Kirche und Gesellschaft in der Sowjetunion
Church and Society in the Soviet Union

Summary/Abstract: One of the most interesting changes in Soviet society during the Brezhnev era is the growing interest in religious issues, which is reflected in a growing shift towards religious communities, in nearly all areas of the Soviet Union and in almost all faiths. It is still too early today to be sure of the rank we have to accord to the religion factor in the evolution of Soviet society. The causes of change are evidently quite different from those of the Second World War, in which, as is well known, the religious communities celebrated a resurrection after their almost complete annihilation in the 1930s. Officially, the process could easily be explained by the threat to people or by the fact that almost all of them were still educated under non-socialist conditions. However, these patterns of explanation are failing today, when the Soviet Union is experiencing its most tranquil development so far; In view of the fact that the religious upheaval also affected the post-war generation, they fail because, not least, people find the way to religion derived from diehard atheist families. There is z. For example, the fate of Yevgeny Barabanov, born in 1946, is one of the most prominent orthodox lay theologians. He was brought up in the spirit of the party. His father was the boss of a large armaments operation. At the age of fifteen, he suddenly had a strong religious interest. He reads the Bible and painstakingly procures the theological literature, goes to church, gets baptized and hangs up icons in his room. His father has him psychiatrically examined, fortunately without findings. Yevgeny leaves his parents' house, but returns later because the parents corrected their point of view.

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