National Churches, Religious Policy and Free Space: A Comparison of Religious Policy in Poland, East Germany and Yugoslavia During Communism

Abstract

The goal of religious policy as executed in Communist Poland, East Germany and Yugoslavia aimed to marginalize national churches' influence on social and political life. Based on strategic interests and practical necessity, Communist Party leaders were forced to accommodate for the relevance of religious life even in an atheist environment. As national churches and regime officials engaged each other in a process of negotiated response to incentives, free spaces emerged that were located beyond the state's reach. Under this protective umbrella, these spaces became the catalyst for oppositional voices. Ultimately, Marxist religious policy created the seeds of its own demise.

Keywords:

• religious policy
• communism
• Eastern Europe
• church-state relations
• civil society

Notes

1. Stepinac's role during World War II is the subject of much historical debate. Some claim he collaborated with the Ustaša regime and hence failed to criticize the genocide against Serbs, Jews and Gypsies. Others maintain that he tempered the actions of the Ustaša and provided protection to Jew and Serb victims.

2. Based on field research in the summer of 2005 in the area of Frankfurt/Oder in the former East, individuals I interviewed confirmed that adolescents in the Jugendweihe received literature in which religion was depicted as a hindrance to social progress. This produced a considerable row within the Church between those who refused to perform confirmations to Jugendweihe graduates.

3. Interviews and exchanges with Bishop Irinej Dobrijević, SOC Bishop for Australia and New Zealand.