Shlikhta, Natalia2024-08-012024-08-012024Shlikhta N. Change of Ritual Practice under Communism: The Case of the Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Ukraine in the Late 1950s to Early 1970s / N. Shlikhta // Religious Life in the Late Soviet Union: From Survival to Revival (1960s-1980s) / edited By Barbara Martin, Nadezhda Beliakova. - Oxon : Routledge : Abingdon, 2023. - P. 20-33. - https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003311294978-1-032-31776-2978-1-003-31129-4978-1-032-31777-9https://ekmair.ukma.edu.ua/handle/123456789/31070https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003311294The policies of Soviet authorities regarding institutionalised religion and its adherents evolved over time, as circumstances, both inside and outside the country, changed. The Leninist "red terror" against all “former people” (byvshie liudi) and anti-religious persecutions of the 1920s were replaced with the Stalinist pragmatic “concordat” with the Russian Orthodox Church (thereafter – ROC) and parallel suppression of other "religious cults" in the 1940s. The revival of aggressive antireligious rhetoric and harsh anti-religious measures under Khrushchev – quite predictable within the context of his reforms – ended up with "disappointments and failures", while the Brezhnev era policies "were reoriented to manage the Church’s power and visibility, rather than attempting to eradicate them". All these changes notwithstanding, the inherent incompatibility of Soviet and religious was not questioned and "secularization was an integral element to socialist modernity and state building in the USSR", as Catherine Wanner noted.eninstitutionalised religionKhrushchev’s anti religious campaignUkrainian Exarchate of the ROCreligious lifesection of the monographBook chapter