State-church relations in the USSR during the “thaw” in 1954–1964 (on the example of the Gorky region)

The article examines the peculiarities of relations between state bodies and public organizations and the Gorky Diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church in the period 1954–1964, the so-called “thaw”. The article is based on normative legal acts of local authorities, memoirs of Orthodox clergy and publications in the regional periodical press. In the article, the author concludes that during this period the struggle against the Russian Orthodox Church in the USSR was carried out by a variety of administrative and propaganda means and methods that were sanctioned by the party-Soviet bodies.