REMEMBRANCE IN TIME - Index of

MONASTERY CLOSING CAMPAIGN
THROUGHOUT SOVIET MOLDAVIA
(1944–1962)
Dimensions of the problem
Ion XENOFONTOV 1
According to the English historian Timothy Ware “traditionalism is specific to
Orthodoxy, that archaic scent, that determination to remain faithful to the past, in the
sense of a continuity with the ancient church” [1]. This collective piety towards spiritual
traditions was regarded by the Bolshevik propaganda as opium of society – religion and
church being included in the category of the Soviet Union’s internal and external enemy.
On 20 January 1918, in USSR, the separation of the Church and State was declared and
therefore the soviet authorities’ political-ideological, economic actions intensified, which
tended to settle in full the Soviet citizens’ spiritual dimension. The article 124 of the
Soviet Constitution (1936) guaranteed the religious-political dualism “freedom of
conscience and exercise of the religious cults and, at the same time, freedom of the antireligious
propaganda [2]. Following the “active campaigns in favour of the atheism” in
the 1960s, in the Soviet Union, the number of the places of worship was reduced from 20
thousand to 7 thousand, and of the monasteries from 87 to 17 and of the seminars from 8
to 3 [3]. In the communist regime’s perception, the monastic congregations stood for
spirituality centres, also for resistance centres of the Romanian national language and
conscience, against the denationalization and Russification policy [4]. In this context, the
monasteries from Bessarabia appended by USSR were subjected to a thorough
intimidation, denationalization, monastic-congregation destruction campaign etc.
From the communist leaders’ perspective, any complete remake of society called for
eradicating religion and destructing churches. The church availed itself of rich economic
resources, strong social prestige and was obviously an important competitor of the Soviet
State, wishing to change the religious faith into a party one.
The communist slogan of the respective period was well known: “So as to be a good
communist, you must be a good atheist”. Soviet Union’s leader Nikita Khrushchev,
declared that the Soviet people will enter Communism “without priests and drunken”. In
order to achieve this goal, directed meetings of the “toiling people” were organized,
wherein the liquidation of the sacred places was declared. The religious institutions, the
clergy, the Christian symbols were desecrated and marginalized.
This practice was subsequently applied by Soviet authorities in Moldavian SSR.
1 Institute of Encyclopaedic Studies of Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Republic of Moldova.