Decree On Separation Of Church And State

The Decree on Separation of Church from State and School from Church () is a legal act adopted by the Council of People's Commissars of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic on . The decree came into force on of the same year, the day of official publication.ДЕКРЕТ от 23 января 1918 года ОБ ОТДЕЛЕНИИ ЦЕРКВИ ОТ ГОСУДАРСТВА И ШКОЛЫ ОТ ЦЕРКВИ
/ref> It installed the secular nature of the state power, proclaimed the freedom of conscience and religion; religious organizations were deprived of any property rights and the rights of a legal entity. It laid the foundation for the deployment of atheistic propaganda and atheistic education.''Синельников С. П.'
Отмена православного образования в Советском государстве в 1917—1929 годах
// Журнал « Вестник церковной истории», 24 April 2013

The Decree was superseded by the a law of the Supreme Soviet of Russia in 25 October 1990,ДЕКРЕТ от 23 января 1918 года Об отделении церкви от государства и школы от церкви
/ref> and further superseded in the Russian Federation in 1997. The Decree is frequently shortened in academic sources to the Decree on Separation of Church and State.

Contents

The short edict is composed of 13 declarations regarding religion's role within Soviet sociocultural and political spaces. The edict was first published in the (''Collection of Legislation and Orders of the Workers 'and Peasants' Government'') in 1918 and solidified that Soviet Russia was to be a non-religious or secular society. Further, while religious observation was technically allowed (No. 3), those practicing could not threaten the public and "disturb the public order" (No. 5) by showing their religious affiliations.

Religious institutions themselves had their social influence retracted, religious teachings in public and private classrooms now banned (No.9) and were now responsible for their own well-being, no longer being financially supported nor institutionally protected by local or state government (No. 10). No. 12 and 13 denounced religious bodies from any type of land or property ownership in accordance with Soviet law at the time, while No. 4 through 8 further separated religious worship from official and public spaces, while also consolidating civic authority. No. 2 forbade state-sanctioned, special treatment of persons or Institutions based on religious affiliation, such a relationship called "Symphonia" or "Caesaropapism" and prior to the Soviet secularization campaigns, served as the premiere model for Church-State relations for Orthodox Russia.

The decree was created by a special commission which included: People's Commissar of Justice Pēteris Stučka, the People's Commissar of Education, Anatoly Lunacharsky, a member of the board of the People's Commissariat of Justice Pyotr Krasikov, Mikhail Reisner who was a well-known lawyer and professor of law at St. Petersburg University and a former Orthodox priest turned atheist, Mikhail Galkin.

The edict was signed by Vladimir Lenin under his real last name Ulyanov who acted as Chairman of Sovnarkom, or The Council of People's Commissar. His signature is joined by eight others: Nikolai Podvoisky, , , A. Schlichter, Prosh Proshian, Vyacheslav Menzhinsky, Alexander Shliapnikov, Grigory Petrovsky and the manager of the affairs of the Council of People's Commissars Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich.

The attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Decree

The attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Decree has changed over time. Immediately after the adoption of the Decree, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a number of documents sharply condemning the Decree:

For centuries, something unheard of has been happening in our Holy Rus'. People who came to power and called themselves people's commissars, themselves alien to the Christian, and some of them, to any faith, issued a decree (law) called "on freedom of conscience," but in fact establishing complete violence against the conscience of believers.

Under the pretext of "separation of Church and state," the Council of People's Commissars is trying to make the very existence of churches, church institutions and the clergy impossible.

In 1942, the church published the book '' The Truth about Religion in Russia''; in this book, as well as in the book '' The Russian Orthodox Church: Organisation, Situation, Activity'', published by the Moscow Patriarchate in 1958, an opposite opinion is expressed in relation to the Decree:

The decree of the Soviet authorities on freedom of conscience, on freedom of religious practice, removed the yoke that had lain on the Church for so many years, it freed the Church from outside tutelage. It was of enormous service to the inner life of the Church. The decree establishes freedom and guaran tees the inviolability of this freedom to all religious communities. It is also of the greatest benefit to our Orthodox Church that she has ceased to be the ruling church, a tool of the autocracy, impeding the freedom of other confessions.The Russian Orthodox Church : organization, situation, activity. - Moscow : Moscow patriarchate, 1958. - 229 с., [1
л. портр. : ил., портр.; 26 см. // p. 22">">The Russian Orthodox Church : organization, situation, activity. - Moscow : Moscow patriarchate, 1958. - 229 с., Изд-во СКАГС, 2004. — С. 124—129.
* {{cite book, author = Соколов А. В. , url = https://disser.spbu.ru/disser2/disser/Sokolov_diss.pdf , title = Государство и Православная церковь в России, февраль 1917 — январь 1918 гг. Диссертация на соискание ученой степени доктора исторических наук , location = СПб., year = 2014 , ref = Соколов

External links

Decree on Separation of Church and State
at the Marxists Internet Archive

ДЕКРЕТ ОБ ОТДЕЛЕНИИ ЦЕРКВИ ОТ ГОСУДАРСТВА
// Древо. Открытая православная энциклопедия

''Elizabeth Sewell''. Comparative characteristics of the secular state and equality of religious organizations

Atheism in the Soviet Union
Law about religion in Russia
Anti-religious campaign in the Soviet Union
Soviet decrees
Separation of church and state
Anti-Christian sentiment in Russia
Official documents of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic