The situation of the Roman Catholic church in the pruto-nistrean space in the reports of the power of authority for the problems of cults near the SCN of the USSR for the SSRM (1944-1947)

The material proposed for the attention of the reader has as its subject the problem related to the establishment of relations between the Roman Catholic cult in the Pruto-Dniester area and the Soviet power. An analysis is made of the data from the last years of the war and the first post-war years of the situation of the Roman Catholic Church in the restored Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic. As the main documentary source, the documents issued by the newly created institution of the plenipotentiary for religious issues under the Soviet of People’s Commissars of the USSR for the SSRM, an institution that existed between 1944 and 1965, are used. In addition to the acts of instruction or disposition, which came from the central bodies, the reports of the representative for the problems of cults also contain a series of important information such as the number of Roman Catholic communities, the number of parishioners, the personality of the ecclesiastic who served this cult, etc. which contributes to the reconstruction of the history of this cult in an extremely difficult period. The analyzed documents show that at that stage the institution responsible for the relations between different religions and the state had the prerogative of taking into account the Roman Catholic communities, a preliminary and preparatory stage for their subsequent closure.