Item sets
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Archangelism
The Archangelist movement grew out of the earlier Inochentist movement in 1920s Bessarabia (present day Republic of Moldova) under Romanian rule and is one of the main surviving branches of the movement. It represents a form of local vernacular Orthodoxy drawing heavily on the conservative monastic tradition. Formed around a family of brothers, most prominent of whom was Alexandru Culeac (b. 1891), the movement venerated its leaders as various heavenly or saintly persons returned to earth to battle Satan at the End of Days. Alexandru Culiac was venerated as the Archangel Michael on earth, which is how the name of the movement originates. Achangelism was viewed by both the Romanian and Soviet regimes as a more extreme and more dangerous iteration of Inochentism. This was partly due to its rejection of civic duties and eschewal of public life, its intensely apocalyptic vision and its extremely secretive nature which included the widespread use of underground chapels and subterranean hiding places. -
Church of the Turan Believers of One God
The Church of the Turan Believers of One God was a radically nationalist, racist, anti-Christian and anti-western movement founded in the 1930’s. Its theoreticians wanted to return to a form of “true Hungarian religion” which built on the ancient, pre-Christian veneration of natural laws, but also fitted with the rationalistic thinking of contemporary society. They believed in the cultural and moral supremacy of the Turanian people and their resurgence to world leadership. For Hungarians to occupy a leading role among Turanian nations, they believed it necessary to “revert” people from Christianity to their “original” religion. Although the number of followers is estimated to be rather low (some hundred people), the interwar authorities categorised them as a sect and made efforts to control them due to their very vocal opposition to mainstream Christianity and the ruling regime. -
Clandestine rituals
Persecuted religious groups were often forced to conduct their religious rituals out of the public eye. Having no legal status and being closely watched by the authorities, these communities often established permanent or temporary places of worship in hidden or underground spaces or in private houses, where they could conduct their religious services in the safety afforded by secrecy. Some groups held their meetings and rituals in open spaces (typically in isolated locations such as woods or caves), often under the disguise of various secular activities as excursions, hiking trips or family holidays. In the generally anti-religious environment of communist regimes, even members of legally recognised churches opted sometimes to hold their ritual activities in the domestic sphere for fear of various kinds of social sanction or retribution. Cases of secret rituals recorded by the secret police are present in the archival record from across the region including Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Hungary. There are examples of secretly held practices of Orthodox or Roman Catholic dissent groups as well as from the so-called sects of Protestant and Evangelical origin. Archival evidence of these rituals take various forms including confiscated images, surveillance photos, photographs and films of re-enacted rituals, descriptions in informant reports, secret police summary reports and intercepted private correspondence. -
Communication in the underground
A key to the survival of underground religious groups was the ability to be able to communicate with one another without being discovered by the authorities. To this end, they developed various communication strategies. Some, like the heavily persecuted Jehovah’s Witnesses, communicated in coded reports, operated a complex system of trusted couriers to deliver messages and religious materials and used cover names for their leaders. It was common practice amongst clandestine religious groups to rely heavily on orally transmitted messages and to use coded language, ambiguous wording and omissions in both oral and written communication. Also, part of the communication strategy of some groups was to limit the amount of information known to each individual member, thus protecting the wider network. The secret police made considerable efforts to map communication networks within the religious underground and to intercept transmitted messages as they were often of key importance in unravelling and controlling clandestine religious activities. Examples of these kinds of communication methods and techniques are abundant in secret police files. They are usually presented as evidence of the hostile and conspiratorial nature of religious communities, both because of the content of their messages and the secretive nature of their communication practices. -
Confiscated group photographs
Group and community photographs feature heavily amongst the corpus of confiscated images in the secret police archives. Such images were often taken at pilgrimages, religious festivals and special gatherings and were a means for the community to materialise communal memory and present their values and beliefs in distinctive visual form. For the secret police they were an invaluable source of information and a convenient means of tracing networks and personal relationships in the religious underground. Arrested members of groups could be forced to name individuals with to whom they had been photographed. These archives, therefore, represent an important resource for understanding how religious groups chose to represent themselves and how the totalitarian system used images of religious groups in order to identify, trace and incriminate their members. Consequently, photographs of religious groups in the secret police archives have a dual character as both religious justification and incrimination. -
Crime scene photographs
The photographic practices of the police and secret police are remarkably similar across Central and Eastern Europe and are all based on models and principles devised and taught by KGB officers. The photographic materials in secret police files, just like the texts amongst which they sit, were placed there with the intention of producing knowledge about the groups represented in order to incriminate them and exercise power over them. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, with the rapid advancement of photographic technology making it cheaper and more accessible, photography was very quickly adopted as a means to provide evidence to substantiate and elaborate written observations and reports. Photography early on became a tool of the police and state security, with photographs becoming invested with the status of “proof.” It became also one of the most important means by which the secret police could track their targets and gather convincing evidence of the activities and networks of those under surveillance. Through their internal magazines and work manuals, the secret police trained their officers both in the necessary technical requirements of the photographic operation, such as the equipment to be used in surveillance operations, as well as in the legal framework within which photographic evidence could be used. Photographs produced by the secret police fall into a number of categories, one of which is the “crime scene photograph.” Crime scene photographs recorded the environment, context and circumstances of the crime for use as data for investigations and as evidence in the courts. They were, however, not considered as a suitable replacement by the secret police to a written description but rather as a supplement. Crime scene photographs can be broken down into a number of subcategories: the Environment Photo presents the general scene and background in order to understand how the perpetrators might have moved around the scene; the Overview Photo shows the exact place where the crime took place demonstrating how different elements relate to one another; the Central Photo shows the key feature of the crime, and finally, the Detail Photo zooms in on small and important details including the incriminating object or vital clues. On Hungarian secret police photography see: Müller Rolf 2011 Titok képek nyolcvanos évek/The Secret Pictures of the Eighties. Budapest, L'Harmattan Related digital collections of police photography: -
Food
Descriptions and images of food frequently appear in secret police documentation on religious minorities and underground groups as incriminating evidence. In times of scarcity and limited resources, photographs of abundant food reserves confiscated from repressed religious groups or individuals were intended to show believers as treacherous spongers and criminal black-marketeers. In reality, it was economic hardship that often prompted religious communities to function as food banks. Religious networks redistributed food and other sources amongst their members when other formal or informal supports could non-longer ensure well-being, or in some extreme cases survival. -
Funerals and dead bodies
The topic of funerals and dead bodies is complex and wide-ranging. From their political symbolism and importance for religious memorialisation, to ideas such as what constitutes a proper burial, how particular corpses could be targeted and instrumentalist by the secret police and the importance of death rituals and beliefs, the subject touches on many intertwined themes. Even though photographs of family members or religious leaders taken after their death may seem unsettling, their intention could be to make a political statement or to indicate a change in the hierarchy of the religious community. As with any symbol, the dead body becomes effective in moments of system transformations, when the history that created the symbol is modified, drawing attention to the place of tradition in a specific society. Images of the dead bodies of children also constituted a propaganda tool used by the secret police against various religious minorities, such as Inochentists, in an effort to portray them and their rituals as dangerous and immoral. -
Images of religious leaders
The rapid development of photographic technology in the 20th century resulted in new forms of visual expression in religious field. It made the production and reproduction iconographic images more accessible to communities, both large and small, urban and rural, and offered them more creative possibilities. Groups were able to experiment and innovate utilizing new techniques of photographic production which in turn gave birth to new forms of devotional image. In Central and Eastern Europe, authoritarian regimes (sometimes in cooperation with majority or mainstream churches and denominations) attempted to regulate and control the production of non-sanctioned religious images of leaders who were not recognised by authorised religious institutions. In this context, the image of a religious leader could become a mark of creative resistance by religious groups. Some groups developed icon-style photographic images of leaders persecuted by the regime reflecting their would-be saintly identity. Such photographs, that could be mass produced and easily hidden became widespread in some contexts, especially amongst Orthodox dissenting movements. The widespread use of images of religious leaders meant that they were often found on arrested believers. Such images were useful to the secret police as they could prove membership of illegal or banned groups and allegiance to unauthorised, underground leaders. Police officers could also try to identify the social networks through which the photographs were produced and spread. As a result, secret police investigation and case files contain numerous images of religious leaders found on arrested individuals that were used as evidence during the trials. -
Inochentism
Inochentism is the name given to a religious movement that emerged in the border regions between Romania and Russia in the first decade of the twentieth century. The name of the movement derives from the name of its founder, the monk Inochentie (Innocent) of Balta (1875-1917) who attracted a large following of pilgrims to the site of the relics of a nineteenth century holy man named Feodosie Levitsky. The Russian Orthodox Church and the Tsarist authorities became concerned about the mass movement that attracted mainly ethnic Moldovans (Romanian speakers from the Russian provinces of Bessarabia, Kherson and Podolia) and took measures to prevent Inochentie from preaching his fervent message of repentance and the impending End of Days. Inochentie was exiled to the Russian far north from 1913 to 1917 during which time his followers built a utopian underground community near the town of Balta (today in Ukraine). During the Russian revolution, Inochentie was released and returned to Balta but died soon after. In the years that followed, both the Soviet and Romania authorities took extreme repressive measures to eliminate the diverse communities that had formed due to Inochentie's legacy. Inochenism is often classed alongside other Orthodox dissent movements that emerged during the first decades of the twentieth century such as the Ionnites (followers of John of Kronstadt). For further reading see: James A. Kapaló, Inochentism and Orthodox Christianity: Religious Dissent in the Russian and Romanian Borderlands (London and New York: Routledge, 2019). Related online resources: -
Religious minorities in Ukraine: Irish Research Council project
This collection of entries is funded by Irish Research Council, Government of Ireland as part of the project “Religious Minorities in Ukraine from the Soviet Underground to the Euromaidan: Pathways to Religious Freedom and Pluralism in Enlarging Europe” (GOIPD/2017/764), PI – Tatiana Vagramenko, University College Cork. The project traces the continuity and transformation of the social and political agency of religious minorities in Ukraine: from their withdrawal into fundamentalist underground in the Soviet period, to their legalization and public resurgence in post-Soviet Ukraine, and transformation into a visible and vocal public force during the Euromaidan Revolution. The project utilizes recently opened files of the Soviet secret police in Ukrainian archives. These secret documents contain unique data that can shed light on the cultural life of popular religious movements that have remained largely unknown due to restricted access to archival materials. Access to these archives has only become possible because of the political changes that Ukraine has undergone in the post-Maidan period. -
Jehovah’s Witnesses
Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) is a millenarian Christian denomination that emerged in the United States at the end of the 19th century. It first arrived in Eastern Europe during the interwar period and began to spread to all the countries that went on to form the Socialist bloc. The state authorities of the Soviet Union, Romania, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Romania considered the Witnesses a hostile organisation and denied it legal recognition. The main reasons given for the repression of the Witnesses were their American roots and close ties to their Brooklyn headquarters, their rejection of civic duties, including military service (based on their teachings of non-violence), their apocalyptic beliefs and door-to-door proselytism. Whilst under communist dictatorships, the Witnesses were accused of being spies for American imperialism, whereas under the far-right regimes that preceded them in several countries, they were considered to pose a threat as assumed communists. They became one of the largest categories of political prisoners in the socialist bloc. Being outlawed, JW were kept under close surveillance and were subjected to intense harassment: home raids, confiscation of Bibles and religious literature, mass arrests and show trials with subsequent long-term imprisonment and detention in labour camps. In Hungary, after the JWs were banned in the interwar period, hundreds of believers were arrested and taken to labour camps or concentration camps (including Auschwitz, Dachau and Buchenwald). In Romanian-controlled territories, the Witnesses faced restrictions and suffered mass arrests and police raids of homes almost immediately after the first groups started to spread there in the 1920s. By 1945, about 1,200 Witnesses had lost their lives in Germany under the Nazi regime. The Soviet authorities initiated two major deportations of the Witnesses and their families from the western Ukrainian borderland, Moldova, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia (in 1949 and 1951). The state exiled over 10,000 Witnesses and their families (including children and elderly) to Siberian and Transbaikal “special settlements”. This was the largest mass exile of a religious community in the Soviet Union (Baran 2014: 59-69). JWs in the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc ran one of the most active and complex underground networks with internal hierarchy and leadership, a coded reporting system and finances, network of printing presses, smuggling operations and clandestine communication channels. Despite mass repression, the Witnesses in Central and Eastern Europe proved remarkably resilience with the number of members steadily growing. In this collection, you will find images of JW religious literature and coded reports confiscated by secret police and used as incriminating evidence, surveillance photographs and crime scene photographs as well as various other internal top-secret documentation produced by the secret police in their work against JW underground networks. For further readings see: Baran, Emily. 2014. Dissent on the Margins: How Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It. Oxford University Press. Berezhko, K.A. 2012. Istoriia Svidkiv Egovy v Ukraini: u 5 tomakh. Feodosiia: Art-Life. Ivanenko, S.I. 2002. Svideteli Iegovy – traditsionnaia dlia Rossii religioznaia organizatsiia. Moscow: Art-Busines-Center. Knox, Z. (2018). Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Secular World: From the 1870s to the Present. London, Palgrave Macmillan. Besier, G., Stokłosa, K. eds., (2016). Jehovah’s Witnesses in Europe: Past and Present. volume 1, Newcastle upon Tyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. -
Old Calendarists
Old Calendarists, also called Stilists in some sources (referring to “old style”), are members of the Orthodox Church, mainly from the eastern provinces of Moldavia and Bessarabia, who refused to accept the reform of the religious calendar introduced in by the Romanian Orthodox Church in 1924. The solar aspect of the Revised Julian Calendar was adopted by a number of Orthodox Churches at this time including Constantinople and Greece (similar Old Calendarist movements arose within the jurisdictions of these Churches too). The Old Calendarists also opposed perceived religious syncretism, ecumenism and Freemasonry within the Orthodox Church. The movement became very popular in rural communities and their leaders were mostly Orthodox priests and monks who continued to adhere to the pre-reform Calendar. The Old Calendarist Church and communities of believers were the target of severe persecution at the hands of the state during the interwar period, often encouraged by the official Orthodox Church. Old Calendarist leaders and communities were continuously harassed and pursued by the secret police and the gendarmerie culminating in violent clashes, especially between 1934 and 1936, which led to the death and arrest of many Old Calendarist believers; these incidents were described by the authorities as "rebellions". After a short period when the Old Calendarist Orthodox Church was recognized legally by the Romanian state in 1945 under the title The Traditionalist Christian Denomination (Cultul Creștin Tradiționalist) the new communist framework for religious life introduced in 1948 no longer recognized the Church. The persecution of the Old Calendarist Orthodox Church and its members continued during the communist period. Several Romanian Orthodox Church priests and monks joined the Old Calendarist Orthodox Church including bishop Galaction Cordun who consecrated bishops providing the church with its own hierarchy. The leadership of the Church, its clergy and lay members of the community were harassed, repeatedly imprisoned and placed under constant secret police surveillance. However, the Old Calendarist Church managed to maintain a continuous and functioning religious life. During the communist period the Church made multiple unsuccessful attempts to gain legal recognition. -
Pentecostal Christianity
Pentecostalism is a form Evangelical Christianity that emerged in the US at the turn of the 20th century. The revival meeting at the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles in 1906 is popularly regarded as the beginning of the movement. Within a few decades, the movement had established itself worldwide. Nowadays it is the fastest growing branch of Christianity with over 500 million adherents (mostly from non-Western countries). Pentecostal Christianity emphasises the work of the Holy Spirit and the direct experience of the presence of God by the believer, which is often realised through gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as speaking in tongues, healing and prophecy. In Eastern Europe, Pentecostalism arrived within few years of the Azusa Street revival. The first Pentecostal churches and unions in Romania, Hungary and the Soviet Union were established in the 1920s. Between 1924 and 1938, first Pentecostal communities in Romania sent numerous petitions to the Ministry of Denominations for the recognition of their church under the name of the Baptist-Pentecostal Denomination or the Apostolic Church of God (Biserica lui Dumnezeu Apostolică). The petitions, however, were rejected and in 1930 the state authorities ordered the closure of Pentecostal houses of prayer. In Hungary, the first Pentecostal organization, the Hungarian Churches of God (Magyarországi Istengyülekezetek) was founded in 1928. In Russia and Ukraine, the first Pentecostal association was established in 1924 under the name of the Union of Christians of Evangelical Faith, led by Ivan E. Voronaev. Both before and during the communist period, Pentecostal communities were persecuted by the state authorities in Romania, Hungary, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine and across the region. The 1942 decree in Romania, signed by Ion Antonescu, banned the Pentecostal Church because of its American ties. There were even plans to deport Pentecostal groups (alongside Inochentists and others) to concentration camps in Transnistria. In the Soviet Union, hundreds of Pentecostal believers were repressed and executed during the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. The main accusations were their alleged connections with the US, refusal of military service and other civil duties, as well as religious fanaticism. In 1945, all Pentecostal churches in the Soviet Union were forcefully merged into the All-USSR Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists. Later, Romania followed the same model, merging all known evangelical groups (Baptists, Pentecostals, and Adventists) into The Federation of Evangelical Denominations. Those Pentecostal communities that refused to join the Council or the Federation were severely persecuted by the states. Throughout the communist era, Pentecostal communities were placed under the control of the state authorities (the Committee on Religious Affairs in the Soviet Union, the Ministry of Denominations in Romania, and the State Office of Church Affairs in Hungary). By implementing numerous restrictive measures they attempted to reduce the rapid growth of Pentecostalism among protestant denominations. The secret police also intruded into the internal affairs of groups that were denied official recognition, among which were numerous Pentecostal groups who had refused to join recognised religious unions. -
Photo albums
The secret police developed several methods for representing and curating visual materials stemming from surveilled groups or persons. Photo albums represent one of these, although they were relatively rarely used compared to other means of archiving and ordering photographic materials. Some of the albums we find in the secret police archival collections were compiled by secret police officers and included both images confiscated from the target person/group and images created by the secret police (surveillance or crime scene photos, images of confiscated items). These compilations were more than just a handsome, practical way of ordering visual materials: they formed a carefully structured narrative to incriminate religious groups as dangerous and hostile to the regime. As well as photo albums created by the secret services, secret police archives also contain albums that were confiscated from persons and families. Containing family portraits or shots of family events, these albums were valuable for the authorities because they provided information on family relations and friendship networks, the life histories and the social background of their owners. The police could then use this invaluable information in its operational work. -
Prisoner's letters
The letters and postcards that were written to and from detention or prison were often intercepted by the secret police or prison authorities. Such letters represent valuable sources as they enable us to both reconstruct the conditions in the prisons and labour camps as lived by members of various religious groups and also to gain an insight into the intimate details of the personal lives of individuals. Letters sent by detainees and prisoners offer us a very different picture of their authors than the one portrayed of them in police reports, court documents or in the press or police reports. They sometimes reveal the deepest emotions, struggles and thoughts of prisoners. Secret police archival documents contain letters written by both men and women. The letters written by women are particularly valuable as their reflections on how they each understood their calling and reasons for their detention are rarely captured elsewhere. -
Religious booklets and pamphlets
Publications feature heavily among the religious materials found in secret police archives or itemized on lists of confiscated materials. Most religious communities in the twentieth century promoted their ideas through the publication of religious periodicals, pamphlets and booklets which could be cheaply produced and easily distributed. Many of these items were published cheaply in shorts runs by local presses. During periods of totalitarian rule, state authorities tried to regulate or ban the production of such materials. The secret police intercepted materials sent in the post, confiscated them in house searches or uncovered them at the border when individuals attempted to smuggle them. Due to their generally small size, however, booklets and leaflets could be easily concealed. They were generally distributed through underground religious networks, both nationally and internationally, or in some cases they were distributed and sold by colporteurs (salesmen of religious literature) on markets, on trains or at pilgrimages. Many of the religious booklets and pamphlets we find in the secret police archives, which had little value for mainstream libraries and archives, are extremely rare and can be found nowhere else in state collections. Some of these materials have immense value for religious communities that were divested of their sacred materials by the state. -
Religious manuscripts
Religious manuscripts were actively searched out by the secret police and used as incriminating evidence against believers. Handwritten copies of religious hymns, poetry, prophecies, homilies, heavenly letters, magical letters of happiness, as well as music scores and handwritten copies of religious books circulated within communities when published materials were not available. The secret police often confiscated religious manuscripts and registered them within criminal files which were later stored in archives. Few such religious manuscripts survive in secret police archives today as most of them were destroyed by the secret police following the completion of operations and the conclusion of trials. In addition to the surviving examples in secret police archives, some confiscated religious manuscripts were transferred to museums of atheism or anti-religious exhibitions popular in some socialist countries. Most of the religious manuscript materials included in this digital collection are unique of their kind. -
Religious network schemes
The religious network scheme was a visual tool developed by the secret police to envision underground religious communities as centralized and hierarchical organizations. The schemes depict the network of insurgent religious and political organizations from bottom to top and include complex sets of social links and hierarchical relations as perceived by the secret police. Local religious groups are routinely represented as interconnected and subordinated ‘cells’ of highly organized vertical networks. All groups were made to fit the same organizational logic whether this reflected reality or not. At the same time, the schemes were also used to show the results in progress of secret police operations against the targeted groups. The schemes sometimes indicate which individuals had been arrested within the network and the number of arrested believers in the repressed group as well as showing which groups and individuals remained free or under surveillance. The network schemes were either printed using photo-printing technology or were hand-drawn. They were attached to secret reports or exemplary criminal files, where they served as secret police manuals of best practice. -
Secret monasticism
Monastic orders experienced various forms of repression in Eastern Europe during the 20th century: all monasteries on the territory of Soviet Union were forcibly closed after 1928 and the majority of monastic orders were dissolved by law in most satellite states. In Romania this took place in 1948–1949 and in Hungary in 1950. Upon the dissolution of these communities, many of their members were arrested or detained in designated monasteries and then forced to make their way in the secular world. Whilst a part of them chose to give up their vows, many former monks and nuns continued their monastic life in clandestine communities, some of which were literally underground, or tried to keep up their monastic practices secretly while seemingly integrated into secular life. In Hungary, they also actively participated in organising underground religious life and attracting young people to religion. As the authorities regarded monastic communities as a possible threat to the regime, they made considerable efforts to closely monitor the activities of former monks and nuns. The secret police kept track of former members of religious orders, identified their clandestine communities and mapped their networks in order to be able to make interventions when it was deemed necessary. -
True Orthodox Church
The Russian True Orthodox Church (TOC), also known as the Catacomb Church, was an umbrella term used to refer to various Orthodox communities that separated from the official Russian Orthodox Church structures in the early Soviet period and went underground. The split happened when many Orthodox communities refused to accept the infamous Declaration of Loyalty to Soviet power signed by the Metropolitan Sergii in 1927 and consequently broke with the Moscow Patriarchy. Many of the religious groups and popular movements who became part of the True Orthodox Church, however, had emerged well before the Revolution, hence, they were not formed as the direct consequence of the split. Moreover, as some historians argue, even among the communities called the True Orthodox Church not all of them rejected Sergii’s Declaration and some remained loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate. Many chose (or were forced) into an illegal underground position simply because it was impossible to comply with Soviet registration procedures and requirements for religious communities and groups (Pospielovsky 1995:174-175; Beglov 2008). Throughout the entire Soviet period, the True Orthodox Church was a target of the Soviet authorities’ repressive policies as the movement was denied official recognition and was considered a politically subversive religious organization. Soviet secret police ran multiple operation against TOC communities, their underground monasteries and churches. For further readings see: Beglov, Aleksei. 2008. V poiskakh “bezgreshnykh katakomb”. Tserkovnoe podpol’e v SSSR. Moscow: “Arefa”. Demianov, A.I. 1977. Istinno-pravoslavnoe khristianstvo. Kritika ideologii I deatel’nosti. Voronezh: Izdatel’stvo Voronezhskogo universiteta. E. L.[ Lopushanskaia]. 1971. Episkopy ispovedniki. San Francisco. Pospielovsky, D.V. 1995. Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ v XX veke. Moscow: Respublika. Wynot, Jennifer Jean. 2004. Keeping the faith : Russian orthodox monasticism in the Soviet Union, 1917-1939. Texas A&M University Press. -
Tudorists
The Tudorists are a religious group that appeared in the early 1920s in Romania and formed around the figure of Tudor (Teodor) Popescu (1887- 1963), a former Orthodox priest. The initial name of the community was the Scriptural Christians, but they soon became known as the Tudorists, after the founder of the movement. The group was outlawed for much of the interwar period but in 1939 the Tudorists was forced to merge with the legally recognized Evangelical Christians, as the state considered that they shared doctrinal similarities. The Tudorists continued to have a distinct identity inside this larger group and are nowadays known as a second branch of the Evangelical Christians. The Tudorists rejected icons and many aspects of Orthodox tradition and for this reason they were seen as a threat to both the Romanian Orthodox Church and the Romanian state, which in the interwar and wartime periods sought to build a unitary nation state through the promotion of the Orthodox faith and its association with the ethnic Romanian majority. Dumitru Cornilescu, an important member of the Tudorist community and one of Tudor Popescu's closest friends, translated the Bible into the modern Romanian language, between 1920 and 1924. This translation of the Bible is still largely used by various Neo-protestant communities in Romania. -
Underground spaces
The term “religious underground”, so often used by both the secret police and dissident religious groups during communism, had both metaphorical and literal meanings. Clandestine and illegal religious groups sometimes opted to conduct their services and meetings or to hide their members and possessions in underground spaces. This was not a phenomenon solely of the communist era however; in the history of Christianity many groups, especially monastic communities have chosen to worship and live in subterranean spaces. In Orthodox Christianity there are many examples of sacred underground complexes, which could serve as a model for the creation of new underground spaces when circumstances required it. Many different groups used underground spaces during the course of the twentieth century and examples can be found in Ukraine, Romania, Moldova and Hungary amongst both Orthodox dissent movements and so-called sects of Protestant or Evangelical origin, such as Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses. Underground places of worship were often dug specifically for the purpose although existing cellars and caves were also sometimes used. These underground spaces varied in size, complexity and artistry, from small “priest-hole” type hiding places to vast underground complexes. They were dug in both rural and urban settings but were more easily realised and concealed in the countryside. Religious gatherings conducted in subterranean spaces might demand certain changes such as the modification of the spatial and material aspects of ritual or the reduction in the number of those present a certain gatherings. Typically, the images we find in the secret police archives were taken as crime scene photographs and as such they were concerned with showing means of concealment of entrances to underground spaces, the route of entry and actual hidden space. In some cases, the secret police also captured in photographs and film the enforced re-enactment of ritual in these spaces. -
Women and Orthodox Dissent
Women often played an important and visible role within Orthodox Christian dissent movements. Even though they were often portrayed as vulnerable and the main victims of religious leaders, some archival sources present them as key leaders, proselytisers (or propagandists in the language of the secret police), providers of religious items, such as icons and prayer books, as well as staunch defenders of their belief system. In some communities it was not unusual for women to take on the role of a priest, especially when male leaders were absent, and preside over religious services for the community. In challenging the gender norms of contemporary society (many groups also encouraged sexual abstinence and the rejection of marriage), women were often accused in Orthodox Church journals such as Luminatorul and Misionarul, the state authorities and the press of being sexually promiscuous and of being the concubines of male charismatic leaders. Many women suffered detention, imprisonment and deportation as well as sickness and extreme hardships under both rightwing and leftwing dictatorships. For further readings see: “Drumul rectilin al bisericii românești” in Biserica și Școala, No.15, 11 April, 1937, p.128. “Descoperiri în legătură cu activitatea stiliștilor din Piatra Neamț” in Credința, 7 October, 1936. Pr. D. Croitoru, “Pericolul stilismului și inochentismului din Basarabia” in Misionarul, No. 1-2, January- February 1936, p. 120. Grigore Spiru, “Rasputinul Moldovei”, 1936- anti-Stilist propaganda brochure printed with the approval of the Iași Metropolitan Church. -
Archives of the Information and Security Services of the Republic of Moldova
1. History of Foundation A Special State Repository (SSR) was created within the Intelligence and Security Service of Moldova in 1992 containing the archival collection produced by the former Soviet secret police. This collection is included in the Archival Fond of the Republic Moldova. The collection includes police files created in Moldovan Autonomous Republic of Soviet Ukraine between 1924 and 1940, and in Moldovan Soviet Socialistic Republic from 1940 to 1991. This archive has not been declassified, and limited access to its fonds had been provided only to some historians during different periods after 1991. In 2010 a number of approximately 25.000 police investigation case files have been declassified and transferred to the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova, and since then these files are accessible to researchers and to the wider public. 2. Legal Commission and Task The Presidential Commission for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Moldova was created in January 2010 with the purpose of examining the crimes perpetrated by the Soviet totalitarian regime on the territory of the Republic of Moldova, and for producing a report by June 2010. The transfer of 25.000 police investigation case files to the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova had the additional purpose of providing access to these materials for researchers, the victims of the totalitarian regime, and for the wider public. 3. Material relevant to the Study of Religions The fond R-3401 of the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova contains exclusively Soviet police investigation case files. Other types of files and documents created by the police of Soviet Moldavia are still not declassified and are preserved in the archive of the Moldovan intelligence service. The police investigation case files have a specific function and structure. Their main purpose was to prove the alleged guilt of an arrested person by presenting materials and documents produced or collected during the police investigations. The first part of an investigation case file is comprised of official orders and documentation relating to the commencement of the investigation, with data about the arrested person and her or his deeds deemed as criminal. The second part of the file refers to the procedures associated with arresting and searching the victim. An inventory of objects found during the search, fingerprints, mugshots, information about the place, time and circumstances of the arrest were usually added. Stenographs of interrogation are the most extensive part of the files. They were an important device of incrimination, containing declarations made by the victims under duress, and they translated the deeds and words of the incriminated person into the language of the criminal code. The stenographs are followed by material evidence collected during the searches, that could be attached or included in an envelope. Alternatively, an envelope with confiscated materials can sometimes be found at the end of the file. These kind of materials were comprised of personal documents, letters, photographs, and religious objects (icons, booklets, books, handwritten hymns, etc.). The stenographs of the trial form a significant part of the documents attached at the end of the file including the decision of a court, and other documents and correspondents created as part of judiciary procedures. The files produced before Stalin’s death in 1953, enclose the correspondence and judiciary decisions regarding the sentence reductions applied during the post-Stalinist thaw. At the very end of the file, a decision of a court of the post-Soviet Republic of Moldova and a number of related documents can also be found. These documents were produced and added to files during the process of rehabilitation of the victims of the Soviet totalitarian regime. 4. Access for Researchers Researchers can get access to the fond R-3401 by making a request to the director of the National Archive of the Republic of Moldova (Archiva Națională a Republicii Moldova), to which a letter of recommendation from an university or from an institute should be attached. -
State Archive Branch of the Security Services of Ukraine
1. History of Foundation When Ukraine achieved independence in 1991, the Ukrainian KGB archive was inherited by the Security Services of Ukraine (SBU). On 1 April 1994 the archive was institutionalised as the State Archive of the SBU and became part of the National Archival Fond of Ukraine. In 2015, the SBU archive was placed under the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance. This allowed for the gradual declassification of its documents. The SBU archive consists of the central branch located in Kiev and regional offices located in all the regions of Ukraine. The State Archive Branch of the Security Services of Ukraine includes materials starting from the 1920s. These were inherited from the Central Registry Department at the Secret Operational Directorate within the OGPU in Moscow, which collected and preserved internal documents of the Soviet secret police. A similar archival department was set up as part of the Ukrainian branch of the Soviet security services in 1925. In the following years, with a series of restructuring reforms of the Soviet secret political police and intelligence agencies, the archive was reorganized as the First Special Department within the NKVD in 1930, later the Department “A” within the MGB, and finally the 10th Department within the KGB. 2. Legal Commission and Task The former KGB archive served solely operational needs of secret police officers, hence was unavailable for anyone else (with a few exceptions of special authorization for state-party leaders). Until the end of the Soviet period, the archive was fully classified (most of the documents were sealed with “secret” and “top secret” stamps). In 2015, on the wave of the Euromaidan Revolution, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted a series of “Decommunization” laws, among which was the law “On Access to the Archives of Repressive Bodies of the Communist Totalitarian Regime from 1917–1991”. The new legislation became a basis for a full declassification of Soviet-era archival collections held in the SBU archive. The SBU archives has the following tasks: ensuring broad access to historical information on the communist totalitarian regime that operated on the territory of the present-day Ukraine during the XX century; promotion of a better understanding of recent history in order to prevent conflicts and the repetition of crimes of totalitarian regimes in the future; restoration of historical and social justice. 3. Material relevant to the study of religion Nowadays the SBU archives houses the documents of the former Soviet security services dating from 1918 (when the Ukrainian CheKa was created) to 1991. Altogether, the archive holds over 844 million documents in 85 fonds (archival collections) with the following types of documents: - CheKa–KGB legal acts, administrative documents and correspondence - Information, statistic accounts and analytical documents (like surveys and generalized information on political, social, economic, cultural and religious life in Ukraine and Ukrainian diaspora) - Criminal cases of repressed people - Operative investigation files and agent-operational files - Personal files of agents and former employees - Publishing collection - Collection of film and photo documents The following archival collections are of particular importance for the study of religion: - Fond 16, reports from the head of the Ukrainian KGB to the Ukrainian Council of Ministers and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine. They include information on secret operations, investigation, arrests and trials of religious figures and communities - Fond 3 of the Fifth Directorate within MGB/KGB, which since 1950 was also tasked with fighting the “anti-Soviet element” among the clergy and sectarians. - Fond 1 of the Second Directorate and Fond 2 of the Fourth Directorate hold reports on agent-operational work among the clergy and sectarians from the post-war period - Fond 6 includes criminal cases of repressed and later rehabilitated religious figures - Fond 13 has a collection of published reports and brochures related to the repression of various religious groups - Fond 42 holds the file “Troika” on the deportation of Jehovah’s Witnesses from Ukraine in 1951 4. Other online resources containing materials from the SBU archive: -
National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archive
1. History of Foundation The National Council for the Study of the Securitate Archives, an institution known by its Romanian acronym CNSAS, represents the official authority that both administrates the archives of the former communist secret police in Romania and mediates public access to the files. The institution was established in 2000, after a decade of constant pressures for the opening of the secret police archives and the enforcement of lustration, with the promulgation of the Law No. 187/7 December 1999 on the acess to the personal file and the disclosure of the Securitate as a political police. 2. Legal Commission and Task The Council has the following tasks: to ensure free access of individuals to their personal files devised by the former Securitate between 6 March 1945 and 22 December 1989; to disclose former agents and collaborators of the former Securitate; to provide the necessary documentation to the victims of the communist regime who are looking for rehabilitation and legal compensation; to approve the notifications that are due to be communicated to the individuals that have been vetted; to call for the declassification of the files and of other archival materials; to coordinate all educational and research activities conducted by CNSAS; to accredit researchers; to ensure the scientific collaboration and cooperation with similar institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as with any other institution that is interested in researching the repressive mechanisms of the communist regime. 3. Material relevant to the study of religions The archive’s total holdings currently amount to over two million volumes, the equivalent of approximately twenty-five kilometers. The archive is divided into multiple fonds, as follows: Documentary Fonds on particular issues, such as religion, art etc; Penal or Criminal Fonds, which consist of the files of the individuals that were put on trial; Network Fonds, the files of people who, one way or another, collaborated with the Securitate; Informative Fonds of those individuals that were put under surveillance; the Romanian Exile Fonds; Manuscripts Fonds, which contain the materials confiscated by the Securitate. Religion and religious issues are covered in the files of the Documentary Fonds and they reflect the policies and measures adopted by the Securitate towards religious communities in the form of orders, circular letters of the multiple headquarters of the secret police, statistics, reports, photographs, so on and so forth. The Informative Fonds, which include the surveillance files, also contain important information in relation to religious issues and individuals belonging to various religious communities. The main documents that could be found in such files are: reports, notes from informers, intercepted documents (letters, manuscripts), (confiscated) photographs/materials, declarations. The Penal or Criminal Fonds are the richest sources of religious materials, as they consist of the criminal files of those individuals who were arrested for their religious beliefs and activities.They contain interrogation notes, confiscated religious materials, confiscated photographs, personal letters etc. 4. Access for Researchers Researchers can apply to become an accredited researcher with access to the reading room by following the application process outlined on the CNSAS website. -
Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security
1. History of Foundation The Historical Archives of the Hungarian State Security (Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára, ÁBTL) is a state-owned special Archives founded in 2003 as the successor institution to the Historical Office. The Historical Office was established in 1997 by an Act of Parliament as a way of satisfying demands supported by the Constitutional Court for people to have access to their secret police files and in response to the need to give the process of vetting people standing for public office, also known as lustration, a constitutional legality. 2. Legal Commission and Task The Historical Archives houses the documents of the former Hungarian State Security Organs dating from December 21, 1944 to February 14, 1990 and has the following tasks: to ensure the exercise of the right to the familiarization with their personal data for those represented in the documents of the state security police; to provide data to the organizations performing fact-finding as part of the lustration process, and to ensure the pursuit of the research activity in the archives as well as conducting and publishing research on the post-war organization and operation of the political police in Hungary and its relationship to the Communist Party, governmental organs and public security authorities as well as engaging in public educational activities. 3. Material relevant to the study of religion under communism The archival material in the Historical Archive is divided into five sections (Section 1. Documents of State Security (State Defence) Organizations and their operations 1945-90; Section 2. State security documents that do not belong to any organizational entity 1945-90; Section 3. Network, operative and investigation files 1945-90; Section 4. Collections 1944-2007; Section 5. Documents after the year 1990 1994-2005). For the the study of religion Section 3, the largest section of the archive containing investigation files, operation files, work files and enlisting files is the most important. Apart from work files collecting all reports given by individual informers, all file types contain various document types from case summaries to evaluations, action plans, handwritten or transcribed confessions, interrogation minutes, transcripts of tapped conversations, surveillance reports and confiscated materials (letters, books, manuscripts, pamphlets, images, photographs of confiscated objects). Operation and investigation files are diverse sources of visual and material religious items, while other file types mostly contain textual information on religious activities. The archive has rich material on dissenting groups within the established churches, especially the Roman Catholic Church and the activities of officially unrecognised small churches and religious communities. 4. Other online resources containing materials on religion from ÁBTL: -
National Archives of the Republic of Moldova
1. History of Foundation The National Archive of the Republic of Moldova (ANRM) was created on 3 December 1990 following the merger of the Central State Archive of MSSR with the Central State Archive for photo-cinema documents, which had been established in 1977. 2. Legal Commission and Task ANRM operates in accordance with the following regulations: Regulation on the organisation and functioning of the State Archive (approved by the Government Decision nr. 695, September 14, 2012); Law nr. 880, January 22, 1992 on the Archival Fund of the Republic of Moldova; State Archive Fund Regulation (approved by Government Decision no. 352 of May 27, 1992); Law no.133 of July 8, 2011 on the protection of personal data. 3. Material relevant to the study of religions The National Archive preserves documents relating to the political, economic, social and cultural life of Moldova from XV century to the beginning of the XXI century. There are a wide range of documents related to the history of Bessarabia as part of Romania (1918-1940, 1941-1944). The history of Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic (MSSR) since 1940 is reflected in the documents of the central administration, ministries, state committees and commissions, prosecution and judiciary bodies, industrial enterprises, cultural and educational institutions. In relation to the regulation, policing and repression of religion, in addition to the fond R-3401 transferred from Archives of the Information and Security Services of the Republic of Moldova (see entry Archives of the Information and Security Services of the Republic of Moldova), the archive also contains fonds relating to the policing, judicial and military judicial processes and state security aspects of the regulation of religious communities from the interwar period and wartime period Romania including fonds of the Director General of Police and the Security Service (1898-1942); Regional Inspectorate of the Security Services of Bessarabia (1919-1944); County Police Archives; Inspector General of the Gendarmerie and the archives of local gendarme commands, sections and posts and Records of the Military Tribunals of the Romanian 2nd, 3rd and 4th Armies. -
National Archives of Romania
1. History of Foundation The National Archives of Romania (ANR), known until 1996 as the State Archives, were officially created in 1862, after the 1859 unification of Moldova and Wallachia under Alexandru Ioan Cuza’s rule. The institution was and still is headquartered in Bucharest. Nowadays, it is subordinated to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. There are 42 regional branches, one in each county of Romania and one in Bucharest (holding documents pertaining specifically to the city). 2. Legal Commission and Task In accordance with Law 16/1996, the National Archives have the following tasks: to implement measures meant to help with the managing of the archives; to inventory, select and preserve the archival documents; to preserve the documents on microfilms; to administrate the archival data base; to edit the „Revista Arhivelor” journal, as well as other specialised publications; to ensure the training of the archivists; to authorize the temporary relocation of certain archival documents for scientific and cultural purposes; to organize and participate at international conferences for archivists; to ensure the safety and protection of the documents. 3. Material relevant to the study of religions One of the most important structures within the National Archives is The Service of the Historical and Central National Archives (ANIC), which functions as a subordinated structure. It contains more than 70 kilometers of archival documents, organized in more than 1150 collections and archival fonds, as follows: collections of documents dating from the medieval period, collections of seals, collections of personal and family documents, collections of microfilms, fonds of judicial, economic and research institutions, collections of photographies, sketches, plans, archival fonds relating to the central organizations within the former Romanian Communist Party. Materials related to church issues, as well as family collections are some of the most requested to be researched. Religion and religious issues are covered in the files of the Ministry of Cults and Arts Fond. The fond contains laws, decisions, statements, reports, lists and other similar documents referring to religious issues. The documents reflect the activity of the Ministry between 1948 and 1983, as well as the activity of the various religious communities, referred to as sects, such as the neo-protestant communities, the Greek Catholic Church, the Old Calendarists and so on. Other fonds that contain materials relevant to the study of religions are: Direcția Generală a Poliției (DGP)-The General Police Division, Inspectoratul Regional de Jandarmi-The Regional Gendarmerie Inspectorate, Direcția Generală a Poliției și Siguranței Generale- The General Police and Siguranța Division, Inspectoratul General al Jandarmeriei- The General Gendarmerie Inspectorate. These fonds mostly contain laws, orders, reports, informative notes written by Siguranța agents, interogations, personal correspondence, confiscated photos, propaganda brochures, newspaper clips, information about the state of mind of the population, the activity of religious communities and sects, such as Adventists, Baptists, Old Calendarists, Inochentists. More details about these fonds can be found here: -
The Archive of the Institute of National Remebrance, Poland
1. History of Foundation The Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance (AIPN) is part of the state office bearing the full name of the Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation (Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu), abbreviated to IPN. It was established on 19 January 1999, under an Act of 18 December 1998, and has research, educational, investigative, lustration, searching, commemorative, and archival powers. The IPN headquarters are in Warsaw, while its regional branches are located in 11 provincial cities. The main task is the prosecution of crimes against the Polish Nation from 8 November 1917, throughout the Second World War and the communist period, to 31 July 1990, as well as conducting and popularizing scientific knowledge. An important role in these activities is played by the IPN Archive. 2. Legal Commission and Task The IPN Archive and its regional branches collect materials and documents from 1917-1990, mainly devoted to the German and Soviet occupation and the communist period. The archive stores documents relating to: Polish People’s Republic (communist Poland) civilian and military security organizations (the secret police) from 1944–1990; individuals repressed for political reasons (documents originating in courts, prosecutors’ offices, and prison units); the fate of the Polish Nation from 1939 (including documents obtained from foreign archives, Polish institutions abroad, and private individuals); the crimes of Nazis, communists, and others that were committed against Poles and citizens of Poland from 1917 on. The task of the archive, apart from storing, processing, and digitizing the gathered materials, is to issue certified copies, excerpts, reproductions, etc., and make them available to victims of repression, journalists, and researchers. 3. Material relevant to the study of religion under communism The Archive of the Institute of National Remembrance contains a lot of archival material that can be used to research on religions during the communist period. This is due to the fact that in Poland, the main force that did not submit to communist authorities was the Roman Catholic Church. As a result, it was subjected to large-scale surveillance and state repression. This also applied to other religious communities, whether registered (Protestant Churches) or not (Jehovah’s Witnesses), as well as to other religious events such as miracles or apparitions (miracle of Zabłudów). The documents and materials produced and confiscated by the secret police, which were not destroyed at the beginning of the political transformation, were transferred to the IPN Archive. Among them, there are: observation and informer’s reports, operational plans, surveillance photographs and films taken with a hidden camera, transcriptions of phone taps, summary reports, and materials created by religious groups themselves but confiscated by the secret police. 4. Access for Researchers Any researcher in humanities, social or economic studies, and/or law, or a person possessing a letter of recommendation from such a researcher, can apply to the IPN for access to the archival resources. Application Information: