[Guderian, op cit., p. 228.]
In their radio propaganda the Germans made much of this "revival" of religion in the areas they had occupied, and the fact that some priests were said to have joined the partisans was insufficient to cancel out these German claims entirely. Moscow was
particularly sensitive, in 1942, to hostile propaganda, especially in the United States, on the ground that there was no "freedom of religion" in Russia.
A curious landmark in the story of the Russian church during the war was the publication by the Moscow Patriarchate, in August 1942, of a sumptuously-bound and admirably
printed and illustrated volume called The Truth about Religion in Russia. Its flyleaf claimed that 50,000 copies had been printed. The Central Committee itself had not
produced such a typographical masterpiece for years; there was obviously a great deal behind this publication. It was certainly intended partly for foreign consumption.
Much of the book had been written (or purported to have been written) by Father Sergius, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna, and locum tenens of the Patriarchal Throne since the death of the Patriarch Tikhon in 1925. Although Tikhon's anti-Soviet attitude was well known, Sergius nevertheless recalled that, according to Tikhon, the "Soviet order means the rule of the people... and is, therefore, firm and unshakable". Sergius further recalled (a rather piquant touch) that Tikhon had "explicitly condemned" the schism in the Orthodox Church, brought about by the Karlovite sect, who for years had waged war against the Metropolitan Evlogi of Paris, the head of the "true" Russian church in Western Europe.
[Named after Karlovac in Yugoslavia, a centre of violently anti-Moscow religious
activity among the White-Russian émigrés. See W. Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union, p. 41 (London 1961).]
The Karlovites were émigré extremists who later identified themselves with the teachings of Hitler. The Orthodox Church, as represented by Sergius, was the old Russian Church, but deprived of the financial and other earthly privileges it had enjoyed under the Tsars.
In the old days the Tsar himself had been head of the Church; but the separation of
Church and State was, in Sergius's opinion, all to the good.
This attack on the "Karlovites" was in fact a disguised attack on Father Vvedensky's
"Living Church" which had created a schism, not among the émigrés, but in Russia itself.
This Living Church had been encouraged by Lunacharsky and other members of the
Soviet government in the early years of the Revolution. This attack on "schisms" in 1942
clearly showed that the Soviet Government was willing to throw Vvedensky and his
"Living Church" overboard; it had, indeed, been a failure; people went to a Vvedensky church only when there was no "real" church in the neighbourhood. The "Living Church"
was, indeed, to be disbanded in 1943. It went, as it were, into voluntary liquidation, with Vvedensky recanting, and its priests and bishops submitting to the authority of Sergius, who was elected Patriarch in 1943.
The disappearance of the Vvedensky Church was in the logic of things: it was important to the Soviet Government that there should be only one Russian Church.
In The Truth about Religion in Russia Sergius wrote that the loss by the Church and the monasteries of land and other property did not denote persecution, but "a return to Apostolic times when priests pursued their profession... more in accordance with the teachings of Christ." The separation of Church and State had had a purifying effect on the Church; now only true believers went to church, and nominal Christians had dropped out.
No doubt he regretted that communists should "adhere to the anti-religious standpoint". It was certain, however, that anti-religious propaganda had been in decline for several years past, and had disappeared completely since the beginning of the war.
Since the beginning of the war, Sergius went on, the attitude of the Church had been clearer than ever. It rejected absolutely Hitler's "crusade" for its liberation. Although no priests were attached to the Red Army, the Church constantly prayed for this Army, and also said innumerable prayers for individual soldiers at their families' request. In their sermons Russian churchmen now constantly referred to the Nazis as the successors of
"the foul hounds"—the Teutonic Knights, whom St Alexander Nevsky, the patron saint of Leningrad, had routed in 1242 on the ice of Lake Peipus.
Sergius went on to say that he had recently addressed an Epistle to the Orthodox faithful in occupied territories, telling them that they must never forget that they were Russians and that they must do nothing, wittingly or unwittingly, while under the German yoke, which would be a betrayal of their homeland.
He also said that the Church had proved its patriotic fervour not only in words, but also in deeds; it was helping the Red Army not only with prayers, but also with gifts and
collections. Thus the Holy Trinity Church at Gorki had recently collected a million
roubles for the Defence Fund.
The book also devoted much space to the "chaos" in the Orthodox Church abroad. Those who saw eye to eye with the Russian Church, it said, were dismissed or persecuted by the Germans: this was true of Gabriel, Patriarch of Serbia, of Chrysanthos, Metropolitan of Athens, and Stefan, the Bulgarian Metropolitan, "who because of his great sympathy for the patriotism of the Russian Orthodox Church," had fallen into disfavour with the Germans and was "frequently attacked in the pro-Nazi press."
Great sympathy for the patriotism of the Russian Church has also been shown by
the Near-Eastern Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem, as well as by
Benjamin Fedchikov, Metropolitan of the Aleutians and North America [who
represented the Moscow Patriarchate under that picturesque title in the United
States]. He has worked steadily in favour of American aid to Russia, despite the
Theophilites, an Orthodox sect, who have been engaged in anti-Soviet propaganda,
and have been urging President Roosevelt to send an ultimatum to the Soviet
Government demanding guarantees of "religious freedom" in Russia after the war.
The book further contained a sharp attack on certain "church quislings", notably in the Ukraine, who, after accepting the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate, were now
serving Hitler in fostering Ukrainian "nationalism". In an Epistle addressed to the Ukrainian faithful, Sergius stated that Bishop Sikorsky had presented himself to the German authorities as the "Archbishop of Luck and Kovel and Head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church." This imposter "had promised his faithful co-operation to the Germans, whom he had addressed as the liberators of the Ukrainian People' ".
The true Orthodox Church in the Ukraine, said Sergius, was the Church which was
"sharing all the hardships and sorrows of the Russian people."
The second part of the book told of the German destruction of numerous valuable
churches (notably the New Jerusalem Monastery at Istra and the Novgorod churches),
and of the fearful atrocities committed by the enemy in occupied areas. Conscious of the sufferings inflicted by the Germans on the Russian people, the book said, the priests had nearly everywhere [sic] refused to fraternise with the German "liberators".
For all that, in 1942, the Church was still very down-at-heel, and it was not till later that steps were taken to restore church buildings— buildings of "historic value"—and that the Patriarch and the newly formed Synod were given decent quarters in Moscow. These
measures, and others of a financial nature were taken after the establishment of a special Department for Church Affairs at the Council of People's Commissars, with a Mr Karpov at its head—a comrade who had been a police official in charge of church matters and who was now sometimes jokingly referred to in Moscow as "Narkombog" or
"Narkomop", i.e. People's Commissar for God, or People's Commissar for Opium (for the people).
But in the summer of 1942, chur
ches in Moscow—and even "Moscow Cathedral", which had never been more than a very large and ugly and relatively modern suburban church—
were still a dismal and depressing sight. The cathedral remained one of the few Moscow centres of organized, professional and completely unashamed begging, even though the rouble notes and twenty-kopek pieces they were given can hardly have been of any value to the wretched tattered old women. The congregation consisted chiefly of elderly people, though there were also some young women—many of them with children. They kept
passing on to the altar slips of paper with the names of those they wished included in the prayers. Then there were collections "for the poor" and "for the restoration of the church"—which it certainly badly needed. Only very few soldiers could be seen among the congregation. The priests' robes were on the shabby side, though the robes and crown of the Metropolitan Nicholas looked impressive enough; but there seemed a shortage of both incense and candles, and the singing was poor and uninspired. The whole scene was drab and miserable.
By 1943 there was already a great improvement. The church attendance, especially on
Easter night, was extraordinarily high; whole streets adjoining the twenty-five or thirty churches in Moscow were crowded with people who could find no room inside. A Party
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.
Church support was still needed to enhance the respectability of the Soviet
Government... and was particularly essential in the fight against centrifugal forces in the borderlands___Outside the new Soviet borders there was even more for the
Church to do as an ally of the Soviet State. The Red Army was now operating in
countries with an Orthodox population—Rumania, Bulgaria and Serbia—and the
Russian Orthodox Church could assist in promoting... friendship among the
Orthodox peoples of the Balkans.
[ Kolarz, op. cit., p. 56.]
The unspectacular election of Sergius as Patriarch in 1943 by a handful of metropolitans and bishops contrasted strikingly with the sumptuous election of Alexis in February 1945
attended by 204 ecclesiastical dignitaries and laymen. Among the guests were the
Patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria and the representatives of other Balkan and Near-East Patriarchs. Metropolitan Benjamin of North America was also present, and alluded approvingly to the old messianic traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church by saying that Moscow might yet become "The Third Rome".
Stalin was all in favour of Moscow's becoming a sort of "Vatican" of the Orthodox Church, and Alexis was given every encouragement to extend his foreign contacts and to claim for himself and his Church a leading position in the religious world. On April 10, 1945 Stalin had another meeting with the Patriarch Alexis and the Metropolitan Nicholas, and gave the Patriarch every encouragement for his forthcoming journey to the Near and Middle East—a journey which lasted four weeks. A special plane, piloted by a Hero of the Soviet Union, was placed at the Patriarch's disposal. The political implications of all these contacts were obvious enough; and, as already said, the Church hierarchy, and in particular the Metropolitan Nicholas were to lend special respectability to a variety of committees of inquiry, as well as to the Peace Movement in its various international manifestations, such as the famous congress of the Partisans of Peace at the Salle Pleyel in Paris in 1949.
There was much talk in Moscow, especially towards the end of the war, about Stalin, the ex-seminarist, having a soft spot for the Chur
ch, which was thought to be somehow
associated in his mind with the Muscovite State and with his "forerunners", the Moscow Tsars.
The international purpose served by the Church was also only too obvious. It did its best to establish a friendly contact with certain other Churches; a great fuss was made over the visit to Moscow of the Archbishop of York whose only complaint was that the bearded
old gentlemen would insist on kissing him on every possible occasion; he thought this
"constant diving into their whiskers" was being a bit overdone. Sir Archibald Clark Kerr (later Lord Inverchapel), the British Ambassador told me, at the end of 1944, about a meeting he had with Stalin, at which the Marshal assured him that "in his own way, he also believed in God." "I dare say," Clark Kerr commented, "he had his tongue in his cheek when he said so; but it is surely interesting that he should have thought it politic to make such a remark to me!"
The modus vivendi established between the Church and the State during the war was of considerable mutual benefit, though no doubt it made many diehard communists squirm
at times; it was all very "un-Leninist". Stalin's apparent wish that the Russian Orthodox Church should become a sort of "Vatican" for all Orthodox Christians throughout the world, met with a considerable measure of success, though not complete success. The
resistance to the whole concept developed after the war, together wth the intensification of cold-war currents.
It is true that, even at the height of the Stalin-Patriarch honeymoon, both the Party and the Komsomol continued to discourage religious practices among their members, and no
chaplains were ever attached to the Red Army. But active anti-religious propaganda in Russia was not to be resumed on a large scale until after Stalin's death.
The Russian Orthodox Church was traditionally anti-Catholic; nevertheless with the
establishment of a Polish Army in Russia in 1943 and the subsequent liberation of Poland by the Red Army, Stalin was very anxious, at one stage, to normalise relations with the Catholic Church as well. In this he was much less successful. And, on one famous
Russia at war Page 50
