Specific Features of the Legal‑Regulatory Regime Governing Relations between the Soviet State and the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1940s–1980s

The paper presents a historical and legal study of the regime governing relations between the Soviet State and the Russian Orthodox Church from the 1940s to the 1980s. It argues that Soviet legislation on religious cults during this period did not establish a mechanism for implementing the freedom of conscience proclaimed by the Constitution of the USSR. On the contrary, it created a distinct regime of legal toleration that defined the limits of what was permissible for the Russian Orthodox Church within the Soviet legal order. The study identifies the specific features of the registration regime, property restrictions, permissible forms of religious activity, and the multi‑level supervisory and sanctioning mechanism as interconnected components of a unified system of formal legal constraints. Drawing on an analysis of constitutional provisions, decrees and resolutions of 1918 and 1929, acts of the Council of People's Commissars (Council of Ministers) of the USSR issued in the 1940s–1960s, the 1961 Instruction on the Application of Legislation on Religious Cults, and subsequent law‑enforcement practice, the paper examines the mechanisms through which legal boundaries on the religious activities of the Russian Orthodox Church were established and maintained. It concludes that this regulatory regime institutionally entrenched the primacy of the Soviet State's political and ideological objectives over the legal status of religious associations and secured a system of managed loyalty on the part of the Russian Orthodox Church through procedural filters and sanctions.

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