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

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BOHDAN R. BOCIURKIW
As in the USSR, special administrative agencies have been erected
in all Communist states to administer their ecclesiastical legislation, channel
the state funds to the religious groups, supervise their activities, and provide
liaison between the churches and the government. Following Soviet practice,
in most of the satellite countries these agencies have been working in tandem
with security police and the Party's anti-religious specialists in an effort
to infiltrate religious organizations and minimize their influence in society.
In Poland and Hungary, occasional meetings between the top religious,
government, and Party leaders have provided a direct channel for the articulation of ecclesiastical interests and the settlement through "accords,"
of some of the issues dividing the church and the state. Since 1978 Pope
John Paul II has taken a direct interest in Polish church-state relations.
His three visits to Poland as well as the church's mediating role during
and after the 'Solidarity' period (1980-1981) have greatly reinforced the
political and material strength of Polish Roman Catholicism. Compelled
during the prolonged crisis of legitimacy and power to make concessions
to the Polish episcopate, the regime has been trying in recent years to
roll back the influence of the Church on society.
Since the opening of the Vatican's dialogue with the Communist
states in the early Sixties, the status, organization, and activities of the
Catholic Church in Eastern Europe have also been affected by the course
of the Papacy's Eastern diplomacy and the official and unofficial agreements
arrived at by the Holy See and the individual Communist states. The most
successful of such agreements has been the Vatican-Yugoslav Protocol
in 1966 which led to the establishment of full diplomatic relations four
years later. Several partial accords have been concluded since 1964 between
the Holy See and Hungary, while Poland has established a quasi-diplomatic
relationship with the Vatican (in the form of a standing contact commission). Some progress in this direction has been recorded also in Bulgaria,
the GDR, and Romania; but little has been achieved, however, during
prolonged Vatican negotiations with Czechoslovakia and the USSR. Under
Pope John Paul II, the Holy See has taken more aggressive approaches
in seeking improvement in the status of the Catholic Church (including
the hitherto neglected Uniates) in the individual Communist countries.
Conclusion
Despite striking differences among the East European states in their
legislation on religion, it must be emphasized that all ruling Communist
parties, including even the most relatively tolerant of them-the Yugoslav
Communist League-consider all religious organizations as their rivals in
ideology and political socialization; most ruling parties view them also
as an expression of popular discontent with the status quo and as a potential
threat to the regime's security. Accordingly, whether or not they have
separated the church and the state constitutionally, the Communist parties