ABSTRACT
In June 1975 the basic "Law on Religious Associations" passed in April 1929 was amended. Despite Golitsyn's success at realizing more fully than ever before the intentions of the Petrine church reforms, his achievements were complicated and frustrated by his and Tsar Alexander's attempt to foster a specific religious ideology, Pietist Christianity. Administratively the other religious confessions continued to be administered by a Department for Religious Affairs for Foreign Confessions, part of the Dual Ministry introduced by Golitsyn in 1810. State demands became more insistent till permission for a religious organization to exist required more than a neutral apolitical position. Religious confessions such as the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Reformed, and Mermonite which had enjoyed various privileges under the tsars lost these privileges and were forced into a competitive situation. Even putting contradictions aside, the Council for Religious Affairs with its interventionist policies and outlook may well be out of date as far as further modernization is concerned.
