ABSTRACT

My present study cannot claim to be as theoretically insightful as the article to which the title refers, Melvin Croan’s analysis of the evolution of stable one-party systems.1 My purpose is more modest – to investigate to what extent the relationship between the state and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in other Soviet bloc settings resembles that in the GDR. As various studies have shown, the relationship in the GDR has moved from one of confrontation in the 1940s and 1950s to one of increasing co-operation and rapprochement in the 1970s and 1980s, symbolized by church-state summits in 1978 and 1985 and marked by the heavy publicity accorded the Luther anniversary in 1983.2 In this chapter, I inquire whether this political change is unique to the GDR or has occurred in other Communist systems, in particular Hungary and the Baltics, and to offer tentative explanations of empirical differences in the churches’ role.