Persecution of Christians in the Eastern Bloc
[2][3] Across Eastern Europe following World War II, parts of the former Nazi Germany liberated by the Soviet Red Army and Yugoslav Partisans became one-party communist states and the project of coercive conversion to atheism continued.
[4][5] The Soviet Union ended its war time truce against the Russian Orthodox Church, and extended its persecutions to the newly communist Eastern bloc.
[10]: 47 [11][page needed][12] As a part of its anti-religious campaign, the Communist Party destroyed churches, mosques and temples, ridiculed, harassed, incarcerated and executed religious leaders, flooded the schools and media with anti-religious teachings, and introduced a belief system called "scientific atheism", with its own rituals, promises and proselytizers.
Historical essayist Andrei Brezianu expounds upon this situation, writing that scientific atheism was "aggressively applied to Moldova, immediately after the 1940 annexation, when churches were profaned, clergy assaulted, and signs and public symbols of religion were prohibited"; he provides an example of this phenomenon, further writing that "St. Theodora Church in downtown Chişinău was converted into the city's Museum of Scientific Atheism".
[24][25] Nevertheless, historian Emily Baran writes that "some accounts suggest the conversion to militant atheism did not always end individuals' existential questions".
[29] In its efforts to destroy organized religion, the Czechoslovak government emulated many practices of the anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union, such as creating bodies to control religious activities and punishing priests who failed to comply with the many laws on religion;[29] the Catholic Church in particular was targeted due to its historical alliance with the nobility during the Austro-Hungarian Empire, leading to the state labeling Catholic clergy as enemies of the people.
[31] Early on in the history of the German Democratic Republic, churches were given many rights and provisions in comparison to other Eastern Bloc countries under Articles 41–48 of the 1949 Constitution, such as the capacity to take a position on public issues and establish religious schools.
Religion became contested ground, with the governing SED promoting state atheism,[33] although some people remained loyal to Christian communities.
[35] The experiences in World War II, wherein the large Jewish minority was annihilated by the Nazis and the large German minority was forcibly expelled from the country at the end of the war, as well as the loss of the eastern territories that were heavily populated by Eastern Orthodox Ukrainians, led to Poland becoming more homogeneously Catholic than it had been in previous times.
[38] As in most other Communist countries, religion was not outlawed as such (an exception being Albania) and was permitted by the constitution, but the state attempted to achieve an atheistic society.
Persecutions of individuals for religion in the first few years were rare, because the state initially was concerned strictly with suppressing armed political resistance.
[1] All social and charitable organizations affiliated with the church were made illegal, Catholic schools were closed, crosses were removed from classrooms and hospitals, and a terror campaign was enacted against parishes and monasteries (which included the notable arrest of a group of Jesuits headed by Father Tomasz Rostworowski).
The seminary was situated in Eastern Poland, it employed former residents of the territory annexed by the USSR in 1939, and it had caused great concern to the government, provoking its brutal closure.
[citation needed] Polish society was prepared for the post-World War II persecutions due to its long history prior to the Bolshevik revolution of operation underneath the rule of regimes that were hostile to it.
[1] Underground universities taught uncensored history and ethics lessons, and many people openly attended church in protest against the Communist government.
A notable feature of the anti-religious campaign in Poland included "patriot priests" who opposed the church hierarchy and supported Communism.
[1] The "Oasis" movement was created in the 1960s by Father Franciszek Blachniki, and it consisted of church activities including pilgrimages, retreats and various ecumenical endeavors.
[41] Wyszynski provided a significant obstacle to the Communists taking control of the church in Poland; he died in 1981 and was replaced by Cardinal Josef Glemp.
During his visit, he bluntly challenged communist ideology by declaring that Christianity was the route to true human freedom as opposed to Marxism and called people to non-conformance.
[35] The church in Poland played a key role in the revolution against the regime in the 1980s and provided symbols (the Black Madonna, the suffering Christ, etc.)
Some exceptions occurred, such as Father Piotr Poplawski, an Orthodox priest openly sympathetic to Solidarity who died in 1985; his death was officially listed as a suicide, although such a claim was disputed by the doctors responsible for his autopsy.
[36] In the Gdańsk Agreement, an accord reached between the Polish government and striking shipyard workers, the church was given permission to perform radio broadcasts.
[39] The Romanian Orthodox Church had a long history of submitting to foreign rulers, and when the communists took power after the Soviet army occupied Romania, that was used to their advantage.
Under the doctrine of Marxist–Leninist atheism, the People's Republic of Romania took a hostile stance against religion, and set its sights on the ultimate goal of an atheistic society.
In 1948, in order to minimize the role of the clergy in society, the government adopted a decree nationalizing church property, including schools.
As Nicolae Ceausescu increasingly gained control, the only religious bodies that provided significant dissent to the regime were evangelical Protestants, who formed only a small portion of the population.
The Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church supported Ceausescu up until the end of the regime, and even congratulated him after the state murdered one hundred demonstrators in Timișoara.
[45] At the close of World War II, certain religious leaders were imprisoned or executed on grounds that they were either spies for the Italian protectorate government or affiliated with Balli Kombëtar, an anti-communist collaborationist militia.
Church centers were moved to holy sites to marginal, out-of-the-way locations and religious leaders were then relegated to what was essentially house arrest within them.
Young people were encouraged to attack places of worship and to turn in remaining clergy to the authorities, who would then either kill them or send them to penal labor camps.
