The paper examines mass violations by members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) concerning the party’s charter requirements aimed at combating “religious remnants” in the late Soviet era. Drawing on documents from the staff of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR, as well as findings from contemporary field research, the author analyzes the manifestations, scope, and underlying reasons for the involvement of nominal communists in Orthodox practices. Particular attention is given to the participation of CPSU members in Orthodox baptism rites, which, despite party condemnation, remained a widespread phenomenon. The study reveals that the persistence of party members’ ties to Orthodox culture was driven not only by indifference to Marxist-Leninist ideology or the search for a foundation for ethnocultural identity but also by a practical synthesis of Soviet and Orthodox values at the individual level of worldview.
Orthodoxy; CPSU; Russian Orthodox Church; Late Soviet period; religious practices; communist ideology.