Religion and the Law: Eastern and Central Europe [Volume: 7(1988), pp. 75-86]

76
BOHDAN R. BOCIURKIW
Evolution in Church-State Relations and the Soviet "Model"
The post-war evolution in church-state relations in Eastern Europe
did not follow a uniform or synchronized pattern as it moved through
the stages of transition, confrontation, and passive resistance on the part
of the churches, and their uneasy accommodation with the Communist
regime; these stages roughly coincided with the shifting of East-West relations, from the short-lived post-war cooperation, through the Cold War,
to detente.
While the new regimes at first shared a common ideological frame
of reference and were provided with the Soviet "model" of church-state
relations, they were faced with different religious and political situations
in their respective countries. Of special significance in shaping the future
course of church-state relations were such factors as the religious makeup
of each country, the historical role and the recent political record of the
individual churches, and the extent to which the given religion came to be
intertwined with the nation's culture. The popularity and organizational
strength of the churches, and their international links were equally important factors.
No less important in crystallizing the regimes' attitudes toward religion
and the churches were such variables as the intensity of the ruling parties'
ideological commitment to the secularization of society and their perceptions of their own strength and of the actual or potential threat posed by
individual churches to their newly won power. The degree to which the
new political elites shared national-cultural values with the churches was
of significance, as was the potential advantage in utilizing the churches
as socializing, nation-building agents at home and propaganda instruments
abroad. And finally, the nature of the given regime's relationship to the
Soviet Union was important as well.
As a result of the complex and varied interplay of these factors, several
"types" of church-state relations emerged in Communist Eastern Europe
by the end of the Cold War. In accordance with their national traditions,
Bulgaria and Romania developed a pattern of strict submission of the church
to the state, which owes as much to the Byzantine principle of "symphony"
as to the totalitarian aspirations of the new regimes.
The Czechoslovak and Hungarian governments established their supremacy over the churches by drawing on the legal precedents of the old Habsburg Empire. In Poland, Yugoslavia and East Germany-for differing
reasons-the pattern of church-state relations has become one of the relative
internal independence of the churches vis-a-vis the government, combined-especially in Poland-with a semi-institutionalized bargaining process
for the settlement of issues dividing the Cafholic church and state.
Albania, having initially approximated the Bulgarian-Romanian pattern has, during the 1960s, followed the example of the Chinese "cultural