MEMORY O F THE CHURCH: THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE KOSTROMA CLERGY MEETING IN 1980 FOR CHURCH-S TATE RELATIONS OF THE SOVIET ERA

Georgy Vladimirovich Andrianov

Church Research Center of the Kostroma Metropolitanate, Kostroma, Russia

Email: director44@inbox.ru

ORCID: 0000–0001–7534–6776

Issue: № 4 (32), 2025

Pages: 157

Annotation

The article describes an event from the sphere of church- state relations of the Soviet era, which took place in Kostroma on October 17, 1980. The ordinary diocesan meeting became a unique event, assembled at the request of the Commissioner for the Council of Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR for Kostroma region. The venue of the event gave it special significance. It took place within the walls of the ancient Holy Trinity Ipatievsky Monastery in Kostroma, which was closed for worship. In official documents, the event received a standard name: "Meeting of the clergy and chairmen of the executive bodies of the churches of the Kostroma Diocese." In the background of the achievements of the Soviet system and anti-religious propaganda, the assembly was of great importance for supporting the clergy in the face of an atheist state. Soviet party workers spoke at the event along with the clergy. For this purpose, the only formal platform for cooperation between the Church and the Soviet state at that time was used — the Soviet Peace Foundation. The author has рconducted conversations with eyewitnesses and contemporaries of the event and studied the preserved archival materials. A detailed study of this event includes previously unavailable information about the state of the Kostroma Diocese in 1980 and data from the archive of the Commissioner for the Kostroma Region, as well as attribution of the event participants (55 out of 80) captured in a large group photograph taken after the meeting on the square in front of the Trinity Cathedral of the Ipatievsky Monastery. This photograph hung in the offices of many Kostroma priests until the end of the Soviet era. The article presents a small picture with the numbers of the participants and an enlarged picture on the centerfold without numbering. The appendix to the article is a list of persons who attended the meeting on October 17, 1980 (according to the numbering in the general photo). The article was prepared in connection with the 45th anniversary of the event (October 17, 1980).

Keywords

Soviet Peace Foundation, Kostroma Diocese, Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, V. A. Kuroedov, Archbishop Kassian (Yaroslavsky), M. V. Kuznetsov, Ipatievsky Monastery, church-s tate relations, religion and atheism, clergy of the Kostroma Diocese

For citation

Andrianov G. V., priest. Memory of the Church: The Significance of the Kostroma Clergy Meeting in 1980 for Church- State Relations of the Soviet Era // Ipatievsky vestnik. 2025. № 4. Р. 157–178 (In Russi an). https:// doi.org/10.24412/2309–5164–2025–4– 157–178