Russian Orthodox Church during the war. Russian Orthodox Church during the Great Patriotic War

The Lord will have mercy on Russia and lead it through suffering to great glory.

Venerable Seraphim of Sarov

As a result of the First World War, unleashed by the so-called “world community,” the last kingdoms on earth - Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian - were destroyed. World power passed into the hands of a secret world government, which everywhere, with the help of money and violence, imposed its liberal “democratic” order, and in Germany, the end result of democracy - a fascist dictatorship. It seemed to them that there was not much to it: to move pro-fascist Europe, led by Germany, against Russia in order to completely destroy the Orthodox country, which still stood as an insurmountable obstacle to the path of world evil, in the fire of this war. On the eve of this aggression, the Soviet government unexpectedly managed to split the united front of the aggressors and break out of isolation. The country was undergoing a large-scale rearmament of the Army, which was planned to be completed by the end of 1942.

The situation of the Russian Orthodox Church on the eve of the war seemed to be catastrophic: out of 57 thousand churches, only a few thousand remained, out of 57 seminaries, not a single one remained, out of more than 1000 monasteries, not a single one. There was no Patriarch either. "Union of Militant Atheists", the largest " non-profit organization” of those years, planned to close the last Orthodox church already in 1943. It seemed that Russia was lost forever. And only a few knew then that from the moment of the destruction of the Orthodox Kingdom on March 2, 1917, the Mother of God herself took Russia under her leadership, notifying us of this with the miraculous appearance of her Sovereign image. It is now a widely known fact that in the summer of 1941, during the most critical days of the war, the Mother of God appeared to Metropolitan Elijah (Karam) of the Lebanese Mountains through his fervent solitary prayers. She discovered what needs to be done so that Russia does not perish. To do this, temples, monasteries, spiritual educational establishments. Bring back priests from prisons, from the fronts, and start serving them. Don’t surrender Leningrad to the enemy, surround the city with the Kazan Icon. Prayers should be served in front of this icon in Moscow. This icon should be in Stalingrad, which cannot be surrendered to the enemy. The Kazan icon must go with the troops to the borders of Russia, and when the war is over, Metropolitan Elijah must come to Russia and talk about how she was saved. The Bishop contacted representatives of the Russian Church and the Soviet Government and conveyed to them the will of the Mother of God. I.V. Stalin promised Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad and Metropolitan Sergius to fulfill everything that Metropolitan Elijah had conveyed, because he no longer saw any possibility of saving the situation. Everything happened as predicted. After the Victory, in 1947, Metropolitan Elijah visited the USSR more than once. He was awarded the Stalin Prize (200 thousand rubles), which, together with a donation from Lebanese Christians (200 thousand dollars), he donated for the orphaned children of Red Army soldiers. By agreement with Stalin, he was then presented with a cross and a panagia with precious stones from all the republics of the Soviet Union - in gratitude from all our land.

Even on the first day of the war, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) called the Patriotic War sacred cleansing thunderstorm and called on all Christians to defend their Motherland and the Church with all their might from the fascist invaders. Obviously, he was familiar with the prophecy of St. Anatoly of Optina, spoken after the revolution, that the Germans would soon enter Russia, but only in order to rid it of godlessness. And their end will come in their own land. The same assessment of the outbreak of war as the Patriarchal Locum Tenens and the same confidence in the coming Victory were voiced in the address of the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin to the Soviet people on July 3, 1941:

“Comrades! Citizens! Brothers and sisters! Soldiers of our army and navy!

I am addressing you, my friends!...The war with fascist Germany cannot be considered an ordinary war.... This is...about the life and death of the peoples of the USSR, about how the peoples will be Soviet Union free, or fall into enslavement.... All our forces are in support of our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Fleet! All forces are used to defeat the enemy! Forward, for our Victory!” In those same days, the song “Holy War” was sung for the first time, which became the national march of the Great Victory. It was written by A.V. Alexandrov, who served as a psalm-reader in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in the 1920s.

I.V. Stalin called for turning the country into a single military camp during the Great Patriotic War, where there is no place for laxity and the usual profiteering from military supplies, but “everything for the front, everything for Victory.” He uttered prophetic words that resonated like alarm bells in every loving Motherland heart: “Our cause is just, Victory will be ours!”

From the very first days of the War, millions of believers went to the front. The Red Army soldiers, defending the Fatherland, showed miracles of heroism, as has been the case at all times. The Nazis, who did not receive any resistance in Europe, were dumbfounded by the tenacity and fighting qualities of our soldiers. This is evidenced by their numerous letters home, now published in many publications. Already in the very first days of the War, fascist pilots, for example, received instructions not to approach Soviet aircraft closer than 100 meters in order to avoid ramming, which immediately became a common method in air battles. Hundreds of fascist tanks were burned using ordinary “glass containers” with a flammable mixture. Sniper Lyudmila Pavlichenko, a former student, killed 309 fascists in the first year of war alone. Home front workers were in no way inferior to front-line soldiers, fulfilling 7-8 or more daily quotas. Even teenagers in the factories of Udmurtia gave 2-3 adult norms. In the Cathedral of St. Alexandra Nevsky works as treasurer of A.A. Mashkovtseva, who is 73 years old length of service! During wartime, as teenagers, they worked in an artel that sewed pouches for machine guns produced by the current Kalashnikov concern. They often stayed to work at night because... machine guns without their production could not be sent to the army. And then the adults, appreciating their childish work, issued them work books. Mason of Izhstroy M.I. Kamenshchikova and two assistants laid 28,200 bricks during a shift - this was an all-Union record; they lifted an entire floor of an industrial building! Not a single modern builder can believe such a result. For this labor feat, she received a bonus of 2 thousand rubles, her friends - 1 thousand each (the general’s monthly salary was then 2,200 rubles).

Moscow legend has conveyed to us that in October 1941, J.V. Stalin turned for advice to Blessed Matrona (who wandered around Moscow apartments without registration) and she predicted victory for him if he did not leave Moscow. The traditional military parade on Red Square breathed new strength into the city’s defenders. “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat, Moscow is behind us!” - this call of the political instructor of the Panfilov heroes V.K. Klychkov accurately reflects the fighting spirit of the defenders of the Fatherland. I will give an excerpt from the speech of the Chairman of the State Defense Committee I.V. Stalin at the military parade on November 7, 1941: “Comrade Red Army men and Red Navy men, commanders and political workers, partisans and partisans! The whole world looks at you as a force capable of destroying the predatory hordes of German invaders... The war you are waging is a war of liberation, a just war. Let the courageous image of our great ancestors - Alexander Nevsky, Dimitry Donskoy, Kuzma Minin, Dimitry Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov, Mikhail Kutuzov - inspire you in this war. Death to the German occupiers! Long live our glorious Motherland, its freedom and independence!” According to the testimony of Air Marshal Alexander Golovanov, in December 1941, in conditions of absolutely unflyable weather and with a frost of fifty degrees outside, on the instructions of J.V. Stalin, he made a “fly-over of the cross” over Moscow on an LI-2 plane with the miraculous Tikhvin Icon of the Mother of God on board. And already on December 9, the city of Tikhvin was liberated.

It was near Moscow that Hitler, who had easily conquered Europe with the help of the money of Western bankers and the satanic forces with whom he regularly came into contact, felt unable to resist Divine grace. Here, by and large, his forecasts did not come true and all his plans failed. During the Nativity Fast, the Red Army began its offensive, aided by truly Siberian frosts, and the position of the Nazis became no better than Napoleon’s “great” army. It was they who first appeared in penal units, where an unprecedented number of soldiers ended up - 62 thousand people. To date, entire volumes of testimonies have been collected about the miraculous help to our warriors of the Saints. heavenly powers. Wehrmacht soldiers, who more than once saw “Madonna helping the Russians” in the sky, reported the same in their letters.

On Christmas Day 1942, in his Archpastoral Message, Metropolitan Sergius wrote: “Near Moscow the enemy was overthrown and expelled from the Moscow region.... So, dare, stand courageously and unshakably, maintaining faith and fidelity, and see salvation from the Lord: the Lord will overcome and overcome for you...". This is a continuation of the gospel science of Generalissimo A.V. Suvorov, “The Science of Victory”: “Pray to God, victory comes from Him! God is our general! This first offensive of ours lasted until Easter.

In 1942, Easter was very early - April 5th. The holiday coincided with the 700th anniversary of the defeat of German knights by Alexander Nevsky on the ice of Lake Peipsi. The Germans were driven back from Moscow, the front stabilized. On Saturday, April 4, at 6 o’clock in the morning, the radio announced, quite unexpectedly for everyone, that the Moscow commandant’s office was allowing free movement on Easter night. This was the first demonstrative step towards the interests of the country's Orthodox Christians during the years of Soviet power. The people received this news with delight. This is what is written in the report of the head of the NKVD of Moscow and the Moscow region M.I. Zhuravleva: “In total, 85 thousand people attended services in the Moscow region in 124 operating churches (as of June 22, there were only 4 operating churches, but with the beginning of the War, churches were spontaneously opened). From the messages received by the NKVD Directorate it is clear that the believing population and clergy in connection with religious holiday Easter, as well as the received permission for the unhindered movement of the population... on the night of April 4-5 reacted positively, as evidenced by the following statements: “Everyone says that the Soviet government oppresses believers and the Church, but in reality it turns out not so: despite state of siege, they were allowed to perform religious services, walk around the city without passes, and so that the people knew about it, they announced it on the radio...”

“Lord, what a joyful day today is! The government accommodated the people and allowed them to celebrate Easter. Not only were they allowed to walk around the city all night and church service To serve, they also gave me some curd mass, butter, meat and flour today. Thanks to the government."

After that Easter, the Church called on all the people to raise funds for arming the Army and helping the wounded. There was also a collection of donations in the churches of Udmurtia. The priest of the Assumption Church in Izhevsk, V.A. Stefanov, gave all his savings - 569 thousand rubles, and in 1944, parishioners and clergy of Udmurtia contributed 1,108 thousand rubles to the Defense Fund and 371 thousand rubles in bonds. The foreman of the tractor brigade from Azino, P.I. Kalabin, contributed 155 thousand rubles for the construction of tanks and aircraft. and another 10 thousand rubles. to the Defense Fund. (This is a donation comparable to the cost of a T-34 tank).

In the winter of 1942, with a frost of twenty degrees, the unheated and newly cleared Yelokhovsky Cathedral in Moscow was full of people praying for victory to be granted to the Russian army. Cathedral parishioner G.P. Georgievsky recalled the days of Great Lent in 1942: “Everyone tried to confess and receive communion. There were so many people who wanted to fast that the priests were forced to offer communion during the presanctified liturgies on Wednesdays and Fridays. On ordinary days for Communion, especially on some Saturdays, so many communicants gathered that the service began at 6:30 am. in the morning and ended at 4-5 o’clock in the afternoon.” Metropolitan Alexy (Simansky) served in Leningrad throughout the blockade, living in an unheated church building. The city leadership, at his request, allocated “Cahors” and flour for worship in all seven churches of the city, however, the liturgical prosphora was baked the size of a small button.

This joint work of the state and the church to repel the fascist invasion was the beginning of a radical change in their relations. But the rapprochement of the positions of the Church and the Soviet government began even earlier. Here are its main stages:

2. August 16, 1923 - the Decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, signed by J.V. Stalin, was sent to all party organizations, prohibiting the pogrom of the Church and the persecution of believers.

4. On November 11, 1939, the Politburo decided to cancel the instructions of V.I. Lenin dated May 1, 1919, ordering the destruction of churches and mass executions of the clergy. The Solovetsky camp is closed. Over 30,000 “church members” were released from the Gulag.

5. Summer 1941. The Will of the Mother of God on how Russia can be saved was conveyed to the Soviet leadership. This was done by Metropolitan Elijah (Karam) of the Lebanese Mountains.

The years 1941-1942 showed J.V. Stalin that, despite the persecution, the attitude of the Church towards the Russian state did not change. The Church is doing everything to protect him. This led to a sharp turn in relations that began after the historic meeting of J.V. Stalin with the highest hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church on September 5, 1943. At that meeting, a decision was made on the immediate restoration of the Moscow Patriarchate, the educational and publishing work of the Church, and the creation of bodies regulating state-church relations. In conclusion, J.V. Stalin said words that allow us to understand that such a sharp turn in attitude towards the Church was not shared by all of his fellow party members : “This, lords, is all I can do for you for now.” Indeed, the decade of rapid revival of the Russian Orthodox Church that followed this meeting ended with the death of J.V. Stalin on March 5, 1953. During wartime, the leadership of the army and defense industry was dominated by Russian patriots who had not forgotten God. From the top leadership, I.V. Stalin almost graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary, sang in the choir of the Exarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, A.I. Mikoyan studied at the Theological Academy, church singers in his youth were G.K. Zhukov, V.M. Molotov, K E. Voroshilov. Chief of the General Staff, former colonel openly professed Orthodoxy Tsarist army B.M. Shaposhnikov. A.M. Vasilevsky, who replaced him in this post, is the son of a priest who served in Kineshma at that time, and the head of SMERSH counterintelligence, V.S. Abakumov, is brother priest Directly from exile, Bishop Luka (Voino-Yasenetsky) was appointed Chief Surgeon of all evacuation hospitals in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and at the same time Bishop of Krasnoyarsk and Yenisei. At the end of the war, he was awarded the Stalin Prize, 1st degree, for his work in the field of purulent surgery.

The clergy in the occupied territories were in the most difficult situation. The fascist authorities demanded their assistance and prayers for the victory of German weapons. Failure to fulfill their demands or to pay tribute to the name of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' during services was punishable by reprisals from the Germans or policemen; partisans and underground fighters were punished for serving the occupiers. Most of the clergy in the occupied areas did not cooperate with the occupiers. Priest Alexander Romanushko in Belarus, instead of holding a funeral service for a policeman killed by partisans, took the entire police garrison and all the relatives of the murdered man to the partisans. Although there were also many traitors. Someone even composed an akathist to “the blessed Adolf Hitler”! It was these people who, in the majority, came under repression by the Soviet government after the War.

In those heroic years, the whole world looked with hope and gratitude at the heroic struggle of our people against fascism.

"I want to pay tribute to the Russian people, from whom the Red Army has its origins and from whom it receives its men, women and supplies. The Russian people give all their strength to war and make the highest sacrifices."

<...>The world has never seen greater selflessness than that shown by the Russian people and their army under the command of Marshal Joseph Stalin." (1943)

US President Franklin Roosevelt.

"The fate of humanity is at stake in this great battle. On one side there is light and progress, on the other there is darkness, reaction, slavery and death. Russia, while defending its socialist freedom, is at the same time fighting for our freedom. By defending Moscow, they are defending London."

L. Feuchtwanger. 1942

“It is with the greatest admiration and respect that I send my sincere congratulations on the 25th anniversary of the Red Army and Navy, which so courageously defended the amazing achievements of Soviet civilization and destroyed a mortal threat to the future development of human progress.”

A. Einstein. February 1942

"I don't know what communism is, but if it creates people like those fighting on the Russian front, we must respect it. It is time to discard all slander, because they give their life and blood so that we can live We should give not only our money, but all the spiritual capacity for friendship that we possess, to help them<...>Russia, you have won the admiration of the whole world. Russians, the future is yours."

Charlie Chaplin. 1943

This prophecy of a non-Orthodox, but an honest man, completely coincides with the prophecy of St. Seraphim of Sarov: “The Lord will have mercy on Russia and will lead it through suffering to great glory.”

But even then completely different voices were heard. Senator G. Truman, who in August 1945, having become president, tested on Japan atomic bombs, even at the beginning of the war, he said without hiding that “if the Germans win, then we must help the Russians, and if the Russians win, we should help the Germans, and let them kill each other as much as possible.” That's what they did. Immediately after Churchill's speech in Fulton in 1946, a meeting of US industrial magnates took place, as if waiting in the wings. It was like they were off the chain. Here are excerpts from their resolution: “Russia is an Asian despotism, primitive, vile and predatory, erected on a pyramid of human bones, skilled only in arrogance, betrayal and terrorism.” To put the conqueror of European fascism in its place, this meeting of racists called for placing their atomic bombs “in all regions of the world and without any hesitation dropping them wherever it is expedient.” And this was said about the allies, who only a year and a half earlier saved the Anglo-American troops from defeat in the Ardennes, when the same Churchill humiliatedly asked Stalin to organize a “major Russian offensive on the Vistula front” so that the Germans would transfer part of their troops from France to the Eastern Front . These are the words from Stalin's response to Churchill, published a week after the Fulton speech on March 14, 1946 in the newspaper Pravda. “In essence, Mr. Churchill and his friends in England and the United States are presenting nations that do not speak English with something like an ultimatum: accept our dominance voluntarily, and then everything will be all right, otherwise war is inevitable<...>but nations shed blood during 5 years of brutal war for the sake of freedom and independence of their countries, and not in order to replace the rule of the Hitlers with the rule of the Churchills." Eleven years after the Victory, N. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU will almost completely repeat Churchill's Fulton speech regarding The Soviet state and Marshal of Victory I.V. Stalin, will release Bandera and policemen from the camps and promise to “show the last priest on TV.” A little later, A.I. Solzhenitsyn, this “literary Vlasovite,” begging the “world community” for a Nobel Prize, cried out: "I need this bonus. Like a step in a position(?), in a battle! And the sooner I get it, the harder I will become, the harder I will hit!" And together with all his enemies, he hit Mother Russia, who was seriously ill with the decaying communism, with all his might: “There is no nation in the world more despicable, more abandoned, more alien and unnecessary than the Russian.” He used the words spoken very long ago by the Asian Khan Tamerlane about Jewish moneylenders. Today he is echoed by liberals from the fifth column, for example, G. Khazanov: “In this country goats with plucked sides graze, mangy inhabitants timidly make their way along the fences. I am used to being ashamed of this homeland, where every day is humiliation, every meeting is like a slap in the face, where everything - the landscape and the people - offends the eye. But how nice it is to come to America and see a sea of ​​smiles!” There are also many of these in our time, especially in Ukraine.

The spiritual content of the Great Patriotic War is clearly indicated by its chronology. The war began on June 22, the Day of All Saints, who shone in the Russian land. The historical defeat of the Germans near Moscow began on December 5-6, 1941. During these days Orthodox Church celebrates the memory of the holy noble prince Alexander Nevsky. And on July 17, 1944, the day of the murder of the Royal Family, 56 thousand fascist prisoners of war were escorted through the streets of Moscow. Thus, Soviet Russia, waging a victorious war with Germany, which the last Russian Sovereign was not allowed to defeat, honored the day of His memory.

The Great Patriotic War ended on Easter, and on the Feast of the Holy Trinity, June 24, a Victory Parade was held on Red Square. And at the behest of Generalissimo I.V. Stalin, warrior George on a white horse accepted it! How did the Church treat Stalin? Like all the people - with delight.

The ever-memorable Archpriest Dimitry Dudko, who spent many years in prison: “If you look at Stalin from the Divine point of view, then he is truly a special person, given by God, preserved by God. Stalin saved Russia and showed what it means to the whole world.”

Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy 1 (Simansky) before the funeral service on the day of J.V. Stalin’s funeral said: “The great leader of our people, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, has passed away. The power, the great, social power, in which our people felt their own strength, with which they were guided in their creative works and enterprises, with which they consoled themselves for many years, was abolished. There is no area where the gaze of the great Leader does not penetrate.... As a man of genius, in every matter he discovered what was invisible and inaccessible to the ordinary mind.” I.V. Stalin, as a man of his era, wavered in his faith in God, together with all of Russia, and together with all of Russia, in the end, came to Repentance, preserving the Church of Christ among all temptations.

Fortunately, best representatives Our younger generation is able to distinguish between truth and lies, understand the continuous nature of the historical process and realize its high spiritual meaning. For example, this is what Honored Artist of Russia Oleg Pogudin said: “It took a war for the people’s heads to get back into place at least a little bit... If we speak from the position of a believer, then the Great Patriotic War is a huge act of redemption. The stunning, fantastic feats of sacrifice, self-denial, and love that people demonstrated during these years generally justified the entire existence of the Soviet period in Russian history.”

To this I just want to add: “Let us bow to those great years...” Everything else is from the evil one.

Vladimir Shklyaev , employee of the Missionary Department of the Izhevsk diocese

His Holiness Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy noted that the military and labor feat of our people during the war years became possible because the soldiers and commanders of the Red Army and Navy, as well as home front workers, were united by a high goal: they defended the whole world from the deadly threat hanging over it threats from the anti-Christian ideology of Nazism. Therefore, the Patriotic War became sacred for everyone. “The Russian Orthodox Church,” the Message says, “unshakably believed in the coming Victory and from the first day of the war blessed the army and all the people to defend the Motherland. Our soldiers were preserved not only by the prayers of their wives and mothers, but also by the daily church prayer about the granting of Victory." In Soviet times, the question of the role of the Orthodox Church in achieving great Victory kept silent. Only in recent years have studies begun to appear on this topic. Portal editors "Patriarchia.ru" offers his commentary on the Message of His Holiness Patriarch Alexy regarding the role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Great Patriotic War.

Fantasy versus document

The question of the real losses suffered by the Russian Church in the Great Patriotic War, as well as the religious life of our country in general during the years of the struggle against fascism, for obvious reasons, until recently could not become the subject of serious analysis. Attempts to raise this topic have appeared only in recent years, but they often turn out to be far from scientific objectivity and impartiality. Only a very narrow circle has been processed so far historical sources, testifying to the “works and days” of Russian Orthodoxy in 1941 - 1945. For the most part, they revolve around the revival of church life in the USSR after the famous meeting in September 1943 of J. Stalin with Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), Alexy (Simansky) and Nikolai (Yarushevich) - the only active Orthodox bishops at that time. Data about this side of the life of the Church are quite well known and do not give rise to doubt. However, other pages of church life during the war years have yet to be truly read. Firstly, they are much less well documented, and secondly, even the existing documents have hardly been studied. Now the development of materials on the church-military theme is just beginning, even from such large and relatively accessible collections as the State Archives of the Russian Federation (works by O.N. Kopylova and others), the Central State Archives of St. Petersburg and the Federal Archives in Berlin (primarily works by M.V. Shkarovsky). Processing most of the church, regional and foreign European archives from this point of view is a matter for the future. And where the document is silent, imagination usually roams freely. In the literature of recent years, there has been a place for anti-clerical speculation and unctuous pious myth-making about the “repentance” of the leader, the “love of Christ” of the commissars, etc.

Between the old persecutor and the new enemy

When addressing the topic “The Church and the Great Patriotic War,” it is truly difficult to maintain impartiality. The inconsistency of this plot is due to the dramatic nature of the historical events. From the first weeks of the war, Russian Orthodoxy found itself in a strange position. The position of the highest hierarchy in Moscow was unambiguously formulated by the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Sergius, already on June 22, 1941, in his message to the “Pastors and flock of Christ’s Orthodox Church.” The First Hierarch called on the Orthodox Russian people to “serve the Fatherland in this difficult hour of trial with all that everyone can” in order to “dispel the fascist enemy force into dust.” Principled, uncompromising patriotism, for which there was no distinction between the “Soviet” and the national hypostasis of the state that clashed with the Nazi evil, will determine the actions of the hierarchy and clergy of the Russian Church in the unoccupied territory of the country. The situation in the western lands of the USSR occupied by German troops was more complex and contradictory. The Germans initially relied on the restoration of church life in the occupied territories, because they saw this as the most important means anti-Bolshevik propaganda. They saw, obviously, not without reason. By 1939 organizational structure The Russian Orthodox Church was practically destroyed as a result of the cruelest open terror. Of the 78 thousand churches and chapels that operated in the Russian Empire before the start of the revolutionary events, by this time there remained from 121 (according to O.Yu. Vasilyeva) to 350-400 (according to M.V. Shkarovsky). Most of the clergy were repressed. At the same time, the ideological effect of such an anti-Christian onslaught turned out to be quite modest. According to the results of the 1937 census, 56.7% of USSR citizens declared themselves believers. The result of the Great Patriotic War was largely predetermined by the position that these people took. And in the shocking first weeks of the war, when there was a total retreat of the Red Army on all fronts, it did not seem obvious - the Soviet power brought too much grief and blood to the Church. The situation in the western territories of Ukraine and Belarus, which were annexed to the USSR immediately before the war, was especially difficult. Thus, the situation in the west and east of Belarus was strikingly contrasting. In the “Soviet” east, parish life was completely destroyed. By 1939, all churches and monasteries here were closed, since 1936 there was no archpastoral care, and almost the entire clergy was subjected to repression. And in Western Belarus, which until September 1939 was part of the Polish state (and it also did not favor Orthodoxy), by June 1941 there were 542 functioning Orthodox churches. It is clear that the majority of the population of these areas had not yet undergone massive atheistic indoctrination by the beginning of the war, but they were deeply imbued with the fear of an impending “purge” by the Soviets. In two years, about 10 thousand churches were opened in the occupied territories. Religious life began to develop very rapidly. Thus, in Minsk, only in the first few months after the start of the occupation, 22 thousand baptisms were performed, and 20-30 couples had to be married at the same time in almost all the churches of the city. This inspiration was viewed with suspicion by the occupiers. And immediately the question of the jurisdictional affiliation of the lands on which church life was restored became quite acute. And here the true intentions of the German authorities were clearly outlined: to support the religious movement solely as a propaganda factor against the enemy, but to nip in the bud its ability to spiritually consolidate the nation. Church life in that difficult situation, on the contrary, was seen as an area where one could most effectively play on schisms and divisions, nurturing the potential for disagreement and contradictions between different groups believers.

"Natsislavie"

At the end of July 1941, the main ideologist of the NSDLP, A. Rosenberg, was appointed Minister of the Occupied Territories of the USSR at the end of July 1941. The earliest circular of the Main Directorate of Imperial Security concerning religious policy in the East dates back to September 1, 1941: “On the understanding of church issues in the occupied regions of the Soviet Union.” This document set three main goals: supporting the development of the religious movement (as hostile to Bolshevism), fragmenting it into separate movements in order to avoid the possible consolidation of “leading elements” to fight against Germany, and using church organizations to help the German administration in the occupied territories. The longer-term goals of the religious policy of Nazi Germany in relation to the republics of the USSR were indicated in another directive of the Main Directorate of Reich Security of October 31, 1941, and concern about the massive surge in religiosity was already beginning to show through: “Among the part of the population of the former Soviet Union, liberated from the Bolshevik yoke, there is a strong desire to return to the authority of the church or churches, which especially applies to the older generation.” It was further noted: “It is extremely necessary to prohibit all priests from introducing a shade of religion into their preaching and at the same time take care to create as quickly as possible a new class of preachers who will be able, after appropriate, albeit short training, to interpret to the people a religion free from Jewish influence. It is clear that the imprisonment of “God’s chosen people” in the ghetto and the extermination of this people ... should not be violated by the clergy, who, based on the attitude of the Orthodox Church, preach that the healing of the world originates from Jewry. From the above it is clear that the resolution of the church issue in the occupied eastern regions is an extremely important task, which, with some skill, can be perfectly resolved in favor of a religion free from Jewish influence; this task, however, has as its prerequisite the closure of those located in the eastern regions churches infected with Jewish dogmas." This document quite clearly testifies to the anti-Christian goals of the hypocritical religious policy of the neo-pagan occupation authorities. On April 11, 1942, Hitler, in a circle of associates, outlined his vision of religious policy and, in particular, pointed out the need to prohibit “the establishment of single churches for any significant Russian territories.” In order to prevent the revival of a strong and united Russian Church, some schismatic jurisdictions in the west of the USSR were supported, which opposed the Moscow Patriarchate. Thus, in October 1941, the General Commissariat of Belarus set as a condition for the legalization of the activities of the local episcopate that it pursue a course towards autocephaly of the Belarusian Orthodox Church. These plans were actively supported by a narrow group of nationalist intelligentsia, which not only provided all possible support to the fascist authorities, but also often pushed them to more decisive actions to destroy canonical church unity. After the dismissal of Metropolitan of Minsk and All Belarus Panteleimon (Rozhnovsky) and his imprisonment by the SD, in August 1942, with the zeal of the Nazi leadership, the Council of the Belarusian Church was convened, which, however, even experiencing powerful pressure from rabid nationalists and occupation authorities, postponed the decision on the issue of autocephaly until the post-war period. In the fall of 1942, Germany's attempts to play the anti-Moscow "church card" intensified - plans were being developed to hold a Local Council in Rostov-on-Don or Stavropol with the election as Patriarch of Archbishop Seraphim (Lyade) of Berlin, an ethnic German belonging to the jurisdiction of the ROCOR. Bishop Seraphim was one of the bishops with a vague past, but clearly pro-fascist sympathies in the present, which was clearly manifested in the appeal to the foreign Russian flock, which he published in June 1941: “Beloved brothers and sisters in Christ! The punishing sword of Divine justice fell on the Soviet government, on its minions and like-minded people. The Christ-loving Leader of the German people called his victorious army to new fight, to the struggle that we have long thirsted for - to the sanctified struggle against the atheists, executioners and rapists entrenched in the Moscow Kremlin... Truly, a new crusade has begun in the name of saving the peoples from the power of the Antichrist... Finally, our faith is justified!. .. Therefore, as the First Hierarch of the Orthodox Church in Germany, I appeal to you. Be part of the new struggle, for this struggle is your struggle; this is a continuation of the struggle that began back in 1917, but alas! - ended tragically, mainly due to the betrayal of your false allies, who in our days have taken up arms against the German people. Each of you will be able to find your place on the new anti-Bolshevik front. “The salvation of all,” which Adolf Hitler spoke about in his address to the German people, is also your salvation—the fulfillment of your long-term aspirations and hopes. The final decisive battle has come. May the Lord bless the new feat of arms of all anti-Bolshevik fighters and give them victory and victory over their enemies. Amen!" The German authorities quickly realized what an emotional patriotic charge the restoration of Orthodox church life in the occupied territories carried and therefore tried to strictly regulate the forms of worship. The time for religious services was limited - only early morning on weekends - and their duration. Bell ringing was prohibited. In Minsk, for example, the Germans did not allow crosses to be erected on any of the churches that opened here. All church property that ended up on occupied lands was declared by them to be the property of the Reich. When the occupiers considered it necessary, they used churches as prisons, concentration camps, barracks, stables, guard posts, and firing points. Yes, under concentration camp A significant part of the territory of the Polotsk Spaso-Euphrosinievsky Monastery, the oldest in Western Rus', founded in the 12th century, was allocated for prisoners of war.

New mission

A very difficult feat was undertaken by one of the closest assistants of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), Exarch of the Baltic States Sergius (Voskresensky). He is the only active bishop of the canonical Russian Church who remained in the occupied territory. He managed to convince the German authorities that it was more profitable for them to preserve the dioceses of the Moscow, rather than the Patriarchate of Constantinople, an “ally” of the British, in the north-west. Under the leadership of Metropolitan Sergius, extensive catechetical activity was subsequently launched in the occupied lands. With the blessing of the Bishop, in August 1941, a Spiritual Mission was created in the Pskov, Novgorod, Leningrad, Velikoluksk and Kalinin regions, which by the beginning of 1944 managed to open about 400 parishes, to which 200 priests were assigned. At the same time, most of the clergy of the occupied territories more or less clearly expressed their support for the patriotic position of the Moscow hierarchy. There are numerous - although their exact number cannot yet be established - cases of execution by the Nazis of priests for reading the first letter of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) in churches. Some church structures legitimized by the occupation authorities almost openly - and with the ensuing risk - declared their obedience to Moscow. Thus, in Minsk there was a missionary committee under the leadership of Bishop Panteleimon’s closest associate, Archimandrite (later martyr) Seraphim (Shakhmutya), who, even under the Germans, continued to commemorate the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius during divine services.

Clergy and partisans

A special page in Russian church history during the war was assistance to the partisan movement. In January 1942, in one of his messages to the flock remaining in the occupied territories, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens called on people to provide all possible support to the underground struggle against the enemy: “Let your local partisans be for you not only an example and approval, but also an object of constant care . Remember that every service rendered to the partisans is a merit to the Motherland and an extra step towards our own liberation from fascist captivity.” This call received a very wide response among the clergy and ordinary believers of the Western lands - wider than could be expected after all the anti-Christian persecutions of the pre-war period. And the Germans responded to the patriotism of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian priests with merciless cruelty. For promoting the partisan movement, for example, in the Polesie diocese alone, up to 55% of the clergy were shot by the Nazis. In fairness, however, it is worth noting that sometimes unreasonable cruelty was manifested from the opposite side. Attempts by some members of the clergy to stay away from the struggle were often assessed - and not always justifiably - by the partisans as betrayal. For “collaboration” with the occupiers, in Belarus alone, underground units executed at least 42 priests.

Church contribution More than a dozen books will, of course, be written about the feat that hundreds of monastics, church and clergymen, including those awarded orders of the highest dignity, suffered in the name of the Motherland. If we dwell only on some facts of a socio-economic nature, then we should especially note the burden of financial responsibility for supporting the army, which the Russian Orthodox Church took upon itself. By helping the armed forces, the Moscow Patriarchate forced the Soviet authorities to at least to a small extent recognize its full presence in the life of society. On January 5, 1943, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens took an important step towards the actual legalization of the Church, using the fees for the defense of the country. He sent a telegram to I. Stalin, asking for his permission for the Patriarchate to open a bank account into which all the money donated for the needs of the war would be deposited. On February 5, the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars gave his written consent. Thus, the Church, although in a damaged form, received rights legal entity. From the first months of the war, almost all Orthodox parishes countries spontaneously began collecting funds for the established defense fund. Believers donated not only money and bonds, but also products (as well as scrap) made of precious and non-ferrous metals, clothes, shoes, linen, wool and much more. By the summer of 1945, the total amount of monetary contributions for these purposes alone, according to incomplete data, amounted to more than 300 million rubles. - excluding jewelry, clothing and food. Funds for defeating the Nazis were collected even in the occupied territory, which was associated with real heroism. Thus, the Pskov priest Fyodor Puzanov, close to the fascist authorities, managed to collect about 500 thousand rubles. donations and transfer them to the “mainland”. A particularly significant church act was the construction, at the expense of Orthodox believers, of a column of 40 T-34 Dimitri Donskoy tanks and the Alexander Nevsky squadron.

The price of ruin and sacrilege

The true scale of the damage inflicted on the Russian Orthodox Church by the German occupiers cannot be assessed with accuracy. It was not limited to thousands of destroyed and devastated churches, countless utensils and church valuables taken away by the Nazis during the retreat. The Church has lost hundreds of spiritual shrines, which, of course, cannot be redeemed by any indemnities. And yet the assessment material losses , as far as possible, was carried out already during the war years. On November 2, 1942, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, the Extraordinary State Commission was created to establish and investigate the atrocities of the Nazi invaders and their accomplices and the damage they caused to citizens, collective farms (collective farms), public organizations, state enterprises and institutions of the USSR (ChGK) . A representative from the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich) of Kiev and Galicia, was also included in the Commission. The Commission's staff developed an approximate diagram and list of crimes against cultural and religious institutions. The Instructions for the Registration and Protection of Monuments of Art noted that damage reports should record cases of robbery, removal of artistic and religious monuments, damage to iconostases, church utensils, icons, etc. Witness testimony, inventories, and photographs should be attached to the acts. A special price list for church utensils and equipment was developed, approved by Metropolitan Nicholas on August 9, 1943. The data received by the ChGK appeared at the Nuremberg trials as documentary evidence of the prosecution. In the appendices to the transcript of the meeting of the International Military Tribunal dated February 21, 1946, documents appear under numbers USSR-35 and USSR-246. They show the total amount of “damage to religious cults, including heterodox and non-Christian denominations,” which, according to ChGK calculations, amounted to 6 billion 24 million rubles. From the data given in the “Certificate on the Destruction of Religious Buildings” it is clear that the largest number of Orthodox churches and chapels were completely destroyed and partially damaged in Ukraine - 654 churches and 65 chapels. In the RSFSR, 588 churches and 23 chapels were damaged, in Belarus - 206 churches and 3 chapels, in Latvia - 104 churches and 5 chapels, in Moldova - 66 churches and 2 chapels, in Estonia - 31 churches and 10 chapels, in Lithuania - 15 churches and 8 chapels and in the Karelo-Finnish SSR - 6 churches. The “Reference” provides data on prayer buildings of other faiths: during the war, 237 churches, 4 mosques, 532 synagogues and 254 other places of worship were destroyed, a total of 1027 religious buildings. The materials of the ChGK do not contain detailed statistical data on the monetary value of the damage caused to the Russian Orthodox Church. However, it is not difficult, with a certain degree of convention, to make the following calculations: if during the war years a total of 2,766 prayer buildings of various denominations were damaged (1,739 were losses of the Russian Orthodox Church (churches and chapels) and 1,027 were losses of other denominations), and the total amount of damage was 6 billion. 24 million rubles, then the damage to the Russian Orthodox Church reaches approximately 3 billion 800 thousand rubles. The scale of destruction of historical monuments of church architecture, which cannot be calculated in monetary terms, is evidenced by the incomplete list of churches damaged in Novgorod alone. German shelling caused enormous damage to the famous St. Sophia Cathedral (11th century): its middle chapter was pierced by shells in two places, in the northwestern chapter the dome and part of the drum were destroyed, several vaults were demolished, and the gilded roof was torn off. St. George's Cathedral of the Yuryev Monastery is a unique monument of Russian architecture of the 12th century. - received many large holes, due to which through cracks appeared in the walls. Other ancient monasteries of Novgorod were also severely damaged by German bombs and shells: Antoniev, Khutynsky, Zverin, etc. The famous Church of the Savior-Nereditsa of the 12th century was reduced to ruins. Buildings included in the ensemble of the Novgorod Kremlin were destroyed and severely damaged, including the Church of St. Andrew Stratilates of the 14th-15th centuries, the Church of the Intercession of the 14th century, and the belfry of the St. Sophia Cathedral of the 16th century. etc. In the vicinity of Novgorod, the Cathedral of the Cyril Monastery (XII century), the Church of St. Nicholas on Lipna (XIII century), the Annunciation on Gorodishche (XIII century), the Church of the Savior on Kovalevo (XIV century), the Church of the Assumption on Gorodishche (XIII century) were destroyed by targeted artillery fire. Volotovo Field (XIV century), St. Michael the Archangel in the Skovorodinsky Monastery (XIV century), St. Andrew on Sitka (XIV century). All this is nothing more than an eloquent illustration of the true losses that the Russian Orthodox Church suffered during the Great Patriotic War, which for centuries had been building a unified state, deprived of almost all its property after the Bolsheviks came to power, but considered it an absolute duty to rise to the top during the years of difficult trials. All-Russian Golgotha.

Vadim Polonsky

The Church is often called the “second power”; most secular tsars perceived Orthodoxy as a tool for maintaining their autocracy. The authorities tried not to spoil relations with the Orthodox Church. Representatives of the clergy had privileges and a special status. Orthodoxy has always brought peace of mind and a sense of protection from above into the difficult life of the Russian peasant. The church was involved in charity work; in parochial schools children were given elementary education. She often stood up for the offended, one way or another, gave her assessment of political transformations, that is, she took an active position in the life of the state.

The Bolsheviks, when they came to power, did not openly advocate atheism, although their leaders had long ago lost touch with religion. The first events also said nothing about the colossal disruption that would unfold in the coming years. IN AND. Lenin wrote on November 20, 1917 in an address “To all working Muslims of Russia and the East”: “Muslims of Russia, Tatars of the Volga region and Crimea, Kyrgyz and Sarts of Siberia, Turkestan, Turks and Tatars of Transcaucasia, Chechens and highlanders of the Caucasus, all those mosques and "Whose prayer houses were destroyed, whose beliefs and customs were trampled upon by the tsars and oppressors of Russia! From now on, your beliefs and customs, your national and cultural institutions are declared free and inviolable."

One of the first decrees of the Soviet government was the decree on the separation of church and state of January 23, 1918. The decree itself did not carry an anti-religious, anti-church connotation. In most European countries, the church was separated from the state back in the era of bourgeois revolutions. Western society is undoubtedly secular in nature. But in most countries the state officially supports those religious organizations, which most correspond national interests and traditions. In England it is the Anglican Church (its head is the Queen), in Sweden, Norway, Denmark it is Lutheran; in Spain, Portugal - Catholic, etc. As for Eastern societies, they are characterized by the inseparability of the secular and religious spheres of life. Consequently, the act of separation of church and state in Russia meant a movement in a Western direction.

However, this act was accepted and in fact became the legislative basis for persecution against the church. The first to come under attack was the Orthodox Church as the official church of old Russia. In addition, other churches were located in territories where there was not yet Bolshevik power. The closure of churches, the confiscation of church valuables, and reprisals against clergy began already in the first months after the October events of 1917. On October 13, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon addressed the Council of People's Commissars with a message in which he wrote: "...Bishops, clergy, monks and nuns are being executed , not guilty of anything, but simply on a sweeping accusation of some vague and indefinite counter-revolutionism."

In the territory pre-revolutionary Russia 78 thousand were active. Orthodox churches, 25 thousand mosques, more than 6 thousand synagogues, 4.4 thousand Catholic churches, more than 200 Old Believer churches Georgia and Armenia. The number of churches in Russia by 1941 had decreased by 20 times. Most of the temples were closed in the 30s. By 1938, more than 40 thousand houses of worship were closed. These are not only Orthodox churches, but also mosques, synagogues, etc. In 1935-1936. The government banned the activities of the Synod and the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate. In 25 regions there was not a single functioning temple, and in 20 regions there were 1-5 temples.

The clergy were also killed. IN AND. Lenin, in a secret instruction dated August 19, 1922, wrote: “The more representatives of the reactionary clergy and the reactionary bourgeoisie we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better.” Thus, the clergy and the bourgeoisie are concepts of the same order for Lenin. This is true from the point of view of civilizational affiliation. The creation of a new one could be successful only if the spiritual foundation was destroyed and its carriers were destroyed.

In 1926, the “Union of Atheists of the USSR to Fight Religion” was created, which was then renamed the “Union of Militant Atheists.” The number of its members grew: 1926 - approximately 87 thousand people; 1929 – more than 465 thousand; 1930 – 3.5 million people; 1931 - approximately 51 million. The growth in the number of active fighters against religion shows how rapidly the spiritual sphere was collapsing. It is curious that pro-Western movements in Christianity, especially such as Baptistism, which seemed stupid and savage, were persecuted most cruelly. However, it was not possible to eliminate religion.

Half-strangled religious confessions were nationalized, subordinated to party-state control and carried out in their activities only those things that did not contradict socialist ideology, that is, in practice there was not separation from the state, as the Decree of 1918 provided, but the subordination of the church to the state.

In an effort to keep their inner world in balance, many people stubbornly clung to traditional religious beliefs. Anti-religious campaigns, while achieving some success, in a number of cases caused the opposite reaction. Previously banned materials from the 1937 All-Union Population Census show that, despite the obvious fear of revealing adherence to religion, a significant part of the population admitted that they believed in God. Of the nearly 30 million illiterate adults (over 16 years of age), more than 25 million (84%) are registered as believers. Of the 68.5 million literate population, 30 million (44%) were also believers.

Generations that grew up in Soviet times had no idea about the role of traditional religions in society and perceived the activities of church organizations negatively. However, that part of society that had lost contact with traditional religion accepted a new one. It had its own paraphernalia: red corners, portraits and monuments of leaders, etc. Its own ritual, its own dogma. Marxism-Leninism was only an outer shell, under which traditional Russian values ​​were often hidden.

The idea of ​​the messianic, saving role of Russia was transformed into the idea of ​​the USSR as the vanguard of the world revolution, which should pave the way to the future for all peoples and help them on this difficult path. Internationalism in fact turned out to be the basis for a harsh Russification policy and the imposition of the Russian model. Leaders, who were perceived as bearers and interpreters of higher values, also became objects of worship. The process of charismatization of the leaders began immediately and gained momentum as the Bolshevik Party consolidated its hold on power. Gradually V.I. Lenin developed into a charismatic leader and then, after his death, was canonized as new Christ or the prophet Muhammad.

IN AND. Lenin always behaved like a prophet, surrounded by disciples and followers, and not like the leader of a political party. It is well known that in the Bolshevik Party and in his circle he did not tolerate people who disagreed with him and showed independence in judgment and behavior. This resulted in constant splits, exceptions, and demarcations, starting from the Second Congress of the RSDLP and until the end of his life.

The formation of the image of a charismatic leader began after the Bolsheviks came to power. However, little was achieved during Lenin's lifetime. In the full sense of the word, he became a charismatic leader, almost a god, after his death. "Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live!" - this slogan could be found both on the streets of the capital and in a small village. Why not “Christ is Risen!”

New leader I.V. Stalin took over as a faithful disciple, a faithful Leninist. His charismatization occurred in the 30s. He became a god during his lifetime. His portraits hung everywhere, and monuments were erected in cities and towns. Cities, streets, schools, factories, collective farms, divisions, regiments, etc. were named after him. The press glorified the leader. Here are lines from the pages of the Pravda newspaper. January 8, 1935: “Long live the one whose genius led us to unprecedented successes - the great organizer of the victories of Soviet power, the great leader, friend and teacher - our Stalin!” March 8, 1939: “Let the father live, long live our dear father - Stalin the sun!”

The deification of the leaders imparted “holiness” to the regime. In the mass consciousness, this meant the adoption of new values ​​and new life guidelines. The system, which was largely based on violence, acquired a spiritual basis.

It is characteristic that during the war years the emphasis was placed on the Russian people. Russian patriotism became one of the most important sources of victory. I.V. constantly addressed the Russian theme. Stayin, especially in the first, most difficult period of the war, on November 6, 1941, he spoke about the impossibility of defeating “... the great Russian nation, the nation of Plekhanov and Lenin, Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, Pushkin and Tolstoy, ... Suvorov and Kutuzov.”

Christianity has always carried a charge of great moral strength, which was especially important during the war years. They drew consolation and strength from religion for life and work in the most difficult conditions of war. The Russian Orthodox Church called for humility and patience, for mercy and brotherhood. The war revealed the best features of Russian Orthodoxy.

In 1943, the orders of A. Nevsky, A. Suvorov, M. Kutuzov, and other prominent Russian military leaders and naval commanders were established, St. George Ribbon, the pre-revolutionary uniform of the Russian army was returned. Orthodoxy received greater freedom than other faiths. Already on June 22, 1941, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius made an appeal to believers, calling on them to stand up for the defense of the Motherland in their hands and take part in raising funds for the defense fund.

A number of telegrams from representatives of the Orthodox clergy with messages about the transfer Money for defense needs in the very first months of the war appeared on the pages of the central newspapers Pravda and Izvestia, information about the work of the Orthodox Church was also provided there, and biographies of the newly elected Patriarchs Sergius and Alexy were published. That is, the patriotic activities of the Church were covered in the press and recognized by the authorities. Dozens of clergy were released from the camps, including 6 archbishops and 5 bishops.

On Easter 1942, Moscow allowed unhindered traffic throughout the city throughout the night. In 1942, the first Council of Bishops during the entire war was convened in Ulyanovsk. In the spring of 1943, the government opened access to the Iveron Mother of God icon, which was brought from the closed Donskoy Monastery for worship at the Resurrection Church in Moscow.

For the period from 1941 to 1944. The church contributed more than 200 million rubles to the country's defense fund. In the very first years of the war, more than three million rubles were collected in Moscow churches for the needs of the front and defense. The churches of Leningrad collected 5.5 million rubles. Church communities Nizhny Novgorod in 1941-1942 they collected more than four million rubles for the defense fund. During the first half of 1944, the Novosibirsk diocese collected about two million rubles for wartime needs. With funds raised by the Church, an air squadron named after Alexander Nevsky and a tank column named after Dmitry Donskoy were created.

Here are some more examples. Bishop Bartholomew, Archbishop of Novosibirsk and Barnaul, called on people to donate to the needs of the army, performing services in churches in Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Barnaul, Tyumen, Omsk, Tobolsk, Biysk and other cities. The fees were used to purchase warm clothes for soldiers, maintain hospitals and orphanages, restore areas damaged during the German occupation and help disabled war veterans.

Metropolitan Alexy of Leningrad remained with his flock in besieged Leningrad throughout the siege. “...ignites the hearts of soldiers by the spirit of unity and inspiration that now lives the entire Russian people,” read his address to believers on Palm Sunday.

On September 4, 1943, Stalin met with the highest hierarchs of the Orthodox Church. It marked a warming in relations between the authorities and the church. The regime decided to use traditional religion to mobilize forces and resources in the fight against the external enemy. By order of I.V. Stalin was given the task of restoring the normal practice of religious rites “at a Bolshevik pace.” A decision was also made to create theological academies in Moscow, Kyiv and Leningrad. Stalin agreed with the clergy on the need to publish church books. Under the patriarch, it was decided to form the Holy Synod of three permanent and three temporary members. A decision was made to form the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In general, it should be noted that the war had a significant and positive impact on the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the Soviet government. After the war, the People's Commissariat of Education issued a decree on the preferential admission of front-line soldiers to educational institutions. In this matter, the church followed the decision of the authorities; a lot of front-line soldiers were studying at the seminary at that time. For example, I.D. Pavlov, the future Archimandrite Kirill, he became the confessor of the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy II.

During the war, there was a legend among the people that during the attack on Moscow, an icon of the Tikhvin Mother of God was placed on the plane, the plane flew around Moscow and consecrated the borders, as in Ancient Rus', when an icon was often brought to the battlefield so that the Lord would protect the country. Even if it was unreliable information, people believed it, which means they expected something similar from the authorities.

At the front, soldiers often made the sign of the cross before battle - asking the Almighty to protect them. The majority perceived Orthodoxy as a national religion. The famous Marshal Zhukov, together with the soldiers, said before the battle: “Well, with God!” The people maintain a legend that Zhukov carried the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God along the front lines.

During the “period of change” (1917-1941), the Bolsheviks abandoned the traditional Russian religion. But during the war, “the time to collect stones,” it was necessary to return to the original Russian, traditions helped unite the people on the basis of a common, common religion. Hitler understood this well. One of his instructions was that the fascists should prevent the influence of one church on a large area, but the emergence of sects in the occupied territories, as a form of schism and disunity, should be encouraged.

Stalin did not organize church revival, he restrained it. In the Pskov region, before the arrival of the Germans, there were 3 churches, and by the time the Soviet troops returned, there were 200 of them. In the Kursk region, before the Germans, there were 2, but there were 282, but in the Tambov region, where Soviet power remained unchanged, there remained 3 churches. Thus, the first 18 churches were allowed to open only almost six months after Stalin’s meeting with the metropolitans by a resolution of the Council of Ministers of February 5, 1944. And from total number The Council of Ministers satisfied only 17% of believers' requests for the opening of churches received in 1944-1947.
On November 16, 1948, the Synod was forced to make a decision to prohibit turning sermons in churches into lessons of the Law of God for children. Moreover, in the late 40s and early 50s, churches again began to be taken over for clubs and warehouses. In 1951, during the harvest in the Kursk region alone, by order of the district executive committees, about 40 buildings of existing churches were covered with grain for many months. Communists and Komsomol members who performed religious rites began to be persecuted. A new wave of arrests of the most active clergy began. For example, in September 1948, Archbishop Manuil (Lemeshevsky) was arrested for the seventh time. If on January 1, 1949, there were 14,447 officially opened Orthodox churches in the country, then by January 1, 1952, their number decreased to 13,786 (120 of which were not operational due to their use for grain storage).

During and after the war, Stalin's policy towards the Church saw two turning points. Today, the positive turnaround of 1943-1944 is more often remembered, but we should not forget the new “ice age” that began in the second half of 1948. Stalin wanted to make Moscow an Orthodox Vatican, the center of all Orthodox churches in the world. But in July 1948, the Pan-Orthodox Conference (with the participation of Metropolitan Elijah) did not at all lead to the result expected in the Kremlin: the hierarchs of churches that found themselves far from Soviet tanks(primarily Greece and Turkey) showed intransigence. And Stalin, realizing that he would not be able to use religious resources in global politics, sharply lost interest in church affairs. So, the cynical pragmatism of Stalin's church politics during the war and the immediate transition to new persecutions in 1948 indicate that Stalin did not have any ideological crisis, conversion, or return to faith.

Several departments were responsible for the implementation of religious policy in the occupied territory of the Nazis - from the special Ministry of Religions to the military command and the Gestapo. In the occupied territories, at the beginning of the war, the Germans allowed churches to operate. Some priests accepted fascist culture, citing the fact that the Church was being persecuted in Russia. And yet, most clergy showed themselves humbly during the war, forgetting past grievances. The Nazis stopped the practice of opening churches because the priests conducted patriotic sermons among the population. Now priests were beaten and shot.

The Orthodox Church united with the secular authorities in the fight against the fascists. The war was declared holy, liberating, and the Church blessed this war. Besides financial assistance, The Church morally supported people, at the front and in the rear. At the front they believed in the miraculous power of icons and the sign of the cross. Prayers acted as peace of mind. In their prayers, the rear workers asked God to protect their relatives from death. The Orthodox Church made a significant contribution to the all-Soviet struggle against the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. The position of the Orthodox Church in Soviet Russia strengthened for a time. But the government followed, first of all, its own interests, and this strengthening was only temporary. Ordinary people often believed in God and relied on him as support from above.

During the Great Patriotic War, the Russian Orthodox Church, despite many years of pre-war repression and suspicious attitude toward itself from the state, proved in word and deed that it is a truly patriotic organization, making a significant contribution to the common cause of victory over a formidable enemy.

Metropolitan Sergius: a prophecy about the fate of fascism

Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky)

The Russian Orthodox Church clearly outlined its position from the first day of the war. On June 22, 1941, its head, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Sergius (Stragorodsky), addressed all Orthodox believers in the country with a written message “To the shepherds and flocks of Christ’s Orthodox Church,” in which he stated that the Church has always shared the fate of its people.

This was the case during the time of Alexander Nevsky, who smashed the dog knights, and during the time of Dmitry Donskoy, who received a blessing from the abbot of the Russian land, Sergius of Radonezh, before the Battle of Kulikovo. The Church will not leave its people even now, blessing them for the upcoming feat.

The Bishop perspicaciously emphasized that “fascism, which recognizes only naked force as law and is accustomed to mock the high demands of honor and morality,” will suffer the same fate as other invaders who once invaded our country.

On June 26, 1941, Sergius served a prayer service “For the Granting of Victory” in the Epiphany Cathedral in Moscow, and from that day similar prayer services began in all churches of the country almost until the very end of the war.

The situation of the Church on the eve of the war

Annunciation Church in the Smolensk region without crosses. Photo from 1941.

The country's leadership did not immediately appreciate the patriotic spirit of the Moscow Patriarchate. And this is not surprising. Since the beginning of the revolution of 1917, the Orthodox Church in Soviet Russia was considered an alien element and experienced many difficult moments in its history. IN civil war many clergy were shot without trial, churches were destroyed and looted.

In the 20s, the extermination of the clergy and laity continued, and, unlike previous atrocities, in the USSR this process took place with the help of show trials. Church property was confiscated under the pretext of helping the starving people of the Volga region.

In the early 30s, when collectivization and “dekulakization” of the peasants began, the Church was declared the only “legal” counter-revolutionary force in the country. The cathedral in Moscow was blown up, a wave of destruction of churches and their transformation into warehouses and clubs swept across the country under the slogan “The fight against religion - the fight for socialism.”

The task was set - during the “godless five-year plan” of 1932–1937, to destroy all temples, churches, synagogues, houses of worship, mosques and datsans, covering all residents of the USSR, primarily young people, with anti-religious propaganda.

Hieromartyr Peter Polyansky). Icon. azbyka.ru

Despite the fact that all monasteries and the vast majority of churches were closed, it was not possible to complete the task. According to the 1937 census, two-thirds of villagers and one-third of city residents called themselves believers, that is, more than half of Soviet citizens.

But the main test was ahead. In 1937–1938, during the “Great Terror,” every second clergyman was repressed or shot, including the Metropolitan, who, after the death of Patriarch Tikhon in 1925, was entrusted with the duties of Patriarchal Locum Tenens.

By the beginning of the war, the Russian Orthodox Church had only a few bishops and less than a thousand churches, not counting those that operated in the territories of western Ukraine and Belarus and the Baltic countries annexed to the USSR in 1939–40. Metropolitan Sergius himself, who became the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, and the remaining bishops lived in constant anticipation of arrest.

The fate of the church message: only after Stalin’s speech

It is characteristic that the authorities allowed the message of Metropolitan Sergius of June 22 to be read out in churches only on July 6, 1941. Three days after the de facto head of state, Joseph Stalin, who had been silent for almost two weeks, addressed his fellow citizens on the radio with the famous address “Brothers and Sisters!”, in which he admitted that the Red Army had suffered heavy losses and was retreating.

One of the final phrases of Stalin’s speech: “All our forces are in support of our heroic Red Army, our glorious Red Navy! All the forces of the people are to defeat the enemy!” became a letter of protection for the Russian Orthodox Church, which was previously considered by the NKVD authorities almost as a fifth column.

The war, which Stalin called the Great Patriotic War, unfolded completely differently from what was expected in Moscow. German troops rapidly advanced in all directions, capturing large cities and important regions, such as Donbass with its coal.

In the fall of 1941, the Wehrmacht began advancing towards the capital of the USSR. The conversation was about the very existence of the country, and in these difficult conditions the dividing line lay between those who rose to fight the formidable enemy and those who cowardly avoided it.

The Russian Orthodox Church was among the first. Suffice it to say that during the war years, Metropolitan Sergius addressed the Orthodox people with patriotic messages 24 times. Other hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church did not stand aside either.

Saint Luke: from exile to the Stalin Prize

Saint Luke Voino-Yasenetsky in the sculptor’s workshop, 1947

At the beginning of the war, the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin, received a telegram from the Archbishop, in which the clergyman, who was in exile in the Krasnoyarsk Territory, reported that, as a specialist in purulent surgery, “he is ready to provide assistance to soldiers at the front or in the rear, where where I will be entrusted."

The telegram ended with a request to interrupt his exile and send him to the hospital, while after the war the bishop expressed his readiness to return back to exile.

His request was granted, and from October 1941, 64-year-old Professor Valentin Voino-Yasenetsky was appointed chief surgeon of the local evacuation hospital and became a consultant to all Krasnoyarsk hospitals. The talented surgeon, who was ordained in the 1920s, performed 3-4 operations a day, setting an example for his younger colleagues.

At the end of December 1942, without interrupting his work as a military surgeon, he was entrusted with the management of the Krasnoyarsk diocese. In 1944, after the hospital moved to the Tambov region, this unique person, who combined the abilities of a venerable doctor and an outstanding confessor, headed the local diocese, where many churches were subsequently opened and about a million rubles were transferred for military needs.

Tanks and planes from the Orthodox Church

Love for the Motherland and its defense from enemies has always been the covenant of all Orthodox Christians. Therefore, believers responded especially warmly to the call for help to meet the needs of the front and to support wounded soldiers. They carried not only money and bonds, but also precious metals, shoes, towels, linen; a lot of felted and leather shoes, overcoats, socks, gloves, and linen were prepared and handed over.

“This is how the attitude of believers to the events they are experiencing is outwardly expressed materially, for there is no Orthodox family whose members would not directly or indirectly take part in the defense of the Motherland,” Archpriest A. Arkhangelsky reported in a letter to Metropolitan Sergius.

Considering that by the beginning of the Great Patriotic War the Orthodox Church in the USSR was almost destroyed, this can truly be called a miracle.

Deputy commander of a rifle company, future Patriarch Pimen

Senior Lieutenant S. M. Izvekov (future Patriarch Pimen), 1940s.

Unprecedented in the history of mankind in its scope and ferocity, the war imperiously demanded military participation. Unlike when priests in the ranks of the Russian army were officially allowed to fight, in 1941–1945 many clerics of the Russian Orthodox Church fought as ordinary fighters and commanders.

Hieromonk Pimen (Izvekov), the future Patriarch, was the deputy commander of a rifle company. Deacon of Kostroma cathedral Boris Vasiliev, who became an archpriest after the war, fought as a reconnaissance platoon commander and rose to the rank of deputy commander of regimental reconnaissance.

During the Great Patriotic War, many future clergy were in the thick of the war. Thus, Archimandrite Alipiy (Voronov) in 1942–1945 participated in many military operations as a rifleman as part of the 4th Tank Army and ended his military career in Berlin. Metropolitan Alexey (Konoplev) of Kalinin and Kashinsky was awarded the medal “For military merits“- for the fact that, despite being seriously wounded, he did not throw away his machine gun during the battle.

Priests also fought on the other side of the front, behind enemy lines. Like, for example, Archpriest Alexander Romanushko, rector of the church in the village of Malo-Plotnitskoye, Logishinsky district, Pinsk region, who, together with his two sons as part of a partisan detachment, more than once participated in combat operations, went on reconnaissance and was rightfully awarded the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War” I degrees.

Battle award of Patriarch AlexyI

Priests of the Russian Orthodox Church, awarded the medal “For the Defense of Leningrad.” 10/15/1943. First on the right is the future Patriarch, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod Alexy

Representatives of the Church fully shared with their people all the hardships and horrors of the war. Thus, the future Patriarch, Metropolitan Alexy (Simansky) of Leningrad, who remained in the city on the Neva throughout the terrible period of the blockade, preached, encouraged, consoled the believers, administered communion and served often alone, without a deacon.

The Bishop repeatedly addressed his flock with patriotic appeals, the first of which was his appeal on June 26, 1941. In it, he called on Leningraders to take up arms to defend their country, emphasizing that “the Church blesses these exploits and everything that every Russian person does to defend his Fatherland.”

After breaking the blockade of the city, the head of the Leningrad diocese together with a group Orthodox clergy was awarded a military award - the medal "For the Defense of Leningrad".

By 1943, the attitude of the USSR leadership in the person of Stalin realized that the people were not fighting for a world revolution and Communist Party, but for your family and friends, for your Motherland. That the war is truly Patriotic.

1943 - a turning point in the attitude of the state to the Church

As a result, the institution of military commissars was liquidated and the Third International was dissolved, shoulder straps were introduced in the army and navy, and the use of “officers” and “soldiers” was allowed. The attitude towards the Russian Orthodox Church has also changed.

The “Union of Militant Atheists” virtually ceased to exist, and on September 4, 1943, Stalin met with the leadership of the Moscow Patriarchate.

During the almost two-hour conversation, Metropolitan Sergius raised the issue of the need to increase the number of parishes and the release of priests and bishops from exile, camps and prisons, the provision of unhindered worship and the opening of religious institutions.

The most important result of the meeting was the appearance of a Patriarch for the Russian Orthodox Church - for the first time since 1925. By the decision of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, held on September 8, 1943 in Moscow, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) was unanimously elected Patriarch. After his untimely death in May 1944, Metropolitan Alexy (Simansky) became the new head of the Church on February 2, 1945, under whom the clergy and believers celebrated Victory in the war.

A pectoral cross on the same chain with a “suicide bomber” badge, an icon of the Mother of God hidden in the breast pocket of a tunic, the ninetieth psalm “Alive in the help of the Most High” copied with a trembling hand, which the soldiers called “living help” - search engines find half-decayed testimonies of faith on the battlefields together with party cards and Komsomol badges. And how many stories “how God saved” were passed on from mouth to mouth. How, when going on reconnaissance missions, they whispered: “God bless!”, how they prayed in secret before the start of the offensive and crossed themselves openly, rising to attack, and how the dying message pierced the radio airwaves: “Lord, have mercy!” The aphorism is well known: “There are no atheists in war.” But not much is known about how the Church lived during the war.

Bleeding Church

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church was almost destroyed. The Godless Five-Year Plan was in full swing. Thousands of churches and monasteries were closed and destroyed. More than 50 thousand clergy were shot. Hundreds of thousands were sent to camps.

By 1943, not a single functioning church and not a single functioning priest should have remained on the territory of the USSR. However, these plans were not destined to come true. The rampant militant atheism was stopped by the war.

Having learned about the attack by Nazi Germany, the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna Sergius (Stragorodsky) blessed the believers to fight the fascist invader. He himself typed his “Message to the Pastors and Flock of Christ’s Orthodox Church” on a typewriter and addressed it to the people. He did this before Stalin. For several days after the start of the war, the commander-in-chief of the Red Army was silent. Having recovered from the shock, he also made an appeal to the people, in which he called people, as they are called in the Church, “brothers and sisters.”

The message of Vladyka Sergius contained prophetic words: “The Lord will grant us victory.” Victory over Nazi Germany was won. And this was not only a victory for Russian weapons.

From the first days of the war, the country's leadership canceled such an obvious anti-God course and temporarily suspended the fight against Orthodoxy. Atheistic propaganda was transferred to new, quieter tracks, and the “Union of Militant Atheists” was demonstratively dissolved.

The persecution of believers stopped - people could again freely attend church. The surviving clergy returned from exile and camps. Previously closed churches were opened. So, in 1942 in Saratov, where at the beginning of the war there was not a single functioning church left, the Holy Trinity Cathedral was transferred to believers (at first for rent), and then the Holy Spiritual Church was opened. Divine services are also resuming in other churches of the Saratov diocese.

In the face of danger, Stalin sought support from the Church. He invites the clergy to his Kremlin, where he discusses the situation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USSR and the possibility of opening theological schools and academies. Another unexpected step towards the Church - Stalin allows the holding of a Local Council and elections of the Patriarch. Thus, the patriarchate, abolished by the Orthodox Tsar Peter I, was restored under the atheistic Soviet regime. On September 8, 1943, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) became the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Fathers on the front line

Some battles took place in the Kremlin, others on the line of fire. Today, few people know about the priests who fought on the fronts of the Great Patriotic War. No one will say exactly how many of them there were, going into battle without a cassock or crosses, in a soldier’s overcoat, with a rifle in hand and a prayer on their lips. Nobody kept statistics. But the priests not only fought, defending their faith and the Fatherland, but also received awards - almost forty clergy were awarded medals “For the Defense of Leningrad” and “For the Defense of Moscow”, more than fifty - “For Valiant Labor During the War”, several dozen – medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War”. How many others have been spared awards?

Archimandrite Leonid (Lobachev) at the beginning of the war volunteered to join the Red Army and became a guard sergeant major. Reached Prague, was awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals “For Courage”, “For Military Merit”, “For the Defense of Moscow”, “For the Defense of Stalingrad”, “For the Capture of Budapest”, “For the Capture of Vienna”, “For the Victory over Germany." After demobilization, he returned to service in the priesthood and was appointed the first head of the Russian Spiritual Mission in Jerusalem after its opening in 1948.

Many clergy went to the front after serving time in camps and exile. Returning from prison, the future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Pimen (Izvekov) rose to the rank of major in the war. Many, having escaped death at the front, became priests after the victory. Thus, the future abbot of the Pskov-Pechersk Monastery, Archimandrite Alipiy (Voronov), who went from Moscow to Berlin and was awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals “For Courage” and “For Military Merit,” recalled: “The war was so terrible that I gave my word to God “that if I survive this terrible battle, I will definitely go to a monastery.” Boris Kramarenko, a holder of the Order of Glory of three degrees, decided to devote his life to God, and after the war he became a deacon in a church near Kiev. And the former machine gunner Konoplev, awarded the medal “For Military Merit,” later became Metropolitan Alexy of Kalinin and Kashin.

Holy Bishop Surgeon

A man of amazing destiny, a world-famous surgeon, who was once a zemstvo doctor in the village of Romanovka, Saratov province, Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church Luka (Voino-Yasenetsky) met the war in exile in Krasnoyarsk. Trains with thousands of wounded soldiers arrived in the city, and Saint Luke again took the scalpel in his hands. He was appointed consultant to all hospitals in the Krasnoyarsk Territory and chief surgeon of the evacuation hospital, performing the most complex operations.

When the period of exile ended, Bishop Luke was elevated to the rank of archbishop and appointed to the Krasnoyarsk see. But, heading the department, he, as before, continued his work as a surgeon. After the operations, the professor consulted doctors, saw patients in the clinic, spoke at scientific conferences (always in a cassock and hood, which invariably displeased the authorities), gave lectures, and wrote medical treatises.

In 1943, he published the second, revised and significantly expanded edition of his famous work “Essays on Purulent Surgery” (he would later receive the Stalin Prize for it). After transferring to the Tambov department in 1944, he continued to work in hospitals, and after the end of the Great Patriotic War he was awarded the medal “For Valiant Labor.”

In 2000, the bishop-surgeon was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church as a saint. In Saratov, on the territory of the clinical campus of the Saratov State Medical University, a temple is being built that will be consecrated in his honor.

Help the front

During the war, Orthodox people not only fought and cared for the wounded in hospitals, but also collected money for the front. The funds collected were enough to complete the tank column named after Dimitri Donskoy, and on March 7, 1944, in a solemn ceremony, Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich) of Kolomna and Krutitsky handed over 40 T-34 tanks to the troops - the 516th and 38th tank regiments. An article about this appeared in the Pravda newspaper, and Stalin asked to convey gratitude from the Red Army to the clergy and believers.

The church also collected funds for the construction of Alexander Nevsky aircraft. The vehicles were transferred at different times to different units. Thus, at the expense of parishioners from Saratov, six aircraft were built bearing the name of the holy commander. Huge funds were collected and parcels were collected for the Red Army soldiers who were going to the front to help the families of soldiers who had lost their breadwinners, to help orphans. During the years of trials, the Church was united with its people, and the newly opened churches were not empty.

Not a swastika, but a cross

On the first military Easter, for the first time in the years of Soviet power, it was again allowed to hold a religious procession in all major cities of the country. “It is not the swastika, but the Cross that is called upon to lead our Christian culture, our Christian life,” wrote Metropolitan Sergius in his Easter message that year.

Leningrad Metropolitan and future Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus' Alexy (Simansky) asked Zhukov for permission to hold a religious procession around the city with the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God. That day, April 5, 1942, marked 700 years since the defeat of the German knights in the Battle of the Ice by the holy Prince Alexander Nevsky, the heavenly patron of the city on the Neva. The religious procession was allowed. And a miracle happened - the tank and motorized divisions needed by Army Group North to capture Leningrad were transferred, by order of Hitler, to Group Center for a decisive push on Moscow. Moscow was defended, and Leningrad found itself surrounded by a blockade.

Metropolitan Alexy did not leave the besieged city, although the famine did not spare the clergy - eight clergy of the Vladimir Cathedral did not survive the winter of 1941–1942. During the service, the regent of St. Nicholas Cathedral died, and the cell attendant of Metropolitan Alexy, the monk Evlogy, died.

During the blockade, bomb shelters were built in a number of churches, and a hospital was located in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. But the main thing is that in the city dying of hunger, the Divine Liturgy was celebrated every day. In the temples they prayed for victory for our army. A special prayer service was served “for the invasion of adversaries, sung during the Patriotic War of 1812.” The command of the Leningrad Front, led by Marshal Leonid Govorov, was sometimes present at the services.

Quiet Prayer Book

During the days of the war, St. Seraphim Vyritsky, who was canonized in 2000, did not stop his prayer for the salvation of the country.

Hieroschemamonk Seraphim (in the world Vasily Nikolaevich Muravyov) before taking orders, was a major St. Petersburg merchant. Having accepted monasticism, he became the spiritual leader of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra and enjoyed enormous authority among the people - people came to him for advice, help and blessings from the farthest corners of Russia. In the 1930s, the elder moved to Vyritsa, where people continued to flock to him.

The great comforter and ascetic said: “The Lord Himself has determined punishment for the sins of the Russian people, and until the Lord Himself has mercy on Russia, it is pointless to go against His holy will. A gloomy night will cover the Russian land for a long time, a lot of suffering and sorrow awaits us ahead. Therefore, the Lord teaches us: through your patience save your souls.” The elder himself offered constant prayer not only in his cell, but also in the garden on a stone in front of an icon built on a pine tree St. Seraphim Sarovsky. In this corner, which the holy elder called Sarov, he spent many hours praying on his knees for the salvation of Russia - and he begged. And one prayer book for the country can save all the cities and towns…

Non-random dates

– June 22, 1941 The Russian Orthodox Church celebrated the day of all saints who shone in the Russian land;

– December 6, 1941 on the day of memory of Alexander Nevsky, our troops launched a successful counter-offensive and drove the Germans back from Moscow;

– July 12, 1943 on the day of the apostles Peter and Paul, battles began near Prokhorovka on the Kursk Bulge;

– for the celebration of the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God November 4, 1943 Kyiv was captured by Soviet troops;

– Easter 1945 coincided with the day of remembrance of the Great Martyr George the Victorious, celebrated by the Church on May 6. May 9 – on Bright Week – to the cry of “Christ is Risen!” the long-awaited “Happy Victory Day!” was added;