Conversions From, to, and Within the Evangelical Faith in the Late USSR (1950-1980s)

The policy of atheization, along with the dissolution of religious institutions in the USSR, was accompanied by deconversion. However, it also produced unintended consequences. This chapter focuses on one such consequence: conversions to and reconversions from communities of religious minorities - primarily Evangelical Baptists and Pentecostals. The authors examine narratives of conversion to chart the changing religious map in the different republics of the USSR after World War II. Their aim is to show why and how Evangelical Baptists and Pentecostals became a point of identification in a religiously heterogeneous population facing enforced secularization. In the second section of the chapter, the authors analyze how the state’s religious policy of merging various small religious communities with different theological and ritual bases, instead of leading to the intended secularization, resulted in large-scale reconversions.