past Evil. Religion, Reconciliation and the Dilemmas of Transitional Justice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). There is no comparable examination of post-communist settings. 4. For example, Sabrina Ramet, Whose Democracy? Nationalism, Religion, and the Doctrine of Collective Rights in Post-1989 Eastern Europe (Langham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), Sabrina Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), Zoe Knox, Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism (London: Routledge, 2005), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Lucian Leustean, Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-65 (London: Palgrave, 2008), Irina Papkova, The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Church, State and Democracy in Expanded Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), M. Valko and D. Slivka, eds., Christian Churches in Post-Communist Slovakia: Current Challenges and Opportunities (Salem: Center for Religion and Society, Roanoke College, 2012), Lucian Leustean, ed., Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2014), as well as Sabrina Ramet, Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and Southeastern Europe. Challenges since 1989 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 5. Albania is the only predominantly Muslim country included in this analysis, but Murzaku’s chapter focuses on its Christian groups, and their transitional justice struggles to come to terms with state-imposed atheism. The chapter’s focus was decided in an effort to increase the volume’s theoretical coherence.

Contents

Part I Central Europe 1

Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany Gregor Buß

3 21

2

Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland Mikołaj Kunicki

3

Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic Frank Cibulka

45

Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past Pavol Jakubˇcin

71

4

Part II The Balkans 5

6

The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History Lucian Turcescu Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past Momchil Metodiev

93 113

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CONTENTS

7

Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania Ines Angeli Murzaku

Part III 8

The Baltic Republics

Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era Atko Remmel and Priit Rohtmets

9

The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia Solveiga Krumina-Konkova

10

The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past Ar¯unas Streikus

Part IV 11

12

135

157 179

203

Former Soviet Republics in Europe

The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past Lavinia Stan Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus Nelly Bekus

225 241

Conclusion

265

Index

273

Notes on Contributors

Dr. Nelly Bekus is a Sociologist and Associate Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of Struggle over Identity. The Official and the Alternative Belarusianness (2010), co-author of Orthodoxy Versus PostCommunism? Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and the Russkiy Mir (2016), and has published numerous articles on the post-Soviet nationalism, memory, and identity. Gregor Buß studied Catholic theology at Muenster University, Germany, and holds a PhD in theological ethics from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2015, he has been a postdoctoral fellow of the Martin Buber Society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Frank Cibulka has been a Visiting Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International Studies at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Previously he taught at the National University of Singapore. During 1992–1996, he served as the Honorary Consul of Czechoslovakia and subsequently Czech Republic in Singapore. He has written on Soviet/Russian and East European politics and society, as well as on Asian affairs. His best-known works include the co-edited volumes Gorbachev and Third World Conflicts (1990) and China and Southeast Asia in Xi Jinping Era. (2018). Dr. Pavol Jakubˇcin teaches in the Department of History at Trnava University, Slovakia. His research deals with the existence of the churches

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NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

during the communist totalitarian regime. He published Pastieri v osídlach moci (Communist regime and Catholic priests in Slovakia from 1948 to 1968). Dr. Solveiga Krumina-Konkova is a leading researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Latvia and a corresponding member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. From 2015 to 2018 she was a member of the Government Commission for KGB Research. Dr. Mikołaj Kunicki is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wrocław, Poland. Previously, he taught history at the University of Oxford, University of Notre Dame, and University of California at Berkeley. Kunicki is the author of Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism and Communism in Twentieth Century Poland (Ohio University Press, 2012) as well as articles and chapters on twentieth-century Polish and European history, cinema, nationalism and contemporary politics. Dr. habil. Momchil Metodiev is Editor in Chief of the Christianity and Culture journal. Metodiev is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, Sofia, Bulgaria and lecturer in the New Bulgarian University. He has authored several monographs on the history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Bulgarian communist State Security. Dr. Ines Angeli Murzaku is Professor of Religion and Director of Catholic Studies Program at Seton Hall University (US). Dr. Murzaku has authored/co-authored several books. Her most recent publications include: Mother Teresa: Saint of the Peripheries (Paulist Press, 2021); Life of St Neilos of Rossano(1004) (Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard University Press 2018). Dr. Murzaku is a regular commentator to media outlets on religious matters. Dr. Atko Remmel is a Senior Research Fellow in the University of Tartu and University of Tallinn, Estonia. He has published on antireligious policy and atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union, (non)religion and nationalism, secularization and religious change, and contemporary forms of (non)religion and spirituality, including “greening of religion.” Dr. Priit Rohtmets is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tartu and Professor of Church History at the Theological Institute of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. In his research he has focused on

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Estonian, Baltic, and Scandinavian church history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, state–church relations, history of Orthodox Churches in the Baltic states and in the Balkans, the relationship between nationalism and religion in Northern Europe, and the ecumenical movement in the Baltic states. Dr. Lavinia Stan is Jules Leger Research Chair in Political Science and Coordinator of the Public Policy and Governance Program at St. Francis Xavier University, Canada. A comparative politics specialist, she has done work and published mainly on transitional justice, as well as religion and politics, with a focus on post-communist settings. Dr. Ar¯ unas Streikus is a Professor at Vilnius University (Lithuania) Faculty of History and head of its Modern History department since 2017. His research interests include contemporary history of Catholicism, cultural and political history of Lithuania under the Soviet rule. He is the author of numerous articles and some books on these topics. Dr. Lucian Turcescu is Professor, Graduate Program Director, and past Chair (2011–2016) of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He has done research, published, and taught in several areas, including early Christianity, religion and politics, and ecumenism. Some of his books include (co-edited with L. Stan) Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania (2021), Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania (2017), (co-authored with L. Stan) Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe (2011).

List of Tables

Table 6.1 Table 6.2 Table 6.3

State security objects and collaborators in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Synod Religious rituals and sacraments (%) Bulgarian Orthodox Church (statistical information)

122 125 127

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PART I

Central Europe

CHAPTER 1

Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany Gregor Buß

Christians played a decisive role in the overthrow of the communist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR).1 Of the 16.4 million GDR citizens in 1989, about 5.4 million (that is, 33%) belonged to the Protestant Church and about 1 million (6%) to the Catholic Church (Maser 2000). A strong protest movement emanated from the two large churches, which became decisive for the peaceful revolution of 1989– 1990 (Brummer 2009; Veen 2009; Führer 2010; Baum 2015). The churches were also at the forefront of coming to terms with the GDR’s past after the collapse of the communist regime in 1989 and the unification of the two Germanies the following year. They especially took a critical look at their own history and launched various initiatives to clarify their own involvement with the dictatorial regime. This chapter focuses on the Catholic Church in the GDR. The example of this Church shows the kind of reprisals religious denominations suffered during the forty-year-long history of the GDR, as well as the

G. Buß (B) Theologische Fakultät Trier, Universität Trier, Trier, Germany © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_1

3

4

G. BUß

forms of cooperation they and their members entered into with government agencies. Of particular interest are the eighty-six Catholic priests who were registered by the Ministry for State Security (MfS, known as the Stasi), the GDR secret service, as “unofficial collaborators” (inoffizieller Mitarbeiter, IM), that is, part-time secret informers recruited from all walks of life to spy on their relatives, friends, schoolmates, workmates, or neighbors. In the German public opinion, the IMs are usually regarded as traitors. The following pages will explain how the Catholic Church dealt with these cases during post-communist times and what significance these reckoning efforts have had for the reappraisal of the history of the GDR as a whole.

The Catholic Church in Opposition to the Communist Regime As in other socialist dictatorships, in the GDR the Marxist–Leninist and the Christian world views collided irreconcilably. The universal claim to truth of Marxism–Leninism found its expression in the infamous dogma “the doctrine of Marx and Lenin is omnipotent because it is true.” Party leaders and many of their followers believed they were on a historic mission, seeing themselves as the avant-garde of a peaceful and just world order. Any attempt to stop this movement was ultimately seen as hopeless and was mercilessly fought. Due to its atheistic orientation, Marxism–Leninism was ultimately incompatible with Christianity: With the ideology of Marxism-Leninism, the socialist state of the GDR claimed to know the laws of nature, society and history and to be able to explain them scientifically. This claim to absolute truth had to collide with the Church’s claim to truth. By proclaiming the message of the kingdom of God, which is not of this world, the Church fundamentally questioned Marxism-Leninism (Raabe 1995, 25).

Accordingly, the Christian churches were like a sting in the flesh of the socialist regime. Church activities were generally suspected of endangering the communist order and of stopping the victory of Marxism– Leninism. Because of their close ties to West Germany, the churches in the GDR were seen as the gateway to “Western imperialism.” For Ernst Wollweber, who headed the Ministry for State Security in the GDR from 1953 to 1957, the church was “the strongest legal base of imperialism

1

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in the socialist countries” (Vollnhals 1996, 79). The churches were not directly subject to party control, but formed the most independent institutions within the East German society (Vogel 2015). They therefore had to be “worked on” undercover in order to fight their “enemy activities.” The powerful secret service of the GDR, the Stasi, played a key role in the implementation of this church policy (Neubert 1998). An important means in the “fight against the churches” was the use of secret informants who could be recruited from the ranks of the churches. With the help of these “unofficial collaborators” (IMs), attempts were made to obtain information about the church and to exert a targeted influence on church processes and decisions. Altogether the share of active unofficial collaborators in the total population in the GDR was about one percent, but among Catholic clergy it was a little higher. Since they were able to exert great influence as church leaders, priests were especially targeted by the communist state security. However, the eighty-six cases of secret collaborator priests that have become known in the meantime differ considerably (Buß 2017). An examination of the Stasi files reveals that not every priest about whom an IM file was created was automatically an informer or secret agent. The mere existence of such a file is not yet proof that he engaged in conspiratorial contacts with the Stasi and betrayed his confreres or parishioners. Rather, the file contents must be closely examined and, if possible, compared with other available reports and documents, for example from church archives, and whenever possible with information derived from other sources such as personal interviews. Only then can a more reliable judgment be made. In order to imagine the extent of the surveillance of the East German citizens, here are a few figures. According to the latest data, the East German State Security Service registered more than 620,000 citizens, including 12,000 West Germans, as secret informers (IMs). At the time the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989, as many as 189,000 unofficial collaborators were active, 3,000 of them in the Federal Republic of Germany. Note that East Germany had a total population of 16.6 million citizens. The 111 linear kilometers of secret documents that were rescued from destruction and are housed with the so-called Gauck Authority have been only partially catalogued, but they are all available to the public with the exception of some highly sensitive military intelligence documents. In addition, there are around 16,000 sacks containing millions of snippets of torn Stasi files that are still waiting to be assembled (Der Bundesbeauftragte 2015).

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While the secret collaboration of Catholic priests with the Stasi is the focus of this chapter, it represents an important but narrow element of a much larger transitional justice process that, in unified Germany, has affected religious denominations after the collapse of the communist regime. This process includes the restitution of church property abusively confiscated by the communist authorities; the compensation packages offered in lieu of assets that cannot be returned; the prosecution of Communist Party officials, Stasi agents, and prison guards who victimized and persecuted clergy and faithful; the rewriting of history books in view of reflecting the churches’ plight during communist times; the rehabilitation of priests and believers unjustly imprisoned sometimes before 1989; the opening of museums, exhibitions, and archives; the commemoration of past victims and their suffering; and memorialization projects. All of these methods, which have complemented the public identification of secret Stasi IMs, have helped the German churches and larger society come to terms with the legacy of communist-era human rights abuses since the human rights abuses perpetrated by the communist regime were not limited to monitoring the various targets and recruitment of secret informer but extended to murder, extrajudicial killings, unlawful arrests and imprisonment, as well as abusive confiscation of property, among others.

Official and Unofficial Contacts Between Catholic Church and State Security Before we look more closely at the criteria for assessing priests’ collaboration with the communist authorities, an intermediate step needs to be taken. Note that in the GDR the contacts between representatives of the Stasi and Catholic priests divided into two groups. On the one hand, there were official or semi-official talks, which were conducted on behalf of and with the knowledge of the respective bishop. On the other hand, priests also engaged in unofficial, that is, conspiratorial contacts, of which neither their bishop nor anyone else knew anything. Let us first consider the first group, that is, the official or semi-official contacts. According to the current state of research, we know that during the history of the GDR there were ten priests who were commissioned by their bishops to talk to the Stasi (Haese 1997). These ten priests were also registered as IM, although their contacts were not secret to their religious superiors. The most important among them conducted central

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negotiations with the Stasi on behalf of the Berlin Conference of Bishops, that is, the Assembly of East German Bishops which served as an independent, but not as a national, bishops’ conference of the GDR from 1976 to 1990. In addition, there were also official contacts in the Dresden– Meißen diocese and in the bishop’s office in Magdeburg (Buß 2017, 53–68). Why did the bishops instruct some of their priests to engage in these conversations? Could not other government agencies, such as the Church Secretariat, have been contacted instead of the Stasi? One needs to remember that contacts with the state security were hardly avoidable. The Stasi, as a “super ministry” that could monitor all aspects of life, was practically omnipresent. Questions of entry into East Germany and exit from it, the import of objects for pastoral care or liturgical books, financial transfers to the East German churches from West Germany, the buying out of prisoners, or the approval of church building projects, everything fell into the area of responsibility of the Stasi. In all these matters a priest commissioned by the responsible bishop negotiated directly with the Stasi on a fairly regular basis. However, only a few church employees knew about these channels of communication. Apart from the bishop and the vicar general hardly any other person was involved. Therefore, it is more appropriate to call these contacts semi-official instead of official. The unofficial connections between the Stasi and the Catholic priests are even more difficult to assess than these semi-official contacts. These secret meetings formed by far the largest group of Stasi contacts but were very different from each other. The motivating reasons on the part of the priest for collaborating with the Stasi could be blackmail and fear, a desire to conform to the regime and to avoid conflict with the authorities, the wish to gain personal advantages, or mere vanity. This variety of reasons is well illustrated by the IM files of four Catholic clergymen who spied for the Stasi under the codenames “Hermann,” “Salem,” “Michael,” and “Berg.” IM “Hermann” was targeted by the Stasi when he was caught drunk driving his car. The state security promised to help him to get his driving license back. The priest then reacted positively—according to the file report—“and expressed that he would be extremely grateful to us if it were possible to be allowed to use his car again as soon as possible” (Buß 2017, 147). The reason for the recruitment of “Hermann,” however, was ultimately also the decisive factor for the termination of the secret collaboration. A short time after his recruitment, the Stasi understood that the

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priest was not a reliable IM because of his alcohol addiction, and ended the cooperation. In the file of IM “Salem,” a chaplain from Görlitz, one can read that he fell into the clutches of the Stasi due to personal frustration. Especially in severe life crises, the Stasi officer often proved to be an important support because he was—at least apparently—interested in the personal problems of the IM. In other words, the Stasi officer was like a therapist for the pastor. IM “Salem” expressed his frustration in the conversation with the Stasi representative: “This conversation with the Stasi is one of the few distractions that he experiences as chaplain. If this were not the case, he would go mad in this idiots’ house” (Buß 2017, 118). By contrast, IM “Michael,” a pastor from the diocese of Dresden– Meißen, did not meet with a Stasi officer out of frustration, but out of adaptation and conflict avoidance. According to his own statement, he was not interested in entering into a conflict with the state organs, preferring instead to meet the secret agent and serve a publicly loathed repressive state agency. Thus, one can read in his IM file: “As a Christian I will always – how could it be otherwise – stand up for the church without coming into a confrontation with the state” (Buß 2017, 152). The case of IM “Berg,” a dean from the East German-West German border region, who was not afraid to receive personal gifts from the MfS, is again different. At a meeting, for example, his commanding officer gave him a bottle of cognac as a thank-you for handing over a catechism. “Berg” also tried to use his contacts with the Stasi to facilitate his own travel plans abroad. Above all, however, the MfS supported him in his great hobby: radio technology. In the GDR it was not easy to obtain a radio license, because every radio operator was automatically suspected of having contacts with the foreign “enemy.” This was all the more true for IM “Berg,” as he lived in the German–German border region. So, it is not surprising that the priest was overjoyed when he was issued such a radio license.

Consequences of Contacts Between the Catholic Church and State Security Before we devote ourselves to the question of how the Catholic Church in Germany dealt with these different forms of collaboration with the Stasi after 1989, we should first attempt to assess the consequences of the IM activities of priests for the Catholic Church. There is no doubt that the

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GDR regime was informed about church internal affairs mainly thanks to the Stasi. Despite other technical possibilities, such as telephone surveillance or mail control, conversations with the IMs remained the most important source of information for the state security. Consequently, conspiratorial contacts with priests were treated with the utmost care. The Stasi was thus able to find out internal information about Catholic groups such as student congregations (Straube 1997), the Caritas Association, the leading Catholic welfare organization (Kösters 2001), and “Aktionskreis Halle,” an important Catholic circle founded in Halle in 1970 in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council (Holzbrecher 2014). But there were also areas within the Catholic Church in which the Stasi saw itself as insufficiently anchored. Even if the number of IMs among priests was probably above the average of the general population, one cannot speak of the fact that the whole Catholic clergy had been infiltrated by the MfS. On the contrary, the vast majority of priests resisted the seductions of the Stasi. Conspiratorial contacts to church leaders could hardly be established, since every connection to the Stasi was viewed with extreme skepticism. Also the MfS—contrary to its efforts—had only a small influence over the church personnel policy. Similarly, the personnel decisions and also the episcopal announcements largely escaped secret service influence—with the exception of the pastoral letter of December 1981 (Schäfer 1999, 396ff.). “All other pastoral letters of the Catholic bishops in the GDR between 1950 and 1989 originated without state influence” (Grande/Schäfer 1998, 103). Even if obvious interference on the part of the MfS in internal church affairs often failed or could be prevented, the presence of IMs in Catholic congregations and groups did not remain without consequences. It is rather the hidden and indirect effects that made church life more difficult. This includes the fact that in the Catholic Church—just as in the entire population—a climate of fear was able to spread with time. Even though the churches formed the most independent institutions within the GDR society, most Christians were aware that there were also “black sheep” in their ranks. The concern that one or the other member in prayer groups, Bible circles, or student congregations—priests not excluded—could be an “informer” and report to the Stasi certainly had an intimidating and paralyzing effect on church members. The fear of reprisals has shaped both the daily lives of individuals and the workings of the Catholic Church as a whole. The course of “political abstinence,” promoted by Cardinal

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Alfred Bengsch (1921–1979), the leading figure of East German Catholicism, was therefore an attempt to avoid an open confrontation with the GDR regime and to maintain church life as much as possible (Haese 1998; Jung 2005). In addition to this creeping poison of fear that seeped into the Catholic Church, a second consequence of the IM activity of priests must be considered. It is not easy to prove, and equally difficult to deny, that the information which some priests passed on to the MfS had negative consequences for some GDR citizens, be it that they were denied leaving the country, that they were prevented from succeeding in their professional career, or that they were harassed in one of many other ways by the MfS. Admittedly, most Catholic clergy who conducted conspiratorial conversations with the Stasi deliberately avoided talking about third parties. But it cannot be denied that in individual cases the information a priest gave to the Stasi did not remain without consequences for other people.

Initiatives of the Catholic Church After 1989 After the end of the communist regime, the Catholic Church in East Germany was confronted above all with three accusations, according to the church historian Josef Pilvousek. These accusations included the following: “The Catholic Church was a free rider in the so-called peaceful revolution. The Catholic Church is more than assumed to have been involved in the machinations of the state apparatus. The Catholic Church behaved as a church socially abstinent and has thus not done justice to its task” (Pilvousek 2001, 198). The first accusation entails that it was above all the Protestant Church, not the Catholic Church, that protested against the dictatorial regime. Admittedly, the influence of the Protestant Church in the revolutionary period 1989–1990 was greater than that of the Catholic Church (Rendtorff 1993). This is no surprise, however, since the Protestant population in the GDR was about five times larger than the Catholic population. In addition, the third accusation—the criticism of the course of political abstinence—can be defused in view of the minority situation of the Catholic Church in the GDR. What alternative would the small group of Catholics have had? Would they not have endangered their own survival by a stronger confrontation with an all-powerful regime? However, the second accusation—which referred to involvement with the state apparatus—is not so easy to dismiss. To this day, it remains at the

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center of public attention and scientific research in Germany (Besier 1992; Neubert 1993; Grande/Schäfer 1998; Buß 2017; Diederich 2018). As we have seen earlier, there were indeed forms of collaboration between representatives of the Catholic Church and state institutions. How did the Catholic Church after 1989 deal with this painful and complicated chapter of its own history? Shortly after the peaceful revolution of 1989–1990, the German bishops took the first steps toward coming to terms with the past. Thus, at the beginning of September 1990 the Berlin Bishops’ Conference stated that it was necessary “to be concerned about the reappraisal of the history of the Catholic Church in the area of the GDR since 1945” (Lange 2003, 154). Perhaps this swift action of the German Catholic Church was also due to the fact that they did not want to repeat the mistakes committed after the end of the Nazi era. After the end of World War II, it had taken almost two decades for the Germans—not only the Catholic Church— to face up to their own collaboration with the Nazi regime (Habermas 1995). For the churches, the confrontation with their past collaboration with the Stasi proved to be one of the most urgent problems they faced after the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989. This was clearly stated in a press release of 3 March 1992, issued by the Secretariat of the German Bishops’ Conference together with the Church Office of the Protestant Church. This document stated that the bishops were aware of the problems “arising from the disastrous activities of the East German State Security Service. The churches themselves will take the necessary steps to clarify concrete accusations of cooperation between employees and the state security” (Lange 2003, 156). At the same time, the German bishops stated that the contacts with the communist State Security “can only be properly dealt with as part of the necessary discussion of the forty-year overall past” (Lange 2003, 154). The bishops, therefore, deliberately chose a more thorough approach to evaluating the communist past and its legacy than did parts of the media, which often only longed to uncover sensational new scandals. The church leaders emphasized that in this laborious process of reassessment of the past the particular conditions that once prevailed in the GDR must not be ignored. As they argued, each individual case should therefore be assessed separately and in consideration of the overall situation. In particular, the evaluation of the Stasi archival documents requires a high level of expertise and sensitivity. For this reason, in September 1992, Cardinal Georg Sterzinsky of

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Berlin informed himself in detail about this problem in a personal meeting with Joachim Gauck, the head of the Stasi files authority in Germany responsible for granting access to the secret files. In 1993, the efforts of the German bishops to shed light on the Stasi involvement with religious denominations led to the founding of a “Working Group on the Activities of State and Political Organizations/MfS vis-à-vis the Catholic Church.” It consisted of six representatives from each of the respective East German dioceses and one full-time research assistant. The main task of this Working Group was to identify and examine accessible files of state and political organs of the former GDR. The results of this activity were published in a comprehensive study in 1998 (Grande and Schäfer 1998). Since this publication best documents the efforts of the Catholic Church in dealing with its past collaboration with the Stasi, and penetration by it, to this day, it is worth presenting it in more detail here. The authors, Dieter Grande and Bernd Schäfer, begin their remarks with general references to the church policy of the communist regime in East Germany. With regard to the secret files, they explain, for example, the types of Stasi documents that were compiled and remained extant after the collapse of the communist regime, as well as the ways in which their informative value must be assessed. Since few readers ever held a Stasi file in their own hands, a more than 100-page appendix was added to the study. It included copies of selected original secret documents, each accompanied by a short commentary. This way, it is possible to better understand the reasoning process and the working methods of the feared East German Secret Service. The core of Grande and Schäfer’s report was represented by their evaluation of 117 victim and 252 perpetrator secret files that were part of the so-called “Catholic line,” a classification used by the Stasi for the Catholic faithful and institutions in the GDR. Both victim and perpetrator files were nominal files. The “victim files” contained secret information on the surveillance of persons targeted by the Stasi, usually dissidents and opponents of the communist regime. By contrast, “perpetrator files” consisted of Stasi documents on “IM procedures,” and as such they primarily included information and reports delivered to the State Security by the “unofficial collaborators.” The evaluation of all available data material was carried out by Grande and Schäfer according to the different districts of the former East Germany. In addition, special areas of the Catholic Church were examined separately; these included the activities of

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the Stasi in Catholic student parishes and academic circles, in the Caritas Association and the Kolping Society, one of the major social federations of the Catholic Church, as well as in Catholic educational institutions and religious communities. The empirical basis on which Grande and Schäfer’s study is based varies from district to district mainly because after 1989 the examination of communist-era activities of church employees and pastors was handled differently in the six East German dioceses. As they explain, Within the responsibility of the respective diocesan bishop there were different ways being taken in order to determine possible [church] activities for the MfS. [...] In the diocese of Dresden-Meißen a rule check of all church officials and employees was carried out, in the archdiocese of Berlin the leading employees of the ordinariate were checked, in the other dioceses there were checks on a voluntary basis as well as numerous checks and investigations in all cases of suspicion which had become known to the public (Grande and Schäfer 1998, 12).

In concrete terms this means that, for example, in the diocese of Dresden– Meißen all 400 priests, religious and full-time laity in the service of the diocese were investigated in terms of their past collaboration with the Stasi sometimes between 1992 and 1996. During the same period, however, investigations of only eight church officials and staff were carried out in the diocese of Erfurt. Therefore, in the final chapter of their report Grande and Schäfer were careful not to compile summarizing statistics on the collaboration of the Catholic priests with the East German secret service. First, this choice reflected the different procedures in the dioceses that have just been discussed and the lack of a unifying assessment standard. If at all, then only for the diocese Dresden–Meißen a meaningful result can be determined because only here a rule check of all church officials and employees was carried out. Second, this lack of summarizing statistics is aggravated by the fact that the destruction of files, which was carried out by Stasi employees until the beginning of 1990, varies in its extent in the various districts of the former East Germany. This inevitably leads to regional and temporal distortions and imbalances in the processing of data. Finally, as already mentioned above, the two authors point out that no two IM cases are alike. Simplifying statistics do not do justice to this complexity, this applies to both perpetrator and victim files.

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Nevertheless, the investigations summarized by Grande and Schäfer have clearly shown that individual church officials and employees collaborated with the Stasi during communist times. This prompted the East German bishops in 1998 to go public with a statement worth reading. In a crucial passage, it says: The investigations on the basis of state files have shown that as a rule the bishops could rely on their clergymen and co-workers. Admittedly, it has also been shown that some have not adhered to the guidelines of their bishops. There were priests and laymen who responded to invitations to talk [coming from the Stasi], who for different motives sought a way of rapprochement, who made limited concessions or even actively cooperated with the Stasi. It has become clear that also in our church there was human failure and guilt in dealing with the communist dictatorship (Lange 2003, 160).

In order to measure the severity of these “human failures,” as the bishops call them, the following criteria were considered when the Catholic Church assessed the individual IM cases during the 1990s: – Were third parties reported? What were the consequences? – Were inner church materials handed over? What degree of confidentiality did these materials have? – Was the pastoral confidentiality violated? – Was a written commitment signed? – Has an alias or password been agreed for telephone contact? – Did the person registered as an IM write her own reports? Did she meet with the MfS officers in conspiratorial apartments? – At what intervals and over what period of time were MfS officers met? […] – What was the motive for the IM activity? Was the priest forced to collaborate or was he willing to do so? – What alternatives did he have? Was the IM activity perhaps the lesser evil? – What influence did state indoctrination have on the moral judgment? Was the priest perhaps unaware of any guilt? – How does the former IM see his Stasi cooperation today? Does he defend them unswervingly or does he also admit his own failure? (Buß 2017, 172).

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After examining these questions, the sentences for the priests who had been in touch with the Stasi were determined by the respective bishop and ecclesiastical authorities. In some IM cases no guilt was found, so the priest was allowed to continue his ministry with no changes. In other cases, however, the priest’s misconduct was so severe that he was admonished by his bishop. In still other cases, priests were also removed from their parishes and transferred to another location, for example a monastery. However, there was no dismissal from the priestly ministry in the Catholic Church in the former East Germany because of a former collaboration with the Stasi. In the Protestant Church, cases of Stasi collaboration by pastors were handled in a similar way—with the important difference that some pastors were also completely dismissed from their ministry (Wähler 2000). The question of past involvement with the Stasi has certainly been the most explosive of all the problems relevant for the process of coming to terms with the history of the Catholic Church in East Germany. Nevertheless, in addition the German bishops took other initiatives in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the conditions in East Germany between 1945 and 1989. In a first step, in 1990 the East German bishops decided to secure the files, pictures, and other sources on church activities during that period. This work first resulted in the collection of important pastoral letters and other episcopal announcements, which was published in 1992 under the title Catholic Church—Socialist State GDR (Lange 1992). A similar collection of corresponding documents—this time from the individual jurisdiction districts—followed two years later (Pilvousek 1994 and 1998). Due to the special importance of the city of Berlin, which had been divided during communist times, a separate publication was dedicated to this diocese (Lange and Pruß 1996). A critical edition that would include all relevant sources for the entire area of the Catholic Church in the GDR is not yet available, but it is currently being compiled by the Commission for Contemporary History, an independent research association founded in 1962 with the aim of documenting and researching the history of German Catholicism in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries (www.kfzg.de). In addition to the publication of church sources, the German bishops have also supported the founding of research institutions. The most important among them is the Research Center for Contemporary Church History (Forschungsstelle für Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte) in Erfurt. This Research Center, which is affiliated with the Faculty of Catholic Theology

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in Erfurt, was founded in 1993 (originally under the name Seminar for Contemporary History) by the German Bishops’ Conference to research the history of the Catholic Church in East Germany (Pilvousek 2014, 375–390). In addition, there are also several research institutions at the diocesan level which are under church sponsorship. In the Archdiocese of Berlin, for example, a Center for Contemporary History (Arbeitsstelle für Zeitgeschichte) was established as early as 1991, while the Episcopal Office in Schwerin founded the Heinrich Theissing Institute in 1993 as a documentation center for church and contemporary history. The focus of the Institute is on researching the history of the Catholic Church in the GDR, but in addition it conducts other projects that span the nineteenth and the twenty-first centuries.

Conclusion The information presented in this chapter allows us to draw a number of conclusions. First, as the extant Stasi secret archives demonstrate, there have been cases of collaboration with the Stasi within the Catholic Church. The fact that some church officials and employees have agreed to cooperate with the communist-era Security Service cannot be denied. Even if according to the current state of research it was an exception, each case of collaboration represents a heavy legacy that affects the entire Catholic Church. The fact that there were “black sheep” among the Catholic clergy may be shocking, but it is not really surprising. Like all other people living under the communist dictatorship, priests were not immune to weaknesses and mistakes. Second, the Catholic bishops themselves have taken the initiative to come to terms with the communist past. Indeed, the German bishops reacted quickly and shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 they took decisive steps to come to terms with the communist legacy. In order to forestall possible revelations in the mass-media, they themselves took the initiative to shed light on the past. However, the extent of these measures has varied from diocese to diocese, mirroring to a certain extent the decentralized manner in which other transitional justice programs (such as lustration) have been implemented in post-communist Germany. Nevertheless, the public admission of the East German bishops “that there was also in our church human failure and guilt in dealing with the communist dictatorship” is to be emphasized positively. Thanks to this open approach to one’s own history one can state today that no

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other professional group has been so thoroughly examined for its Stasi past as that of the Catholic priests. Comparable studies are available only for medical doctors who worked and lived in East Germany (Weil 2008). Third, the transitional justice process has taken place on different levels. The enlightenment of the history is—first of all—a task for the entire society (Deutscher Bundestag 1995 and 1999; Heinecke 2002; Dähn and Heise 2003). This effort particularly includes punishing the perpetrators and supporting the victims. On a second level—and this is the subject of this chapter—the Catholic Church is called upon to deal openly with its own involvement with the Stasi and not to suppress this heavy legacy. Only in this way can she attain a new credibility and prevent divisions between the faithful. Of course, this requirement of openly and honestly reckoning with the communist past also applies to the much larger Protestant Church (Lenhartz 1997; Burgess 1997; Große 2010; Albrecht-Birkner 2018). Ultimately—and this is the third level—every individual who has taken up an activity with the Stasi must personally answer for himself. Neither society nor the Church can relieve him of this burden. Only if the laborious process of coming to terms with the past takes place on all three levels can further breaks within society, the church or even the individual person be prevented. Fourth, the process of reckoning with the past has yet to be completed. Despite all the efforts of the German bishops to date, the reappraisal of the history of the Catholic Church under the East German communist regime has not yet been completed. On the one hand, this has to do with the enormous amount of data that the Stasi has collected in the course of its forty-year history. The 111 linear kilometers of secret documents contained in the Stasi archives have yet to be catalogued; this means that the contents of some files are still unknown. The second reason why this process has not yet been completed is related to the complexity of the subject. The example of the Catholic priests who worked for the State Security shows us how many questions their collaboration with the secret police raises. Each individual case must be dealt with as in a court case. The facts must be gathered and the witnesses must be heard. Such an investigation takes time. But this thorough examination of the past is indispensable for the future. Coming to terms with the past pursues a double goal: on the one hand, it wants to clarify what happened in the recent past; on the other hand, lessons for the present and the future should be drawn from this process. By not concealing or whitewashing the past, one can cope better

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with similar challenges in the present and future. Only if the Church faces up to its entire past—including the dark and controversial chapters—can it gain credibility. Only if it draws the lessons from its own history of guilt can it give orientation to others in dealing with guilt.

Note 1. All translations from German to English belong to the author.

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Führer, C. 2010. Und wir sind dabei gewesen. Die Revolution, die aus der Kirche kam. Berlin: Ullstein. Grande, D., and B. Schäfer. 1998. Kirche im Visier. SED, Staatssicherheit und katholische Kirche in der DDR, Leipzig: Benno-Verl. Große, L. 2010. Einspruch! Das Verhältnis von Kirche und Staatssicherheit im Spiegel gegensätzlicher Überlieferungen, Leipzig: Evang. Verlagsanstalt. Habermas, J. 1995. Die Bedeutung der Aufarbeitung der Geschichte der beiden deutschen Diktaturen für den Bestand der Demokratie in Deutschland und Europa. In Materialien der Enquete-Kommission “Aufarbeitung von Geschichte und Folgen der SED-Diktatur in Deutschland” (vol. IX), Deutscher Bundestag (ed.) pp. 686–695. Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verl.-Ges. Haese, U. 1997. MfS-Kontakte auf offizieller Ebene. In Die Kirchenpolitik von SED und Staatssicherheit: Eine Zwischenbilanz, ed. C. Vollnhals, 371–387. Berlin: Links. Haese, U. 1998. Katholische Kirche in der DDR. Geschichte einer politischen Abstinenz. Düsseldorf: Patmos. Heinecke, H. 2002. Konfession und Politik in der DDR. Das Wechselverhältnis von Kirche und Staat im Vergleich zwischen evangelischer und katholischer Kirche, Leipzig: Evang. Verlagsanstalt. Holzbrecher, S. 2014. Der Aktionskreis Halle. Postkonziliare Konflikte im Katholizismus der DDR. Würzburg: Echter. Jung, R. 2005. “Eine Politik der Skepsis. Alfred Bengsch, das Bistum Berlin und die katholische Kirche in der DDR (1961–1979),” in Katholische Kirche in SBZ und DDR, eds. C. Kösters and W. Tischner (Paderborn: Schöningh) 147–194. Kösters, C. 2001. Staatssicherheit und Caritas 1950–1989. Zur politischen Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in der DDR. Paderborn: Schöningh. Lange, G., ed. 1992. Katholische Kirche – sozialistischer Staat DDR. Dokumente und öffentliche Äußerungen 1945–1990. Leipzig: Benno-Verl. Lange, G. 2003. Die Anstrengungen der katholischen Kirche zur Aufarbeitung der Geschichte der katholischen Kirche in der DDR, in Staat und Kirchen in der DDR. Zum Stand der zeithistorischen und sozialwissenschaftlichen Forschung, eds. H. Dähn and J. Heise (Frankfurt am Main: Lang) 151–164. Lange, G., and U. Pruß, eds. 1996. An der Nahtstelle der Systeme. Dokumente und Texte aus dem Bistum Berlin 1945–1990 (Halbbd. 1: 1945–1961). Leipzig: Benno-Verl. Lenhartz, C., ed. 1997. Evangelische Kirche – Demokratie – Stasi-Aufarbeitung. Moers: Editions La Colombe. Maser, P., ed. 2000. Die Kirchen in der DDR. Bonn: Bundeszentrale für Politische Bildung. Neubert, E. 1993. Vergebung oder Weißwäscherei? Zur Aufarbeitung des Stasiproblems in den Kirchen. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder.

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Neubert, E. 1998. Kirchenpolitik, in DDR-Geschichte in Dokumenten. Beschlüsse, Berichte, interne Materialien und Alltagszeugnisse, ed. Judt M. (Bonn: n.p.) 363–430. Pilvousek, J., ed. 1994. Kirchliches Leben im totalitären Staat – Teil 1: Seelsorge in der SBZ/DDR 1945–1976. Leipzig: Benno-Verl. Pilvousek, J., ed. 1998. Kirchliches Leben im totalitären Staat: Quellentexte aus den Ordinariaten – Teil 2: Dokumentenband 1977–1989. Leipzig: Benno-Verl. Pilvousek, J. 2001. Zehn Jahre danach – Reflexionen zur historischen Aufarbeitung der DDR-Kirchengeschichte, in Kolloqien des Max-Weber-Kollegs XV –XXIII (2001), ed. W. Schluchter (Erfurt) 193–208. Pilvousek, J. 2014. Die katholische Kirche in der DDR. Beiträge zur Kirchengeschichte Mitteldeutschlands. Münster: Aschendorff. Raabe T. 1995. SED-Staat und katholische Kirche. Politische Beziehungen 1949– 1961. Paderborn: Schöningh. Rendtorff, T., ed. 1993. Protestantische Revolution? Kirche und Theologie in der DDR. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht. Schäfer, B. 1999. Staat und katholische Kirche in der DDR. Köln: Böhlau. Straube, P.-P. 1997. Katholische Studentengemeinde in der DDR als Ort eines außeruniversitären Studium generale. Leipzig: Benno-Verlag. Veen, H., ed. 2009. Kirche und Revolution. Das Christentum in Ostmitteleuropa vor und nach 1989, Köln: Böhlau. Vogel, V. 2015. Abgestorben? Religionsrecht der DDR und der Volksrepublik Polen. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Vollnhals, C., ed. 1996. Die Kirchenpolitik von SED und Staatssicherheit: Eine Zwischenbilanz. Berlin: Links. Wähler, K. 2000. Zur Rechtsprechung der kirchlichen Disziplinargerichte in sog. ‘Stasi’-Fällen. Zeitschrift Für Evangelisches Kirchenrecht 45 (4): 565–591. Weil, F. 2008. Zielgruppe Ärzteschaft. Ärzte als inoffizielle Mitarbeiter des Ministeriums für Staatssicherheit der DDR. Göttingen: V & R Unipress.

CHAPTER 2

Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland Mikołaj Kunicki

This chapter surveys and analyzes the attempted lustration of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland after 1989. It is important to remember that religious institutions were not included among the targets of the 1997 and 2006 lustration laws, which aimed at sidelining the communist-era secret agents from post-communist positions of power and influence. Thus, members of the clergy, including the incoming bishops, were exempted from formal vetting processes. This omission of the church should not come as a surprise, given the dominant narrative of postcommunism and, to some extent, of the former democratic opposition, which portrayed Polish Catholicism and resistance to communism as synonymous. The long pontificate of John Paul II only reinforced and sanctified this vision. In 2005–2007, after the pope’s death and the amendment of the lustration law by the Jarosław Kaczynski ´ government, representing the Law and Justice Party (PiS), the Polish public was shocked by press revelations about the infiltration of the Catholic

M. Kunicki (B) Institute of Journalism and Social Communication, University of Wrocław, Wrocław, Poland © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_2

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Church by the communist secret political police (Słuz˙ ba Bezpieczenstwa, ´ SB). As Aleks Szczerbiak observed, “individuals and groups not covered by lustration laws were informally screened too, especially after the 1998 law, which granted access to security service files to journalists, historians and researchers” (2015, 52). This informal practice, often referred to as “wild lustration,” was quickly adopted by mass-media, “prompting individuals,” wrote Cynthia Horne, “to leave positions or not attempt to take positions for fear they could be vetted in the future” (2014, 239). Tied to the attempted vetting of the Polish clergy are two particular events: the affair revolving around Reverend Michał Czajkowski, and the scandal involving Bishop Stanisław Wielgus, nominated to the post of Archbishop of Warsaw in 2006. The two clergymen represented rival currents in contemporary Polish Catholicism. Czajkowski was the darling of liberal Catholic intellectuals, whereas Wielgus was tied to fundamentalist, conservative circles rallied around Reverend Tadeusz Rydzyk and his popular Radio Maryja. While both cases testified to the collaboration of well-known clergymen with the communist secret police, they also revealed a nuanced picture of church-state relations in contemporary Poland. Ironically, it was the nominally pro-Catholic, social conservative, and nationalist PiS that embarrassed Polish bishops by unveiling communist secret agents from among clergy members before abandoning the lustration of the church in 2007. My analysis concludes with the case of Reverend Henryk Jankowski (1936–2010), a chaplain of the Solidarity movement, a friend of former anti-communist opponent and first post-communist President Lech Wał˛esa, and one of the most controversial Roman Catholic priests in Poland. Jankowski’s story, especially the posthumous moral degradation of this once powerful prelate and icon poster boy of Solidarity, also adds context to the paedophile scandals affecting the Roman Catholic Church. I argue that child sexual abuse by priests, nuns, and members of religious orders, a worldwide and much publicized phenomenon, and the growing awareness of such crimes committed by Polish clergy at home may completely obliterate the lustration of the church as an issue important for the life of the church. Recently, some advocates of church lustration have rearticulated their postulates, tapping into public debates on paedophilia and linking paedophile priests to their past collaboration with the communist secret police. Yet, this line of thinking is unlikely to broaden support for the lustration of clergy because thirty years after the collapse of the communist regime the Polish people are

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more pre-occupied with paedophiles in cassocks than with former police informers.

Collaborators, Secret Informers, and Operational Contacts Within the Church How widespread and deep was the infiltration of the Polish Roman Catholic Church by the communist state security forces? While it is impossible to provide accurate and definitive data, historians and researchers have estimated the number of secret informers at around 15 percent of the clergy, a figure lower than estimates from other formerly communist ˙ countries (Zaryn 2003, 542). According to Polish state security statistics, in 1977 the Fourth Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in charge of monitoring the Catholic Church and other religious denominations employed 4,500 informers and agents, recruited from among both clergy and laymen (Dudek and Gryz 2003, 329). The number of informers almost doubled to 8,334 in 1984 during the struggle against the underground Solidarity movement and other opposition groups, and the SB statistics did not distinguish between clergymen and laymen ˙ (Zaryn, 541). To bring some perspective into this discussion, the total number of secret police informers was around 100,000 in 1989 (Dziurok 2004, 64). Note also that the communist regime, especially until 1953 during the Stalinist period, commanded the support of some pro-communist groups and associations frequented by clergy: the Priests’ Commission at the Union of Fighters for Freedom and Democracy, better known as the Patriotic Priests, and the Commission of Catholic Intellectuals and Activists at the Polish Committee of Defenders of Peace. Together, these two organizations claimed some 1,300 Roman Catholic priests and hundreds of sympathizers among their members. Both organizations were dissolved during the de-Stalinization drive in 1955 (Kunicki 2012, 95–97). Afterwards, the Patriotic Priests continued their activities as the Circle of Priests “Caritas” until the 1970s, when the majority of them bowed to the pressure of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, ´ the Primate of Poland, and left the circle. This way, Wyszynski ´ conducted his own “lustration” of “Caritas” priests. According to Archbishop Alfons Nossol of Opole, the primate instructed him to ask all priests from his diocese whether they belonged to “Caritas,” collaborated with the communist secret police, and received money for their secret information reports on

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others. Those who pleaded guilty had to meet with the bishop and leave “Caritas” within two weeks or face defrocking (Nossol 2005). Nevertheless, not all of the Patriotic Priests were secret police informers. Some of them had joined pro-regime organizations voluntarily being lured by material benefits or privileges; a few were motivated by ideology; while others were blackmailed over alcoholism, sexual scandals, and corruption (Dudek, 1998, 110–114). Similar methods were used for enlisting secret informers from among the rest of the clergy. The vetting of candidates considered for recruitment as secret agents began during the training of future priests in theological seminaries, when the state security forces started to collect information on every young cleric. The vetting process continued during the clerics’ compulsory military service, which was introduced in 1959. In 1963, under Gomułka’s rule, the security police began gathering files of all priests, monks, clerics, and parishes regardless of clergymen’s political attitudes (Dziurok, 58). From the 1960s onward, the secret police became more “refined” in its recruitment strategies, approaching priests who applied for passports in order to travel, study or work abroad. In this case, the new recruits were also “loaned” to the military intelligence. As the communist regime in Poland became less oppressive, especially during its last two decades, it was possible to terminate collaboration with the secret services without risking one’s life or imprisonment. Nossol’s testimony about Wyszynski’s ´ lustration of the “Caritas” priests shows that during the 1970s Catholic clergy members caught in the trap of informing on others for the state security forces or engaging in political collaboration with the communist regime faced suspension or defrocking as punishment for such activities. At the same time, they could also rely on the protection and understanding of their ecclesiastical superiors. Lack of transparency, so common in church administration, could benefit former informers who decided to break away from the secret police. Yet, the same feature of clerical life has made church lustration hard to implement because hierarchs would be reluctant to share the evidence of priests’ collaboration with state institutions. The incomplete or patchy evidence found in police records has represented another impediment to lustration. For example, it is known that the state security forces used two different terms to describe informants: “secret informer” (tajny współpracownik, TW) or “operational contact” (kontakt operacyjny, KO). The problem is that the second term also applies to individuals who were approached in

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the hope of being recruited or of providing important information, but who ultimately did not necessarily become registered and paid agents. Historian Grzegorz Majchrzak, the author of the monograph on Reverend Jankowski’s ties with the communist secret services and an employee of the Institute of National Remembrance (Instytut Pami˛eci Narodowej, IPN), which holds the secret police archives inherited from communist times, argued that the difference between a secret collaborator and operational contact concerned their own awareness of cooperation. “Usually the secret collaborator was aware of it, whereas [the] operational contact not necessarily …. People who refused to cooperate with the SB but agreed to talk to officers, were treated as operational contacts” (“Henryk Jankowski i SB” 2019). Interestingly, Majchrzak’s emphasis on an individual’s awareness places the former operational contacts in a “grey zone” between collaboration and non-collaboration, whereas the IPN considers operational contacts equivalent to conscious, “fully-fledged SB collaborators” (Inwentarz archiwalny, no date). In a similar vein, historian Antoni Dudek claimed that the SB had classified the majority of its informers recruited from among clergymen as operational contacts due to the priests’ aversion to sign any document (IPN, “Przegl˛ad Mediów” 2006). Secret informers were required to sign a collaboration agreement (zobowiazanie o współpracy), in which they pledged to collaborate with the security police. Majchrzak also rightly pointed out that the Fourth Department, responsible for the infiltration of churches and religious associations, had a somehow different approach to this category. A 1973 departmental instruction defined operational contacts as means of enriching or verifying information already obtained from secret informers; tools used for influencing specific groups in order to produce outcome desired by the state security; and ways of influencing, neutralizing and weakening a contacted individual and his milieu (Majchrzak 2010, 10–12). The instruction clearly downplayed the intent of the operational contact and emphasized intelligence gathering, manipulation, and provocation as the primary goals of the SB. It also signaled that operational contacts could have negative attitudes toward communism and represent organizations and institutions hostile to the communist regime. The fact that the SB employed a greater variety of methods when targeting individuals associated with the church shows that the infiltration of clerical circles was a top priority for the security service.

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Unfortunately, post-communist lustration debates have often ignored such nuances, even in cases with weak or problematic evidence for collaboration with the communist secret police. For ardent advocates of lustration, an operational contact was and will always be a secret agent; for opponents of lustration, he or she was a victim of both the communist state security and self-righteous lustration zealots eager to destroy the moral reputation of individuals and groups. To cite Szczerbiak, the entanglement of lustration with the politics of history and de-legitimization of political adversaries often removes any “middle ground” assessment of cases of collaboration (2015, 51).There is also a natural, human reaction of shock, which often drives people to refute allegations and evidencebased accusations made against their friends, relatives, role models, and public figures who champion shared worldviews and values. In this respect, the lustration of the church, an institution which professes sacred and divine rule, can be particularly volatile for deeply religious individuals. For a significant segment of the Polish society, the vetting of the Catholic church also means an encroachment on national values and identity.

Agents, Whistle Blowers, Ultras, and Progressives (2005–2009) Adopted in 1997, the Polish lustration law verified only elected state officials, members of the judiciary, and leaders of public mass-media outlets. It banned former employees of the communist security services from holding public office and excluded from these posts those candidates who failed to disclose their past collaboration with the SB and the communist military intelligence to the Lustration Court (Szczerbiak 2015, 51–56). Lavinia Stan classifies Polish lustration as mild in comparison with the programs adopted in the Czech Republic, the former East Germany and the Baltic republics, where former secret collaborators of the state security services were purged not only from public office and politics, but also from top echelons of the academia, joint-stock companies, and state-owned enterprises. Yet she sees vetting in Poland tougher than laws passed in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania, or the “forgive and forget” cases of Albania, Slovakia, and Slovenia (Stan 2009, 8). In 2006 and 2007, the PiS government attempted to expand the list of “public” posts targeted for lustration and apply the law also to senior teachers, academics from public and private universities and research institutes, journalists, bankers and managers of private enterprises. However, the

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Constitutional Tribunal blocked some provisions of the amended law, shortening the list of professions with public influence and limiting the prerogatives of the IPN, which remains the main lustration institution in Poland (Trybunał Konstytucyjny, “Komunikat prasowy po odroczonej rozprawie dotycz˛acej lustracji” 2007). Despite their public influence, clergy members were exempt from the 1997 and 2006 lustration bills. The Polish lustration law clearly classifies churches and religious associations as victims of the communist state security services, placing them next to such SB targets as the former democratic opposition, trade unions and social organizations, and other groups and individuals whose human and civil rights were denied or disrespected by “the communist totalitarian system” (“Ustawa z dnia 18 pa´zdziernika 2006 r. o ujawnianiu informacji o dokumentach organów bezpieczenstwa ´ panstwa ´ z lat 1944–1990 oraz tre´sci tych dokumentów” 2006). As noted earlier, Polish Catholicism occupies a central role in the national narratives of the struggle for independence and against communist domination. The historical assessment of the church’s patriotic and anti-communist credentials and the validity of the “Polak-Katolik” ethnoreligious synthesis of Polishness go beyond the scope of this essay. What matters here is that the glorification of the role played by the Polish clergy has been part of the post-communist narrative of Poland’s history and identity. Often taken for granted, the socio-political and moral hegemony of the church in post-1989 Poland did not go unchallenged during the first decade of democratic rule. On a few occasions, when the church advised voters to support a specific party or candidate, for example, the Christian National Union (Zjednoczenie Chrze´scijansko-Narodowe, ´ ZChN) in 1991 and Lech Wał˛esa in 1995, vast segments of the electorate hardly listened. One of the most problematic statements came from Bishop Józef Michalik, who declared that a Catholic nation should not be ruled by “a non-Christian parliament,” and that “a Catholic had the duty to vote for a Catholic, a Moslem for a Moslem, a Jew for a Jew, a Mason for a Mason” (Kunicki 2012). Rather than promoting anti-Semitism, Michalik’s statement equated the confessional with the political, and religion with ideology. The fact that a predominantly Catholic country elected the former communists on a number of occasions showed to the church the futility of direct interventions in electoral campaigns and the growing gap between confessional and political persuasions.

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The bishops were far more vocal and united on three specific issues: the abortion law, religious instruction in schools, and the preamble of the 1997 Constitution. While supporting the highly restrictive abortion law of 1993 and opposing its liberalization in 1996, the church displayed conspicuously aggressive, Manichean rhetoric. “The most radical solution that questioned the right to live were concentration camps,” stated the Episcopate in 1991 (“Odezwa Biskupów Polskich na temat zycia ˙ nie narodzonych” 1991). The church was hardly satisfied even after including an invocatio Dei in the preamble of the 1997 Constitution. Bishop Tadeusz Pieronek, often referred to as a “liberal,” lamented the balance of references to Christianity and the Enlightenment as “sterile in its conceptualization of the Polish national character,” whereas conservative Bishop Michalik criticized the final wording as “Masonic” and “pagan” (Zubrzycki 2006, 88 and 93). Notwithstanding these blunders, the Polish church could always refer to the Polish Pope John Paul II, who both pressurized and shielded it. The pope died on April 2, 2005. Mourned as the nation’s uncontested spiritual leader and father figure, John Paul II left behind an enormous and complex legacy. His departure led to a symbolical power vacuum and a general loss of guidance—the Polish church and society lacked a leader who could step into the shoes of the late pontiff. Wojtyła’s death also ended the Polish church’s privileged position within the world Catholic community. Domestically, it terminated the voice that had influenced political and moral discourses in Poland since 1978. During his lifetime any attempt to undermine the Pope’s opinions and actions constituted a taboo (Kurczewska 2002, 75–77). The death of John Paul II opened the door for the lustration of the Roman Catholic church in Poland. The period of national mourning was not even over when Leon Kieres, the IPN President, announced the discovery of a former SB informer in the inner circle of the late Pope. Shortly afterwards, the IPN identified the secret agent as Reverend Konrad Hejmo, a Dominican monk and longtime chaplain of Polish pilgrims in the Vatican, who provided comments on John Paul II’s illness for the Polish TV stations and organized the trip of one million Polish mourners to the pontiff’s funeral (Dudek 2015, 523; Szczerbiak 2015, 58). Kieres might have launched an avalanche, but the appetite for re-launching lustration in Poland had already been triggered by another affair a few months earlier, when Bronisław Wildstein, a prominent journalist and former anti-communist dissident, removed from the IPN headquarters and publicized via the Internet the list of names

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attached to the IPN files registry related to the surveillance of ordinary citizens by the SB. The public disclosure of the list, which contained names of both secret informers and candidates for recruitment but no clear way to distinguish between these categories, marked the beginning of an informal collaboration between some IPN employees and journalists sympathetic to lustration. In September 2005, the PiS narrowly won the general elections by riding the wave of social discontent with the previous left-wing governments’ involvement in corruption scandals, cuts in social spending, and high unemployment levels. The former communists suffered a landslide defeat when voters overwhelmingly supported the center-right parties, putting the PiS slightly ahead of the centrist liberal Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO). Other winners were the nationalists and the populists of the League of Polish Families (Liga Polskich Rodzin, LPR) and Self-Defence of the Republic of Poland (Samoobrona Rzeczpospolitej Polskiej, Samoobrona RP), who joined the PiS-led coalition government. Soon the victorious party called for the rule of law and the start of an anti-corruption crusade. Jarosław Kaczynski ´ and his twin brother, Lech Kaczynski, ´ who won the presidential elections of October 2005, also set to undo the legacy of communism. The flagship of this revolution was the lustration of the communist and opposition elites for having made a “rotten” compromise in 1989, “betrayed” the ideals of the Solidarity movement, and “prevented” the creation of a truly sovereign and democratic Poland. Initially, the PiS was reluctant to include the church, the actual negotiator and broker of the Polish Roundtable Talks between democratic opposition and the dictatorial regime, into its re-evaluation of the 1989 regime change. However, the Wildstein affair and the PiS electoral victory emboldened advocates of church lustration and forced the episcopate and the lay activists to seriously consider the priests’ collaboration with the SB. In 2005, the bishops of Wrocław, Lublin, Tarnów, and Warsaw set up investigative commissions to research the degree to which their dioceses had been infiltrated by the communist SB. In February 2006, Archbishop Stanisław Dziwisz of Kraków established the “Memory and Care” (Pami˛ec´ i Troska) Commission, which consisted of two teams, one in charge of historical research, and another focusing on providing moral support for the victims of the informer priests (IPN, “Przegl˛ad Mediów” 2006). It was the case of Reverend Czajkowski which turned the tables though, forcing the liberal Catholic intelligentsia to take a stance in the

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lustration debate. A leading advocate of ecumenism and Christian–Jewish dialogue, member of the editorial team of the liberal Catholic journal Wi˛ez´ , Czajkowski was also a popular essayist, cherished by progressive Catholics and loathed by fundamentalist circles. The news of his former cooperation with the communist SB broke in May 2006 (Witkowski 2006a). The religious and nationalist right celebrated the fact that a former communist agent had overseen the Catholic-Jewish dialogue (Witkowski 2006b). Following allegations made by journalist and writer ˙ Tadeusz Witkowski in the Zycie Warszawy daily, Wi˛ez´ summoned a special investigating commission to verify relevant SB files. Under the guidance of historian Andrzej Friszke, the commission meticulously examined all available sources and interviewed a number of witnesses, both laymen and clergy. It concluded that Czajkowski had worked for the communist SB as an informer from 1960 to 1984, when he terminated his collaboration after the murder of Reverend Jerzy Popiełuszko by the state security (Friszke, Karon-Ostrowska, ´ Nosowski and Wi´slicki 2006, 81– 140). Czajkowski admitted his guilt, asked for forgiveness, and withdrew from the public debate. Years later he returned to journalism, providing articles on biblical studies only. As the case of Wi˛ez´ demonstrates, the Czajkowski affair converted to church lustration a number of people who had not contemplated it before. “It is impossible,” wrote Catholic publicist Jacek Borkowicz, “to separate lustration into one [process unfolded] in the state and another in the church. The Polish society consists mostly of believers.” He further added that “this is why it is impossible for any lustration of high government officials in Poland to take place without the lustration of church representatives.… It is the right and duty of the state to help the church in its lustration” (Borkowicz, “Ko´sciół pokutuj˛acy” 2006). For Borkowicz, a former contributor to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wi˛ez´ , and Tygodnik Powszechny, the Czajkowski affair marked the beginning of a political journey that eventually took him to the pro-PiS mass-media. Borkowicz’s case is highly instructive and symptomatic of some Catholic intellectuals who joined the pro-lustration camp. The Polish bishops were also aware that the public expected the church to “cleanse” itself from the burden of its communist past. On 25 August 2006, the bishops issued the “Memorandum of the Polish Episcopate in Regard to the Collaboration of Some Clergy Members with the Security Services of Poland in 1944–1989.” A defensive, but also humble, document, the Memorandum criticized the “wild lustration” of the clergy, and

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appealed to mass-media to act responsibly and refrain from sensationalist revelations. It claimed that within the church the SB informers had been outnumbered by the good chaplains who often suffered under communism. The Memorandum also offered guidelines for former informers on how to repent. The denouncement of others was described as a “public sin” that necessitated public penance and confession made to a church superior, official apologies to the victims, as well as moral and material compensation. Last, the Memorandum threatened those SB collaborators who did not find enough courage to confess their past sin with disciplinary actions provided by the canon law (Komisja Episkopatu Polski, “Memoriał Episkopatu Polski w sprawie współpracy niektórych duchownych z organami bezpieczenstwa ´ w Polsce w latach 1944–1989” 2006). The document was possibly the closest to public acknowledgment that the Polish church offered in relation to the actions of the SB agents in cassocks. It was a noble call for action to be taken by both culprits and their ecclesiastical authorities. However, it remained to be seen whether the autonomous initiatives of the bishops and curia officials, prompted by the admissions of some of the former secret informers, would lead to the self-cleansing of the church. Among the most vocal advocates of the lustration of clergy was Reverend Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski. A former dissident, charity activist, and member of the tiny, but historically significant Armenian community in Poland, Isakowicz-Zaleski had been a whistleblower since 2005. While examining his own police file at the Kraków branch of the IPN, he found evidence linking several other priests to the SB. Soon afterwards, Isakowicz-Zaleski began researching the infiltration of the diocese of Kraków by the SB and published a book on this subject in January 2007. Isakowicz-Zaleski described more than one hundred personal stories of priests monitored or recruited by the SB. Among the most notorious cases were those of Rev. Mieczysław Malinski, ´ a close friend of Karol Wojtyła who informed on the future pontiff, Catholic associations and Vatican officials during the 1960s; Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, already the subject of a homosexual scandal in 2002; and several bishops who still led dioceses at the time of the book’s publication (Isakowicz-Zaleski 2007, 288–297, 271–276, 276–286). The head of the Polish Church, Cardinal Józef Glemp, gave Isakowicz-Zaleski a cold shoulder, likening him to an ubek, the derogative term standing for a communist security officer. In addition, Isakowicz-Zaleski had a very strained relationship

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with his superior, Archbishop Dziwisz of Kraków, who forbade him to talk to mass-media in October 2006 (Isakowicz-Zaleski 2012, 16 and 23). Nevertheless, Zaleski finished his book on January 6, 2007, at the time of another scandal, which shook the Polish church: the Wielgus affair. One month earlier, Pope Benedict XVI signed the nomination of the bishop of Płock, Stanisław Wielgus, as Archbishop of Warsaw. The appointment was to take effect in January 2007. A historian of philosophy, Wielgus was an accomplished scholar, former rector of the Catholic University of Lublin and guest lecturer at the University of Munich. He was also a self-declared enemy of liberalism, freemasonry, and even postmodernism (Wielgus 2014). Wielgus was admired by Reverend Tadeusz Rydzyk, the Catholic media mogul and the politically influential guru of Catholic fundamentalists and nationalists. The Family of the Radio Maryja, the nationwide association of Rydzyk’s radio station listeners, was the midwife of the nationalist and anti-European Union League of Polish Families in 2001. Courted by the Kaczynskis, ´ Rydzyk supported the PiS in the 2005 elections. Rydzyk’s support for Wielgus was a matter of public knowledge. Two weeks after Wielgus’s nomination, Gazeta Polska announced that it obtained documents which proved that the future Archbishop of Warsaw had collaborated with the SB from 1973 to 1978 (Kunicki 2009). Apparently, he became a secret police and military intelligence informer when seeking a passport and permission to travel to West Germany.These revelations produced a media storm, divided the clergy and lay Catholics, and tarnished relations between the PiS government and the church. The Wielgus controversy lasted for a month and garnered international media attention (Smith 2007). Initially, the archbishop maintained his innocence and enjoyed the support of the episcopate and the Vatican. In his memoirs, Wielgus insisted that he informed the papal nuncio in Poland, Archbishop Józef Kowalczyk, of his sporadic meetings with the SB. He admitted having contacted the SB, but swore that he neither informed on anybody nor harmed the church through his actions. In November 2006 Kowalczyk downplayed Wielgus’s fears and rejected his request to drop his candidacy for the archbishopric position (Wielgus, 148–149). Notwithstanding the self-exonerating and relativizing tone of Wielgus’s testimony, it is clear that Kowalczyk and other Polish and Vatican hierarchs involved in the matter underestimated the determination of the PiS leadership, pro-lustration pundits, and some Catholic intellectuals to prevent Wielgus’s takeover of the Warsaw archdiocese. Historian

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Sławomir Cenckiewicz, one of the leading advocates of post-communist transitional justice, might be right while concluding that it was Wielgus’s interview given to Gazeta Wyborcza, the liberal daily opposed to lustration and Kaczynskis’ ´ politics, which represented the “kiss of death” for the beleaguered archbishop (Cenckiewicz 2015). In early January 2007, two historical commissions, one summoned by the Polish Ombudsman Janusz Kochanowski, and another set up by the Roman Catholic Church in Poland, confirmed that Wielgus had collaborated with the communist state security (Ko´scielna Komisja Historyczna, “Komunikat Ko´scielnej Komisji Historycznej” January 05, 2007). Wielgus rejected these findings and was consecrated as Archbishop of Warsaw in a small, private ceremony on 5 January. The Polish government could not block the appointment, as such a move would violate the provisions of the 1993 Concordate agreement between Poland and the Vatican. However, perhaps due to President Lech Kaczynski’s ´ personal intervention with the Vatican, Pope Benedict VI asked Wielgus to step down (Dudek 2015, 582). According to Wielgus, Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczynski ´ dispatched Przemysław Gosiewski, a trusted collaborator, to Rome in order to request the Pope’s acceptance of Wielgus’ resignation. President Lech Kaczynski ´ then held night talks with papal nuncio Kowalczyk, chairman of the Episcopate of Poland Michalik and Bishop Piotr Libera, secretary general of the Episcopate of Poland on how to solve the crisis (Wielgus, 173–174). On January 7, 2007, Wielgus resigned from the post in front of television cameras and amidst the cries of followers and foes at St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw, minutes before his official inauguration. Two months later, he was forced into retirement and sent to Lublin. The Wielgus affair marked the peak of popular support for church lustration. According to opinion surveys prepared by the Public Opinion Research Center (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, CBOS), 78 percent of Poles approved Wielgus’s resignation, 65 percent supported the lustration of the clergy (37 percent of which viewed the “cleansing” of the Polish Roman Catholic Church as “absolutely necessary”), and 69 percent thought that former SB agents who continued to hold important ecclesiastical posts should resign. Interestingly, 65 percent of Poles also agreed that the public disclosure of the identity of secret informers undermined the prestige of the church and 61 percent claimed that the Wielgus affair did not change their attitude toward the clergy (Public Opinion Research Center—CBOS 2007, 1–2, 5, 7). Notably, the support

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for church lustration surpassed the approval rating of Jarosław Kaczynski’s ´ government, which amounted to 31 percent in January 2007 (Public Opinion Research Center—CBOS 2007, 1). Among the few individuals and groups who defended Wielgus before and after his resignation was Reverend Rydzyk and his Radio Maryja, which vehemently attacked Gazeta Polska, accusing its editors of “crucifying” the archbishop (Hołub, “Radio Maryja za abp. Wielgusem i za lustracj˛a” 2007). Rydzyk treated Wielgus not only as a victim of public lynching, but also as a martyr for the faith. In the summer of 2007, he invited the deposed hierarch to join the Radio Maryja pilgrimage to Jasna Góra shrine in Cz˛estochowa. Furthermore, the Wielgus affair cooled Rydzyk’s support for the PiS, especially President Lech Kaczynski. ´ Rydzyk denounced Poland’s first lady, Maria Kaczynska, ´ as a “witch” for her dialogue with pro-choice activists during the debate on the liberalization of abortion, and accused President Kaczynski ´ of serving the interests of an unnamed “Jewish lobby” (Dzierzanowski ˙ 2007). An ardent nationalist and fundamentalist, Rydzyk became critical when he felt that the state stepped into the territory reserved for the church. The Kaczynski ´ brothers worked hard to bury the hatchet with “Reverend Director,” as Rydzyk was ironically referred to, but the PiS lost the 2007 early elections to the Civic Platform, which ruled the country until 2015. For the majority of active voters, lustration proved to be only a secondary concern. According to an opinion survey conducted in June 2007, only 19 percent of the Poles considered lustration as an important issue, while 69 percent viewed it as a secondary topic used in political battles (Public Opinion Research Center - CBOS, June 2007, 1). It is unlikely that the Wielgus affair led to the electoral defeat of the PiS; more important was the lack of popularity of Prime Minister Jarosław Kaczynski ´ and his populist and nationalist partners from Self-Defence and the League of Polish Families. Before the collapse of the government in August 2007, the leaders of the three parties that formed the ruling coalition (the PiS, the SelfDefence, and the League of Polish Families) were the most distrusted Polish politicians. The disapproval ratings of Jarosław Kaczynski, ´ Andrzej Leper, and Roman Giertych were 53, 59 and 66 percent, respectively (Public Opinion Research Center—CBOS, August 2007, 2). The vagaries of the PiS government and its demise diverted the attention of the public from church lustration. The shift took place despite new revelations that unveiled the collaboration of senior church officials

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with the communist SB. Perhaps the most serious case was the posthumous lustration of bishop Jerzy D˛abrowski (1931–1991), one of the most important intermediaries between the communist regime and the anticommunist opposition during the 1980s. D˛abrowski played a crucial role in organizing informal talks between General Czesław Kiszczak, head of the SB, and Lech Wał˛esa, leader of the Solidarity, that led to the Polish Roundtable Talks of 1989. In 2007, sixteen years after his death, it was revealed that the bishop had collaborated with the SB since the 1960s (Witkowski 2007). Since by then D˛abrowski had been dead for quite some time, the same church commission that investigated Wielgus closed the D˛abrowski case without making any additional inquiries, a strange decision given the former bishop’s past political prominence. In June 2007, the church historical commission concluded that twelve out of the 130 bishops who were still alive had been registered as SB informers or operational contacts sometimes before 1989. The commission deemed the surviving files as too incomplete and insufficient for allowing further investigations (Ko´scielna Komisja Historyczna, “Komunikat podsumowuj˛acy wyniki badan´ Ko´scielnej Komisji Historycznej” June 27, 2007). In March 2009, the Conference of the Polish Episcopate officially declared the lustration of bishops closed and expressed its hope that the laymen “would not succumb to the attempts that undermine the moral authority of the church and its shepherds, but pray for their church and enhance it with fidelity” (Konferencja Episkopatu Polski, “O´swiadczenie Konferencji Episkopatu Polski po zapoznaniu si˛e z listem Stolicy Apostolskiej nt. Dokumentów Ko´scielnej Komisji Historycznej” March 11, 2009).

The Multiple Posthumous Lives of Reverend Henryk Jankowski On the night of February 21, 2019, three men came to Stolarska Street in central Gdansk. ´ Equipped with sophisticated tools, they pulled down the statue of a priest, filmed their action, and streamed the recording on Internet. The three Warsaw residents then presented themselves to the police, after placing an altar boy’s robe and child’s underwear on the monument. The statue depicted Reverend Henryk Jankowski (1936– 2010), a legendary Solidarity chaplain, Lech Wał˛esa’s close friend, and one of the few priests who conducted religious services for the striking workers at the Gdansk ´ shipyard in August 1980. After the collapse of the

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communist regime in 1989, Jankowski’s credentials included anti-Semitic sermons, a penchant for luxury and ostentatious wealth, and the decoration of the traditional Easter tomb of Jesus with the logos of the Polish liberal and leftist parties, alongside those of the KGB and the SS in 1995. While commenting on the 1995 Easter scandal, Jankowski admitted that he did not also include the Star of David “because it is already inscribed in the symbols of the swastika, as well as of the hammer and sickle” (cited in Porter- Sz˝ ucs 2011, 322). However, the posthumous fall from the plinth on Stolarska Street occurred due to allegations that he had sexually abused minors and engaged in intimate relations with his altar boys. An article published in Gazeta Wyborcza in December 2018 cited several people who claimed to be Jankowski’s victims because they had been raped, molested and groomed by the priest from the 1960s until the 1990s. Jankowski was investigated in 2004, but was never convicted of sexual crimes (Aksamit 2018). His church superiors tolerated Jankowski’s excesses, which apparently were but a public secret in Gdansk. ´ Eight years after the priest’s death, Poland was galvanized by a series of sexual abuse scandals that involved members of the Catholic clergy. It was not an accident that the first Polish movie to break the box office record of Aleksander Ford’s Teutonic Knights (Krzyz˙ acy, 1960) was Wojtek Smarzowski’s Clergy (Kler, 2018) on corruption and paedophilia in the Polish Roman Catholic Church. The three men who pulled down Jankowski’s statue were members of a grassroots group that targeted paedophiles in cassocks and their church protectors. A few people defended the memory of Jankowski. In March 2019, the Gdansk ´ city council stripped Jankowski of his honorary citizenship title posthumously and decided to remove his statue from the public space. The affair also brought back accusations that the priest had collaborated with the communist state security. As historian Andrzej Friszke stated, “we all know and have evidence that Reverend Jankowski was a paedophile and a SB agent, especially in 1980–1981; he was a dark character of those times” (“Profesor Andrzej Friszke o ksi˛edzu Henryku Jankowskim” 2019). Friszke was seconded by Sławomir Cenckiewicz, who recalled that the SB had used Jankowski as an “operational contact” to incite internal conflicts within the Solidarity movement, including between Lech Wał˛esa and Anna Walentynowicz. The SB had also “coached” Jankowski before he performed clerical services in the Gdanska ´ shipyard in August 1980 (Cenckiewicz 2019a).

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The fact that liberal intellectual Friszke and lustration enthusiast Cenckiewicz voiced similar opinions should not come as a surprise. Jankowski’s contact and cooperation with the SB had already been documented by Grzegorz Majchrzak, in a book published in 2010 that established beyond any doubt that Jankowski was the SB operational contact “Libella” and “Delegat,” used by the state security to split the newly born Solidarity movement, as well as to influence Wał˛esa and primate Józef Glemp, the leader of the Polish church starting with 1981 (Majchrzak 2010). Jankowski forwarded the SB’s opinions and suggestions to the two leaders in an effort to turn them against members of the Committee for Workers’ Defense (Komitet Obrony Robotników, KOR), which was part of the Solidarity leadership. Majchrzak did not go as far as to suggest that the priest was a full-fledged secret agent, but treated Jankowski as an important source of information and tool of influence used by the SB (Majchrzak 2010, 19–22). Majchrzak’s work did not cause an outcry against the priest, although earlier Jankowski had accused several opposition veterans of engaging in the same type of activities as those carried by “Libella” and “Delegat” in 1980 and 1981. Neither did the book prevent the Gdansk ´ Solidarity chapter to erect a monument to Jankowski in 2012. This demonstrates that in present day Poland accusations of paedophilia directed against clergymen matter more than allegations of past collaboration with the defunct SB. The immense popularity of Smarzowski’s movie was all but dwarfed by “Tell No One,” a shocking two-hour documentary by Tomasz and Marek Sekielski about paedophilia in the Polish church which premiered on YouTube on May 13, 2019. The film had twenty million views within the first seven days of its release and constituted the climax of the anti-paedophilia resentment that placed the Polish church under enormous pressure and dramatically lowering its approval ratings. In May 2019, 48 percent of Poles positively assessed the church, whereas another 40 percent disapproved of it (Public Opinion Research Center—CBOS 2019, 6). The heated debates that followed the release of Sekielskis’ movie linked the paedophile scandals with the “unfinished” church lustration. Both Reverend Isakowicz-Zaleski and Tomasz Terlikowski, a conservative Catholic journalist and activist, argued that the successful lustration of the clergy at the time of the Wielgus affair could have cleansed the Polish church of the sin of paedophilia much earlier as SB files would have revealed the sexual deviations of the priests recruited as

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secret informers (Isakowicz-Zaleski 2019a; Terlikowski 2019a). However, Isakowicz-Zaleski and Terlikowski seemed to ignore three factors: the lack of sufficient evidence on paedophilia in the SB files, pointed by Cenckiewicz in his analysis of the Jankowski case; the willingness of victims to talk about their tragedies; and the inconsistent (at best) or shameful (at worst) attitude of the hierarchs toward the problem of paedophilia within the church. What motivated the two authors, who were both genuinely shocked by the scale of sexual abuse within the church, were current political concerns and misconceptions. Terlikowski called for the swift removal of the paedophiles from the Polish Roman Catholic Church by devout Catholics. Otherwise, he argued, inaction would place the matter into the hands of the liberal media, which would set the ground for the so-called “Irish scenario,” that is, the quick secularization of a nominally Catholic nation like the Polish one (Terlikowski 2019b). Isakowicz-Zaleski linked toleration of the paedophilia among the clergy to the “homosexual lobby” within the Roman Catholic Church. Sławomir Cenckiewicz (Cenckiewicz 2019b) warned against equating the paedophile priests with the SB informers. Such opinions were voiced after three of the nine paedophile priests presented in “Tell no One” were unmasked as former SB informers.

Conclusion The issue of church lustration continues to consume and divide the same socio-political formation, the nominally pro-Catholic, nationalist, conservative right represented by the PiS. The left, politically marginalized since 2005, and the liberal centrists have never wholly supported church lustration or any lustration. The PiS intellectual and political elites are united in their support of lustration as a policy principle, but split over its implementation. After its win of the 2015 presidential and parliamentary elections, the party abstained from reusing lustration as a legitimizing tool. Instead it has turned to the politics of history to create new national elites and a new national identity by celebrating the so-called “accursed soldiers” (˙zołnierze wykl˛eci), which include members of the post-World War II anti-communist armed guerrillas, regardless of their ideological and political agendas or methods of struggle. According to this new narrative, the forty-five years of communism are reduced to a totalitarian,

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Soviet-style dictatorship under which the accursed soldiers were the last standing men, whose legacy inspires the PiS. The second flagship of the ongoing PiS revolution is their reform (read “control”) of the judiciary, part of which, most notably the Constitutional Tribunal, gutted the lustration law in 2007. Whether the assault on the judiciary is Jarosław Kaczynski’s ´ belated vengeance for 2007, Carl Schmitt’s-like authoritarian approach to law and constitutionalism or part of the PiS’s grand project of making new nationalist, socially conservative and anti-liberal Polish elites requires a separate treatment. The party’s electorate and leaders stand by the church. True, a number of political pundits who frequently contribute to Paweł Lisicki’s Do Rzeczy weekly used the public outcry against paedophilia in the Polish church to rekindle support for church lustration. However, Sławomir Cenckiewicz, Rev. Isakowicz-Zaleski, and Tomasz Terlikowski, the most vocal advocates of vetting the Polish clergy, constitute a small faction that hardly influences the policies of Jarosław Kaczynski’s ´ party. After the victory of the PiS in the elections for the European Parliament in May 2019 the debates on paedophilia and church lustration dissipated. The two subjects hardly influenced voters the during general elections won by the Law and Justice party in October that year. Within the next ten years, the majority of the chaplains ordained under communism will retire. Soon it will be impossible to link the former secret informers and the sexual predators in cassocks or the active clergy members. This fact does not, however, mean that the issue of church lustration will not resurface again. I would like to finish this essay with the posthumous vetting of Reverend Józef Tischner (1931–2000). A respected philosopher, theologian and public intellectual, Tischner was one of the most ardent advocates of the Solidarity movement and open Catholicism. His legendary sermon delivered to members of Solidarity at the Wawel cathedral in Kraków in October 1980 and The Ethics of Solidarity (Etyka Solidarno´sci), published in several languages, placed him at the pantheon of the movement’s heroes. Tischner’s close ties to the liberal intelligentsia, sense of humor and popularity earned through the promotion of philosophy and theology in the dialect of the Polish highlanders made him an unorthodox priest, the opposite of a strict and serious figure associated with the Polish church. There was no love lost between Tischner and the nationalist and Catholic right, which detested his involvement with the Union of Freedom, a liberal party critical of lustration and often branded as the symbol of the compromise between liberal and ex-communist elites.

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On June 3, 2019, nearly twenty years after Tischner’s death, Sławomir Cenckiewicz tweeted the news that the chaplain had been registered by the SB as operational contact and consultant of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. “It is sad news about the registration of Reverend Józef Tischner …. What a pity…,” wrote Cenckiewicz (Cenckiewicz 2019a). One may wonder about the sincerity of Cenckiewicz’s bemoaning; he must have known that his tweet would cause shock and angry exchanges. While ignoring the fact that Tischner was listed as an operational contact, Cenckiewicz, who had previously shown some restraint during the debates on Rev Jankowski, implied that Tischner was an SB collaborator. The tweet accompanied Cenckiewicz’s praise for a new IPN publication on the SB invigilation of the first Solidarity in 1981. The reactions to this “discovery” were mostly critical. Maciej Gawlikowski, former opposition activist and author of many publications on anti-communist opposition and SB, thrashed Cenckiewicz’s claims. There was no evidence (file or registration form), which would suggest that Tischner was an informer; the priest openly talked about meetings with the SB and attempts to recruit him; the Kraków IPN chapter knew of Tischner’s encounters with the security police since 2007, but did not find any incriminating evidence; it was incredible to argue that Tischner became an advisor to the Fourth Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in October 1988, when the regime already conducted negotiations with the opposition (Gawlikowski 2019). Jan Maciejewski from Rzeczpospolita was one of few political pens who took Cenckewicz’s news seriously. However, he did not provide any details on Tischner’s alleged collaboration. Instead he tried to present the priest as a truly great man who made a tragic mistake. According to Maciejewski, Tischner’s actual wrongdoing was his political stance after 1989, hubris characteristic of elites who lectured ordinary folks about their political choices (Maciejewski 2019). Perhaps the most balanced and cooling response to Cenckiewicz’s claims came from another supporter of lustration, Reverend IsakowiczZaleski. He claimed that Cenckiewicz brought information that did not prove Tischner’s collaboration at all. Both terms, “operational contact” and “consultant,” were often used for people who conversed with the SB at the summoning of the police, due to their own will or with the approval of opposition groups. Isakowicz-Zaleski warned against making too-far-reaching conclusions about Tischner’s categorization as a consultant because the SB’s use for this term for people who were contacted,

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but who did not collaborate. As the regime was preparing itself for negotiations with opposition, it sought meetings with dissidents and independents, reminded Isakowicz-Zaleski. What should be researched was the content of Tischner’s conversations with the SB (Isakowicz-Zaleski 2019b). The storm over the posthumous lustration of Reverend Tischner dissipated surprisingly fast. Notwithstanding the nature of Tischner’s contacts with the SB, what really matters is the wider context of Cenckewicz’s revelations. Cenckiewicz tweeted on Tischner’s alleged collaboration one day before the 30th anniversary of the 1989 elections that toppled the communist regime in Poland. For lustration enthusiasts and Jarosław Kaczynski’s ´ PiS, the year 1989 does not constitute the ascent of democracy and sovereignty or national rebirth; instead, it marks the betrayal of “true patriots” and the nation, false “recollections” of national history and “pedagogy of shame” stripping the Poles of their pride. For all its use of religious symbols and imagery, Solidarity, this umbrella-like movement uniting Catholics and nonbelievers, nationalists and members of the left, hardly fits the PiS narrative, which recycles Roman Dmowski’s construct of Polak—Katolik which projects the Polish nation as exclusively Catholic. It was all logical that Tischner, the flamboyant priest and the author of The Ethics of Solidarity, should be posthumously lustrated thirty years after annus mirabilis 1989 and ten days after the PiS victory in the elections to the European Parliament.

Bibliography ´ etej Brygidy. Dlaczego Ko´sciół przez lata Aksamit, Bozena. ˙ 2018. Sekret Swi˛ pozwalał ksi˛edzu Jankowskiemu wykorzystywa´c dzieci? Gazeta Wyborcza (3 December). Borkowicz, Jacek. 2006. Ko´sciół pokutuj˛acy. Wi˛ez´ 7–8: 62–69. Cenckiewicz, Sławomir. 2015. Krzywda i thriller arcybiskupa Wielgusa (wersja rozszerzona), Do Rzeczy (19 January). Cenckiewicz, S. 2019a. Cenckiewicz: ks. Jankowski był wykorzystywany przez bezpiek˛e do inspirowania konfliktów w Solidarno´sci. Available at https://wia domosci.onet.pl/kraj/cenckiewicz-ks-jankowski-byl-wykorzystywany-przezbezpieke-do-inspirowania-konfliktow/jcq4qz4?utm_source=www.rp.pl_viasg_ wiadomosci&utm_medium=referal&utm_campaign=leo_automatic&srcc= ucs&utm_v=2. Accessed 19 May 2019. Cenckiewicz, S. 2019b. Patologie współczesnego ko´scioła, Do Rzeczy (19 May). Dudek, Antoni. 1998. Sutanny w słuzbie ˙ PRL. Karta 25 (8): 110–120.

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Dudek, Antoni. 2015. Historia polityczna Polski 1989–2015. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Znak Horyzont. Dudek, Antoni and Ryszard Gryz. 2003. Komuni´sci i Ko´sciół w Polsce (1945– 1989). Kraków: Znak, 2003. Dzierzanowski, ˙ Marcin. 2007. O. Rydzyk o prezydentowej: czarownica, która powinna si˛e podda´c eutanazji, Wprost (8 July). Dziurok, Adam. ed. 2004. Metody pracy operacyjnej aparatu bezpieczenstwa ´ wobec ko´sciołów i zwiazków ˛ wyznaniowych 1945–1989. Warsaw: IPN. Friszke, Andrzej, Anna Karon-Ostrowska, ´ Zbigniew Nosowski, and Tomasz Wi´slicki. 2006. T.w. ‘Jankowski’: Historia współpracy. Wi˛ez´ 7–8: 81–140. Gawlikowski, Maciej. 2019. Tischner agentem? Gazeta Wyborcza (6 June). Henryk Jankowski i SB. 2019. Polityka (23 February). Horne, Cynthia M. 2014. Lustration, Transitional Justice, and Social Trust in Post-Communist Countries. Repairing or Wresting the Ties That Bind? Europe-Asia Studies 66 (2): 225–254. Hołub, Jacek. 2007. Radio Maryja za abp. Wielgusem i za lustracj˛a, Gazeta Wyborcza (9 January). Institute of National Remembrance (IPN). 2006. Przegl˛ad Mediów, 1 March 2006. Available at https://ipn.gov.pl/pl/dla-mediow/media-o-ipn/ 14178,PRZEGLAD-MEDIOW-1-marca-2006-r.html. Accessed 9 August 2019. Isakowicz-Zaleski, Tadeusz. 2007. Ksi˛eza ˙ wobec bezpieki na przykładzie diecezji krakowskiej. Kraków: Znak. Isakowicz-Zaleski, T. 2012. Chodzi mi tylko o prawd˛e. Kraków: Fronda. Isakowicz-Zaleski, T. 2019a. ‘Tego ludzie nigdy nie wybacz˛a ksi˛edzu.’ Ksi˛adz Isakowicz-Zaleski o problemach polskiego ko´scioła, Do Rzeczy (12 April). Isakowicz-Zaleski, T. 2019b. Ks. Isakowicz-Zaleski o ks. Tischnerze: z informacji ‘ksi˛adz był zarejestrowany’ nic nie wynika. 5 June 2019. Available at https://ekai.pl/ks-isakowicz-zaleski-o-ks-tischnerze-z-informacji-ksi adz-byl-zarejestrowany-nic-nie-wynika/. Accessed 21 January 2020. Komisja Episkopatu Polski, 2006. Memoriał Episkopatu Polski w sprawie współpracy niektórych duchownych z organami bezpieczenstwa ´ w Polsce w latach 1944–1989, (25 August), at https://episkopat.pl/memorial-episko patu-polski-w-sprawie-wspolpracy-niektorych-duchownych-z-organami-bezpie czenstwa-w-polsce-w-latach-1944-1989/. Accessed 8 August 2019. Konferencja Episkopatu Polski. 2009. O´swiadczenie Konferencji Episkopatu Polski po zapoznaniu si˛e z listem Stolicy Apostolskiej nt. Dokumentów Ko´scielnej Komisji Historycznej, (11 March) at http://n-12-1.dcs.redcdn. pl/file/o2/tvn/web-content/m/p1/f/O/s/Oswiadcz_KEP_z_347_ZP_ KEP.pdf. Accessed on 21 January, 2020.

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Ko´scielna Komisja Historyczna. 2007. Komunikat podsumowuj˛acy wyniki badan´ Ko´scielnej Komisji Historycznej. http://web.archive.org/web/201301270 31348/http://www.episkopat.pl/?a=dokumentyKEP&doc=2007627_0. Accessed 10 August, 2019. Kunicki, Mikołaj. 2009. Between Accommodation, Resistance and Dialogue: Church-State Relations in Communist Poland, 1945–1989. In Peaceful Coexistence or Iron Curtain: Austria, Neutrality, and Eastern Europe in the Cold War and Détente, 1955–1989, ed. Arnold Suppan and Wolfgang Mueller, 393–411. Vienna: LIT. Kunicki, Mikołaj. 2012. Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism, and Communism in 20th-Century Poland – the Politics of Bolesław Piasecki. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press. Kurczewska, Joanna. 2002. Patriotyzmy Polskich Polityków. Warsaw: Wydawnictwo IFiS PAN. Maciejewski, Jan. 2019. Dramat Tischnera, Rzeczpospolita (4 June). Majchrzak, Grzegorz. 2010. Kontakt operacyjny “Libella” vel “Delegat”. Warsaw: IPN. Nossol, Alfons. 2005. Moja lustracja przyniosła ulg˛e, Gazeta Wyborcza (3 May). Odezwa Biskupów Polskich w sprawie referendum na temat zycia ˙ nie narodzonych. 1991. Sprawy Rodziny, 25–26, 17–18. Porter-Sz˝ ucs, Brian. 2011. Faith and Fatherland: Catholicism, Modernity, and Poland. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Profesor Andrzej Friszke o ksi˛edzu Henryku Jankowskim. 2019. Rzeczpospolita (24 February). Public Opinion Research Center – CBOS. 2007a. Stosunek do rz˛adu (January). Public Opinion Research Center – CBOS. 2007b. O lustracji i sposobie ujawniania materiałów zgromadzonych w IPN (June). Public Opinion Research Center – CBOS. 2007c. Zaufanie do polityków w sierpniu (August). Public Opinion Research Center – CBOS. 2019. Research Report 73, Oceny działalno´sci parlamentu, prezydenta, PKW i Ko´scioła (May 30). Smith, Craig. S. 2007. In Poland, New Wave of Charges against Clerics, New York Times (January 10). Stan, Lavinia, ed. 2009. Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union: Reckoning with the Communist Past. London and New York: Routledge. Szczerbiak, Aleks. 2015. Explaining Late Lustration Programs: Lessons from the Polish Case. In Post-Communist Transitional Justice: Lessons from Twenty-Five Years of Experience, ed. Lavinia Stan and Nadya Nedelsky, 51–71. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Terlikowski, Tomasz. 2019a. Bez błyskawicznych działan´ episkopatu, Ko´sciół definitywnie utraci wiarygodno´sc´ , Do Rzeczy (18 May). Terlikowski, T. 2019b. If someone thinks that Sekielskis’ movie is the end then he is mistaken; this is the beginning, 15 May (Facebook). Available at https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=%3A%2F%2Fwww.fronda. pl%2Fa%2Fterlikowski-film-sekielskiego-to-dopiero-poczatek-w-pelni-zreali zuje-sie-scenariusz-irlandzki%2C126767.html. Accessed 21 January 2020. Trybunał Konstytucyjny. 2007. Komunikat prasowy po odroczonej rozprawie dotycz˛acej lustracji. At http://web.archive.org/web/201008 04055528/http://www.trybunal.gov.pl/Rozprawy/2007/k_02_07.htm. Accessed on 10 August 2019. “Ustawa z dnia 18 pa´zdziernika 2006 r. o ujawnianiu informacji o dokumentach organów bezpieczenstwa ´ panstwa ´ z lat 1944–1990 oraz tre´sci tych dokumentów.” 2006. http://prawo.sejm.gov.pl/isap.nsf/download.xsp/WDU200 70630425/U/D20070425Lj.pdf. Accessed 10 August 2019. Wielgus, Stanisław. 2014. Tobie, Panie, zaufałem, nie zawstydz˛e si˛e na wieki. Historia mojego zycia. ˙ Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Sióstr Loretanek. Witkowski, Tadeusz. 2006a. Ksi˛adz Czajkowski był agentem bezpieki, Z˙ ycie Warszawy (17 May). ˙ Witkowski, T. 2006b. Gorycz satysfakcji po raporcie, Zycie Warszawy (26 August). Witkowski, T. 2007. Biskup Jerzy D˛abrowski agentem SB, Wprost, January 8. ˙ Zaryn, Jan. 2003. Dzieje Ko´scioła Katolickiego w Polsce (1944–1989). Warsaw: Neriton, Instytut Historii PAN. Zubrzycki, Genevieve. 2006. The Crosses of Auschwitz: Nationalism and Religion in Post-Communist Poland. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

CHAPTER 3

Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic Frank Cibulka

The conclusion in November 1989 of communist rule in Czechoslovakia was followed by attempts at securing transitional justice, as elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, but the process was complicated by the disintegration in 1993 of the common state of the Czechs and Slovaks. This chapter examines the way in which religious institutions in Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic have dealt with the legacy of the autocratic rule imposed by the Czechoslovak Communist Party and its repressive state institutions. It focuses on the brief post-Velvet Revolution Czechoslovak state of 1989–1992, when the policy was largely common for the Czech and Slovak parts of the federation, and then on the Czech Republic. Note that transitional justice processes such as restitution and memorialization have not yet been fully completed at the time of this writing. The primary subject of this investigation is the impact of transitional justice on the country’s Roman Catholic Church which, despite the persistent erosion of its status in the society, has remained by far the most

F. Cibulka (B) Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_3

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populous and important religion in the Czech Republic. Wherever relevant, the Greek Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church will figure in cameo roles in this chapter.

Religious Repression During Communist Rule While it is often argued that transitional justice in Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic has been the most comprehensive and enduring among the European post-communist states, it is also generally held that during the 1948–1989 communist rule religious repression was the most intense in the region, except for Albania. According to Sabrina P. Ramet, soon after imposing its rule the communist regime adopted a policy toward the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia that involved five key steps. The communists destroyed its infrastructure, seized control over its surviving institutions, launched a concerted atheization campaign in schools and in public life, divided the Catholic Church from other religious groups, and separated its top hierarchy from the lower clergy (Ramet 1998, 126). There is no simple explanation for the extreme brutality of the antireligious campaign directed mainly against the Roman Catholic Church, but three factors probably played a key role. First, the policies of the Czechoslovak communist regime during the late 1940s and the early 1950s were marked by extreme terror, intolerance and the murderous use of the judiciary. More than any other leader in Central and Eastern Europe, Klement Gottwald (General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party in 1929–1953) was prepared to adopt the worst Stalinist methods and to kill and brutalize his opponents as well as his own revolutionary peers.1 Second, the leader of the Czechoslovak Catholic Church, Cardinal Josef Beran, who served as the Archbishop of Prague and the Czech Primate in 1946–1969, adopted an uncompromising attitude toward the communist regime.2 Third, the communist authorities saw the Roman Catholic Church as the most serious remaining threat to their political and ideological dominance both because that church was the dominant religious group in the country and because of its perceived foreign loyalty to the Vatican. However, the church lacked the political strength or the societal support to defend itself, the way the Catholic Church in Poland did. The communist repression of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia came after several years of respite that followed the religious suppression imposed by Nazi Germany during World War II. The

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persecution of the Catholic Church in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was more serious than in Slovakia, where the nominally independent clerico-fascist Slovak Republic, a puppet state of Hitler’s Germany, was able to protect Catholicism under the leadership of its President, Monsignor Jozef Tiso. For Cardinal Beran’s successor, František Tomášek, 1948 marked the beginning of “a direct and concentrated attack against all religions and, above all, against the Catholic Church and its bishops” (Tomášek 1991).3 The repression of the Catholic Church evolved over time. Remarkably, the election of Gottwald as Czechoslovakia’s first “worker’s president” in 1948 was accompanied by the ringing of bells around the country, and the atheist president even attended a celebratory Te Deum mass in Prague’s St. Vitus Cathedral as part of the presidential inauguration ceremony conducted by Cardinal Beran. This was deliberately requested by the Communist Party in order to alleviate popular apprehensions about the new regime. Yet, a week later, Gottwald stated that “our populace has no choice. We have to see the church as an enemy” (Šustrová and Mlejnek 2013). The communist regime unsuccessfully sought to separate the Czechoslovak Roman Catholic Church from the Vatican and create a national and politically compliant Catholic Church. Similarly in China, the schismatic Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association was established in 1957. The Czechoslovak communist regime also sought absolute loyalty from the Catholic hierarchy and clergy, but this could not be provided to the regime’s full satisfaction by a Church that was visibly divided in its approach toward the communist regime. A group of mostly Slovak bishops refused to collaborate with the regime, another group headed by Archbishop Beran leaned toward an uncompromising approach while anticipating the inevitability of the forthcoming conflict with the authorities, and yet another group of “progressive” bishops (including Bishops ˇ Štˇepán Trochta of Litomˇeˇrice and Josef Hlouch of Ceské Budˇejovice) was more open to collaboration, as they recognized the durability of the new regime (Reban 1990, 145). As the attempted accommodation between the state and the Catholic Church failed, in October 1949 the government passed a set of Church Laws (Církevní zákony), which imposed state control over religious institutions, created the state Office for Religious Affairs, initially headed by former Prime Minister Zdenˇek Fierlinger, and provided for the licensing of the clergy and financial support for them. Other laws limited the social

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role of religious institutions, mostly the Catholic Church. In 1949, religious schools were abolished and a new Family Law outlawed church marriages in the absence of civil ones. Afterwards, theological training was restricted to the seminaries in Litomˇeˇrice and Bratislava, thus fueling a future shortage of priests. To understand the brutality of the communist regime, one needs to look at the figures provided by the Office for the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism (Úˇrad dokumentace a vyšetrování zloˇcinu˚ komunismu). Between 1948 and 1989, 205,486 individuals were imprisoned for political reasons and 248 were sentenced to death and executed. Some 282 individuals perished while attempting to flee across the border to West Germany or Austria; most of them were shot by the border guards. Around 4,500 political inmates died in communist prisons and concentration camps (Tomek 2019). The most brutal attack against the Catholic Church came in 1950. Instead of persecuting the believers, the regime targeted the Church hierarchy, the religious orders and the clergy. First came the abolition of all religious orders in the country. In April, all-male monasteries were seized by the police and the military, their properties were confiscated and the monks were detained for reeducation (Reban 1990, 149). A total of 140 monasteries with 1,240 monks were abolished in the Czech lands, their buildings being converted into military barracks, hospitals, homes for the elderly, and warehouses. One out of every five monks received a prison sentence (Kaczmarek 2017, 108). In October 1950, 4,073 of the 11,896 Czech and Slovaks nuns were removed from monasteries and interned, most of them being ordered to work in health and social institutions, or even factories (Reban 1990, 149). The diocesan priests were also severely persecuted, with one-fifth of all priests being sentenced to prison, almost always on the base of false charges. Official figures showed that 384 Catholic priests were in prison in 1956, and most of them were released during the amnesties of 1960 and 1962 (Kaczmarek 2017, 108). In contrast, in Poland, where the Catholic Church was far more powerful and the regime less repressive, only twenty-six priests were imprisoned in 1956 (Fiala and Hanuš 2001, 28). The history of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia during the 1950s and the 1960s resembles the persecution of Christians in ancient Rome due to the abolition of male monasteries, the detention of 1,240 monks, and the isolation of 2,500 to 3,000 nuns after the confiscation of their monasteries. To these, add the conviction and imprisonment of

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450 priests, 375 monks, and 120 nuns, as well as the placement of 350 monks and 700 priests into the technical auxiliary battalions (pomocné technické prapory), a form of military forced labor camps (Vlˇcek 2014). Most of the jailed priests were housed together with common criminals and often treated with brutality. Others were forced to work in deadly uranium mines. All of the Catholic bishops except Antonín Eltschkner, an Auxiliary Bishop of the Prague diocese, were interned. Cardinal Beran, who incurred the ire of the authorities after he excommunicated the pro-communist priest Josef Plojhar, was placed under house arrest in 1949. Upon his release in 1963, Beran was not allowed to carry out his duties, although by then religious repression was less intense than in the 1950s. Upon becoming a cardinal in 1965, Beran was permitted to leave for Rome, but not to return to his homeland. He was replaced in his post by the future Cardinal František Tomášek, who commented on the circumstances of his appointment in this way: In 1965, when cardinal Beran was forced to remain in Rome, I was appointed the Apostolic Administrator of the Prague diocese and thus became the only bishop who could perform the office of archpastor, albeit under the harsh and thorough control of the state. The state was at that time quite satisfied with the accomplished degree of liquidation of religion. It wanted to continue this task, but chose a different tactic, a hidden liquidation, which would be less apparent to the foreign public. The goal did not change, only the means. (Translated from Czech by the author, Tomášek 1991)

Three examples demonstrate the brutality of the communist regime toward religious figures. The Babice Case, which resulted in the death penalty for three Catholic priests (Jan Bula, Vaclav Drbola, and Frantisek Paˇril) began in July 1951 with the assassination of three minor communist officials in the Moravian village of Babice, but then resulted in multiple show trials involving manufactured charges of anti-state activity for more than one hundred persons, eleven of whom were sentenced to death. Drbola and Paˇril were executed in Jihlava in August 1951 and Bula was hanged in May 1952. The national Church considers that they died as martyrs and the Brno diocese has prepared their beatification, with ˇ documents being submitted to the Vatican in 2015 (Cerný 2015). Another well-known case involved priest Josef Toufar, who died in February 1951 after being tortured by the police. The incident was

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ˇ sparked by the Cihošt’ Miracle, which occurred in December 1949 in ˇ the remote Czech village of Cihošt’ when a wooden cross situated on the main altar was seen to move spontaneously during a Sunday service in the Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. The attention generated by this still unexplained event resulted in the arrest and torture of the village priest Josef Toufar, who presided over the service. The priest was tortured in order to testify that he faked the miracle which became increasingly uncomfortable to the atheistic communist authorities. Toufar ultimately died as a result of severe beating. The incident was the focus of Mirakl (The Miracle Game), a novel published in 1972 in exile by the famous Czech writer Josef Škvorecký. The final example is that of senior members of the Catholic Church hierarchy. Cardinal Štˇepán Trochta, Bishop of Litomˇeˇrice, was imprisoned both in Nazi concentration camps during World War II and in communist prisons during the 1950s.4 The ailing bishop died on April 6, 1974, suffering a stroke the day after the prolonged abusive visit of an intoxicated regional Church Secretary Karel Dlabal, a communist official with ˇ supervisory powers. The elderly Bishop of Ceské Budˇejovice Josef Hlouch died in June 1972 as a result of beatings he received the previous day while being interrogated by the secret police (StB) in the presence of the regional Church Secretary Leo Drozdek (Dostatní and Šubrt 2011, 84).5 The circumstances of Cardinal Trochta’s death were ironic, since he was regarded as a “progressive” bishop open to collaboration with the communist regime. The only major religious institution which fared worse than the Catholic Church in communist Czechoslovakia was the Greek Catholic Church. This Church, with its strong base in eastern Slovakia, was in full communion with the Vatican, recognizing the authority of the pope. In 1950, following the Soviet example in Ukraine, the Greek Catholic Church was outlawed and forcibly fused with the Czechoslovak Orthodox Church. Its bishops and many of its priests were imprisoned. In 1968, the Church was formally revived during the Prague Spring, without ever regaining most of the church buildings it lost to the Orthodox Church. For various reasons, other Christian denominations were more accepted and even useful to the communist regime and thus they escaped religious persecution. The Czechoslovak Orthodox Church received special treatment from the communist authorities due to its ties to the Russian Orthodox Church which accepted collaboration with the Soviet

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regime. As Ludvik Nˇemec wrote, “the authorities were encouraged by the history of the Orthodox Church’s subordination to state authority in Russia and the Balkans” (1988, 264). The Orthodox Church had also been a willing partner in the liquidation of the Greek Orthodox Church in Slovakia, from which it greatly benefitted. Similarly, the regime tolerated the Czechoslovak Hussite Church partly because Jan Hus, who stood at the heart of the national Church’s ideology, was a historical figure embraced by the regime, fitting into the narrative of anti-western nationalism and class struggle. This could be seen, for example, in the rebuilding in Prague’s Old Town of the fourteenth-century Bethlehem Chapel (Betlémská kaple), a venue where Jan Hus preached. In addition, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church originated as a reformist breakaway movement from the Roman Catholic Church and willingly cooperated with the atheistic regime. Its long-serving leader, theologian Miroslav Novak, closely collaborated with the communist regime and even joined the Communist Party.6 Thus, under the communist regime the Catholic Church was the main target of repression and a main source of resistance.

Collaboration and Resistance Mandated by Marxist–Leninist ideology, the newly established communist regime sought to destroy religious institutions and practice in the country or at least to make them fully subservient to the authorities. Since the brutality of repression against the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia was more intense than elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, opportunities for resistance were limited. In a number of cases, the proactive and open cooperation of religious figures with the communist authorities and willingness to embrace communist ideological goals led to condemnation, but the clergy and the Catholic Church hierarchy only passively cooperated with the regime so as to protect the believers and prevent the complete destruction of the Church. One can argue that during a regime that was blatantly brutal and openly atheistic, any pursuit of religious activity by clergymen, members of the monastic orders, and ordinary believers, regardless of how timid or discreet it was, should be considered an act of moral resistance. The most glaring case of collaboration was that of priest Josef Plojhar, ˇ who helped to turn the Czechoslovak People’s Party (Ceskoslovenská strana lidová), a democratic clerical formation created in 1919 through the fusion of several Catholic parties, into a compliant tool in the hands

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of the authorities that was anchored to the regime through its membership in the National Front (Národní fronta). Plojhar ignored the Church directive to give up his political activity and, as a result, he was excommunicated from the Catholic Church in 1948. He became the foremost example of a collaborator within the Catholic community.7 The regime also created parallel organizations for clergymen and believers in order to secure their compliance and loyalty. This began in 1949 with the creation of the Catholic Action (Katolická akce), which soon counted 1,500 clergymen, several thousand lay Catholics and four bishops, but quickly lost much of its membership when the Roman Catholic Church threatened them with excommunication (Kaczmarek 2017, 108–109). The Catholic Action’s failure to recruit lay Catholics was followed in 1950 by the conference of “patriotic priests” (vlasteneˇctí knˇeží ) organized at Velehrad and the creation of an organization of loyal clergy the following year. The National Committee of Catholic Clergy (Celostátní mírový výbor katolického duchovenstva) attracted 1,700 delegates during its first congress in 1951 (Kaczmarek 2017, 109). In 1966, the Committee became the Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy (Mírové hnutí katolického duchovenstva), headed by Plojhar. During the Prague Spring, this organization was dissolved. During the normalization era of the 1970s and 1980s, the regime revived its efforts to create an organization of “loyal” clergy. In 1971, the Association of Catholic Clergy Pacem in terris (Sdruženi katolických duchovních Pacem in terris ) was set up. By using the name of the 1963 encyclical of Pope John XXIII, the Association secured the membership of 726 priests in the Czech lands, that is, one-third of the Catholic clergy, during its first two years of activity (Kaczmarek 2017, 109). Cardinal Tomášek banned Catholics from participating in the Association in 1982, after the Vatican’s worldwide ban on clergy membership in political organizations. The ban resulted in an exodus of members but the organization continued its activity until December 1989. Outside the Catholic Church, the best-known pro-regime initiative was the Christian Peace Conference (Kˇrestanská mírová konference), an international organization dedicated to religious dialogue during the Cold War. The Conference, founded in 1958 and led by the prominent Czech Protestant theologian Josef Lukl Hromádka, was based in Prague. As was the case with many other institutional expressions of the world peace

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movement, this Conference was used by the communist regime for propaganda purposes. It was allegedly created as a tool of the Soviet KGB funded by the Russian Orthodox Church (Hrubá 2008). During the early 1950s, around 500 priests actively supported the communist regime, while “1,750 priests were publicly noncommittal on church-state matters, and another 700 remained openly hostile” (Reban 1990, 150). One-tenth of all priests cooperated with the secret police, the StB (Fiala 2007, 39). Many priests were pressured to cooperate by the state authorities and the communist regime wielded multiple instruments of control over religious institutions and personnel. For example, the land reform law of 1946 stripped religious organizations of their land and, as such, the Czechoslovak Catholic Church and its clergy became almost completely dependent financially on the government. In addition, in 1950 the authorities required all priests to formally pledge allegiance to the state, and only 16 of the 2,916 clergymen refused to do so. By itself, the pledge was not an act of collaboration, since it was needed to retain permission from the state to carry out priestly duties. In other words, forced cooperation with the authorities did not always turn priests into collaborators. Only those Catholic priests who actively collaborated with the regime, such as Josef Plojhar, were regarded by the Church with contempt as apostates (odpadlíci). There were no collaborators among the Catholic bishops appointed before 1948 but, after their detention, only one of the thirteen Czechoslovak dioceses had a resident bishop in mid-1972. The situation changed the following year when the Vatican gave in to the demands of the communist regime and allowed the appointment of four new bishops: the Czech Josef Vrána and the three Slovak bishops Jozef Feranec, Ján Pazstor, and Julius Gábriš. All four were either members of Pacem in Terris, with Bishop Vrána serving as its presiding officer or of the earlier Peace Movement of the Catholic Clergy (Ramet 1998, 125). Vrána, who served as the Apostolic Administrator of the Olomouc archdiocese, had a tense relationship with Cardinal Tomášek and collaborated with the communist regime. For those reasons, he came to be regarded as another symbol of active pro-communist collaboration.8 Cardinal Tomášek became a deeply revered symbol of the anticommunist opposition, although in 1965 the communist regime selected him as head of the Prague archdiocese expecting that he will comply with the authorities. In fact, he was once memorably described as “a fearful bishop and a courageous cardinal” (Beránek 2002, 45). His initial

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reluctance to decisively confront the Pacem in Terris, a reluctance shared by the Litomˇeˇrice Bishop Trochta, caused unhappiness and dissension among the more anti-regime priests. His eventual successor as Archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Dominik Duka, described this situation as such: “I do not assume that Cardinal Trochta or Bishop Tomášek intended to collaborate. They were simply helpless!” (Dostatní and Šubrt 2011, 117). A fundamental change came with the election of a fellow Slav, the Krakow Cardinal Karol Wojtyla, as Pope John Paul II in 1978. Gradually, the careful Cardinal Tomášek began to gather strength and resolution, being inspired by the Polish anti-communist pope and a series of national religious events with large popular participation. Among them was the National Pilgrimage (Národní pout’ ) to Velehrad, where hundreds of thousands of faithful marked the 1,100th anniversary of the death of St. Methodius and turned the occasion into an anti-communist protest. In 1987, Cardinal Tomášek launched a pastoral initiative called The Decade of Spiritual Renewal of the Nation (Desetiletí duchovní obnovy národa) in advance of the approaching millennial celebration of the death in 997 of the nation’s patron saint, Saint Adalbert of Prague. Cardinal Tomášek’s participation in the events occasioned by the canonization of St. Agnes of Bohemia, which concluded just before the Velvet Revolution, showed his increasing revolutionary spirit. Ultimately, the 90-year-old cardinal, who a decade earlier refused to sign the Charter 77, became a key actor of the Velvet Revolution. His legacy was sealed when on 25 November 1989 in the St. Vitus Cathedral of Prague he declared: “in this important hour of struggle for truth and justice in our country, both I and the entire Catholic Church stand on the side of the nation” (Halík 2018, 170). During the last years of communism, a remarkable group of clerics formed an advisory group around the cardinal. Foremost among them were Vaclav Malý, the future Auxiliary Bishop of Prague, the Spokesman for Charter 77 in 1981–1982, and prominent theologian Tomáš Halík, who initiated the Decade of Spiritual Renewal of the Nation. The most important weapon against the communist destruction and subordination of the Catholic Church was the so-called “underground church” (podzemní/skrytá církev), that is, the religious activities conducted during dictatorial times without the requisite approval of the state authorities. The growth of the “underground” Catholic Church structure in Czechoslovakia was multifaceted and often spontaneous, with only partially successful efforts to provide it with a hierarchical structure. The underground church was the answer to the shortage of priests

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and bishops and the legal constraints imposed on religious activities in the country. Beginning in 1949 and with the approval of the Vatican, several Catholic bishops were secretly consecrated. They included Kajetán Matoušek as the Auxiliary Bishop of the Prague archdiocese and future cardinals Frantisek Tomášek and Ján Chryzostom Korec. The “underground church” conducted pastoral work, theological training and publications, social activities organized by members of the monastic orders, and involvement by the Catholic laypersons. Among its key theologians were priests Josef Zvˇeˇrina, Oto Mádr, and Tomaš Halík. Its most substantive and controversial part was the secretive and tightly organized group Koinotés, formed by the charismatic Felix M. Davídek, a Roman Catholic bishop secretly consecrated in 1967. Bishop Davídek sought to build a structure parallel to the official Catholic Church that included its own bishops. Davídek consecrated fifteen bishops, who ordained 160 priests. Koinotés, which operated from 1967 until 1989, generated controversy by ordaining married priests and even women as deacons and priests (Fiala 2007, 44–45). According to the StB, during the 1980s, there were sixteen secret bishops, seventy-five secretly ordained priests and several hundred lay Catholic activists on the territory of the Czech Socialist Republic (Kaczmarek 2017, 114). While the “underground church” contributed significantly to the preservation of religious life in Czech and Slovak lands under totalitarian rule, it became a thorny issue for the Catholic hierarchy after 1989. The Czechoslovak Roman Catholic Church survived forty years of communist rule, repression and atheistic indoctrination, but the damage it suffered was far greater than initially anticipated. The country dazzles with thousands of Catholic churches, but they are almost empty of worshippers. The number of Roman Catholic faithful declined from 6.7 million in 1950 to 4 million in 1991. The number of priests halved between 1948 and 1987, while their average age increased significantly. Monastic orders often struggled to revive after 1989 (Kaczmarek 2017, 118). The postcommunist religious freedom offered opportunities, but also challenges, as seen in the attempted application of transitional justice to religious institutions and personnel.

Post-Communist Transitional Justice The unexpected collapse of the Czechoslovak communist regime in 1989 ushered in transitional justice, that is, “state and society efforts

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to come to terms with past human rights abuses” (Stan 2014, 1). For this chapter, this definition will also cover property restitutions as a way to remedy economic injury or injustice committed against the Catholic Church. As Roman David wrote, “the Czech Republic has implemented the most comprehensive transitional justice program in Central and Eastern Europe” (2015, 114), but most of this program, including lustration and criminal trials, completely bypassed the country’s religious denominations. Church property restitution constitutes an exception. Lustration and Court Trials In 1991, two years after the Velvet Revolution, Czechoslovakia passed the first lustration law in Central and Eastern Europe. It enabled “the examination of certain groups of people, especially politicians, public officials, and judges, to determine whether they had been members or collaborators of the secret police or held any other positions in the repressive apparatus of the totalitarian regime” (David 2011, 67). The law was intended to last for five years but after Czechoslovakia disintegrated it was extended indefinitely in the Czech Republic, while Slovakia allowed it to expire in 1996. Two related laws were also passed. The Great Lustration Act of October 1991 “barred certain categories of people from holding a range of positions in the state administration, in the armed forces, constitutional courts and state-owned enterprises (so-called protected positions). The categories of excluded people encompass, among others, StB officers and collaborators, high officials of the Communist Party, members of the People’s Militias or students of certain higher schools (so-called suspected positions)” (Bílková 2015, 2). Many high and middle-ranking officials lost their job as a result of lustration and candidates for employment in the “protected positions” underwent a screening process leading to a lustration certificate which indicated “whether a person was or was not an officer or a collaborator of the State Security Service during the communist period” (Bílková 2015, 3). A “positive” lustration certificate indicated past collaboration. The Small Lustration Act of June 1992 narrowly applied to “protected” positions in the police and prison services. Some 473,398 lustration certificates were issued by March 2009, of which 10,325 (2.18%) were positive (David 2011, 76). The law was controversial and its content was criticized by President Vaclav Havel, who opposed its extension. Lustration was also criticized for violating the human rights of individual subjects. Another

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controversial event was the release of Cibulka’s Lists (Cibulkovy seznamy), an incomplete and somewhat inaccurate list of StB secret collaborators made public by former dissident Petr Cibulka in 1992. It preceded the opening of secret files by the government. Several former prominent communist officials were prosecuted, with some of them being convicted and serving time in prison. In 1990, the former Prague municipal secretary of the Communist Party Miroslav Štepán (1945–2014) was sentenced for the violent suppression of mass demonstration during the Velvet Revolution. He spent fifteen months in prison. In 2004, the former communist trade union chief Karel Hoffman (1924–2013) was found guilty of facilitating the Soviet-led invasion of Czechoslovakia during August 1968 but spent less than a month in prison due to his old age and ill-health. The former General Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia Milos Jakeš and the former Czechoslovak Prime Minister Jozef Lenárt were charged with treason in connection with alleged acts of collaboration with the Soviet occupation authorities in August 1968 but were found not guilty in 2002.9 Ludmila Brožová-Polednová, one of the state prosecutors in the 1950 show trial of opposition politician Milada Horáková and her associates, was sentenced to prison in 2008, thus becoming the oldest prisoner in the country. After two years in prison, she was released at the age of eighty-nine on grounds of ill-health as part of the amnesty decreed by President Vaclav Klaus in 2010. The communist prosecutor Karel Vaš, a key figure in the 1949 trial of General Heliodor Pika, was indicted but died in 2012 without serving time in prison. The StB investigator Ladislav Mácha, who led the fatal torture of priest Josef Toufar, was sentenced to five years in prison in 1999, but served only one year because of his age. Neither lustration nor criminal justice touched the country’s religions. If subjected to lustration, the Orthodox Church and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, which openly cooperated with the communist regime, would lose much of their hierarchy and many priests. The fact that so many Czech and Slovak Orthodox bishops served as StB agents or collaborators had no impact on their religious careers. In a well-publicized case, Jaroslav Šuvarský, a senior figure in the Czech Orthodox Church, sued the Interior Ministry to clear his name of past involvement with the StB as an agent. In June 2017, a Prague court confirmed his collaboration in 1966–1989 (Pánek and Grach 2017). Šuvarský, a powerful Church leader, retained his post as director (protopresbyter) of the

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Prague Eparchy. In an unusual case, the Patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church Miroslav Novák, who enjoyed a close relationship with the communist state, had to resign after the Velvet Revolution due to the pressure of the Church’s ruling Central Council (ústˇredni rada). He gave up his post in May 1990, enjoying a dignified retirement as Patriarch Emeritus. Toleration of the collaboration of the Hussite clergy with the communist regime was voiced in 2002 by former Patriarch Vratislav Štepánek,10 whose name featured in the Cibulka register, when he responded to allegations that the Church hierarchy counted numerous StB agents: “I do not know that they were StB collaborators. If they, as StB collaborators, reported on their clergy, what should we conclude ten years after [the collapse of the communist regime]? Did these people serve the StB or the Church? All of them served the Church, not the StB. They had to defend the Church even from the StB” (Balovˇcík and Bendová 2002). His successor, Patriarch Jan Švarc, explained more bluntly that “during communism the Church could not–and this is well known—carry out its own personnel work. These matters were done on their behalf by the state, which directed the Church through the Church secretaries” (Balovˇcík and Bendová 2002).11 With the absence of lustration and screening in the Roman Catholic Church, other transitional justice measures dealt with the “underground church,” the rehabilitation and memorializing of the main church victims of communist terror, and the restitution of church property abusively confiscated by the communists. In the Czech Republic lustration introduced retribution, while reconciliatory measures were absent. David calls this the pursuit of “justice without reconciliation,” which seeks to “rectify injustices of the past” without considering “the need to repair social relations fractured by those injustices” (David 2018, 75). Turning to religion, one may instead argue that Roman Catholic resistance to lustration enabled “reconciliation without retribution and revelation” perhaps because both the Prague Archbishop and Czech Primate Cardinal Miloslav Vlk and the Archbishop of Olomouc and Moravian Metropolitan Jan Graubner were elevated to their posts after the Velvet Revolution, but neither served time in communist jails.12 In 1978, Cardinal Vlk was denied state authorization to work as a priest, gaining it just before the collapse of communism. He was forced to spend eight years working as a window washer. At one time, some of the church leaders favored internal lustration. On 1 February 2007, the newspaper Lidové noviny

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reported that Cardinal Vlk decided to address the problem of former StB agents within the Catholic Church through the Open Past (Otevˇrená minulos t) project that would establish a commission to reveal which priests were secret collaborators and why they spied. For that purpose, Cardinal Vlk met with the Interior Minister Ivan Langer and the Director of the Ministry’s archives Pavel Žácek. The project was initiated after the Polish Episcopal Council created a similar commission and the new Warsaw Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus resigned in 2007 when evidence of his involvement with the communist Polish secret police was publicly revealed (Lidovky 2007). It soon became clear how sensitive the project was for the Catholic Church hierarchy. On his private website, Cardinal Vlk partially denied the initiative, accusing the journalists of reporting lies and claiming that his meeting at the Interior Ministry was “a purely private event” aimed at understanding “the possibilities of using the archive” and discussing with “experts of the Christian academy, theological faculty and other Christian historians the persecution of the church during communist times.” He denied the intention to set up the commission and complained that the newspaper fomented a campaign against the Church, “alleging that we want to sweep matters under the rug, and attempting to blacken some bishops, divide us and set us against each other” (Monitor 2007). In time, the fate of the priests involved in the collaborationist Pacem in terris movement became less important than that of the “underground church.” The members of Pacem in terris were banned from occupying positions in the Church hierarchy as bishops but could continue their pastoral activities. As Bishop Malý stated in a volume of conversations with Josef Beránek, the tension between Pacem in terris and the remainder of the Church was the strongest during the 1980s (Beránek 2002, 46). When asked whether any group members held important Church positions, he answered that “the members of the movement are not in leading positions, but some leading posts are occupied by state security agents. The situation is unclear–there were agents even outside the movement, but not all movement members had been agents” (Beránek 2002, 46). He may have referred to his fellow Auxiliary Bishop of Prague František Lobkowicz, who was in 2006 revealed to be a StB agent during the 1980s. Bishop Lobkowicz, who denied the allegations, continues to serve as Bishop of Ostrava-Opava.13 Malý also articulated the prevailing tolerant view toward the Pacem in terris priests: “many priests self-sacrificed in parishes and the underground. They organized exercises

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and spiritual meetings for youth groups, which was very demanding. Even among the Pacem in terris members there were some ardent shepherds” (Beránek 2002, 44). Five years earlier, Cardinal Vlk voiced similar sentiments: Regarding the Pacem in terris members, there is a human problem here, a matter of personal atonement and self-admission of the truth, but no structural problem. Today, these people have no public or visible profile, and none have significant positions in the Czech Catholic Church. I remind our critics that, at least five of the thirteen members of the current Czech Bishops Conference were persecuted or even imprisoned by the former regime, and none of the current bishops belonged to Pacem in terris……This is not to deny that the participation of many hundreds of priests in Pacem in terris was a serious failure in the life of our church and I do not see it as a closed matter morally or theologically. I am merely stating that, from the viewpoint of the canon law, these people do not present a serious problem today. (Translated from Czech by the author, Zajíc 1997, 126)

The Underground Church According to Cardinal Vlk, the leaders of the official Church perceived the “underground church” as a greater challenge than the former Pacem in terris: “while morally we should thank these people—and our Bishops’s Conference did so in 1992—because many of them offered an exemplary testimony of Christian life during the previous decades, certain unsolved canonical issues have endured to date, including how to integrate these people into the contemporary church structures” (Zajíc 1997, 127). It has been argued that “the selective manner in which the problem of the secret church was officially addressed was inappropriate” (Fiala 2007, 45). The Church hierarchy, under the guidance of the Vatican, decided to include the “secret” underground priests and bishops into the official Church structures. However, its insistence on their “conditional ordination” required the retesting and reordination of these priests and bishops, thus questioning the validity of their previous pastoral work. Many priests found this unacceptable. Jan Bláha was the only secretly consecrated bishops recognized by the mainstream Church. The large community of Koinotés led by Bishop Felix M. Davídek, with its married bishops and women priests, was the largest and least accepted segment of the “underground church” (Fiala 2007, 45–46). After 1989, none of the fifteen

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bishops consecrated by Davídek won official acceptance and the married priests were reintegrated into the mainstream Church only as deacons. Under the leadership of Cardinal Vlk the Roman Catholic Church failed to take advantage of the pastoral strength of the “underground church” even as the Church was losing its membership and social status.14 Rehabilitations and Memorialization Judicial rehabilitations were carried out in virtue of the rehabilitation laws of 1968 and 1990, but the rehabilitation of those condemned by the communist courts on political grounds was halted when the Prague Spring reform movement was cut short by the Soviet-led invasion of 1968 and replaced by the “normalization” of Gustav Husák. By 1989, many victims of communist justice had already died. The Czech Supreme Court rehabilitated the three priests condemned to death in the Babice Case (Jan Bula, Václav Drbola, and František Paˇril) in 1996. Other victims of the Babice show trials who received prison terms had been rehabilitated in 1968. After 1989, the Church played a role in the rehabilitation of these priests by reversing their “degradation” (a canonical penalty depriving them of aspects of their ordination and reducing them to the state of laymen). The memorialization of the Catholic victims of communist repression has been conducted at the initiative of state or local communities or through Church action. For example, the body of the late Cardinal Beran, originally entombed in the crypt of Saint Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican, was returned to his homeland for a state burial in St. Vitus Cathedral (rededicated in 1997 to Saints Vitus, Wenceslaus and Adalbert) in April 2018. A memorial, consisting of a statue and an inscribed marble panel, was built for him in 2009 in the Prague district of Dejvice, outside the Catholic Theological Faculty of Charles University. A museum for Cardinal Trochta was inaugurated in his native village of Francova Lhota in 2015, to commemorate the 110th anniversary of his birth. A statue of Priest Josef Toufar, unveiled in 2017 in his former parish church, was created by prominent artist Olbram Zoubek, also the author of the famous Victims of Communism Memorial on Petˇrín hill in Prague. In 2014, Toufar’s remains were removed from a common grave and reburied with honors as part of his beatification. A “memorial room” opened in Jan Bula’s parish in Luka in 2016.

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Several Catholic martyrs are currently undergoing the process of beatification, perhaps made easier by the sustained production of saints under Pope John Paul II. Two of the three priests executed in the Babice case (Bula and Drbola) have been subject to beatification as martyrs. Their case has advanced to the Vatican. Toufar’s beatification process was started in 2013. Cardinal Beran’s beatification file was forwarded to the Vatican in 2018, although he did not die a martyr’s death (Oppelt 2018). In 2015, the Czech Bishop’s Conference approved a request for the beatification of ˇ the late Bishop of Ceské Budˇejovice Josef Hlouch that in 2018 gained the approval of the Vatican. In contrast, efforts to secure the beatification of Cardinal Trochta, considered an icon of Catholic martyrdom, were abandoned because Trochta had allegedly been “discredited by the StB” and also “liked women” (Prague Daily Monitor 2017). Property Restitution Relations between the Czechoslovak state and the Catholic Church differed during the “Era of Euphoria” of 1989–1990 and the “Era of Loss of Prestige” of 1990–1993 (Kaczmarek 2017, 239). The Roman Catholic Church emerged from the Velvet Revolution with an unsustainably high status, mainly due to the charisma of Cardinal Tomášek, who was, alongside President Vaclav Havel, an icon of the new national life in freedom. But the aged prelate retired in 1991 and died the next year. On January 1, 1993, Czechoslovakia was peacefully divided into two separate states and the new Prague Archbishop, the future Cardinal Vlk, embarked on long and confrontational negotiations with the state authorities over the restitution of Church property. This led to a significant decline in the public support for the church, which had only a few friends among political parties. The church’s interests were promoted mainly by the Christian and Democratic Union-Czechoslovak People’s Party (Kˇrest’anská a demokratˇ ická únie–Strana lidová, KDU-CSL), which secured around 8% of the vote in the 1996 parliamentary elections and was a minority partner in several coalition governments, while experiencing a rapidly declining membership. Church restitutions were designed to return, wherever possible, religious property taken away through nationalization by the communist regime. The first restitution law, the so-called Enumerative Law (výˇctový zákon) of July 1991, provided for the return of around 200 buildings, mostly monasteries. The restitution program became controversial when

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the Catholic Church rapidly sold some of those properties for profit. The New Scene (Nová Scéna), a modern “brutalist” annex of the National Theater in Prague, was turned over to the Company of St. Ursula. The Rožmital Chateau was sold to a foreign owner, ushering the monument’s closure, neglect, and progressive disrepair. It then took over a decade of hard negotiations and bad blood for the Catholic Church and the government to reach a comprehensive restitution deal. The tensions culminated in the eighteen-year-long legal dispute over the St. Vitus Cathedral in Prague, which the communists nationalized in 1954. The church has sought to regain ownership of the cathedral, despite public opposition. After Cardinal Vlk was replaced as Prague Archbishop by the future Cardinal Dominik Duka in 2010, the issue was quickly settled.15 To make his role as the leader of the country’s Catholic Church more relevant and acceptable to the mainstream Czech society Archbishop Duka withdrew a complaint to the Constitutional Court and agreed to the joint administration of the cathedral while giving up the claim to ownership (iRozhlas 2010). The task of securing a comprehensive religious restitution law has defied governments, as various restitution bills failed to secure parliamentary approval. In 1996, Cardinal Vlk complained about the deadlock: This state, especially in the past three years, after the division of Czechoslovakia, has been led in a pragmatic and focused way, due to the influence of strong personalities and strong parties on economic reform and restructuring. Values and their sources have been given minimum weight. Thus, insufficient weight has been given to the Church … church-state negotiations and the creation of the law defining church-state relations. … The Ministry of Culture is responsible for a new law on church-state relations. At least four times the Ministry revised the law but the government never discussed it. It was always swept under the table by ministers and ODS [Civic Democratic Party] majorities. This indicated, especially because the Prime Minister did not take part, that the government lacked interest in solving this issue. I am speaking only about the relationship between the Church and state, which connects with the property question. In essence, it is a sign of democracy and maturity to solve the injustices of the past inherited by the state, which must solve, not renege, them. (Translated from Czech by the author, Vlk 1996)

The restitution law was passed in November 2012 by the government of Prime Minister Petr Neˇcas, dominated by the ODS. According to the

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law, the seventeen eligible religious groups will get back 56% of their property held by the state, worth some US$3.7 billion, and receive until 2043 as much as US$ 2.9 billion in compensation for property that could not be returned. The Catholic Church will receive 80% of all the funds earmarked for compensation. By 2030, the state would gradually stop covering church expenses, including the priests’ salaries (The New York Times 2012). The ending of the reliance by religious organizations on the government will finally separate church from state in the Czech Republic. The law came into effect in January 2013. Many Czechs felt that too much money was allotted to church restitutions. As deputy Miroslav Grebeníˇcek of the Communist Party of Bohemia (Komunistická ˇ ˇ strana Cech a Moravy or KSCM) wrote in his controversial volume on church–state relations entitled In the Sign of the Cross (Ve znamení kˇríže): An entire generation of Czechs, Moravians and Silesians does not know the Catholic Church in any other way than as a loudmouth which only demands “its former property.” The spectacle which the church unleashed around the property negotiations with the Czech state displays its longing for property, cunningly veiled by words about justice and law. (Translated from Czech by the author, Grebeníˇcek 2018, 3)

The last chapter of the church restitution saga in the Czech Republic has yet to be written. In 2018, the coalition government of Prime ˇ Minister Andrej Babiš supported the KSCM proposal to tax compensations on the grounds that they were excessive. The ruling coalition had no choice but to support the communist proposal, which the Chamber of Deputies approved in January 2019. The law was also supported by Tomio Okamura’s Freedom and Direct Democracy Party (Svoboda ˇ a pˇrímá demokracie, SPD), but opposed by the KDU-CSL, the ODS, ˇ the Top 09, the Pirates (Ceská pirátská strana), and STAN (Mayors and Independents/Starostové a nezávislý). It was strongly condemned by ˇ Pavel Bˇelobrádek, the departing chairman of the KDU-CSL, and Cardinal Dominik Duka. Bˇelobrádek declared that the communists “undermine the rule of law” by sponsoring the restitution taxation bill (Parlamentní listy.cz 2018). In January 2019, Cardinal Duka invoked the communistera victims and chided the communists for criticizing the Catholic Church: “the Church does not consist of gluttonous prelates, but of citizens of this country who under Nazism and communism worked and tolerated persecution and you deprived them of their homes, farms or

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property” (iRozhlas 2019). The Senate rejected the bill, but the Chamber of Deputies overrode the Senate vote in April 2019. It was expected that the state would gain 380 million Czech crowns annually by taxing church restitutions (Zpˇeváˇcková 2019). The law was scheduled to take effect in 2020, but retroactively apply to 2013. Forty senators petitioned the Constitutional Court against the constitutionality of the government’s attempt to revise an agreement already concluded with religious orgaˇ nizations (Ceské noviny 2019). Another petition to the Court, prepared by sixty-two opposition deputies in 2019, focused on the injustice of a taxation scheme that would mainly disadvantage the smaller religious groups, such as the Federation of Jewish Communities (Právo 2019, 4).16 The potential loss of income could inconvenience the Roman Catholic Church. The sponsor of the law, Miroslav Grebeníˇcek, told the Chamber of Deputies in March 2019: The justified demand for the taxation of the immoral Church restitutions is not just the business of the communists and is not contradicting the constitutional order, as some senators claimed. It is legitimate, legal, justified and just…Is taxation of an immoral gift to the churches, paid with taxpayers’ money, a crime? In the name of the majority of citizens who do not claim allegiance to the churches that were gifted with property and money by the state, I ask: To what degree is in compliance with the biblical Ten Commandments and with good morals the continuously stretched out hand of especially the Roman Catholic Church and the reality that, even after gaining huge property and financial gift from the state, the majority of non-Catholic citizens - not just Church members - must provide the salary of the priests and satisfy the religious needs and services of the Catholic faithful? ˇ 2019) (Translated from Czech by the author, Parliament CR

ˇ Although voiced by a hardline KSCM member,17 this argument found a receptive audience among much of the largely atheistic and secular Czech population. In October 2019, the Constitutional Court decided to abolish the tax on church restitutions (Ústavni soud 2019).

Conclusion Since 1989, there has been a disconnect between the way in which transitional justice was accomplished at the level of state and society, on one hand, and within religious institutions, on the other hand. While

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the official transitional justice process has ranked among the widest and most efficient in Central and Eastern Europe, in the case of religious groups it has been restricted to property restitution. The churches that had most actively collaborated with the communist regime, such as the Orthodox Church and the Czechoslovak Hussite Church, have avoided screening and punishment of collaborators. The situation has not been much different within the country’s Roman Catholic Church, which represented the most significant societal force that escaped complete submission to the communist authorities and suffered dreadful repression as a result. However, after the Velvet Revolution, the church chose inner reconciliation rather than retribution in dealing with collaborationist clergy, including the members of the Pacem in terris movement. It has sought to memorialize some of the most renowned victims of communist repression by seeking their beatification. But, as its role as a social force declined in a country that rapidly became one of the most atheistic in the world, its efforts focused on the restitution of church property. Restitution was eventually secured after almost thirty years of negotiations with the government, but a part of the financial compensation the Church received in lieu of some of its former properties was recently endangered by a bill seeking to tax this church income. It remains to be seen whether the influx of funds to the Roman Catholic Church will impact its status and role in the Czech society.

Notes 1. Klement Gottwald (1896–1953) led the February 1948 communist coup d’état in Czechoslovakia. 2. Prior to his detention by the communist regime, Cardinal Josef Beran (1888–1969) spent much of the World War II in Nazi prisons and concentration camps. 3. Cardinal František Tomášek (1899–1992) served as Apostolic Administrator of the Prague Archdiocese in 1965–1977, as well as Archbishop of Prague and Czech Catholic Primate in 1977–1991. 4. Cardinal Štˇepán Trochta (1905–1974), served as Bishop of Litomˇerˇice after 1947 and was named a cardinal in pectore by Pope Paul VI in 1969. His status was revealed publicly in 1973. He is now regarded as one of the main symbols of anti-communist resistance and an iconic victim of the communist rule. ˇ 5. Josef Hlouch (1902–1972) served as Bishop of Ceské Budˇejovice in 1947–1972, but was interned by the communist regime in 1950–1963.

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6. Theologian Miroslav Novák (1907–2000) served as Patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church in 1961–1990. 7. Josef Plojhar (1902–1981) served as Chairman of the People’s Party in 1951–1968 and Czechoslovakia’s Minister of Health in 1948–1968. In 1957, he prepared the legislation permitting abortion on demand. 8. Bishop Josef Vrána (1905–1987) was Apostolic Administrator of the Olomouc Archdiocese in 1973–1987, and Honorary Chairman of Pacem in terris in 1971–1973. Because of his pro-regime sympathies, the Vatican prevented his appointment as Archbishop of Olomouc. 9. Miloš Jakeš (1922–2020) was the General Secretary of the Czechoslovak Communist Party (1987–1989), being ousted during the Velvet Revolution. Jozef Lenárt (1923–2004) was the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia (1963–1968) and the First Secretary of the Slovak Communist Party (1970–1987). 10. Vratislav Štepánek (1930–2013) was Patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (1991–1994). 11. Jan Švarc (born 1958) was Patriarch of the Czechoslovak Hussite Church (2001–2005). At various points in his life, he defied the communist authorities. 12. Jan Graubner (born 1948) has been Archbishop of Olomouc and Moravian Metropolitan since 1992. Cardinal Miloslav Vlk (1932–2017) was Archbishop of Prague and Primate of the Czech Roman Catholic Church (1991–2010). 13. František Lobkowicz served as Auxiliary Bishop of Prague (1990–1996) and Bishop of the Ostrava-Opava diocese since 1996. 14. In June 1996, I interviewed Cardinal Miloslav Vlk at his home. During the evening, he received a lengthy phone call and I unwittingly overheard a conversation about the underground church. 15. Cardinal Dominik Duka (born 1943), a former political prisoner, has been Archbishop of Prague and Czech Primate since 2010. 16. The Constitutional Court rejected the Chamber of Deputies petition in June 2019. The Court did not rule in this matter at the time of this writing. 17. Miroslav Grebeníˇcek (born 1947) was Chairman of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (KSCM) in 1993–2005. He remains an active member of the Chamber of Deputies.

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ˇ Kaczmarek, Hieronim. 2017. Stát a církev. Ceský pˇrípad. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury. Lidovky.cz. 2007. Vlk chce lustrovat knˇeze (1 February) at https://lidovky.cz/ domov/vlk-chce-lustrovat-kneze.A070201_090325_In_domov_bat. Accessed 20 May 2019. Monitor. 2007. Kardinál Vlk odmítá proticírkevní kampan’ Lidových novin, at https://rcmonitor.cz/cr/2351-kardinal-vlk-odmita-proticirkevni-kampanlidovych-novin. Accessed 20 May 2019. Nˇemec, Ludvík. 1988. The Czechoslovak Orthodox Church. In Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century, ed. Pedro Ramet, 251–266. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Oppelt, Robert. 2018. Kardinál Beran má blíž k blahoslavení, cˇ ekají i muˇcedníci z dob totality (20 May), iDnes, at https://www.idnes.cz/zpravy/domaci/ cirkev-svatoreceni-cesti-svati-vatikan-mucednici-z-totality.A180518_090922_ domaci_Ire. Accessed 15 May 2019. Pánek, Jiˇri, and Tomáš Grach. 2017. Pravoslavný dˇekan chtˇel oˇcistit své jméno. Neuspˇel, byl agentem StB (27 June), iDnes, at https://www.idnes.cz/ zpravy/domaci/pravoslavny-knez-stb-soud.A170622_161057_domaci_pku. Accessed 30 April 2019. ˇ Parlament Ceské republiky. 2019. Poslanecká snˇemovna, Digitální knihovna, Stenoprotokoly, 27.schuze, ˚ pátek 15 3. 2019, speech of Miroslav Grebeníˇcek (provided to the author by Miroslav Grebeníˇcek). Parlamentní Listy.cz. 2018. Zdanˇení církevních restitucí je o krok bliž. Komunisté neuspˇeli. Bˇelobrádek se zlobí (5 September) at https://www.parlament nilisty.cz/arena/monitor/Zdaneni-cirkevnich-restituci-je-okrok-bliz-Komuni ste-uspeli-Belobradek-se-zlobi-550305. Accessed 18 February 2019. Prague Daily Monitor. 2017. LN: Czech Republic Has 18 Candidates for Catholic Saints (16 January) at http://www.praguemonitor.com/2017/ 01/16/In-czech-republic-has-18-candidates-catholic-saints. Accessed 15 May 2019. Právo. 2019. “ Další návrh poslancu˚ proti zdanˇení církví” (7 June). Author Copy. Ramet, Sabrina P. 1998. Nihil Obstat. Religion, Politics and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Reban, Milan J. 1990. The Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia. Catholicism and Politics in Communist Societies, ed. Pedro Ramet, 60–78. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Stan, Lavinia. 2014. Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Romania. The Politics of Memory. Cambridge University Press. Šustrová, Petruška, and Josef Mlejnek. 2013. Dˇelnický Prezident Klement Gottwald (8 January) in Moderní Dˇejiny, at http://www.moderni-dejiny.cz/ clanek/delnicky-prezident-klement-gottwald/. Accessed 18 May 2019.

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The New York Times. 2012. Czech Republic: Churches to Get Restitution for Seized Property (11 January) at https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/12/ world/europe/czech-republic-churches-to-get-restitution-for-seized-property. html. Accessed 15 May 2019. Tomášek, František (cardinal). 1991. Written Interview with the Author (21 June). Prague. Tomek, Prokop. 2019. Obˇeti komunistického režimu. In Úˇrad dokumentace a ˇ vyšetrování zloˇcinu˚ komunismu, Policie Ceské republiky at https://www.policie. cz/clanek/obeti-komunistickeho-rezimu.aspx. Accessed 18 May 2019. Ústavní soud. 2019. Ústavní soud zrušil zdanˇení církevních restitucí (15 October) at https://www.usoud.cz/aktualne/ustavni-soud-zrusil-zdaneni-cir kevnich-restituci/. Accessed 24 October 2019. Vlˇcek, Vojtˇech. 2014. Muˇcedníci komunismu—kneží, ˇreholníci (17 June) in Moderní Dˇejiny, at http://www.moderni-dejiny.cz/clanek/mucednici-kom unismu-knezi-reholnici/. Accessed 18 May 2019. Vlk, Miloslav (cardinal). 1996. Interview with the Author (12 June). Prague. Zajic, Jiˇri. 1997. Rozhovory s kardinálem Miloslavem Vlkem. Prague: Blízka setkaní. Zpˇeváˇcková, Barbara. 2019. Snˇemovna pˇrehlasovala veto senátu a schválila zdanˇení církevních restitucí (23 April) Novinky.cz, at https://www.novinky. cz/domaci/503081-snemovna-prehlasovala-veto-senatu-a-schvalila-zdanenicirkevnich-restituci.html. Accessed 16 May 2019.

CHAPTER 4

Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past Pavol Jakubˇcin

This chapter looks at two of the most influential, and in terms of members, largest churches in the Slovak Republic. From the 1945 unitl 1992 Slovakia was part of the Czechoslovak state. Therefore, on the one hand, the life and institutions described here were the same for the entire Czechoslovakia, and on the other hand, Slovakia accounted for the most religious area of the common state, in which church and religion had a very significant social status. Thus, many measures taken by the Communist Party and government against the churches had different resulting effects in the eastern part of the state (Slovakia) than in the western part (Czechia). Today the Roman Catholic Church is the leading church in Slovakia, accounting for approximately 62% of the Slovak population. The second largest church in Slovakia is the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (Lutheran), which accounts for 6% of the total Slovak population (Sˇcítanie obyvateˇlov, domov a bytov 2011).

P. Jakubˇcin (B) Katedra histórie, Filozofická fakulta, Trnavská Univerzita v Trnave, Trnava, Slovakia e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_4

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This chapter focuses on historical facts of coexistence of the abovementioned churches in Slovakia with the totalitarian communist regime in Czechoslovakia. The topic shall be divided in two separate parts, which are very closely linked together, influencing and supplementing each other. The first part will discuss efforts of the communist state to take control over the churches using a variety of coercive measures. These liquidating and restricting measures affected both above-mentioned churches. The second part describes the efforts of the state to attract members of the churches for mutual cooperation. It is obvious that, in this case, the main motive of the state was to gain control over the churches, alongside other motives such as a desire to bring conflict into the churches.

Repression and Persecution After 1945, communists played a crucial role in the Czechoslovak government. In part due to the religiosity of the population, the communists regarded the Slovak Catholic Church with great distrust and concern. Prominent members of the Communist Party knew that specifically in Slovakia, where faith in God and the church was traditionally high, they had to win the elections by appealing to the majority of the Catholic voters. To reach this aim they tried, and eventually succeeded, to gain public support from many priests. In the meantime, though, many actions of the mainly communist part of the state power took place, which aimed to weaken the influence of churches particularly in the Slovak part of the federation (Petranský 2001, 102–108). In February 1948, the communist coup d’état took place in Czechoslovakia and, as a result of it, the Communist Party gained full political power in the state. In the following months, political purges were implemented at all levels of the society, through which the new state authorities tried to eliminate their real or potential opponents. Basically, churches remained the only force that the state power viewed as its main organized enemy. During the first months after the coup d’état the state power needed to stabilize its position, and therefore it tried to avoid open confrontation with the churches, which had retained their popularity. At the same time, however, it sought to gain public support from the church representatives or, at a minimum, to make sure they would not frankly and openly express any negative anti-regime attitudes. The communists

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perceived public support from the Roman Catholic Church as extraordinarily important because this church had the most influence in society. The Catholic bishops tried to avoid any public statements of loyalty, but at the same time, they did not want to enter into any rough confrontation with the state power. In their statements, the bishops declared that the church was not linked to any political or state authority. In March 1948, representatives of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (ECAC) issued a statement, in which they also did not openly support the new regime. Instead, they declared that they will support all steps of the new government leading to the material, moral, and spiritual uplift of humanity (Pešek and Barnovský 1997, 31–34). Besides the efforts to gain the public support of churches, the state authorities also started to increasingly pressurize the churches to allow some clergy members to become politically involved. Catholic bishops radically refused any political activity for themselves and their priests, a decision which partially resulted from the negative experiences they had with the church’s political involvement in the previous eras. Despite the bishops’ refusal to allow for political involvement of the clergy, the communist leaders managed to attract to their side a small group of priests who were willing to stand against their bishops’ decisions and who accepted political functions after the parliamentary elections of May 1948. Gradually, these priests managed to shape a group that in the following years persistently defended collaboration with the communist state power. In June 1948, in an attempt to solve these and many other controversial issues in the relationship between church and state, the bishops initiated negotiations between the representatives of the state and those of the Catholic Bishops’ Council. On the one hand, the state wanted to use those negotiations to demonstrate its goodwill toward churches; on the other hand, it exerted pressure on church representatives and multiplied its coercive interventions against churches. This, for example, included the confiscation of church properties in the fall of 1948. At the end of that same year, the publication of forty-seven religious magazines was canceled in Slovakia (of which twenty-seven magazines had been published by the Catholic Church and fifteen by the ECAC). By then, periodicals that had been published before were censored and regulated in their contents. Also, the activity of youth clubs was banned. All these interventions afflicted both Catholic and Lutheran Churches. Despite the ongoing negotiations mentioned above, tension between the churches and the state increased. Repressive attacks against priests,

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religious, or laity were more and more frequent, and the radio and printed press escalated the campaign aimed against the Vatican and Pope Pius XII. Nevertheless, both sides (that is, representatives of the churches as well as those of the state) admitted that the negotiations could still result in an agreement. The negotiations lasted almost a year and ended in the spring of 1949 without any significant outcome. Several weeks later, the leadership of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia approved a new policy toward the churches. The aim of that short-term strategy was to bring lower-level clergy members into conflict with their bishops and subsequently to get the priests on the side of the communists. The long-term strategy aimed at separating the Roman Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia from the Holy See and at creating a national church that could be immediately controlled and taken advantage of by the communist regime (Pešek 1997, 81–101). The first measure prepared after the failure of the negotiations was represented by the efforts of the state to demand the establishment of a movement militating for the “revival of lay activity” in the Catholic Church. Thanks to this movement it should have been possible to exert even greater pressure on the bishops to come to an agreement with the state. The movement was founded at the beginning of June 1949 and was named Catholic Action, although this abusively echoed the name used by Pope Pius XI in his encyclical entitled Ubi arcano Dei. The Catholic Action movement initiated by the Czechoslovak communist authorities was organized along party and state lines, but to outsiders it looked like a spontaneous movement initiated by Catholic lay believers. However, Catholic Action suffered a complete fiasco mainly in Slovakia primarily as a result of the joint actions of the priests and bishops. In June 1949, the Catholic bishops issued a pastoral letter, in which they warned the faithful about efforts of the state to take over and restrict the church (Hal’ko 2004). Another attempt of the state to take over churches was the preparation of a series of laws and governmental regulations which would have ensured the complete administrative subordination of the churches to the state. These laws were unanimously passed by the National Assembly in Prague in October 1949. Based on these laws, the State Office for Church Affairs was established as a central state body, which supervised the activities of all churches and religious communities present in Czechoslovakia, a phenomenon encountered in most other communist countries. The Office became the top state body, which fully implemented the policies of

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the Communist Party toward churches, while keeping in check the church hierarchy. Each priest working in a parish was forced to be in touch with this Office. As a result of this institutional change, the paralyzed church hierarchy was forced to become a passive observer, who often was allowed only to rubber-stamp with its own signature decisions already made by the state bodies. The priests found that there were two authorities to which they needed to listen and which were standing opposite to each other: the church superiors, and the Office for Church Affairs (Bulínová, Janišová and Kaplan 1994, 13–14). The second law that was passed at the time, the Act on the Economic Security of Churches and Religious Societies, ensured that the communist state would take over and cover all of the church costs, including salaries of the clergy and maintenance of church buildings. Of course, the state authorities presented this new step as proof of its goodwill and compensation for properties that churches had lost during the land reform. However, the most important stipulation of this legislative act imposed preconditions for allowing priests to conduct pastoral work. Each priest had to be issued a state license and had to take an oath of loyalty to the communist state. The result was that, thanks to the Act on the Economic Security of Churches and Religious Societies, the state managed to intrude into the structure of the churches, take over their economic life, and exert complete control over their personnel issues. The Act showed very clearly that the state power favored such control, because these laws remained valid without amendments until after the collapse of the communist regime in 1990 (Letz 2001, 136). The communist representatives were aware that, in order to take over the national Catholic Church, they had to control the key persons in the life of the church—the bishops. However, since the Holy See refused to appoint bishops from among the priests who were collaborating with the state authorities, the communists tried to appoint the former at least to positions of vicars capitular, that is, temporary administrators of individual dioceses. Among further efforts to weaken the Catholic Church, the communist state power organized the elimination of male, and later also female, religious orders. The interventions carried names such as Action “K” (Kláštory—Monasteries) and Action “R” (Rehoˇlníˇcky—Nuns). Immediate preparation for these interventions was a fabricated judicial trial with ten representatives of individual religious orders, who in the spring of 1950 had been sentenced to long years of imprisonment for high

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treason and espionage on behalf of the Vatican. It was the State Security who led the whole Action “K,” in collaboration with members of the armed forces. At midnight on April 13–14, 1950 the intervening units, armed with rifles, automatic guns, light machine guns, and gas candles, broke into the monasteries. The monks and priests were interned in the so-called “concentration monasteries.” In Slovakia, these events targeted 1,180 monks and priests living in seventy-six monasteries. In the whole Czechoslovakia, Action “K” affected 2,420 monks and priests living in 220 religious houses and monasteries. At many sites in Slovakia, the intervention against the male religious orders led to significant civilian protests; however, due to armed units, all protests were quickly eliminated. The regime in the so-called concentration monasteries followed rules very similar to the prison ones. At the end of August 1950, the communist regime focused also on female religious orders, even though in this case the liquidation process was a bit more moderate. However, in about fifteen places in Slovakia citizens gathered in greater numbers to express their disagreement with the dismantling of female religious communities. At places where the citizens occupied the cloisters and did not let the state authorities to take away the nuns, the takeover action was repeated during the night, with the assistance of armed forces. As a result of Action “R,” 1,962 nuns were interned and 137 properties were occupied throughout Slovakia. However, more than 1,600 religious sisters were allowed to work in hospitals, since the regime was unable to find adequate lay substitution for them (Dubovský 1998). Another further cruel action of the state power unfolded in 1950, when the complete liquidation of the Greek Catholic Church in Slovakia took place and that church was forcibly “united” with the Orthodox Church. In order to gain control over the theological and spiritual formation of young theology students, that same year the state authorities took measures toward closing of theological seminaries in individual dioceses. As a result, there was only one Faculty of Theology with a seminary left in Bratislava, and even those were significantly influenced and controlled by the state authorities. Some of the cruelest crackdowns against the Roman Catholic Church were represented by the show trials launched against its bishops. In January 1951, three Slovak bishops were sentenced in a joint trial. The Bishop of Spiš, Ján Vojtaššák, was sentenced to twenty-five years in prison; the Auxiliary Bishop of Trnava, Michal Buzalka, and Prešov’s Greek Catholic Bishop, Pavol Gojdiˇc, were both sentenced to life imprisonment,

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which was later reduced to twenty-five years. The whole trial was carefully orchestrated in advance and therefore the bishops, after weeks of physical and psychological torture, publicly “confessed” to committing crimes of high treason and espionage. However, there were additional objectives that the state authorities tried to obtain from this trial. The most important goal was to scare other bishops who lived in isolation, to deepen the distrust between bishops and priests, to discredit the church hierarchy in the eyes of the general public, and to unveil the Vatican as a tool of international “imperialism.” In addition to the show trials of members of the bishop’s assembly, there were many other trials involving priests and active laity. One of the reactions of the Catholic Church to the wave of stateled persecutions that unfolded at the beginning of 1950s was its moving into illegality and the creation of secret structures that were supposed to remain hidden from the state power. During this period, a series of secret ordinations of priests and bishops took place in Slovakia, resulting in a new line of secret bishops. Such secretly ordained bishops included Jesuits Pavol Hnilica, Ján Chryzostom Korec, Dominik Kaˇlata, Peter Dubovský, and others (Balík and Hanuš 2007, 67–71). After the death of Stalin in 1953, there was a mild thaw of state pressure toward churches. The leading communist representatives came to believe that individual churches were no longer a serious threat to the state power. At the end of the 1950s and the beginning of the 1960s, however, another series of show trials was launched against church representatives. The restored anti-church state policy of that period was accompanied by an intensification of atheist propaganda among all segments of the population. Due to mainly ideological reasons, all Christian symbols and names were removed from social life. In 1960, the historical Slovak coat of arms was also changed. The double cross as a Christian symbol was replaced by a silhouette of Mt. Krivánˇ and three flames. The change further affected the names of many towns and villages in Slovakia, as all the names comprising the adjective “Saint” (Svätý) were changed. In the late 1960s, the political and social situation in the state gradually loosened again. A milder attitude of the state toward churches was evident during the spring of 1968, when the Prague Spring was unfolding. During those months, many religious activists were released from prison, the life of religious orders was partly restored, the pressure

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against religious education was reduced, censorship of the press was minimalized, and publishing activities were allowed to redevelop. Moreover, a greater number of students were permitted to study at the Faculty of Theology. Probably the most significant success of all was the restoration of the Greek Catholic Church in June 1968. In all churches, groups were formed that strived to remedy the harms caused by twenty years of persecutions. Unfortunately, during the night of August 20–21, 1968, Czechoslovakia was occupied by the invading troops of the Warsaw Pact countries. This military intervention represented the end of thaw in social relations and the beginning of the so-called normalization era. Again, the state approached the churches the way it did before 1968 and insisted on imposing strict control and restrictions on their social activities (Vnuk 2001). After 1970, the communist authorities reverted to practicing the wellproven revocation of the state license for pastoral work and their regular moving of priests from parish to parish. This was also a method of punishment for some priests, who had been “too” active during the thaw of 1968. This measure served as a warning to those priests, who might try to pursue a more active social life in their parishes. Those priests whose state licenses were revoked were subsequently able to find employment only in manual professions. Apart from these punishments, during the early 1970s, there was another wave of political trials against the lower clergy, which mainly aimed at intimidating other active priests and laity. During these trials, many priests were sentenced for organizing spiritual retreats, sharing religious publications, offering private religious education for children, or saying private masses for the faithful. Efforts to suppress and uproot religion from society were very closely linked to an increase of atheistic propaganda. The atheistic campaign particularly focused on schools. In elementary schools, the pressure to reduce the number of children attending religious education classes continued to increase. Due to various administrative obstacles and intimidation of parents, the number of children attending religious classes in the schools of Slovakia decreased from 98% in 1950 to approximately 15% in the second half of the 1980s (Pešek and Barnovský 2004, 69–88). The regime’s oppression was also obvious in its decisions regarding staffing at individual bishoprics. After 1972, all of the Slovak episcopal sees became vacant. In times of sede vacante (vacant seat) the bishoprics were led by vicars capitular. Thus, the staffing of bishoprics was one of the main issues that complicated negotiations between the Vatican and communist

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Czechoslovakia during the 1970s. Precisely due to its international prestige, the leading Czechoslovak representatives did not want to completely refuse negotiations with the Holy See. At the same time, however, they refused to accept the suggestions of Vatican diplomats that could result, according to them, in strengthening the status of the Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia. After many complicated negotiations, in 1973 both parties agreed on three candidate bishops for Slovakia who seemed acceptable to both the Holy See and the Czechoslovak communist government. Július Gábriš became the new Bishop in Trnava, Ján Pásztor in Nitra, and Jozef Feranec in Banská Bystrica. This was the only significant result of the Vatican’s so-called eastern policy (Ostpolitik), but the pro-regime engagement of the new bishops in the following years showed that this result was indeed contradictory (Hrabovec 2016, 105–109). During the normalization era, the concept of a secret church and its activities grew in popularity in Slovakia. Compared with previous decades, the majority of the church’s activities was carried out by the laity starting in the 1970s. The secret church was not characterized just by secret structures, but also by religious activities that took place in secret. Small communities of students, young people, and families played a key role in the life of that church. In the following decades, such communities spread all over Slovakia and laid the ground for priests being secretly ordained, youth entering religious congregations, and activists working for the secret church. Thanks to their activities and work, Christian samizdat texts could be published and distributed, and religious literature could be smuggled from abroad. Especially during the 1980s, these groups organized religious events and visited pilgrimage sites in Slovakia in large numbers. Small communities really showed to be the best form of existence for the persecuted church. After the mid-1980s, the activities of the secret church became more and more visible. There were different petitions spread among the believers, which manifested the determination and courage of the secret church. The longest of these, a thirty-one-point petition, was circulated at the end of 1987 and summarized demands of the believers toward the state authorities. Despite the countermeasures adopted by the state security bodies, which included seizure of the petitionary sheets or intimidation of the signatories, this petition gradually grew in importance to become the most massive campaign that took place in Czechoslovakia and was not controlled by the state authorities. In total, the petition was

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signed by more than half a million citizens, and about two-thirds of all signatures came from Slovakia. In spite of the increasing resistance of the believers, the anti-religious campaign and the refusal of dialogue remained the characteristic signs of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia until its very end. Another display of such an intransigent approach was the violent and exceptionally harsh intervention of the police against the peaceful, and previously announced, gathering of believers asking for religious and human rights, which had become known as the Candle Demonstration. It took place on March 25, 1988, in Bratislava and was organized by activists of the secret church. The secret church in Slovakia represented the dominant part of the dissent and, precisely through its activities, the people more and more openly expressed their revolt against the communist regime. Thus, the most significant opposition to the regime was formed precisely within the Christian circles (Šimulˇcík, 2003).

Church Collaboration The second part of the topic describing the coexistence of churches and the Czechoslovak communist state deals with the issue of collaboration. One form of collaboration between the churches and the communist state power was represented by the different pro-regime movements, which gathered together priests according to their denomination. Their common trait was the fact that they were formed at the initiative of the state power and one of their main roles was to give the illusion of religious freedom in Czechoslovakia. In the Catholic Church, the proregime group was represented by the Peace Movement of Catholic Clergy (MHKD), which was ideologically based on the concept of fighting for peace in the federal republic and the world. The movement was founded in 1951 and lasted until 1968, when during the thaw and under the pressure of the priests, it ceased to exist. When forming this movement, the main goal of the communist state was to weaken the influence of the bishops and the Holy See on the priests. However, the leading communist functionaries were highly aware that the Holy See would not condone the existence of such a movement. As such, the organization did not have an individual membership, but instead it was founded just as a wide movement of all the clergy, without particular registration. There was a group of priests appointed to the movement’s leadership, who had proven their

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loyalty for the communist regime. They formed the leadership organization, known as the National Peace Committee of the Catholic Clergy, headed by a priest, Josef Plojhar. Twenty-six priests became members of this committee, with ten of them being from Slovakia. Those priests could be labeled as “fellow travelers” of the regime, as a majority of them engaged in various activities that benefited the communist authorities during the following decades. Since the MHKD ceased to exist in 1968, at the beginning of the 1970s, the communist authorities started to search for new ways to revive the movement. To meet such a goal, the regime found willing collaborators especially among the priests who had been engaged in the MHKD leadership in previous years. The new organization was cautiously named the Association of Catholic Clergy—Pacem in Terris (ZKD PIT), for a number of reasons. On the one hand, the new name expressed a certain distance from the former MHKD; on the other hand, it was supposed to evoke loyalty to the Pope, since Pope John XXIII was the author of the homonymous encyclical. Even though the name changed, the policies promoted by this association sustained continuity with MHKD. It did so by continuously attempting to paralyze the influence of the Vatican, of the domestic and foreign hierarchy, over the priests in Czechoslovakia, as well as by providing a platform for the priests devoted to socialism. From its very beginning, the newly restored association of priests, however, suffered from a lack of young members. The majority of theology students boycotted it completely. Moreover, membership in this association was no longer collective, but rather it included all individual priests, a fact which caused even greater problems for its members. One could say that the ultimate criticism was inflicted by Pope John Paul II, when he approved a document entitled Quidam Episcopi, which prohibited the priests from being involved in organizations supported by political parties and antichurch regimes. The subsequent outflow of members meant that years later only about 10% of all priests in the federation remained official members of the ZKD PIT. The association was dissolved in 1989 when the communist state power collapsed (Hal’ko, 2005, 3–8). Another organization was created with the support of the communist authorities within the Evangelical Church. The Centre of Slovak Evangelical Priests (ÚSEK) followed similar goals as the above-mentioned associations formed within the Catholic Church.

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Specific attention was paid to individual churches by the communist secret police, the State Security (ŠtB). Its different departments had monitored and surveilled the churches since the communists took over the pre-communist state security structures, before February 1948. Early on, the ŠtB became in hands of the leading communist representatives an instrument designed to break the influence of churches in society. In the case of church representatives, the State Security used all available means to meet its goals of control and domination. These means included eavesdropping, house searches, correspondence censorship, or monitoring. In addition, one of the most important means was the network of secret collaborators, whom the ŠtB recruited from among the ranks of priests as well as laity. The church setting, however, differed from other groups of interest for the ŠtB. That was because the State Security agents came to realize that work with agents “in this field is much more difficult than in other State Security matters. Already the forming [of the network of secret informers and collaborators] causes the State Security bodies significantly greater problems and inconveniences” (Cuhra 1999, 26). An important precondition for the successful infiltration of these secret agents into any kind of group or social segment was the recruitment of such secret collaborators, who were trusted by the people with whom they interacted in their particular workplace. In the case of the church, this recruitment required the use of the believers, that is, often of individuals who refused the ideology of Marxism–Leninism and did not publicly support the communist regime. Despite these circumstances, the State Security was in many cases successful in its efforts (Jakubˇcin 2012).

Post-Communist Developments After the fall of the communist regime, during the 1990s individual churches started to evaluate the previous era. In the first decade of postcommunism, attention was focused mainly on acquiring and presenting the individual life stories of church members who became victims of the communist regime and underwent different kinds of oppression. The role of the secret church, and of the Christian dissent arising from it, was generally respected by the society since it formed significant resistance to the former dictatorial state power. Yet, a turning point occurred in 2004, when the registration protocols of the communist State Security began to be published. They were made

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public by the newly founded National Memory Institute. The registration protocols functioned as registration tools for recording the documents produced by the State Security during the communist regime. Before the publication of the ŠtB registration protocols, various unofficial lists of collaborators of the communist secret police were published both in the Czech Republic and in Slovakia. Even though the topic of the former collaboration with the ŠtB was not completely taboo during the 1990s, the official publication of the registration protocols led to a great wave of interest in Slovakia. Since the published protocols also included names of bishops, priests, and religious persons, there were various reactions within individual churches, too. The Slovak Bishops’ Conference (KBS), which gathers the Catholic bishops in the Slovak Republic, did not wait long to react to the new revelations since some of the secret documents published by the National Memory Institute named Catholic bishops and priests as secret collaborators. On February 23, 2005, the Conference issued a statement on the public accessibility of the State Security files. The statement unequivocally stated that the Bishops’ Conference admitted that “some ordained clergy cooperated with and served the former State Security and we do not wish to defend them”; “if they willingly offered themselves for this type of service for career reasons, or because of money, or if they reported on someone and wanted to harm others with malicious intentions – it is condemnable”; “if they cooperated because they had been blackmailed on the basis of their crimes, or personal weaknesses – it is lamentable [and] unfortunate”; “if, because of the many visits from the State Security agents and their pressure, they got entangled into their traps and if in their loneliness they lived in a constant fear and tension; if they were blackmailed because of their trespasses; if they gave in to the panic and tried to maintain an acceptable level of contacts – we need to feel sympathy toward them” and lastly, “if they do not even know how their names got into the evidence of the State Security, and if they explicitly claim that they did not sign (a contract of cooperation), and that they reported no one and had no advantages, but that, quite the contrary, they lived in constant fear and anxiety because of the State Security agents – we need to believe them.” The statement further read that: We know of our human weaknesses and priestly failures. Therefore, we the bishops ask for forgiveness for all those, who had been hurt by the ordained clergy that cooperated with the State Security (whether they are

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priests or lay people). We ask all those, who were shocked/scandalized by the collaboration (of some churchmen) with the secret police, for forgiveness. Also, the Holy Gospel encourages us, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Mt 6:14). We lived in difficult times – in decades of communist dictatorship, in times of intrigues, suspicion, intimidation. The State Security paid special attention particularly to the Catholic Church. [...] Many could not handle this pressure, some naively thought they could have saved the church by cooperation. (Konferencia Biskupov Slovenska 2015, 49–51, ET mine)

One of the leading Christian dissidents, František Mikloško, considered this statement to be too general and shallow. According to him, the true catharsis is still waiting for the Slovak church (Moravˇcík 2007). In addition to the registration protocols, the National Memory Institute also made available for study purposes a great number of archival documents and files describing and summarizing the State Security activities. Accessing the ŠtB archives for historical research purposes has prompted the publication of various studies and expert works, which point to the existence and presence of secret ŠtB collaborators within the churches. Among the many cases that publicly revealed the activities of the communist-era secret collaborators drawn from the ranks of the clergy, the case of Archbishop of Trnava, Ján Sokol, has drawn the most attention. According to the ŠtB registration protocols, Sokol was listed as a secret collaborator in the agent category.1 Archbishop Sokol himself often commented on the subject for various media, always claiming that he refused to collaborate with the communist State Security. The Chairman of the KBS, Bishop of Spiš, František Tondra, also commented on the case. In a statement dated February 2007, Tondra reminded that the KBS had already expressed its opinion on the issue of collaboration between priests and the ŠtB in 2005. He also added that he was closely following the case of Sokol, but that only Archbishop Sokol could provide answers to specific questions regarding his possible collaboration with the communist repressive organs (Konferencia Biskupov Slovenska 2007; A. Šústová-Drelová 2017). Bishop of Banská Bystrica, Rudolf Baláž, also commented on the topic of collaboration between priests and the ŠtB. During communist times, Baláž had belonged to a group of priests persecuted by the dictatorship. In 1971, he was deprived of the state license for pastoral work and until 1982 he worked as a truck driver. He was appointed Bishop of Banská

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Bystrica in February 1990. In 2011, the Czech theology scholarly review Salve prepared a thematic issue devoted to the topic of collaboration between the Catholic priests and the communist secret services. In addition to a number of studies, the journal also included a poll conducted with five bishops from the communist Eastern Bloc who were asked to answer the following five questions: In your opinion, how big was the influence of the ŠtB on the Catholic Church in your country?; What do you think are the main reasons why the priests were in touch with the ŠtB?; How would you morally rate these contacts?; How should the church currently deal with the problem of [past] cooperation with the ŠtB?; and What specifically does the church in your country do to process the dark chapters of its history during the communist era? The answers to the last three questions provided by Bishop Baláž were really interesting. This was his answer to the third question: Such activity was unambiguously cowardly, if not deliberately malicious. Thus, the ŠtB collaborator has always unequivocally been a man either malicious, or as a theology student or a priest of a very poor belief and morality, or he has been a man frightened since his birth; in both cases, he did not belong to theology studies with the prospect of becoming a Catholic priest. If he did so, he became a priest-collaborator with anyone, only to benefit from it. I am clearly convinced of this because, as a bishop, I see the impact of treason on priestly practice. These people are very detrimental to the Catholic Church because even today they are creating an atmosphere of distrust and mutual distinction in the ranks of priests, which opposes fraternal coherence among the clergy.

To the fourth question, he replied that the priests who collaborated should never become bishops due to their permanent loss of autonomy in front of the state and ideological power. To the fifth question, Baláž responded evasively. He pointed out, in particular, the importance of understanding the cases of victimization and persecution of church leaders. Toward the end of his answer, he admitted that the church in Slovakia was deeply marked by the presence of the ŠtB collaborators in its structures, even at the top level. At the same time, he said that in his diocese, priests who collaborated with the State Security continue in their pastoral work, but not in the top positions they held until 1989 (Salve 2011, 105–107).

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Steps to cope with the Catholic clergy’s collaboration with the State Security were undertaken by Archbishop of Trnava, Róbert Bezák, CSsR. Pope Benedict XVI appointed Bezák to that post in April 2009. The following year, Bezák initiated a series of meetings with representatives of the National Memory Institute in view of preparing joint projects that would document the activities of the Catholic Church and the life of believers at the time of persecution. One of the projects derived from those discussions aimed at evaluating the issue of cooperation with the State Security of individual priests who served before 1989 in the territory of the Trnava apostolic administration. This project, the only one of its kind in Slovakia, was developed by a group of experts consisting of historians and priests devoted to moral theology. In summer 2012, however, Bezák was removed from the office of Archbishop of Trnava by Pope Benedict XVI. The new leadership of the Trnava Archdiocese did not continue its support for the project and as a result, the initiative was put to rest. In the previous section, I pointed out that the issue of collaboration between church members and the communist state was not limited to the activity of the State Security secret agents. Another form of collaboration was the active involvement of clergy members in pro-regime priestly organizations. This issue has not been adequately covered by scholars in the past thirty years, although several studies have dealt with the subject from a historical perspective. The collaboration of priests with the communist state authorities has not been very openly addressed by the Evangelical (Lutheran) Church. However, after the publication of the ŠtB registration protocols, which also contained information about the collaboration of some Lutheran bishops, the Lutheran pastors commented on these facts more critically and openly than in the Catholic Church.

Transitional Justice After the fall of the communist regime in 1989, Czechoslovakia began a long-term process of dealing with the communist past in a gradual manner at several levels. Already in 1990, the most urgent duties— compensation of victims and rehabilitation of former political prisoners— began to be addressed. During the following years, the courts decided on the rehabilitation of a great number of persecuted church representatives, bishops, priests, and laity. The property restitution process

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was also launched. Starting in 1990 several laws were adopted in order to amend the property relations of religious orders, as well as those between the Greek Catholic and Orthodox Churches, and to mitigate the property abuses committed against churches and religious societies. The Federal Assembly of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic adopted the so-called lustration laws, which aimed at sidelining former communist decision-makers from post-communist elected and nominated state positions. Several laws have been adopted to condemn the immoral and unlawful conduct of the communist regime (Medvecký 2014, 87–91). Besides the attention that the Slovak society paid to victims of the communist regime and to people who suffered in various ways until 1989, during the 1990s there was a tendency to point out to those who caused this past suffering. Among those called to take responsibility for communist human rights abuses were top politicians and members of the Communist Party, members of the public administration and other state bodies, and those who collaborated with the communist regime in various ways and at different levels. In this context, the most important step taken by Slovakia in view of reckoning with the legacy of the communist regime was the founding of the National Memory Institute. According to the legislation, the Institute was authorized by the state to perform complete and unbiased evaluations of the communist period marked by oppression, to disclose documents to the persecuted individuals, and to publicize information on the persecutors and their repressive activities. The Institute, established in 2002, took over a substantial part of the archival documents compiled by the communist State Security. The publication of the State Security registration protocols during the early 2000s, mentioned earlier, was a milestone on the way to dealing with the totalitarian regime. However, besides the positive consequences of this move, related mainly to the gradual disclosure of archival documents for historical research purposes, there were also several negative aspects. One such negative aspect was the sensationalist treatment of the topic of collaboration by the tabloid press. In some cases, people whose names were mentioned in the registration protocols were automatically labeled as collaborators, informers, or traitors without regard to the context of their contacts with the security services. Such context can only be recognized after a more detailed study of the relevant archival documents, if they are preserved, and possibly interviews with the victims and witnesses. To a certain extent, the sensationalization of communist-era collaboration has contributed to the defensive stance of church leaders, who in reaction

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started to emphasize the church’s position as a victim of communist persecution. Some priests and bishops perceived and presented any discussion about the churches’ collaboration with the communist regime power as another attack against them.

Conclusion Coping with the forty-year-long communist totalitarianism in the setting of churches in Slovakia is an incomplete process. To date, a great deal of attention has been paid to various forms of persecution that affected bishops, priests, and laity, but debates centered around the issue of collaboration, in particular with the communist State Security, remain in their infancy. In Slovakia, there is no work comparable to that of the Polish priest, Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski (2007) (see the chapter on Poland in this volume). At the same time, it is unlikely that the Slovak bishops would try to completely cover up the collaboration of a certain part of the church with the communist regime. In their statements, the Slovak bishops have openly admitted the existence of this problem. Nevertheless, no particular steps have been taken by the Catholic or the Lutheran Church hierarchy to guide any in-depth analysis of this issue in Slovakia. Almost all the attention of the hierarchy has been devoted to the persecution of the church and its representatives. Similarly, to date, no detailed work has been elaborated by the professional historical community to seek a more comprehensive understanding of collaboration issues in church settings. The handful of studies published to date can be considered only as an introduction to the topic of church collaboration. Therefore, the words of the Catholic dissident, František Mikloško, uttered in 2005, remain valid today: the true catharsis is still waiting for the Slovak churches.

Note 1. The state security in Czechoslovakia had a classification according to which there were several types of secret collaborators: resident, informer, agent, and owner of a conspiratorial apartment. According to the official classification, an agent was a secret collaborator who performed tasks in detecting, elaborating, and documenting anti-state crimes and was involved in tasks to prevent such crimes. Like in the case of Romania, an agent signed a pledge of collaboration, took a code name, and also gave information.

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References ˇ Balík, S., and J. Hanuš. 2007. Katolická církev v Ceskoslovensku 1945–1989. Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury. ˇ Brno: Bulínová, M., M. Janišová, and K. Kaplan. 1994. Církevní komise ÚV KSC. Doplnˇek. Cuhra, J. 1999. Katolická církev pˇrelomu 80. let v diplomových pracích pˇríslušníku˚ StB. Securitas Imperii 5: 3–145. Dubovský, J. M. 1998. Akcia Kláštory. Martin: Matica slovenská. Hal’ko, J. 2004. Rozbitˇ cirkev. Rozkolnícka katolícka akcia. Bratislava: Lúˇc. Hal’ko, J. 2005. Komunizmus a Cirkev. Mierové hnutie katolíckych duchovných a Združenie katolíckych duchovných ‘Pacem in Terris’. Radostˇ a nádej 1: 3–8. Hrabovec, E. 2016. Slovensko a Svätá stolica v kontexte vatikánskej východnej politiky (1962–1989). Bratislava: Vydavateˇlstvo UK. Isakowicz-Zaleski, Tadeusz. 2007. Ksi˛eza ˙ wobec bezpieki na przykładzie diecezji krakowskiej. Kraków: Znak. Jakubˇcin, P. 2012. Pastieri v osídlach moci. Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa. Konferencia Biskupov Slovenska. 2007. Vyjadrenie predsedu KBS k medializovaným dokumentom ohˇladne spolupráce Mons. J. Sokola s komunistickou ŠtB. 23 February, at https://www.tkkbs.sk/view.php?cisloclanku=200702 23023. Accessed 25 February 2019. Konferencia Biskupov Slovenska. 2015. Vyhlásenia a rozhodnutia Konferencie biskupov Slovenska. Trnava: Spolok svätého Vojtecha. Letz, R. 2001. Prenasledovanie kresˇtanov na Slovensku v rokoch 1948–1989. In Zloˇciny komunizmu na Slovensku 1948–1989, ed. F. Mikloško, G. Smolíková, and P. Smolík, 67–335. Prešov: Vydavateˇlstvo Michala Vaška. Medvecký, M. 2014. Coming to Terms with the Totalitarian Past in Slovakia and the Mission of the Nation’s Memory Institute in That Process. In Vyrovnávanie sa s totalitnou minulostˇou - od trestnoprávnej roviny po vedecký výskum, ed. M. Medvecký, 98–110. Bratislava: Ústav pamäti národa. Moravˇcík, R. 2007. Krátka cesta medzi nebom a peklom. Hospodárske Noviny, 23 February, at: https://hnporadna.hnonline.sk/vikend/185975-kra tka-cesta-medzi-nebom-a-peklom. Accessed 23 February 2019. Pešek, J. 1997. Štát a katolícka cirkev na Slovensku – od rokovaní k ostrej konfrontácii. Historické Štúdie 38: 81–100. Pešek, J., and M. Barnovský. 1997. Štátna moc a cirkvi na Slovensku 1948–1953. Bratislava: Veda. Pešek, J., and M. Barnovský. 2004. V zovretí normalizácie. Cirkvi na Slovensku v rokoch 1969–1989. Bratislava: Veda. Petranský, I. 2001 Štát a katolícka cirkev na Slovensku 1945–1946. Nitra: Garmond.

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Salve, vol. 21, 2011, n. 1. Sˇcítanie obyvateˇlov, domov a bytov. 2011. At https://census2011.statistics.sk/ tabulky.html. Accessed 12 February 2020. ˇ Šimulˇcík, J. 2003. Cas svitania: svieˇcková manifestácia - 25. marec 1988. Bratislava: Michal Vaško. Šústová-Drelová, A. 2017. Just a Simple Priest: Remembering Cooperation with the Communist State in the Catholic Church in Postcommunist Slovakia. In Secret Agents and the Memory of Everyday Collaboration in Communist Eastern Europe, ed. Peter Apor, Sandor Horvath, and James Mark, 287–308. London: Anthem Press. Vnuk, F. 2001. Popustené putá. Katolícka cirkev na Slovensku v období liberalizácie a nástupu normalizácie (1967–1971). Martin: Matica slovenská.

PART II

The Balkans

CHAPTER 5

The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History Lucian Turcescu

This chapter deals with the Romanian Orthodox Church, the largest denomination in Romania currently claiming at the last census the allegiance of some 86% of the country’s total population of 19 million (RNIS 2011). Given its historical importance, the church forged a special relationship with the communist regime, and then became a very powerful social and political actor after 1989, the year when communist regimes collapsed in Eastern Europe in a domino-like succession, beginning in Poland in June and ending in Romania in December. During the last three decades, the Romanian Orthodox Church has systematically tried to hide its collaboration with the communist authorities, instead presenting itself as a victim of the regime. This comes as no surprise, given that two of this church’s post-communist patriarchs were both heavily involved in collaborating with the communist secret police, the Securitate.

L. Turcescu (B) Department of Theology, Concordia University, Montréal, QC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_5

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The Establishment of the Communist Regime Communism became established in Romania in 1947, after the country fell under the influence of the Soviet Union. Already the general elections organized the previous year were falsified in favor of the tiny Communist Party, which was supported by the Soviet Union, and immediately afterwards various other parties (such as the two main political formations at the time, the National Peasant Party and the National Liberal Party) were banished. The Social Democratic Party was forced to merge with the Communist Party, the country’s monarchy was abolished, and a Popular Republic was proclaimed on 30 December 1947. The country’s only legal party came to be known as the Romanian Workers’ (later Communist) Party and initially followed orders directly from Moscow. The church was the “last major obstacle” in the communists’ effort to build a new country, but the Romanian communists did not follow strictly the Soviet recipe of persecuting religion. Instead, the Communist Party, although it “officially condemned religious belief, also tolerated it within some limits prescribed by law…. [Unlike the Soviet regime] The tolerance toward recognized religious denominations required their obedience toward the party and their [the denominations’] endorsement, in loud voice, of the party politics, both internal and external” (Deletant 2012, 411). It is estimated that seventeen Orthodox prelates were deprived of their seats, fifteen prelates were exiled, while 1,888 Orthodox, 235 Greek Catholic, and 172 Roman Catholic priests, sixty-seven Protestant and twenty-five Neo-Protestant pastors, twenty-three Muslim imams, and thirteen Jewish rabbis were arrested by the communist authorities in Romania (Caravia et al. 1999, 15). After the Concordat with the Roman Catholic Church was unilaterally revoked by the communists in 1948, the communist state never again sought to reach a compromise with that church. Therefore, that church continued its activity in the country under serious restrictions, while the regime encouraged (rather unsuccessfully) the establishment of a local Catholic Church independent from the Vatican, as was the case in other Eastern European communist countries. In 1948, the Greek Catholic Church was disbanded, its church buildings and adjacent land were transferred to the Orthodox Church, its other assets were confiscated by the state, and its leaders were imprisoned if refusing to convert to Orthodoxy. Ultimately, the disbanding of the Greek Catholic Church proved to be a major failure for the communist state, as none of its bishops

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converted to Orthodoxy, preferring arrest instead. Many of its priests continued to serve illegally what was left of their flocks at the risk of their own lives. Over a dozen denominations historically present in the country were granted official recognition, but no other group was registered until 1989. The state let the faithful know that religion was not akin to the communist spirit by annulling the autonomy of denominations. In a symbolic gesture, in 1950 the authorities ordered the Baptists, the Seventh-day Adventists, and the Pentecostals to unite into the Federation of Protestant Cults. Threatened with obliteration, those groups could do nothing but obey (Turcescu and Stan 2010). The communists co-opted the Romanian Orthodox Church as a collaborator due to its large representation and support in the peasant population in order to help gain acceptance for the implementation of the Communist Party’s key policies such as the collectivization of agriculture. Upon the death of Patriarch Nicodim Munteanu in 1948 under questionable circumstances, a widowed parish priest who had become Metropolitan of Moldova, Justinian Marina, was appointed as head of the church. He was Romania’s longest serving religious leader under communism, leading the church from 1948 until his death in 1977. He was also a socialist in his political convictions, but one who loved a high degree of luxury.

The “Red” Patriarchs Several documented instances of collaboration and resistance need to be mentioned here. Justinian led the church at a time when the communists consolidated their control over the country through the use of extensive repression. The first decades of communist rule were marked by numerous arrests and imprisonments, deportations, and extra-judicial killings perpetrated by a regime that was Stalinist in nature. Many bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and ordinary believers from all denominations, including the Orthodox Church, were tortured and died in the communist prison system, the so-called Romanian Gulag. As patriarch, Marina did not request the liberation from prison of the Orthodox priests, monks, and nuns. As soon as he was appointed patriarch, Marina lent support for the disbanding of the Greek Catholic Church. In his speech of 24 May 1948 on the occasion of his appointment as patriarch with Moscow’s approval, Justinian spoke about “the other sheep of mine, not belonging to this fold, whom I must bring in” (Leustean 2009, 74;

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2014), an allusion to the dismantling of the Greek Catholic Church, scheduled for 21 October 1948. As a socialist, Marina supported numerous communist policies, including the collectivization of agriculture, while in his writings entitled Apostolat social (Social apostolate) he indicated approval of the new communist constitution, the submission of citizens to the communist state and its ideology, as well as dialectic materialism. To secure the authorities’ support for his appointment, days before his election as patriarch, Justinian published a volume of speeches outlining his vision about the collaboration between church and state. According to his “social apostolate” doctrine, “the church was subservient to the state as the ‘servant church of the people’, while the state assured religious liberty” (Leustean 2009, 74). The doctrine builds on the Byzantine symphonia between a Christian emperor and a Christian church and society, but represents a blatant distortion of it, since neither the state nor the leadership were Christian during Marina’s time, and the leadership pursued the ultimate dismissal of religion from society, in line with the Marxist-Leninist theory on communism and religion. According to the Decree 177 of 1948 (the communist law on religion), individuals seeking church leadership positions through elections had to be vetted by the Great National Assembly (the country’s parliament, which was fully controlled by the Communist Party). In addition, they had to take an oath of allegiance to the regime, swearing to defend the country against its internal and external enemies, ensuring that they and their subordinates would respect the laws of the People’s Republic and would not engage in activities that contravened the new political order. Bishop Nicolae Popovici of Oradea, who had preached against the communists, was excluded from the church hierarchy as a result of the new law (Leustean 2009, 78–79). Thus, after 1948 dissent and conflict within the ranks of the Orthodoxy hierarchy were very limited. When conflict existed, it was manifested through disagreements between the patriarch and some opportunistic bishops who wanted to climb the hierarchical ladder faster (such as Iusin Moisescu, who will be discussed later in this chapter). Patriarch Justinian’s cooperation, however, did not spare the church several waves of persecution, including depositions and arrests of clergy, closure of monasteries and monastic seminaries, and strict control of its relations with foreign churches (Beeson 1982, 368). After the introduction in 1949 of the so-called “social reorientation” programs, numerous

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priests considered retrograde were arrested. Another wave of arrests took place in the late 1950s, when a number of other monastic seminaries and monasteries were closed down, and thousands of monks and nuns were jailed or forced to go “back into the world” (Aioanei and Moraru 2001, 89–90; Dur˘a 1994). According to Decree 410 of 28 October 1959, only men aged 55 and over, and women aged 50 and over, were to be admitted into monasticism, and the measure was to be applied retroactively to 1948. Thus, of the 6,014 monks and nuns who lived in monasteries on 1 January 1959, 4,750 were to be removed in virtue of the decree. Of the 192 monasteries the Securitate estimated to be in existence in Romania at the beginning of that year, ninety-two were to be closed down due to lack of monastic personnel following the removal of monks and nuns by the application of the decree (Enache 2009). In response, Justinian reformed the monastic system to prevent it from being viewed by the communist authorities as an anachronism unrelated to the life of socialist Romania. He introduced “useful trades” that every monk and nun could practice, including the production of clerical and monastic garb, carpets, painting, embroidery, sculpting, but also carpentry. Although Justinian could not stop the application of the decree he protested against it and, as a result, was consigned to forced domicile in a monastery for six months. Iustin Moisescu was the next Orthodox Patriarch (in office during 1977–1986). Shortly after his appointment, Patriarch Iustin rendered homage to dictator Nicolae Ceau¸sescu for “securing complete freedom for all religious cults in our country to carry out their activity among the faithful” and for his forty-five years long activity “devoted to the progress of the Romanian people and fatherland” (Webster 1995, 111). Both Teoctist and Iustin remarked themselves as supporters of the “struggle for peace,” a theme the Soviet Union encouraged all the communist states to engage in as part of its anti-Western attitude (Comisia Prezident, ial˘a 2007). Iustin had an impressive ascent in the Orthodox hierarchy as early as the 1950s due to his recruitment by the Securitate as an informer, who worked both inside and outside of the country.1 These were the reasons why, some believed, he managed to become patriarch after Marina’s death in 1977. The extant Securitate secret files available at the National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives (CNSAS) depict him as a very ambitious man who was keen to step over many dead bodies in order to achieve his career goal of becoming a patriarch. Some secret informers who reported on him even suspected him of being a Soviet agent because of his arrogant attitude toward Securitate agents and Orthodox leaders,

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while other informers thought of him as being distant from the priests in his diocese. One of the files compiled during the late 1970s shows that the Securitate was considering seriously whether or not Iustin was really honest with the secret officers or continued to maintain relations with former Iron Guard members, some of whom were priests and counselors in the Metropolitanate of Moldova which Iustin headed from 1957 until 1977 (ACNSAS I 185032, vol. 1). As a member of the Central Committee of the World Council of Churches after 1961 and of the Presidium of the Conference of European Churches after 1964, Iustin engaged in serious propaganda in favor of the communist Romania and the Soviet Union in the West, especially by alleging that freedom of religion was fully guaranteed in the communist bloc. While in the West at various meetings, as the Securitate officers and informers reported several times in his secret file, he behaved dubiously by meeting Archbishop Valerian Trifa of the Romanian Orthodox Episcopate in the United States (ACNSAS I 185032, vol. 1), a well-known Iron Guard figure who appears to have instigated the legionary rebellion against Marshall Ion Antonescu in 1941 that led to the murder of some 120 Jews, the torture of 2,000 others, and the sacking of numerous synagogues and Jewish businesses in Bucharest. These ties seemed to suggest that Iustin’s communist convictions were not genuine. However, in 1979, Patriarch Iustin allowed the defrocking of dissident priest and theology professor Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa, who had lost his parish and the teaching post at the Theological Seminary in Bucharest, with Iustin’s approval, the previous year. These measures made it possible for Calciu to be arrested more easily by the Securitate. During Patriarch Iustin’s term, Ceaus, escu ordered the demolition of numerous churches and two major monasteries located in Bucharest, V˘ac˘ares, ti and Cotroceni. The third patriarch who began his leadership under communism was Teoctist Ar˘apas, u (in office during 1986–2007). He was head of the church under communism for only three years, but had a much longer history of collaborating with the communist authorities. A former member of the Cross Brotherhoods, the youth branch of the Iron Guard before 1945, Teoctist switched sides when the communists came to power in Romania and became their trusted collaborator and agent of influence both inside and outside Romania. When publicly unveiled after 1989, several Securitate documents referring to his checkered past were promptly dismissed by the Patriarchate’s spokesperson as fabrication. However, the documents were corroborated by scholars as genuine in the

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early 2000s, as this chapter will discuss later. Through much of his career under communism, Teoctist was a protégé of Patriarch Justinian who appointed him as a young vicar bishop in Bucharest during 1950–1962, rector of the Orthodox Theological Institute in Bucharest (1950–1954), then bishop of Arad, and finally metropolitan of Oltenia. Eventually, he became metropolitan of Moldova from 1977 to 1986. He became a member of the Communist Party in 1945 and was also a member of the Grand National Assembly, the communist parliament through much of the communist period (Catalan 2012; Turcescu 2018; Turcescu and Stan 2015). Scholars have established that Teoctist was actively involved in several denigration campaigns against adversaries of the communists (including National Peasant Party leader Iuliu Maniu and Metropolitan Irineu Mih˘alcescu of Moldova), attempted to convince the Greek Catholic bishops and priests arrested in Orthodox monasteries after 1948 to convert to Orthodoxy, and engaged in activities against Protestant groups while defrocking Orthodox priests who opposed communism (Catalan 2012; Vasile 2005). In 1963, Justinian’s attempt to appoint Teoctist as the bishop of the Romanian Orthodox Archdiocese of America and Canada (ROAAC) failed, because the US government refused to issue a visa for Teoctist, at the instigation of Valerian Trifa, who denounced Teoctist as a Communist Party member and collaborator with the communist regime in Bucharest. At the time, Trifa (the former Iron Guard student leader mentioned earlier) was serving as bishop of the opposing Romanian Orthodox Episcopate of the Americas, a diocese that refused to recognize the legitimacy of the Romanian Patriarchate due to its leaders’ subordination to the communists. As a result of this incident, the conflict between the two North American Romanian dioceses intensified. The Bucharest Patriarchate sent out Archimandrite Valeriu Anania (who in 1993 became Archbishop and Metropolitan Bartolomeu Anania of Cluj and served until 2011) with the mission to help elect a new leader for the ROAAC and also discredit Trifa. Nicolae Ceaus, escu himself joined the fight against Trifa. As a result of that campaign, which used a variety of methods, information bits, and agents, Trifa eventually was forced to renounce his American citizenship and post as bishop. He took refuge in 1981 in Portugal, where he died in 1987 (Turcescu 2018). Anania himself was a former Iron Guard member who spent many years in communist prisons and was a protégé of Patriarch Justinian. Following

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his release from political prison in 1964, as part of a pardon that allowed for the release of all remaining political prisoners, Anania became a communist agent of influence reliable enough to be sent, on October 29, 1965, to the United States to help find a replacement for Bishop Andrei Moldovan (1950–1963). Anania’s departure for the United States was one of the early instances of the new policy that dictator Ceaus, escu’s will make official during 1970–1989 through his highly secretive Atlas program. The program allowed bishops, priests, engineers, doctors, and intellectuals to travel to the West under the pretext of professional activities in order to influence Western governments’ policies toward Romania and to spy on behalf of the communist regime (Turcescu 2018; Stan 2005). Patriarch Teoctist’s final act of support for the communists came on 19 December 1989, when he and the entire Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church sent Ceaus, escu a telegram to congratulate him on his re-election as Secretary-General of the Communist Party one month earlier. The telegram was issued when the revolt against Ceaus, escu had already begun in the city of Timis, oara and Radio Free Europe and other radio stations were reporting that many Romanians were being killed on orders from Ceaus, escu in an attempt to quell the revolt. In 1990, months after the communist regime collapsed, Teoctist tried to explain away why the Synod sent the telegram by arguing unconvincingly that the text was a requirement of the Secretariat of State for Religious Denominations that went out automatically on festive occasions. Unfortunately, the telegram and the fact that the doors of the Orthodox cathedral in Timis, oara were kept locked during the protests of 16–21 December 1989 suggest the Orthodox Church’s concerted support for Ceau¸sescu during the revolution (Stan and Turcescu 2007).

Collaboration of Other Orthodox Church Members Besides the patriarchs, there were numerous other Romanian Orthodox hierarchs who collaborated with the communist authorities. Some of them received official letters from the CNSAS attesting to their collaboration. They include Metropolitan Andrei Andreicut, of Cluj, Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu of Timis, oara, Bishop Calinic Argatu of Arges, , Bishop Pimen Zainea of Suceava, to name just some of the most important. Since Romania has no lustration law that involves job loss or other sanctions

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following such revelations of collaboration, these Orthodox hierarchs have retained their respective seats (Turcescu 2021). Not just church leaders but also professors of theology and priests collaborated with the communists. As required by Article 3 of Law 293/2008, the CNSAS evaluates whether individuals who hold public office during the post-communist period after 1989 were former secret collaborators of the communist Securitate; the Romanian courts are then called to establish collaboration based on the information supplied by the CNSAS. These persons could be dubbed collaborators for different reasons—they made their homes available to the Securitate to use or they offered information on other persons to the Securitate—but what was important was that through such activities they infringed the fundamental human rights and liberties of other persons. According to the CNSAS website, as of April 2017 as many as 3,314 officers and sub-officers of the Securitate, as well as 509 secret collaborators, had been identified. Legislation passed in 2008 stipulated that after collaboration was documented based on the extant Securitate archives, the CNSAS took that evaluation to a court for confirmation. The persons who were found to have been collaborators had the right to appeal that court decision; and sometimes they did. If they lost on appeal and their collaboration verdict was upheld, their names, the CNSAS evaluations, and the court decisions were posted on the CNSAS website so as to became available publicly for anyone to consult. Since 2008, a number of professors from the country’s theological institutes have been unveiled as former Securitate collaborators. Others continue to occupy important leadership positions in their institutions in virtue of the fact that they received certificates of noncollaboration (adeverint, e de necolaborare), although the Securitate files quoted in the verdicts pointed heavily in the direction of collaboration. However, their cases have not met the stricter definition of collaboration introduced by Law 293/2008. This grey area is discussed below. Let us discuss the case of one such professor, who received a certificate of collaborator from the CNSAS in 2010. Born in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in 1932, Ioan I. Ic˘a Sr. served as a professor of theology at the Faculty of Orthodox Theology at the universities of Sibiu, Cluj, and Alba Iulia. He retired from Sibiu and passed away in 2021. Recruited by the Securitate in 1975 with a pledge of collaboration under the codename “Lucian Popescu,” Ic˘a was to be used “for the surveillance of the foreign citizens visiting the Orthodox Theological Institute and the Orthodox Metropolitanate of Sibiu,” but he went way beyond that

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mission to provide ample information on other Romanian citizens. Ic˘a gave numerous information notes, which were not mere reports of facts, but demonstrated his clear support for the communist policies and the communist regime, containing evaluations (sometimes quite negative) of the people on whom he reported and recommendations to the Securitate to restrict their human rights. In 2009, the newspaper Evenimentul Zilei requested his vetting in light of his being a member of the editorial board of the obscure Tabor journal, as per Article 3 p of Law 293/2008, which listed journal board members among the positions slated for vetting. In 2010, the CNSAS found archival information that painted him a collaborator, a decision Ic˘a successfully challenged in court. However, the CNSAS appealed the verdict, and in 2011 the higher court confirmed the CNSAS’s decision against Ic˘a. The judge of the Bucharest Court of Appeal who rendered the final decision against Ic˘a noted, in line with the CNSAS, that the information Ic˘a gave “referred to the limitation of the fundamental human rights and liberties, specifically the right to freedom of expression and freedom of opinion, the right to life, the right to freedom of conscience and religion, as well as the right to freedom of movement” (Bucharest Court of Appeal 2011). One striking secret information note worth mentioning in the case of Ic˘a is that of 14 July 1977 in which he reported on a priest who was identified simply as “M.V.” That priest most likely was his younger colleague, the New Testament Professor Vasile Mihoc. In his secret note to the Securitate, Ic˘a denounced Mihoc and recommended against his appointment at the Faculty of Theology in Sibiu because of his “exaggerated religiosity,” that aligned with the Lord’s Army, a Protestant-inspired Orthodox religious group that was banned in communist Romania, and because of his lack of understanding and engagement with the Romanian socialist life and society at the time. Note that after the fall of communism in 1989, Father Mihoc did manifest himself openly as a member of the re-established Lord’s Army. Another shocking secret information note offered by Ic˘a to the Securitate denounced a priest identified only as “I.G.” “not for an openly hostile attitude [toward the regime], but for his prudent silence and lack of full engagement [with the regime]” (Bucharest Court of Appeal 2011). Additionally, through his denunciations (delat, iuni), Ic˘a managed to block a person from leaving Romania (Bucharest Court of Appeal 2011).

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Orthodox Resistance When it comes to resistance to the communist regime from within the Romanian Orthodox Church, this chapter would like to acknowledge the suffering of numerous bishops, priests, and ordinary believers who especially during the first decades of communism lost their seats, parishes, families, freedom, and even lives because of their commitment to the Christian faith. Numerous biographies, autobiographies, and scholarship pieces are documenting and celebrating the suffering that many Orthodox clergy and laity endured under communism. The materials on the so-called “prison saints” are celebrating the Orthodox theologians, monks, nuns, and priests, especially former Iron Guard members and sympathizers, who endured prison during communist times and whom their supporters would like to see proclaimed as saints by the Romanian Orthodox Church for their dedication to Christ. However, numerous Orthodox priests were Iron Guard members who were imprisoned for their political convictions and opposition to communism more than for their Christian belief. There is even a serious attempt to “stretch” the suffering endured by those imprisoned under communism to include the leaders of the Orthodox Church in order to make the case that the Church as an institution (and particularly its communist-era leaders) were victims and not collaborators of that regime. Perhaps the best-known case of dissidence under the Ceaus, escu dictatorship was that of Father Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa (1925–2006). Father Calciu was an Orthodox priest whose heart-felt Seven Words for the Youth landed him in prison for engaging in anticommunist dissidence. Besides incurring the wrath of the state authorities, Calciu was further persecuted by the hierarchs, fellow priests, and theology teachers representing his Orthodox Church, which defrocked rather than protected him. He was imprisoned twice during his lifetime, during 1948–1963 and 1979–1984. His open defiance of the regime during the 1970s and the early 1980s came at a time when civic movements, particularly the well-known Charter 77, were emerging in other communist countries. The Romanian communist authorities claimed that the entire people stood united behind the dictator, and a significant segment of the population genuinely endorsed national communism. The country’s few dissidents were isolated by elaborate surveillance programs, detained in psychiatric hospitals, or forced to emigrate. Calciu’s dissidence was made even more remarkable by the cold response and outward hostility he

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received from the other Orthodox clergy. Hierarchs, priests, and seminary teachers believed that collaboration with the atheistic regime was required to ensure the church’s survival as an institution and to avoid the fate of its sister churches in other communist lands. Calciu’s dissidence took the form of short sermons written as letters addressed to theological seminary students which heavily drew on theological arguments and used a plethora of religious terms and symbols to encourage religiosity or criticize materialism and atheism. None of these arguments was strong enough for the Orthodox clergy to stand by him.

Re-evaluation of the Past After the December 1989 collapse of the Ceausescu regime, the Romanian Orthodox Church tried to repair its image and reflect on the fact that its leadership and most of the clergy did not dare to oppose communism. Patriarch Teoctist engaged in a timid re-evaluation of the past when he apologized for the infamous telegram discussed above, while the second most powerful Orthodox leader, Metropolitan Antonie Pl˘am˘adeal˘a of Transylvania, said in an interview that “we did not have the courage to be martyrs” (Pl˘am˘adeal˘a 1990). Nobody expected the church and its leaders to be martyred, but a less enthusiastic endorsing of communist policies would have helped. After his timid reflections on resistance and collaboration but invoking health reasons, Teoctist decided to withdraw from his post as patriarch and reside in a monastery on 10 January 1990. Three months later, the Holy Synod, made up of equally compromised hierarchs, recalled and reinstated him as head of the church. Note that the metropolitan seat of Moldova was vacant from 1986, when Teoctist was appointed patriarch, until 1990, when Daniel Ciobotea was appointed as the new metropolitan. A similar situation occurred in 1948–1950, when the seat was left vacant following Metropolitan Justinian Marina’s appointment as patriarch. Those vacancy periods reflect the fact that the Securitate did not easily agree on a successor to either Justinian or Teoctist. Ciobotea’s hurried appointment to the metropolitan seat of Moldova perhaps indicates that he had been groomed for the position of patriarch, since all previous patriarchs had been metropolitans of Moldova first. Despite having spent considerable time in the West during the 1980s and occupying important positions in the World Council of Churches and its Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, Switzerland—a situation that would have

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been impossible without the approval of the Securitate and the church— the young Ciobotea was widely perceived as not tainted by collaboration with the communist regime. During the 1990s, the past collaboration between the Romanian Orthodox Church and the former communist regime was not discussed much since no significant evidence about it had come to light, and the majority of the Romanian population was willing to forgive and forget those dark times under the pressure of a painful political, economic, and social transition to democracy and market economy. The only significant revelation came from Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu of Timis, oara, the city where the 1989 revolution began. A bishop since 1961, Corneanu had made compromises with the communist authorities, but in a 1997 interview he candidly admitted to defrocking five dissident priests in 1981 under pressure from the Securitate. One of the priests was CalciuDumitreasa. After 1989, the church rescinded all politically driven punishments meted out to its members. In a festive roundtable organized in late 1998, the Bucharest-based Group of Social Dialogue praised Corneanu as “one of the few Orthodox Church leaders who managed with word, deed, and public presence to show us how the church must be present in society in order to bring us together.” In response, Corneanu modestly insisted that “besides small things, I made only concessions,” and said that his need to publicly reveal his collaboration stemmed from “a feeling of culpability and the urge to recover the past” (Stan and Turcescu 2007, 77). In 1999, very limited access to the files of the former secret police was granted through the personal efforts of Christian Democrat Senator Constantin Ticu Dumitrescu, who had to struggle with the indifference of the majority of the Romanian population and the bitter opposition of the political and ecclesiastical elite. Frustrated with the Orthodox leaders’ conservative position and continued opposition to democratic principles of accepting sexual, ethnic, and religious diversity, civil society activist Gabriel Andreescu asked the CNSAS to reveal the Securitate informers within the powerful Orthodox Synod. Patriarch Teoctist denounced this request as “an inadmissible act of blackmail and intimidation.” Andreescu told journalists he could explain Orthodox opposition to democratization only as the “perpetuation of church collaboration with communist authorities.” This collaboration was demonstrated by the prelates’ support for communist policies, Metropolitan Corneanu’s allegations that Orthodox leaders worked with the Securitate, and the revelation that collaboration

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had affected other Orthodox churches in the communist bloc and the Romanian Orthodox Church could not be an exception to that rule. Indeed, at the time, Moscow newspapers alleged that Russian Patriarch Aleksy II and four of the six members of the Russian Synod had been undercover KGB agents (Stan and Turcescu 2007). In response, the Romanian Orthodox Church, through its leaders, scores of priests, and some faithful, underlined the suffering it endured until 1989, pointing out the numerous cases of priests and faithful who spent considerable time in prison or were harassed by the Securitate for their faith. To this, some secular and Orthodox intellectuals and Greek Catholics emphasized the many instances when the Orthodox Church supported or at least did not oppose communist policies. Law 187 of 1999 (also known as the Ticu law, after its initiator, senator Dumitrescu) allowed journalists, researchers, and members of the general public to gain access to the extant Securitate archives not touching on “national security.” Access has been granted by the CNSAS, an independent governmental agency recognized as the archive custodian. Several edited volumes of Securitate documents suggest that key Orthodox Church leaders praised the communist regime and endorsed its policies. At the same time, there is evidence of great suffering of priests, many of whom were thrown into prison for their pre-communist collaboration with and sympathy for the Iron Guard, which their supporters interpreted as evidence of victimization for Christ and anticommunist sentiment. The CNSAS archive grew significantly after 2006, when President Traian B˘asescu asked the Romanian Information Service (SRI) to relinquish a large number of Securitate files. To this day, only the file showing how the Securitate placed under surveillance Patriarch Iustin Moisescu is available in the CNSAS archive. The files of Patriarchs Justinian, Teoctist, and Daniel have not been released to the CNSAS, and one document even alleges that Daniel’s secret file was destroyed in December 1989. Law 187 of 1999 was modified by Law 293 of 2008 (as explained earlier). Unlike Germany and the Czech Republic, Romania has no lustration law, except when Law 293 is combined with other pieces of legislation in the cases of revolutionaries, public functionaries, and judges, it can act as a lustration law (Turcescu 2021). Even if one is declared a collaborator by the CNSAS and a court upholds that verdict, the person does not lose his or her job but rather faces the possibility of public shaming and criticism, which is serious enough only in high profile cases. Only those intimidated by public shaming renounce their posts and withdraw from public life. So

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far, no church leader or theology professor chose to step down after being identified as a former Securitate collaborator. Notwithstanding the significant problems of reliability and accuracy raised by any attempt of interpreting the information contained in the secret documents, the Securitate archive became the main source of evidence in the debate on the Orthodox Church’s relationship with the communist authorities. Many observers saw the secret archives as more reliable than personal testimonials, probably because in their (auto)biographies most Orthodox priests and hierarchs claimed to have suffered at the hands of the communists, and only a handful of them openly admitted to having served as snitches for the Securitate, spying on other priests and the faithful. The public opening of the Securitate archives, thus, reduced the debate to the quality and reliability of the information contained in the secret files. As demonstrated elsewhere, Teoctist himself, as a former Iron Guard member who was allegedly involved in the destruction of a synagogue in 1941, but then turned Communist Party member and a heavy collaborator of the communists and was groomed and protected by Patriarch Justinian, was interested in a re-assessment of the past that would cast him, his protector, and the Orthodox Church as victims rather than collaborators of the communist regime (Turcescu and Stan 2015). The debate was even further limited by the intervention of Patriarch Teoctist, for whom the church’s relationship with the communists boiled down to Patriarch Justinian’s position toward the regime. Thus, Justinian had to be convincingly included among those priests and bishops who really suffered in the communist prisons so that he was made to look like a resister not a collaborator. Teoctist began that process, but he did not dare to end it. It was his successor, Patriarch Daniel, who took this final step and in 2017 attempted to close the debate on the communist-era resistance and collaboration of the Orthodox Church by unconvincingly associating Justinian Marina with the scores of ecclesiastical victims of communism. The debate has divided the scholars who view Justinian mainly as a collaborator and those who portray him as a hero of communist resistance and a defender of a church which otherwise would have been annihilated. These two positions align perfectly with public opinions about the Orthodox Church’s relationship with the communist authorities. Indeed, scholars who see Justinian as a collaborator also posit that the church mainly supported the regime, and only occasionally stood up to it; by contrast, scholars who see Justinian as the epitome of anticommunist

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resistance also believe that the church diverged from the communist regime to the extent that was even possible under a repressive dictatorship. While the voices arguing for Justinian’s collaboration were louder during 2000–2006, the voices advocating for his resistance have become increasingly louder over the past fifteen years in conjunction with the so-called “prison saints” (Grigore 2015). The group who presents the Romanian Orthodox Church as a communist collaborator includes such scholars as Gabriel Catalan, Gabriel Andreescu, Cristian Vasile, Dorin Dobrincu, and Anca S, incan (who work within Romania), as well as Lucian Leus, tean, Denis Deletant, Olivier Gillet, Cristian Romocea, Lavinia Stan, and Lucian Turcescu (who work outside Romania). These scholars argue that Justinian’s appointment as the Romanian patriarch was endorsed by Moscow, as was most of what he did; he wrote convincingly and with zeal in support of communist policies; he was involved in the disbanding of the Greek Catholic Church in 1948; and he urged priests to support notorious communist policies such as the collectivization of agriculture and the creation of the new homo sovieticus. According to these scholars, many Synod members collaborated with the communist regime in similar ways; many bishops and priests acted as Securitate secret informers; most clergy members accepted salaries from the state; and the Orthodox Church as an institution collaborated in exchange for the protection of its assets from nationalization and for a privileged position among religious denominations. Despite these arguments in favor of collaboration, these scholars recognize with respect the sacrifices of numerous other bishops, priests, monks, nuns, and ordinary faithful. On the other side of the debate are scholars in Romania who are very close to the Orthodox Church. They generally look at the suffering that priests, monks, nuns, and ordinary faithful endured during early communism and extend that suffering to most church leaders, beginning with Patriarch Justinian, in order to cast the Orthodox Church as one of the main victims of the communist regime throughout the 1948–1989 period. Scholars like Cristina P˘aius, an, Radu Ciuceanu, Adrian Nicolae Petcu, and George Enache argue that Justinian resisted the communist authorities and the church as an institution was a victim of communism; the Romanian Orthodox Church was placed under heavy surveillance by the Securitate; many clergy, monks, nuns, and faithful were arrested, imprisoned, tortured, or persecuted; Patriarch Justinian did everything he could to defend the institution and its people, but he had to play by Soviet

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and communist rules; the Securitate archives demonstrate amply that the church was terrorized and victimized by the communists; and Justinian “surrounded himself” with former Iron Guard members and thus undermined the communists and disregarded their policy of sidelining and persecuting their former right-wing rivals. Following three decades of debates about the church’s communistera collaboration and resistance, as well as pressure on Patriarch Daniel and the Synod to proclaim as saints some controversial figures (including many former Iron Guard members) who suffered or even died in the Romanian Gulag, the Synod recognized 2017 as the Commemorative Year of Patriarch Justinian (Marina) and the Defenders of Orthodoxy during Communism. Throughout that year, numerous symposia, conferences, commemorations, and other related activities were organized both in Romania and in the diaspora. To promote the events, the Patriarchate even created a poster that is very telling about the intentions of all these celebratory events. The original photo, which was designed by the proponents of the “prison saints” phenomenon, included photographs of the communist-era ecclesiastical victims surrounding a centrally placed icon of Jesus Christ. However, shortly thereafter the Patriarchate took that same photo collage but replaced the figure of Jesus with that of Patriarch Justinian. This way, Justinian—who as patriarch did not care much about the arrested priests, monks, and nuns (who were “bandits” or opponents of communism, according to the Securitate parlance at the time)—all of a sudden was presented not only as one of them, since he was surrounded by such figures, but also as the most important of them, since his photo was larger than all the others. It is unclear whether this promotional strategy was suggested by Patriarch Daniel, who was following in the footsteps of Patriarch Teoctist by seeing the rehabilitation of Patriarch Justinian as the only way to claim a victim’s status for the Orthodox Church during post-communist times. The Orthodox Church celebrated other communist-era collaborators, thus blurring the lines between resisters and collaborators and defying the former victims. Professor Ioan Ic˘a Sr. was twice confirmed as a former Securitate collaborator, but he continued to be celebrated as late as 2017, when he turned 85 years old. A festschrift was published in his honor by the Faculty of Theology in Sibiu and several awards were bestowed upon him, including the “Patriarchal Cross” received from Patriarch Daniel and various diplomas from the University of Cluj’s Faculty of Orthodox Theology. Metropolitan Laurent, iu Streza of Ardeal presided over those

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award ceremonies (Trinitas TV 2017) in 2017, the very year when Patriarch Daniel called for the celebration of the victims of communism, that is, those who were traumatized and persecuted by the very secret police for which Professor Ic˘a Sr. worked. As one journalist noted, Ic˘a’s case suggests that a victimizer, not a victim, was celebrated (Bîlb˘a 2018). Last, it is worth noting that several transitional justice programs have affected the Romanian Orthodox Church since 1989. As any other religious denomination, the church benefitted from the restitution of property confiscated by the communist authorities. However, as a result of the restitution of Greek Catholic properties, the Orthodox Church lost some valuable buildings, mostly in Transylvania. Metropolitan Nicolae Corneanu gave back a rather significant number of churches that the Orthodox were holding illegally, but Orthodox churches in other parts of the country were lost through the court system as the church did not want to return them amicably. Religious education was introduced in the public-school system from grade 1 to grade 11 and the salaries of religion teachers trained in the faculties of theology of the respective religious denominations are covered by the state, as are the salaries of the Orthodox priests and hierarchs. The state also generously supported the construction of numerous churches belonging to all religious denominations; as the largest denomination in the country, the Orthodox Church received the most generous such support.

Conclusion This chapter has dealt with the issue of collaboration in the higher echelons of the Romanian Orthodox Church. While the three patriarchs who began their activity under communism collaborated heavily with the authorities, there was also opposition to the regime coming from the lower clergy, monks and nuns, and ordinary believers. The case of Father Calciu-Dumitreasa also stands out because of his resistance against communism in the latter period of the regime. The instrumentalization of the themes of resistance and collaboration that took place after 1989 pitted scholars who view the Orthodox hierarchy as collaborators against the post-communist leadership of church and several researchers who are working closely with this leadership in order to paint the church as a victim of the regime. The culmination of this instrumentalization took place in 2017 when Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea muddied the waters by bringing together notorious victims of the regime with their victimizers

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in order to make the point, once and for all, that his church was a victim of communism, and even the worst collaborators had nothing but good intentions for the survival of their church when they acted in tandem with the communist authorities. Acknowledgements This chapter is based on research conducted as part of a larger project on collaboration/resistance of religious denominations in communist Romania. The project is generously funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Part of the research was also conducted while the author was a Visiting Professor at the Research Institute of the University of Bucharest (ICUB) in April–May 2019.

Note 1. The Final Report of the Commission for the Analysis of the Communist Dictatorship in Romania (the Tismaneanu Report) claims that Iustin Moisescu was a member of the Iron Guard (Comisia Prezident, ial˘a 2007, 450). However, the Securitate file I consulted, after investigating the allegation for several years, concluded that it was impossible for the Securitate to establish that Iustin was a member of the Iron Guard (ACNSAS I 185032 vol. 1, p. 3).

References Aioanei, C., and F. Moraru. 2001. Biserica Ortodox˘a în lupta cu diavolul ro¸su. Altarul Banatului 12: 1–3. Beeson‚ T. 1982. Discretion and Valour: Religious Conditions in Russia and Eastern Europe. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Collins. Bîlb˘a, Daniel. 2018. De ce omagiaz˘a Biserica Ortodox˘a colaboratorii Securit˘at¸ii din regimul comunist? Adevarul, 20 Februarie. http://adevarul.ro/cul tura/spiritualitate/title-omagiaza-biserica-ortodoxa-colaboratorii-securitatiregimul-comunist-n-1_5a8b6b20df52022f75becc22/index.html. Accessed 27 January 2020. Caravia, Paul, V. Constantinescu, and F. St˘anescu. 1999. The Imprisoned Church: Romania, 1944–1989. Bucharest: The National Institute for the Study of Totalitarianism. Catalan, Gabriel. 2012. Scurt˘a biografie a lui Teoctist (Toader) Ar˘apas, u. https:// gabrielcatalan.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/scurta-biografie-a-lui-teoctisttoader-arapasu/. Accessed 27 January 2020. Comisia prezident, ial˘a. 2007. Pentru Analiza Dictaturii Comuniste Din Romania, Raport final Bucharest: Humanitas. Deletant, Dennis. 2012. România sub regimul comunist (December 1947– December 1989). In Istoria României, ed. Mihai B˘arbulescu et al., rev. ed., 407–480. Bucharest: Corin.

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Dur˘a, Ioan. 1994. Monahismul Românesc în anii 1948–1989: M˘arturii ale românilor si considerat, ii privitoare la acestea. Bucharest: Harisma. Enache, George. 2009. Decretul 410/1959. Un scurt bilan¸t la 50 de ani de la adoptare. Ziarul Lumina, 28 October. http://ziarullumina.ro/decretul-4101959-un-scurt-bilan-la-50-de-ani-dela-adoptare-37899.html. Accessed 28 July 2015. Grigore, Monica. 2015. The Aiud ‘Prison Saints.’ History, Memory, and Lived Religion. Eurostudia 10 (1): 33–49. https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/ euro/2015-v10-n1-euro02010/1033881ar/. Accessed 29 January 2020. Leustean, Lucian N. 2009. Orthodoxy and the Cold War: Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947–65. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Leustean, Lucian N., ed. 2014. Orthodox Christianity and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Southeastern Europe. New York: Fordham University Press. Pl˘am˘adeal˘a, Antonie. 1990. Nu am avut curajul s˘a fim martiri. Revista 22 1 (1) (20 January): 14. https://revista22.ro/storage/arhivapdf/1_1990.pdf. Accessed 29 January 2020. Romanian National Institute for Statistics (RNIS). 2011. Populat, ia stabil˘a dup˘a religii. http://www.recensamantromania.ro/rezultate-2. Accessed 13 January 2015. Stan, Lavinia. 2005. Inside the Securitate Archives. Woodrow Wilson Center. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/inside-the-securitate-archives. Accessed 29 January 2020. Stan, Lavinia, and Lucian Turcescu. 2007. Religion and Politics in Postcommunist Romania. New York: Oxford University Press. Turcescu, Lucian. 2018. Fascists, Communists, Bishops, and Spies: Romanian Orthodox Churches in North America. In North American Churches and the Cold War, ed. Paul Mojzes, 342–360. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Turcescu, Lucian. 2021. Collaboration with the Communists in the Orthodox Theological Institutes, in Lucian Turcescu and Lavinia Stan, eds., Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania, 49–68. (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Turcescu, Lucian, and Lavinia Stan. 2010. The Romanian Orthodox Church and Democratisation: Twenty Years Later. International Journal for the Study of the Christian Church 10 (2–3): 144–159. Turcescu, Lucian, and Lavinia Stan. 2015. Church Collaboration and Resistance Under Communism Revisited: The Case of Patriarch Justinian Marina (1948–1977). Eurostudia 10 (1): 75–103. http://www.erudit.org/revue/ euro/2015/v10/n1/index.html. Accessed 27 January 2020. Vasile, Cristian. 2005. Biserica Ortodox˘a Român˘a în primul deceniu communist. Bucharest: Curtea Veche. Webster, A. 1995. The Price of Prophecy: Orthodox Churches on Peace, Freedom and Security. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center.

CHAPTER 6

Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past Momchil Metodiev

Thirty years after the end of communism, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church prefers to remain silent on ambiguous positions and decisions taken by many representatives of its leadership before 1989. It also keeps silence about the significant number of priests who became victims of the atheist regime. However, in the course of the last thirty years all archives have been opened and all secrets revealed. While the first generation of communist-era metropolitans openly or quietly resisted state pressure, the second generation of church leadership preferred to ignore the social engineering orchestrated by the state, and in some cases even to support it, during the 1970s and 1980s. As a result of this, and the clericalization of church life over time reflected in the unlimited power of metropolitans, today the Bulgarian Orthodox Church as an institution neither officially honors its martyrs nor condemns the bishops who collaborated with the communist authorities. The only attempt to face the communist past in the turbulent 1990s provoked a full-scale schism within the church leadership and subsequently failed in achieving concrete results. As it recently

M. Metodiev (B) New Bulgarian University, Sofia, Bulgaria e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_6

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became clear, this attempt was led by people who tried to whitewash their own biographies more than to renew the life of the church. The current review of church life during the communist and postcommunist periods in Bulgaria is based on the considerable literature that has been published over the last years and the state archives compiled in communist times, including the State Security secret files of all communist-era metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, who were either targets of or collaborators with the secret police.

The Communist State and the Orthodox Church: Repression, Resistance, Collaboration The Bulgarian Orthodox Church entered the communist period as an influential public institution that could not be blamed for cooperation with the pro-Nazi Bulgarian government during World War II. The evidence for this was its active participation in the movement against the deportation of Bulgarian Jews in 1943 (Taneva and Gezenko 2005). As of 9 September 1944, when the communists took control over Bulgaria with the help of the Soviet army, the Bulgarian Church remained schismatic and unrecognized by other churches in the Orthodox family. Nevertheless, it was led by some respectable clerics, who actively participated in many ecumenical meetings before the war and were well received in the society due to the numerous social and educational institutions established by the church (Tsankov 1939). An additional factor for the high public support for the church was the fact that it was perceived as a pillar of national identity. The Bulgarian Exarchate was established in 1870 under the Ottoman rule as part of the national project, and this was the reason why the Ecumenical Patriarchate convened a Council in 1872 and proclaimed it schismatic. The Orthodox Church’s identification with the nation was reinforced by the overlap between religious and ethnic identity. In Bulgaria, there were two main religious communities. According to the 1946 census, 85% of the population declared itself Orthodox Christian, and 13% Muslims, represented mainly by the ethnic Turks living in Bulgaria (Oshavkov 1968, 73). In addition, there were small Catholic and Protestant communities (which accounted for about 1% each). In 1944, the Bulgarian Church was ruled by the Holy Synod, which consisted of ten metropolitans who governed spiritually and administratively the ten dioceses of the Orthodox Church (the number of dioceses

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and metropolitans grew to fifteen after 2000). According to the Church Statutes, the metropolitans could not be replaced and they remained in those positions for life. Metropolitans could be elected only from among bishops, who in turn were chosen only from among monks. Until 1953, the Church was headed by an Exarch and after 1953 by the Patriarch. Metropolitans have virtually unlimited power in their dioceses, especially over the parish priests. Unlike the Catholic Church, the Orthodox priests are not celibate. This draws a clear distinction between priests, who cannot occupy leadership positions, and monks, from among whose ranks candidates for the higher church hierarchy are chosen. In the mid1940s the Bulgarian Church included some 2,500 parish priests serving around 3,700 churches. One of the great problems facing the Bulgarian Church has been the small number of monks—in the mid-1940s there were only about 200 monks and 260 nuns (Metodiev 2010, 98). These small numbers facilitated the intervention of the communist state in church affairs, as this small monastic community easily became subject of observation and control. The policy of the communist state toward the Christian churches and religious denominations can be divided into three main periods that roughly coincided with changes in the leadership of the Bulgarian Church. The first period, which was dominated by openly repressive policy, began immediately after 9 September 1944. The following months registered extrajudicial repression methods in the form of unlawful arrests and murders, which affected some 18,000 victims of the new communist authorities (Znepolski 2011, 65). Among the victims there were dozens of parish priests (their exact number remains unknown). In October 1944, two of the most respected Synod members were arrested; they were released in March 1945 after being tortured and harassed in prison. Members of the clergy were among the victims of the so-called People’s Courts, that is, extraordinary courts that were officially established in December 1944 in order to deal with crimes perpetrated during World War II. Immediately after their creation, the Courts became a repression tool against the political and ideological opponents of the new regime. Three archimandrites received prison sentences of between one and five years for their participation in a commission of inquiry established in 1943 by Germany which concluded that the Soviet troops were responsible for the mass murders committed in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia in 1937– 1938 (Meshkova and Sharlanov 1994, 132–140). In total, more than one

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hundred Orthodox clergy members were convicted by the central and regional “People’s Courts.” At the same time, the state actively sought to limit the rights of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and other religious denominations. This policy was hidden behind the concept of “separation of church and state.” The aim was to eliminate the visible and public influence of the churches. Each provision of the new legislation was unsuccessfully challenged by the Synod. The new Constitution , approved in December 1947, formally proclaimed the right to “freedom of religion,” but provided no legal guarantees for its protection. The most important legal act that defined the place of the Orthodox Church and other religious denominations in the communist society was the Religious Denominations Act of 24 February 1949, which, with minor changes, remained in force until the end of the communist regime. The Law consisted of thirty-two articles that in the beginning proclaimed well-sounding liberal principles that were limited immediately after by the introduction of specific conditions for their implementation. Denominations were deprived of their social and educational activities, all social organizations created by churches were closed down and nationalized, and a formal ban on “religious propaganda” among the youth was imposed. All major activities of the religious denominations were placed under the control of the state Committee for Church Affairs. The law required the approval of the statutes of the denominations by the Committee and provided that all clergy members be Bulgarian citizens. The leaderships of all denominations were subject to registration, and all of their international contacts were controlled by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Kalkandjieva 2002, 76–143). Religious denominations were also affected by the economic measures of the new government. In particular, the church was deprived of its sources of income, when a significant part of its property in the cities and of its agricultural land were nationalized in the late 1940s and the early 1950s. As a substitute, the state provided insignificant financial subsidy to the churches. During the following decades, however, the Orthodox Church retained some degree of financial autonomy. In the 1970s, the state subsidy formed only about one-tenth of the church’s total budget, while the remainder of its income came from the sale of goods (mainly candles) on whose production the church received monopoly rights (Metodiev 2010, 94–97). That is why a much stronger repressive effect had the church’s ever limited right to spend its funds. Any increase

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in the salary of the clergy had to be “coordinated” with the state authorities. The church had limited rights over the distribution of funds for the renovation and maintenance of places of worship, while an unofficial but effective ban was imposed on building new churches. The church was allowed to have only one publishing house, which had the right to print only 1,600 pages per year (AMFA, Fund 10, List 9, File 1096). On 8 November 1948, the clergy was affected by a new repressive wave that started with the assassination of one of the most influential anticommunist Synod members, the Metropolitan of Nevrokop Boris, shot by a defrocked priest in a church courtyard after serving liturgy (Angelov 1999). Once again the main victims of repression were the parish priests. Toward the end of 1948 all parish priests were classified by state authorities according to their attitude to the new government. Some 1,600 of the 2,063 parish priests active at the time in Bulgaria were qualified as having a negative attitude toward the regime. These characterizations became the basis for subsequent repression, which resulted in the sentencing to various prison terms or the incarceration in communist prisons of at least 10% of all priests in the country (Metodiev 2010, 174–200). In 1948–1949, the government seriously discussed, but finally abandoned, some radical ideas for reforming the church leadership bodies. Instead, the state authorities applied softer, but more effective, policy focused on breaking the unanimity of the Synod. The Synod members were divided into, on the one hand, the “extreme reactionaries” and, on the other, those who were seen as “progressive” and whose weaknesses and ambitions the state could exploit. On 4 January 1951 a new Church Statute was adopted. Some of its provisions preserved the ecclesiastical traditions, autonomy, and internal democracy of the church, but others remained only on paper and were never implemented or respected during communist times (Nikolchev 2003; Metodiev 2009). Seriously affected by repression were the minority Christian denominations, whose leaders were sentenced in Stalinist show trials on charges of espionage. The first victims of such trials were the leaders of the Protestant denominations: in 1949, fifteen Protestant pastors were sentenced to prison, four of them receiving life sentences and nine receiving fifteen years in prison (Peev 2019, 128–149). In July 1952, another show trial was organized against fifty-six Catholic priests, bishops, and monks. Four of them were sentenced to death by shooting, and the remaining received different prison terms ranging from three to twenty years. The death sentences were executed on 11 November 1952. The trial dealt a heavy

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blow to the Bulgarian Roman Catholic and Greek Catholic communities (Eldurov 2002, 270–297). Simultaneously with these repression waves, the state authorities began to intervene directly in the work of the church administration. At the beginning of communism, this intervention seemed positive, since it sought to clarify the international status of the Bulgarian Church. Such efforts were facilitated by Moscow’s desire to create an increased number of autocephalous (self-governed) Orthodox Churches so as to isolate the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and its pro-Western policy, within the Orthodox world (Kalkandjieva 2015, 207–239). The first step in this direction was taken on 21 January 1945, when the Metropolitan of Sofia Stephan, a respected bishop and ecumenist known for having opposed the deportation of Bulgarian Jews in 1943, was elected as the new Exarch. After his election, on 22 February 1945, the Ecumenical Patriarchate officially granted autocephalous status to the Bulgarian Church. As head of the church during the following three years, Exarch Stephan faced the difficult task of balancing the metropolitans’ insistence on protecting the church autonomy with state pressure. The state skillfully used disagreements within the Synod. At the end of the dramatic Synod session of 6 September 1948, the Exarch resigned his position. He likely expected the state authorities to reject his resignation and therefore to strengthen his position after the incident. To his surprise, the Synod unanimously approved the resignation on 8 September, and the government did so immediately afterwards. The former Exarch was exiled in a remote village, where he remained until his death in 1957. For the following five years, the church was headed by an ad-interim chairman of the Synod until the election of the new patriarch (Nikolchev 2015, 161–348). On 10 May 1953 the respected and influential Metropolitan of Plovdiv Kirill was elected the first Patriarch of modern Bulgaria. His election seemed logical, since he was well-known in the Orthodox world and also among the most active opponents of the deportation of Bulgarian Jews. At the same time, he was clearly supported by the communist state authorities and his election became possible only after overcoming the opposition of half of the metropolitans in the Synod (Metodiev 2010, 209–212). Kirill’s election marked the beginning of the second period of the church-state relations under communism, during which the state abandoned the use of open repression against religious denominations. The new church-state relations were based on the willingness of the state to support and raise the prestige of the Patriarch at the expense of the

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other Synod members, thus weakening opposition against the Patriarch within that leadership body. At the same time the state adopted a new policy aimed at alienating the population from the church. In the mid-1960s it started a campaign against major religious holidays, which culminated in the establishment of the practice that visitors could attend the Easter liturgy in the main churches in urban areas only if they received invitations beforehand. As a result, on Easter eve the churches were surrounded by militia (police) cordons that controlled and recorded the persons who attended the liturgy. This practice continued until the end of communism and remained one of the most visible symbols of anti-church repression, thus facilitating the popular belief that the church was a victim of the communist regime (Markov 2008). Another measure in this anticlerical campaign was represented by the nationalization of the main monastery of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the Rila monastery. Nationalized in 1961, the monastery was transformed into a museum (Protocol #192 of Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, 22 July 1960, Central State Archive, Fund 1B, List 6, File 4541). In response to negative church and international reactions, the monastic community was allowed to return to the monastery in 1968. Afterwards until the end of communism, the monks uneasily co-existed with the museum: the monks were allowed to perform liturgies only when the museum was closed, and when visitors were not allowed to enter the monastery. Patriarch Kirill passed away on 7 March 1971. The next day, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party approved the nomination of the Metropolitan of Lovech Maxim as the new Patriarch, which was supported by the Committee for Church Affairs (Central State Archive, Fund 1B, List 35, File 2040). Four months later, Maxim was elected as Patriarch by a Church Council on 4 July 1971. Support of the Communist Party became a reason why his election was contested both in 1971, and in the 1990s, following the collapse of communism. In 1971, three of Bulgaria’s most influential metropolitans signed a petition demanding the postponement of the election of a new patriarch until the renewal of all church bodies. They demanded the reestablishment of the legitimacy of the entire ecclesiastical pyramid, which meant election of the new parish councils and the new diocesan councils, as well as subsequently election of the new members of the church council that elected the new Patriarch. The term of all those bodies, which

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were elected in 1952, expired in 1956. Later their members were actually appointed by the metropolitans, in violation of the Church Statute. This appointment formula undermined the legitimacy not only of the new Patriarch but also of all metropolitans who were elected after 1956. In 1971, the communist state authorities rejected the demand of the three metropolitans, but their petition undermined the legitimacy of the new Patriarch. During the early 1970s an alternative center of power emerged within the church, symbolized by its External Relations Department, as a result of the Bulgarian Church’s active participation in ecumenical organizations. The Department maintained active and essentially independent relations both with the Bulgarian communist state and the Moscow Patriarchate. At the same time, its activity was closely monitored and directed by the Bulgarian State Security in coordination with the KGB with the ultimate goal of advertising the accomplishments of the communist regimes in ecumenical organizations (Metodiev 2012). Since the Department’s creation, its head was the Metropolitan of Stara Zagora Pankratii, a State Security collaborator with the code name “Boyko” (Archive of the Commission for Disclosure of the Documents and Announcing Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens with the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army, M. Fund Ip, File 1324). The activity of the Department led to the emergence of a privileged group of clerics and theologians, who were allowed to travel abroad and who were promoted in the ecumenical organizations. The division within the Church leadership was also explained by the fact that regardless of his impeccable monastic reputation Maxim, unlike his predecessor, remained a weak patriarch, always seeking consensus among the metropolitans. Until 1989, the declared aim of the communist authorities remained the complete secularization of the population, a policy implemented by several state institutions. The authority of the Committee for Church Affairs as the main executor of the state policy on religion remained unchallenged until the early 1970s. Until then it tried, at least superficially, to respect the legislation in effect and to comply with the demands of the higher church leadership. However, during the 1970s and the 1980s the local state authorities were the main executors of the soft administrative repression against the priests, and this resulted in complete administrative arbitrariness. As a result, in the early 1970s the State Security became the most important institution responsible for religious affairs. The infiltration of

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the State Security into church hierarchy was one of the most disputed issues during post-communist times. As the newly open archives prove, two State Security structures were involved in religious affairs: the Sixth Department and the First Main Department. The Sixth Department, established in 1967, was mandated to combat “ideological diversion,” understood as any ideological activity, including religion, that could undermine the authority of the Communist Party. The Department monitored the intelligentsia, the youth, and the opposition within the Communist Party. Within this Department there was a special division that controlled the clergy. The other State Security structure relevant to religious affairs was the First Main Department (Intelligence), which monitored church representatives who traveled abroad and recruited prospective clergy members in order to place them into international ecumenical organizations. Data on the degree to which the State Security penetrated the Church hierarchy is summarized in Table 6.1, based on an examination of the State Security secret files of all metropolitans active during communist times. Data covers the period until 2012, the year when the Commission for Disclosure of the Documents and Announcing Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens with the State Security released its official report on the church hierarchy active at that time. It does not mean that bishops mentioned in the report were active collaborators until 2012, but only that some of them were recruited as promising clerics, worked as collaborators until the closure of the communist State Security in 1990, and later on advanced in the church hierarchy to the position of elected metropolitans. The same statistical data could be presented for better understanding in Chart 6.1. Surprisingly for many, data proves that the highest proportion of State Security collaborators in the Synod of the Church was not in the communist years but in the period 1994–1998, after which their percentage remained almost unchanged by 2012. The chart clearly shows that the State Security collaborators in the transitional years exceeded the number and percentage of collaborators at any time from the communist period. It also proves that the turning point, when the percentage of State Security collaborators exceeded the percentage of objects did not occur until 1980. Another surprising discovery that needs further elaboration is the relatively low infiltration of the State Security of the Synod before 1971. The State Security infiltration rose sharply only after the establishment of the

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Table 6.1 State security objects and collaborators in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Synod Year

1950 1953

1960 1967

1971 1980 1986 1989 1994 1998 2004 2012

Event

Dioceses

Number of metropolitans (Holy Synod members)

State Security collaborators (number, %)

State Security objects (number, %)

10 11

9 10

0 (0) 1 (10%)

9 (90%) 7 (70%)

11 Creation of the 12 State Security Sixth Department Election of 12 Patriarch Maxim 12 13 13 13 14 15 Report of the 15 Dossier Commission

10 11

1 (10%) 1 (9%)

7 (70%) 7 (64%)

11

2 (18%)

5 (45%)

12 13 13 13 14 15 15

5 (42%) 7 (54%) 8 (62%) 10 (77%) 11 (78%) 11 (73%) 11 (73%)

5 5 4 2 2 2 0

Establishment of modern Bulgarian patriarchate and Election of Patriarch Kirill

(42%) (38%) (30%) (15%) (14%) (13%)

Sixth Department in 1967. During the first two decades of communism the State Security emphasized especially the control of the higher clergy more than the infiltration of the church leadership. During these two decades virtually all of the metropolitans elected before 1944 and some of the metropolitans elected during the 1950s and the 1960s were targeted by the State Security. During that period the State Security also actively worked to prevent the election of well-known opposition-minded bishops as metropolitans. During the 1950s and the 1960s, the State Security had only one secret agent within the Holy Synod: the Metropolitan of Nevrokop Pimen. His extraordinary high status as a secret collaborator was indicated by the fact that the case officers who handled him were invariably the heads of the State Security structures involved in religious

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State security objects and collaborators in the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (percentages) Collaborators

100 90

Objects

90

80 70

70

70

60

64

78

15

14

73

73

62 54

50

45

40 30

42

38 30

20

18

10 0

77

10 0

10

9

13 0

1950 1953 1960 1967 1971 1980 1986 1989 1994 1998 2004 2012

Chart 6.1 State Security objects and collaborators in the Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church (percentages) (Source Author’s calculation based on the communist State Security files of all metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church)

affairs. Indicative of his high status is also his codename: the “Patriarch” (Archive of the Commission for Disclosure of the Documents and Announcing Affiliation of Bulgarian Citizens with the State Security and the Intelligence Services of the Bulgarian National Army, Historical Fund 1, List 1, File 788). All these details are important because during the 1990s Pimen was elected as the leader of the group that promised the renewal and the de-communization of the church by sidelining all the clergy tainted by past collaboration with the communist secret services. Secret infiltration in the Synod became more active around the mid-1960s with the increased international visibility of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the undermining by the State Security of the Committee of Church Affairs as the main executor of the communist state policy on religious affairs. The 1970s were a critical decade when the Synod gradually fell under the control of State Security, and the Patriarch lost his previously held position as the main mediator between the church and the state institutions. Although he was loyal to the communist state, there is no evidence that Patriarch Maxim was a State Security secret collaborator when he served as Patriarch or earlier as a bishop or metropolitan.

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Patriarch Maxim’s tenure was also characterized by an increase in the administrative repression of the Church that was part of the social engineering deployed by the communist state in order to secularize the population. The replacement of religious with civil rituals and the attempt to impose new holidays was the most elusive and interesting state policy during late communism. The sociological survey entitled The Process of Overcoming Religion in Bulgaria (Oshavkov 1968), published in 1968, concluded that Bulgaria was moving toward full secularization, since only 35% of its population identified itself as religious. This data was compared to the data for church rituals and sacraments: religious marriages amounted to 36.11% of all marriages, 52.42% of all newborn children were baptized, and 80% of the deceased people were buried with religious funerals, meaning that even party members often resorted to such rituals. As such, the communist state authorities decided to initiate a new campaign aimed at replacing religious rituals with new civil rituals. Church marriages were already underrepresented in comparison with civil marriages, so in this respect an easy solution was quickly found. Marriage was perceived as a family celebration that did not needed church approval, and marriages were performed by the most active segment of the population that was also heavily dependent on the state. Much harder was the problem of religious funerals. In 1968, the Council of Ministers declared that all funerals would be free of charge if performed with civil ceremony. In turn, local authorities and party organizations started to pressure people who were known for choosing religious rituals for their deceased relatives. The other new ritual, actively enforced by the state since the early 1970s, was the “naming of a child.” In essence, it aimed at replacing church baptism with a ceremony for “civil” baptism. The young families were “officially invited” to take part in the ritual, which culminated when the mother handed over the child to the civil servant, who “solemnly” announced the name of “the new citizen of our socialist homeland” (Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, F. 10, List 12, File 189) (Table 6.2). How successful was the policy of replacing religious rituals with civil ones? In the following years, civil marriage became the only existing marriage ritual practiced in Bulgaria, the baptism of children fell significantly, while religious funerals remained the most popular religious ritual, although their numbers fell dramatically. This campaign faced different forms of resistance or attempts to circumvent the new rules. For example, in the early 1970s the practice of baptizing children became widespread,

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Table 6.2 Religious rituals and sacraments (%) Year

1968

1977

1978

1979

1980

Baptized children Religious marriages Religious funerals

52 36 80

40 6.59 49

40 5.53 49.1

47 4.72 49.6

40.7 4.52 47.9

Source AMFA (Archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). Fund 10, List 14, File 589

after children were brought to church by their grandmothers, allegedly without the parents’ consent. The archives further detailed various ways in which the ban on religious burials was circumvented (Metodiev 2010, 38 and 324–332). The next step was to create a new “socialist holiday calendar.” The leading principle behind that effort was the fact that the new holidays were celebrated on the same dates as the traditional ones but they were “rethought” and filled with new content and symbolism. The main object of that campaign was the Palm Sunday and the Easter, which had continued to be celebrated by the vast majority of the population. In their attempts to replace the religious holidays, the communist authorities even recommended that the Easter eggs be painted in kindergartens not on Easter day but on the first day of spring. Other measures envisaged the organization of carnivals in the big cities on Easter day. Among the most effective measures aimed at preventing people from visiting the church on Easter was the broadcasting on the state television of an “interesting and entertaining program” such as Western movies or show programs that were not scheduled on any other day of the year (Metodiev 2010, 41–65). Archival documents prove that state efforts seeking to change the holidays should not be underestimated. Even a super-centralized state like communist Bulgaria found it impossible to erase within two decades a holiday tradition shaped over several centuries. But the efforts of the state were not completely in vain, since they were enhanced by the disintegration of the traditional communities and the migration of population from villages to cities.

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Post-communist Challenges and Missed Opportunities What challenges has the Bulgarian Orthodox Church faced since the end of communism? How has the Bulgarian Church dealt with its communist past during the 1990s, given that the relevant secret archives remained closed and the links between the communist state and the church leadership were either secret or subject to speculation? Under the communist regime, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church managed to preserve some autonomy from the state, but that autonomy became increasingly narrow. One of the major problems inherited from communist times was the alienation of the church and its hierarchy from the problems of the society. The communist-era ban on social activity and work with the youth deprived the church of some important means for reaching new segments of the society. The state control over the international activities of the church prevented it from developing autonomy from the international contacts of the Bulgarian state. Two generations of Bulgarian clergymen received their education mainly within the country or in Russia, and this impacted their way of thinking and expectations. During the last two decades of communism, the state authorities focused on combating religious rituals. In this respect, the state lost the battle with the church because the principal Christian holidays continued to be celebrated, although mostly in family circles. This resulted in the ritualization of church life and belief within the society that performing rituals is sufficient for one to identify with Orthodox Christianity. The available statistics allow us to summarize the main trends in the church life during communism (see Table 6.3). One of the most dramatic consequences of communist policies, which needs decades to be reversed, was the destruction of the parish structure and the lack of legitimacy of the entire church pyramid, that is, of all the electoral ecclesiastical bodies entitled to exercise control over the high clergy and to keep alive the connection between the bishops and the laity. From a statistical viewpoint, the most obvious consequence was the sharp decrease in the number of parish priests: the total number of regular priests decreased from around 2,500 in the mid-1940s to less than 1,000 in 1985. There was also a significant, although not drastic, drop in the number of monks. The lack of stability in the church pyramid explains the overall tendency toward the clericalization of church life,

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Table 6.3 Bulgarian Orthodox Church (statistical information) Year

1957

1971

1974

Churches Priests (total) – Regular – Retired ( ‘holiday’ priests) Monasteries Monks and nuns (total) – Monks – Nuns

3,700 2,232 1,815 417 120 440 183 257

2,940 2,178 1,878 300 102 425 210 215

1,794 1,174 620 98 379 159 220

1978 2,875 1,746

1985

1,700 950 750

391

Source AMFA. Fund 10, List 6, File 171; Fund 10, List 11, File 178; Fund 10, List 12, File 105; Fund 10, List 9, File 1167; Fund 10, List 13, File 516; Fund 10, List 14, File 1519

which has remained centered around metropolitans, whose power was virtually unlimited. Immediately after the end of communism, the church became the focal point of many of the hopes of the Bulgarian society, but did not fulfil all of them. Viewed with sympathy by the great part of the population and regarded as a victim of the communist regime, the church was expected to become a unifying force for the nation and a moral pillar of the society, including by reckoning with its own communist past. The end of the communist regime marked the beginning of the revival of church life. The most obvious legacies of the communist regime were corrected. The main seminary, which had been transferred to a remote village during communism, returned to its old building in Sofia, the country’s capital. Interest in theological education raised sharply, turning the Faculty of Theology into a focal point for many discussions, debates, and controversies on aspects of church life and gradually leading to the emergence of a new generation of Orthodox priests who revived interest in Orthodoxy and religion, especially in urban areas. At the same time, people returned to church. Early baptism of children regained its popularity, and youths who were not baptized under communism also received baptism. Especially diligent in presenting themselves as loyal members of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church were members of the old communist elite, one of the most irritating aspects of this renewed interest in religion. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church and other religious denominations regained the legal right to develop freely without state interference. During the 1990s there were reasonable suspicions that the state

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attempted to intervene in church life, but public pressure and the futile disputes within the church leadership led to a real separation of church and state. At the same time, during the 1990s the church resisted the temptation to become purely national or a nationalist institution, as some populist political leaders and opinion makers expected. The most controversial and unresolved issue that divides church and state today remains the Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s demand that religious education be reintroduced to schools. Despite the significant campaign organized by the church, the state has not accepted this demand and, as such, religious education remains dependent on the activity and charisma of certain local priests. As expected, new churches started to be built right after the end of communism, especially in cities. Depending on the energy and capacity of the metropolitans, efforts were made to repair ruined village churches. In this respect, a great deal of aid has been provided by various European Union financial programs. After 1989, Christianity has once again become an “urban religion” whose members are primarily living in towns and cities, while the popular interest in the life of the church stimulated the emergence of an active and well-educated Orthodox public opinion. For the most part, they are active laypeople who mobilize themselves so as to implement specific initiatives or create information websites that analyze and sometimes even harshly criticize the decisions of the church hierarchy. This Orthodox public opinion became the only real corrective of the unlimited power of metropolitans. Since 2000, it has also remained the only voice insisting on the need to reckon with the communist past. Signs that church life became more active and freedom of religion became respected have been counterbalanced by some negative phenomena. When Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union in 2007, they became the third and fourth predominantly Orthodox countries in the European family after Greece and Cyprus. The opening of Bulgaria to the world was seen by many as a reason for joy and hope, and by others as a cause for fear of losing their ethnic and religious identity. Recently those fears have become stronger and the Bulgarian Orthodox Church started to position itself as one of the most conservative churches in the Orthodox world when it came to controversial public issues related to personal and public morality. These negative developments are rooted in the disputes that divided the leadership of the Bulgarian Church during the 1990s. Those disputes

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were provoked by the unwillingness of the majority of the church hierarchy to face and deal with its communist past. Indirectly, it negatively impacted the rapid revival of church life. It started when several influential metropolitans demanded the resignation of Patriarch Maxim on grounds that his election had been sanctioned by the communist state. This request led to a full-scale schism within the church leadership, which started in 1992 when five metropolitans, supported by five bishops, separated themselves from the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and founded the so-called Alternative Synod. In 1996, they organized a Council that elected Metropolitan of Nevrokop Pimen as the Alternative Patriarch (Tzatzov 2018, 286–314). In its original form, the schism formalized the already existing deep divisions within the church leadership. During the 1990s, the Alternative Synod promised the renewal of church life, overcoming the problems inherited by communism and reckoning with the communist past. From the beginning, this movement was heterogeneous and its followers included respected bishops and priests who had been truly repressed by the communist state. The problem lied with the people who succeeded in establishing themselves as leaders of the movement. In 2012, when the State Security files of the clergy leaders were made public, it was officially confirmed that the leaders of the Alternative Synod were among the most active collaborators of the communist regime. The Alternative Synod was headed by Metropolitan of Nevrokop Pimen, who was unveiled as the only State Security collaborator in the Synod during the 1950s and 1960s, who worked for the communist secret police under the codename the “Patriarch.” He was assisted by two of the most ardent participants in the ecumenical activities of the Bulgarian Church, also confirmed as the most important State Security collaborators within the Church during the last two decades of the communist regime: the Metropolitan of Stara Zagora Pankratii and the Metropolitan of Vratsa Kalinik. Patriarch Maxim’s supporters also did not form a homogeneous group, since among them there were also former State Security collaborators as well as victims of the communist regime. Given Patriarch Maxim’s loyalty toward the communist authorities, it is surprising that he was not connected to the State Security, as the Commission on State Security files confirmed in 2012. The Commission further confirmed that none of Maxim’s predecessors were State Security collaborators (and both Exarch Stephan and Patriarch Kirill were long-term targets of the communist secret services). The dispute between the so-called Canonical and

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Alternative Synods (of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and the Alternative Church, respectively) led to heavy accusations, numerous rumors, occupation of church property and even physical clashes between representatives of the two Synods and their followers among laypeople or ordinary citizens. The dispute ended in 1998 with the return of most of the socalled “schismatic” members of the Alternative Synod to the Canonical Synod, after the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew convened on 1 October 1998 a Pan-Orthodox Meeting in Sofia that recognized Patriarch Maxims’ Synod as the Canonical Synod supported by the Orthodox world. Since then, most of the remaining “schismatics” repented and returned to the Canonical Synod, and the last remnants of the schism were overcome in 2001 when, with the intervention of the state, the last “schismatic” priests were forced to leave their churches. The unity did not bring renewal, but merely strengthened the undisputed power of the higher clergy—afraid of the possible consequences brought about by the participation of the laity in the life of the Church, the metropolitans and the bishops preferred to isolate themselves from the demands of the society and Orthodox public opinion. In 1998, the Synod headed by Patriarch Maxim formally decided to leave the World Council of Churches because “of the lack of satisfactory progress in the multilateral theological dialogue between Christians” (Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church 1998). This decision is explained by the desire of the church leadership to disassociate itself from the communist-era ecumenical representatives who dominated the so-called Alternative Synod. As a result, instead of condemning the communist interference into church affairs, the Synod condemned the ecumenical movement, indirectly blaming foreign influences (symbolized by the World Council of Churches) for its own problems, and thus avoiding the need to identify internal causes for difficulties faced by the Bulgarian Church. The communist past became topical again during the early 2010s, when it became clear that the communist State Security archives would be declassified. Once again the Church leadership failed to use the opportunity to clean itself, but instead it tried to block the opening of the files. In 2007, a new law declassified the State Security archives and created a Commission to verify and publish reports on the affiliation with the State Security of those who held public positions in post-communism. In 2011, it became clear that the Commission was preparing to publish

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a report on the members of the Synod of the Bulgarian Church and other denominations who had served the communist State Security. In response, the Synod and the metropolitans tried to ban the publication of the report on the grounds that it represented an intolerable interference by state institutions into church affairs. With the support of public opinion, church opposition was overcome and the report was published on 17 January 2012. It officially proved that eleven of the fifteen members of the Synod had been State Security collaborators. The conclusion, which exceeded the expectations of even the most pessimistic observers, was an unpleasant surprise for the public. The scandal provoked by the report did not persuade the Synod to investigate the communist past of the church. The proposal of several metropolitans to draft a statement expressing regret for the revelations met the resistance of the majority in the Synod, which once again decided to remain silent on the issue. Following the disclosure of the secret files of the acting metropolitans, researchers were granted access to the State Security files of all communist-era Synod members—both those of the secret collaborators and of the victims of the secret police. As a result, the picture gradually became more nuanced and indicative of the State Security infiltration into the church. It proved the conscious resistance of the first generation of metropolitans and bishops through the effort of the researchers and laypeople, without the support of the Synod.

Conclusion The problem of dealing with the communist past of the Bulgarian Church has remained unaddressed during the first thirty years of postcommunism. Although all relevant archives were declassified and many secrets have been revealed publicly, this knowledge became available due to the efforts of state institutions and researchers who successfully filled knowledge gaps about the communist period. At the institutional level of the Orthodox Church, even attempts to glorify the martyrs of the communist regime have failed thus far. The current Metropolitan of Nevrokop tried to sanctify his predecessor Boris, murdered in 1948, but his proposal remained unapproved. Thus, the memory of the victims of the communist regime is preserved within the church without being officially sanctioned by the church leadership. This is only one of the many signs of the self-closure of the church leadership and its avoidance of the issues relevant for the Bulgarian public.

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While the 1990s was a decade of hope, deep controversies, and missed opportunities for reckoning with the communist past, during the 2000s and the 2010s the Church hierarchy has feared that facing the past could open the old wounds associated with the schism of the 1990s, which saw the Bulgarian Orthodox Church divided into a Canonical and an Alternative Synod. Avoiding problems of the day resulted in encapsulation of the Church leadership. As a result, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church started to seek legitimacy and popular support by positioning itself as one of the most conservative churches in the Orthodox world, and refused to participate in the Pan-Orthodox Council convened by the Ecumenical Patriarch in Crete in June 2016. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church is also among the very few churches that do not participate in the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Superficially the Church’s failure to confront its communist past is disconnected from its association with modern identity politics pursued by minority political parties and movements which claim to defend the purity of Orthodoxy. But church reluctance to face the past has alienated its leadership from the public opinion and forced it to rely on, and look for, support from these minority groups. As such, the Bulgarian Orthodox Church proves that knowledge of the communist past and opening of the secret archives do not necessarily lead to a deeper understating of the past by religious denominations.

References Angelov, V. 1999. Nevrokopska Eparchia pri Upravlenieto na Mitropolit Boris (1935–1948). In Religia i Curkva v Bulgaria, 293–304. Gutenberg: Sofia. Eldurov, Sv. 2002. Katolozite v Bulgaria (1878–1989). Istorichesko izsledvane. Sofia: n.p. Kalkandjieva, D. 2002. Bulgarskata Pravoslavna Curkva i „narodnata demokracia“ (1944–1953). Silistra: Demos. Kalkandjieva, D. 2015. The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917–1948: From Decline to Resurrection. Routledge. Markov, Georgi. 2008. Velikden krai Alexander Nevski. In Zadochni reportazi za Bulgaria, vol 2, 44–54. Sofia: Ciela. Meshkova, P., and D. Sharlanov. 1994. Bulgarskata Gilotina. Tainite Mehanizmi na Narodnia Sud. Sofia: Agenzia Democrazia. Metodiev, M. 2009. Istoriata na ‘Edin Nov, Maluk I Demokratichen Ustav na BPZ’. Hristianstvo i Kultura 38 (3): 25–32.

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Metodiev, M. 2010. Mezhdu Viarata I Kompromisa. Bulgarskata Pravoslavna Curkva I Komunisticheskata Durzhava. Sofia: Institute for Study of the Recent Past. Metodiev, M. 2012. The Ecumenical Activities of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church: Reasons, Motivations, Consequence. In Christian World Community and the Cold War, ed. Julius Filo, 71–90. Bratislava: Comenius University. Nikolchev, D. 2003. Za Ustava na Bulgarskata Pravoslavna Zurkva: Neobhodimata Reforma. Hristianstvo i Kultura 6 (2): 72–86. Nikolchev, D. 2015. Exarch Stephan pod “grizhite” na Durzhavna sigurnost. Sofia: n.p. Oshavkov, Zh. 1968. Prozesut na preodoliavaneto na religiata v Bulgaria. Soziologichesko izsledvane. Sofia: Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Publishing House. Peev, V. 2019. Haralan I Ladin Popovi I “Slavianskata Religiozna Misia”. Sofia: Communitas Foundation. Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. 1998. Iziavlenia vuv vruzka s uchastieto na BPZ v ikumenicheskoto dvizenie. 27 May. https://bg-patria rshia.bg/index.php?file=declaration_3.xml. Accessed 29 May 2019. Taneva, A., and Iv. Gezenko, eds. 2005. The Power of Civil Society in a Time of Genocide. Proceedings of the Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church on the Rescue of Jews in Bulgaria. 1940–1944. Sofia: University Press St. Kliment Ohridski. Tsankov, S. 1939. Bulgarskata Pravoslavna Zurkva ot Osvobozdenieto do Nastoiasheto Vreme. In Godishnik na Sofiiskia Universitet – Bogolsovski Fakultet, vol. 16. Sofia: n.p. Tzatzov, B. 2018. Tursen ot horata, sleden ot vlastta. Provatski episkop Antonii (1915–2002). Ruse: n.p. Znepolski, Iv., ed. 2011. NRB ot nachaloto do kraia. Sofia: Institute for Study of the Recent Past.

CHAPTER 7

Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania Ines Angeli Murzaku

When one visits the center of Tiranë, Albania’s capital, it is almost impossible to miss the impressive 4305.56-square-foot mosaic-mural adorning the central entrance of Albania’s National Museum, which is the largest museum in the country. The mosaic, called “The Albanians,” was cocreated by five Albanian artists and installed in 1981 at the height of communism. The mosaic depicts a truncated, triumphalist, socialist, ideological, and idealized history of Albania—a history of continued wars against foreign invaders who all wanted to occupy and claim a piece of Albania. The history of Empires—the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires; people who made Albania’s history, including Ismail Qemali; Albania’s declaration of Independence; and the National Liberation War against Italians and Germans are all depicted in the mosaic. Obviously, there is no indication of the country’s religious past or religious-national figures who had made history. In the center of the mosaic is an oversized and imposingly fierce woman—Mother Albania, a woman-fighter dressed

I. A. Murzaku (B) Seton Hall University, South Orange, NJ, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_7

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in Albanian national costume, holding up a rifle in her right hand in sign of triumphant victory over invaders. The mosaic’s theme and artistic presentations are very much in the spirit of what Count Benckendorff wrote about Russian history: “Russia’s past was admirable, its present is more than magnificent and as for its future—it is beyond anything that the boldest mind can imagine” (Zajda 2017, 37), which was communist hagiography more than historiography. The same can be said about Albanian communist historiography, due to the regime’s strong handle on history—and indeed its dictating with a strong hand an ideologized and truncated history of the nation. Over the past twenty-eight years of post-communist transition the mosaic has begun to disintegrate, and the colored glass and stone pieces are progressively falling and failing to represent the triumphant theme. Several national politicians are suggesting tearing it down, because of the socialist spirit it transmits. The Albanian historian Beqir Meta, a former director of Albania’s National Museum, also favored the mural’s demolition, for the same reasons presented by the politicians: it is nothing but communist art that needs to be discarded (Bardhyli 2015). The discussion centered on its demolition is continuing even after the mosaic underwent a post-communist sanitizing restoration, which removed the big red star, symbol of communism, that stood behind Mother Albania’s head. In Albania, similar to other communist-bloc countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the government manipulated and ideologized history to make sense of the communist version of history. The post-communist governments and successive ruling political parties—the Democratic and the Socialist Parties—have had a hard time dealing with the past. On one hand, they want to obliterate or wipe out the communist past altogether without redeeming it; on the other hand, they want to keep the relics of the past without giving the past due justice. Is burying the past a way of dealing with the past? Can Albania wage war against memory and against its history without doing justice to both memory and history? Is Albania ready to genuinely reckon with its communist past and deal with the crimes of the communist dictatorship? Is transitional justice still transitioning in Albania? The lingering question of whether it is advisable to destroy or not to destroy a massive mosaic-mural, a landmark of the communist past, captures Albania’s limbo, its incomplete and unfinished plan for dealing with the past, its failure to recognize past human rights abuses and to apologize to the victims and pay reparations.

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This chapter will focus on the Catholic Church of Albania, a religious minority in that country which constitutes 10% of the population, according to the 2011 census (The World Factbook-Albania), and transitional justice. The history of the Catholic Church in Albania was obliterated from history and history textbooks during the five decades of communism. The Catholic Church and the Catholic faithful of Albania were the most persecuted by the communist dictatorship among Albania’s religions. Is the government making reparations for the severe human rights violations of the recent past, which include transgressions against the rights to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion that prevented individuals from manifesting their religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship, and observance (The Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 18) during the fifty years of repression? As this chapter explains, there was no collaboration between the Catholic Church and the government during the communist dictatorship. The Catholic Church was indeed a victim of communist persecution and one of the most ardent opponents of the communist regime, due to the high level of education and sophistication of its clergy. Has justice been done to the Catholic Church of Albania during the almost thirty years of post-communist transition? The history of the Catholic Church, although not reflected in the mosaic installed at Albania’s National Museum, is a narrative that ought to be explored and restored, for it remains a crucial part of the still unwritten history of the country.

Via Dolorosa of the Catholic Church of Albania The method the Albanian government employed to fight and later abolish religion can be summarized in three Latin words: imperare (taking complete control over religious denominations), dividere (causing conflict and disunity among the three main religious communities and discrediting the clergy), and exterminare (the final goal of banishing every form of religious expression). The anti-religious campaign in Albania can be divided into three stages: 1945–1948 (when the government terrorized believers and clergy and banned them from the places of worship); 1949– 1967 (during which the government tried to nationalize or Albanize religions, a period culminating in 1967 when Albania self-proclaimed the world’s first atheist state); and 1968–1991 (which marked the shift from persistent governmental persecution of religious practice to the restoration of freedom of religion). The period stretching from 1991 to the

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present is characterized by the Church’s struggle to redeem the past and regain a place in the Albanian civil society. In 1944, when the German troops abandoned Tiranë, the communist government, led by Enver Hoxha, seized power. In the first years after the war, the new state authorities imposed several administrative and economic restrictions on religious denominations and religious life. The forced expropriation of their properties and places of worship left religious communities without property and paralyzed their educational, missionary, and charity activities. Additionally, the exclusion of clergy from the government’s ration system of food distribution threw the clergy into precarious economic conditions. In the case of the Catholic Church, the most persecuted religion in the country, the government was striving to control every aspect of the life of the Church. Under the motto “religion is a reactionary ideology to be eradicated,” the Albanian government decided not to allow anyone to leave the country in pursuit of theological studies abroad. This was among the initial measures undertaken by the government in view of creating the National Albanian Catholic Church and an Albanian educated clergy, to be placed under government control. Education institutions and seminaries were allowed to operate only if and after they had revised their theological curricula and consented to accept government supervision. Moreover, only the specially assigned members of the Communist Party were permitted to discern and determine religious vocations and choose candidates for the seminary—this was a way for the government to plant spies among the clergy and possibly in the Vatican. In turn, the candidates selected for the priesthood were expected to pledge their first allegiance to the Communist Party and then to the Catholic Church and the pope. Consequently, people were forced to leave their churches and places of worship and cease all contacts with what the communist ideology labeled as “reactionary” and “backward” clergy. As communist dictator Enver Hoxha wrote in August 1967, when detailing his special directives to the members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, “religion is the opium for peoples. We must do our outmost so that everyone understands this great truth, even those individuals (who are not few/a minority) who are poisoned. We have to un-poison them [their minds]” (Hoxha 1967). The government’s programmatic persecution of Albania’s Catholic Church as an institution and its clergy was more drastic than the persecution of the Muslim, Bektashi, and Eastern Orthodox clergy and faithful, primarily because the Catholic Church was viewed

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by the communists as an instrument of the Vatican and that identification became a foreign policy issue in Albania. Additionally, the Catholic Church was more organized and the clergy more educated; consequently, it was harder for the government to keep it under control and manipulate, as Hoxha openly admitted in his August 1967 letter: “The clergy, with the exception of the Catholic clergy, are ignorant and the religion/faith that they preach is based more on the preservation of religious disciplines, through an archaic liturgy, psalms and handouts or by parroting prayers in the case of [Muslim] hodjas, without the slightest understanding [of them], let alone their [the dogma’s] philosophical interpretation” (Hoxha 1967). On 24 May 1945, Monsignor Giovanni Battista Nigris, the Apostolic Delegate to Albania, was sent back to Italy as persona non grata. At the same time, eighty Italian priests and nuns were gathered in the coastal city of Durrës and expelled from Albania under the accusation of collaboration with fascism. Albanian-born religious sisters and clergy were thrown out of their convents. On 28 August 1946, the Jesuit Fr. Giacomo Gardin and the Jesuit seminarian Gjergj Vata, were condemned by the Albanian courts, the first to six years and the second to one and a half years of forced labor. In December 1945, on the occasion of the country’s first “free” elections won by the Communist Front and without the knowledge of their superiors, some young seminarians enrolled at the Pontifical Albanian Seminary printed and circulated pamphlets that criticized the irregularities and the violations committed by the government during the elections. This act of opposition against the government had fatal consequences for the lives of the Jesuit superiors. Fr. Daniel Dajani, Rector of the Albanian Pontifical Seminary, and Fr. Giovanni Fausti, Vice-Provincial of the Jesuits in Albania, together with ten other Catholic faithful, were arrested. On 22 February 1946, Frs. Fausti and Dajani were sentenced to death by execution for organizing “United Albania - an organization aiming to overthrow the [communist] regime,” sharing “intelligence with the Anglo-Americans for an airborne intervention in Albania,” and other accusations repeated with every other clergy member who went through arrest and trial (Murzaku 2016, 121). In the early morning of 4 March 1946, both Fausti and Dajani as well as six other clergy members were brought to the cemetery of Rrmaj of Shkodër. At 6 AM, the order was given to soldiers to execute them. Fr. Fausti was given a chance to pronounce his last wishes, and this is what he said: “I am happy to die fulfilling my responsibility. Give my best to my Jesuit brothers, deacons,

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priests and the Archbishop” (Murzaku 2017, 6). As soon as his last wishes were pronounced, a chorus of strong voices of those who were going to be executed joined in singing: “Long live Christ, the King! Long Live Albania. We forgive those who kill us” (Murzaku 2017, 6). The two Jesuit priests were among the first Catholic clergy members who fell victims to the communist persecution in that country. Immediately after, the government ordered the cessation of all Jesuit activities in the cities of Shkodër and Tiranë, the abolition of the Society of Jesus, and the “secularization” of the Albanian Jesuits. Jesuit properties and assets, including their personal belongings, were sequestrated and taken by the government. Between January and March 1948, the Albanian government boasted the complete elimination of Albania’s Catholic hierarchy. The Archbishop of Durrës, Monsignor Vinçens Prenushi, was sentenced to thirty years of forced labor after enduring months of torture. He later died in prison in 1952. The Bishop of Sapë, Monsignor Gjergj Volaj, was executed on 3 February 1948 (Pearson 2006, 262). The Albanian anti-religious campaign increased during the second period, 1949–1967. “Can one imagine Albanians continuing to obey the laws of the foreigners, the laws of the conquerors/occupiers – laws dressed in the garb of religion and the shari’ah? To continue to obey these laws and customs, it means that one remains in spiritual allegiance with the foreigners, with the darkest reactionaries,” asked dictator Hoxha (1967), who was known for his mental paranoia about foreigners and foreign invasion. During ten years of communist rule, from 1944 to 1954, approximately 80,000 people were arrested and 10,000 of them perished in forced labor camps. By 1955, the Catholic Church of Albania was semiparalyzed in its activity and hermetically closed to any communication with the Vatican. However, the worst was yet to come. The government campaign against religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, peaked in 1967 when the state authorities, inspired by communist China, Albania’s political and ideological ally, undertook a cultural revolution similar to Albania’s. However, the fight against religion was far more extreme in Albania than in China. What did not happen in Russia or China, or other Central and Eastern European communist countries, dictator Enver Hoxha achieved in Albania. In 1967, the new Albanian constitution proclaimed Albania an atheistic country. Every religious activity was condemned as a crime against the country, with sentences for violators varying from ten years in prison to capital punishment.

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The communist propaganda argued that the anti-religious movement was a grassroots movement, coming from the proletariat and their free will to decide to fight against backward religion, to tread their own path independent from it, and to advance on the road of socialism. A government decree prohibiting every religious practice as a “crime against the country” followed suit. The church buildings that were not yet demolished were turned into recreational or sport centers, theaters, or even restaurants. A total of 157 Catholic churches were closed, as Hoxha reported with satisfaction in his 30 August 1967 letter (Hoxha 1967). Albania’s largest Catholic cathedral, located in Shkodër, was converted into a sports palace. On its south wall was painted in big letters the slogan “Glory to Marxism and Leninism.” A handful of churches and mosques, including the eighteenth-century Mosque of Ethem Bey that overlooked the Scanderbeg Square in the heart of Tiranë, were preserved by the government as cultural monuments. From 1968 to 1991, Albania continued to be a communist country where the Holy See’s Ostpolitik principles for achieving partial and fast solutions, settlements for collaboration, or concordats with the government were not applied. Rather surprisingly, this non-collaboration between the communist authorities and the Vatican served well the preservation of the Catholic faith in Albania and the credibility of the Catholic clergy among the people of Albania. Although Catholicism was a minority religion in the country, the severe persecution that it endured during the decades of communist dictatorship elevated the status of the Catholic Church relative to Muslims, Eastern Orthodox, and even the atheists. The communist persecution was so radical in Albania that even the Sunni Muslim Bektashi and the Eastern Orthodox religious leaders who made deals with the government and saw the nationalization of their denominations’ properties and assets did not escape persecution. The small number of clergymen who survived the concentration camps were forced to live as lay persons and under constant suspicion. They were humiliated in public: religious sisters and brothers were seen sweeping floors or cleaning public toilets. They were branded as fascist traitors, American and Vatican spies, and of course social parasites. Religious celebrations were strictly forbidden even when organized in private homes. The violators of these rules and those individuals who owned any religious literature or items were imprisoned. The Catholic cemeteries were also destroyed, and religious symbols were removed from graveyards. Religious festivities were completely abolished.

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Furthermore, Decree 5339 of 23 September 1975 announced that all citizens whose names did not conform to the political, ideological, and moral standards of the government were to change them by the end of 1976. The law prohibited the usage of names with religious resonance or names of Christian saints. Revolutionary or purely Albanian names were strongly encouraged. Marenglen—an acronym of Marx, Engels, and Lenin—and Lenin were among the most popular communist names in usage. The religious persecution, including the government-orchestrated efforts to exterminate the Catholic Church, continued until the fall of communism with a lesser intensity, especially after the visit of Mother Teresa to Albania in 1989.

A National Catholic Church---Faithful to the Government? The Catholic Church in Albania has a record of non-involvement with the Albanian state authorities during the decades of communist persecution. The closest one can get to potential involvement with the communist regime was the government campaign to nationalize the Catholic Church. How was the nationalization policy implemented in Albania? The government summoned the Metropolitan Archbishop of Shkodër and Primate of the Church Gasper Thaci and the Archbishop of Durrës Vincent Prendushi, demanding that the prelates sever any relations with the Vatican, establish a new Albanian National Church, and pledge the allegiance of the Catholic Church to the communist regime. In exchange for their agreement with these conditions, Hoxha promised that his government would adopt a conciliatory attitude and would continue its dialogue with the Church. Thaci and Prendushi refused to cooperate and never entertained the idea of separating their Church from Rome. As a result, they paid with their lives for their disobedience. As the Iron Curtain was descending over the continent, as Winston Churchill declared on 5 March 1946, further restrictions were enforced upon the Catholic Church. When the first period of persecution and executions of the Catholic clergy was in effect, Enver Hoxha summoned Bishop Fran Gjini toTiranë and ordered him, as he had done in the past with Thaci and Prendushi, to sever ties to Rome and lead the Catholic population in professing allegiance to the communist government. Hoxha threatened Gjini with persecution unless he led his flock to the government’s side. Fearing great pressure, Gjini tried to seek some reconciliation and started a dialogue

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with the government. He wrote an open letter to Enver Hoxha, offering the Church’s cooperation with the communist authorities in their quest of reconstructing the Albanian nation. However, Hoxha ignored Gjini’s letter and arrested him on charges of spreading anti-communist propaganda and agitation. Gjini was executed in 1948 together with eighteen other disobedient clergy and lay people. Negotiations for a National Albanian Church resumed in 1949. This time the government strongly demanded a complete separation of the Albanian Catholic Church from the Holy See. In order to force an agreement, more arrests of the clergy were made. After lengthy and difficult discussions, a compromise was ultimately reached: the government gave the Church the freedom to maintain its sovereignty in spiritual matters and to retain its links with the Holy See. But deception was on the way. The official communist newspaper Zëri I Popullit (The People’s Voice) falsified the agreement between church and state and publicly announced that the Catholic Church of Albania had severed all ties to the Holy See. The Catholic clergy felt deceived and betrayed by the government. They confronted the government, emphasizing their loyalty and allegiance to the Holy Father and the Vatican. Meanwhile, the government used nationalism to keep discontent among people in check while also preparing the final blow against the Catholic Church. Cardinal Agostino Casaroli’s Ostpolitik during the pontificate of Pope Paul VI (1963–1978) did not quite make it to Albania. Casaroli’s modus non moriendi (way of not dying) became ars morendi (art of dying) for the Albanian clergy and the faithful who resisted and died for their faith in labor camps. Their toils and innumerable sufferings in communist prisons, concentration camps, or re-education camps have been kept fresh in the minds and hearts of the believers and non-believers alike. The sites of their deaths became Albania’s new shrines after the fall of communism. As a result of its unwillingness to bend to the government and its unflinching perseverance, the Albanian Catholic Church never lost its integrity or let the faithful down by making deals with the communist state authorities. The Church understood that the communist government would betray it. If the Albanian Church would have agreed to become national, or Albanized, or to collaborate with the communist regime as the Catholic Church did in other Central and Eastern European countries, it would not have been the universal Catholic Church anymore, transforming instead into a denomination subservient to the communist government. The Church would have also transformed into

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a department of the communist state. More importantly, in the case of Albania, the Church was evangelized by her martyrdom and produced “secret” martyrs among the people who were thrown into the communist prisons. “How many are Christ’s secret martyrs today, bearing witness to the Lord Jesus!” commented Saint Ambrose, echoing Psalm 118. No deal with an atheistic communist regime is ever a good deal. St. John Paul II, who knew communism “in his bones,” would have never made any deal with the communist persecutor. He was not afraid to stand up and to discontinue the Vatican’s Ostpolitik, inspiring his bishops to stand up to the communists the same as the Albanian bishops did. Benedict XVI also specifically warned that “compliance with those authorities is not acceptable when they interfere unduly in matters regarding the faith and discipline of the Church” in his Letter to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons, and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China (Pope Benedict XVI 2007). During its via dolorosa of 1944–1991, the Catholic Church of Albania became the church of the catacombs and those who remained loyal to their faith were similar to the early Christians of the time of Emperor Diocletian. In his Apostolic Visit to Tiranë on 21 September 2014, Pope Francis asked a question which carried a profound-eschatological meaning for Albania and its faithful: “How many Christians did not succumb when threatened, but persevered without wavering on the path they had undertaken!” (Pope Francis 2014). This statement of Pope Francis captured the five decades of Calvary suffered by the Catholic Church of Albania: the Church did not succumb, it never wavered and made no compromises or concessions to the dictator and the dictatorship, but rather it maintained her reputation and credibility among the people. “I stand spiritually at that wall of the cemetery of Scutari [where the first Albanian clergy were executed], a symbolic place of the martyrdom of Catholics before the firing squads, and with profound emotion I place the flower of my prayer and of my grateful and undying remembrance” (Pope Francis 2014). This is what the pontiff said about the martyrdom of the Catholic Church and its unwillingness to compromise with the communist regime.

Albania’s Flawed Laws Despite the many victims, religious or non-religious, who were either killed or imprisoned in labor camps by the state communist authorities, Albania has done little to reckon with the crimes committed during

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the dictatorship (Elbasani and Lipinski 2013, 105). This statement holds true even in comparison to other Central and Eastern European countries where communist persecution was not as extreme as in Albania. The initial legislation on communist crimes, which regulated the use of the secret files compiled by the Sigurimi (Albania’s communist-era secret police), included the so-called Verification Law, also known as the “Mezini” Law, in 1995. Under this piece of legislation, only the Verification Committee was legally permitted to access the secret files (Austin and Ellison 2008, 385). That same year, Parliament also passed the so-called Genocide Law, which sought to expedite the prosecution of human rights violations perpetrated by state agents during communist times. However, none of these laws, which Albania passed somewhat earlier than other former communist countries, brought any meaningful policy change in recognizing, redressing, and prosecuting communist crimes, or adopting meaningful lustration or decommunization policies that would effect a systematic purge of government officials who had participated in crimes during communist times (Engelhart 2018). A further law on opening the communist archives to the public was passed in 2003, permitting researchers to access files created at least twenty-five years earlier. This was Law 9154 of 6 November 2003. Compared to other Central and Eastern European laws, the Albanian law is more restrictive, banning access to the most recent documents. But the most significant challenge to anyone who is researching the communist past is the 1999 law that restricts access to state secrets: Law 8457 of 11 February 1999 on Material Identified as State Secret. Neither of these laws makes a distinction between the secrets classified under communist rule and those classified after 1991, thus creating a paradoxical situation in which certain documents are accessible according to one provision (the twenty-five-year rule) but off-limits according to the other rule (their still classified status) (Elbasani and Lipinski 2013). On 30 April 2015, an additional law allowed the opening of the communist-era Sigurimi files dated from the 1944–1990 period. According to this law, which finally aligned Albania with other Central and Eastern European countries in terms of opening of communist-era secret archives, the Albanian citizens who were persecuted under the former regime and their families were able to request documents relating to them and to their families and to check the records of current public officials to see if they had been secret police collaborators during communist times. However, the law did not include

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concrete punishment measures in case a person serving as a public official or civil servant is found to have once collaborated with the Sigurimi (Dewar 2019). In short, the law did not allow the opening of the secret archives to lead to lustration. All these unrefined, conflicting, or confusing laws have turned Albania into one of the few Central and Eastern European countries that is yet to create formal institutions to facilitate citizen access to the communistera secret police files. It is interesting to observe that, according to a 2015 survey, the vast majority of the Albanian citizens, that is, 80% of the respondents, thinks that some aspects of the communist period are worth teaching to younger generations. However, in a seeming contradiction, 36% of the respondents also agreed that this part of Albania’s history should not be taught to next generations but rather should be completely forgotten. Some 74% agreed that communist Albania could offer to youth some positive lessons about equality, volunteerism, and community (OSCE 2015). Regarding their own interest in learning about the communist past, the survey showed that a majority of the 27% of the respondents (a total of 274 people) who declared that they were “mostly uninformed” about the communist period were not interested in learning more about this part of Albania’s history. At the same time, 63% of Albanians believed that communist-era sites of persecution should be maintained for future generations, and 77% supported the creation of a museum about the communist regime. In addition, 81% thought that Albanians deserve a public apology for “the persecution and injustice experienced under the Communist regime before they move forward” (Dewar 2019). The former German Ambassador to Tiranë, Helmut Hoffman, called for the opening of the Albanian archives, so that people can cope with the painful recent past. Coming from Germany, the country that opened more of the secret files earlier than other post-communist states, Hoffman strongly believed that by the opening of the Sigurimi archives and honestly coping with the past, the entire Albanian nation—not just the direct victims of communism—will regain their dignity and honor, fight corruption, and promote the decriminalization of society and government institutions. Only by making peace with the past will Albanians make peace among themselves (Shkreli 2015). So far, the Albanian political parties have proven incapable of applying the laws and regulations that deal with transitional justice. In 2018 the Freedom House, an independent watchdog organization dedicated to the

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expansion of freedom and democracy around the world, reported that in Albania “democracy stagnated in 2017, as every step forward was offset by another one backwards” (Freedom House 2018). According to Freedom House ratings based on a scale of 1 to 7, where 1 represents the highest level of democratic progress and 7 the lowest, Albania’s democracy scored only 4.11, which represented a “nation in transit score” reflecting its inability to fully consolidate democracy (Freedom House 2018). Nevertheless, the opening of the Sigurimi files represents a start for the transitional justice process, and can be helpful to the trained historians and scholars who seek to rewrite the history of communism in Albania. Would the files be useful to the general public if the context of their creation is not fully explained and those who read them are not educated about the language the Sigurimi used to describe its targets? What would the list of names that are mentioned in the files mean to an Albanian millennial or generation Z youth? Merely making files public or displaying heavily redacted documents behind glass—as in the recently opened Sigurimi museum in Tiranë—does not offer the explanation and detail necessary for understanding the way in which the communist repressive apparatus actually functioned. Exhibits without context do little to advance knowledge and can actually be counterproductive by giving the false impression that the society and the government are committed to a substantive engagement with the past when in fact they are not (Mëhilli 2019, 89). Moreover, archives operate under specific rules when opening documents to researchers, scholars, or members of the general public. The rules that govern access to sensitive material are stricter. According to Bishop Sergio Pagano, Prefect of the Vatican Secret Archives, those Archives begin opening the files a minimum of fifty years after the date of the event, and sometimes moving back to up to one hundred years for the most delicate or reserved documents. Italy opens its archives that relate to external or internal politics fifty years after they were produced, but after as many as seventy years in the case of the documents that are highly sensitive in terms of the private or personal situations they reflect or the documents that are related to criminal trials. On 23 March 2002, an agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Albania on “The Regulation of Mutual Relations” was signed in Tiranë between the Apostolic Nuncio in Albania, Monsignor Giovanni Bulaitis, and the Prime Minister of Albania, Pandeli Majko. According to Article eight of the agreement, “the Republic of Albania will return the

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properties of the Catholic Church following Albanian legislation and will assist in the process of properties’ re-registration to the Catholic Church through the competent state offices” (Radio Vatikani 2018). The 2018 report on Albania of the European Commission concluded that “progress remains to be made in the area of property rights with the update of the current legislation and reinforcement of institutional coordination” (European Commission 2018). The process of restitution of Church properties is far from being complete in Albania, although agreements and legislation have been put in place. In sum, much remains to be accomplished in Albania in terms of reckoning with the legacies of the communist past. Transitional justice is incomplete, and the skeletons of Albania’s past remain hidden in the closet. The communist past and the crimes committed under that cruel dictatorial regime still represent a daunting challenge to the feeble Albanian democracy. Laws, regulations, and agreements are in place, but they are flawed and as such they ultimately remain inoperative.

Redeemed by Martyrs and Saints---The Catholic Church After the Fall of Communism What is the position of the Catholic Church, as one of the most persecuted religious institutions in the country, on the opening of the Sigurimi files? What is the Catholic Church’s stance on the crimes committed during communist times and more generally on transitional justice? The truth about the communist abuses against the Catholic Church and the Catholic clergy is partly established, the victims’ sufferings are partly acknowledged, the perpetrators are partly held accountable, and the compensation in terms of Church property restitution is partially complete. As a result, and going hand in hand with transitional justice, the healing and reconciliation process in Albania is still in transition. In 2010, Fr. Gjergj Meta, the current Bishop of Mirditë, was serving as the spokesperson of the Albanian bishops. He responded to the abovementioned questions by explaining that the people were the ones who judged the system and put the communist regime on trial—that the innocent victims represented the most severe challenge to the communist system (Bushati 2010). The Archbishop of Tiranë-Durrës, Monsignor Rrok Mirdita, came out in favor of a “partial opening of the [secret] archives” (Bushati 2010), expressing concern about a total and unrestricted opening of the archives on grounds of causing more division and

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animosity among the people. However, he agreed that individuals who plan to run for office and have committed past crimes “during the dictatorship, [they] must neither pretend nor be elected or appointed to high positions” (Mirdita 2010). There are no cases of people coming forward and publicly apologizing for the crimes they once committed. In 2013, Fr. Gjergj Meta stressed that the opening of the communist-era files must be accompanied by two types of behavior: love for truth and love for the dignity of the person (Meta 2013). It seems that after almost three decades of post-communism, Albania is not ready to face the truth about its history. Theologically, the opening of the secret files and knowledge of religious persecution will advance the process of reconciliation and peace because, according to a Christian saying, people “will know the truth, and the truth will set [them] free” (John 8:32). It is the truth as taught by Jesus that brings freedom to the Catholic faithful—and with freedom, forgiveness, and reconciliation. The Catholic leaders of Albania are pointing to the example of Jesuit Fr. Fausti, who is among the blessed martyrs who set an example of forgiveness by saying: “Long live Christ the King! Long Live Albania. We forgive those who kill us” (Murzaku 2017, 121). Because of the severe persecution it faced and its unwillingness to compromise with the communist regime, the prestige and authority of the Catholic Church in Albania were never negatively affected, although Catholicism continues to be a minority religion in the country. The Catholic Church became a solid body of dissidents and opponents of the communist regime, who turned into the martyrs of twentieth-century Albania. Thus, it was unwillingness to compromise and to involve itself with the communist regime, together with the almost fifty years of via crucis (Way of the Cross) through severe persecution that the Catholic Church has maintained its stature. Its cross of suffering ultimately became the cross of redemption, as “In him we have redemption by his blood” (Ephesians 1:7). It is because of this redemption that the Catholic bishops of Albania are asking for forgiveness for the transgressions committed by the communist regime. There are four crucial moments of “redemption” and “forgiveness” in the post-communist history of the Albanian Catholic Church that have impacted the Catholic Church’s role in the society and raised its legitimacy and credibility: the first visit to the country of Albania’s famous daughter St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata in 1989, the visit of St. John Paul II in 1993, the visit of Pope Francis in 2014, and the beatification

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of thirty-eight Catholic martyrs persecuted by the communist regime in 2016. It was shortly before the communist regime fell that St. Mother Teresa of Kolkata, who had been denied a visa to enter the country of her birth for twenty years, traveled to Albania in 1989. Visiting the graves of her mother Drana Bojaxhiu and sister Age Bojaxhiu in Tiranë, Mother Teresa laid a bouquet of flowers on dictator Hoxha’s grave at the Nation’s Martyrs Cemetery. She also met with Hoxha’s widow, Nexhmije Hoxha, and the dictator’s designated successor, Ramiz Alia, who ruled Albania from 1985 to 1991. In a 2010 interview published in the Albanian daily Shekulli, Mrs. Hoxha explained that Mother Teresa put her hands together and recited a prayer for the dead when she visited her husband’s grave. Mrs. Hoxha further explained that “Mother Teresa was not angry, she did not hold grudges” (Shekulli, 6 September 2010). From being a prophet banned from her own land, a situation that echoed the statement that “no prophet is accepted in his own native place” (Luke 4:24), as a result of her 1989 visit Mother Teresa signaled the fall of the last bastion of communism in Central and Eastern Europe. This way, she went before anyone else “to prepare his ways” (Luke 1:76) and the coming of the much longed-for-freedom and hope for the martyred Albanian people. In 1993, Mother Teresa returned to Albania together with St. Pope John Paul II, who gave much hope to the Albanian people and the religious faithful, both Christian and Muslim, when the Holy Father said in his speech directed to the Albanian nation that “you have almost miraculously recovered from a chasm of tyranny and death. When all reasonable grounds for trust seemed to have vanished, the dawn of freedom dawned. Life was reborn. The courage to exist has re-emerged and hope was rekindled” (Pope John Paul II 1993). Twenty-one years later, in 2014, Pope Francis visited Albania and was touched by Albania’s commitment to and testimony of faith. “Recalling the decades of atrocious suffering and harsh persecution against Catholics, Orthodox, and Muslims, we can say that Albania was a land of martyrs: many bishops, priests, men and women religious, and laity paid for their fidelity with their lives,” said Pope Francis (2014). On 13 July 2016, Albania’s Catholic bishops received a decree from Pope Francis announcing the conclusion of the canonical process that recognized “the testimony of martyrdom to faith and country” of thirty-eight Albanian martyrs, including thirty-seven men and a woman, Maria Tuci. The news was relayed by the Archbishop of Shkodër, Angelo Massafra, the president

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of Albania’s Bishops Conference, who considered it a historic moment for the church and the nation. The beatification ceremony of Albania’s thirtyeight martyrs, executed brutally by the communist regime from 1945 to 1974, was held in the city of Shkodër on 5 November 2016. The beatification came fifteen days before the conclusion of Pope Francis’s Holy Year of Mercy, and two months after the canonization of Mother Teresa on 4 September 2016. All these remarkably sequential events in the life of the reborn Catholic Church of Albania raised the stature of the Catholic Church in Albania to that of a Church that is on the side of the people and the spokesperson of the people, especially the most vulnerable. Pope Francis’s recognition of Albanian suffering and martyrdom during communism was followed the 3 November 2016 by the Albanian Parliament’s approval of a resolution punishing the crimes of the communist regime against the Catholic clergy and expressing special gratitude for the role and activity of clerics in defense of democratic values and fundamental human rights and freedoms in Albania. While denouncing the crimes committed against the clergy by Enver Hoxha and his dictatorial regime, the resolution upheld the innocence of the clergy who were persecuted and killed in the communist labor camps or who had died in prisons and also praised the intellectual contribution of the clergy. The resolution expressed gratitude for the clergy’s contribution to promoting human values and preserving religious faith and religious tolerance in Albania (Rezolutë, 2016). Although justice in the form of prosecutions of former communist human rights perpetrators has been delayed, the 2016 resolution was a step in the right direction for rekindling Albania’s overdue process of transitional justice.

Conclusion On 20 February 2019, the State Authority for Information on the Documents of the Former Sigurimi and the Municipality of Tiranë commemorated the removal of Enver Hoxha’s statue in 1991 and projected on the impressive 4305.56-square-foot mosaic-mural on the entrance of Albania’s National Museum an installation designed by the Kosovo conceptual artist and activist Alketa Xhafa. The display was part of Xhafa’s exhibit Edhe Muret Kanë Veshë (Even Walls Have Ears) (Autoriteti për Informimin mbi Dokumentet, 2019). Through lighted displays the artist sought to give voice to those who had been denied freedom during the

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fifty years of communist persecution. The artist gathered survival testimonials from communist times and projected them on public buildings for all to see and to judge. Walls that until recently had hermetically sealed Albania from the rest of the world were turned into storytellers, and thus they came alive. It seems as if the history of communism and the history of the people who suffered under the dictatorship have come alive in light. It is still dark in Albania, and the immense mosaic on the entrance of Albania’s National Museum is not illuminated in its entirety, but light is piercing through darkness. The nation’s time to redeem and gleam is drawing near.

References Austin, Robert C., and Jonathan Ellison. 2008. Post-communist Transitional Justice in Albania. East European Politics and Societies 22 (2): 373–401. Autoriteti për Informimin mbi Dokumentet e ish-Sigurimit të Shtetit. 2019. Instalacioni ‘Edhe muret kanë veshë’ mbi Krimet e Diktaturës Komuniste në Shqipëri. http://autoritetidosjeve.gov.al/instalacioni-edhe-muret-kane-veshembi-krimet-e-diktatures-komuniste-ne-shqiperi/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Bardhyli, Alda. 2015. Mozaiku i Muzeut Historik Kombëtar, Sërish i Dëmtuar. Gazeta Shqip, 25 March. http://gazeta-shqip.com/lajme/2015/03/25/moz aiku-i-muzeut-historik-kombetar-serish-i-demtuar/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Bushati, Gilmana. 2010. Kisha: Dosjet të Happen Pjesërisht për Funksionarët. Gazeta Shqiptare, 5 September. Dewar, Jordan. 2019. Painting a Democracy: Art and Transitional Justice in Albania. Penn Political Review, 27 January. https://pennpoliticalreview. org/2019/01/painting-a-democracy-art-and-transitional-justice-in-albania/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Elbasani, Arolda, and Artur Lipinski. 2013. Transitional Justice in Albania: Historical Burden, Weak Civil Society and Conflicting Interests. In Transitional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans, ed. Olivera Simi´c and Zala Volˇciˇc, 105–121. Berlin: Springer. Engelhart, Katie. 2018. Communist-Era Secret Police Files Reopen Old Wounds in Albania. NBC NEWS, 23 July. https://www.nbcnews.com/ news/world/communist-era-secret-police-files-reopen-old-wounds-albanian884946. Accessed 29 July 2019. European Commission. 2018. Fact Sheet, Key findings of the 2018 Report on Albania. Brussels, 17 April. http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO18-3403_en.htm. Accessed 29 July 2019.

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Freedom House. 2018. Albania Country Profile. Nations in Transit 2018. https://freedomhouse.org/report/nations-transit/2018/albania. Accessed 29 July 2019. Hoxha, Enver. 1967. Shqipëria Ateiste: Si u Shembën 2169 Kisha e Xhami pas Urdhrit të Enver Hoxhës. https://telegrafi.com/shqiperia-ateiste-si-ushemben-2169-kisha-e-xhami-pas-urdhrit-te-enver-hoxhes/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Mëhilli, Elidor. 2019. Documents as Weapons: The Uses of a Dictatorship’s Archives. Contemporary European History 28 (1): 82–95. Meta, Gjergj. 2013. Për Falje Nuk Eshtë Kurrë Vonë. Illyria, 13 July. http://ill yriapress.com/per-falje-nuk-eshte-kurre-vone/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Mirdita, Imzot. 2010. Të Hapen Dosjet e Komunizmit. Gazeta Shqip, 26 December. http://www.arkivalajmeve.com/Imzot-Mirdita-Te-hapen-dos jet-e-komunizmit.1046973418/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Murzaku, Ines A. 2016. Albania Celebrates Martyr, Pioneer in Christian/Muslim Ties. Crux—Taking the Catholic Pulse, 13 December. https://cruxnow.com/ commentary/2016/12/13/albania-celebrates-martyr-pioneer-christianmus lim-ties/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Murzaku, Ines A. 2017. Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam: The Jesuits in Albania. Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 37 (6): 81–122. Nexhmija: Ju Tregoj Drekën me Nënë Terezën. 2010. Shekulli, 6 September. http://www.ikub.al/LAJME/1009060075/Article-Nexhmija-Jutregoj-dreken-me-Nene-Terezen.aspx. Accessed 29 July 2019. Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). 2015. Citizens Understanding and Perceptions of the Communist Past in Albania and Expectations for the Future. https://www.osce.org/albania/286821. Accessed 29 July 2019. Pearson, Owen. 2006. Albania in the Twentieth Century, a History. Volume III: Albania as Dictatorship and Democracy, 1945–99. London: I. B. Tauris. Pope Benedict XVI. 2007. Letter of the Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI to the Bishops, Priests, Consecrated Persons and Lay Faithful of the Catholic Church in the People’s Republic of China, 27 May. https://w2.vatican.va/content/ benedict-xvi/en/letters/2007/documents/hf_ben-xvi_let_20070527_china. html. Accessed 29 July 2019. Pope Francis. 2014. Apostolic Journey of his Holiness Pope Francis to Tirana (Albania). Holy Mass Homily, 21 September. http://w2.vatican.va/content/ francesco/en/homilies/2014/documents/papa-francesco_20140921_alb ania-omelia.html. Accessed 29 July 2019. Pope John Paul II. 1993. Viaggio Apostolico in Albania, Messagio di Giovanni Paolo II alla Nazione Albanese, 25 April. https://w2.vatican.va/content/ john-paul-ii/it/speeches/1993/april/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19930425_ nazione-albanese.html. Accessed 29 July 2019.

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Radio Vatikani. 2018. Kujtojmë përvjetorin e nënshkrimit të marrëveshjes Vatikan-Shqipëri. http://sq.radiovaticana.va/news/2018/03/23/kujtojmë_ përvjetorin_e_nënshkrimit_të_marrëveshjes_vatikan-s/1368142. Accessed 29 July 2019. Rezolutë për Dënimin e Krimeve të Komunizmit ndaj Klerit si dhe Mirënjohjen e Vecantë për Rolin dhe Veprimtarinë e Klerikëve në Mbrojtjen e Vlerave. 2016. http://www.ikub.al/LIGJE_CATEGORY/18/01/23/REZOLUTe-PeRDeNIMIN-E-KRIMEVE-Te-KOMUNIZMIT-NDAJ-KLERIT-SI-DHEMIReNJOHJEN-E-VE-0066.aspx. Accessed 29 July 2019. Shkreli, Frank. 2015. Hapni Dosjet!. Radio Kosova e Lirë, 20 April. https://www.radiokosovaelire.com/frank-shkreli-hapni-dosjet/. Accessed 29 July 2019. Zajda, Joseph. 2017. Globalisation and National Identity in History Textbooks: The Russian Federation. Dordrecht: Springer.

PART III

The Baltic Republics

CHAPTER 8

Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era Atko Remmel and Priit Rohtmets

Estonia is historically a Lutheran country. As a result of mass conversions in the 1840s and 1850s, Orthodox Christianity also became a fixture in Estonia’s religious landscape and Baptist and other evangelical free churches reached the country during religious revivals in the 1870s. Today, 29 percent of the population consider themselves having “a faith

This chapter was written with support from Czech Science Foundation ˇ (GACR), grant no. 18-11345S (Atheism, Freethought and Secularization in Central and Eastern European Countries in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries). A. Remmel (B) · P. Rohtmets Department of Theology and Religious Studies, University of Tartu, Tartu, Estonia e-mail: [email protected] P. Rohtmets e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_8

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of their own”—the largest denomination, accounting for 16 percent of the population, is Orthodoxy. It is divided between the autonomous Estonian Orthodox Church, which is under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Estonian Orthodox Church of Moscow Patriarchate under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Moscow. In addition, official estimates show that 10 percent are Lutherans, 54 percent have no religious affiliation, and 14 declined to answer (Estonian Census 2011). Due to the low number of people professing a faith, Estonia is widely regarded as one of the most secularized countries in Europe; however, Estonia has many non-institutional forms of religion (Remmel and Uibu 2015). Religious life in today’s Estonia was most significantly influenced by Soviet efforts to stamp out religion. This chapter focuses on relations between the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church (EELC) and the state authorities during the Soviet occupation. We will also examine how Soviet-era policy on religion and the EELC’s activity were viewed after the fall of the Soviet Union. Both historians and clergy have generally seen the church as a victim of the Soviet regime, even though as early as the 1990s, the EELC was scrutinized by historians for its collaboration with the Soviet regime.

Historical Overview: Restrictions, Repressions, and Losses After the overthrow of tsarist rule, Estonia enjoyed a brief first period of independence from 1918 to 1940. The Estonian religious landscape during the 1920s and 1930s was dominated by two large churches—the Lutheran Church, whose members made up around 78 percent of the population according to census data, and the Orthodox Church with 19 percent. Alongside the two major churches were many other smaller religious organizations whose adherents accounted for a total of 3 percent of the population. Although the majority of the Estonian inhabitants were identified as members of some religious organization, during the 1920s and 1930s society was secularizing. The state relieved churches of their public functions and took over a large portion of church land, discontinued the existing tax collection system, and instead allowed churches to collect voluntary membership dues. Clergymen were also exempted from the duty of serving as vital statistics officials, although a large share of Lutheran and Orthodox clerics continued to do so. Membership and

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other key indicators decreased for the Lutheran Church over those two decades, yet churches and other religious movements remained an accepted part of society—the church came under more criticism during the 1920s but the attitude toward churches improved in the 1930s (Rohtmets 2019). After the Soviet Union occupied Estonia in June 1940, Soviet laws governing religion came into effect. This meant the end of freedom of religion as it had existed during pre-Soviet times. To quote from Soviet law: “to ensure citizens freedom of conscience, the church is separate from the state and schools separate from the church. All citizens have the freedom to perform religious rituals and the freedom to spread anti-religious propaganda” (The Soviet Constitution 1936, article 124). Clergymen lost their role as vital statistics officials, and religious youth work was prohibited, as was religion as a school subject. All institutions that offered religious education were closed. Publication of religious literature was ended and previously published materials were gathered up from bookstores and most of them were destroyed. The clergy did not resist the Soviet authorities and continued work, even though religion and its symbols had been removed from the public sphere. Churches and congregations lost their corporate identity and were stripped of their property (Rohtmets 2019). The first year of Soviet occupation ended with bloody repressions and a mass deportation in June 1941. Several dozen clergymen were among the Estonian government and cultural elite exiled to Siberia. Just as many pastors were mobilized into the Red Army. The Lutheran Bishop Hugo Bernhard Rahamägi and the short-term interim head of the church who succeeded him, Jaak Varik, were executed. Orthodox clergymen who were murdered included Joann Bulin, Joann Kraav, and Joann Tolstjakov. The leader of Estonia’s Catholics, Eduard Profittlich, died in captivity in Russia in 1942 (Rohtmets 2018). By 1944, after the Soviets had chased the Nazis out of Estonia, more than one-third of the Lutheran congregations were leaderless, as many clergy and faithful who escaped arrest or deportation had fled to the West or resigned. The war also took a massive human toll and churches sustained major property damage. Many buildings remained in ruins during the entire Soviet occupation. The Soviet regime’s policy on religion was not unchanging or monolithic, however, and the approaches to solving the religious “problem” varied by decade. Smolkin (2018) puts it quite succinctly: during the

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Lenin and Stalin periods religion was a political problem, in Khrushchev’s time it became an ideological problem, while in the late Soviet period it turned into a question of what to offer people in place of religion, with secular rituals of passage mainly relied on in this regard. In spite of the differences between periods, the main methods for addressing the religion problem were similar and closely interconnected: one method was represented by the so-called “administering,” which basically meant judicial repression effected with the help of the religious and criminal codes; another method consisted of an ideological campaign against religion that spread atheist propaganda and instilled secular traditions that were supposed to replace religious rituals. These were complemented by direct repressions (for example, imprisonment, relocation of active clergymen to small village parishes, among others) and forcing clergymen to work as KGB secret agents. “Administering” the Believers This sinister expression refers to a consistent overt or covert application of the religious code. The only public law in Estonia was initially a “Temporary Guideline” on organizing the activity of religious organizations that was established in 1945. It remained in force until 1977, when a new statute on religious organizations came into effect. In the Soviet Union, nuances that might be considered normal from the point of view of the functioning of a religious organization took on a repressive nature. For example, the requirement that all religious organizations register with the state authorities was a means of imposing tighter control over them, as unregistered religious organizations were not allowed to operate. Three conditions had to be met for gaining registration: (1) a dvadtsatka (twenty people who signed a property liability agreement for use of a “religious cult building”), (2) a specific building where the faithful met, and (3) a cleric approved by the state. Congregations that failed to comply with these requirements were disbanded. Church buildings without congregations were repurposed as sports facilities or storage space, while pastorates (that is, office spaces for local churches, usually including also an apartment for the clergy) were turned into schools, apartments, or offices. Non-registration (and the attending prohibition) after the war particularly affected smaller religious associations and organizations.

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These administrative strictures forced all aspects of religious life inside the walls of churches and removed religion from daily public view. Religious organizations lacked the right to organize children’s and youth gatherings, among other assemblies. The teaching of religion was possible only in exceptional cases at seminaries, and without prior registration and permission it was prohibited for clergy to proselytize outside their congregation’s district. These were just a few examples. Control over religious organizations was achieved through constant harassment and clergy had to ask for permission for practically everything outside of Sunday services. Religious affairs commissioners played an important role in implementing the controls. In Estonia, the commissioners were ethnic Estonians, initially with a secret police background; later, they were appointed from among ideology officials. The commissioners were assisted by the religious legislation enforcement committees, which were tasked with monitoring local religious life and preparing reports for the religious affairs commissioner at least once a year. The primary and most common punitive method used by the state against churches was administrative punishment, which included fines (for example, for unregistered assemblies). Local authorities often lobbied the commissioners for the maximum penalties (which could take the form of closure of religious organizations or bans on clergymen), but more often harsh one-time penalties were replaced with a number of moderate ones such as a fine or a warning. This leniency was due to the Soviet foreign policy goals of not straining the religious situation too much and the relatively reasonable attitude of the Estonian commissioners toward religious organizations (Remmel 2011, 85). Most of those punished were from “wild” sects (such as Pentecostals, Jehowah’s Witnesses, or a part of the Baptist community, the so-called initsiativniki); by contrast, the “domesticated” churches (the Russian Orthodox Church, the EELC, and the legalized Baptists) were spared the worst repression due to their rather quick surrender to the Soviet regime after World War II. This was possible also because, unlike the Catholic Church in Lithuania, the Estonian churches were not linked to nationalist or dissident movements and had largely been emasculated by being co-opted by the security services. Where fines were ineffective, the commissioners resorted to harsher tactics, such as the (temporary) banning of preaching or moving the cleric to a smaller rural congregation in order to “calm him down.” The harshest punishment in the commissioner’s arsenal was deletion of

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the clergy from the official register, which literally meant his prohibition from acting as a cleric. Control of the congregations’ financial affairs was another important part of the anti-religion initiatives, allowing churches to be kept alive in a kind of vegetative state that barely allowed them to function. A wide variety of techniques were used to weaken the finances of the congregations, such as charging a higher price for the use of electricity or insisting on “voluntary” donations to the state-sponsored Soviet Peace Committee. As a result of these measures, state taxes often outstripped or made up a significant share of the annual income of a given congregation (Remmel 2013). The Soviet Ideological Assault Once Estonia fell under the Soviet regime at the end of World War II and until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the churches were mostly “silently” controlled within the remit of the secret police (see also Miner 2003). The situation changed under Nikita Khrushchev when religion became an ideological problem, and therefore a strong public assault was launched by the authorities, particularly from 1958 until 1964. Atheismthemed headings (such as “An Atheist’s Ruminations” or “The Militant Atheist”) appeared in newspapers and magazines, and atheism lecturers from the state-sponsored Knowledge society (Znanie) were called to spread atheist propaganda among the masses. An important role in driving religion out of the public sphere was played by Soviet rituals of passage, for which inspiration was sought in traditional customs; liturgical traditions were also imitated. One of the first of its kind in the post-war Soviet Estonia was represented by the youth summer days—a secular counterpart to Lutheran confirmation—held in 1957. Others soon followed: children’s name days replaced christenings, whereas secular funerals and weddings replaced the religious ones. After the anti-religion campaign was launched, however, both atheism and religion disappeared from public view and the subsequent developments can be described above all as a period of numb indifference of the population toward both religion and atheism (Remmel 2017).

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Repressions, Resistance, and Cooperation Under Stalin, there were no mass repressions in Estonia unleashed specifically against clerics—like in other spheres, repression was aimed at activities hostile to the Soviet Union (according to Section 58 of the Penal Code). In general, clerics in Estonia refrained from making political pronouncements and limited themselves to religious messages. Still, during the first post-war years the Lutheran Church was considered to be the most disloyal to Soviet rule because of the nationalist views of many of its pastors, and the regime therefore felt a need to bring that church under its control. With support from the security services, it succeeded to do this relatively quickly in the late 1940s. In 1947, the secret police launched a concerted plan to arrest and coopt the clergy (Altnurme 2000, 55). Not all of those who were recruited turned into informers, but authorities did manage to achieve control over the church at the leadership level. By 1949, six of the seven assessors of the consistory had been recruited as secret informers and as a result the church bodies danced completely to the security services’ fiddle. The network of secret agents was kept in place, and attempts were made to expand it in later years as well; above all the interest lay on cooperation with the leading clergymen. The authorities orchestrated the arrest of the leader of the Lutheran Church, August Pähn, in 1949 and the election of the new archbishop, Jaan Kiivit. Kiivit was sacked in 1967—also with the connivance of the regime—as he was seen as having become too headstrong. His successor, Edgar Hark (1978–1986), had fought in the Red Army and had already been co-opted as an agent of the KGB in 1943 (Jürjo 1996, 157 and 176). Alongside recruitment, another measure for subjugating the church was arrests of clergymen—they were detained for both insubordination and old sins such as fighting on the German side in World War II. The EELC and the Orthodox Church suffered the most, with about half of their clergymen falling victim to various repression methods such as executions, arrests, deportation, being drafted into the army, etc. (Remmel 2013). As a consequence of these measures, the EELC had become obeisant to the regime by the 1950s. The leaders of the church made statements that condoned Soviet foreign policy and disseminated pastoral letters signed by the archbishops that stressed the importance of obeying the law. Church leaders were also included in Soviet propaganda aimed at the outside world, in which disinformation about the regime’s

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respect for freedom of religion was spread in the guise of the “struggle for peace” (Jürjo 1996, 162). Starting in the 1950s, the Soviet authorities took a more lenient attitude to the “domesticated” denominations, and the modus operandi of the security services became more personalized, targeting only those who stood out because of their attitudes and activities. A tougher attitude was taken against the underground religious groups, but as long as the rather blurry lines of what was allowed and what was not were not crossed (for instance, by publishing religious literature, actively involving oneself in religious groups, or taking a political stance instead of focusing solely on practicing one’s religion in private), even they were allowed to continue operating. However, this was allowed only under the heavy surveillance of KGB secret agents infiltrated among the clergy (Volkonski 2018). Those who displayed insubordination toward the regime faced repression, but in the interests of legal correctness the repression was reported as being prompted by non-religious reasons: “as to a citizen’s faith, this is from the state’s standpoint a personal matter and cannot be subjected to commands and prohibitions. If, however, the person’s actions are a danger to society, they become responsible for their actions, not for their faith” (Oja 1974). Thus, for instance, conscientious objectors on religious grounds were punished and some clerics were sent to the military precisely in order to be neutralized (Niitsoo 1997, 113; Jürjo 2011, 83). Starting in the 1960s, dissidents were also committed to mental hospitals, where an attempt was made to “cure” them of their “affliction” of having beliefs that were hostile to the Soviet society (Kaasik 2011). Many believers met with the same fate as well. The most notorious cases in Estonia were those of the young Catholic Ivan Ikkonen in 1978 and of the best-known dissident cleric Vello Salum in 1980, where the latter’s experience with involuntary psychiatric treatment was later used to discredit his political statements (Saard 2012, 85). Two clergymen were imprisoned in post-Stalin Soviet Estonia. The pastor of the Valga Baptist congregation, Dimitri Minjakov, was sentenced to five years of imprisonment under the sections of the Criminal Code dealing with “spreading lies disparaging the Soviet system,” “separation of church and state,” and “attack on a citizen’s person or rights in the form of carrying out religious rites.” The EELC clergyman Harri Mõtsnik, author of “Face to Face with Atheism,” “As a Cleric in an Atheist Country,” and other works, was sentenced to a labor camp for

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three years, but was released after he publicly apologized. He read an official apology, which was most likely written by KGB officials and handed to him, on Estonian Radio. In 1988, he was allowed to leave the Soviet Union and move to Sweden (Pesti 2009, 613). While the older generation of clergymen was obedient to the Soviet regime, the 1970s brought forth a new generation of young clerics who were born after World War II and had not endured repression. They refrained from directly criticising the Soviet regime, but were active in their profession by sending writings of Estonian dissidents to the Estonian diaspora in the West, a gesture which was also a thorn in the side of the authorities. As a result, religious life became somewhat livelier. Starting from the mid-1970s, youth camps were organized in southwestern Estonia near the Latvian border by the young cleric Villu Jürjo. In 1978, Christian summer work camps were introduced by the future clergyman Illar Hallaste. Religious literature began spreading in the form of samizdat , to which the secret police initially turned a blind eye, considering its influence to be limited (Rohtmets 2018). The increased youth activity ended in a crackdown in the late 1970s and 1980s. A night-time raid by secret security forces brought the fifth and final Christian youth camp in 1980 to a close. The KGB responded to the dissemination of religious literature related to the EELC with interrogations, threats, and confiscations (Soomere 2011, 248). It took a significantly harsher attitude toward the underground Baptists, outlawing their Bible and hymnal printing house and sending the Baptist leader to prison for 3.5 years (Õispuu 2005, 454). Christians were expelled from universities for being too active, and were charged with engaging in behaviour “unbefitting a Soviet student.” Statistics dramatically characterize how the Soviet regime hurt the position of religion in society: before the war, over 95 percent of the population belonged to churches (Plaat 2005, 128), but by the end of 1987—that is, before the Soviet policy on religion eased—only about 5 percent of the Estonian population were religious (Remmel 2017).

The EELC---Victim or Collaborator of the Soviet Regime? The period of liberation and the collapse of the Soviet Union were part of a national awakening in Estonia that enabled religious communities again to become an acknowledged part of the society. The EELC became more

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active and was involved in the national awakening process. However, the clergy should be distinguished from the leaders of the church. While the Lutheran clergy was involved in establishing social and political organizations (for instance, the Estonian Heritage Society) and a Christian political party, the leaders of the EELC stayed loyal to the Soviet regime until 1989, providing only modest support to social movements. Due to the glasnost policies and the wider changes affecting the society, and also in connection to the 1000th anniversary of the Christianization of Rus, in 1988 the attitude of state representatives toward religion softened. In 1990 the Soviet control of religious associations, which had been inoperational for several years, was abolished with the participation of religious associations. As the EELC was part of the national awakening and the liberation of society from communist rule, its membership grew. Along with a rise of interest in Estonian history and culture, people also turned toward religion, as the EELC was seen as a steward of Estonian national cultural history. To some extent, this certainly amounted to a religious revival, but as the Soviet era had practically interrupted the continuity of religious traditions, the churches were not fully prepared to face the renewal of the society. In reaction, the people who joined religious congregations at the end of the 1980s began to withdraw from them shortly after Estonia restored its independence in 1991 (Rohtmets and Ringvee 2013). Immediately afterwards, stories about KGB collaborators began to appear in the Estonian press. The dissolution of the KGB in Estonia in December 1991 and the fate of the KGB archives have been studied by a number of special commissions in the years that followed. Compared to Latvia and Lithuania, in Estonia much more secret police material was spirited off behind Russian borders already in 1989. In addition, the files concerning the trips abroad that had been taken during communist times by a number of public figures went missing in the course of the handover of the archives from the secret security forces to their new custodians. Nevertheless, Estonia still retained hundreds of linear metres of secret files, which began to be processed during the 1990s. Starting in 2007, scans of the KGB documents have been available on the internet. To date the role of churches in Soviet Estonia has been treated from the points of view of three different groups: the dissidents, the academics, and the church. This topic was first brought up by Soviet-era dissidents (Jürjo 1996; Niitsoo 1997). Their attitude toward the church’s activity was quite critical, as the church was accused of collaboration

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with the Soviet authorities. The work of a former dissident, historian Indrek Jürjo, entitled The Estonian Diaspora and Soviet Estonia (Pagulus ja Nõukogude Eesti 1996), sparked broad discussion on whether it was morally correct and fair to publish information on collaboration, whether the KGB archives could be trusted, and how the secret dossiers should be read. The book included a separate chapter on how the state security controlled the EELC. Jürjo’s conclusion was unsparing: the EELC did not turn into a significant bastion of resistance or nationalism as the Catholic Church did in Poland and Lithuania. Instead, the church was diligently loyal to the communist system and its submissiveness was also explained by the recruitment of clergy as secret agents and informers, a task at which the KGB had been quite effective (Jürjo 1996, 178– 179). Among others, Archbishop Kuno Pajula, who retired in 1994, had to do some explaining, as the book presented data indicating that he was a security agent (with codename Rein). The church leaders who preceded him, most of whom were referred to in the book by their code names, were deceased by the 1990s. In an interview with the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, Pajula tried to place the charges of collaboration in the larger context, saying that “the key question is whether we served the KGB or the church. I think we served the church” (Putin ja Ridiger—agendid või riigipead 2003). Academic historiography has been more lenient in its judgment, although it also unequivocally indicated that collaboration took place. Altnurme argued that initially the clergy was quite passive in collaborating with the KGB, but by 1949 a functioning network of agents had taken shape in the church and these agents received promotions (Altnurme 2000, 302). He also described the church’s attempt to be independent from the state authorities in its decision-making, some of the actions it pursued against the Soviet regime, a few instances when the church blocked the official plans of the authorities, as well as the church’s contribution to assisting the so-called “forest brothers,” that is, the anti-communist resistance fighters who were active after World War II. In 2018, Altnurme’s work was criticized by Enn Tarvel, who said that Altnurme’s conclusions were inconsistent with the contents of his work, which was brimming with examples of the church playing a part in patriotic Soviet activities. Indeed, twenty-three clergy were persecuted, but their activities were not indicative of the actions of the church as a whole which collaborated with the Soviet regime more than resisted it (Tarvel 2018, 333–334). The works of Sõtšov (2008) and Puumets-Sõber (2017)

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were quite lenient toward the church, describing its cooperation with the regime as forced upon and in rather mild terms. Plaat (2005) argued that the church did not have a dissident reputation before it accepted a wave of new members in the late 1980s. Remmel (2011) noted that no definitive sources indicate large-scale collaboration, yet with the exception of a few particular clerics the church generally submitted to the regime. The harshest criticism came from Saard (2012), who identified only three active dissidents among the 110 clergy in the EELC active during Soviet times. Still, all of the church historians admit that the church was already by its nature an alternative to the Soviet regime and ideology. Therefore, visits to the church around Christmas were very popular among Estonians even if it was just to show one’s anti-Soviet attitude. In addition, the fact that church visits had a reputation of being forbidden made them appealing for many starting in the 1970s. The third viewpoint on these matters is the Lutheran Church’s own perspective. Because of the Soviet policy toward religion, which had ousted the church from the public realm, and the political and social activity of the Lutheran clergy in the late 1980s, the church considered itself a victim of Soviet rule. For a long time, the church did not take an official position on the issues of collaboration or resistance, yet all postSoviet church leaders have adopted the same narrative of victimhood; the independent-minded past of all of the post-Soviet church leaders has had its role as well. In 1994, Jaan Kiivit Jr., the son of the elder Jaan Kiivit, became archbishop. In 1995, he wrote that “the popularity of the church comes from the fact that the church did not compromise itself during the Soviet-era by [engaging in] collborationism” and described the church leadership’s conduct as follows: “the church leadership tried in every way to avoid conflicts with the new people in power. The message of the church is not related to the societal order but must serve its people in all situations” (Gnadenteich 1995, 103 and 111). Kiivit was succeeded in 2005 by Andres Põder, who had started working for the church as a young man in the 1970s. He was a thorn in the side of the Soviet authorities, organizing music days in his congregation in Suure-Jaani in the early 1980s. At Põder’s initiative, in 2011 the EELC published a book entitled Faith in Freedom, which gathered articles and recollections on the role of the EELC in restoring Estonia’s independence (Velliste et al. 2011). The book also included an article written by the archbishop. In it, religion and the church were presented as victims and their actions and omissions were seen in this light. This was

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Põder’s response to Jürjo, whom he criticized in his article for comparing Estonia with Poland or Lithuania. More precisely, Põder argued that since Lutheran clergymen were married, they could not act without taking responsibility for their family and discount the considerable risks that came with dissent and opposition. The few dissidents among Lutheran pastors like Harri Mõtsnik and Vello Salum were single and therefore less constrained in their activity. Moreover, Põder acknowledged that during a time of religious and moral decline, clergymen did not have faith that nationalism, promoted in religious terms, was a force for salvation, like it was in Lithuania, for example. Instead, they worked to spread the faith and shepherd the flock, putting work with the congregation at the forefront of their efforts. In short, he admitted that the church was neither overtly revolutionary toward the Soviet regime nor could it completely capitulate to it; the mere fact that the church existed and was active represented a threat for the authorities (Põder 2011, 25–27). In critiquing this work, Remmel (2012) called Põder an apologist. Based on materials from state archives, he noted that in Estonia the policy on religion was laxer than in other regions of the Soviet Union because the churches were weak. The list of “problematic” clergy identified in archival materials was quite short, suggesting that religion and churches were not a problem for the regime and churches were not seen as a threat by it.1 In response, Archbishop Põder (2012) rejected this critical approach and maintained that research conducted on the basis of the state archives cannot fully grasp the church’s ideal of independence, which the church preserved during the occupation years. Collaboration between the clergy and the Soviet secret services remains a topic of public interest. In 2018, the pastor of Kolga-Jaani, Peeter Parts, asked the Lutheran clergy whether the church should beg for forgiveness for its Soviet-era actions from outright collaboration to pastoral letters and statements of loyalty to the regime. According to Parts, this would have been a dignified step to take on the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, which was celebrated in 2018. In calling for this step to be taken, Parts also referred to religious martyrs who died at the hands of the Soviet regime. Asking for forgiveness for its Soviet-era deeds would have shown humility on the part of the church, he argued. In his assessment, Parts relied mainly on the works of church historians and concluded that the entire Lutheran Church had not been a protector of the rights and identity of the entire Estonian people during the Soviet period (Parts 2018). Parts’s comments were denounced by virtually all

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clergy. Fellow clergymen criticized Parts for making an unjust generalization, because even if some clergymen had collaborated—something that historians could not exhaustively prove, Põder argued—the Soviet era was a heroic period for the church.

The EELC Since 1991 In August 1991, Estonia regained its independence based on its legal continuity with the country which was created in 1918 but was unlawfully occupied by the Soviet Union in 1940. Three factors have shaped independent Estonia’s policy on religion since 1991: (1) the legal continuity of the post-Soviet Republic of Estonia with its pre-communist predecessor; (2) the changes in the religious landscape caused by the hostile religious policy of the Soviet regime; and (3) the international treaties and declarations pertaining to freedom of religion that Estonia has signed (Rohtmets 2018). In 1991, the Estonian Parliament adopted legislation on property reform which stipulated that “subjects entitled to property reform are public organizations and religious associations that operated in the Republic of Estonia until 16 June 1940, if their statutory activity has not been interrupted” since then (Riigi Teataja 1991). Local religious organizations used this provision to request the return of their pre-war property. This process, which got off the ground during the early 1990s, is yet to be completely finalized twenty-seven years after its inception. The majority of the property was returned to religious organizations during the 1990s, so that the return of only a few sites remains on the agenda today. One of the sites that has caused the most polemic surrounding its return to the EELC is the Saint Nicholas church in the city centre of Tallinn, the country’s capital. The church sustained severe damage during World War II, was then restored, but it burned again, and was ultimately transformed into a concert hall and a museum during Soviet times. After years of disputes as to whether to forgo its restitution, return it to the EELC, or pay compensation for it, in late 2017 the Estonian government decided to resolve the matter by allocating money from the property reform reserve fund as compensation for losses sustained by the EELC during the Soviet occupation. In exchange, the EELC pledged to give up its demand for the restitution of Saint Nicholas church, which has remained a cultural center (Põld and Ruuda 2017).

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After this decision, public controversy arose over the legality of using the reserve fund money. The reasoning cited by the government was also questioned, because certain political formations alleged that in this matter the independent Estonian state was in fact paying for the damage done by the Soviet Union. A turning point in the dispute was represented by a statement of the Chancellor of Justice, who drew attention to the fact that the Estonian government did not have the right to decide on compensation versus restitution; rather, the decision was within the remit of Parliament. As such, the case was returned to Parliament with the proposal to amend the legislation to allow for the compensation. Yet in spring 2018 this proposal unexpectedly drew criticism from the prime minister’s own party, and ultimately the government removed the issue from the agenda of Parliament in order to find other sources for funding the compensation (Eilat 2018). Later that year, the government decided that the funds will come from the 2019 state budget, a decision which brought the matter to a close (Hansen 2018). In October 1990, the government dissolved the Soviet-era enforcement body, the apparatus of the religious affairs commissioner. The following month, the Religious Affairs Service was formed as part of the Ministry of Culture, and in 1993 it was brought under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Interior. Since 1997, it is called the Religious Affairs Department. The Religious Affairs Service was no longer an enforcement body; rather it treated the state and the religious associations as equal partners. Nevertheless, a series of problems arose after the Service was established. During the 1990s, a vocal and influential group of clergy within the EELC believed that the state was treating them unfairly as it failed to adequately recognize their contribution to society. The church usually followed this assertion by referring to the persecution it suffered under the Soviet regime, which in its eyes justified greater support from the new state, even though the church’s persecutor had not been the independent Republic of Estonia but the Soviet regime as the occupation force (Rohtmets 2018). In the early 1990s the question of whether the EELC should get special status in its dealings with the state was publicly aired. This topic remained salient throughout the decade and even after 2000. No other religious organization sought such special treatment. This demand of the EELC was derived from the Constitution of 1938 and the erroneous (but consistently repeated) view that the EELC was the national church, and therefore a legal person in public law during the 1920s and 1930s. The

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legislation of those times had allowed for the possibility of receiving the status of a public-law organization, but no church functioned as such in the 1930s, although the state and the churches did indeed closely collaborate at the time. Preferential status meant greater responsibility in performing public functions, and greater state support for conducting youth work, social work and maintaining a church presence in other fields (Rohtmets 2017). Another reason for criticism was Estonia’s neutral and noninterventionist policy toward religious organizations, which also applied to religious denominations that arrived recently in the country. The socalled traditional churches, such as the Lutheran and the Orthodox, expected the state to protect them. Indeed, not all religious organizations were registered, especially if they were not congregations that focused specifically on religious work but were organizations that received funds. The drafting of legislation on religious affairs started in 1991 at the behest of the Religious Affairs Service, and culminated in 1993 in the adoption of the Churches and Congregations Act. The Act gave the state only minimal rights to intervene in the internal affairs of religious organizations and did not distinguish traditional religious denominations from new, small religious associations. These provisions distanced Estonia from neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania and many other former communist countries, where traditional churches were given greater privileges (Ringvee 2011). Alongside legal continuity, the legacy of the Soviet period also shaped the religious policy of the state. In an effort to distance itself from the Soviet regime, the Estonian state sought to give equal treatment to religious organizations and, if they so desired, churches and other religious organizations have been granted the right to perform public functions as well. Churches also have a role to play during formal public events organized by state authorities. The overwhelming majority of the Estonian religious organizations started to receive financial support from the state after the restoration of Estonian independence. This support reached associations of churches and congregations not as direct subsidies but rather through the Estonian Council of Churches founded in 1989. The state’s contribution was important given the fact that congregations saw their membership consistently declining during the 1990s. Immediately after Estonia declared its independence, interest in religion and religious organizations was high, whereas by the end of the 1990s criticism of religion and outright mockery of faith gained more

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ground among members of the Estonian society, mainly as a result of attempts to introduce religion as a subject in schools. It was only in 2014 that the position of religion in Estonia began to change, both in conjunction with global developments, such as the migrant crisis which peaked in 2015, and with domestic changes, like the election of the young and active new EELC Archbishop Urmas Viilma in late 2014. Despite having a semi-dissident background inherited from the Soviet period when they served as leaders of the “anti-Soviet” religious organization, the previous archbishops had continued to toe the Soviet line which strictly relegated religion to the private sphere. According to Viilma, church and religion have to be distinctly visible in society, and already in 2015 he called on Christians to “come out of the closet” (Kerge 2015). Churches have also received funding from the “overhead moneys” allocated to political parties represented in Parliament. Political parties have found that the Lutheran Church is a suitable partner for them. For example, in late 2017, several EELC congregations in Pärnu County received support from the Pro Patria political formation in order to renovate the church’s electrical system and design or repair roofs (Matt 2017).

Conclusion Since Estonia’s restoration of independence in 1991, the understanding of the life of the church during Soviet times has become more refined, layer by layer. By contrast to Soviet times, during the restoration of independence public debates also touched on the theme of churches returning to public life. The topic of repressions perpetrated by the Soviet regime drew much attention during the late 1980s, cementing the view of the church as a victim of Soviet power. The EELC received the most attention among religious groups present in the country, as its clergymen were active in public life. As such, that church demanded special status in its dealings with the state, basing these claims on legislation in force during the 1930s. As the Soviet occupation came to an end, property formerly expropriated by the Soviet regime began to be returned to the churches. In the 1990s, historical research added a new layer to the narrative of the church as a victim. The church began to be seen much more critically after newly available documents from the archives of the former security services showed that during the first two decades of the Soviet occupation the authorities had attempted to co-opt clergymen as secret informers.

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Although some clerics never collaborated, others informed on their fellow clergy and the faithful. By the 1960s, the church was completely under the regime’s control and had become too weak to put up any resistance. This view was strongly rejected by the clergy active in the 1990s, because the vast majority of them had experienced pressure from the authorities in one way or another from the 1960s to the 1980s and some had endured searches and outright repression. Nevertheless, the image of the church as a victim was loath to fade. Adding to this narrative was the view, presented in the book Faith in Freedom, that the church had resisted and the clergyman were stewards of spiritual freedom. The Lutheran Church’s own approach to history differs from that of most historians, and only a minority of historians are likely to praise the activity of the church. These historians note that the church, by its mere existence, fulfilled its role of a resistance organization. As the Soviet occupation recedes into the more distant past, the negative experience of those times is fading and the emphasis has shifted to the achievements of that period. For that reason, the EELC’s own history and the research recently conducted by church historians describe the Soviet era as a period during which the church tried to push the envelope and get certain things done in spite of the restrictions with which it had to contend. This position is expressed in the recollections of clergymen and the works of church historians such as the one published in 2017 to commemorate the centenary of the EELC, which was established as an independent church only in 1917 (Rohtmets and Remmel 2017). As a result of the new narrative that is taking shape in both the church and the society, the activity of the church during the Soviet era is still being re-assessed.

Notes 1. Volkonski (2018) reached the same conclusion: interviews conducted with individuals involved in distributing religious literature suggested that the KGB was aware of the activities of the church but did not interfere until the early 1980s when those activities were considered too sustained. A KGB annual report from 1958 described in length the secret services’ reach, actions and methods for controlling religious organizations in Estonia (Reports of 2nd and 4th department, 2005, 137–154).

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eds. Priit Rohtmets and Atko Remmel, 93–120. Tallinn/Tartu: EELK Usuteaduse Instituut, Tartu Ülikool. Rohtmets, Priit. 2018. Riik ja usulised ühendused. Tallinn: Siseministeerium. Rohtmets, Priit. 2019. Eesti usuelu 100 aastat. Tallinn: Post Factum. Saard, Riho. 2012. Aktiivsetest režiimivastastest Eesti luterliku kiriku kontekstis 1970. ja 1980. aastatel. Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran vuosikirja, 102: 77–110. Smolkin, Victoria. 2018. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism. Princeton University Press. Soomere, Tarmo. 2011. Tõrvikuid läites. In Usk vabadusse, ed. Anne Velliste, 80–94. Tallinn: EELK Konsistoorium. Sõtšov, Andrei. 2008. Eesti Õigeusu piiskopkond nõukogude religioonipoliitika mõjuväljas, 1954–1964. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus. Tarvel, Enn. 2018. Eesti rahva lugu. Tallinn: Varrak. Velliste, Anne (Ed.). 2011. Usk vabadusse: artikleid ja mälestusi Eesti Evangeelse Luterliku Kiriku osast Eesti iseseisvuse taastamisel. Tallinn: EELK Konsistoorium. Volkonski, Immanuel. 2018. Põrandaaluse kristliku kirjanduse levitamine ENSVs. Master’s thesis. Tartu: Tartu Ülikool.

CHAPTER 9

The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia Solveiga Krumina-Konkova

In the first half of the twentieth century, the Latvian religious landscape was mixed. The 1935 census showed that about 55 percent of all residents of Latvia regarded themselves as Lutherans, 25 percent as Roman Catholics, about 9 percent as Russian Orthodox, a little more than 5 percent as Old Believers and almost 5 percent as Jewish. Several minor Protestant denominations (Adventists and Pentecostals), the re-constituted pre-Christian religion Dievturi, as well as the Muslims were also sufficiently active but accounted for even smaller percentages (Krumina-Konkova and Misane 2018, 732). The major Christian confessions had well-functioning communities and their traditions strengthened before World War I, but then they lost significant numbers of their clergy and parishioners during World War II and as a result of the persecutions they endured at the hands of the Soviet regime. To survive dictatorial times, these churches also considered the advantages of collaborating with the Soviet authorities, including the secret political police, the KGB.

S. Krumina-Konkova (B) Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Latvia, Riga, Latvia © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_9

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This chapter focuses on the two main Christian churches in Latvia, the Roman Catholic Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church, which together account for around 80 percent of the population. After the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church maintained an equal influence alongside the Lutheran Church. This historically established balance between Catholics and Lutherans, which also continued during Soviet times, provides a reasonable basis for comparison. Although both churches were under intense pressure from the Soviet regime, the “different theological tenets and organisational principles may yield contrasting approaches to the state” (Goeckel 2018, 2), especially in the years immediately following World War II.

The Latvian Lutherans and Roman Catholics During Soviet Times The history of religious denominations in Soviet Latvia is one of persecution, discrimination and repression. The first persecutions of clergy began immediately after the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940–1941, but “the organisational capacity of the Communists was inadequate, and their priorities were eliminating political opposition and introducing collectivisation and nationalisation into the economy” (Goeckel 2018, 9). For example, the Soviet occupation forces hastened to limit the spiritual functions of the various denominations, to ban the religious instruction of children in public schools and to introduce a number of other discriminatory measures but none of these were fully implemented ultimately. Nevertheless, a staggering number of deportations and executions of clergy members took place. In June 1941, five Roman Catholic priests were arrested and shot when the Red Army retreated from the territory of Latvia. Other four were deported to Siberia, where they died in the Gulag labour camps (Trups-Trops 1992, 68–73). The situation within the Evangelical Lutheran Church was similar. Immediately after the Soviet occupation of Latvia occurred, two lay members of the Consistory of the Evangelical Lutheran Church were arrested and deported to Soviet Russia. On 13–14 June 1941, as many as 14,194 residents of Latvia were deported to various places of imprisonment in the territory of the Soviet Union. Among them, there were about ten Lutheran pastors. The dismissal, deportation and killing of pastors seriously complicated the work of many Lutheran congregations, which were thus left without spiritual guidance during a self-avowed atheistic

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regime that openly persecuted religious denominations. By July 1941, there were only 166 Lutheran pastors still working in Latvian churches, compared to 280 before the occupation in 1940. Between July 1941 and late 1944 Latvia was under German occupation. The anti-religious policy against the Church and its persecution were rekindled with the return of the Soviet occupation troops to Latvia at the end of 1944. Months before the Soviets reestablished control over the territory of the republic, in August 1944, Moscow named the Soviet Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (CARC) commissioner in Latvia. The CARC had been established in May 1944 in view of imposing state control over the life of religious denominations present in the Soviet Union, and soon afterwards a commissioner of this Council was named in every Soviet republic except Armenia. The first CARC commissioner in Latvia was Voldem¯ars Šeškens (born in 1895), who by then had served as an employee of the Special Council of the People’s Commissariat for International Affairs (NKVD) in Soviet Russia. The NKVD, which was the precursor to the KGB, was notorious as a repressive agency involved in the creation of the communist state security forces in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the implementation of the collectivization program, which claimed the lives of millions of peasants. In 1948, Šeskens was replaced by J¯ulijs Restbergs (1892–1973), who was also a former employee of the NKVD. Restbergs served as the CARC commissioner in Latvia until 1960. In the various Soviet republics where they were appointed, these commissioners implemented the Instruction issued in May 1945 by the CARC. Article 9 of this document stated that a commissioner had to “inform the government about religious cults, their situation and activities in the Republic, give opinions on issues related to religious organisations, supervise the correct enforcement of Soviet legislation pertaining to freedom of conscience, realize the registration of religious associations and groups, churches, prayer houses” (The State Archive of Latvia 1448, 1). Among the duties of the commissioners was the recording and the registration of clergy members, through which the Soviet authorities controlled the denominations and whose denial could greatly affect religious groups, especially those like the Roman Catholic Church whose leadership was placed outside the territory and control of the Soviet Union.

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Several archival documents on the activities of the CARC commissioner in Latvia confirm that the Latvian CARC was a significant source of information for the Ministry of State Security (MSS, which in 1954 became the Committee for State Security, the KGB). The KGB was headquartered in Moscow, Russia, but had branches in each Soviet republic that constantly sent information to the headquarters. The KGB targeted all individuals and groups suspected of anti-regime activity and sentiment; religious denominations were particularly targeted by a regime for which religion was the opium of the proletariat and a perceived obstacle to social, economic and political development. Thus, the Latvian CARC, and its counterparts in other Soviet republics, actively participated in the surveillance operations of the MSS/KGB and was also an initiator of certain operations. One of Šeškens’s most important tasks was to assist the work of the Communist Party in the provinces especially in the struggle against guerilla groups known as the “forest brothers” who carried out military resistance against Soviet rule after World War II. The number of the active combatants was between 10,000 and 15,000, although definite figures are unavailable. Guerrillas attacked uniformed military personnel and activists of the Communist Party (mostly in rural areas), destroying ammunition depots and other military objects. The last groups emerged from the forest in 1957. The goal of the commissioner was also to involve the leaders of both churches in “fighting against banditry,” as guerrillas were called by Soviet authorities at that time. Thus, according to a secret report sent by Šeškens to the Chief of the Soviet CARC Ivan Polansky on 4 May 1945, a meeting of Metropolitan Archbishop Antonijs Springoviˇcs (1876–1958) with the Latvian NKVD Commissar Alfons Noviks had taken place during which the Metropolitan agreed to sign an official call for the guerrillas to put down their weapons. Without further consultations with the state authorities, Springoviˇcs then changed the content of the call so as to emphasize the need to put down weapons only if amnesty was granted in exchange. Undeterred by this unilateral move, Šeškens was convinced that it was still possible to cooperate with the leader of the Latvian Roman Catholics (The State Archive of Latvia 1448, 1, 239, 8–12). Nevertheless, his attitude towards the Lutheran Church leader K¯arlis Irbe (1885–1966), who refused to sign the same call, was significantly different. For the commissioner, Irbe’s behaviour was “unrelentingly impudent” which was dangerous and inimical because “it is not

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a defect of upbringing, but a specific, thoughtful system of talking to the Soviets” (The State Archive of Latvia 1448, 1, 239, 4). Šeškens was convinced that a new candidate should be found to replace the Lutheran Church leader as soon as possible, the more so since there are no German troops left on the territory of Latvia on which the Lutheran leader could rely for support. Despite the open cooperation of the Roman Catholic Church with the Soviet authorities, according to the statistics, after 1944 more than seventy-five priests of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church were persecuted, most of them being arrested and sentenced to ten or more years in labour camps (Trups-Trops 1992, 68–73). The priests who actively and openly resisted against the Soviet authorities got the most severe punishment. Some of them died while being tortured in prison, others simply disappeared. Here is how the late Bishop of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church Valerijans Zondaks described those times: “every Catholic priest in the Metropolitanate of Riga was waiting his arrest. Some waited quietly; others were very nervous” (The State Archive of Latvia 1986, 1, 21, 659–2, 320). It is also noteworthy that in 1944 thirty-six Catholic priests from Latvia, including three bishops, went into exile. A new wave of arrests began in 1948–1949, which affected some of the people loyal to Springoviˇcs. For example, Bishop Kazimirs Du¸lbinskis (1906–1991) was arrested on 12 May 1949. Several interrogation protocols show that Du¸lbinskis’s investigators were particularly interested in his “criminal relations with the Vatican and the national underground,” that is, groups of “forest brothers” and the priests who supported them (The State Archive of Latvia 1986, 2, 5360–1, 153). Du¸lbinskis was judged by the Special Council of the NKVD, indicted in virtue of Article 58 and Part 1 of Article 58 of the Russian Criminal Code, and sentenced to ten years in the Mineralny or Minlag labour camp, a special camp for political prisoners within the Gulag system. He was released in 1955, and then arrested again two years later because, at the request of the local authorities, the Attorney General submitted the protest against his release from custody before the end of his sentence. After his second release in November 1958, the Soviet authorities forbade him to live in Latvia. Du¸lbinskis was rehabilitated only in 1988, under Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. As the historian of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church J¯anis Cakuls wrote, by that time “the Bishop was already eighty-two years old, and he could not fulfil the episcopal duties any longer” (1996, 294).

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Similarly, the KGB orchestrated the complete replacement of the Supreme Board (Virsvalde) of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, the highest executive body of the Church, whose task was to implement the decisions of the Church Synod. The main reason for this replacement was the outspoken opposition of Archbishop K¯arlis Irbe and his closest associates to the decisions of the Soviet authorities. For example, Irbe refused to sign the call to the “forest brothers” to lay down their weapons and surrender. Bishop Irbe was arrested on 21 February 1946 for involvement in organizing anti-Soviet actions. On 29 March 1947, in virtue of Article 58 of the Russian Criminal Code, he was sentenced to ten years in the labour camp. Even before Irbe’s arrest, the KGB launched the gradual replacement of the Supreme Board members with trusted individuals. Not only were the new Board members loyal to the Soviet authorities, but they were also willing to cooperate with the MSS and even to gather the evidence necessary to prove the anti-Soviet activities of Irbe and his closest associates. On 8 March 1946, Irbe was replaced by the more conformist leader Gustavs T¯urs (sometimes also spelled Turss, 1890–1973), a provincial pastor who had been elected as a member of the church leadership in the interwar period. From the first days of his appointment, T¯urs demonstrated his loyalty to the Soviet authorities by making changes to the church administration and organizing special religious services as part of different Soviet jubilees. In spite of the many arrests of clergy members, during the first years after World War II, the Soviet regime retained a relatively gentile attitude towards the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Latvia. As Goeckel wrote, the state’s priority of crushing political opposition, restoring order, and reintroducing Soviet political institutions meant that the campaign against religion and the churches was hardly expedient in this early period.… In the absence of such a campaign, the churches regained adherents, despite their continuing weaknesses in institutional terms. (2018, 15–16)

The arrest of the bishops and the replacement of the church leadership with clergy members loyal to the Soviet regime signalled the fact that the state authorities initiated a shift in their relation towards the church. As part of this changed strategy, the official registration of parishes was launched. The registration process required the parish and the state representatives to sign an agreement which stipulated that the state acquired ownership of church property. The church property was given in the use

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of the dvatsatka (that is, twenty persons representing the parish) “without charge and time limit.” In actuality, the registration process led to the nationalization of church property which reverted, as a result, from the religious denomination to the Soviet state. Churches were allowed to continue to function only if they renounced their property. In spite of this conditions that placed denominations at a significant disadvantage, most of the Lutheran and Roman Catholic congregations in Latvia were registered by the end of 1948. Each clergy member, in turn, was tied to a certain parish and, without the permission of the commissioner, was forbidden to serve in another church or to move outside of the parish designated for him as part of the registration process. Pressure was also applied on theological education, which was very important for the stability and growth of the Latvian churches. Thanks to Springoviˇcs’s close relationship with the Soviet authorities, the reopening of the Catholic Seminary in Riga was permitted in 1945, but the Seminary was then closed again six years later at the request of the authorities in Moscow. In August 1950, the Russian, Armenian and Georgian Orthodox patriarchs issued an appeal against nuclear weapons and “American aggression” in Korea. When the Latvian Lutheran Church joined the peace propaganda, the Roman Catholic Church refused to sign the appeal of the three patriarchs. This prompted retaliation on the part of the Soviet authorities. On 1 January 1951, the Catholic Seminary was closed. The Riga Seminary remained the only one preparing new priests for the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia, a fact that further exacerbated the shortage of priests and led to the closure of many churches. In this context, the Latvian Roman Catholic leadership had to make concessions to the Soviet regime. In September and November 1951, Bishop Strods attended the peace conference in Riga and then delivered a speech at the Third Conference for Peace Defenders in Moscow. On 6 March 1952, the Soviet authorities re-opened the Riga Seminary with a short study period in the fall and spring. Despite the active involvement of Bishop T¯urs and several other Lutheran pastors in the peace movement, the Latvian communist officials ignored T¯ urs’s request to re-open the Lutheran theological institute in 1953 and 1954. The Lutheran Church was permitted to open correspondence courses only in 1957. At the same time, Lutherans had the opportunity to send students to study abroad, for example, to the Martin Luther University in Halle, East Germany, and with the support of the Church of England also to the University of Oxford.

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The clergy was also forbidden to prepare children for confirmation, a ritual that was an important landmark for both Catholics and Lutherans. Those who violated this ban were deprived of permission to serve in the church, were often arrested and even convicted for engaging in antiSoviet propaganda. In addition, the local authorities, the members of the Communist Party and the Komsomol (the youth organization affiliated with the Communist Party) forced the youth not to take confirmation, disrupted confirmation services and demanded the priests to provide lists of confirmands. These lists could be then used to target and intimidate the faithful, in an effort to limit their religious activities and sever their ties to the church. Parents who were active church members were discriminated in terms of their work and career development, while religious young people were restricted from pursuing further education opportunities. At the same time, there was an increase in atheistic propaganda and in 1947 an aggressive anti-church campaign was launched by the Soviet authorities. The characteristic feature of the campaign was represented by press articles which criticized religion in general or sought to “unmask” individual clergymen as elements of anti-progress. The dossiers of clergy members, which included information gathered by the commissioner in various churches or obtained from other sources, detailed the clergymen’s political views, the activities they carried out during the Nazi occupation of Latvia, and their actions that were not corresponding with the Soviet legal norms and communist ethics. This information was often used to dishonour clergymen in front of their parishes or the general society. Thus, this compromising and sensitive information could force the most disobedient clergyman into conforming to Soviet rules. This way, the clergymen were also coerced to collaborate with the Soviet state security and provide secret information about bishops, fellow priests or congregation members. At the end of the 1940s the Soviet authorities launched another campaign, and this time a significant role in it was assigned to the Catholic and Lutheran clergy members who were supportive of or sympathetic to the communist regime. This campaign was represented by a statesupported movement for peace, which began to develop rapidly in Latvia during the late 1940s and the early 1950s. The need to mobilize the world public opinion for peace rose after the outbreak of the Korean War in June 1950. The regime saw the peace movement as an excellent opportunity for strengthening the Soviet foreign policy, and assumed that churches in the democratic West would have more confidence in

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the peace movement than the diplomats. The documents found in the State Archives of Latvia confirm that this movement was initiated by the MSS/KGB of the Former Soviet Union under the close supervision of the Communist Party leadership, and it consisted of a coordinated combination of various events. The leaders of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches in Latvia were involved in the peace movement almost from the beginning, as early as the late 1940s. As it was mentioned above, Roman Catholics were passive in this campaign until the early 1950s. After pledging their loyalty to the foreign policy goals of the Soviet Union, the representatives of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church received permission in the form of an invitation from the Russian Orthodox Church to participate in the All-Union Peace conferences organized by the peace movement in Soviet Russia, mostly in Moscow. The delegations of Latvian Roman Catholics at those conferences were usually led by Bishop P¯eteris Strods (1892–1960). Due to his severe health problems, however, Springoviˇcs was unable to participate in the conference and instead signed pre-prepared greeting cards addressed to the participants. All these greetings, similar to Strods’s speeches, were edited both by the Latvian state institutions and the leadership of the Latvian Communist Party. In advance of the international conferences, the texts of the speeches to be presented by church representatives were also censored in Moscow. Often such texts were rejected as too religious or lacking the necessary emphasis on the serious character of the Soviet struggle against the influence of “Western imperialists.” Note that the Soviet authorities paid special attention to the Roman Catholic Church due to its particular institutional structure, which subordinated the congregations in Latvia to the Vatican. For example, on 21 July 1949 a meeting took place between Springoviˇcs and Strods as well as the Vice-President of the Soviet CARC, Yuri Sadovsky. During the meeting, Sadovsky pointed out “the special position of the Church” as well as the institutional and canonical links of the Latvian Catholics with the Vatican. He reminded that the Latvian Roman Catholic Church, “unlike other religious cults, has a religious centre outside the USSR and it recognises the Pope of Rome as its supreme leader, who is very hostile to the Soviet Union and tries to organise a fight against it” (The State Archive of Latvia 270, 1, 452, 440–441). Soon thereafter, the Lutheran Church was also convinced to take part in the “work for peace.” Archbishop T¯ urs publicly confirmed the loyalty of the Latvian Lutherans to the Soviet authorities at every opportunity.

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He first attended a peace conference in the Caucasus in 1950. Later he was elected as a member of the Peace Committee of the Latvian Soviet republic. Furthermore, T¯urs quite successfully used his participation in the state-sponsored peace activities as leverage to protect the Lutheran Church against the various constraints imposed by the communist authorities on religious activity. As the Finnish church historian Jouko Talonen wrote, “using cunning policies, T¯urs has thus sought to find new opportunities for LELC to participate in the public affairs of Soviet Latvia. However, at the same time, following this tactic, he became more and more only an instrument for implementing the Soviet peace policy” (Talonen 2009, 198). Participation in the peace movement presented excellent opportunities for both the Soviet regime and the local churches. For the Soviet regime the presence of religious leaders in the movement emphasized its significance and served as a means to gradually increase the impact of communist ideology in the world. In addition, the religious delegations served as a cover for secret activities conducted by the Soviet state security services at those meetings. The second task was spelled out during the late 1950s. On May 1959 at a conference of senior secret police officers the Chairman of the Soviet KGB, Alexander Shelepin, spoke about the critical tasks that the KGB was to fulfil and emphasized the need to use the KGB agents recruited from among the intelligentsia to gather information on foreign contacts. Starting in 1960, the KGB secret agents recruited from within the clergy took part in foreign operations. Shelepin’s intervention also laid the foundation for a systemic program of disinformation. According to Shelepin, the Soviet KGB was “to be mobilized to influence international relations in directions required by the new long-range policy and, in effect, to destabilize the ‘main enemies’ and weaken the alliances between them. The efforts of the KGB agents in the Soviet intelligentsia were to be redirected outward against foreigners with a view to enlisting their help in the achievement of policy objectives” (Golytsin 1984, 59). Joint operations were to be undertaken together with the security and intelligence services of all other communist countries. The KGB also actively worked to ensure that clergymen loyal to it were appointed to church leadership positions which would allow them to become actively involved in the work of various international church organizations. For both Churches, participation in the peace movement meant the opportunity not only to preserve their congregations, and avoid obliteration at the hands of an inimical political regime, but also to stir

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them to higher activity. The opportunity to get away from the isolation that the Churches faced immediatedly after World War II was the most important, because it allowed them both to restore relations with other churches in the communist bloc and to contact the church representatives in Western countries. Nevertheless, as Churches were under the tight control of the Soviet security services, such contacts often failed. For example, in 1953 Valerijans Zondaks, the Chancellor of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church, was sentenced to twenty-five years in a labour camp for attempting to hand over a letter to the Vatican through the US Embassy in Moscow. The period immediately after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953 brought a measure of liberalization in the relations between the Soviet state authorities and the religious denominations. Documents discovered in the archives of the Latvian Commissioner confirm that: after 1954, the general policy shifted to benefit the churches’ institutional interests, particularly as measured by registration of parishes, parish governance, construction and renovation of churches, church publications, and theological education. As might be expected, church adherence and activity level increased as a result, particularly in the Lutheran and Catholic Churches. (Goeckel 2018, 98)

Unfortunately, the thaw was short-lived and under Nikhita Khrushchev (September 1953 to 1971) the Soviet authorities reverted to limiting the activities of both the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia. However, the methods through which the authorities tried to eliminate the influence of the Church in the society were different, including persecution of the less loyal clergymen and their replacement with regime supporters with the help of psychological manipulation and active anti-religious propaganda campaigns. On 7 July 1954, the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted a decision entitled On the Major Shortcomings in Scientific Atheistic Propaganda and Measures to Improve It, which stated that the “anti-religious work” should be conducted systematically, persistently, persuasively and patiently by “seeking an individual approach to each believer” (CPSU 1972. 502, 506–507). In addition to the “scientific criticism” of religion, the communist authorities decided to change the attitudes of the people towards religion by introducing new family, life cycle and everyday traditions to

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replace religious marriage, funeral ceremonies and cemetery festivals, all of which had been very popular in Latvia. Under the guidance of the Communist Party and state authorities, Communist Party and Komsomol activists, as well as employees of the commissioner’s office monitored sermons to identify those of what they saw as a reactionary and antiscientific character. The clergy members were blackmailed and smeared in different publications written and popular lectures read by lecturers of the state-sponsored “scientific” Society of Knowledge (Zin¯ıbu biedr¯ıba) and delivered in schools, rural culture houses and other places. One of the most visible consequences of this campaign was the forced abandonment of their ecclesiastical posts by several clergymen, mainly Roman Catholics. Their refusal to continue to serve their congregations was usually summarized by the central press, eager to show to the general public that even clergymen were abandoning religion and the church. Later, some of these former priests were involved in different anti-religious activities. In addition, the Soviet authorities used different methods of financial and institutional pressure to restrict church activities. These methods included the obligation to pay higher taxes on all church buildings and lands as well as the income of clergymen. This policy was particularly hard for the small rural congregations, many of which were forced to close their places of worship at a time when the state authorities refused to register new parishes in the growing suburbs of Riga and other big cities. At the same time, rather unexpectedly the Soviet regime allowed churches to expand their international contacts. One of the goals of this benevolence was to avoid Western criticism of the Soviet religious policy. In the beginning, the leaders of the churches whose loyalty was questioned by the communist regime were allowed to forge bilateral contacts with some Western churches. For example, in 1955 T¯urs travelled to the United Kingdom at the invitation of the Archbishop of Canterbury and a year later he travelled to the United States at the invitation of the National Council of Churches. The central theme of these visits was, of course, the peace issue. Nevertheless, similar contacts were not allowed for the Latvian Roman Catholic Church, because allowing the Latvian Catholics to re-establish contacts with the Vatican was expected to reduce the Soviet regime’s control over the Church since the Vatican was considered to be a geopolitical rival. Permission to travel to the Vatican was granted to the leadership of the Latvian Roman Catholic Church only in 1964, when Vicar General Julijans Vaivods (1895–1990) was invited to the third session of the Second

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Vatican Council, which took place from 14 September to 21 November. Arriving in Rome, Vaivods submitted to Pope Paul VI the request of the Latvian priests to appoint him as their bishop. On 18 November 1964, he was consecrated as titular bishop and appointed as the Apostolic administrator of the Riga Archdiocese and the Liepaja Diocese. During the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council, which took place in 1965, Vaivods was appointed as a member of the Commission for the Reconstruction of Church Canons and a member of the Synod of bishops of the Vatican. After these appointments, Vaivods visited Rome ten more times until 1987. By contrast, Vaivods’s visits to local parishes in Latvia were severely restricted so that his influence would not foster the growth of activities in local congregations. In the late 1950s and the early 1960s, under the leadership of the KGB and other secret services in the communist bloc, a number of international religious organizations were set up (CIA FOIA. RDP83M00914P001200110031-7, 1). The tasks of these socalled “cover organizations” included not only propaganda on behalf of promoting the Soviet foreign policy, but possibly support for the aforementioned disinformation program, involvement in the collection of intelligence and the recruitment of agents from among Western citizens. Several of these new organizations, such as the Berlin Conference of European Catholics and the Christian Peace Conference in Prague, were actively attended by several of the Latvian Roman Catholic and Lutheran clergy members and leaders. For example, J¯anis Matulis (1911–1985), who became the Lutheran Archbishop of Latvia in 1969, actively participated in the activities of the Christian Peace Conference, and in those the Conference organized jointly together with the Berlin Conference. In such cases, the delegations of the two Latvian Churches met on the plane from Moscow, where they received their last instructions. Recently, after the publication of the list of the KGB agents in Latvia on the kgb.arhivi.lv website on 20 December 2018, it has become known that most of those delegation members were KGB secret collaborators. Under the control of the KGB were also the delegates who, starting in 1962, participated in the various activities of the World Council of Churches. After continuously replacing their members, the leadership of the two Churches and the major congregations included clergymen who were at least nominally loyal to the Soviet authorities. The new appointees had grown up under the Soviet regime or had adapted to its ideology. As such, this generation of clergymen was more interested in advancing their

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career opportunities. Their collaboration with the Soviet secret police, the KGB and other state agencies of repression was determined mostly by practical considerations: the opportunity to travel abroad and even to study at foreign theological universities, as well as the desire to serve in prestigious or wealthy parishes. In addition, refusal to cooperate was no longer accompanied by the threat of being placed under arrest but the consequences of renunciation remained serious. A clergyman whose loyalty raised doubts had to serve in a small rural parish where he received the minimum church salary. At the same time, the state authorities agreed to lower the income tax for clergy who were active internationally. This way, the Soviet regime forced the clergy to take part in Soviet propaganda and related activities desired by the regime. As a result, by the early 1980s, a specific nomenklatura whose members sought to exploit all of the benefits offered by the Soviet regime had formed within the Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Soviet Latvia.

A Time for Change Gorbachev’s perestroika brought key changes to the Latvian religious situation. On the one hand, the Communist Party’s anti-religious campaign diminished in intensity. For example, although religion was still considered a vanishing phenomenon, the state authorities began to recognize the cultural values created and nurtured by the churches. More attention began to be paid to the preservation of church buildings and sacred art objects. Cases of vandalism and theft in churches, which had been previously seen as evidence of a successful anti-religious propaganda, were investigated more closely by the police. The Council for Religious Affairs (CRA) of the Soviet Union (formed in 1965 as the state agency responsible for), as well as the control of the commissioner over the congregations and the clergy, became more flexible and increasingly tolerant. On the other hand, by the early 1980s the mindset of the clergy had already changed. In both the Lutheran and the Roman Catholic Churches, some clergymen began to experiment with innovative methods of delivering religious services. In some Roman Catholic parishes, services in the Latvian and Latgalian languages were held. On 7 August 1989, the first pilgrimage in fifty years was allowed to pass from Riga to Aglona. The priests in the Roman Catholic Church tried to enforce the decisions of the Second Vatican Council in their congregations, whereas

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the young Lutheran pastors headed by Modris Pl¯ate tried to emphasize the conservative “Catholic” version of the liturgy, for example, by reading scriptures in Latin and Greek, introducing vigils, and engaging choirs and music groups in services. They called for a reform of the Latvian Lutheran Church and a return not only to the real foundations of Luther’s teachings but also to the fundamental values of Christianity and their restoration in the Latvian society. These young pastors were also supported by some nationally minded clergy of the older generations. In 1987 an opposition group within the Lutheran Church created the Rebirth and Renewal movement (Atdzimšana un Atjaunošan¯ as ). While its proponents saw themselves as part of a religious-ethical movement which sought to strengthen the church spiritually and institutionally, the state authorities argued that the “Basic Principles” published by the movement had political dimensions. For example, the opposition group demanded changes in the Soviet law on religious organizations that would allow the re-introduction of religious education for school children or access to TV and radio stations. Soon afterwards, several young Lutheran pastors became active members of the Popular Front. In that way, they became essential partakers in the National Awakening process and the restoration of the Latvian state’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By early 1988, the leadership of the Latvian Roman Catholics brought forth similar demands. Julijans Vaivods, who up to that moment in time had been loyal to the Soviet regime, gradually began to distance himself from Moscow. The activities of both Churches underlined their independence from Moscow and their integration into the National Awakening movement, and thus contributed to the rapid increase in the number of believers, especially in the Lutheran Church. In this context, the leaders of both churches had the courage to demand changes in the existing legislation and to start working on a new law on religions that would permit the return of the most significant properties from the state to the church. Among these properties were the Catholic monastery in Aglona and the Lutheran Dome Cathedral in Riga. In 1989, in the General Synod of the Latvian Lutheran Church, the opposition (formed mostly of the representatives of the Rebirth and Renewal movement) succeeded in gaining support for two proposals. The first one called for the restoration of the 1928 Church constitution which represented the Lutheran Church as autonomous from the state power and able to manage its own life with the help of the parish

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council, the dean’s office and its Synod; the General Synod as the supreme decision-making and legislative church body; and the Supreme Board elected by the General Synod as the church’s highest executive body. According to the principles of synodic leadership, the bishop is the “pastor” of pastors and the overseer and balancer of the spiritual activity of the Church (Rozentals 2017, 267). The renunciation of the synodic leadership during Soviet times facilitated the regime’s aims at Sovietizing the Lutheran Church and appointing as Church leaders of individuals loyal to the regime. The second was the replacement of the pro-Soviet Arch¯ bishop Eriks Mesters (1926–2009)—elected in 1986 and characterized as “the most obedient church leader” in the history of the Soviet Lutheran Church (Rozentals 2017, 266)—with the more moderate Soviet collaborator K¯arlis Gail¯ıtis (1936–1992). Although Gail¯ıtis was known for his cautious relations with the state authorities and belief that the Church should maintain a good relationship with them, he was a compromised figure whose election was considered as a victory of the opposition within the Synod. The state authorities were ready to meet these demands, as proven by the speech of the last Soviet CRA commissioner, Arnolds Kublinskis, delivered at the opening of the Synod on 11 April 1989. Kublinskis declared: The situation of our social life…is for the first time contradictory and charged…. The Church must show its position toward our nation’s destiny, because the Church is most directly connected with the people, the society [and] to some extent it is a guardian of spirituality and morality...I will not humiliate myself if I apologise for the things for which we were not true and for sometimes being guided by old stereotypes. Our institution was accused of trying to influence the Church leadership, dictating to it our own rules. If it ever happened, I can say today that it is a thing of the past. Too many stones have been scattered; [now] they have to be gathered. We very much want the Latvian Lutheran Church to be united…because, at the present moment of our nation’s awakening, we must all be united, including the Church.” (Trapane 1989, 1)

This speech reflects the new attitude of the commissioner towards the Christian Churches of Latvia, which has been seen as a position of “favourable neutrality.” In August 1989, work began in Soviet Latvia on a new Law on the Freedom of Consciousness. The Law on Religious Organizations in the Republic of Latvia entered into force on 11 September 1990.

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Their active engagement in the democratic processes resulted in the unprecedented popularity of the Latvian religious denominations, including the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Churches. The public trust in the Christian church as a whole was unusually high, reaching 64 percent in 1990. The property rights of both churches were restored, and both became active in education, armed forces, healthcare and social services. After Latvia restored its independence in 1991, each church chose a different model of development. The Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church became one of the most conservative Lutheran churches in Europe. One of its branches, headed by Archbishop J¯anis Vanags, is close to Roman Catholicism in terms of its religious teaching and adaptation of such Catholic elements as pilgrimages, fasting, cloisters and communities of brothers and sisters, as well as details of church services. Unlike in the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad, only men can serve as pastors in this branch. Under the leadership of Cardinal J¯anis Pujats (1991–2010), the Roman Catholic Church in Latvia implemented the reforms of the Second Vatican Council. A unique feature of Pujats’s leadership was the rapid building of new churches especially in districts where Catholics were not dominant historically. After Pujats’s resignation, Archbishop-Metropolitan Zbignevs ¸ Stankeviˇcs has focused on strengthening Christian unity and the dialogue with the secular society on the renewal of Christian values.

Looking Back at Soviet Times Until recently, the two Latvian churches paid no significant attention to their past collaboration with the Soviet regime. The few studies published by church historians presented only a list of Soviet-era events and looked closely only at the persecutions faced by the clergy. The churches’ participation in the peace movement, foreign travels and other examples of cooperation with the Soviet regime were presented but not analyzed. This silence was facilitated by the lack of public access to the documents of the Latvian KGB. In 2010, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Latvia handed to the State Archives over 372 files that presented the Soviet-era cooperation of Latvian citizens with the KGB. Only one of those files described the activities of a clergyman. Of course, Latvian citizens can personally ask for the KGB documents about themselves. Church representatives also took this opportunity to access their own secret files, but the information they

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thus obtained either remained private and thus was not publicly disclosed, or was discussed in a narrow circle without being made public. One of the few exceptions was an article authored by Lutheran pastor Juris Rubenis as part of a collection of articles published by the Faculty of Theology at the University of Latvia, in which he named one of the possible KGB agents infiltrated in the Rebirth and Renewal movement (Rubenis 2016, 394). No open discussions have taken place about the Church’s collaboration with the Soviet regime and, in particular, with the KGB, because it was desired neither by the politicians and the majority of the Latvian society nor by the church. The publication of the KGB documents contained in the so-called “Cheka’s bags” prompted the Parliament (Saeima) in 2014 to amend the Law on the Preservation, Use of Documents of the Former State Security Committee and the Statement of the Fact of Cooperation of Persons with the KGB, which extended public access to the KGB documents, initially for scientific research. The amendments established a “scientific” commission to research the Cheka bags: alphabetic, statistical and other systems organizing the names of the Latvian KGB informers, the logs of informers’ work and their personal files, as well as other secret documents. In early 2018, a working group of the Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights and Public Affairs was set up to amend the KGB law again. In September that year, the Committee adopted the working group’s proposal to publish the KGB documents, including the lists of secret agents, to transfer the documents to the Latvian National Archives and to gradually publish them on the archive’s website. These changes were meant to help Latvia to overcome the legacy of the Soviet occupation. In May 2018, an initiative group including representatives of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, the Latvian Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches, and former KGB members criticized the changes. The Evangelical Lutheran Church was represented by Archbishop J¯anis Vanags and Bishop emeritus P¯avils Br¯ uvers, while the Roman Catholic Church was represented by Bishop of Jelgava Diocese Edvards Pavlovskis and priest Rihards Rasnacis on behalf of Archbishop Zbignevs ¸ Stankeviˇcs. Pleading the existence of incomplete and sensitive information in the KGB archives, the group argued that in order to avoid the “demonisation of a group of Latvian citizens” the KGB documents should not be published but rather they should be made accessible to the security services and the researchers. According to Bishops emeritus P¯avils Br¯uvers:

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Would the publication lead to any positive results? No. It would only make the air hazy…These bags should be winnowed, and human offences should be investigated rather than handed over for tearing into pieces. There will be no good result from the publication. I once believed that all surnames of KGB informers should be published, but if all of these words are released, anybody could be accused of past cooperation with the Cheka. Where is the defence? Without it, it is a lynch court. I do not see who would benefit from publishing the surnames. (Veidemane 2018, 7)

Despite such objections, Parliament approved the law on 4 October 2018, and on 20 December the website of the Latvian National Archives published the first KGB documents, including the list of 7,998 secret informers. More than eighty agents from those included on the list belonged to religious organizations and more than half of them belonged to the Roman Catholic and Evangelical Lutheran Churches. Note that the list indicates the profession of the agents, and this is why the clergy could be easily identified. Only some parish members have been identified, since they had other professions not related to the churches to which they belonged. Also, the total number of agents associated with religious denominations was probably much higher since the list included only the so-called active agents but not those who were no longer used by the KGB in 1991 or those agents who were removed from the list for various reasons. The list was quite impressive because of the persons it named. It featured the Roman Catholic Cardinal Julijans Vaivods, Bishops Vilhelms Nukšs ¸ and J¯anis Cakuls, as well as Curia notary Zigfr¯ıds Naglis. KGB agent cards were found for almost all of the Soviet-era leaders of the ¯ Evangelical Lutheran Church: Archbishops J¯anis Matulis, Eriks Mesters, and K¯arlis Gail¯ıtis, as well as the Bishop of the German Lutheran parishes Haralds Kalninš ¸ (1911–1997). Among the KGB secret agents, there were clergymen who went abroad as members of various conference delegations where they participated in the activities of international religious organizations, and also clergymen who never left their rural parishes. Several students of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran Theological Seminaries were also recruited as KGB informers. For example, in 1984 Jozas Baronas (born on 16 April 1957) was recruited under the codename Ivo. He became a KGB informer before he started his studies at the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Riga, when he worked at the city Trolleybus and Tram Administration. The biographical details offered in the list makes it

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possible to conclude that at the time of this writing the former student of the Lutheran Theological Seminary is currently an archbishop and a professor at the St. Petersburg Evangelical Theological Academy. Unfortunately, none of the personal files of former informers were found among the KGB documents left behind in Latvia when the KGB agents withdrew to Moscow in summer 1991. As such, there is a lack of information about which tasks the informers had completed for the state security or the kind of information they provided to their KGB handlers. Reports saved in the KGB operational database “Delta” can serve as evidence for the collaboration with the KGB of only a few informers. In addition, many of the senior clergy named in the list are already dead. Only a small number of eyewitnesses of Soviet-era events are still alive. For these reasons, details about the collaboration of clergymen with the KGB, its nature and its consequences for the Latvian society will probably remain mostly unknown. Not much can be said about the response of the two churches to the publication of the KGB documents, although the names on the agents’ list demonstrated the clergy’s collaboration with the Soviet regime. Unlike the Seventh-day Adventists, who have publicly discussed the collaboration with the KGB of five of their members on their website (Peselis 2019), the reaction of the Roman Catholic and the Evangelical Lutheran Churches has been much more subdued. Perhaps the members of these two Churches have discussed these issues, without the debate becoming public. The official position of both Churches was probably the alreadymentioned appeal not to disclose the lists of KGB secret informers, but instead to allow researchers to examine this information and analyze each case of collaboration in detail so as to avoid hasty conclusions. This position was represented in the press by Cardinal J¯anis Pujats. Without denying that his name featured in the log of secret informers, Pujats emphasized that when studying the relationship of religious denominations with the Soviet regime one should also consider the fact that “the clergymen who officially ruled the Church often had to contact the public authorities, including the KGB. Moreover, collaboration was the art of compromise or the defence of one’s own interests” (Pujats 2019, 3). For the Archbishop of the Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church J¯anis Vanags, “these things related to collaboration have long been out of time” (Vanags 2019, 11). Nevertheless, he asked the pastors who found their names on the list of KGB informers to tell their story. According to him,

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the past cannot be undone, but its consequences can be transformed into something positive. Your testimonies will help us to understand the period of oppression during which the Church was forced to operate. The more terrible the oppression was, the greater is my respect for our Latvian Evangelical Lutheran Church, which, despite the regime’s wickedness and sometimes lingering and other times brutal control of the Cheka, did not stop even for a moment from preaching the word of God and serving the sacraments to the captured Soviet people. (Vanags 2019, 11)

For the time being, these discussions continue within Latvian society as well as the churches.

Conclusion The history of the relations between religious denominations and the Soviet regime in Soviet Latvia was a nuanced history of collaboration with the regime. After World War II, the Soviet regime extended the brutal persecution and arrests to the clergy, eliminating the most disobedient clergymen or keeping them away from the church. The property of religious groups was nationalized, and many parishes were abolished. In that situation, Archbishops Antonijs Springoviˇcs and Gustavs T¯urs, the leaders of the Roman Catholic and the Evangelical Lutheran Churches, respectively, saw compromise and cooperation with the Soviet regime as their only opportunity to preserve their religious denominations. Immediately after the war, the Soviet regime sought to use collaboration with the churches to obtain information about the mood of the population and its position towards the regime and its policies, as well as to address some acute internal problems such as the fight with the so-called “forest brothers.” After the 1950s the Soviet authorities began to use religious groups not only to obtain information about them but also to spread the communist ideology and disinform the West. By carrying out these tasks churches were able to establish international contacts and gradually to overcome their isolation from the rest of the world. At the same time, this collaboration facilitated the formation of a religious nomenklatura, which made use of the benefits offered by the communist regime. In its effort to control churches, the Soviet regime used the KGB and its network of informers recruited from within the religious denominations. The publication of the KGB list revealed that the Soviet-era secret informers included almost all leaders of the two churches discussed in this

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chapter. This fact stimulated the Roman Catholic and Lutheran faithful, as well as the larger Latvian society, to resume the public discussion on the collaboration of religious groups with the Soviet regime. Since the KGB agents were not only tools of the totalitarian system, but also its victims, the secret informers might choose to tell their stories of cooperation with the KGB publicly. Nevertheless, very few of the former informers have chosen this path until now. The churches are yet to honestly question the cooperation of a significant number of their clergymen with the KGB. This lack of interest, or courage, on the part of the most prominent Latvian churches to evaluate the Soviet-era collaboration of their clergy suggests that churches in Latvia have yet to cleanse themselves.

References Cakuls, J¯anis. 1996. Latvijas Romas kato¸lu priesteri, 1918–1995. Uzzinas. ¸ Riga: Romas katolu kurija. Communist Party of the Soviet Union [CPSU]. 1972. O kpypnyx nedoctatkax v nayqno-atcictiqecko ppopagande i mepax po ee ylyqxeni. KPCC v pezolcix i pexenix cezdov, konfepenci i plenymov CK. Vol.8, 502– 507. Moscow. Goeckel, Robert F. 2018. Soviet Religious Policy in Estonia and Latvia. Playing Harmony in the Singing Revolution. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Golytsin, Anatoliy. 1984. New Lies for Old. The Communist Strategy of Deception and Disinformation. New York: Dodd, Mead and Company. Krumina-Konkova, Solveiga and Agita Misane. 2018. Religions in Latvia. Latvia and Latvians. Collection of scholarly articles, vol.1, 720–751. Riga: Latvijas Zinatnu akademija. Peselis, Andris. 2019. Reabilit¯ejot mirušos: V¯estis adventistiem (10 January) at http://www.vestis.adventistiem.lv/2019/01/reabilitejot-mirusos.html. Accessed 24 March 2019. Pujats, J¯anis. 2019. V¯elreiz par Bazn¯ıcas un VDK attiec¯ıb¯am. Latvijas Avize (8 February) at http://www.la.lv/tribine-7. Accessed 23 March 2019. Rozentals, Linards. 2017. Izdz¯ıvošana. Sinod¯ alais p¯ arvaldes princips Latvijas a bazn¯ıc¯ a 1948–1984. gad¯ a. Riga: LU Akademiskais Evang ¸ ‘¯eliski luteriskaj¯ apgads. Rubenis, Juris. 2016. Latvijas Evang ¸ ‘ e¯liski luterisk¯a bazn¯ıca un Latvijas Atmodas usdienu latviešu teologu notikumi (1987–1988). Teolog‘ ija: teorija un prakse. M¯ raksti, 388–399. Riga: Zvaigzne.

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Talonen, Jouko. 2009. Bazn¯ıca sta¸linisma žnaugos. ¸ Latvijas Evang ¸ ‘¯eliski luterisk¯ a bazn¯ıca padomju okup¯ acijas laik¯ a no 1944. l¯ıdz 1950. gadam. Riga: Luteranu mantojuma fonds. Trapane, Mara. 1989. Archib¯ıskaps atbild. Australijas Latvietis no. 1986 (14 July): 1. Trups-Trops, Henriks. 1992. Latvijas Romas kato¸lu bazn¯ıca komunisma gados, 1940–1990. Riga: Romas katolu kurija. Vanags, J¯anis. 2019. Sevi mekl¯et, atrast un neatrast. Svetdienas rits (February): 10–11. ˇ Veidemane, Elita. 2018. Br¯ uvers: Cekas maisu publiskošana sadu¸lkos ¸ gaisu. Neatkariga Rita Avize (1 October) 6–7 at https://nra.lv/latvija/259058-bru vers-cekas-maisu-publiskosana-sadulkos-gaisu.htm. Accessed 1 March 2019.

CHAPTER 10

The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past Ar¯ unas Streikus

Before the Soviet occupations of 1940 and 1944 interrupted the history of the Lithuanian modern nation-state, the country was predominantly Catholic with more than 80% of its population belonging to the Roman Catholic Church, which many acknowledged as a social actor of huge importance. Moreover, fifty years of Soviet oppression hardly diminished the social standing of Catholicism. In the eyes of many citizens the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania was the main exponent of those few who dared to challenge the oppressive dictatorship or, at least, represented the last bulwark of national identity during the long years of forced Russification the country endured. The public image of the church during the postcommunist transition period has not only markedly affected its status in the larger society, but has also created a specific context that frames its efforts to come to terms with the controversial experiences of the communist past.

A. Streikus (B) Vilnius University, Vilnius, Lithuania e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_10

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The following chapter discusses mostly the case of the Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania, only briefly mentioning other religious groups present in the country. The chapter will address three main areas of public relevance that show the way in which religious institutions have dealt with the legacies of Soviet repression: (1) the memorialization of instances of religious oppression and resistance; (2) the restoration of their legal position in the society and the restitution of the church property abusively confiscated by the Soviet authorities; as well as (3) the public discussions centered on the extent of church collaboration with the communist secret police, the feared KGB.

Contradictory Experiences of Soviet Oppression The Catholic Church in Lithuania was treated by the Soviet regime not only as an ideological adversary that challenged the inherently atheistic worldview promoted by the Communist Party, but also as a strong political opponent able to complicate the process of Sovietization in the newly occupied republic. Understanding that terror alone could not break up the church immediately after 1944, the Soviet authorities adopted a policy toward religious denominations that combined harsh repression against clergymen with efforts to recruit willing collaborators from their ranks. During the 1944–1953 period, almost a third of the Lithuanian Roman Catholic clergy, including four bishops, fell victims to Soviet repression. The majority of them were indicted on political charges, being accused of allegedly supporting the armed resistance against the regime, participating in anti-Soviet organizations or promoting anti-Soviet propaganda. The repression campaigns were primarily directed against those who usually held authority and respect among the believers and who were the most active in providing spiritual care. In addition to the priests who were sentenced and sent to prisons or labor camps, several dozens of students enrolled in various Catholic seminaries and some members of the officially banned religious orders were also deported together with their families as politically unreliable elements unwilling to obey the regime. The loss of Catholic clergy members resulted from the Stalinist terror campaigns before 1953 could not be reversed by the seminaries and schools that prepared and educated new priests, since theological education became ever more restricted. By autumn 1945 there was only one Roman Catholic seminary preparing men for priesthood in Lithuania, the inter-diocesan seminary located in the Kaunas. The Soviet government

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restricted the activity of this seminary in various ways: the number of students fell from 350 in 1946 to sixty in 1949, and the seminary was deprived of almost all of the premises it had previously possessed, thus drastically limiting the available teaching space. In addition, the Soviet authorities sought to reduce the quality of teaching and education in the seminary. The most qualified teachers were persecuted or expelled from the seminary as a result of official requests. The selection of new candidates for the seminary was closely supervised by the KGB, which eagerly sought to recruit agents from among students and teachers. The restrictions imposed on the activity of the seminary were further tightened at the beginning of the 1960s, when the number of candidates accepted for admission was limited to five a year. The number of priests ordained each year was several times smaller than the mortality rate of the priests, and as a result, starting with the early 1960s, the number of priests in Lithuania started to fall rapidly. In 1960 there were more than 900, while two decades later there were only about 700 (Streikus 2006b, 486). Although the Soviet constitution recognized freedom of religion, in reality this right was heavily restricted. Not only were many houses of prayer being closed, but building new ones was also prohibited. During the 1960s the number of parishes belonging to the so-called traditional denominations—the Roman Catholics, the Orthodox, the Lutherans, and the Old Believers—remained the same, but given the fast demographic gains experienced by Lithuania at the time that number remained increasingly behind what the needs of believers required. The churches’ requests to be allowed to open houses of prayer in the new settlements built near the large industrial plants were ignored. The Soviet authorities also prohibited the Roman Catholic Church from establishing parishes in the suburbs of greatly expanded cities. The network of parishes, whose number remained unchanged, did not allow the church to adjust to the new demographic trends. Old parishes were kept open in increasingly depopulated villages, while new parishes could not be established in the vastly expanded urban areas. Even more significant was the fact that the property of the Catholic Church was nationalized and its pastoral work was highly restricted. As such, religious life could continue only behind the closed gates of the churchyards predominantly in the countryside while cities were neglected. After the death of dictator Joseph Stalin in 1953, the repression campaign directed against priests was suspended for some time. The priests who survived the Gulag system of forced labor and prison camps

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were allowed to return to Lithuania. However, at the end of the 1950s new trials of priests were organized, although this time they were not as numerous as under Stalin. The charges laid against the clergy also changed: instead of political charges they were often accused of breaching economic rules or violating the ban on teaching religion to children in an organized manner. This latter crime was punished by the Soviet Penal Code with a prison term of one year. Not only the priests were indicted on the basis of this article; the nuns and lay catechists who were assisting the priests in their underground activities were also charged. During and after the 1960s, another frequently used method for disciplining the priests who actively engaged in pastoral work was to cancel their registration certificates. Without the certificates priests had no right to perform religious rituals. One of the most important aims of the Soviet religious policy was to install an obedient leadership in any given religious institution. The case of the Lithuanian Catholic Church was no exception. According to the plans of the local Soviet authorities all the Catholic bishops who refused to follow the directives of the secular state institutions had to be replaced with clergymen recruited by the KGB, and therefore loyal to the communist regime. In Soviet Lithuania this task was completed by the early 1960s, when all dioceses were run by men selected and controlled by the Soviet security services (Streikus 2006a, 66). Much more difficult to attain was another official goal—to secure the approval of the Holy See for this state of affairs. By having alternative sources of information at its disposal, the Vatican knew that the new appointees were loyal to the KGB more than to the Catholic Church and as a result avoided the ordination of at least those who clearly were infamous not only because of their particularly close cooperation with the Soviet regime, but also because they lacked the virtues necessary for serving as bishops. However, the KGB was prompt to learn from its own mistakes as well. After the Vatican’s refusal to accept the nominations it tried to select more “appropriate” candidates to higher ecclesiastical offices. These candidates had to be willing to collaborate with the communist secret police, but they also had to possess an impeccable moral reputation, to publicly show at least some pastoral fervor, and to have a measure of social capital accumulated from their former suffering. For example, Juozapas Matulaitis-Labukas, who was consecrated a bishop in Rome during the fourth session of the Second Vatican Council in 1965 and served as a KGB secret informer under the codename Doctor. He had spent ten years in

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the Siberian labor camps under Stalin, and had maintained close relations with Bishop Teofilius Matulionis, who enjoyed unparalleled authority because of his multiple stints in Soviet prisons (see more about him in the last section). Similarly, Liudvikas Povilonis, who was ordained a bishop four years later in 1969 and at the end of the 1970s replaced Bishop Labukas as the head of the Lithuanian Bishop’s Conference (LBC), an ecclesiastical body representing the collegial will of all the bishops in the country, had also spent time in Soviet prisons for alleged financial crimes committed in the course of building the new church in the port city of Klaipeda. ˙ Alongside the recruitment of church leaders, the Soviet security apparatus also closely supervised the work of ordinary priests. In early 1948, Department “O” of the local branch of the Soviet secret service, which at the time controlled the work of religious organizations, had 142 agents keeping a watch on the Catholic priests; fifty-seven of these agents were priests themselves (Report 1948, 279). In 1956, sixty of the 900 priests working in Soviet Lithuania were also secretly spying on behalf of the state security. Comparable figures for other denominations are available: four of the twenty-two Lutheran clergy members were secret informers, and four of the fifty-two Orthodox priests (Report 1957, 91). Ten years later over 100 Catholic priests had been recruited by the KGB, the majority of whom were working in bigger cities. The promise to obtain permission to work in urban areas was used by the KGB to elicit collaboration. Similarly, the need to control religious life in the cities was more urgent a task for the secret police than its presence in the gradually depopulated rural areas. As mentioned above, special attention was given to the infiltration of the Catholic seminary with secret informers. Nevertheless, the KGB was fairly unsuccessful in recruiting agents in that education establishment. In November 1955, a commission from Moscow inspected the work of the Fourth Section of the KGB in Soviet Lithuania and found out that “an absolutely unsatisfactory situation exists in the field of infiltration and recruitment of agents in the Catholic seminary in Kaunas. At the moment, there are only three agents [recruited from] among the students of the seminary” (Report 1955, 88). The total number of students registered at the time was seventy-seven. The situation was not much better twentyfive years later: in 1980 only seven of the fifty seminary students had been recruited, and as a result the local KGB assessed its operative conditions as the worst ever (Report 1980, 70).

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These modest achievements in the recruitment of clergy as secret informers became even more dubious with the rise of the Catholic dissident movement in Lithuania at the beginning of the 1970s. Public protests against infringements of freedom of religion, which took the form of collective appeals to various Soviet and international institutions, were later followed by efforts to give them more publicity. Within a few years after its establishment, the underground samizdat periodical Chronicle of Lithuanian Catholic Church, acquired a well-deserved reputation of being the genuine voice of the Lithuanian Catholics not only at home, but also abroad. This allowed it to become important in local Church affairs and a challenge to the official Soviet media as well. Within a decade the movement for freedom of religion in Lithuania attracted a critical mass of supporters from among Catholic priests and ordinary believers. In the face of the Catholic Church’s ever-growing resistance to the Soviet regime the priests who had been recruited by the KGB gradually found themselves isolated within their own denomination. The KGB archival documents include complaints written by the KGB secret officers that, due to the lack of valuable operative data, it was increasingly more difficult for them to control the activities of the Catholic Church and to prevent “negative” events from affecting the “ecclesiastical environment.” For example, in 1979 the head of the Lithuanian KGB department responsible for controlling religious organizations was compelled to admit that “the department has no reliable agency that could be used in the fight against the destructive activities of the reactionary Catholic clergy members and the underground religious orders” (Paper 1979, 128). The gap between the official leadership of the local Catholic Church, which was controlled by the Soviet regime, and the clergy who gave its support to the resistance movement was also quite deep. The submissive administrators of dioceses were mistrusted by the clergy and therefore were unable to influence them “in a positive way” to support the regime and obey its policies. The scope of the KGB infiltration into the ranks of the Church leadership was further diminished at the beginning of the 1980s, when the Vatican initiated a kind of inner lustration of the Roman Catholic Churches in the communist bloc, no doubt under the influence of the anti-communist Pope John Paul II. In 1979, at the pressure of the Holy See the administrator of the Vilnius Roman Catholic archdioˇ cese Ceslovas Krivaitis was forced to resign. Four years later Bishop of Panevežys ˙ Romualdas Krikšˇci¯unas, who started his career in 1959 as a

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student of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome only to be recruited by the KGB in order to penetrate the Vatican, was removed. Both of them had worked for the KGB for nearly thirty years. None of the officially appointed Catholic bishops who worked in Lithuania during the last decade of Soviet rule was charismatic enough to attract public attention and support. Bishop Julijonas Steponaviˇcius, whom the Soviet authorities had prevented from carrying out his ecclesiastical duties in Vilnius and banned to a remote village in northern Lithuania, became increasingly recognized as a leading personality of Catholic anti-Soviet resistance. In addition, the Soviet authorities had to deal with the fact that the foreign radio stations that broadcasted programs in the Lithuanian language (especially Vatican Radio, Radio Free Europe, and Voice of America) attracted ever larger audience and provided an alternative source of information to the heavily censored Soviet media. The Catholic anti-Soviet protest was a predominant component of those broadcastings. The Vatican clearly understood that Bishop Steponaviˇcius had become a pivotal reference point of the Catholic resistance in Lithuania and, as such, in summer 1987 refused to accept his canonically obligatory retirement when he turned seventy-five. Months later, in spring 1988, another step taken by Pope John Paul II considerably fastened the liberation of the Catholic Church from the Soviet yoke and the awakening of the Lithuanian national spirit. During the visit of the Lithuanian bishops to the Vatican, Bishop Povilonis was convinced to resign as the chairman of the LBC and Bishop Vincentas Sladkeviˇcius, whom the Soviet authorities had prevented from carrying out his ecclesiastical duties during 1959–1982, was suggested as his possible replacement. When in May 1988 the Pope decided to promote Sladkeviˇcius to the rank of Cardinal, almost overnight Sladkeviˇcius acquired the status of a national hero in Lithuania. His triumphant return from the Vatican, together with the no less triumphant return of Bishop Steponaviˇcius to Vilnius in early 1989, marked the victorious success of the church’s long-lasting struggle with the Soviet regime. It also sealed the image of a Church that was mainly resistant to the communist authorities and overshadowed the darker aspects of its recent past, including the collaboration of some of its members with the feared KGB.

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The Long Road to Undo Soviet Legacies The high social standing of the Catholic Church in Lithuania forced the local Communist Party leaders to recognize the church legally and to initiate the restitution of church property abusively confiscated by the communist authorities even before the collapse of the Soviet regime. In autumn 1989 the Supreme Council of the Soviet Lithuania amended Article 50 of the Soviet Constitution so as to allow religious organizations to regain the status of legal entities. Three months later the Soviet Council adopted the first law on the restitution of Church property, the Law on the Return of Prayer Houses and Other Buildings to Religious Communities. This new piece of legislation replaced the law of 19 June 1948, which had ordered the nationalization of ecclesiastical real estate. Further steps toward the restoration of the Church’s pre-Soviet status were taken by the democratically elected Parliament after Lithuania declared its independence from the Soviet Union in March 1990. Three months later, Parliament adopted the Act on the Restitution of the Catholic Church’s Status in Lithuania. With it the new independent state acknowledged the juridical autonomy of the Church in its internal life, declared its commitment to compensate the church for the material losses on the basis of bilateral agreements, pledged not to restrict religious education in schools and to financially support religious and cultural organizations, and declared that church and state will collaborate as equal partners. The Restitution Act was met with criticism by some groups of intellectuals who saw it as an attempt to create a state religion that was, in their view, hardly compatible with the norms of a modern secular society. However, these fears were dispersed by the Constitution of 1992, which declared that Lithuania had no state religion, gave equal juridical status to nine “traditional” religious denominations (including Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, Evangelical Lutherans, Evangelical Reformed, Orthodox, Old Believers, Jews, Muslims, and Karaites), and opened the way for all religious organizations to gain equal status if they had the support of the society and their teachings and rituals did not contradict public laws and morality. The “restitution” of the legal status of the Catholic Church proceeded simultaneously with the reestablishment of relations with the Holy See, which were interrupted when the Soviets rescinded the Concordat in June 1940. Official diplomatic relations with the Vatican were revived by the

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Lithuanian state authorities on September 31, 1991, and shortly afterwards the apostolic nuncio for Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia came to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, in recognition of the fact that Lithuania had the largest Catholic community among the three Baltic republics. Unlike the Lithuanian republic of 1918–1940, post-communist Lithuania included the Vilnius district, which until 1939 had been ruled by Poland and was later occupied by the Soviets. To recognize the territorial changes effected by the newly independent Lithuanian republic at the end of 1991 the ecclesiastical administration was reordered as well. Since then the Catholic Church in Lithuania consists of two metropolitan districts, Vilnius and Kaunas. Finally, the legal status of the Catholic Church in Lithuania was further secured in 2000 by three agreements between the Lithuanian republic and the Vatican. These agreements dealt with the general principles underpinning the legal relations between the two parties, their cooperation in the field of education, and the pastoral care of military personnel. The high social status enjoyed by Catholicism in post-communist Lithuania is further demonstrated by the recognition of the most important Catholic feasts (Easter, Christmas, as well as The Assumption of Mary into Heaven) as national holidays, the tradition to hold solemn religious services as part of state festivities, and the wide mass-media coverage of important Catholic events. All of these reflect a clear national consensus that Catholicism is an integral part of the Lithuanian cultural identity. During the first two decades of post-communism, this high public standing of Catholicism was also nurtured by the dominant narrative that the Church experienced persecution and suffering under the Soviet regime. This narrative depicted the Soviet times as a period of suffering and presented the church as a leading force of anti-Soviet resistance. The endurance of Catholics in the face of persecutions under the communist rule is recognized by the Lithuanian society as an exemplary proof of dignity and integrity (Subaˇcius 2015, 1059). During the first years after the restoration of state independence several initiatives were adopted inside the Catholic Church in view of promoting the beatification of bishops who were martyrs because they fell victims to Soviet persecution. Although these efforts did not make them heroes in the eyes of all Lithuanians, some enduring memorialization initiatives centered on their lives have considerably strengthened the image of the suffering Church. The Hill of Crosses, one of the most famous sites of religious memory in

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Lithuania, is also understood symbolically as the “Lithuanian Golgotha” of religious suffering during Soviet rule (Streikus 2013a, 229). The church that took a stand against Soviet rule is most visibly represented by the establishment of the Chronicle of the Lithuanian Catholic Church as an equally important reference point for the Soviet past. The historical value of this underground periodical was validated by the ecclesiastical promotion of its former editors: Sigitas Tamkeviˇcius was appointed bishop in 1991 and administrator of the Kaunas archdiocese five years later, while Jonas Boruta was consecrated as bishop in 1997 and appointed to steer the Telšiai diocese in 2002. For the public opinion, these promotions were obvious rewards for their previous underground activities (Subaˇcius 2013, 424). The Chronicle successfully took root in the Lithuanian memory culture also because its history of underground activity can be connected to the long tradition of resisting the ban on printing and disseminating books in the Lithuanian language. The Chronicle is commemorated every five years in ceremonies that mark the anniversary of its first edition in 1972. In short, the Chronicle is the most illustrative example of the Lithuanians’ immunity to Soviet propaganda, and of their fidelity to traditions and democratic concerns with human rights. The heroic picture of the Church’s Soviet past that dominates the public space was somewhat dimed when the restitution of ecclesiastical property started. The most significant obstacles arose when buildings had to be transferred from the state to the church, buildings that contained apartments that had been occupied by tenants for long periods of time or in which public institutions functioned. On the one hand, the people who had lived in those flats for several decades and invested in repairing them did not want to move out. On the other hand, the state was unable to offer these tenants appropriate alternative living quarters. In many cases, the Catholic Church was forced to defend its property rights in courts. This has prompted some media outlets to depict the church as greedy and selfish (Laukaityte˙ 2009, 141), while ignoring the fact that many of the returned buildings needed basic renovation to be used for pastoral or charity aims. In the face of such public debates, in 1995 Parliament dominated by the former communists passed a new law regulating the restitution of church property. The law considerably limited the right of religious organizations to recover their former property. They were no longer able to lay claims to buildings that included apartments, buildings that had been

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renovated or reconstructed (more than half of the construction being changed in the process), and buildings that housed institutions of education, health care, culture or communications. According to the new law, the Church had to be compensated for the property that could not be returned to it with money payments or financial assistance in the form of restoration of prayer houses or preferential land rental agreements. Despite the church’s enduring efforts to recover its lost land, none of the post-communist Lithuanian governments made concessions in this respect. According to the Lithuanian laws land is returned only to individual owners; religious denominations can own only the land plots that are under the buildings they own. An additional impediment is a fact that the lands that the church once owned before the Soviet occupation are now located mainly in urban areas and are very expensive, and as such the financial support that the state offers to traditional denominations on yearly basis can only partially meet its needs. The two core elements of the post-communist transitional justice program in Lithuania have been: (1) the legal promotion of persons who either suffered from Soviet repression or took part in anti-Soviet activities and (2) the sanctioning of people who actively collaborated with the Soviet authorities, especially of those who helped to persecute real or potential opponents of the communist regime. According to the Law VIII-342 on the Juridical Status of Persons Injured by the Occupations of 1940–1990 adopted in 1997, all those who were imprisoned, deported, displaced or subjected to other kinds of political persecution (priests, monks, and nuns included) can apply for the status of injured person, which gives them access to a set of social and monetary privileges such as supplementary pension payments and free use of public transport. Similarly, according to the Law VIII-97 on the Juridical Status of Participants in the Resistance against occupations of 1940–1990, also adopted in 1997, the status of freedom fighters was granted not only to former guerrilla fighters, their liaison workers and supporters, or members of the underground resistance organizations, but also to the editors, producers, and distributors of samizdat periodicals. As a result, many clergymen, nuns, and ordinary believers involved in producing the Chronicle and other Catholic underground periodicals were honored with the title of freedom fighter and granted state benefits similar to those offered to victims of political persecution. The identifying and screening of former collaborators with the communist regime in Soviet Lithuania was a much more complicated issue. From

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the very beginning the lustration process (which usually banned former communist decision-makers from occupying elected and nominated positions in the post-communist government and public administration) was directed exclusively at the secret informers of the KGB. This means that high-ranking officials of the republican Communist Party apparatus, the public servants working for the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the government, as well as the active participants in the propaganda and education fields faced no legal restrictions during post-communist times for their former communist-era activities. The law on the lustration of the former collaborators of the Soviet-era security services was adopted rather late, at the end of 1999. It allowed former informers the possibility to confess their former collaboration with and recruitment by the KGB or other past secret services. The names and past activities of those who confessed their former ties to the Soviet secret services within six months of the law’s adoption were classified and not made public, unless they sought to occupy public offices such as those of president, member of parliament or municipal council, government minister, judge or public prosecutor. These confession statements had to be submitted to a newly created Lustration Commission. By the deadline provided in the law 1,589 people confessed their past collaboration with the KGB. The Roman Catholic bishops also encouraged the clergy members to contact the Lustration Commission, if they ever signed a consent form that obliged them to collaborate even if afterwards they delivered no significant information on others to the state security. Even after the legally stipulated deadline, the LBC was looking for ways to convince priests to petition the Lustration Commission and assume their past actions. However, only twenty-nine priests followed this advice and confessed. The Lustration Commission was authorized by the law to research and publish information found in the secret archives on the former KGB agents and informers who refused to confess their past misdeeds. However, its access to limited human resources and the complicated judicial practice of publicly unveiling the cases paralyzed the public identification of former secret informers. It was only after 2010, when Parliament tasked the Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania (GRRCL) to make public information on the secret informers of the KGB that the process started to move faster. After thoroughly scrutinizing the secret archives left behind in Lithuania by the KGB, during 2012–2017 the GRRCL decided to publish the catalogue of agent files prepared

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by the KGB itself, which contained references about 1,669 individuals recruited by the KGB sometimes between 1940 and 1979 (the catalogue was available electronically until recently at kgbveikla.lt). The catalogue contained the names of fifteen Catholic clergymen, among whom were four already deceased bishops. These revelations did not cause much public attention, except in the case of Cardinal Sladkeviˇcius, whose name also figured in the list. However, it is highly doubtful that he ever worked as an active secret agent, given the fact that other KGB sources show that he refused to collaborate and as a result he was excluded from the information network as early as 1959. Moreover, it appears that his name had been inserted manually at the very end of the catalogue together with the names of several other famous persons. It is unclear who added these names and what were the reasons for such a decision.

The Victims Ask for Pardon In Lithuania, the publicity surrounding the possible ties with the KGB of certain local celebrities (intellectuals, politicians, actors, etc.) was met with exceptional sensitivity. The persons who found themselves at the center of these public scandals were usually defended by their colleagues and by crowds of admirers who insisted they were mere innocent victims of slander. In addition, the facts tended to be downplayed as nothing but evil KGB plans designed to compromise distinguished luminaries. There were very few cases in which public figures confessed to their former involvement with the KGB; clergy members were no exception in this regard. Among the very few people who publicly confessed their former recruitment by the KGB was only one Catholic priest, Rokas Puzonas. Puzonas made this painful confession in 1984, before the collapse of the Soviet regime, although in fact he provided the KGB with no information but, on the contrary, he even joined the underground church. The rare example of a public confession was shown in Lithuania not by a Catholic, but by the Orthodox bishop. Archbishop Chrizostom, who was appointed to Lithuania in 1990 by his superiors in the Russian Orthodox Church to which the Orthodox Church in Lithuania is canonically subordinated, was the only high-ranking hierarch of the Moscow Patriarchate who had the courage to publicly admit to his former collaboration with the KGB. None of the Catholic bishops ordained during Soviet times who were still alive when the communist regime collapsed followed his example,

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although his bold confession significantly lifted Chrizostom’s authority in the eyes of the Lithuanian public. There are several explanations for the silence of the Lithuanian Catholic clergy. First, the KGB was demonized as the worst incarnation of the Soviet repressive rule. As a result, many of the former KGB informers feared that a public confession would disrupt their credibility instead of stimulating forgiveness and a greater understanding of Soviet-era life constraints. Second, the bishops only reluctantly encouraged the priests to publicly confess also because they understood that such confessions could easily undermine the dominant narrative of the Church, which claimed that during Soviet times it represented the main stronghold of the suffering nation and the main pillar of anti-communist resistance. Some bishops urged the clergy to confess privately to their ecclesiastical authorities, rather than make public statements. For example, Bishop Tamkeviˇcius, who suffered a lot as a result of KGB persecution, commented publicly that during the 1990s many priests approached him with details about their involvement with the KGB, after he encouraged them to do so. In exchange of the truth, the bishop decided to let them continue their pastoral work. The last outbreak of public interest into the issue of past secret collaboration occurred in the early 2007. When Stanislaw Wielgus admitted that the accusations laid upon him regarding his collaboration with the Polish communist secret services were accurate, shortly after his nomination as Warsaw Archbishop, the Lithuanian mass-media tried to investigate the situation at home. However, the Lithuanian bishops have met the ensuing ardent public debates with stubborn silence. They released no statement on the issue, but instead only agreed to give their consent for the publication in translation of the letter of Polish bishops to believers which commented on the Wielgus affair (2007). Despite the journalists’ efforts to uncover shameful information, to date nobody has dared to question the high-ranking church leaders or historians who claimed that no former KGB informers could be found among the post-communist Lithuanian bishops. Three of the seven acting bishops—Tamkeviˇcius of Kaunas, Boruta of Telšiai, and Kauneckas of Panevežys—had ˙ been renowned for their resistance to Soviet rule, Cardinal Baˇckis of Vilnius had spent the period of the Soviet occupation abroad, and three other bishops had tense relations with the Soviet authorities that prevented them from being promoted until the collapse of the communist regime.

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Research in the archives of the Lithuanian KGB branch has confirmed that at most ten percent of the ordinary Catholic clergymen had worked for the communist secret police (Streikus 2006b; Pruskus 2007). The Church publicly repented for the misdeeds of its members and this position sharply contrasted with the avoidance of any reflections on the collaboration with the KGB among other social groups that had been subjected to even deeper infiltration before 1991. In the early 2000, the LBC released a special appeal entitled Concerning the collaboration with the KGB of Church members, which began with an apology: On the occasion of the Christian jubilee, the Church wants not only to rejoice in its achievements, but also to repent for the mistakes of its children, which they could not avoid in the course of history. Members of the Catholic Church in Lithuania also committed mistakes. We want to remember the most painful period—the long years of captivity, when the occupation forces forced Lithuanians to collaborate and thus to commit offences against their fellow countrymen, even against people of the same faith. First, we are remembering the clergymen who were blackmailed and tortured by the Soviet state security, and we forgive their mistakes. Unfortunately, some of them agreed to collaborate with the KGB due to their human weakness. We are happy that, according to archival testimonies, many of them tried not to harm [other] people, but this does not excuse their collaboration and gilt. (baznycioszinios.lt 2000)

Note that the appeal was authored by the LBC chairman, Archbishop Tamkeviˇcius, and signed by the then LBC secretary, Bishop Boruta. In other words, on behalf of the LBC the former editors of the Chronicle publicly asked forgiveness for those who once assisted their former persecutors. The fact that righteous people like the former editors begged for pardon could be interpreted as an exemplary step toward fostering a more critical attitude not only within the community of believers but also in the society as a whole. The regret about the faithful who once aided the oppressors of the nation and of the church was also among the seven confessions of guilt featured in the pastoral letter released by the Lithuanian bishops on April 14, 2000. It accompanied similar regrets stemming from historical misdeeds such as involvement into nationalistic quarrels or anti-Semitism and the lack of determination to prevent those who assisted the Nazis in the extermination of Jews (baznycioszinios.lt 2000).

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Asking forgiveness for the historical faults of the Catholic Church in Lithuania has been always accompanied by the call not to take revenge on the former collaborators of the communist regime. This was true especially for the ordinary people who once were ordered to report on the “illegal” activities of priests and nuns, the secondary school teachers who obeyed instructions to prevent schoolchildren from attending religious services, and even state bureaucrats who had to punish involvement in religious practices. As the temptation to punish these groups of people was quite strong among some overzealous Catholics, the bishops had to do their best to prevent such behavior. Here again one must return to the persistent value of the Chronicle, which was not only a symbol of Catholic fortitude during Soviet times, but has also remained a still effective alternative to the official lustration of former Soviet officials and agents. Since 2006, the Chronicle has been available electronically on the Internet (lkbkronika.lt). Those who were once mentioned in its pages as willing executioners of atheistic tasks can hardly aspire to important political posts or other public roles that require social trust. These public denunciations made by the Chronicle were and still remain a sufficient retribution for the misdeeds of the communist past, even though they do not lead to the forced retirement and dismissal of the willing executioners. During the 2007 debate about the KGB infiltration of the Catholic clergy the prevailing position inside the church was that the priests who once worked for the Soviet secret services did not have to be judged harshly. The wish to justify their behavior was stronger than the inclination to punish them. The church leaders who gained social respect for their resistance activities explained that the majority of the priests and bishops collaborated with the KGB and other Soviet institutions in order to help the Church to survive under severe conditions. For example, Bishop Boruta concluded an article on Bishop Povilonis by writing that “among the Catholic Church leaders who were tolerated and officially recognized by the Soviet authorities, Archbishop Povilonis emerges as a person with a sincere concern not only for retaining the faith, but also for its restoration during the years of severe atheistic oppression” (Boruta 2011, 71). A similar case in point is Prof. Viktoras Butkus, who together with future Bishop Krikšˇci¯unas was selected by the KGB to study in Rome, and collaborated secretly under the codename Pušis. As the longterm director of the Kaunas seminary (1962–1989), Butkus was often

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criticized in the Chronicle for his submissiveness to and eager cooperation with the Soviet authorities. However, at the time of this writing Butkus is mostly remembered as a clergyman of high merit, who managed to protect the seminary and keep it open during extremely hard times (Garniene˙ 2015). The above-mentioned internet site, which gives access to all Chronicle issues produced from 1972 to 1989 and a lot of other relevant information, is not the only tool for the memorialization of Catholic resistance against Soviet oppression. For example, in 2013 the documentary Dovydas prieš Galijota˛ [David against Goliath] was produced by the state television. It tells the story of the publication and dissemination of the Chronicle. Former members of the Catholic resistance are also honored in various media products and with national awards (including the prestigious Freedom Prize offered by the Lithuanian Parliament). However, neither the Chronicle as a memory site, nor the experiences of the church during Soviet times are embodied by more permanent symbols of the memory culture (such as monuments, museums or names of important institutions). Recently the firm stand taken by the Lithuanian Catholics in the face of Soviet persecution was appreciated by the Vatican. In late 2016 Pope Francis endorsed the beatification of Bishop Matulionis, who suffered greatly during the Stalinist Terror. During the interwar period he was imprisoned twice while working in St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad), and was persecuted again in 1946 while serving as Bishop of the Kaišiadorys diocese in Lithuania. Even after his liberation Matulionis never ceased to defend religious freedom, and this is why he was forbidden to administer his diocese. There are suspicions that the Soviet authorities accelerated his death before the start of the Second Vatican Council (Streikus 2013b). However, after his solemn beatification on June 25, 2017 Matulionis ceased to be a topic of popular debate, proving that the moral credit that the church can draw from its heroic stance during Soviet times might be already exhausted. Does this mean that the Catholic sites of memory would turn into sites of oblivion? It is hard to tell.

Conclusion The Catholic Church in Lithuania was a powerful social actor under the Soviet occupation. Due to that it suffered not only harsh persecution

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and severe limitations of its pastoral work, but also it faced the extensive efforts of the Soviet KGB to recruit collaborators from its ranks. The unimpressive, low level of infiltration of the Church and control over it by the Soviet authorities became obvious once the Catholic protest movement emerged during the later decades of Soviet rule in Lithuania. The image of the church as a victim of Soviet repression and the principal defender of human dignity, accepted by the society after the collapse of the Soviet regime, was strong enough to overshadow the fact that before 1991 some clergymen had been recruited by the communist secret services to manipulate the church from inside and inform on its activities. The cases of collaboration attracted scant public attention also because of the specific circumstances surrounding communist-era promotions to top positions in the Church administration. The clergymen who were widely known as loyal to the Soviet authorities did not have much chance to preserve or acquire leading posts during post-communist times, because they heavily lacked moral credit inside the Church. This is why Lithuania has been spared dramatic public scandals similar to the one centered on Bishop Wielgus in Poland, which could have pressured the church to repent for the past behavior of its priests or could have challenged its grand narrative of suffering. The lack of social pressure did not prevent the Lithuanian bishops from addressing the issue of past collaboration. Most of them have summoned their priests to either confess their past collaboration privately or undergo the lustration process instituted by law. They also took the initiative to introduce the topic onto the broader list of errors committed during the twentieth century, for which the Church must ask forgiveness. The step was rooted not only in the willingness to avoid possible rebukes from outsiders in the future, but also in the desire to lead by example and to foster a more open reflection on the complicated heritage of the Soviet past in Lithuania. This is not to say that the local Catholic Church has successfully and completely addressed all the problematic issues of coming to terms with its communist past.

References Boruta, Jonas. 2011. Telšiu˛ vyskupas koadjutorius Liudvikas Povilonis visu˛ Telšiu˛ vyskupu˛ biografiju˛ kontekste. Tiltai 42: 44–73. Garniene, ˙ Aušra sud. 2015. Už seminarijos sienu: ˛ prisiminimai apie kun. prof. dr. Viktora˛ Butku. ˛ Kaunas.

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Laukaityte, ˙ Regina. 2009. Bažnyˇcios padeties ˙ ir nuosavybes ˙ restitucija Lietuvoje po 1990 m. Lietuvos kataliku˛ mokslo akademijos metraštis 32: 135–146. Paper Delivered by the Chef of Third Department of Fifth Service of the LSSR KGB. 1979. (Lietuvos ypatingasis archyvas (LYA), f. K-41, ap. 1, b. 754, l. 128 (1 August). Pruskus, Valdas. 2007. Lietuvos kataliku˛ bažnyˇcios dvasininkai KGB objektyve: verbavimo tikslai, ypatumai ir formos. Darbai ir dienos 47: 183–199. Report by Department ‘O’ of the LSSR MGB on Its Work in January 1948, Lithuanian Special Archive (Lietuvos ypatingasis archyvas (LYA), f. K-51, ap. 1, b. 50, l. 279. Report by the Fourth Section of the LSSR KGB About Its Work Up to 1 April 1957, LYA, f. K-41, ap. 1, b. 532, l. 91. Report by the LSSR MGB Office in Kaunas About Its Work with Priests During 1980, LYA, f. K-18, ap. 1, b. 177, l. 70. Report on the Inspection of the Work of the Fourth Section of the LSSR KGB in 1955, LYA, f. K-41, ap. 1, b. 514, l. 88. Streikus, Ar¯ unas. 2006a. Lithuanian Catholic Clergy and the KGB. Religion, State and Society 34 (1): 63–70. Streikus, Ar¯ unas. 2006b. Krikšˇcionybe˙ okupuotoje Lietuvoje. Krikšˇcionyb˙es Lietuvoje istorija. Vilnius. Streikus, Ar¯ unas. 2013a. Der Berg der Kreuze. In Religiöse Erinnerungsorte in Ostmitteleuropa: Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationen- und epochenübergreifenden Zugriff , ed. Joachim Bahlcke, Stefan Rohdewald, and Thomas Wünsch, 223–231. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Streikus, Ar¯ unas. 2013b. Vysk. Teofilius Matulionis – Bažnyˇcios karys ir kankinys. LKMA Metraštis 37: 11–27. Subaˇcius, Paulius. 2013. Die ‘Chronik der Litauischen Katholischen Kirche’. In Religiöse Erinnerungsorte in Ostmitteleuropa: Konstitution und Konkurrenz im nationen- und epochenübergreifenden Zugriff , ed. Joachim Bahlcke, Stefan Rohdewald, and Thomas Wünsch, 420–429. Berlin: Akademie Verlag. Subaˇcius, Paulius. 2015. Dvidešimt penkeri religin˙es laisv˙es metai 1988–2013: Krikšˇcionys Lietuvos visuomen˙eje po Atgimimo. Vilnius.

Website www.baznycioszinios.lt.

PART IV

Former Soviet Republics in Europe

CHAPTER 11

The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past Lavinia Stan

The collapse of the Soviet regime and the disintegration of the Former Soviet Union in 1991 offered an unprecedented opportunity for the Russian Orthodox Church, as the majority religious denomination in the region, to reassess its former relationship with the self-avowed atheistic dictatorship. That relationship ranged from extreme state-led persecution of religious organizations and religious life, as demonstrated by the thousands of clergymen and faithful who were killed, imprisoned, or persecuted for their faith, to faithful collaboration with the repressive state institutions, as shown by the successful recruitment of ordinary priests and high-ranking Orthodox hierarchs into the ranks of the secret police, the notorious KGB. (The secret police of the Soviet Union changed its name several times during 1917–1991, but for the purposes of this chapter I will refer to it as the KGB.) While in the early 1990s the Orthodox Church was insistently asked to make efforts to understand the many shades of communist-era resistance and collaboration, it did not take long for it to

L. Stan (B) St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, NS, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8_11

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succumb to the perceived need to protect its public image, legitimacy, and credibility by presenting itself and its members almost exclusively as victims of communist repression and persecution. Almost thirty years after the collapse of communism, there is very little introspection within the ranks of the Orthodox Church, willingness to openly admit past wrongs, or calls to open relevant church and state secret archives that could illuminate church collaboration with the Soviet dictatorship. This chapter overviews the main post-1991 church initiatives seeking to come to terms (or not) with its communist past, and explains why these efforts have been generally reluctant and ultimately incomplete. In doing so, the chapter also considers the larger context that frames these churchled efforts, recognizing that civil society initiatives designed to reckon with the past are influenced by, and often heavily reliant on, the country’s progress in constructing a liberal democracy and the willingness of postdictatorial political elites to honestly revisit past human rights violations. The chapter adopts a transitional justice perspective that recognizes the value of non-judicial reckoning programs and the contribution of civil society groups such as churches to right past wrongs. The focus here is on the identification of former secret agents from among the Orthodox clergyman, as well as the elevation of victims of communist repression to the rank of church martyrs. Both of these reckoning initiatives deal with significant facets of the interaction between the Orthodox Church and the Soviet regime, but while the latter depicts the Church as a victim of communist repression, the former presents the Church as a collaborator. The focus here is on the reckoning initiatives of the Russian Orthodox Church, as an indicator of its willingness to acknowledge the collaboration with the communist regime of the church as an institution and of its members as individuals. This focus helps us to understand the extent to which in any given country official state policies of reckoning depart, or align themselves, with initiatives emerging from non-state actors such as the majority religious denomination. Of course, as any other group in the society, the church and its members have been affected by the transitional justice laws adopted by the Russian state. For example, Orthodox priests were among the 380,000 individuals (Frierson 2014, 7) who requested rehabilitation in virtue of the Law on the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression adopted on 18 October 1991 by the Russian Federation (at the time still part of the Soviet Union). The impact on the church of such state-led transitional justice programs is beyond the focus of the present chapter, and therefore readers are directed toward other studies

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documenting these programs in post-Soviet Russia (including Stan 2007; Horne and Stan 2018). Numerous studies have documented the position of the Soviet authorities toward the Orthodox Church, the persecution of the church from 1917 to 1991, the various pieces of Soviet legislation that restricted religion and religious activities, and the ways in which the Soviet authorities used and misused international religious organizations such as the World Council of Churches to promote propaganda and refute reports of religious persecution (Kolarz 1966; Ramet 1988; Davis 1995; Chumachenko and Roslof 2003; Kalkandjieva 2014). Readers are encouraged to consult this literature if wishing to become familiar with the human rights abuses which the post-1991 transitional justice initiatives discussed here have tried to address and redress.

The Former KGB Agents Revelations of possible secret connections between the Russian Orthodox Church and the KGB reached the public even before the collapse of the Soviet regime, fueled both by Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of openness and the plethora of information unearthed once the Central and Eastern European communist regimes were ousted. In 1989, for example, the head of the Council for Religious Affairs, the state department supervising religious life in the Soviet Union, revealed that the Russian Orthodox Church was controlled by the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (CPSU) and monitored by the Fourth Department of the Fifth Directorate of the KGB, often with the help of secret informers recruited from among the clergy (Moss, no date). According to Victor Sheymov, the Fifth Directorate was “responsible for suppressing ideological dissent, running the Soviet Orthodox Church and laying the groundwork for the First Chief Directorate’s subversive promotion of favorable opinion about the country’s position and policy” (Sheymov 1993, 418). While working for the KGB before his defection in 1980, Sheymov learned not only about the KGB’s infiltration of the Orthodox Church, but also its role in plotting the assassination of Pope John Paul II. This infiltration was so successful that in the late 1980s the former chairman of the Council for Religious Affairs Konstantin Kharchev claimed that “not a single candidate for the office of bishop or any other high-ranking office, much less a member of the Holy Synod, went

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through without confirmation by the Central Committee of the CPSU and the KGB” (Albats 1994, 46). Others noted that “if the bishops wished to defend their people and survive in office, they had to collaborate to some degree with the KGB, with the commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, and with other party and governmental authorities” (Davis 1995, 96). According to Fr Gleb Yakunin, contacts with the KGB—or worse, work for the KGB—was an inevitable condition for career growth in the Russian Orthodox Church; there were practically no exceptions” (cited in Albats 1994, 46–47). The secret police recruited faithful, ordinary priests as well as church leaders, and targeted other religious denominations besides the Orthodox Church, including Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jews, Muslims and Buddhists. Some reports claim that half of all priests acted as KGB agents (Albats 1994, 47). That the Soviet leaders systematically and purposely sought to control, manipulate and use the church for their own purposes is reflected in the few secret documents that have reached the public (at the time of this writing, the KGB archives remain closed to researchers, journalists, and ordinary citizens). The minutes of a 1921 meeting of the Cheka (a precursor of the KGB) detailed a multipronged plan designed to increase the infiltration of churches by instructing the secret agents to “use the clergy themselves for our own purposes, especially those who occupy an important position in Church life, for example, bishops or metropolitans, forcing them under fear of severe consequences to publicize various institutions/orders that may be useful to us among the clergy; for example, to stop prohibited agitation against decrees to close monasteries, etc.” In addition, the Cheka had to “study the characters of various bishops and vicars in order to play out various scenarios taking advantage of the trait of vanity, encouraging their desires and intentions” and “recruit informers among the clergy after familiarization with the clerical world and close analysis of the character of individual cult leaders” (Albats 1994, 43–44). Methods to gather relevant information included the “confiscation of correspondence during searches and personal acquaintance with the religious community,” threat of being sent to prison or labor camp for trivial offenses, and offers of “material incentives” in cash or in kind given to the “clerical informer” for the recruitment of priests with no clear positive attitude toward the Soviet regime. These incentives, it was hoped, “will ensure that he [the priest recruited as a secret spy] becomes permanently enslaved to us [the Cheka] through fear that his cooperation

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might be divulged” (Albats 1994, 43–44). Such methods managed to keep the church under the thumb of the Soviet authorities. In 1982, for example, 2,500 “hostile elements” from among the clergy were placed under surveillance, 229 church officials and believers served sentences for various crimes, and eighteen people were exiled, according to a KGB report (Albats 1994, 45). That very year, “1,809 meetings were held, 704 reports received, thirteen safe houses, and two clandestine hideouts were used to work with the agents’ network” by the Fourth Department (Albats 1994, 48). Infiltration continued through the decades, with the name and structure of the KGB department in charge of monitoring the church remaining unchanged even after Gorbachev launched his perestroika (Albats 1994, 43). Whether agreement to secretly inform on other fellow priests or to disclose information obtained through confession was voluntary or coerced, remunerated or not, the secret informers who also belonged to the church were justifying collaboration as necessary for the greater good of the church as an institution. Maybe the clearest rationalization of collaboration with the Soviet secret police was voiced by an anonymous priest, quoted by Nathaniel Davis: I worked together with the KGB. I cooperated, I made signed statements, I had regular meetings, I made reports. I was given a pseudonym—a code name as they say there... I knowingly cooperated with them—but in such a way that I undeviatingly tried to maintain the position of my Church, and, yes, also to act as a patriot, insofar as I understood, in collaboration with these organs. I was never a stool pigeon, nor an informer. (Davis 1995, 96)

The KGB recruited clergymen in order to obtain information both from within the Soviet Union and outside of it. The Soviet delegations to the World Council of Churches were often staffed by KGB agents, as was the case at the July 1983 meeting in Vancouver, Canada, when the Russian Orthodox Church was represented by no fewer than forty-seven KGB agents. According to some reports, during the later decades of communism most of the staff of the Department of External Ecclesiastical Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate was also serving the KGB. The agents reportedly “made trips abroad, organized by the Russian Orthodox Department of External Relations, performing missions assigned to them by the leadership of the KGB. The nature of their missions shows that this

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department was inseparably linked with the state and that it had emerged as a covert center of KGB agents among the faithful” (Moss, no date). Since the KGB was so present within the department during the 1980s, it is unlikely that the department head was unaware of these links, or that he refused to serve as a secret collaborator. In 2009, the former department head became Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and all Russia. Indeed, since the collapse of the communist regime in 1991 most public revelations related to secret collaboration have centered on the patriarchs, metropolitans, and bishops, that is, the most important figures in the Russian Orthodox Church. However, even the discovery of archival documents showing without doubt that Patriarchs Alexy I (1945–1970), Pimen (1971–1990) and Alexy II (1990–2008) or Metropolitan Sergei Stragorodsky, the de facto church head until 1944, offered information to the KGB—documents that are yet to be unearthed—would perhaps fail to convince the Russian Orthodox of these leaders’ guilt. Throughout Soviet times the church faced waves of repression at the hands of a ruthless regime that placed its very existence in peril. It is doubtful that a stubborn refusal to cooperate with the regime or to bend to its unreasonable demands would have helped the church and its leaders to survive. Compromises, sometimes humiliating and often morally difficult, had to be made both because the Soviet authorities showed little qualms in using the full force of state repression against the church and because the church enjoyed some popular support but not to the extent that its followers placed its interests above their own. It is also doubtful that secret collaboration with the KGB was more morally reprehensible than the agreements forged with the authorities openly, the adulatory statements about the Soviet regime, leaders or ideology occasionally made by church leaders, or their refusal to confirm religious discrimination when speaking with foreign journalists or dignitaries. There are numerous instances of open collaboration of church leaders with the Soviet authorities. In August 1917, after the abdication of the tsar but before the Bolshevik Revolution, a synod of the Russian Orthodox Church re-established the Russian Patriarchate and elected Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow to that office. Tikhon and his successor Patriarch Sergius agreed to publicly support the state on all issues for the state to grant the church a very restricted sphere of activity. In 1927, Sergius signed a statement of unconditional loyalty to the Soviet state, endorsed by all Holy Synod members, including the future Patriarch Alexy I. In 1943, the two church leaders met with dictator Joseph Stalin

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to decide the fate of the Orthodox Church in the atheistic Soviet state. In the midst of World War II Stalin allowed the church to function legally and have a limited presence in the public space after decades of severe persecution. Two years later, in his first statement as patriarch Alexy I assured Stalin of his “profound affection and gratitude” and vowed to “safeguard the Church against mistakes and false steps” (Kolarz 1966, 55). According to Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, both Patriarch Alexy and Metropolitan Nicholas “were highly valued by the KGB as agents of influence” (1999, 486). It is known that the so-called “agents of influence” were no ordinary secret informers, but luminaries capable of swaying public opinion and bestowing added legitimacy and credibility to a regime eager to extend its influence both inside and outside of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the patriarch continued to brush aside religious persecution and extol the virtues of communist dictatorship. In 1953, Patriarch Alexy I lamented Stalin’s death as “a heavy grief for our Fatherland and for all the people who inhabit it. The whole Russian Orthodox Church, which will never forget his benevolent attitude to Church needs, feels great sorrow at his death. The bright memory of him will live ineradicably in our hearts. Our Church proclaims eternal memory to him with a special feeling of abiding love” (Kolarz 1966, 65). Two years later, Alexy I declared that “the Russian Orthodox Church supports the totally peaceful foreign policy of the Soviet Union, not because the Church lacks freedom, but because Soviet policy is just and corresponds to the Christian ideals which the Church preaches” (Andrew and Mitrokhin 1999, 486–487). In an open letter addressed to the patriarch in 1965, Fathers Gleb Yakunin and Nikolai Eshilman lamented that many Orthodox Church leaders had assisted the regime “to close churches, monasteries, and religious schools, to liquidate religious communities, to establish the illegal practice of registering christenings, and had yielded to them control over the assignment and transfer of priests” (Solzhenitsyn et al. 1981, 175). In May 1966, Alexy I defrocked the two priests, a decision bitterly criticized by dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. The collaboration between the KGB and the Russian Orthodox Church intensified after 1970, when Pimen became the new patriarch. Pimen forged tight relations with the atheistic repressive state by working closely with the authorities and participating in several peace movement conferences sponsored by the Soviet government. Pimen was not only the recipient of many Soviet awards, but also a long-time member of

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the World Peace Council, a Soviet-sponsored propaganda organization aimed at opposing American “warmongering” tendencies. Meanwhile, the KGB continued to promote its own people in church leadership positions. In 1980, the secret police decided to recommend agent Pavel for an Orthodox Church leadership position, and six years later the agent became a metropolitan. In 1988, the KGB reportedly reviewed the files of five individuals working as secret agents for its territorial offices and recommended all of them for promotion to leading positions in the church (Albats 1994, 43). Following the Cheka instructions spelled out in the 1921 document, the secret police first had to ascertain the character of those considered for promotion, and then recruit them as informers by resorting to whatever methods necessary, including payments or permission to travel abroad (Albats 1994, 45). Pimen’s successor, Patriarch Alexy II (installed in 1990), had had even closer ties to the KGB, showing once again that the KGB took care of its own agents and secured top leadership positions for the most trusted of them. These secret ties came to light during the early 1990s, soon after independent Estonia, a former Soviet republic, publicly opened the secret documents left behind on the territory of the republic by the republican KGB. As an all-Union state agency, the KGB had operated in all constituent republics of the Soviet Union, including Estonia. In each republic, the KGB had secret officers and informers recruited locally from all social groups, religious denominations among them. The officers compiled secret documents and dossiers that contained the information provided secretly to them by the local informers. In the summer of 1991, after unsuccessfully trying to remove Gorbachev and to end his policy of openness, the KGB republican troops retreated to Moscow, taking with them some of the secret archives compiled in the republics. In Estonia, the catalogue of secret files and a small number of secret documents were left behind (Stan 2007). The prelude to Estonia’s file disclosure occurred in January 1992, when a Commission of the Presidium of the Russian Supreme Soviet investigating the 1991 putsch confirmed that the Orthodox Church leaders had been working as KGB secret agents for several decades. The three commissioners, Lev Ponomarev, V. Polosin and Fr. Gleb Yakunin (the very one whom Patriarch Alexy I had defrocked years earlier), drafted their report after being granted brief access to the KGB archives in Moscow. According to the Commission, Metropolitans Juvenal of Krutitsa, Pitirim of Volokolamsk, Philaret of Kiev, and Philaret of Minsk

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had all been KGB secret agents, spying and informing on others under the codenames Adamant, Abbat, Antonov, and Ostrovsky, respectively. The Commission warned the Orthodox Church leaders that the Communist Party leadership and the KGB used some “church bodies for their purposes by recruiting and planting KGB agents,” and that such “deep infiltration” by secret agents “poses a serious threat to society and the State” (Moss, no date). The Orthodox Church leadership gave a cold shoulder to the report, refusing to discuss its implications with the clergy, the faithful or the larger society, to ponder on the inevitability and the many nuances of communist-era collaboration, or to consider the harm to the church and its flock resulted from such actions. None of those named in the report were willing to come forward to admit their guilt publicly or to ask forgiveness for their trespassings. As years passed the report was all but forgotten, the more so since the KGB archives remained under lock and out of sight. More damning revelations were to follow. In 1999, a secret dossier discovered in the Estonian KGB archives pointed to the strong possibility that Patriarch Alexy II had worked since 1958 as a secret agent for the KGB under the codename Drozdov. Born in 1929 in Estonia into a German family that converted to Orthodoxy sometimes during the nineteenth century, Alexy became a deacon in 1930 and then a monk in 1961, after the death of his wife. He graduated from the Leningrad Theological Academy, with a dissertation on Metropolitan Filaret Drozdov (1782–1867), becoming the Orthodox Church bishop of Tallinn and Estonia soon afterwards (Corley 2000). He was elevated to the rank of a metropolitan in 1968, and succeeded Pimen as patriarch in 1990. He died on December 5, 2008. The Estonian branch of the KGB allegedly recruited Alexy on February 28, 1958 (Meek 1999); he then slowly rose to the rank of a KGB major, an advancement suggesting that the repressive dictatorship considered him important, necessary, and reliable. The future Patriarch had not been deterred by the fact that the secret police represented a regime that officially undermined religious activities. Alexy allegedly worked for the KGB under the codename Drozdov, a name that echoed his earlier preoccupations as a seminarian. The secret documents uncovered in Estonia suggest that at the time of his recruitment the KGB viewed Alexy as a high-flier already earmarked as a future Bishop of the Russian Orthodox diocese of Tallinn and Estonia (a position he obtained less than three years after his recruitment as a secret agent) (Corley 2000). That Alexy was an asset for the communist secret police was made clear in 1988, thirty years after he

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accepted to work for the secret police, when the KGB chairman awarded Alexy the Certificate of Honour in recognition for his activities as a spy. Alexander Grigoryev, a KGB officer in Leningrad working undercover as Orthodox priest Fr Alexander, was his case officer for a while. According to former KGB officer Oleg Gordievsky, the entire Orthodox Church “were tools of the KGB” and “Patriarch Alexy was agent number one” (Trevelyan 2008). The Moscow Patriarchate has consistently denied that Patriarch Alexy II served as a KGB agent at any time during his career. In September 2000, the official spokesman of the Moscow Patriarchate, Fr. Vsevolod Chaplin, discounted the revelations about the church leader as “absolutely unsubstantiated.” While conceding that during communist times all bishops had to enter into a dialogue with the Council for Religious Affairs, which in turn forwarded documents and information to the KGB, Chaplin argued that no KGB documents bear the signature of the patriarch. According to him, the revelations were part of a smearing campaign led by defrocked Fr. Yakunin and designed to weaken both the patriarch and the church as an institution (Corley 2000). But researchers with the London-based Keston Institute who accessed the secret documents in Tallinn confirmed the accuracy of the information and Alexy’s long-term secret collaboration. Additional documents, stored in Moscow with the KGB’s successor, the Federal Security Service, and seen by other researchers, described the tasks that secret agent Drozdov performed for the KGB, including efforts to appease monks at a monastery who in December 1982 were dissatisfied with their too compliant church leaders (Albats 1994, 45; Corley 2000). This policy of denial has been maintained with respect to revelations about other church figures unveiled as former secret agents. The Russian Orthodox Church has kept insisting that both secret and open collaboration with the Soviet regime succeeded in averting the obliteration of the church, allowed clergymen to serve the faithful even in convoluted and partial ways, and permitted the church to contribute to nation-building. The general implication is that the benefit of survival outweighs the loss of credibility resulted from the betrayal of Orthodoxy by serving a regime that was inimical to religion, of the clergymen by refusing to protect them against imprisonment and persecution for their faith, and of the faithful by disclosing personal information received in confidence from them. To restore its good name, the church has not hesitated to resort to nationalism. To access the funds needed to restore its places of worship

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and conduct its social work, the church has forged a privileged and very close relationship with the political actors that resembles the Byzantyne symphonia but is considered as outdated by many.

Canonizations and Martyrs The deafening silence with which the Orthodox Church has treated the topic of former secret spies from within its membership contrasts sharply with its numerous canonizations and glorifications of former victims of communist repression. As the Roman Catholics and other Christian denominations, the Russian Orthodox recognize selected individuals as saints, a gesture followed by their names’ inclusion in the canonical list of recognized saints. This recognition follows a somewhat complicated process which requires the approval of several church bodies and leaders, and input from various clergymen and lay persons. Confessors are individuals who professed their faith by word and life, whereas martyrs are those who died for their faith. The existence of confessors and martyrs during communist times shows that the church was very much alive even during times of extreme duress and persecution. These canonizations, therefore, bestow a measure of credibility on the church’s claims that religion and religiosity were at the heart of its activities during communist times and condemnation of communism (through celebration of its victims) is among its post-communist priorities. Perhaps no other canonization was followed more closely by the general public than that of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family, his wife Alexandra and their five children, who were murdered by the communists in July 1918. Over the years, the secrecy surrounding the killings, the names of the perpetrators and the location of the corpses fuelled a number of rumors and suspicions that the youngest children of the Tsar escaped death and were able to live quietly somewhere in Western Europe. Those rumors seemed to be confirmed in 1998, when the bodies of the two youngest children, Anastasia and Alexey, were not discovered and therefore not re-interred together with those of the other family members in St. Peter and Paul Cathedral in St. Petersburg in a ceremony attended by President Boris Yeltsin. A decade later DNA results confirmed that two more bodies discovered near Yekaterinburg, where the family was forced to live its last days (Eckel 2008), were those of the missing children.

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In July 1998, Patriarch Alexy II decided not to officiate in Saint Petersburg at the burial of the royal family due to concerns regarding the authenticity of the remains. However, two years later the patriarch overcame his doubts and supported the decision of the Jubilee Council of Bishops to canonize the Tsar and his family. The Council, held from August 13 to 16, 2000, in Moscow, represented a major event in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church and was lavishly celebrated. The celebrations included the canonization of 1,154 people, including 1,090 new martyrs and confessors who died during the twentieth century, many of them at the hands of the communist authorities (Robertson 1999). Patriarch Alexy II glorified a number of other new martyrs and confessors of Russia victimized by the communist regime, including the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna (killed by the Bolsheviks in 1918), Metropolitan Vladimir Bogoyavlensky of Kiev and Gallich (also executed in 1918), and Metropolitan Benjamin Kazansky of Petrograd (executed by a Soviet firing squad in 1922). Additional names have been added to the list of new martyrs, as the Synodal Canonization Commission completed its investigations. According to the Synodal Canonization Commission, proposals for the canonization of new martyrs must fulfill several conditions established in 1995. The individual had to profess Orthodox faith, and as such members of the Renovationist movement are excluded. The individual must not have renounced the faith, the priesthood, or the diaconate. (Nothing is provided for situations when the church defrocked outspoken priests like Fr. Yakunin at the pressure of the communist authorities.) The individual must not have betrayed his co-religionists, a condition that could seemingly exclude all church members and leaders who agreed to inform secretly on their peers to the KGB. The individual should have performed miracles, but “the simple fact that a believer has received the strength to sacrifice his/her life can be considered a miracle as such” (Rousselet 2013, 44–45). To arrive at a decision, the Commission relies on a variety of sources of information: church or non-church, local or federal, official or collected from non-state actors, archives or testimonials. The process often relies quite heavily on access to the extant KGB archives and the willingness of the post-communist federal security services, which house the secret archives, to grant church historians permission to view relevant documents. Tsar Nicholas, his wife and their children were canonized as “passionbearers” (Robertson 1999), but the decision was disputed inside the

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Orthodox Church as well as outside of it. Some believed that the fate of the Tsar resembled the fate of Russia—“the lost chance for greatness” (Hammer 2010). Others argued that the Tsar might have been a good husband and a caring father, but he was an inept ruler of Russia whose despotism, inability to understand the country’s problems and political mistakes helped the Bolsheviks to gain power and ultimately to kill his entire family (Massie 2000). There were objections to the canonization of the family as martyrs, since their death was not connected to their faith. This is why they were recognized instead as “passion-bearers,” that is, people who faced death with resignation, in a Christ-like manner. Symbolic recognition of religious persecution during communist times has extended to the creation of obituaries and martyrologies, the organization of processions and commemorations, the erection of crosses on the former execution sitesor prisons, the construction of churches and chapels in memory of the new martyrs, as well as the veneration as saints of local priests who fell victim to the anti-religious policies of the Soviet state (Rousselet 2013). Part of these reckoning initiatives is represented by the erection of Churches of Spilled Blood, the most important of which was built in the outskirts of Moscow, on the former Butovo firing range where as many as 20,000 believers and non-believers reportedly were executed by the communist authorities. Since 1991 the church has canonized 300 of these victims, and since 2000 a memorial service has been celebrated every year around Easter for the new martyrs of the faith of Butovo by the patriarch, the bishops, and the priests from Moscow and the surrounding parishes (Rousselet 2013, 41–42).

Conclusion This chapter is not meant to provide a comprehensive view of church-led reckoning efforts, but the two areas discussed above—the identification of former secret spies from among clergymen and canonizations of communist victims—suggest that the Russian Orthodox Church is selective in its assessment of the communist past. Initiatives that could portray the church in a negative light as a collaborator of the repressive communist dictatorship have been systematically ignored or downplayed in favor of a plethora of canonizations of church members who suffered at the hands of the authorities. Clearly, the church has brushed aside its past communistera collaboration in order to present itself almost exclusively as a victim

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who opposed and resisted the Soviet regime. There are several reasons why the church’s reckoning efforts are skewed. First, the selective recounting of history implied by these reckoning methods is perhaps preferred by the Russian Orthodox Church because it allows the church to gain additional legitimacy from the celebration of former victims while also avoiding, even denying, past events and deeds that would taint its reputation and undermine its credibility with the general public. It also allows the local churches “to present to the faithful the local richness of their eparchy and to reestablish a long line of believers” (Rousselet 2013, 48). This long line helps to establish the current Russian Orthodox Church as the legitimate heir to the precommunist church, and counter charges that the church was created by the communists to destroy Orthodoxy and reduce it to the status of as an instrument of communist propaganda. The more numerous the confessors and martyrs the church recognizes and celebrates, the more ingrained becomes its public image as a community of sufferers persecuted by the communist regime, and the less credible the charges that the priests and hierarchs who had served an atheistic regime that had turned against its own people had negatively affected the life of the church. But the canonization of victims of communism also leaves out the nature of the victimization and the identity of the perpetrators. Second, the efforts to downplay collaboration with the KGB also stem from the concrete concerns of church hierarchs that the public would not see the church favorably if evidence of their willingness to pass information to the communist secret police and the names of those who once willingly broke the trust of their fellow clergymen and believers were to reach the public. As other Orthodox churches in post-communist Europe, the Russian Orthodox Church has avoided any meaningful vetting of its leaders and leadership bodies. This is the reason why Patriarch Alexy II was able to continue to serve as head of the church after Russia proclaimed its desire to become a democracy after 1991, and other metropolitans and bishops suspected of having served the KGB retained their clerical posts. Openness and frankness about communist-era collaboration would have exposed their past, possibly leading to calls for their removal. A sense of self-preservation was at work when they averted attention away from the thorny issue of communist-era secret collaboration of clergy. Third, to a certain extent the church followed the policy of denial and amnesia embraced by the Russian post-communist political leaders.

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Gorbachev’s calls for openness were followed by revelations that focused mostly on the Stalinist crimes that had occurred more than three decades earlier. Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin showed very little inclination to break the silence surrounding the KGB and the pronounced continuity it shares with the post-communist federal security services. The secret archives have remained closed, the communist-era secret agents have continued their careers as part of the post-1991 intelligence community, and it is a matter of dispute whether the former secret informers (including those recruited from among the Orthodox Church members) have stepped away and discontinued their surveillance operations. In short, the larger political context characterizing post-communist Russia, inimical to disclosing the truth about the communist past and to bringing an end to the culture of impunity by prosecuting former collaborators, made reckoning within the church unlikely. In such a country, it would take more effort on the part of any religious denomination or civil society group to depart from the official state policy of avoiding transitional justice.

References Albats, Yevgenia. 1994. The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia—Past, Present, and Future, trans. Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. London: Farrar Straus & Giroux. Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. 1999. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB. London: Basic Books. Chumarenko, Tatiana, and Edward Roslov. 2003. Church and State in Soviet Russia: Russian Orthodoxy from World War II to the Khrushchev Years. London: Routledge. Corley, Felix. 2000. Confirmed: Russian Patriarch Worked with KGB, CatholicCulture.org (22 September) at https://www.catholicculture.org/news/fea tures/index.cfm?recnum=13868. Accessed 25 September 2019. Davis, Nathaniel. 1995. A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy. Oxford: Westview Press. Eckel, Mike. 2008. DNA Confirms IDs of Czar’s Children, Ending Mystery, Associated Press (30 April) at https://web.archive.org/web/200805 01043005/, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080430/ap_on_re_eu/russia_ czar_s_family. Accessed 29 September 2019. Frierson, Cathy. 2014. Russia’s Law “On Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression”: 1991–2011. Washington, DC: NCEEER.

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Hammer, Joshua. 2010. Resurrecting the Czar. Smitsonian.com (November) at https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/resurrecting-the-czar-64545030/. Accessed 29 September 2019. Horne, Cynthia, and Lavinia Stan, eds. 2018. Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking Toward the Future. New York: Cambridge University Press. Kalkandjieva, Daniela. 2014. The Russian Orthodox Church, 1917–1948. From Decline to Resurrection. New York: Routledge. Kolarz, Walter. 1966. Religion in the Soviet Union. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Massie, Robert. 2000. Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. New York: Random House. Meek, James. 1999. Russian Patriarch Was ‘KGB Spy’. The Guardian, 12 February, at https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1. Accessed 25 September 2019. Ramet, Pedro, ed. 1988. Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twentieth Century. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Roberson, Ronald. 1999. The Orthodox Church of Russia, at http://cnewa.ca/ default.aspx?ID=17&pagetypeID=9&sitecode=CA&pageno=2. Accessed 25 September 2019. Rousselet, Kathy. 2013. The Russian Orthodox Church and Reconciliation with the Soviet Past. In History, Memory and Politics in Central and Eastern Europe. Memory Games, ed. Georges Mink and Laure Naumayer, 39–53. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Sheymov, Victor. 1993. Tower of Secrets: A Real Life Spy Thriller. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, et al. 1981. From Under the Rubble. Washington, DC: Regnery Books. Stan, Lavinia, ed. 2007. Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. London: Routledge. Trevelyan, Mark. 2008. Did Patriarch Spy for KGB? Firm Proof Hard to Find. Reuters, 5 December, at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russiapatriarchkgb-sb-idUSTRE4B45LT20081205.

CHAPTER 12

Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus Nelly Bekus

This chapter discusses strategies of reckoning with the communist past that were adopted in Belarus by the Orthodox Church, the country’s largest religious denomination. It compares the way in which the legacy of the Soviet past has been dealt with by the official Belarusian Exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church, referred to here as the Belarusian Orthodox Church (BOC) and by those Orthodox religious groups that oppose institutional subordination to Moscow Patriarchate and campaign for establishing autocephaly. On the wave of political liberalization and religious revival in the Former Soviet Union, the Orthodox Church returned to public life after almost seventy years of continuing ideological harassment and oppression. In the rapidly changing political and social conditions, the church had to re-establish itself as a participant in public life and a legitimate actor in the ongoing societal transformation. Coming to terms with the communist past constituted an important part of this process. Revisiting the legacy of Stalinism, and acknowledging it as the most violent period

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of the Soviet past, was initiated by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987, when the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted the Resolution on Additional Measures to Restore Justice for the Victims of Repressions that Occurred from the 1930–1940s until the Beginning of the 1950s. This move instigated a larger process of reexamination of the injustices incurred by various groups of Soviet citizens under the rule of Joseph Stalin (1922–1953). Various legislative acts were adopted by the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and the Soviet government that aimed “at restoration of justice for victims of repression,” “preservation of memory of victims” and “restoration of rights of the victims” (Artizov et al. 2004). In this context, the BOC, remaining a part of the larger Russian Orthodox Church, claimed the status of victim of political repression, and criticized the communist regime for the persecution it suffered during the numerous Soviet anti-religious campaigns. Investigation of Soviet repression, symbolic commemoration of the Orthodox priests and believers who suffered from political violence, and publication of memory books of names of victims became the major forms of historical reckoning and restorative justice in Belarus. The moral authority of the BOC was seriously harmed by public controversies surrounding the stories about the collaboration of priests and high hierarchs with the Soviet secret police, the KGB, that were brought to light with the beginning of Gorbachev’s perestroika and glasnost’ policies. The Orthodox Church—in Russia and Belarus—never took any formal steps toward lustration (the removal of tainted priests) or public acknowledgment of past wrongdoings. As this chapter demonstrates, the process of historical reckoning in the BOC was influenced by two main factors: the church’s institutional subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate and close, even if somewhat complicated, ideological affiliation of Belarusian Orthodoxy with the Belarusian state authorities.

The Belarusian Orthodoxy and Soviet Repression Historically, the Belarusian Orthodoxy has developed in close connection with the larger East Slavic Orthodox community, from the Kievan Rus’, the Moscow principality, and later the Russian Empire. It was after the 1917 October revolution and with beginning of mass repression against the church that formal steps were made by several Orthodox hierarchs in

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Belarus toward the institutionalization of an autonomous religious organization. In this way, they tried to escape the fate of violent elimination that the Orthodox Church faced under the new Bolshevik government in Russia. The ultimate goal of the Bolshevik policy toward the Orthodox Church was to separate it from the state and reduce its influence over the people. Several decrees adopted by new communist government directly or indirectly affected the religious institutions: the 1918 Decree on the Separation of Church from State, the Land Decree that announced the nationalization of all lands and properties that belonged to churches and monasteries, and an educational reform package that transferred all religious educational institutions under the jurisdiction of the People’s Council of Education (Tsypin 2018). These measures were equivalent to the elimination of the Orthodox Church as an institution from public life, since they created conditions in which no church could effectively operate. While the new political regime was hostile toward all religious denominations, the Orthodox Church as the dominant religious institution was clearly seen as the major target (Tsypin 1997, 719–721). The grand social reconstruction project launched by the Bolshevik rulers required the fundamental reshaping of people’s mindset and religious beliefs were seen as a major obstacle in the creation of the Soviet man. The new government’s affirmative educational policy, which associated communism with modernity and science and religion with backwardness and anti-modernity, was reinforced by a variety of repressive measures, such as closing and destroying churches, confiscating property, and killing, imprisoning or deporting clergymen and most active believers. In contrast to Russia, however, the Bolshevik anti-religious policy in Belarus was much less consolidated and influential, at least during the first years of their rule. That was a period of chaotic changes in the political regimes that controlled the Belarusian lands during which subsequent occupations by Germans, Bolsheviks, and Poles prevented the Bolsheviks from fully implementing their war against the churches (Rudling 2015, 66). As a result, the repression unleashed against priests during that time did not have a mass character in Belarus and the resistance against the property confiscation was rather weak (Vrublevski 2007, 109). It was only after 1929 that a full-scale atheistic campaign was launched in Belarus. In parallel with the policy aimed at diminishing the role played by the Orthodox in the society, the Bolsheviks launched the “renewal” of the Orthodox religious organizations. They actively supported the new

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movement established by priests loyal to the new power, and this ultimately led to a split within the church. By 1923, the eparchies and parishes of the Orthodox Church across Russia were equally divided between reformers and traditionalists. Backed by the Bolshevik government, reformers declared that their goal was to modernize the Orthodox liturgy and democratize the Church institutional hierarchy. They opposed the idea that the Patriarch was a major Orthodox governor. (The position was reinstated in Russia just months before the October Revolution, in August 1917, after Peter the Great replaced the Patriarch with a collective body called the Synod.) The renewal of religious life was sought by reformers through various measures: by establishing the Supreme Church Soviet as a new governing body, changing the Gregorian calendar (which continues to be in use in the Russian Orthodox Church to date), acknowledging equal status for married and celibate members of the episcopate, and transforming monasteries into “communities of labor,” among others. Traditionalists, in contrast, sought not only to revive religious life in Russia by returning to tradition under the leadership of Patriarch Tikhon, elected in 1917, but also opposed any modernizing measures advocated by reformers. Most importantly, traditionalists saw no possibility to accept the anti-religious policy of the new power and formed strong opposition to the new Bolshevik state. This split explains both the declaration of the BOC’s autocephaly and its failure. In 1922, Archbishop Melkhisedek (Paevskiy) initiated an assembly of the higher clergy members in the diocese of Minsk, the republic’s capital. This assembly was later renamed the Local Council of the BOC. On July 23, 1922, the Council announced the establishment of the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (BAOC). Among the decisions of the Council were the creation of a separate Minsk eparchy and the nomination of Archbishop Melkhisedek (Paevsky) as the Metropolitan of Minsk and Belarus. Four eparchies were created in eastern Belarus at Minsk, Babruisk, Mazyr and Slutsk. However, the decisions of the Council were never put into practice. As a result of the enduring conflict between the supporters and the opponents of the renewal of the church promoted by the Bolshevik government, 424 of the 1123 parishes that existed in Belarus in 1929 were subordinated to Metropolitan Sergei (Stragorosky) of Moscow, who was loyal to the Soviet authorities, while the remainder of them continued to belong to the BAOC. The BAOC sought to escape the reforms by establishing autocephaly and distancing from the reformed church in Russia (Mudrov 2014, 335–336). Internal conflicts between

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the opponents and the supporters of Belarusian autocephaly were carefully orchestrated by the Joint State Political Directorate (OGPU), a secret police service that operated in the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1934. The Bolshevik rulers perceived the prospect of church unification as a consolidation of counter-revolutionary forces that had to be avoided at all costs (Krivonos 2007, 175). Archbishop Paulin of Mahileu, who in 1935 reached with Bishop Filaret the agreement to abolish the Belarusian autocephaly, was arrested and sentenced to ten years in prison camp. In August 2000, his name appeared in the first group of new martyrs of the twentieth century who suffered for the faith and were canonized by the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church (Deyanie Yubileinogo Arkhiereiskogo Sobora o sobornom proslavlenii Novomuchenikov i ispovednikov Rosiiskikh XX veka 2008). The activity of the BAOC, however, gradually ceased due to a brutal atheistic and repressive campaign unleashed against clergymen and parishioners. The secret negotiations between the BAOC Bishop Filaret (Ramenskiy) and Archbishop Paulin (Kroshechkin) on the church’s official termination represented merely a formal act. The eparchies of the BOC remained an integral part of the Moscow Patriarchate until 1989, when the Belarusian Exarchate was established as a semi-autonomous organization within the Russian Orthodox Church. As a result of the Soviet anti-religious crusade only twenty-two churches remained in service in eastern Belarus by 1938, and the last Orthodox parish, which functioned in Babruisk, was closed in the summer of 1939. There were no Orthodox services offered in eastern Belarus from summer 1939 to summer 1941, with the exception of two unofficial, “catacomb” churches that operated in Mahileu and Homel (Mudrov 2014, 365). The western regions of present day Belarus were part of Poland during 1918–1939. The religious landscape of Belarus changed in 1939, when the Soviet Union invaded Poland and, as a result, several provinces that were inhabited by ethnic Belarusians were annexed to the Belarusian Soviet Republic. The religious experience of the inhabitants of these newly acquired western Belarusian territories was different from those of their compatriots in the east. Between World War I and World War II, the Orthodox Belarusians living in Poland were subjected to an enforced Polonization policy, which was conducted by the Polish government with the goal of creating an ethnically homogenous Polish nation (Mironowicz 2008). Although this policy of the Polish state might have been anti-Belarusian,

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it was by no means anti-religious (Bekus 2017). The Polish authorities supported the autocephaly of the Orthodox Church in Poland, which was approved the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople in 1924. This church, however, became one of the main tools in the Polonization of ethnic Belarusians, rather than an institution encouraging their religiosity (Yazykovich 1992, 281). After World War II the contrasting difference in attitudes toward religion between the inhabitants of the eastern and western territories of Belarus became evident (Belyakova 2008). The new anti-religious campaign launched by the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1954 was instigated by the necessity to reassert the Communist Party’s ideological control over a society which, during the first years after the war, underwent a revival of religious beliefs and the reemergence of many traditional customs that had been suppressed by Stalinist repression during the late 1930s (Anderson 1994, 11). In Belarus, the campaign was also called to address the dangerous spreading of religious beliefs in the western part of the republic. The Orthodox Church, once again, became a major target of the new atheistic campaign. Smaller religious groups were considered less dangerous for the communist ideology due to their lower public profile. As a result of the new anti-religious repression unleashed over the 1958– 1964 period the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union suffered a 43 percent reduction in the number of its places of worship, compared to 16 percent registered by the Roman Catholic Church, 32 percent by Muslims and 32 percent by the Jewish community (Anderson 1994, 55). Among the Soviet republics, Belarus was one of the most affected by this policy, having lost 56 percent of its registered Orthodox parishes (compared to 20 percent in Russia and 43 percent in Ukraine). Alongside the closure of places of worship and parishes, Khrushchev’s campaign reinforced repressive measures such as the harassment of those who openly admitted being believers, the disruption of religious meetings, as well as the unlawful arrest and imprisonment of individuals falsely accused of breaking the law (Anderson 1994, 67). This official anti-religious stance remained an essential part of the Soviet ideological profile until the rise to power of the Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985. In the post-Khrushchev era, however, the policy became more affirmative, placing emphasis on propaganda and educational measures more than open terror and repression. The range of suppressive measures adopted by the Soviet authorities during the rule of Leonid Brezhnev (1964–1982) was described in detail in the famous

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letter addressed by the Bishop of Poltava Feodosii Dikun to Brezhnev in 1977. The letter, which was passed abroad by dissidents and appeared in samizdat press in the West, became one of the most informative sources on the persecution of religion in the Soviet Union during the 1970s. Dikun depicted the multiple ways in which the Soviet authorities harassed the Orthodox Church: limiting the number of priests allowed in to work for the Orthodox Church, preventing parishioners from renovating church buildings, closing existing churches, controlling the number of printed copies of religious literature, including calendars, and supporting aggressive atheistic press campaigns that facilitated hatred toward believers (Dikun 1981).

The Collaboration with KGB Comes to Light A large part of the Soviet interference in the religious life was represented by the penetration (known as “infiltration” in communist parlance) of religious institutions by the KGB, which placed secret agents within those institutions. The issue became publicly known during the early 1990s, when the archives of the Central Committee of the Communist Party were opened. The central Soviet press published articles that brought the issue to the attention of the public (see, for example, the articles that appeared in Literaturnaya Gazeta on January 3, 1990, Nezvisimaya Gazeta in February 1992, and Ogonyok in 1992). In August 1991, the Russian Parliament set up a commission to investigate the work of the state security agencies, with the former dissident, deputy and priest Gleb Yakunin assigned to work on materials that related to the church. In his numerous publications and interviews granted to the press, Yakunin described various Orthodox Church leaders as agents of the KGB. In response, some politicians called for more careful examination to the issue in an effort to prevent what they saw as an unnecessary “witch hunting” that might halt the reform and revival of the church (Yakovlev 1992, 3). Note, however, that all bishops throughout the Former Soviet Union had to have some kind of a working relationship with the secret police as a condition of their nomination. Most members of the Orthodox churches in the Soviet Union probably believed that accepting to collaborate with security services was the only option available to them if they wanted to remain in religious service. A minority among the priests, which roughly accounted for 15–20 percent, did resist

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and paid for this act of noncompliance by losing their chance for advancement (Andrew and Mitrokhin 1999, 639). In which ways one acted as an “agent” or an “informer” remains difficult to comprehend. Some priests maintained that they used their relation with the KGB to build up the church and to prevent further damage to the religious life of the believers. The work of the parliamentary commission was ultimately halted, a fact that left the Orthodox church exposed to further criticism. Yakunin joined the political opposition, continued to criticize the Orthodox Church leadership for its refusal to acknowledge their wrongdoings under the Soviet rule, and in 1997 was excommunicated for activities that harmed the public image of the church (Akt ob otluchenii ot Tserkvi Gleba Pavlovicha Yakunina 1997). During the period that stretched from the rehabilitation of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1943 to the end of 1990, the behavior of the church leaders remained two-faced. In spite of preserving its “resplendent outward appearance,” the Moscow Patriarchate was “gradually transformed into something resembling a classic Soviet institution” (Polyakov 1994, 148). The name of the Belarusian Metropolitan Filaret of Minsk (who served as archbishop before 1992) appeared in the report prepared by Yakunin under the secret codename Ostrovsky. According to the report, in 1983 Filaret helped to prepare the letter addressed by the Soviet Patriarch Pimen to the US President Ronald Reagan, which was later published in New York Times and reprinted in the Soviet newspaper Izvestiya on April 11, 1983. That same year, Filaret participated in the Moscow meeting of the Christian Peace Conference, the Soviet-backed international organization established in 1958 and based in Prague. The primary purpose of its gatherings was “to orient religious and church-related sectors of the antinuclear movement in an anti-US direction while avoiding any criticism of Soviet foreign and defense policies” (Soviet Active Measures: The Christian Peace Conference 1985). In 1986, Ostrovsky traveled to Geneva to prepare the All-Orthodox Assembly, where he campaigned for wider support for the Soviet peace program. In August 1989, he was among the Orthodox priests who traveled to Vatican to meet Pope John Paul II and discuss the cooperation between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church as well as the status of the Greek-Catholic Church (Ponomarev and Yakunin 1992). In all cases Ostrovsky’s activity related to the international organization. His name features twice in a May 1985 US Department of State note that identified him as an important figure fostering the Soviet agenda on various

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international religious platforms. Filaret chaired both the Soviet Peace Committee and the Public Commission for Relations with Religious Peace Circles established in Moscow by the World Peace Council, which became affiliated with the Soviet Peace Committee in late 1983. He was also the chairman of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church’s Moscow Patriarchate, showing his active involvement in foreign affairs. This confirms the observation made by scholars that the Soviet policy makers actively engaged the Orthodox priests in foreign affairs in order to create a favorable international impression and facilitate the acceptance of decisions favorable to the interests of the Soviet state (Maslova 2005; Pivovarov 2017). His association with the KGB was never publicly acknowledged by Filaret or other church officials and the BOC never made any attempts to address the issue. The Orthodox Church’s failure to reckon with the troublesome issue of collaboration with the Soviet secret services was “a case of the church leadership shooting itself in the foot” because the parliamentary commission led by Yakunin and Ponomarev finalized its work on Orthodox collaboration before the investigation of other religious groups started (Anderson 1994, 186). As such, it appeared to the public that it was primarily the Orthodox Church who had collaborated with the KGB, although it was clear that all religious groups had to have some sort of a relationship with the KGB in order to function legally. In April 1992, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church established a commission to report on the church’s involvement with the KGB, but that report was never produced. The only high priest who publicly acknowledged his secret collaboration with the KGB was Archbishop (and later Metropolitan) of Vilnius Khrizostom Martishkin, who declared in the interview that he spied for the secret police for eighteen years. No other top-ranking Orthodox clergyman followed his example and the issue of collaboration disappeared from public debates.

State Sovereignty and Religious Dependency The BOC (which is in fact the Belarusian Exarchate of the Moscow Patriarchate) was established in 1989 as a specific national structure, following a decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church. For the first time in its history, the Belarusian Orthodox community was granted an official institutional status coinciding with the borders of Belarus, although it remained subordinated to the Russian Orthodox

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Church. This decision was followed by extensive institutional developments. The Gomel eparchy was restored and a new Brest eparchy was established in January 1990. In May 1992, eparchies were established in Turov and Vitebsk. There were 609 parishes in the republic by the end of 1991. By July 1, 1994, the Belarusian Orthodox Church included 850 parishes and eight monasteries. By the second visit of the Patriarch of Moscow Alexy II to Belarus, which took place in 1995, there were already 918 parishes, three monasteries and six convents. The Minsk Theological College, which was closed in 1963, was reopened in 1989 and the Belarusian Theological Academy was established in 1993. All these institutional steps were aimed at re-establishing religion as important in the life of the society and to rekindle the religious beliefs of the people, the majority of whom had been brought up in an atheistic spirit and an environment hostile to any faith. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Belarus was one of the most atheistic republics in the Union. A survey conducted in 1989 revealed that 65 percent of respondents defined themselves as atheists, while 22 percent claimed to be believers (Tsvilik 2005, 308–309). In many post-communist states, new national elites deployed religious traditions in order to consolidate national opposition to the totalitarian dictatorship. Religion was often seen as a factor that could facilitate the shared sense of belonging to a nation and making sense of a changing world (Porter-Sz˝ ucs 2010, 5). In their turn, churches sought to enhance their status as national churches by promoting the synonymy between religious and national identity (Knox 2007). Given its dissociation of religion from the ideology of national revival, Belarus constituted a rare exception to this rule (Bekus 2016). After Belarus gained its independence, its anti-Soviet political elites sought to mobilize all historical, cultural, and political resources to attest that Belarus belongs to the European cultural and political space and has more in common with its western and northern neighbors, Poland and Lithuania, than with Russia. In high demand were historical events and cultural values that validated and reinforced political and cultural boundaries between Belarus and Russia. The nationalist elites also capitalized on the memory of political repression during Soviet times by othering the Soviet identity and insisting that the Belarusian nation had been subjugated and dominated by the culturally alien and politically hostile Russia (Bekus 2018a; Oushakine 2013). In this context, the Orthodox Church

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that manifestly links Belarusian religious tradition with the Russian one and forms the basis for their multiple cultural and historical interconnections, proved politically useless. For that reason, the post-communist Belarusian elites never appealed to religious tradition to support their project of boosting the Belarusian identity. The fact that the major religious denomination in Belarus has been institutionalized as a “branch” of the Russian Orthodox Church, and remains subordinated to and dependent on the Moscow Patriarch automatically, excluded it from the process of shaping a new Belarusian identity in the political discourse of anti-communist elites. Proponents of a nation-oriented Orthodoxy in Belarus are mostly affiliated with the Orthodox Brotherhood of the Three Martyrs of Vilna, led by Protopresbyter G. Latushka and founded in 1992 at the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Minsk. They aim at strengthening the Belarusian identity within the Orthodox faith by translating religious texts and publishing the history of the Belarusian Orthodoxy as well as other religious literature in the Belarusian language (Bekus 2018b). However, they never openly questioned the subordinate status of the Belarusian Orthodoxy within the hierarchy of the Moscow Patriarchate and instead align the Belarusian religious tradition with the official Orthodox discourse.

Remembering the Victims In agreement with the general policy of the Moscow Patriarchate, the BOC has been involved in commemorating the victims of Soviet repression from among the priests and believers more than in reckoning with its priests’ collaboration with the KGB. Discussion of the communist-era repression and violence against the church was opened after a commission on the canonization of “new martyrs” was set up in April 1989 by the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church under the chairmanship of Metropolitan Yuvenali. Among its first steps toward the recognition of new martyrs who suffered during the Bolshevik terror was the canonization of Patriarch Tikhon, who served from 1917 until 1925 (Arkhiyereiskii Sobor Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi 9–11 Oktyabrya 1989 2009). On April 3, 1991, the first memorial plaque dedicated to all the martyrs of the Soviet period was unveiled at the Donskoy monastery, where Patriarch Tikhon had been buried in 1925. The priest officiating the memorial liturgy during which the plaque was unveiled called the persecution of the

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church in twentieth-century Russia “the most serious in the history of the church” (Van Den Bercken 1994, 169). A similar process started in Belarus in view of recovering the names of the victims of Soviet repression. The first legislative act that offered public access to the secret archives detailing repression in Belarus was the Decree on the Rehabilitation of the Victims of Political Repression adopted by the Supreme Council of the Belarusian Soviet Republic on June 21, 1991. Once access to the KGB documents was available, Fedor Krivonos, an Orthodox priest trained as a historian at the Belarusian State University, endeavoured to uncover the secret archival materials on the Orthodox clergymen who suffered Soviet repression. In 1996, he published a study with data on 322 Orthodox priests, monks and believers persecuted by the Soviet regime (Krivonos 1996). He then supported the creation of a special commission at the Minsk Theological Academy to investigate the fate of clergymen during the pre-1941 Stalinist terror, the Nazi occupation, and post-war times until 1951 (Krivonos 2009). The KGB archive custodians allowed the commission to access only documents dated before 1951. As a result of the investigations conducted by the commission, the Holy Synod of the BOC canonized twenty-three new martyrs of the Minsk diocese in 1999. A new Church-Memorial to Honor All Saints and in Memory of Those Who Died for the Fatherland was founded in Minsk in 1991, and its building was completed in 2006. Alongside Belarusians who died during the World Wars and as a result of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, the Church-Memorial is dedicated to the victims of political repression imprisoned in the Gulag camp Solovki (Istoriya Vozniknoveniya 2019). Within the BOC, the process of coming to terms with the legacy of the Soviet past was largely shaped by the policies of historical reckoning adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate. The Council Commission on the Canonisation of Saints, established by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1989, defined the criteria for the canonisation of devoted believers and outlined the approach for the canonization of the “new martyrs and confessors of Russia.” The main outcome of the Commission’s activity became the preparation of the canonization of the “new martyrs” of the twentieth century. A similar Commission on the Canonization of Saints of the Belarusian Exarchate was established in 2006 with the task to prepare documentation on new possible Belarusian saints and draft a list of victims of Soviet repression in each Belarusian eparchy. Archbishop of Navagrudak

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and Lida Gurii was appointed Commission chairman, whereas Fedor Krivonos became his secretary (Decree of the Holy Synod of the Belarusian Orthodox Church on the Establishment of the Commission on Canonization 2010). A special series of publications entitled “Works of the Commission on Canonization in the Belarusian Church” was launched in 2009 in view of publicizing the Commission’s output; by the time of this writing, it has published three volumes in 2010, 2014, and 2017. The Vitebsk Martyrology (1918–1952), published in 2008, contained 344 biographical data of Orthodox priests and believers who were targeted by Soviet repression. It was followed by the Martyrology of the Grodno Eparchy (1917–1961) in 2012, and the two-volume Martyrology of the Gomel Eparchy (1917–1953) in 2017. The Commission also supported the publication of a two-volume handbook in Belarusian by the secular researcher Leanid Marakou, entitled The Repressed Orthodox Priests and Clergymen in Belarus, 1917–1967 , which included hundreds of brief biographical notes compiled with the help of documents discovered in church and secular archives. While the Belarusian Commission was focused on the commemoration of victims of repression in Belarus, its activity remained an integral part of the Russian Orthodox Church commemorative strategy. According to a decision of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church of December 25–26, 2012, the Chairman of the Belarusian Commission on Canonization, Archbishop of Gomel Stefan, appointed in 2012, also became a member of the Church-Public Council on Perpetuating the Memory of the New Russian Martyrs and Confessors of the Moscow Patriarchate. In 2013, the Commission organized a large conference on “The Deed of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Land of Belarus,” which gathered among participants some highranking Orthodox Church officials from the Belarusian Exarchate and the Moscow Patriarchate, religious scholars who studied the history of repression and representative of memory institutions such as the Director of the Memorial Centre Butovo, the mass burial site of the victims of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (the NKVD) near Moscow. Kurapaty, the major symbolic memory site in Belarus, similar to Butovo, was presented at the conference by Vladimir Romanovski, the political activist and representative of the Belarusian opposition liberal memory group. His conference presentation became a rare case when the memory work of the Orthodox Church and the political memory activists

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intersected (Komissiya po kanonizatsii svyatykh Belorusskogo ekzarkhata provela konferentsiu posvyaschennuyu podvigu novomychenikov 2013). Kurapaty is a central memory site for political repression in Soviet Belarus that came to symbolize the mnemonic agenda of all major memory actors in the country. A wooded piece of land of about seventyfive acres on the outskirts of Minsk, which was used for mass executions and graves by the NKVD from 1937 to 1941, had an enormous impact on the post-Soviet development of the Belarusian society. The site was discovered and described by the media and independent activists in 1988 (Pazniak and Shmygalyou 1988). The first Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Belarusian Soviet Republic that dealt with repressions, adopted in 1989, was the Decree on the Memorializing the Victims of Mass Repressions of 1937–1941 in Kurapaty (Dziarnovich 2001). Ironically, the decision adopted in 1989 was implemented only in 2018, when the government-funded memorial was inaugurated at Kurapaty. The BOC has maintained a safe distance toward Kurapaty and other symbolic sites associated with Soviet political repression. The Church has been closely associated with the state, and as such the memory of repression has remained ideologically contested in the official mnemonic agenda. After the victory of Aliaksandr Lukashenka in the first presidential elections of 1994 all state initiatives for coming to terms with the Soviet past that had been initiated by national elites after 1989 were effectively marginalized by a new leader (Bekus 2019). The new president revived the Soviet policy of selective memory that focused on commemorating the sacrifices made by Belarusians within the Soviet Union during World War II, while suppressing the memory of the individuals executed under Stalin (Lindner 2001). Political and civil actors who saw the memory of repression as a first step toward de-communization in the early 1990s were no longer part of the official public space. Under Lukashenka’s leadership, Belarus became a rare post-Soviet state where Soviet nostalgia has dominated the political discourse of the public and the ideology of the state. The policy of positively affirming the Soviet past made the official remembrance of its political repression ideologically problematic. As a result, involvement in activities associated with historical reckoning and restorative justice is treated by the state authorities as association with the political opposition, which the BOC strives to avoid. The Orthodox Church was given special status in the 2002 Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, which assigned it a “determining role in the development of the Belarusian people”

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(Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta Respubliki Belarus 1993). The law was criticized by international observers and other churches in Belarus as restrictive and limiting the religious freedom for other denominations, but was univocally supported by the Belarusian Exarchate for incorporating some of the suggestions proposed by Metropolitan Filaret and his peers (Richters 2013, 135). The bilateral agreement (sometimes referred to as a “concordat”) between the Belarusian state and the BOC signed in 2003 reaffirmed the special position of the Belarusian Orthodoxy in the official ideology of the Belarusian state. In this context, the commemorative agenda of the BOC has avoided a direct ideological confrontation with the post-Soviet Belarusian state, while also trying to comply with the memorial agenda defined by the Moscow Patriarchate. Note that the site of mass execution and mass grave site Butovo in Moscow often features in the commemorative activities of the Russian Orthodox Church, having been defined by Patriarch Alexy II as the “Russian Golgotha” (2007). There are two Orthodox churches at Butovo that regularly conduct services in memory of the victims of Stalinist repression. Belarus, at the same time, celebrates a special date in the religious calendar (28 October) that is dedicated to the remembrance of the “new martyrs,” but not a single Orthodox service has ever been conducted at the Kurapaty memorial site. During his visit to Minsk in 2001, the Moscow Patriarch Alexy II suggested the need to build a chapel at Kurapaty, but the Belarusian Exarch Metropolitan Filaret rejected the idea on grounds that there was no evidence to suggest that Orthodox priests were killed at Kurapaty (Fagan 2008). As such, the chapel was never built and the Orthodox services dedicated to the memory of the deceased are conducted in the neighboring village church, not on the former repression site. A wide range of mnemonic markers produced by various groups of memory entrepreneurs became an indispensable part of the public image of Kurapaty, which is often presented as “the people’s memorial.” Political organizations, professional associations, villages, families and individuals have built crosses, monuments and stones painted with icons depicting Soviet-era victims as the “new martyrs.” A memorial cross dedicated to the memory of the Belarusian clergymen killed at Kurapaty was also built in 2002 at the initiative of the Archbishop of the BAOC in the United States. The BOC, however, maintains cautious distance toward Kurapaty and other memorial sites, so as to avoid confrontation with the official memory politics of the Belarusian state. A rare exception is the memorial

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plaque dedicated to the victims of the political repression of 1937–1938 and written in Church Slavonic that was mounted on the wall of the Archangel Michael Cathedral in Mazyr in 2007. During the mass terror in 1937–1938, that church was turned into a NKVD prison where over 2,000 prisoners were executed (Kaminski 2011, 254).

Property Restitution The restitution of church property became an important aspect of the religious revival in Belarus toward the end of the Soviet regime. The process started in 1990 with the return of the Church of St Magdalena in Minsk to the BOC. Yet, at the time of this writing, there is no clear legal basis for the return of property that was confiscated during Soviet times. The property returns that benefit religious communities have been made on an individual and inconsistent basis (Report on International Religious Freedom—Belarus 2009). In many cases, the government declared its intention to return buildings, but then postponed the return indefinitely if the current occupants had nowhere else to move (Bekus 2016, 88– 89). According to Article 30 of the Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations, denominations have the right to have their property returned to them, except when those properties are used for cultural or sporting purposes (Vedomosti Verkhovnogo Soveta Respubliki Belarus 1993). During the 1988–2003 period, the government returned over 1120 buildings to various religious groups, including 709 to the BOC, 292 to the Roman Catholic community, twenty-nine to the Old-Rite Believers, twelve to the Jewish community, seven to the Protestants, three to the Muslims and one to the Greek Catholics (Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2004). When it comes to property restitution, the BOC has been clearly advantaged as it is the only religious denomination in Belarus that had encountered no significant difficulty in obtaining its lost properties.1 Besides, in accordance with the bilateral agreement between the Belarusian state and the BOC, the state has the obligation to provide significant financial support for the reconstruction and renovation of religious buildings that are recognized as historical and cultural monuments. As part of the Revival Program of the Zhirovichy Holy Dormition Monastery Complex and the Minsk Theological Academy and Seminary for 2001–2005 and until 2010, significant means were allocated for works of reconstruction and restoration. A similar program

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for financing the renovation of the monastery was developed by the Grodno Regional Executive Committee in 2011–2015. In addition, the state provided significant assistance for the construction of a Theological and Educational Center in Minsk in 2009–2010. A number of other churches have been reconstructed across the country with assistance from the state budget, including the Holy Resurrection Cathedral in Barysau, the Assumption Monastery in the village of Pustynki, Mstislau region, as well as the former Jesuit College, now functioning as an Orthodox monastery, in the village of Yurovichi, Kalinkovichy region.

The Alternative Orthodox Churches The Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church (BAOC) continues to operate underground because it was unable to obtain legal status. Orthodox Christian communities that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate can register with the Belarusian state only with the approval of a local bishop representing the Moscow Patriarchate (Fagan 2003). In addition, in 2001 the BOC that is subordinate to the Moscow Patriarchate registered its title as a brand name, so that no other organization can register under the name “Orthodox Church” in Belarus. The Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church2 was founded in 1994, initially under the name the Belarusian National Autocephalous Orthodox Church (Belaruskaia Narodnaia Autakefalnaia Pravaslaunaya Tsarkva). From the very beginning, it used only the Belarusian language in its services and declared the revival of the national version of the Orthodox tradition as its mission. Being denied legal status in Belarus, this church continues its underground activity, actively cooperating with the democratic political opposition and presenting itself as a religious organization that “defends the real interests of the Belarusian people” from a Christian viewpoint (Golas Tsarkvy Pravaslaunai Autakefalii 2006). According to some sources, the BAOC had twelve parishes and religious groups in 2004 (Golas Tsarkvy Pravaslaunai Autakefalii 2006). In 2018, Leanid Akulovich, a priest belonging to the Autocephalous Church, acknowledged that only one Autocephalous parish remained operating in Belarus and even that one faced difficulties resulted from lack of registration. The Belarusian mass-media have regularly reported about the persecution of Autocephalous Church leaders because of their religious actions, including the organization of services at the memorial cemetery Kurapaty. In 2008, a district court fined Akulovich for unauthorized mass action in

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connection to the religious service held in memory of the innocent civilian victims killed by the Soviet partisans in 1943, a topic that continues to remain taboo in the Belarusian memory narrative of World War II. Overall, the activity of the Autocephalous Church is characterized by open involvement in the activities of the political opposition and is driven by the desire of becoming the alternative religious organization that will unite all “true” Belarusian clergymen, will be supported by the Belarusian society and will become the “genuine national Church of Belarusians” (Da historyi Belaruskai Pravaslaunai Aukefalii 2006). One of the key elements of their public appeal is represented by their willingness to commemorate the victims of Soviet-era political repression. Together with political activists representing the Belarusian National Front, the major opposition party of Belarus, the church seeks to obtain full religious sovereignty from Russia. The Belarusian media regularly report on the arrest of Autocephalous Church priests for conducting religious services at Kurapaty and other memorial sites dedicated to communist crimes (Akulovich 2019). Followers of the alternative Orthodox Church consider the BOC an agent of Russian influence in the country, while the former collaboration of the Russian Orthodox Church priests with the KGB is seen as proof of that church’s moral corruption. In this context, the Stalinist repression has become an important piece of evidence that Orthodox clergymen in opposition to the BOC can successfully capitalize on proving the criminal nature of the Soviet regime and its anti-Belarusian policy. Being deprived the legal status and the attendant possibility to operate freely, the Autocephalous Church remains a rather marginal player both in the religious life and in the memory work in Belarus.

Conclusion Effort to reckon with the human rights abuses of the communist past within the BOC have been shaped by several factors. On the one hand, the Church operates in a state where positive attitudes toward the Soviet past and its legacy remain an integral part of the official ideology. Being legally recognized as the major religion of the Belarusian citizens, the Orthodox Church is expected to pursue its activities without challenging or contradicting the ideological claims of the state, including those that depict the Soviet past as a constructive period for the Belarusian nationbuilding process. On the other hand, the BOC remains subordinate to

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the Russian Orthodox Church and when it comes to transitional justice it reiterates the symbolic measures adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate without trying to devise its own, separate programs and initiatives. The measures adopted to date have mainly aimed at the symbolic commemoration of the victims of Soviet anti-religious policies and included publications as well as the canonization of new martyrs who suffered for their faith under the Soviet regime. The commemoration of the victims of Soviet repression belonging to the Orthodox Church remains confined to activities within the church that avoid public exposure. For that reason, no religious services have been conducted by Orthodox priests at memorial sites and very few examples exist of wide public engagement with the church’s memory work. The collaboration of Orthodox clergymen with the Soviet regime was on the agenda of the Russian Orthodox Church during the early 1990s. The name of Metropolit Filaret of Minsk and Belarus, who worked in Russia during Soviet times, appeared in the famous report prepared by Gleb Yakunin as an active participant in foreign missions during which the Soviet officials used the church to promote their own agenda. Filaret’s collaboration, however, has never been publicly discussed in Belarus and no further investigation ever tried to shed light on the collaboration of Orthodox priests with the communist security services. Consequently, the BOC never took any formal steps toward lustration or public acknowledgment of its past misconduct. The BOC remains largely disconnected from the memory work conducted by opposition parties such as the Belarusian National Front, the Belarusian Christian Democratic Party, and civil society groups, which have become major players in historical reckoning and advocates for transitional justice in Belarus. In the agenda of these independent actors, memory work is seen as an important instrument in promoting a Belarusian national identity posited outside the Russian cultural and religious traditions. In this context, the BOC’s subordination to the Russian Orthodox Church and its ties to it are seen as major obstacles preventing Belarus from recognizing its European identity.

Notes 1. The latest available data on the property of religious denominations in Belarus are from 1 January 2010. Svedeniya o kultovykh zdaniyakh

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religioznykh obschin v Belarusi, no date. Available at http://chu rchby.info/rus/681. Accessed 7 September 2019. 2. The official website of this church: http://www.belapc.org/. Accessed on 9 January 2020.

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Further Reading Van Den Bercken, William. 1994. The Russian Orthodox Church, State and Society in 1991–1993: The Rest of the Story. Religion, State and Society 22 (2): 163–181.

Conclusion

This concluding chapter summarizes the lessons drawn from the input of religious denominations into the transitional justice effort in the region during the first decades of post-communism. It highlights the ways in which various churches have engaged in reckoning processes, the extent to which religious actors have been affected by state-led transitional justice programs, the differences between Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant approaches to the communist past, as well as the broad regional differences between Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic republics, and the European successors of the Former Soviet Union. Mention should also be made of the fact that in countries where the Greek Catholic Church existed, this church was disbanded right from the beginning of the communist period (in Ukraine in 1946, in Romania in 1948, and in Czechoslovakia in 1950). Afterwards, this church was a martyred church that continued to exist somewhat underground. After 1989/1991, the church was made legal and re-emerged in those countries, in some cases obtaining recognition for its opposition to communism and the suffering it endured as a result, and also receiving back some of its confiscated property that was in the possession of the Orthodox Churches or of the state at the time of the Greek Catholic Church’s disbandment. It is worth noting that all Roman Catholic Churches in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have connections with the Vatican as the seat of world Catholicism. The communists attempted to © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8

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unsuccessfully cut those connections and foster the formation of local Catholic churches in order to control them better. It is therefore helpful to group together the local Catholic churches presented in the volume, assuming some similarities, while also noting the differences, in their behavior during the communist regime and after its fall. The communists in various countries studied in this volume also encouraged the local Orthodox churches to maintain strong connections with the Russian Orthodox Church in order to use this church as another means of controlling the communist Soviet bloc. As such, there are similarities in the ways in which the Orthodox churches in the region reckoned with their communist past. The Protestant churches did not have a center around which to gravitate and the communists took different approaches to dealing with them, depending on whether they were majority or minority churches in the countries under consideration. Therefore, in the case of the Protestant churches, their collaboration and resistance under communism, as well as their post-communist attempts at dealing with their past have few similarities.

Roman Catholicism: Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Albania, Latvia, Lithuania The Roman Catholic Church in the German Democratic Republic is somewhat similar to the church in Lithuania because both of them chose to use some priests as intermediaries to communicate with the Stasi (the KGB, respectively), possibly learning their lessons from their earlier collaboration with fascism in order to avoid old mistakes. As a result, the communists could not control these churches’ leaders and policies very well. After 1989, the Roman Catholic Church in Germany was open about scrutinizing its communist-era collaboration publicly and did so early on in the 1990s, with bishops initiating investigations of the past, establishing documentation centers, and recognizing the collaboration of their priests, while also emphasizing that collaboration had to be assumed individually by each collaborator. These concerted early efforts averted damage to the church’s credibility and showed it as a responsible actor in the public sphere that prevented further divisions among the faithful. A highly religious country, Poland did not aim its lustration laws of 1997 and 2006 at the Roman Catholic Church. Only after changes to these laws were implemented after 2006 did this predominant church come under more serious scrutiny for its infiltration by the Polish secret

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political police under communism. After 1989, both liberal and conservative Catholic figures turned out to have collaborated with the secret police. Both the Catholic Church and the country’s intellectuals were reluctant to pursue lustration of the clergy. Therefore, when revelations came to light about collaboration of various popular clergy, they were shocking. By the time this volume goes to press, however, pedophilia scandals in the Catholic Church in Poland will likely replace the old shock of communist-era collaboration with a new shock, especially since some former collaborators were also pedophiles. While the former Czechoslovakia was hailed as one of the countries where the transitional justice program was most efficiently applied among the former communist countries of Central and Eastern Europe, that has not been the case in the religious realm where transitional justice was limited to property restitution while excluding lustration. The Roman Catholic Church in the Czech Republic chose inner reconciliation rather than retribution in dealing with collaborationist clergy. Indeed, this church tried to sanctify and memorialize its best-known opponents of communism. A similar conclusion about the Roman Catholic Church in Slovakia can be reached. While not denying its collaboration with the communists, that church avoided dealing publicly with its collaboration and focused instead on its persecution at the hands of the communist authorities. Albania was unique in the communist European bloc by escaping the Soviet sphere of influence, while banning religion completely. Its Roman Catholic Church was a victim of communism that suffered bitter persecution, perhaps more so than other religious groups in the country. However, the laws that framed its efforts at reckoning with the past did little to bring any meaningful policy change in recognizing, redressing and prosecuting communist crimes, or adopting meaningful lustration and decommunization policies that would effect a systematic purge of government officials who had participated in crimes during communist times. Partial recognition of the abuses committed against the Catholic Church, its victims’ sufferings, the perpetrators, and its property restitution took place. Much of the reconciliation in Albania, however, was initiated by the Catholic Church itself, through figures such as Mother Theresa of Kolkata, Pope John Paul II, and Pope Francis who offered forgiveness to the various communist leaders for their persecution of the Catholic Church, and when thirty-eight Albanian martyrs were canonized in 2016.

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CONCLUSION

Latvia, like other Baltic countries, faces the issue of an incomplete KGB archive, since in 1991 the KGB took most of its Baltic archives to Moscow. As such, whatever was left behind in the archives of the Baltic republics is being used more or less officially according to the whims of various political actors. A KGB list published in Latvia revealed that the Soviet-era secret informers included almost all leaders of the Catholic and Protestant churches. Latvian society has yet to engage seriously in a discussion of the collaboration of its churches with the communist authorities, and very few former informers have chosen to tell their stories of collaboration publicly. The process of moral cleansing is yet to take place as long as the majority of the Latvian society and the churches are not ready for it. In Lithuania, like in the former GDR, the Roman Catholic Church was faced with rather low-level infiltration by the KGB. As a result, since 1991 the Catholic Church has been seen more as a victim of communism than a collaborator with that regime, and thus a principal defender of human rights. On the one hand, this attitude somewhat overshadowed the fact that some clergy did collaborate with the communist regime, and their cases were not discussed enough by the church and the public. On the other hand, these former collaborators were prevented from being promoted into the higher echelons of the church leadership after 1991 given that their peers knew about their collaboration. This latter attitude, combined with the church’s call for individual priests to confess their collaboration, and calls for their forgiveness, led to the avoidance of a situation like the one in Poland (particularly the case of Bishop Wielgus) when major collaborators had to give up their posts at the last minute.

Eastern Orthodoxy: Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, Belarus The leadership and clergy of the Romanian Orthodox Church were involved in heavy collaboration with the communists, while some of that church’s priests, monks, and nuns opposed the regime especially in its early decades and were imprisoned and even murdered in the Romanian Gulag. After 1989, this church decided to present itself as a victim of the regime and to emphasize its resistance only. Scholars studying the phenomenon were divided into two main camps, one emphasizing the collaboration, while the other the resistance. By 2017, however, Patriarch Daniel Ciobotea (a high-level collaborator used particularly in foreign

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269

missions by the Securitate) decided to muddy the waters by commemorating both victims and collaborators of the regime and presenting all church members as victims. The argument has been made that even the worst collaborators had nothing but good intentions for the survival of their church when they acted in tandem with the communist authorities. The literature on resistance and collaboration in Bulgaria has grown significantly over the years and the secret police archives were opened, establishing that while the first generation of church leaders resisted the communists, the generation of the 1970s and the 1980s chose to either not see the state encroachment of church life or even to support it. The Bulgarian Orthodox Church’s only endeavor to separate those who resisted from those who collaborated has been an attempt to whitewash its collaborators and has led to a full-scale schism in the church. While the schism was eventually healed, today the majority Orthodox Church prefers to neither honor its martyrs nor denounce its collaborators. As such, as the chapter on Bulgaria argues, the case of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church proves that knowledge of the communist past and opening of the secret archives do not necessarily lead to a deeper understating of the past by religious denominations. In looking at the identification of former secret spies from among clergymen and the canonizations of communist victims by the Russian Orthodox Church, the chapter on Russia concluded that the Russian Orthodox Church has been selective in its assessment of the communist past. Initiatives that could portray the church in a negative light as a collaborator of the repressive communist dictatorship have been systematically ignored or downplayed in favor of a plethora of canonizations of church members who suffered at the hands of the Soviet authorities. Clearly, the church has brushed aside its communist-era collaboration in order to present itself almost exclusively as a victim who opposed and resisted the Soviet dictatorship. As other Orthodox churches in post-communist Europe, the Russian Orthodox Church has avoided any meaningful vetting of its leaders and leadership bodies. This is the reason why Patriarchs Alexy II and Kirill have been able to continue to serve as heads of their church after Russia proclaimed its desire to become a democracy in 1991, and other metropolitans and bishops suspected of having served the KGB retained their clerical posts. In Belarus, efforts to reckon with the past of the Belarussian Orthodox Church (which continues to be subordinated to the Russian Orthodox Church) have encountered a number of roadblocks. First, glorification

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of the Soviet past as a constructive period in the life of the state made it possible for the church to pursue its activities without challenging the official ideology or speak negatively about collaboration. Like its mother church and other Orthodox churches in this volume, the Belarussian Orthodox Church chose to commemorate its martyrs, victims of the Soviet anti-religious policies. Curiously, no religious services have been conducted by Orthodox priests at memorial sites and very few examples exist of wide public engagement with the church’s memory work.

Protestantism: Germany, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia In East Germany, alongside Catholicism, Protestantism played a role in the overthrow of the communist regime. In the Czech Republic, the Czechoslovak Hussite Church—containing a mix of Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox elements in one of the churches that collaborated the most with the communists—has avoided screening and punishment of its collaborators. In Slovakia, the Lutheran church also avoided scrutiny of its collaboration, while focusing on its persecution instead. In Estonia, the Lutheran Church did not oppose the communist regime, but diligently obeyed it, and some of its leaders were even recruited as secret agents with code names. After 1989, the church has considered itself a victim of communism, and one of its leaders even justified collaboration by saying that while informing on others he served the church and not the KGB. In Latvia, the Lutheran Church, while having collaborators in its midst, chose not to scrutinize its past collaboration activities. The Lutheran Church discouraged any initiatives at public scrutiny of its collaboration because of the incompleteness of the KGB archives (moved to Moscow after 1991) on which they would have to be based, an argument used in the case of other Baltic countries and churches. In sum, some reckoning—ranging from almost none to more advanced—did take place in the countries covered in this volume: lustration, access to secret files, public identifications of former communist-era secret informers, compensation and rehabilitation, property restitution, history commissions, as well as memorialization. With respect to dealing with collaborators with and resisters to communism, however, the picture is very mixed. Some churches had the courage to acknowledge their collaboration and have taken measures to cleanse themselves, thus avoiding divisions among the faithful over these issues. Others were forced

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271

to recognize their past collaboration and in doing so they faced some embarrassing moments, but that did not detract their faithful from continuing to worship in those churches. Another category was represented by the denominations (particularly the Orthodox Churches, but not only them) that rejected all accusations of collaboration and chose instead to celebrate their resisters or even to turn collaborators into resisters by rewriting their history. Most churches have yet to come to terms with their transitional justice, and even those that are more advanced in that process have yet to complete it. Healing old wounds takes time and assuming them is necessary.

Index

A Adventist(s), 95, 179, 198, 228 agent(s) active, 197 secret, 5, 8, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28, 37, 82, 86, 122, 160, 163, 164, 167, 188, 196, 197, 215, 226, 228, 232–234, 239, 247, 270 Soviet, 97 state, 145 amnesty, 48, 57, 182 Anania, Bartolomeu Valeriu, 99 apology(ies), 31, 165, 217 public, 146 Ar˘apas, u, Patriarch Teoctist, 98 arrest(s), viii, 6, 49, 50, 95–97, 115, 139, 143, 159, 163, 183, 184, 192, 199, 246, 258 art as justice, 136 installations, 151 of memory, 136 artist(s), vi, 61, 135, 151 atheism, xi, 104, 162

awareness, 25 public, 22

B Balkans, vii, 265 Baptist(s), 95, 157, 161, 164, 165 B˘asescu, Traian, 106 Benedict XVI, Pope, 32, 86, 144 Beran, Cardinal Josef, 46, 47, 49, 61, 62, 66 Berlin Wall, 5, 11, 16 Bolshevik(s), 236, 237, 243–245, 251 revolution, 230, 242, 244 Brezhnev, Leonid, 246

C Calciu-Dumitreasa, Gheorghe, 98, 103, 105, 110 camp(s) concentration, 28, 48, 50, 66, 141, 143 labor, 49, 140, 143, 144, 151, 204, 205, 207, 228

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 L. Turcescu and L. Stan (eds.), Churches, Memory and Justice in PostCommunism, Memory Politics and Transitional Justice, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8

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274

INDEX

canonization, 54, 151, 235–238, 251, 252, 259 Ceaus, escu, Nicolae, 97–100, 103 certificate(s), 56, 101, 206 China, 47, 140, 144 Ciobotea, Patriarch Daniel, 104, 105, 110, 268 civil society actors, vi, ix, 259 demands, 130 groups, vi, xi, 226, 259 organizations, vi representatives, viii, ix collaboration active, 53, 86, 114, 123, 167, 168, 192, 214, 259 church-state, viii, 22, 53 disclosure of, 29, 87, 232 forced, viii, 29, 53, 103, 139, 168, 192, 199, 217, 270 informal, 29, 35 neutral, 25 pledge of, 25, 53, 88, 101 regime, vi, viii, ix, 6, 7, 9–12, 17, 22, 24, 29, 35, 41, 47, 50–53, 57, 58, 66, 76, 81, 83, 88, 93, 102, 104–107, 110, 137, 158, 168, 169, 191, 192, 195, 196, 198–200, 209, 215, 220, 225, 226, 230, 234, 238, 242, 259, 266, 268–270 unconditional, 230 verdicts, 101, 102 voluntary, 13, 229 collaborator(s) clergy, 5, 23, 30, 53, 58, 83–85, 110, 122, 123, 129, 166, 191, 204, 267, 268 conscious, 25, 131 secret, 4, 5, 12, 23, 25, 26, 57, 59, 82–84, 88, 101, 107, 114, 122, 123, 129, 131, 145, 166,

191, 214, 226, 230, 237, 239, 267, 269 unofficial, 4, 5, 12, 83 collectivization, 95, 96, 108, 181 commemoration(s), ix, 6, 109, 237, 242, 253, 259 commission(s) church, viii, 7, 29, 35, 59, 131, 132, 148, 161, 171, 233, 236, 247–249, 251, 253, 270 history, viii, 6, 15, 253, 270 Communist Party archives, ix, 6, 107, 121, 232, 247 leadership, 74, 96, 98, 187, 233 members, ix, 56, 71, 72, 87, 99, 107, 138, 186, 190 successors, 107 compensation, viii, ix, 31, 64, 66, 148, 170, 171, 270 laws, 75 packages, 6 condemnation, 235 moral, 51 consolidation, democratic, 147 Constitutional, 27 Constitutional Court, 56, 63, 65, 67 corruption levels, 29 political, 24 court(s) cases, 17, 101, 212 military, 26 order, 115 Supreme, 61 trials, 56 crime(s) communist, vii, 22, 48, 65, 115, 136, 140, 141, 145, 148, 151, 238, 239, 258, 267 political, 48, 115, 140, 206, 238, 258 culture

INDEX

alternative, 212 democratic, 212 institutional, 190, 219 judicial, 239 legal, v of oblivion, 219 political, v, 239 popular, 190, 219 public, v, 190, 212 Czajkowski, Michał, 22, 29, 30 Czechoslovakia, 45–48, 50, 51, 54, 56, 57, 62, 63, 71, 72, 74, 76, 78–81, 86, 88, 265, 267 D de-communization, 123, 254 democracy levels, 147 liberal, 226 scores, 147 democratization, v, vii, 105 denunciation, 102, 218 deportation(s), viii, 95, 114, 118, 159, 163, 180 dictatorship atheistic, 4, 225 communist, 14, 16, 84, 85, 103, 108, 136, 137, 141, 144, 149, 152, 203, 225, 226, 231, 233, 237, 269 criminal, 136, 144 fascist, 141 Dikun, Bishop Feodosii, 247 disclosure(s), 87 public, 29, 33 dissent, 80, 82, 96, 169, 227 movements, 80 dissidence, 103, 104 Duka, Cardinal Dominik, 54, 63, 64 Du¸lbinskis, Bishop Kazimirs, 183 Dumitrescu, Constantin Ticu, 105, 106

275

E education legal, 116, 127, 211, 214 political, 77, 78, 128, 243 religious, 78, 110, 128, 159, 193, 210 election(s) church, vi, 34, 38, 39, 47, 62, 72, 73, 94, 96, 118, 119, 122, 129, 173, 194, 254 general, vi, 29, 39, 94 parliamentary, 38, 62, 73 presidential, 29, 38, 254 elite(s) communist, 127 democratic, 29, 105 political, 38, 40, 105, 226, 250, 251, 254 England, Church of, 185 European Union, 128 exhibition(s) public, 6 exile, 50, 183, 229 F fascism, 139, 266 file(s) access, viii, ix, 12, 22, 105, 131, 145–147, 195, 196, 214, 270 disclosure, 29, 131, 232 network, 215 secret, viii, ix, 5–7, 12, 17, 57, 97, 98, 106, 107, 114, 121, 131, 145, 146, 149, 166, 195, 232, 270 transfer, 196 film(s) artistic, 136 documentary, 37, 219 forgiveness private, 216, 220 public, 30, 169, 216, 233, 268

276

INDEX

Francis, Pope, 144, 149–151, 219, 267

G God, 4, 72, 199 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 183, 192, 227, 229, 232, 239, 242, 246 Greek Catholic Church, 46, 50, 76, 78, 95, 265 assets, 94, 108 clergy, 78, 108 Gulag, 95, 109, 180, 183, 205, 252, 268

H Havel, Vaclav, 56, 62 historiography, vi, 136, 167 hospital, mental, 164 Hoxha, Enver, 138–143, 150, 151 human right(s) abuses, 6, 56, 87, 136, 227, 258 injustices, 56 law, 56, 101, 102, 145, 196

I identification, 114, 139, 226, 237, 269 public, viii, ix, 6, 214, 270 identity ethnic, 114, 128 national, 26, 27, 38, 114, 203, 211, 250, 259 political, 26, 38, 132, 250, 251 projects, 114, 251 religious, 26, 27, 114, 128, 132, 169, 211, 250, 251, 259 ideology atheistic, 51, 137, 140, 246, 250 criminal, 258

official, 161, 246, 254, 255, 258, 270 political, 24, 27, 46, 115, 140, 142, 160, 204, 241, 254 impunity, 239 judicial, 239 informer(s), 9, 23, 25, 28–32, 35, 38, 40, 87, 97, 98, 196–199, 214, 216, 229, 232, 248 secret, viii, ix, 4–6, 23–25, 29, 31, 33, 38, 39, 82, 88, 97, 108, 163, 167, 173, 197–200, 206–208, 214, 227, 229, 231, 239, 268, 270 injustice(s), 56, 58, 63, 65, 146, 242 historical, 146 intellectual(s), ix, 22, 30, 32, 37–39, 100, 106, 151, 210, 215, 267 investigation(s), v, viii, 13, 14, 17, 35, 45, 236, 249, 252, 259, 266 criminal, 57, 183 Irbe, Archbishop K¯arlis, 182, 184 Iron Guard, 98, 99, 103, 106, 107, 109, 111 J Jankowski, Henryk, 22, 25, 35–38, 40 Jehowah’s Witnesses, 161 Jews, 98, 114, 118, 210, 217, 228 John Paul II, Pope, 21, 28, 54, 62, 81, 144, 149, 150, 208, 209, 227, 248, 267 judiciary, 26, 39, 46 justice criminal, 56, 57 incomplete, 136, 148, 226 legal, v, 213, 265 procedural, 13 restorative, 242, 254 retroactive, 65 social, 10, 241 substantive, 147

INDEX

system, 110, 148

K Kaczynski, ´ Jarosław, 21, 29, 33, 34, 39, 41 Kaczynski, ´ Lech, 29, 33, 34 KGB, 36, 53, 106, 120, 160, 163–167, 174, 179, 181, 182, 184, 187, 188, 191, 192, 195–200, 204–209, 214–218, 220, 225, 227–234, 236, 238, 239, 242, 247–249, 252, 258, 266, 268–270 Khrushchev, Nikita, 160, 162, 189, 246 Korea, 185

L landscape(s) public, 158 legitimacy democratic, 226 moral, 65, 127 political, 38, 100, 132 popular, 132 revolutionary, 39 Lukashenka, Aliaksandr, 254 lustration debate, 22, 26, 30, 34, 37, 39 efforts, 55, 266, 267 informal, 22, 29, 35 late, 28, 214 laws, 21, 22, 26, 27, 39, 56, 87, 100, 145, 214, 266, 267 measures, 16, 58, 146 moral, 22, 26, 28, 29, 31, 35, 242 process, 30, 56, 86, 214, 220 programs, viii, ix, 16, 26 Lutheran church, 73, 88, 158, 159, 163, 168, 169, 173, 174, 180,

277

182–185, 187, 188, 193–199, 270

M Marina, Patriarch Justinian, 95–97, 104, 107, 109 martyrdom, 62, 144, 150, 151 martyr(s), 34, 49, 62, 104, 113, 131, 144, 149–151, 169, 211, 226, 235–238, 245, 251, 252, 259, 267, 269, 270 Marxism, 141 Marxism-Leninism, 4, 82. See also Marxist-Leninist ideology Marxist-Leninist ideology, 51 Matulaitis-Labukas, Bishop Juozapas, 206 Matulis, Archbishop Janis, 191, 197 media, 11, 16, 22, 26, 30, 32, 38, 84, 208, 209, 211, 212, 216, 219, 254, 257, 258 channels, 7 memorialization, ix, 45, 61, 204, 211, 219, 270 practices, viii projects, 6 memorial(s) sites, 237, 254, 255, 258, 259, 270 memory archival, 84, 87, 252 art of, 136 communist, v, vi, 211, 231, 237, 241, 242 cultural, 250, 251, 259 individual, 83, 86 institutional, 131 institutions, 131, 219, 253 official, 254, 255, 258, 270 policies, v, vi, 231, 237, 242, 254, 258, 259, 270 politics, v, vi, 255

278

INDEX

public, 36, 83, 87, 212, 254, 255, 259, 270 social, vi sites, 211, 219, 237, 253–255 sources, 257 unofficial, 83 Mesters, Archbishop Eriks, 194, 197 Mikloško, František, 84, 88 militia, 119 Moisescu, Patriarch Iustin, 96, 97, 106, 111 monastery, 15, 48, 62, 76, 96–99, 104, 119, 193, 228, 231, 234, 243, 244, 250, 251, 257 monument(s), 35, 37, 63, 141, 219, 255, 256 morality, 85, 128, 194, 210 Moscow, 94, 95, 106, 108, 118, 181, 182, 185, 187, 189, 191, 193, 198, 207, 215, 230, 232, 234, 236, 237, 242, 244, 245, 248, 249, 251–253, 255, 257, 259, 268, 270 museum(s) history, 6, 137, 147, 152 memorial, 61 national, 135–137, 151, 152, 219 Muslim(s), xi, 94, 114, 138, 139, 141, 150, 179, 210, 228, 246, 256

N National Awakening Movement (Latvia), 193 nationalism, 51, 143, 167, 169, 234 Nazi(s), 11, 50, 66, 159, 186, 217, 252 Nicholas II, Tsar, 235 nomenklatura, 192, 199 nostalgia, 254

O oblivion culture, 219 officer(s) police, 25 propaganda, 98 security, 25, 31 office(s), 7, 36, 49, 74, 86, 97, 98, 148, 149, 160, 190, 194, 206, 227, 230, 232 public, 26, 101, 214 opposition anti-communist, 35, 40, 53 democratic, 21, 27, 29, 105, 257 nationalist, 169 open, 118, 121, 258 parties, 29, 34 political, vi, 40, 103, 105, 180, 184, 193, 248, 253, 254, 257, 258 oppression, 78, 82, 87, 199, 203, 204, 218, 219, 241 Orthodox Church Bulgarian, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119, 122, 123, 126–132, 269 Estonian, 158, 161, 233 in Belarus, 241–244, 246, 249–251, 253, 255, 257, 259 in Lithuania, 161, 215, 250 in the Czech Lands, 48, 52 Romanian, 93, 95, 100, 103–106, 108, 110, 268 Russian, 50, 53, 161, 179, 185, 187, 215, 225–232, 234–238, 241, 242, 244, 245, 248, 249, 251–253, 255, 258, 259, 266, 269 owner(s), 63, 88, 213 P Pajula, Archbishop Kuno, 167 Parliament

INDEX

European, 39, 41 Peace, 52, 80, 146, 149, 185, 186, 188, 190, 195, 231 Pentecostal(s), 95, 161, 179 perestroika, 192, 229, 242 perpetrator(s), 12, 13, 17, 235 communist, 12, 17, 148, 151, 235, 238, 267 persecution(s), 47, 48, 50, 59, 64, 77, 78, 85, 86, 88, 96, 137, 138, 140–142, 145, 146, 149, 150, 152, 171, 179–181, 189, 195, 199, 211, 213, 216, 219, 225–227, 231, 234, 235, 237, 242, 247, 251, 257, 267, 270 personnel, 9, 53, 55, 58, 75, 97, 182, 211 Pius XI, Pope, 74 Pius XII, Pope, 74 Plojhar, Josef, 49, 51–53, 67, 81 Põder, Archbishop Andres, 168–170 police agents, 23, 25, 59, 100, 106, 188, 207, 228, 232, 234, 247, 248 archives, vi, ix, 17, 25, 59, 106, 114, 145, 146, 166, 217, 226, 269 collaborators, 25, 53, 56, 57, 59, 81, 83, 95, 101, 102, 108, 109, 114, 129, 131, 145, 166, 266, 267, 269 file(s), 17, 22, 24, 31, 40, 57, 105, 114, 129, 131, 145, 146, 232 forces, ix, 56, 245 informers, viii, 23–25, 39, 105, 108, 163, 207, 229, 232 officers, 25, 56, 188, 234 officials, vi, ix, 50, 83, 100, 146, 208, 226, 258, 270 political, vi, ix, 22, 24, 39, 166, 179, 267

279

secret, viii, 17, 22–26, 32, 50, 53, 56, 59, 80, 82–84, 93, 105, 110, 114, 129, 131, 145, 146, 161–163, 165, 166, 179, 188, 192, 204, 206, 207, 217, 225, 228, 229, 232, 233, 238, 242, 245, 247, 249, 266, 267, 269 surveillance, 101 policy(ies) memory, v, vi, 231, 237, 242, 254, 258, 259, 270 of denial, 234, 238 of forgetting, 231 of silence, 239 systematization, 267 Popiełuszko, Jerzy, 30 prison guards, 6 memoirs, 32 political, 67, 100 saints, 103, 108, 109 system, 95, 183, 205 term, 61, 117, 206 prisoner(s), 7, 57, 100, 256 political, ix, 86, 183 propaganda, vi, 53, 77, 78, 141, 143, 159, 160, 162, 163, 185, 186, 189, 191, 192, 212, 214, 227, 232, 238, 246 anti-Soviet, 186, 204 officers, 98 prosecution(s), 6, 145, 151 criminal, 145, 151 protest(s), 3, 54, 76, 100, 183, 208, 209, 220 Pujats, Cardinal Janis, 195, 198 punishment(s), 24, 66, 78, 105, 146, 161, 183, 270 capital, 140 R Radio Free Europe, 100, 209

280

INDEX

Radio Maryja, 22, 32, 34 Radio Voice of America, 209 recollection(s), 41, 168, 174 reconciliation, v, 58, 66, 142, 148, 149, 267 national, v Red Army, 159, 163, 180 re-education, 48, 143 reformed church, 244 regime(s) atheistic, vi, 51, 78, 104, 144, 181, 204, 225, 231, 238, 243 change, 29, 53, 54, 81, 116, 162, 166, 170, 184, 193, 225, 243 democratic, 29, 51, 186 dictatorial, 3, 10, 29, 148, 151, 179 legal, 4, 94, 116, 164, 170, 172, 210, 213, 256, 258 military, 24, 48, 164 Nazi, 11, 50, 252 occupation, vii, 130, 158, 169, 171, 173, 180, 181, 216, 243, 252 political, vi, 9, 10, 24, 35, 46, 48, 52, 72, 73, 81, 93, 96, 105, 115, 160, 163, 164, 166, 182, 188, 204, 213, 235, 242, 243 Stalinist, 23, 46, 95, 252, 258 totalitarian, 56, 72, 87, 200 rehabilitation, viii, ix, 6, 58, 61, 86, 109, 226, 248, 270 religion, vii, x, xi, 27, 46, 47, 49, 57, 58, 71, 78, 94–96, 98, 102, 110, 120, 121, 127, 128, 137–141, 149, 158–162, 164–166, 168–170, 172, 173, 179, 182, 184, 186, 189, 190, 192, 193, 205, 206, 208, 210, 227, 234, 235, 243, 246, 247, 250, 258, 267 remembrance public, 254 reparation(s), 136, 137

repression, ix, 46, 47, 49, 51, 55, 61, 66, 95, 115, 117–120, 124, 137, 160, 161, 163–165, 174, 180, 192, 204, 205, 213, 220, 226, 230, 235, 242, 243, 246, 250–256, 258, 259 resentment, 37 resistance armed, 204 Christian, 50, 80, 82, 103 groups, vi, viii, 22, 166, 182, 204 heroes, 211 movement, 51, 208 passive, 51, 167 popular, 124 symbolic, 219 underground, 208, 213 responsibility, 7, 13, 87, 139, 169, 172 restitution, 45, 62–65, 210 property, viii, ix, 6, 56, 58, 62, 66, 86, 110, 148, 204, 210, 212, 256, 267, 270 retribution, 58, 66, 218, 267 revolution, 3, 10, 11, 29, 39, 100, 105, 140, 242 Ridiger, Patriarch Alexy II, 167 right(s) abuses, vii, 56, 87, 136, 227, 258 civil, 27, 226 constitutional, 116, 205 individual, 25, 27, 56, 101, 137, 256, 268 law, 27, 28, 116, 196, 212, 213 political, 30, 38, 128, 171, 206, 241 to access, 145, 196 to appeal, 101, 217 to education, 137, 195, 213 to exist, 265 to leave, 165 to life, 102

INDEX

to rule, 242 violations, 137, 145, 226 Roman Catholic Church, 21–23, 28, 33, 36, 38, 45–47, 51, 52, 55, 58, 61, 62, 65–67, 71, 73, 74, 76, 94, 180, 181, 183, 185, 187, 189, 190, 192, 195, 196, 203–205, 208, 246, 248, 265–268 Romanian Information Service (SRI), 106 S Słuzba ˙ Bezpieczenstwa ´ (SB), 22 saint(s), 54, 62, 142, 235, 237, 252 prison, 103, 108, 109 samizdat , 79, 165, 208, 213, 247 screening, 56, 58, 66, 213, 270 measures, 58 Securitate, 93, 97, 98, 101, 102, 104–109, 111, 269 security forces, 23, 24, 165, 166, 181 officers, 31 personnel, 9, 75 services, 26, 27, 87, 161, 163, 164, 173, 188, 189, 196, 206, 214, 236, 239, 247, 259 Sigurimi, 145–148, 151 Simanski, Patriarch Alexy I, 230–232 Soviet Union, v–vii, 94, 97, 98, 158–160, 163, 165, 169–171, 180, 181, 187, 192, 193, 210, 225–227, 229, 231, 232, 241, 245–247, 250, 254, 265 Springoviˇcs, Metropolitan Archbishop Antonijs, 182, 183, 185, 187 Stalinism, 241 Stasi, 4–17, 266 State security, 5, 7, 9, 11, 17, 23–27, 30, 33, 36, 37, 59, 76, 79, 82–88, 114, 120–123, 129–131,

281

167, 181, 186, 188, 198, 207, 214, 217, 247 Státní bezpeˇcnost/Štátna bezpeˇcnosˇt (ŠtB), 50, 53, 55–59, 62 Steponaviˇcius, Bishop Julijonas, 209 Stragorodsky, Metropolitan Sergei, 230 surveillance, viii, 5, 9, 12, 29, 101, 103, 106, 108, 164, 182, 229, 239 T Teresa of Kolkata, Mother (Bojaxhiu), 149, 150 terror, 46, 58, 204, 246, 251, 252, 256 sites, 219 testimonial(s), 107, 152, 236 textbook(s) history, 137 Tischner, Józef, 39–41 Tomášek, František, 47, 49, 52–55, 62, 66 totalitarianism communist, 27, 72, 87, 88 transition negotiated, 7 outcomes, vi transparency, 24 trauma, 110 trial(s), ix, 49, 56, 57, 61, 75–78, 117, 139, 147, 148, 206 trust, x, 150, 238 public, 195, 218 truth, v, 4, 54, 60, 138, 148, 149, 216, 239 telling, 109 U Underground church, 54, 55, 58–61, 215

282

INDEX

United States of America, 98, 100, 190, 255 V Vaivods, Archbishop Julijans, 190, 191, 193, 197 Vakhromeev, Metropolitan Filaret, 248, 255 value(s) Christian, 193, 195 cultural, 192, 250 democratic, 151 European, 250 human, 26, 151 liberal, 226 moral, 26 national, 26 political, 226, 250 religious, 26, 63, 151, 192 social, 195, 218 Vanags, Archbishop Janis, 195, 196, 198, 199 Vatican Second Council, 9, 191, 192, 195, 206, 219 vetting, 21, 22, 24, 26, 39, 102, 238, 269 victimhood, 168 victimization, viii, 85, 106, 238 national, 106 victimizer(s), 110 victim(s), vi, viii, 6, 12, 13, 17, 26, 27, 29, 31, 34, 36, 38, 58, 61, 64, 66, 82, 86–88, 93, 103, 107–111, 113, 115, 117,

119, 127, 129, 131, 136, 137, 140, 144, 146, 148, 158, 163, 168, 173, 174, 200, 204, 211, 215, 220, 226, 235, 237, 238, 242, 251–253, 255, 258, 259, 267–270 political, vi, ix, 26, 103, 168, 213, 242, 252, 256 Viilma, Archbishop Urmas, 173 violence, 242, 251 physical, 77, 130 psychological, 77, 189 Vlk, Cardinal Miloslav, 58–63, 67

W Wał˛esa, Lech, 22, 27, 35–37 War Cold, 52 Korean, 186 World I, 179, 245 World II, 11, 46, 50, 66, 114, 115, 161–163, 165, 167, 170, 179, 180, 182, 184, 189, 199, 231, 245, 246, 254, 258 Wielgus, Archbishop Stanisław, 22, 32–35, 37, 59, 216, 220, 268 World Council of Churches, 98, 104, 130, 191, 227, 229 Wyszynski, ´ Cardinal Stefan, 23, 24

Y Yakunin, Gleb, 228, 231, 232, 234, 236, 247–249, 259 Yugoslavia, vii