"The New Course" in Stalin's Religious Policy and the Church Context within the Occupied Region of Leningrad (1943-1944)

Abstract

Based on church documents and eyewitnesses' memories, the author attempts to present how the Stalin's “New Course” religious policy influenced church life under German occupation within Leningrad region from 1943 to 1944. The reinstatement of the Moscow patriarchate and the growing legality of the Russian Orthodox Church allowed the Soviet government to employ the religious factor in its solution to burning political issues. This was especially true within national outlying districts that were not included in the USSR till 1940. His conclusions about the New Course's negative affect on church life across the occupied Baltic, Ukrainian and Belorussian territories are also relevant to the situation in the districts of the occupied Leningrad region. The opportunities that opened up due to the “New Course” allowed the Soviet government to strengthen its position even before the liberation of these territories. This happened both through propaganda and church and canonical discrediting of collaborating Orthodox clergy and bishops, as well as through pressure on the church administration by the Soviet intelligence agency. Along with that, drastic measures were taken to eliminate the most opposed and implacable people, like the exarch Sergiy Voskresensky, for example, who was murdered.