Introduction

On July 27, 2013, in an interview on the occasion of the 1,125-year anniversary of the Baptism of Kievan Rus’, the chairman of the Department for External Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) of Volokolamsk, put forward a new vision of the “canonical territory” of the Russian Orthodox Church.1 IN fact, he had elaborated on this subject in 2005, during his tenure as Bishop of Vienna and Austria of the Moscow Patriarchate, when he served as its representative at European international organizations in Brussels. Then he outlined the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church as embracing thirteen post-Soviet states, namelY, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kirgizstan, Tajikistan, Estonia, Latvia, and LithuaniA.2 Only Georgia and Armenia were not present in this list, because their Orthodox believers belong to the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Georgia. In his interview of 2013, however, Metropolitan Hilarion also counted Japan and China as part of the Russian Orthodox Church’s canonical territory. He justified their inclusion by reference to history: The first Orthodox missionaries there were Russians. At the same time, the Russian hierarch pointed to the right of his church to exercise authority outside this expanded canonical territory due to the necessity of giving spiritual and ecclesiological guidance to the dioceses and parishes of its diaspora.

In general, the observers link these concepts of the Moscow Patriarchate with the ambitions of the contemporary Russian state leaders. In this regard, they also tend to draw parallels with Stalin’s use of the Orthodox Church for political ends during 1943-1953. This approach, however, is not sufficient to reveal other important factors that have determined the behavior of the Moscow Patriarchate both then and noW.3 Above all, it neglects the fact that the Russian Orthodox Church is itself a body of power. As such it has a broad scope of interests that cannot be limited to the traditional notion of religious liberties, with their focus on the individual rights of believers. The foremost task of the Russian Church is to preserve its canonical jurisdiction and administrative authority over communities of Orthodox believers and territories, which is perceived as a kind of historical legacy entrusted to it by God.

In the last century, these particular attributes of the Russian Orthodox Church have been called into question twice. The first crisis in this direction was caused by the two Russian revolutions in 1917 and Russia’s defeat in World War I. They almost destroyed the jurisdiction and authority of the Russian Orthodox Church, not only in the lands that remained under Soviet control but also abroad. Although in the course of World War II and the first postwar years the Moscow Patriarchate recovered its losses, the collapse of the Soviet Union again called into question its rights over the Orthodox communities in the new independent states. From such a perspective, the roots of the aforementioned concepts of canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church and its ecclesiological guidance for the diaspora should be sought not only in contemporary politics but also in history and Orthodox ecclesiology.

This book aims to shed light on these understudied questions of Russian church history. It is inspired by a paradox in the experience of the Russian Orthodox Church: The Soviet regime played a major part not only in its interwar decline but also in its resurrection during World War II. In contrast with other studies on this subject, however, this one is not focused on the Bolshevik antireligious policy and Stalin’s wartime misuse of religion for political ends. Instead, it analyzes the development of the Russian Orthodox Church from the perspective of the decline and resurrection of its canonical jurisdiction and administrative authority. In this regard, the period 1917-1948 is of primary importance. The start of this period marks a crucial turn in the jurisdiction and authority of the Russian Orthodox Church. By 1917, that is, before the two Russian revolutions and the defeat in World War I, it was the biggest ecclesiastical organization in the Orthodox world. Its jurisdiction was not limited to the territory of the Russian Empire, but was also spread over dioceses, missions, and parishes situated in North America, Asia, and Western Europe. In November 1917, this enormous authority over Orthodox communities on three continents was confirmed by the Great All-Russian Ecclesiastical Sobor (council), which restored the patriarchal dignity of the Russian Orthodox Church.

In the interwar period, however, the Bolshevik antireligious policy caused serious losses to the Moscow Patriarchate. As a result, its jurisdiction and authority were gravely reduced not only in the Soviet Union but also outside it. By 1939, the administration of the Moscow Patriarchate de facto had no control over the Russian Orthodox Church’s communities abroad. Moreover, the Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union was brought to “the brink of complete dissolution.”4 Despite this desperate state, however, in the course of World War II and the first postwar years, the Moscow Patriarchate not only restored its jurisdiction over the former Russian imperial territory but even expanded it. In this way, during the Moscow Pan-Orthodox Conference in July 1948, its jurisdiction and international influence reached a new apogee. All this provides grounds to reconsider the motives of the Russian church leaders for concluding a concordat with Stalin in 1943. It points to specific ecclesiastical motives for the collaboration between church and state in the following years.