Everyday Life and Trials of the Podillian Clergy during the Rise of the Repressive Machinery of the USSR

Abstract

The article presents a comprehensive historical and social study of the everyday life, living conditions, and legal status of the Orthodox clergy of the Podillian Eparchy during the formation and flourishing of the totalitarian regime in the USSR in the 1920s–1930s. Special attention is given to analyzing the transformations within the internal organization of clerical life under the influence of the Bolshevik anti-religious policy. The study highlights the legal mechanisms restricting the rights of the clergy, the processes of social marginalization, and the gradual removal of religious figures from public life.

The article examines various forms of repressions against the clergy, including administrative pressure, criminal prosecution, financial oppression, discriminatory taxation, deprivation of voting rights, and forced evictions. Particular emphasis is placed on the psychological aspects of clergy survival, including moral humiliation, restrictions on freedom of movement, continuous surveillance by state security agencies, and attempts to isolate clerics from their communities.

Based on an extensive range of sources — archival materials, correspondence, official acts, and eyewitness accounts — the article reconstructs the strategies of clerical adaptation to the new socio-political reality. It is demonstrated that even under extreme conditions of totalitarian pressure, priests remained centers of spiritual resistance and preserved the foundations of Christian morality and national identity among the faithful population.

The study stresses that the totalitarian regime aimed not only to destroy religion as a social institution but also to erase the collective memory and identity of the Orthodox community, which had been formed over centuries. However, the inner resilience and self-sacrifice of the clergy, their struggle for the right to faith and ministry, became significant factors of spiritual resistance against Soviet ideology.

The work emphasizes the importance of further research into the everyday experiences of the clergy as a specific social group under repressive state policies. The evaluation of life strategies, moral choices, and social mobility among clerics opens new perspectives for understanding broader processes of traditional society transformation during periods of radical change.

The article also addresses the need to develop modern approaches to the study of church history through the integration of microhistory, everyday history, and social history. The issues highlighted contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex interaction between state power and religious institutions under the totalitarian system.

The findings of the study are of not only historical significance but also contemporary relevance in the context of current debates on human rights, freedom of conscience, and the role of the church in societal transformations.