Sentikių Bažnyčia Lietuvoje 1918 - 1940 metais: teisinė padėtis, religinė organizacija, visuomeninė politinė sklaida ; The old believers church in lithuania (1918-1940): legal status, religious organization, public and political development

Abstract

Today the Old Believers enjoy the status of a traditional religious community. The title of the Master's paper - "The Old Believers Church in Lithuania in 1918-1940" -reflects the subject of study dealing with its legal status, religious organisation, social and political involvement. The choice of the subject was determined by the importance of research on Lithuania's traditional religious minorities. Owing to the fact that over a long period Lithuania's history research has been one-sided, focusing mostly on ethnic history and missing the civil one, the historical image of Lithuania's religious communities has remained somewhat incomplete. So far no exhaustive studies related to the history of Lithuania's communities of traditional religious minorities have been made. In most cases the mentioned studies dealt only with the history of the Lithuanian Catholic Church. The goal of the paper is the study of the Old Believers Church in Lithuania (further referred to as "OBCL") as an organizational institution. The objectives to achieve the set goal: - to analyze the legal status and development of the Old Believers Church in Lithuania in 1918-1940 in the context of State - Church relations; - to examine the specific development features of the organization of the Old Believers Church in Lithuania, i.e. formation and activity of institutions, adaptation to the new political situation and solution of related problems, relations with organizations of the Old Believers Church in other countries. - to examine the factors of OBCL social and political involvement. In terms of intensity of cooperation between the State and religious organizations in the period under study the model of the Lithuanian State may be characterized as the State Not separated from the Church, where different religions enjoy relatively equal rights. Summarizing the State-OBCL relations, the state policy in respect of OBCL can be characterized as tending to compromise. The State endeavoured not to interfere with OBCL internal affairs; however, the very model of relations in effect between the State and the Church in Lithuania called for intervention of authorities into OBCL internal life. On the one hand, this policy also provided certain protection to the Old Believers minority when applying to it certain analogous decisions mainly adopted to protect the interests of the predominant "state church". On the other hand, this kind of state policy sometimes resulted in violation of OBCL autonomy rights. In evaluating the OBCL legal status, it is important to note that during the whole interwar period the State-Church relations were governed by provisional law, meaning that the OBCL legal status was not finally regulated. The State failed to officially recognize a single OBCL internal document. It is this uncertainty that made it possible for the state authorities to intervene in OBCL internal matters. The final recognition of OBCL supreme authorities was determined by state institutions and not by OBCL organizational principle, which is an essential part in the religion of the "priestless pomors". Strange enough, but as the case with OBCL is, these violations of autonomy had a positive effect on the preservation of integrity of OBCL organization. With all that, even willing to accept the stabilizing role of intervention of authorities, the State in democratic societies may not take steps to ensure the survival of religious communities or their government in a centralized way. Summing up the OBCL social and political involvement, it is worth saying that for a long time having no opportunity to be heard in public and political spheres, the Old Believers of the interwar period were gradually getting involved in the social and political life of Lithuania. In this way this study introduces certain corrections to the "dark", "passive", "colonist" image of an Old Believer.