The Impact of the Anti-Religious Policy of Soviet State on the Financial and Economic Activities of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1964–1982 (Using the Perm Diocese as a Case Study)

Abstract

This article examines the influence of the Soviet state policy on the financial and economic activity of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Brezhnev era of stagnation. The author analyzes unpublished documents from the collection of the Council for Religious Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers (of the State Archives of the Russian Federation), the collection of the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs in the Perm Region (of the State Archives of the Perm Krai), as well as the collection of the Perm Regional Committee of the CPSU (of the Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History), and the archive of the Perm Diocesan Administration, and also the results of his own fieldwork. The article considers the main sources of income (rites, candle sales, voluntary donations) and expenses (repairs and maintenance of churches, contributions to the Peace Fund and the Fund for the Preser­vation of Historical and Cultural Monuments) of the Orthodox communities in Perm Diocese. The income and expenses of the candle workshop at the Perm Diocesan Administration are separately identified, specifically the number of candles produced and sold in different years, production costs, taxes paid, and profits. The researcher has established that the process of financial and economic recovery of the pari­shes of the Russian Orthodox Church began in the second half of the 1960s. It resulted in increased parish revenues and expenditures on the repairs and maintenance of the churches. However, the authorities made significant efforts to limit the church income, the candle production, and the restoration and renovation of the churches. Based on the memoirs of the contemporaries, the research revealed that officials were guided primarily by the anti-church policy of the Soviet state which continued during the Brezhnev period. The analysis of the financial and economic activities of the Perm Diocese parishes led to the conclusion that in the early 1970s the authorities succeeded in reducing the church income from the candle sales and redirecting the funds used for the repairs and maintenance of the churches to the Soviet charitable foundations. However, those measures only resulted in a partial reduction in the church income and failed to fundamentally reverse the trend toward an annual increase in the overall income. In subsequent years, changes of the state policy toward the Church led to some easing of the financial pressure on parishes and facilitated both resumption of essential construction and repair works in the churches, increase in the candle production and sales, and reduction in the contributions to Soviet funds.