Spring of 1945. Victory over the global fascist evil is near for the Soviet people. For the Russian Orthodox Church, it is a time of relative respite from persecutions, a period of hopeful expectations. However, transitioning to a legal status did not yet imply freedom. From now on, issues of Church-government cooperation were coordinated by a state structure established in 1943—the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church (hereafter, the Council) under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. Operating under the latter, the new agency followed the instructions of the party leadership—the Central Committee of the VKP(b).

A document presented on March 15, 1945, to Chairman of the SNK of the USSR Joseph Stalin vividly illustrates the reasons behind the secular authorities' interest in church life and the hopes they had for the Russian clergy. The head of the body controlling church life in the country, Georgy Karpo, proposed a plan for cooperation with the Church in addressing foreign policy issues. The list of activities is impressive, and their content clearly outlines the Soviet state's interests in foreign church policy. Cooperation with the Russian clergy was deemed essential, which explains the loyalty and even goodwill with which the Soviet leadership continued to approach the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate in the post-war years when the Church’s patriotic mission had been fulfilled and the state no longer urgently needed its support.

How the Prestige of the USSR Depended on the Role of Orthodoxy in the World

The main goal of the planned activities, outlined at the beginning of the document, was to reduce the Vatican’s international influence, as it had taken a firm anti-communist stance. Its centuries-old policy of attempting to subordinate and absorb the Orthodox Church, combined in the late 1940s with a drive to destroy the anti-fascist unity formed during the war, and with support for the Cold War, was a major factor.

Naturally, the entire range of measures proposed by Karpo for "strengthening the role of the Orthodox Church in the world" was not aimed at increasing the freedom of believers or restoring the parish economies that had been destroyed during the persecutions within the country, but rather at raising the prestige of the Soviet state on the international stage. The global situation in the spring of 1945 was favorable to the growth of the USSR’s influence.

Chairman of the Council, Karpo, called for both organizational and material support for the unification of the Orthodox Churches in their struggle against the Vatican’s machinations.

To achieve this goal, support for the so-called Old Catholic movement was deemed necessary. This movement among Catholics arose in the 1870s as a rejection of many errors and innovations in the Catholic Church, and it did not recognize the infallibility of the papacy. The Council planned to strengthen this movement in every way: facilitating the establishment of contacts between Old Catholic groups in the USSR and Old Catholic Churches in other countries, providing them with churches, furnishings, and so on.

To bolster the role of Orthodoxy and oppose Catholicism, the Council proposed the establishment of Orthodox brotherhoods in cities like Riga, Vilnius, Grodno, Lutsk, Lviv, and Chernivtsi, granting them the right to conduct missionary and charitable activities.

Annex and Unify!

In line with the government course mentioned earlier, the Council planned to continue annexing Orthodox parishes from various territories to the Moscow Patriarchate and create new ones. Steps would be taken to eliminate the autocephaly of the Polish Orthodox Church by integrating it into the Moscow Patriarchate. The Council also planned to formalize the integration of the Russian Church’s parish in the Italian city of Bari into the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate (as stated in the document, at the request of the believers themselves). It was also planned to officially annex the Mukachevo-Przhevsk Orthodox diocese of Transcarpathian Ukraine to the Moscow Patriarchate, once again "according to the collective desire and consent of the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church."

The Council proposed bringing the issue of returning former Polish and Russian Orthodox churches abroad to the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church (with approval from the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs of the USSR). This included churches in France, Italy, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Greece, Sweden, and Palestine. The plan was to establish parishes in these buildings as they were returned, thereby strengthening the positions of Orthodoxy and raising the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate in those countries.

In the interest of closer ties with Orthodox Churches in Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, and Romania, the Council proposed sending delegations to Sofia, Belgrade, and Bucharest. It also planned to accept invitations from the Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, Christophoros, and the Patriarch of Antioch and All the East, Alexander, for a summer visit by the Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexei, to countries of the Middle East (Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Egypt). One of the goals of this trip was to explore possibilities for establishing Russian Orthodox parishes in cities like Beirut, Damascus, Jerusalem, Cairo, and Alexandria, as well as to discuss with Eastern Patriarchs the potential for convening a worldwide conference of Christian churches in Moscow.

The Council also informed that, as of March 1945, based on an agreement between the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church and the delegation of the Metropolitan of All America and Theophilus, Archbishop Alexei of Yaroslavl and Rostov was being sent to the United States to conduct an All-American Orthodox Assembly in May–June 1945. If successful, the Moscow Patriarchate would have its own diocese in America, comprising 370 churches, as opposed to the 12 currently under its jurisdiction.

Foreign Hierarchs Should Become Allies

As mentioned in the document, the Council planned to continue paying attention to appointing and supporting hierarchs abroad who were friendly to the Moscow Patriarchate. Karpo proposed accelerating the arrival of Metropolitan Eulogius from Paris to Moscow, as he expressed a desire to transfer to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. “If the agreement goes through, the Moscow Patriarchate will have 57 churches in France alone, in addition to individual churches in England, Czechoslovakia, Sweden, Australia, Algeria, and Morocco…” explained the Chairman of the Council.

The document also mentioned other names of foreign church leaders. For instance, it was planned to invite Igumen Stefan (Svetozarov), who led four Orthodox parishes in France, and Protopriest Nikolai Lossky, who headed the French parish of St. Photios, to Moscow. According to the Council, both expressed in writing their desire to reunite with the Russian Orthodox Church, which would help strengthen its influence, thus supporting the prestige of the USSR.

Was the Cooperation Between the Church and the Government Equal?

The answer is clearly no. Where church hierarchs were to go, who they should meet, and sometimes even what to say in their speeches—all of this was determined by the Council, in coordination with the government and the Ministry of State Security.

Continuing its drive toward its global goal of enhancing the prestige of the USSR by strengthening the position of the Orthodox Church in general and the Moscow Patriarchate in particular, the Council initiated the organization of a worldwide conference of Christian (non-Catholic) churches in Moscow, including many non-Orthodox churches (Old Believers, Protestants, and others). One of the key topics at the conference would be protest statements against the Vatican’s claims to global dominance.

The conference was expected to feature reports on the fallacy of the Catholic dogmas of papal infallibility and the pope’s role as Christ’s vicar on earth; fascism as an anti-Christian doctrine; the pro-fascist and anti-democratic stance of the Vatican during the pre-war years; and the unity of the Russian and Eastern Orthodox Churches, as well as Anglicans and other non-Orthodox Churches in the fight against fascist oppressors.

Why the Plans Remained Plans

The proposals of the Chairman of the Council were presented to the government on March 15, 1945, and on March 17, Joseph Stalin approved them, adding his own notes to the document. Despite this, only a small fraction of what was planned for the joint international activities of the government and the Church was realized.

The reason for the inefficiency of the cooperation between the USSR government and the Church on international matters is partly seen by church historians as Stalin’s policy of rapprochement with the Church not receiving support either from the party elite or from local officials. The grand plans to make Moscow the center of the Orthodox world opposing the anti-communist Vatican were not fulfilled. And as Stalin’s disappointment with these plans grew, the "thaw" in religious policy in the USSR soon came to an end.

Moreover, when studying archival documents—correspondence from the Council with various departments—it is clear that the church policy of the Soviet government was inconsistent. On the one hand, there was an expectation that the Moscow Patriarchate would take successful steps to raise the USSR’s prestige internationally, but on the other hand, there was a deep fear of the Russian Orthodox Church gaining too much influence and of increasing religiosity among the population at home. These concerns are evident in the reports and documents from the Council's regional representatives, as well as from the head of the Council, since 1944.

Source: GA RF. F. 6991. Op. 1. D. 29. L. 144–145