CONFESSIONAL TRANSFORMATIONS IN BAPTIST AND PENTECOSTAL COMMUNITIES IN WESTERN REGIONS OF UKRAINE IN 1976–1991

Abstract

Research objectives – operation of registered Baptist communities (AUCECB), Penticostal communities (ChER), illegal Penticostal communities, emigration tendencies and uniting legal processes within the mentioned communities, which in the last years of Soviet regime existence formed their independent unions or associations and which are commonplace nowadays throughout all Ukraine on the example of Lvivska, Ivano- Frankivska and Ternopilska Oblsats. Research methodology is based on the principles of scientific cognition: historicist tradition, objectiveness, non-confessional tradition, worldview pluralism, tolerance, which made possible to learn and compare events and facts within their genesis and integrity projected on contemporary realities of state and religious policy of Ukraine. Research methods correlates to objective, subject, target and problems of the research. Research novelty. Research on mentioned aspects of nation-wide scope almost does not cover Galician regions in the period of 1945 – 1991, which in its turn does not form the holistic picture of operation of communities, their confessional transformations and more profound understanding of their service in present conditions. Therefore, the aspects of operation of Baptist and Pentecostal communities of Galician regions covered in this study are urgent, as they foster the way to a deeper understanding of their activities nowadays. Conclusions and prospects of further research. Transformational processes in Baptist and Pentecostal communities of the period under study in Western regions can be divided into two stages: slow – 1976-1987 and intense – 1988-1991. If the first stage is characterized by the growth in communities of the mentioned confessions, though not at fast rate, due to active atheization of society by party-and-state soviet authorities who used repressive methods beginning from so-called “conversations” with clergy and community activists to bringing them to administrative and even criminal responsibility for violation of law on religious cults, the second stage, during the period of Horbachov “Reconstruction” with the emergence of freedom of speech and confessional freedom, is characterized by rapid and inclusive transformational processes in Baptist and Pentecostal communities which lead to the disintegration of AUCECB and formation of such Pentecostal groups as AUChER – known as pentecostals and UFChChER and provide new impetus for CchChER and newly-formed Union of ChER of Ukraine, which will act under the following names UUChEChB and UUEChB and which form their own oblsat’s and regional divisions and launch multi-vectoral activities for the benefit of Ukrainian society.