Kamila Pawełczyk-Dura

Opening Jewish Houses of Prayer: Legal and Administrative Arrangements and Clerical Pragmatics in the Piotrków Governorate between the End of the Nineteenth and the Beginning of the Twentieth Centuries

The article shows a revision of the religious policy of the administrative authorities of the Piotrków Governorate Government regarding the initiative of opening new Jewish prayer houses. This change of attitude is best illustrated by archival materials, mainly of the Administrative Department of the Piotrków Governorate Government, stored in the State Archive in Łódź. A detailed analysis of historical documents revealed the actual attitude of the tsarist civil authorities to Jews residing in this area. While a relatively tolerant approach to the needs of Jewish communities was observed at the end of the nineteenth century, governorate clerks rigorously blocked their progression at the beginning of the next century. The ways used to legally restrict the opening of new prayer houses and the Jewish administrative struggle with the official interpretation of the Russian Empire law are discussed in the article.

The Campaign of Confiscation of Saints’ Relics as an Element of Communist Anti-religious Politics
The elimination of religion was a fundamental ideological goal of the communist state. According to Marxist theory, religion was a product of material conditions. Working from this premise, militant atheism initially considered that religion would disappear on its own through the coming of the new society system. After the revolution the Bolsheviks started a massive persecution. When it became clear that religion was not dying out on its own, the USSR began general antireligious campaigns. One of the lesser known campaigns was confiscation of saints’ relics, carefully preserved for the purposes of veneration or as a touchable or tangible memorial.

The Post-War Metaphor of Stalin-God as Presented in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate

Until the end of 1980s, the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate was the only legitimate press organ of the Russian Orthodox Church. The publication of this journal was resumed after a break of nearly eight years on 12 September 1943, the day of the enthronement of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Sergius (Stragorodsky). Stalin’s consent to publish the religious journal showed the Church’s limited capacity to function in the political space of the Soviet state, assured to it at the end of World War II. Appreciating this gesture, the Orthodox clergy published several articles devoted to Stalin in the Journal. No other communist ever received such praise and interest from the Church either earlier or later.