Religion

Soon after Lithuania’s occupation the new Communist government announced separation of the Church from the state and separation of the school from the Church. It was a radical shift, given the fact that Catholics made up the majority of the Lithuanian population. The Soviet government aimed at destroying religion or at least creating a political and social climate that would gradually lead to such destruction. To this end, the regime banned religious organisations and almost suspended and imposed strict control over the publishing of religious literature. It also eliminated the subject of Religion in schools and took measures to hinder catechisation of children in churches and attendance at religious services. All churches were declared the property of the state, and most houses of worship in the major cities were closed and converted for public use. Direct persecutions also began during Stalin’s rule: priests were arrested; monks, who refused to renounce their calling, were subjected to punishments and deportations; repressions were carried out against practising believers. Although repressions against believers began to ease in the post-Stalinist period, the most active priests and believers were persecuted and punished for disseminating their faith.
Public display of faith was denounced throughout the Soviet period, yet some people continued their religious practices. Besides the atheisation policy, the influence of religion was further reduced by modernisation, which destroyed traditional rural communities and traditional way of life. Such circumstances did not, however, lead to the destruction of the Church as religious communities played a very important role in the liberation movement and in most cases it became the hotbed of dissident activities.

A medallion. 1940s–1950s. A chalice. Russian SFSR (Petrozavodsk), 1953. This chalice is a gift from the Karelia-Finland SSR athletes to the Lithuanian SSR speed skating team.__“Setting a civil ceremony against a church ceremony would destroy the most stable and firm element of religion, i.e. rituals of religious worship that mystify very important life events. The destruction of these vital religious links would result in the destruction of the religious education system itself and loss of its critical components. After all, every Catholic and every Christian in general is baptised, confirmed and married in church and is buried with a religious ceremony. In this way, the cult becomes a tool to kindle the feelings, associated with religion, and to strengthen religious ideology and mythological images”. Pečiūra P. Tradition Yesterday and Today. Vilnius, 1974.