The so-called Khrushchev Persecution of the church began on this day in 1958. A significant problem, in my opinion, in Russia has been an absence of checks and balances on the workings of government. For instance, when Stalin met with the two metropolitans on the night of September 4, 1943, he did not amend the anti-religious law adopted in 1929. Everything was based on “a handshake.” Chairman Khrushchev treated this “concordat” as part of Stalin’s “voluntarism” and began the restoration of “Lenin’s norms with respect to religion.” On October 4, 1958, the Central Committee of the Communist Party adopted at the secret meeting a special memorandum about the lack of atheist work. This document instructed all units of the Communist Party to intensify the assault on "religious prejudices." During World War II, many churches had been re-opened on German-occupied territories. Most of them were liberated after the “concordat,” and to close them again would have been odd. After that meeting in September 1943, the Soviet Council for Religious Affairs was established. It often allowed new Orthodox Christian communities to be registered. Now, all this activity had to be stopped. However, the “culture of the Thaw” initiated by the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956 did not allow a total ban on religion as happened in Albania under Enver Hoxha. So the Communists primarily made use of economic oppression. Monasteries were not permitted to hire helpers. A tax on candles was increased while the state prohibited churches from increasing candle prices at the point of sale. The financial independence of the church is directly correlated to its independence from the state. Therefore, as this economic oppression took shape, the Council of Bishops had to adopt new statutes for the Russian Church in 1961, where clergy were hired by the community and had no control over money. Church wardens often worked for the state, very seldom or never participating in the sacramental life of the parish. This “arrangement” lasted until Perestroika. When I was baptized in September of 1985 in a parish in Serpukhov, Moscow Region, I remember that it was important that the warden not be there during the ceremony. Otherwise, he could require my passport to be copied; the baptism of a teenager could cause problems for a priest. The church had to be a ghetto, shrinking and not multiplying. This humiliating experience was undergone by Patriarch Kirill and is understandable to all who grew up in practicing Orthodox families. This trauma may help to explain why some of the leadership of the Church within Russia supports the government, while defending the church’s position, lest the church be locked out outside of Russian society once again. Source: Letopis’ tserkovnykh sobytii nachinaia s 1917 goda: 1950–1960 (Timeline of Church Events from 1917: 1950–1960). Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. | 
