ABSTRACT
Communist totalitarianism is a messianic political system, which claims to have a message for the whole world and to possess all the answers and solutions to all past, present, and future problems. Immediately after the establishment of the East European communist system the various regimes set out to annihilate religion. Similar data on the number of churches and priests, governmental support in the form of wages for church officials and various social security benefits are often cited by all East European countries with the exception of Albania. The loyalty pledge can take the form of a long and detailed document that analyzes the reasons for the Church’s loyalty to the socialist regime and touches upon the entire subject of church-state relations under the socialist regime. Such a document was issued in May 1981 by the German Democratic Republic Protestant Church.
