Życie religijne w późnym ZSRS: listy i petycje wierzących w warunkach zimnej wojny
Religious Life in the Late USSR: The Letters and Petitions of Believers in the Conditions of the Cold War

Summary/Abstract: In this article, the author’s attention focuses on ordinary believers representing variousdenominations in the Soviet Union who became actors in the Cold War. Using materials from the archives of the highest governing Soviet bodies, she presents how believers used a legal channel of communication, converting it into a form of protest and filling it with new contents. The letters became not only a means of communication with the bodies of Soviet authority, but in some cases, they had international resonance, thus gaining the interest of such Western organizations as Keston College, Gaube in der 2. Welt, or Amnesty International.Evangelical Christians, particularly Baptists, were pioneers in fomenting large-scale petition campaigns; in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they practiced sending letters containing detailed descriptions of repressive measures aimed at non-registered religious communities signed by numerous believers. Both Orthodox Christians, who asked that their churches be opened once more, and Catholics made use of this means of communication. The author of the article in particular focuses on the open letter of the leaders of the Catholic Church in Lithuania in 1977 in which they suggested that the new Soviet constitution take into consideration religious liberties.

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