Christianity and the Red Star: Churches and Nations Before, During, and After Communism
Patrick D. Gaffney, C.S.C.
The twentieth century marks a period of catastrophic transformation for the peoples of Russia and Eastern Europe who experienced, in various ways, two world wars in addition to the rise and fall of the Soviet empire. Throughout these ordeals, religion and specifically Christianity, played a pivotal role as a basis of identity, a source of inspiration, and, for believers, a framework of resistance against nationalistic, atheistic, and materialistic ideologies that frequently sought to suppress and even supplant traditions of faith that had long characterized these societies. This seminar explores the central features of the frequently conflicted encounter between religious groups and their political rivals in Eastern and Central Europe during and after the Cold War. While different communities and every country have their own stories, often with complex particulars, varying from the formidable independence of Catholicism in Poland to the more accommodating tendencies of many Orthodox churches and the courageous witness of Baptists in the prison camps of the Gulag, the general reaction to these shadowy decades of isolation and repression has been a widespread revival of interest in religion, theology, and spirituality.
However, the content, shape, and direction of the newly emerging relationships between church, state, and nation in these lands remains ill-defined and largely in flux, especially for the younger generation, as an unprecedented world of possibilities with uncertain limits opens upon a global future.
I have already made a stronger commitment to be an agent of change to help students be aware of the need for mankind to find peace!
I will be more attentive to news from the Balkans and understand Church vs. State problems better in the Soviet bloc.
My experience with TAS was the best contribution to my professional development.
| Patrick D. Gaffney, C.S.C. has his primary appointment in Notre Dame’s Department of Anthropology, but is also a faculty fellow in the Kroc Institute of International Peace Studies and is the director of the College Seminar Program in the College of Arts and Letters. Specializing in issues of religion and society, he has done extensive research in parts of Africa and Asia, with a focus on Islamic movements, ethnic and socio-cultural conflict, and religious nationalism. Lately, he has turned his attention to Eastern Europe, having taught at the University of Warsaw in 2003, followed by a year spent studying in Russia. He is now engaged in research on attitudes and practices surrounding the memory of the dead, changing funeral rites, and views of the after-life in the former Soviet lands. |