Nikonov V. V.

The Closure of Churches in the USSR in the Early 1930s (at the Example of the Church of Our Lady of Vladimir  in the Village of Kraskovo in the Ukhtomsk District  in the Moscow Region) Р. 49-58.

UDC 281.93(470.311)«193»

DOI 10.37724/RSU.2022.76.3.006

Abstract. The article treats the mechanism of the closure of churches in the Soviet Union in the 1930s at the example of the Church of Our Lady of Vladimir in the village of Kraskovo in the Ukhtomsk District of the Moscow Region (now it is in the Lyubertsy District). In the Soviet Union, all church activities were  regulated by the Decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of Peopleʼs Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic “On Religious Organizations” which was issued in April 1929 and triggered off an avalanche of church closures. In 1930-1931, the church closure procedure was elaborated. Soviet society was brainwashed and hostile to the church and religion in general. The analysis of factory councilsʼ and village councilsʼ minutes shows that people expressed unanimous desire to close churches in order to use the buildings for some public needs. Local dwellers expressed their wish to close a church and regional authorities granted the wish and issued a decree. The analysis of the closure  of the Church of Our Lady of Vladimir in the village of Kraskovo (one of the oldest churches in the Moscow Region) enables a researcher to investigate the procedure. The article concludes that the Soviet Unionʼs church policy was characterised by religious oppression, mass and unjustified church closures, illegal document procedures, neglect of petitions put forward by believers protesting against church closures. The article  is based on the materials of the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the Central State Archive of Moscow, and the Central State Archive of the Moscow Region.

Keywords: antireligious policy, church of Our Lady of Vladimir, church closure, Kraskovo, Moscow Region, Russian Orthodox church, Ukhtomsky district.

 

References:

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