Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0280-6844
Abstract
The aim. The article offers a general political-historical analysis of the Protestant movement in the context of the party-state policies of Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. Scientific novelty. The study of state-church relations of polyconfessional Ukrainian society in general and Protestant currents, in particular, actualizes a new scientific understanding of the state religious policy at different stages of development of the historical past and present. Research methods. The research project studies Baptists, Evangelical Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, and Pentecostals, utilizing the principles of objectivity, ideological pluralism, complexity, methodologies of mathematical statistics, comparative studies, and problem-chronological method. The study is based on the use of archival materials of two central and four regional archives of Ukraine. Main results. The study identified two periods in the development of the Protestant movement. The first (1920-1928) was marked by the external tolerance of the state authorities to the Protestants, but at the same time it secretly aimed at discrediting them by splitting Protestant organizations. Yet, during this period, Protestants expanded their activities and built their own institutions Christians of the Evangelical Faith (Pentecostals) are marked by the greatest activity and territorial mobility. The second (1929– 1939) stage was marked by an open anti-Protestant policy, oppression, and the destruction of Ukrainian Protestant institutions by Soviet authorities. Many Protestant communities decreased in number, but continued to operate without registration, semi-legally, until the late 1930s.
Recommended Citation
Sitarchuk, Roman
(2021)
"Protestants in Soviet Ukraine in the 1920s to 1930s: Political and Historical Aspects,"
Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 41
:
Iss.
4
, Article 5.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol41/iss4/5