Russian Church and State in the 80s of the XX Century

Perestroika, which began in 1985, required qualitative transformations in all spheres of Russian society. Undoubtedly, urgent issues concerning state-church relations were waiting for resolution. Since the mid-80s, a fundamentally new sociopolitical situation has been emerging in the country, which has led to the formation of democratic political and legal norms between the Soviet State, the people and religious organizations since the mid-80s. The same internal political situation contributed to the rise of the religious feeling of the Russian people. Russian Orthodox Patriarch Pimen and members of the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church met on April 29, 1988, on the threshold of the landmark celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Rus. This meeting, in many ways, determined the fate of state-church relations for the coming decades, as it discussed topical issues concerning religious policy, the resolution of which required an acute discrepancy between the current legislation and the real situation in society.