How to Establish an "Anti-Soviet Organization"? History of the Keston Institute and a Letter of Orthodox Believers from the Pochaev Lavra

Abstract

This is the publication of a letter from Soviet believers about persecutions of the monks of Pochaev Lavra, Ukraine. This letter is preserved in the Keston Center for Religion Politics and Society at Baylor University, Texas, USA, earlier in the Keston Institute (Oxford, UK). This document reached the West in 1964 and played an important role in spreading the information about antireligious assaults in the USSR in the years of the Khrushchev rule and particularly in the establishment of the Keston Institute in 1969. The publication is accompanied with an introductory note that places the document within the Cold War “religious front” context, and reference commentaries.