Editor’s note: In the spirit of democratization proclaimed by the 2013-14 Maidan protesters, the government of Ukraine has since moved to make the historical archives of the KGB secret police and its Soviet-era predecessors fully accessible to the public. They include a wealth of material detailing the repression of Christians and other religious believers under Communism.

In this issue, the East-West Church Report offers a taste of these previously top-secret records and hears from some of the researchers who have delved deepest into them about how they—as well as records in other Soviet-era archives—are re-shaping our understanding of the Communist impact upon Christian life in Ukraine.