For Church and State: The Catholic Community and State Legitimacy in Soviet Lithuania

• In Event: Legitimizing and Contesting Soviet/Post-Soviet Authority across Time and Space

Abstract

This paper examines the Soviet Union’s use of its Catholic community as a strategy of international legitimacy during the late Cold War period. It argues that the Soviet Union utilized Catholic priests from the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (LitSSR) to garner legitimacy in its foreign relations, especially through the interactions of Lithuanian priests with organizations such as the UN, World Council of Churches (WCC), and the Vatican. It also explores the influence of Lithuanian Catholic dissenters who worked to undermine the Soviet effort for legitimacy by appealing to these same international organizations with evidence of Soviet violations of religious freedom. These conflicting objectives, despite similar tactics, expose the importance of religion in the Soviet Union’s international diplomacy. This paper's investigation of Soviet-Vatican relations through the window of Soviet Lithuanian clergy and their role in diplomacy also sheds light on an otherwise inaccessible source base and reveals a relationship of cooperation for mutual gain between the two institutions.

Author

• Nicole Harry, UNC at Chapel Hill