Decree on Freedom of Conscience and on Church and Religious Societies

Council of People’s Commissars of the Russian Soviet Republic20 January (2 February) 1918

The Soviet government’s decree of 20 January (2 February) 1918, known as the decree on the separation of church from state and school from church. Its thirteen articles ended the legal standing and the property rights of all churches in Russia.

The decree is signed by Lenin as chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars and by eight commissars. Articles 1 to 8 separate church and state, guarantee to each citizen the profession of any religion or none, and transfer the registration of births and marriages to the civil authorities. Article 9 separates school and church. Articles 10 to 13 place religious societies under the rules for private associations, deny them the right to own property or to be legal persons, and declare everything they hold to be the property of the people.

It is the text of the law itself and is cited in the Russian Church under the Bolsheviks for its provisions, not for how they were applied.

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