Memory Politics and Transitional Justice

Series Editors Jasna Dragovic-Soso, Goldsmiths University of London, London, UK Jelena Subotic, Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA, USA Tsveta Petrova, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA The interdisciplinary fields of Memory Studies and Transitional Justice have largely developed in parallel to one another despite both focusing on efforts of societies to confront and (re—)appropriate their past. While scholars working on memory have come mostly from historical, literary, sociological, or anthropological traditions, tran- sitional justice has attracted primarily scholarship from political science and the law. This series bridges this divide: it promotes work that combines a deep understanding of the contexts that have allowed for injustice to occur with an analysis of how legacies of such injustice in political and historical memory influence contemporary projects of redress, acknowledgment, or new cycles of denial. The titles in the series are of interest not only to academics and students but also practitioners in the related fields. The Memory Politics and Transitional Justice series promotes critical dialogue among different theoretical and methodological approaches and among scholarship on different regions. The editors welcome submissions from a variety of disciplines— including political science, history, sociology, anthropology, and cultural studies— that confront critical questions at the intersection of memory politics and transitional justice in national, comparative, and global perspective. This series is indexed in Scopus. Memory Politics and Transitional Justice Book Series (Palgrave) Co-editors: Jasna Dragovic-Soso (Goldsmiths, University of London), Jelena Subotic (Georgia State University), Tsveta Petrova (Columbia University)

Editorial Board Paige Arthur, New York University Center on International Cooperation Alejandro Baer, University of Minnesota Orli Fridman, Singidunum University Belgrade Carol Gluck, Columbia University Katherine Hite, Vassar College Alexander Karn, Colgate University Jan Kubik, Rutgers University and School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London Bronwyn Leebaw, University of California, Riverside Jan-Werner Mueller, Princeton University Jeffrey Olick, University of Virginia Kathy Powers, University of New Mexico Joanna R. Quinn, Western University Jeremy Sarkin, University of South Africa Leslie Vinjamuri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London Sarah Wagner, George Washington University

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14807 Lucian Turcescu · Lavinia Stan Editors Churches, Memory and Justice in Post-Communism Editors Lucian Turcescu Lavinia Stan Department of Theology Department of Political Science Concordia University St Francis Xavier University Montréal, QC, Canada Antigonish, NS, Canada

ISSN 2731-3840 ISSN 2731-3859 (electronic) Memory Politics and Transitional Justice ISBN 978-3-030-56062-1 ISBN 978-3-030-56063-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56063-8

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and informa- tion in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Cover illustration: Alan Gignoux/Alamy Stock Photo

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland Introduction

Transitional justice measures and memorypolitics in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union have been closely analyzed by scholars and policy practitioners since the collapse of communism in 1989/1991. This literature has documented the adop- tion of specific programs designed to offer truth, justice, and reconcilia- tion; the political negotiations that shaped, facilitated, or stalled reckoning programs; the electoral reasons that prompted some political actors to support (or oppose) specific transitional justice initiatives; the continued influence of former communist officials over the transitional justice agenda in some post-communist settings; the impact of the local legalculture on the adoption and implementation of such programs; the importance of timing and sequencing in enlarging or limiting transitional justice in a given country; the role of reckoning entrepreneurs, whistle-blowers and vigilante individuals in disclosing sensitive information to the general public; the input of international actors; as well as the lessons that some post-communist countries could teach others.1 Theoretically driven studies have linked transitional justice (or its absence) and various aspects of post-communist democratization, or identified the factors accounting for differences in scope and pace among national transitional justice programs.2 All these investigations give us an understanding of when account- ability and reckoning programs are legislated and implemented, by which state and/or international actors, as well as for what kind of reasons.

v vi INTRODUCTION

Less studied have been the input of non-state actors and the effects of transitional justice and memorypolitics on socialactors and civil society groups other than the political parties, politicians, and judges who formu- late, adopt, and implement reckoning-related laws and policies. The few studies published to date that have examined such actors (especially non-governmental organizations representing former victims, artists and members of theater companies, or scholarly associations involved in histo- riography and interested in gaining access to valuable state archives) remain unable to adequately map non-state initiatives in the region or explain how state-led reckoning efforts have impacted the larger society.3 To address this gap, the present volume investigates the way in which reli- gious denominations have engaged in and been affected by transitional justice in post-communist Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. The past that is considered here is the communist past. In some post-communist settings, religious denominations—and espe- cially the majority Catholic, Lutheran or Orthodox Churches—have proven to be formidable social actors capable of unduly shaping public policy and public opinion, making or breaking the careers of various lumi- naries, decisively influencing the outcome of elections at various levels, and mobilizing their followers in support of their initiatives and in oppo- sition to other groups’ proposals. Even in countries where levels of reli- giosity are reportedly low, majority churches have drawn considerable legitimacy and influence both with the general public and with the polit- ical elites from their historical role in nation- and state-building.4 Regard- less of their social and political importance during post-communist times, majority and minority religious denominations present in the region have had to contend with the legacy of their actions under communist rule, which ranged from overt collaboration with the authorities and support for their religious policies to heroic resistance against self-avowed athe- istic regimes and willingness to protect dissidents and provide a space free of officialpropaganda for the faithful. The way in which denominations have pursued memorypolitics and transitional justice is the focus of this volume. To this end, this volume’s contributors were asked to focus on the country of their expertise while keeping a common set of questions in mind. The twelve chapters included here cover a broad selection of post- communist European countries where processes of church reckoning with the communist past have gained the attention of the general public after 1989. The book looks at seven Central and Eastern European countries INTRODUCTION vii

(Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania) and five Former Soviet Union republics (Russia and Belarus, as well as Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). These are all countries not rocked by the prolonged post-communist conflict that would have damp- ened the appetite for rectifying communist wrongs (as was the case of the former Yugoslavia, Moldova, Georgia, or Armenia, for instance). As such, the countries included here have had close to three decades of post- communism to reassess and address the numerous human rights abuses perpetrated by the repressive communist regimes. In order to strengthen our theoretical and methodological mileage, we excluded formerly Soviet republics where Christianity is not the majority religion, democratization has been protracted or even stalled, and the Soviet human rights abuses have often been downplayed (even justified!) in the name of nation- and state-building. We feel that the eleven countries included in this volume offer enough diversity in the social role of dominant churches, while retaining enough similarities in terms of the dominant role of Christianity, the pace of secularization, and their progress in effecting democratiza- tion, to offer strong theoretical lessons.5 These lessons are outlined in the Conclusion. We have chosen to structure the chapters along country, rather than denominational, lines. This is the reason why we included a single chapter for each country, rather than multiple chapters on various religious groups present in the same state. The book’s focus, therefore, is primarily on the main religious denomination(s) in each country, although religious minorities are not overlooked, if they have made significant efforts after 1989/1991 to reassess the legacies of their past relationship with the communist regime. As opposed to a denominational focus, the country focus allowed us to include a larger number of country cases, and to avoid unnecessary overlap of material. The country focus further allowed chapters to make visible the necessary connections between transitional justice and church–state relations, although not always in an explicit way, and thus to contribute to these two important, but to date largely disconnected, bodies of literatures. As individual chapters are dedicated to individual countries, the volume then orders them into regions: Central Europe, the Balkans, the Baltic states, and the European, formerly Soviet republics. The Russian occupation of Crimea in spring 2014 and the turmoil that still divides some of its other regions preclude a meaningful analysis of Ukraine, and therefore no chapter on that country was included in this volume. viii INTRODUCTION

Edited volumes often consist of chapters of uneven quality that rest on disparate theoretical and methodological perspectives, and are only loosely tied together by the introduction and conclusion. In the case of these edited works, chapters often raise quite different research questions, are structured differently, and might adopt divergent normative or empir- ical viewpoints that depend on the contributors’ preferences. The mate- rial (and the cases, methods, or countries) that is not covered occasion- ally becomes as important as the points that do receive attention. This, however, is not the case here. Our team applies a single set of research questions, draws on comparable research methods (analysis of church documents and statements, work in relevant secret and state archives, as well as personal interviews with church and state officials, academics, and civil society representatives), and examines the same transitional justice programs, methods, and practices (lustration, access to secret files, public identifications of former communist-era secret informers, compensation and rehabilitation, property restitution, history commissions, as well as memorialization). This unitary focus is further strengthened by the careful revision of chapters by editors, to make sure that country investigations are complete and comparable to the fullest extent possible. This volume’s contributors were asked to structure their chapters simi- larly while focusing on the country of their expertise. Given country differences in religious make-up, history of church–state relations and communist rule, as well as post-communist reckoning inclinations, this similarity was reflected in the structure of individual chapters only to some extent. However, the way in which research was conducted followed the same broad pattern. First, the contributors investigated the histor- ical events related to church collaboration with or resistance to the communist regime, including the main state policies directed against reli- gious groups, estimates of numbers of church members/leaders who became victims, explanations of the way in which victimization took place (deportation, arrest and imprisonment, assignment of forced domi- cile, defrocking, surveillance, recruitment as secretinformers, etc.), and descriptions of the forms of collaboration. These historical overviews provided the foundation for the analysis undertaken in the remainder of each chapter. Second, the chapters examined ways in which after 1989 churches have re-evaluated their communist past. Contributors were encouraged to consider the following questions: Have denominations re-examined their past involvement with the communist regime, party, and secret INTRODUCTION ix services? Was there a discussion within the religious groups on the communist past? Were there clergy members, faithful and/or intellectuals who questioned the religious groups’ collaboration with the communist regime and its repression policies? Did some church leaders/members dismiss such discussions as unimportant or undermining the group’s credibility/legitimacy? Have church members tried to identify priests or faithful who facilitated communist repression by providing information to the communist secret services? Has the church adopted any document condemning collaboration with repressive regimes? Last, the contributors considered the way in which transitional justice programs initiated and implemented by state actors have affected religious denominations. Among the programs relevant for this discussion were the following: property restitution, lustration, and public identification of former secret informers, access to secret files, court trials, rehabilitation of former politicalprisoners, memorialization initiatives, and commemo- rations, to name just a few. To what extent have churches been affected by lustration, property restitution, compensation, and the like? Have churches tried to exempt themselves from these reckoning processes? In which ways, when exactly, and why? Have churches used and misused transitional justice to undermine the public standing of other churches they perceive as competitors? More broadly, have churches publicly claimed victim status or accepted and justified their past collaboration? Which arguments did they put forth in their defense? These questions were answered to the extent to which they were rele- vant for each of the selected countries. Many chapters rest on empir- ical data collected through research into the archives of the communist political police forces and of the Communist Party; personal interviews conducted with church members, political actors, local academics, and civil society representatives; examinations of official and unofficial state- ments and communiques published in the local press (including church periodicals); as well as reviews of already published secondary literature in English and also local languages. All contributors know intimately the language of the country they write on and have access to the local archives and the relevant literature published locally, and therefore their analyses add accuracy, detail, and nuance to the project. The two editors would like to thank the Social Sciences and Humani- ties Research Council of Canada for generously funding research for this book, and two previous programs on which they had collaborated after 1998. This financial help as well as the confidence the Council has placed x INTRODUCTION in us as researchers have been essential in moving our work on religion and politics in post-communism forward and have allowed some of the contributors to visit the countries examined here. This research project also signifies a milestone in the 35-year-long collaboration of the two editors. We are grateful for the support, love, and trust we gave each other over the years, and we look optimistically toward the future. Lavinia Stan would like to dedicate this book to our son, Luc, for the support he has given to her during these difficult times. I am so proud of you, Luc!

Lavinia Stan

Notes

1. Among others, Brian Grodsky, The Costs of Justice: How New Leaders Respond to Previous Rights Abuses (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), Eva Clarita Pettai, Memory and Pluralism in the Baltic States (London: Routledge, 2011), Lavinia Stan and Nadya Nedelsky, eds., Post- Communist Transitional Justice: Lessons from 25 Years of Experience (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Eva Clarita Pettai and Vello Pettai, Transitional and Retrospective Justice in the Baltic States (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, eds., Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania: New Insights (London: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2017), as well as Cynthia Horne and Lavinia Stan, eds., Transitional Justice and the Former Soviet Union: Reviewing the Past, Looking Forward to the Future (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018). 2. See Lavinia Stan, ed., Transitional Justice in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2009), Monika Nalepa, Skele- tons in the Closet. Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), Cynthia M. Horne, Building Trust and Democracy: Transitional Justice in Post-Communist Countries (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017), as well as Lavinia Stan, Transi- tional Justice in Post-Communist Romania: The Politics of Memory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), among others. Also related titles on memory politics: Marta Rabikowska, The Everyday of Memory: Between Communism and Post-Communism (London: Peter Lang, 2014), and Michael Bernhard and Jan Kubik, eds., Twenty Years After Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), to name a few. INTRODUCTION xi

3. To date, only one volume engages with this topic, considering only a sub-set of post-communist countries: Olivera Simic and Zala Volcic, eds., Transi- tional Justice and Civil Society in the Balkans (New York: Springer, 2013). There are other articles and book chapters discussing selected civil society groups. The interplay between religion and transitional justice has been discussed in relation to countries outside of the region in Daniel Philpott, ed., The Politics of Past Evil. Religion, Reconciliation and the Dilemmas of Transitional Justice (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006). There is no comparable examination of post-communist settings. 4. For example, Sabrina Ramet, Whose Democracy? Nationalism, Religion, and the Doctrine of Collective Rights in Post-1989 Eastern Europe (Langham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1997), Sabrina Ramet, Nihil Obstat: Religion, Poli- tics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998), Zoe Knox, Russian Society and the Orthodox Church: Religion in Russia after Communism (London: Routledge, 2005), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), Lucian Leustean, Orthodoxy and the Cold War. Religion and Political Power in Romania, 1947-65 (London: Palgrave, 2008), Irina Papkova, The Orthodox Church and Russian Politics (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center, 2011), Lavinia Stan and Lucian Turcescu, Church, State and Democracy in Expanded Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), M. Valko and D. Slivka, eds., Christian Churches in Post-Communist Slovakia: Current Challenges and Opportunities (Salem: Center for Religion and Society, Roanoke College, 2012), Lucian Leustean, ed., Eastern Christianity and Politics in the Twenty-First Century (London: Routledge, 2014), as well as Sabrina Ramet, Religion and Politics in Post-Socialist Central and Southeastern Europe. Challenges since 1989 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). 5. Albania is the only predominantly Muslim country included in this analysis, but Murzaku’s chapter focuses on its Christian groups, and their transi- tional justice struggles to come to terms with state-imposed atheism. The chapter’s focus was decided in an effort to increase the volume’s theoretical coherence. Contents

Part I Central Europe 1 Catholic Church, Stasi, and Post-communism in Germany 3 Gregor Buß 2 Lustration and the Roman Catholic Church in Poland 21 Mikołaj Kunicki 3 Religion and Transitional Justice in the Czech Republic 45 Frank Cibulka 4 Slovakian Catholics and Lutherans Facing the Communist Past 71 Pavol Jakubˇcin

Part II The Balkans 5 The Romanian Orthodox Church Rewriting Its History 93 Lucian Turcescu 6 Bulgaria: Revealed Secrets, Unreckoned Past 113 Momchil Metodiev

xiii xiv CONTENTS

7 Transitional-Unconditional Justice? The Case of the Catholic Church of Albania 135 Ines Angeli Murzaku

Part III The Baltic Republics 8 Comfortably Numb: The Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church During and After the Soviet Era 157 Atko Remmel and Priit Rohtmets 9 The Lutheran and Roman Catholic Churches in Latvia 179 Solveiga Krumina-Konkova 10 The Roman Catholic Church in Lithuania and Its Soviet Past 203 Ar¯unas Streikus

Part IV Former Soviet Republics in Europe 11 The Russian Orthodox Church and Its Communist Past 225 Lavinia Stan 12 Restorative Justice and Orthodox Church in Belarus 241 Nelly Bekus

Conclusion 265 Index 273 Notes on Contributors

Dr. Nelly Bekus is a Sociologist and Associate Lecturer at the University of Exeter, UK. She is the author of Struggle over Identity. The Official and the Alternative Belarusianness (2010), co-author of Orthodoxy Versus Post- Communism? Belarus, Serbia, Ukraine and the Russkiy Mir (2016), and has published numerous articles on the post-Soviet nationalism, memory, and identity. Gregor Buß studied Catholic theology at Muenster University, Germany, and holds a PhD in theological ethics from Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. Since 2015, he has been a postdoctoral fellow of the Martin Buber Society at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Frank Cibulka has been a Visiting Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of International Studies at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Previously he taught at the National University of Singapore. During 1992–1996, he served as the Honorary Consul of Czechoslovakia and subsequently Czech Republic in Singapore. He has written on Soviet/Russian and East European politics and society, as well as on Asian affairs. His best-known works include the co-edited volumes Gorbachev and Third World Conflicts (1990) and China and Southeast Asia in Xi JinpingEra. (2018). Dr. Pavol Jakubˇcin teaches in the Department of History at Trnava University, Slovakia. His research deals with the existence of the churches

xv xvi NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS during the communist totalitarian regime. He published Pastieri v osíd- lach moci (Communist regime and Catholic priests in Slovakia from 1948 to 1968). Dr. Solveiga Krumina-Konkova is a leading researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the University of Latvia and a corre- sponding member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. From 2015 to 2018 she was a member of the Government Commission for KGB Research. Dr. Mikołaj Kunicki is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute of Jour- nalism and Social Communication, University of Wrocław, Poland. Previ- ously, he taught history at the University of Oxford, University of Notre Dame, and University of California at Berkeley. Kunicki is the author of Between the Brown and the Red: Nationalism, Catholicism and Commu- nism in Twentieth Century Poland (Ohio University Press, 2012) as well as articles and chapters on twentieth-century Polish and European history, cinema, nationalism and contemporary politics. Dr. habil. Momchil Metodiev is Editor in Chief of the Christianity and Culture journal. Metodiev is a Research Fellow in the Institute for Studies of the Recent Past, Sofia, Bulgaria and lecturer in the New Bulgarian University. He has authored several monographs on the history of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church and Bulgarian communist State Security. Dr. Ines Angeli Murzaku is Professor of Religion and Director of Catholic Studies Program at Seton Hall University (US). Dr. Murzaku has authored/co-authored several books. Her most recent publications include: Mother Teresa: Saint of the Peripheries (Paulist Press, 2021); Life of St Neilos of Rossano(1004) (Dumbarton Oaks, Harvard Univer- sity Press 2018). Dr. Murzaku is a regular commentator to media outlets on religious matters. Dr. Atko Remmel is a Senior Research Fellow in the University of Tartu and University of Tallinn, Estonia. He has published on antireligious policy and atheist propaganda in the Soviet Union, (non)religion and nationalism, secularization and religious change, and contemporary forms of (non)religion and spirituality, including “greening of religion.” Dr. Priit Rohtmets is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Tartu and Professor of Church History at the Theological Institute of the Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church. In his research he has focused on NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS xvii

Estonian, Baltic, and Scandinavian church history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, state–church relations, history of Orthodox Churches in the Baltic states and in the Balkans, the relationship between nation- alism and religion in Northern Europe, and the ecumenical movement in the Baltic states. Dr. Lavinia Stan is Jules Leger Research Chair in Political Science and Coordinator of the Public Policy and Governance Program at St. Francis Xavier University, Canada. A comparative politics specialist, she has done work and published mainly on transitional justice, as well as religion and politics, with a focus on post-communist settings. Dr. Ar¯unas Streikus is a Professor at Vilnius University (Lithuania) Faculty of History and head of its Modern History department since 2017. His research interests include contemporary history of Catholicism, cultural and political history of Lithuania under the Soviet rule. He is the author of numerous articles and some books on these topics. Dr. Lucian Turcescu is Professor, Graduate Program Director, and past Chair (2011–2016) of the Department of Theological Studies at Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. He has done research, published, and taught in several areas, including early Christianity, reli- gion and politics, and ecumenism. Some of his books include (co-edited with L. Stan) Church Reckoning with Communism in Post-1989 Romania (2021), Justice, Memory and Redress in Romania (2017), (co-authored with L. Stan) Church, State, and Democracy in Expanding Europe (2011). List of Tables

Table 6.1 State security objects and collaborators in the Bulgarian Orthodox Church Synod 122 Table 6.2 Religious rituals and sacraments (%) 125 Table 6.3 Bulgarian Orthodox Church (statistical information) 127

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