TO THE QUESTION OF HOW THE WORLD WAR II INFLUENCED THE DYNAMIC OF RELIGIOUSNESS OF THE ORTHODOX POPULATION

The beginning of the war which stimulated the process of evolution of the Soviet system led to great changes in the position of Church in the USSR. Many secular and church authors consider the fast growth of the Orthodox religiousness as one of the aspects of orthodox revival. The number of people attending churches and taking part in the church services, and patriotic activity of the Russian Orthodox Church are usually mentioned as criteria of such growth. In the works of modern historic scientists this religious revival appears inevitable under the burden of the war.However, the mentioned theses are not confirmed with convincing facts. First of all, the antagonistic tendency is not taken seriously: war ordeal sharpens the problems of belief and some people break with church. At the end of the war, after normalizations of the relationship between the church and the state the number of people attending orthodox churches did not reach the level of the pre-war statistics. The donations collected by the parishioners took only 0.25% of the total number in the fund of defense which was supported by the whole population of the country. The population of the Middle Ural required less christenings, burial services or weddings by the end of the 40s.The sociological results the Russian researchers got in 1960s are ignored in the modern works. Moreover, these results were in favour of the secularization in the society which continued with the same progress as before the war. Thus, the conclusions about the revival of the orthodox religiousness typical for the modern historiography are not confirmed. We suppose that the war-years didn't bring important changes in the religious background. However, the consequences of the so-called "Stalin concordat" let the orthodox religion merge into every-day reality and parishioners feel much better than before it.

Keywords

Authors

References