PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The article presents a panorama of the religious life of Catholics in the republics of the Soviet Union at the time of the election of Pope John Paul II. The authors describe concepts that dominated the thinking of the Soviet leadership in its relations with the Vatican, and note the absence of a clear strategy at the international level. They pay close attention to the consolidated protest movement of Catholics in the Soviet Union of the 1970s, especially in Lithuania, and how the Lithuanian Catholic samizdat reflected the reaction to the election of a new Pope. The authors emphasize that by the time of John Paul II’s election, among the Catholics of the Soviet Union there was a growing protest movement, there was regular criticism of the Vatican's ‘Eastern Policy’, and there were public organizations that put the issue of discrimination against believers and churches on the public agenda. The article also describes the efforts of the Sovietleadership to consolidate the countries of Eastern Europe in the context of its relations with the Vatican, its attempts to use to its advantage the differences between political trends within the clergy of the Catholic Church.