The Russian Orthodox Church

Question 1

An alternative ideology to Marxism is

Answer 1

A threat to the imposition of socialist iegology

Question 2

What element of Christianity conflicted with the collective mentality of socialism?

Answer 2

Emphasis on the rights of the individual

Question 3

The Bolsheviks were ATHIESTS. To them religion was just

Answer 3

Superstitious nonsense

Question 4

Lenin’s personal hatred for _________ informed the PACE and TONE of Bolshevik policy

Answer 4

Priests

Question 5

How was the Royal Orthodox Church tied closely to the old order?

Answer 5

Tsar was it’s old head (appointments within made only with his approval —> support purposes of state)

Majority of the population took the world of their spiritual leader seriously.

Question 6

It was a big task to destroy the influence of the church and indeed of religion, but there was to be no ___________ other than communism

Also, the concern that the power and influence of the Royal Orthodox Church as an instrument of social control posed a threat to ___________ and _____________

Answer 6

Opium of the masses

Government control
Socialist values

Question 7

Why was the Royal Orthodox Church not a supporter of the new regime?

Answer 7

Owned land- same interest as landed classes

Conservative

Question 8

The church had a hold over the _______ population that was useful.

Answer 8

Rural

Question 9

When was the phrase “Opium of the masses” first used? By who(m)?

Answer 9

1843

Marx

Question 10

Explain the phrase “Opium of the masses”, according to Marx.

Answer 10

Religion was used by the ruling classes to COTROL the population

It gave people an artificial sense of happiness by DISTRACTING them from their sufferings

REAL HAPPINESS can only be achieved if religion is abolished
(The government had to use propaganda, however, to get people to discover this)

Question 11

When was Decree on Freedom of Conscience?

Answer 11

2/2/1918

Question 12

What did the Decree on the Freedom of Conscience do?

Answer 12

• SEPARATED Orthodox Church from state & it lost its privileged status
• DEPRIVED roc of LAND without compensation
• PUBLICATIONS OUTLAWED, all RE outside home banned

Question 13

By the end of 1918, which church figure was under house arrest?

Answer 13

The head of the Russian Orthodox Church—

Patriarch Tikhon

Question 14

What happened to a large number of churches under Lenin?

Answer 14

They were destroyed, or converted to other purposes

Question 15

What did Lenin do to monasteries?

Answer 15

Closed them all

Question 16

During the Civil War famine, what happened to religion?

Answer 16

• Attacks on Church increased
• Valuable objects seized to pay for goods
• PRIESTS: deprived of vote/ denied rations/ victims of Red Terror
• by 1923, 28 bishops and over 1,000 priests killed

Question 17

By 1923, how many

a) priests
b) bishops

Had been killed?

Answer 17

Over 1,000

28

Question 18

When was the Red Terror?

Answer 18

1921-22

Question 19

Name two things priests were deprived of during the civil war, and one thing they were victim to

Answer 19

Vote
Rations

Red Terror

Question 20

When was the League of the Militant Godless established?

Answer 20

1929

Question 21

What events did the League of the Militant Godless used to disprove god (as part of the Bolshevik’s propaganda campaign against religion)?

Answer 21

Took peasants in plane rides to show them heaven didn’t exist in the sky

Ridiculed weeping icons— showed how they could be made to operate with rubber squeezers

Question 22

Lenin _____ religious rituals.

What did a campaign aim to replace baptisms with?

Answer 22

Attacked

“Octoberings”

Question 23

New names encouraged by Bolsheviks

Answer 23

Ninel

Revolyutsia

Question 24

What did the scale of Lenin’s attack’s result in some church leaders doing?

Answer 24

Seek accommodation with state

Question 25

When did Patriarch Tikhon die?

Answer 25

1925

Question 26

Patriarch Tikhon’s death —>

a) which figure (very/second most important in the Russian Orthodox Church)
b) called on church members to do what?

Answer 26

Metropolitan Sergei of Moscow

Support the government

Question 27

The accommodation with the state that the religious policies of Lenin drove (although MOST refused) set a new tone.
This tone resulted in?

Answer 27

Less strident attacks by the government.

Question 28

End of the 1930s. What fraction of all village churches were not operating or destroyed?

Answer 28

4/5

Question 29

The Bolsheviks managed to restrict the church, but they couldn’t

Answer 29

Stamp out it’s influence

Question 30

Mid 1920s survey of peasantry found that

Answer 30

55% were still active Christians