The article presents a panorama of the religious life of Catholics in the republics of the Soviet Union at the time of the election of Pope John Paul II. The authors describe concepts that dominated the thinking of the Soviet leadership in its relations with the Vatican, and note the absence of a clear strategy at the international level. They pay close attention to the consolidated protest movement of Catholics in the Soviet Union of the 1970s, especially in Lithuania, and how the Lithuanian Catholic samizdat reflected the reaction to the election of a new Pope. The authors emphasize that by the time of John Paul II’s election, among the Catholics of the Soviet Union there was a growing protest movement, there was regular criticism of the Vatican's ‘Eastern Policy’, and there were public organizations that put the issue of discrimination against believers and churches on the public agenda. The article also describes the efforts of the Sovietleadership to consolidate the countries of Eastern Europe in the context of its relations with the Vatican, its attempts to use to its advantage the differences between political trends within the clergy of the Catholic Church.

The article treats of the experience of using two fundamental motives in architectural semantics — “desert” and “ruin” in order to resolve the hermeneutic paradox, which is peculiar to sacred architecture, considered in the context of Abrahamic tradition: canonical texts related to architecture either prescribe, or describe construction experience. Yet, purely construction motives can be supplemented not only by motives of creation, but also motives of destruction. Thus, the necessary critical (crisis) position of interpretation will be provided, revealing the pre- and post-architectonic dimensions of theophanic experience. The rhetorical topic of “desert” and “ruin” has two dimensions: one deals with phenomena of space and object, and the other with literary metaphors. Both are presented in the article in a threefold sequence: literature is replaced by the theory of memory, which in turn passes the baton to philosophy, primarily the philosophy of space, but also of time, with a return to history, either asserted or cancelled.

Translation of a treatise by George Whitehead, a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), criticizing the position of the Church of England during the Great Plague of London, 1665-1666.