Memoirs of the Russian Orthodox Church clergy and laity as a source for historical and legal research of state-religious relations in the USSR in the 1940s–1980s

The purpose of the research. This article analyzes published personal journals, memories, and biographies (primarily those written by clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church) that characterize the model of state-religious relations in the USSR during the 1940s–1980s, as well as specific aspects of its legal regulation and enforcement. The study is based on a corpus of 137 selected works, chosen according to the source type and status of their authors. These works are classified and synthesized; the issue of their reliability and representativeness is discussed. Also, the author describes the range of issues with regard to mechanisms of legal regulation of state-religious relations in the USSR. Results. Personal memoirs and biographical literature of ROC clergy and laity in the 1940s–1980s are crucial for studying the legal regulation of state-religious relations in the USSR. They help reveal the specifics of the legal consciousness of Soviet believers and uncover the informal mechanisms, through which state-ROC interaction was implemented. Yet, numerous recollections of clergy and laity published by today’s church media are predominantly general and unspecific; the ‘burning issues’ of legal regulation of state-religious relations in the USSR are largely absent. The primary focus of the memoirs is the life of the ROC under persecution, encompassing questions of survival and the Church's adaptation to the realities of Soviet religious policy. With the exception of a small segment of the sources, the memoirs do not address the problem of the ROC's agency as a political actor, nor do they raise questions of the Church's responsibility for collaboration with the Soviet authorities, or the excessive alignment of Church interests with those of the state. This omission points to promising directions for future legal, historical, and theological research.