Russia at war 1941-1945

member told me: "The Party and the Komsomol have been much impressed by the

number of people who went to church this Easter— much more even than usual." One explanation was that people knew that the Church was no longer frowned upon by the

authorities. Significantly, there were many more soldiers in the churches in 1943 than there had been in previous years.

The establishment of more "correct" relations with the Church in 1942-3 was part of both a short-term and a long-term policy. It was certainly part of that drive for "complete national unity", which the grim situation of 1942 demanded. The Church derived

considerable benefits from it and, in return, became increasingly vocal in its loyalty to the regime, even to the point of saying special prayers for Stalin, and treating him as an

"anointed of the Lord", though no doubt in only a figurative way.

Internationally the "reconciliation" with the Church served a great variety of purposes: it made a good impression on the Allies, particularly the United States; it made the Moscow Patriarchate play the role of a sort of Greek-Orthodox Vatican, intolerant of any suspect

"sects". Leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church were also encouraged to fraternise for instance with leaders of the Anglican Church, and were prominent in such organisations as the All-Slav Committee, and were even used to add the weight of their authority to more dubious bodies such as the Committee of Inquiry into the Katyn Murders. After the war the Metropolitan Nicholas, in his golden robes also added lustre to international Peace Congresses where he spoke alongside other leading Soviet personalities like

Korneichuk and Ehrenburg.

Looking beyond 1942, we may briefly summarise the story of State-Church relations

during and just after the War. As Walter Kolarz was to write later in his excellent

Religion in the Soviet Union,

The ideological content of Soviet communism in 1941 or 1943 was infinitely more

patriotic than it was in the twenties or early thirties. All sorts of nationalist contraband had infiltrated into the official communist ideology ... The Church

found Stalin's revised communism attractive to its traditional way of thinking.

[Kolarz, op, cit., p. 49.]

Kolarz also recalls how in 1941-3 the church leaders assisted the war effort not only in words but also in deeds. When a tank column christened "Dimitri Donskoi" [The valiant Russian Prince who routed the Tartars on the Field of

Kulikovo in 1380. An oratorio in his honour by Yuri Shaporin had

been given a Stalin Prize in 1941 just before the war.] paid for out of funds collected by the Church was handed over to the Army, the Metropolitan Nicholas spoke of Russia's

"sacred hatred of the fascist robbers" and referred to Stalin as "our common Father, Joseph Vissarionovich".

In September 1943 a sort of "concordat" was concluded between the Church and the State, after Stalin had himself received all the three Metropolitans (Sergius, Alexis and Nicholas), at the Kremlin. As a result of this meeting the Church was allowed to elect its Patriarch and to re-establish a proper ecclesiastical government, the Holy Synod. The Russian Orthodox Church was allowed to resume publication of the Journal of the

Moscow Patriarchate which had been suspended in 1936, and to open a limited number of theological seminaries and academies. The Church was also recognised as a "juridical person" entitled to own property.

The official recognition of the Patriarchal Church as the sole legal representative of the Orthodox Christians became fully operative in October 1943 with the appointment of the

"Council for the affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church" under the above mentioned Karpov, which was to act as the go-between between the Patriarchate and the Soviet

Government. It issued licences for the opening and restoration of churches; and another of its duties was to look after the material interests and even personal comfort of the Patriarch and his closer collaborators.

The Patriarchate became, as it were, part of the Soviet Establishment. It not only made a great show of the Church's loyalty to the regime, and of a special devotion to Stalin personally, but it also became a political instrument of considerable international

importance.

Sergius, the first war-time Patriarch, died in May 1944, and was succeeded by Alexis, the Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod. By the time Alexis was elected, the Russians had practically won the war; but this did not mean that the Church had outlived its

usefulness from Stalin's point of view.