ABSTRACT Human Rights and Religious Dissidents in the Brezhnev Era: The Effect of the Human Rights Movement on the Activism of Religious Dissidents Lauren L. Tapley, Ph.D. Dissertation Chairperson: Julie K. deGraffenried, Ph.D. On December 5, 1965, an unprecedented event took the entire world by surprise: Soviet dissidents held the first Soviet Constitution Day demonstration in Moscow, making the growing human rights movement in the Soviet Union official. Gaining ground in the Soviet Union since Nikita Khruschev’s Thaw, a temporary period of less repression and censorship of Soviet citizens by the Soviet state, the Soviet human rights movement exploded onto the public scene after the arrest of two prominent Soviet writers Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky. The movement expanded further after Leonid Brezhnev’s invasion into Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring in 1968 garnered harsh criticism by Soviet intellectuals. Seeking to halt the violation of human rights by the Soviet state, the Soviet human rights movement expanded on all fronts, as movements pursuing freedom of conscience, press, speech, and national self-determination began to organize. Religious believers working toward the achievement of religious liberty were one of the most important groups within the Soviet human rights movement, and yet remain an understudied topic. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore the relationship between the emerging Soviet human rights movement and Orthodox and Baptist dissidents as well as to analyze and understand the role the human rights movement played in developing methods of dissent and activism among Russian Orthodox and Baptist dissidents. The research question this dissertation seeks to explore is: How did the growing human rights movement in the Soviet Union influence the methods and thinking of Russian Orthodox and Baptist dissidents in the Brezhnev era? This dissertation will demonstrate that Orthodox dissidents adopted methods of dissent and thinking from the Soviet human rights movement, because the Orthodox possessed no experience in opposition to the state in their history. Baptist dissidents, by contrast, inherited a strong legacy of dissent to the state from their predecessors and were not significantly influenced in their methods of dissent toward the Soviet state. Human Rights and Religious Dissidents in the Brezhnev Era: The Effect of the Soviet Human Rights Movement on the Activism of Religious Dissidents by Lauren L. Tapley, B.A., M.A. A Dissertation Approved by the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies Robyn L. Driskell, Ph.D., Interim Chairperson Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Approved by the Dissertation Committee Julie K. deGraffenried, Ph.D., Chairperson Eric C. Rust, Ph.D. Daniel P. Payne, Ph.D. Barry G. Hankins, Ph.D. Robyn L. Driskell, Ph.D. Accepted by the Graduate School May 2015 J. Larry Lyon, Ph.D., Dean Page bearing signatures is kept on file in the Graduate School. Copyright © 2015 by Lauren L. Tapley All rights reserved. TABLE OF CONTENTS Glossary .......................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments .......................................................................................................... vi Dedication ........................................................................................................................x Chapter One Introduction ...............................................................................................1 Relevant Literature ..............................................................................6 Methodology, Sources, and Terms ....................................................17 Chapter Structure ...............................................................................19 Chapter Two Tradition as Present: Cooperation in Church-State Relations ................21 Five Characteristics Presented ..........................................................25 Symphonia ..................................................................27 Concept of Church and State Separation ....................28 Compliance Through Domination ..............................30 Dependence ................................................................37 Intellectual Isolation ...................................................41 Inexperience in Oppositional Methods ......................46 Early Twentieth Century Church Reforms .......................................49 Revolution, Rejection, and Reaction ................................................56 Chapter Three The Inevitable Dissidents: Baptists in Russia ......................................70 Beginnings of Evangelical Sectarianism ..........................................74 Appeal and Origins of Sectarianism .................................................91 Experience in Dissent .......................................................................95 Persecution from the State and Population ....................................106 Support Through Local Church ......................................................110 Aggressive Evangelism Preventing Privatization of Belief ...........113 Western Concept of Church and State Separation .........................116 Chapter Four Call to Activism: Orthodox Christian Dissidents and the Influence of the Soviet Human Rights Movement ............................119 Khrushchev and the Foundations of Soviet Dissent ........................121 Support System Through Intellectual Overlap and Good Deeds ....127 Ecumenism ......................................................................................139 Gleb Yakunin and the Path to Ecumenism ................146 Rhetoric ...........................................................................................157 Conclusion .......................................................................................167 Chapter Five Networking Toward a Common Goal: the Initsiativniki Baptists and the Soviet Human Rights Movement ...............................................169 Georgi Vins .....................................................................................171 Baptist Schism, the Emergence of the Initsiativniki, and First Foray into Dissent ...................................................................175 Legacy Moves Reformers into Open Dissent with the State ..........192 Willingness to Disobey the Law and Halt Illegal Behavior .................................................192 Creation of the Council of Prisoners’ Relatives ........199 Tradition of Legalism and Constitutional Awareness ..........................................204 Samizdat Journals and the Publication of Facts ........208 The Initsiativniki Role in the Soviet Human Rights Movement .........................................210 Conclusion .......................................................................................217 Chapter Six Conclusion ..............................................................................................219 Bibliography .................................................................................................................228 GLOSSARY All-Union Council of Evangelical Christian Baptists (AUCECB): A Russian Baptist administrative union formed in 1944 comprised of Russian Evangelical Christians and Russian Baptist sects. The union received official recognition from the Soviet government and were allowed to register their church communities. Christian Committee for the Defense of Believers’ Rights: The Christian Committee was founded in 1976 by Gleb Yakunin, a Russian Orthodox priest and Orthodox dissident. The organization was ecumenical and sought to provide legal advice to all religious communities, lobby for freedom of conscience on behalf of all religious believers, and assist in publishing appeals and facts received from all religious denominations. The Christian Committee was inspired by Yakunin’s work with the Soviet human rights movement and continued its operation until roughly 1980 after Yakunin’s imprisonment. Committee on Human Rights in the USSR: The group was founded by Andrei Sakharov in 1970 along with Andrei Tverdokhlebov and Valeri Chalidze. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Pavel Litvinov, and Igor Shafarevich, and Elena Bonner were honorary members. The group was one of the first human rights groups established in the Soviet Union and was dedicated to publishing and collecting information on the violations of all basic human rights in the Soviet Union. The group opposed secret, close trials, punitive psychiatry, and arbitrary imprisonment for political dissidents. Council for the Affairs of Religious Cults (CARC): Established by the Soviet state in July 1944 to handle communication between the Soviet state and all church communities and denominations apart from the Russian Orthodox Church. CARC was eventually merged with the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church (CAROC) to create the Council of Religious Affairs (CRA). Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church (CAROC): Established by the Soviet state in October 1943 to handle communication between the Soviet state and the Russian Orthodox Church. CAROC was eventually merged with CARC to create the Council of Religious Affairs (CRA). Council of Churches of Evangelical Christian Baptists (CCECB): A union established in 1965 by a schismatic group of Russian Baptists,