Persecution of the clergy of Lithuania's Orthodox diocese in the years of Stalinism

The article analyzes the reasons for and the circumstances for the repressions of the clergy of Lithuanian Orthodox diocese in 1940-1941 and 1944-1953, providing statistical data about the scale of the repressions, as well as about the clergy, who withdrew from Lithuania already before the start of the Soviet occupation. At the end of the article there is an attachment - data about the biographies of the repressed Orthodox clergy and their criminal cases. From the about 50 clergy of the Orthodox diocese 12 were arrested. It would be difficult to make a collective portrait of the repressed because they were men of various ages (from 27 to 66 years old), pastors of rural parishes and representatives of the leadership of the Orthodox diocese, two monks, clergy of the Lithuanian and Polish (the Vilnius region joined to Lithuania in 1939) parts of the diocese. Most of the clergy were repressed in 1949. That was determined by the changes in the situation of the Orthodox Church in the USSR, when the Soviet regime abandoned the efforts with its help to mobilize the opposition of Christian Churches to the Vatican, while in Lithuania - to use the potential of the diocese seeking to weaken the influence of « reactionary» Catholicism. The arrest of the Orthodox clergy was most often motivated by anti-Soviet activities and agitation from 1917, however the security organs primarily sought to intimidate all the clergy, to prevent the sharing of critical opinions, and also to influence the governance of the diocese