Author Description

"Coming at a time of enormous transformations in the onetime Communist bloc, this volume provides a much-needed perspective on the significance of church-state relations in the renaissance of civil society in the region. Comprised of essays by leading scholars on particular countries and issues, Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia offers a comprehensive approach to the varied and significant political roles of Protestant churches in Communist systems. These essays accentuate the peculiarly political character of Protestantism within Communist systems. With few identifiable leaders, a multiplicity of denominations, and a tendency away from hierarchical structures, the Protestant church presents a remarkably diverse pattern of church-state relations. Consequently, the longtime coexistence of Protestantism and Communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union affords numerous examples of political accommodation and theological adaptation that both reflect and foreshadow the dramatic changes of the 1990s. Based on extensive field research, including interviews with notable figures in the Protestant churches in the region, the essays in this volume consider the churches' involvement in environmentalist, pacifist, and other dissident movements, with one chapter devoted specifically to the issue of conscientious objection. The authors address broad concerns as well as those particular to Russia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany (1949-1989), Hungary, Yugoslavia (1945-1991), Bulgaria, and Romania. Protestantism and Politics in Eastern Europe and Russia completes the three-volume work "Christianity Under Stress." Comprehensive and authoritative, it will prove invaluable to anyone hoping to understand not only the workings of religion under Communism, but the historical and contemporary interactions of church and state in general."--BOOK JACKET.