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Introduction

Two papers are presented in this issue of OPREE. The first is a comprehensive review of Soviet religious policies in the Ukraine from the Bolshevik revolution to the present by the well-known Ukrainian-Canadian political scientist, Dr. Bohdan Bociurkiw. The writer provides an historical survey and an analysis of both the constant and the changing features of Soviet policy toward religion. Many of the insights in regard to the application of that policy in the Ukraine may be applied, with local variations, to many other regions of the U.S.S.R.

The second paper is by a young Croatian Roman Catholic scholar, Dr. Jure Kristo, whose subject is primarily the relations between the Yugoslav state and the Roman Catholic Church in Croatia during the 1970's and 1980's, including a brief historical survey. This paper is a fine complement to N. Gerald Shenk's "Some Social Expectations of Christians in Yugoslavia with Primary Emphasis on the Protestant Churches," which appear􀁿d in Vol. I, No. 4 (August, 1981).

In forthcoming issues there will be papers on the Christian-Marxist dialogue in Hungary, the Roman Catholic Church in Czechoslovakia, the Russian Orthodox Church, and the Protestant churches in Hungary.