There were several distinct stages to the DIY church movement. In the 1950s, pre-existing churches damaged in the war were repaired as part of national reconstruction schemes; however, the strictly Stalinist government of the time would not allow for new religious sites. As people began in the 1960s to move into rebuilt cities and new social housing projects, they began, in Cichońska’s words, to “want more — to want a place of worship”. Whilst still unwilling, the state began to at least entertain requests that land be given over to religious construction. The wave was beginning to grow. When the laws regarding urban planning were altered slightly in the 1970s — the state was fearful of strikes and moved to loosen certain restrictions — the wave became unmanageable. “Churches from the 70s and 80s are the most interesting in terms both of their architectures and their stories,” says Cichońska.

The relaxation of certain laws notwithstanding, church-building remained an attritional bureaucratic war with municipal administrations that sometimes devolved into games of architectural hide-and-seek. Cichońska explains: “A community lives in a mikrayon, for example. They want to build a church so they look for a location. They see there is a plot which might be free; the church couldn’t be exhibited or exposed, so these plots would be somewhere to the side, somewhere ‘hidden’. There was a special government unit to deal with religious matters that gave permission or otherwise for church-building. Usually they postponed cases, trying to find reasons to forbid the construction. They would give permission to build a church and then change that decision in favour of a school. The church has to move and it starts over.”