Eastern Orthodox Church

=== Eastern Orthodox churches under Communist rule ===

{{See also|Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union}}
{{multiple image
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| image1 = Christ saviour explosion.jpg
| alt1 = A church being dynamited
| caption1 = 1931 demolition of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in [[Moscow]]
| image2 = Russia-Moscow-Cathedral of Christ the Saviour-8.jpg
| alt2 = Large church
| caption2 = The rebuilt Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, currently the second tallest Orthodox church
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After the [[October Revolution]] of 1917, part of the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church fled abroad to escape [[Bolshevik]] persecutions, founding an [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia|independent church in exile]], which reunified with its Russian counterpart in 2007.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-church/russian-orthodox-church-reunites-after-80-year-rift-idUSL1729095720070517|title = Russian Orthodox church reunites after 80-year rift|newspaper = Reuters|date = 17 May 2007|last1 = Dmitracova|first1 = Olesya}}</ref> Some actions against Orthodox priests and believers along with [[execution]] included [[torture]], being sent to [[Gulag|prison camps]], [[sharashka|labour camps]] or [[Psikhushka|mental hospitals]].<ref name=blqarv>{{cite book| author = Alexander (servant of God.) | title = Father Arseny, 1893–1973: Prisoner, Priest and Spiritual Father | year = 1998 | publisher = St Vladimir's Seminary Press | isbn = 978-0-88141-180-5 }}</ref><ref>Sullivan, Patricia. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500783.html Anti-Communist Priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa], ''The Washington Post'', 26 November 2006. p. C09. Accessed 9 May 2008.</ref> In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.<ref name=time>Ostling, Richard. [https://web.archive.org/web/20070813173443/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html "Cross meets Kremlin"], ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'', 24 June 2001. Retrieved 7 April 2008.</ref>

After Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union in 1941, [[Joseph Stalin]] revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. By 1957 about 22,000 Russian Orthodox churches had become active. However, in 1959, [[Nikita Khrushchev]] initiated his own campaign against the Russian Orthodox Church and forced the closure of about 12,000 churches. It is estimated that 50,000 clergy had been executed between the revolution and the end of the Khrushchev era. Members of the church hierarchy were jailed or forced out, their places taken by docile clergy, many of whom had ties with the KGB. By 1985 fewer than 7,000 churches remained active.<ref name=time />

[[Albania]] was the only state to have declared itself [[State atheism|officially fully atheist]].<ref name="Elsie p27">{{Cite book|title=Historical Dictionary of Albania|last=Elsie|first=Robert|publisher=[[The Scarecrow Press]]|year=2010|isbn=978-0-8108-6188-6|edition=2nd|series=Historical Dictionaries of Europe, No. 75|location=Lanham, MD, and Plymouth|page=[https://books.google.com/books?id=haFlGXIg8uoC&pg=PA27 27]}}</ref> In some other Communist states such as Romania, the [[Romanian Orthodox Church]] as an organisation enjoyed relative freedom and even prospered, albeit under strict secret police control. That, however, did not rule out demolishing churches and monasteries as part of broader [[Systematisation (Romania)|systematisation]] (urban planning), and state persecution of individual believers. As an example of the latter, Romania stands out as a country which ran a [[Pitești Prison|specialised institution]] where many Orthodox (along with people of other faiths) were subjected to [[psychological punishment]] or torture and [[mind control]] experimentation in order to force them give up their religious convictions. However, this was only supported by one faction within the regime, and lasted only three years. The Communist authorities closed down the prison in 1952, and punished many of those responsible for abuses (twenty of them were sentenced to death).<ref>Dumitru Bacu, ''[http://litek.ws/k0nsl/detox/anti-humans.htm The Anti-Humans. Student Re-Education in Romanian Prisons] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070927051409/http://litek.ws/k0nsl/detox/anti-humans.htm |date=27 September 2007 }}'', Soldiers of the Cross, [[Englewood, Colorado]], 1971. Originally written in Romanian as ''Pitești, Centru de Reeducare Studențească'', Madrid, 1963.</ref><ref>[[Adrian Cioroianu]], ''Pe umerii lui Marx. O introducere în istoria comunismului românesc'' ("On the Shoulders of Marx. An Incursion into the History of Romanian Communism"), [[Editura Curtea Veche]], Bucharest, 2005.</ref>