The Sergian Church undertook special measures to persuade Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe in the holy cause of the Soviet fight against Hitler. They started at the end of 1942, when Metropolitan Sergii (Starogorodskii) was already sure of the support of the Orthodox patriarchs in the Middle East and of the Church of England. On November 22, the locum tenens and Metropolitan Nikolay of Kiev issued an appeal in which they referred to the Romanian soldiers as “brothers in faith.”268 They emphasized that Romanians and Russians shared the same faith in God and thus it was not natural for them to ally with the Nazi villains who were destroying the Christian civilization and its values. Sergii (Starogorodskii) and Nikolay (Yarushevich) pointed to the Russian-Turkish War (1877-1878), which had liberated the Romanian nation from Ottoman vassalage. They appealed to the Romanian soLdiers to do their Christian duty—that is, to leave the Germans and to join the Red Army. In this way, they would be able to atone for the sin of participating in Nazi crimes and to contribute to the defeat of the enemy of mankind. The leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate blessed everybody who did so.
Two weeks later, the two Russian metropolitans issued a similar appeal, addressed to the Romanian Orthodox hierarchy and its flocK.269 They emphasized that the fight against the dark forces of Nazism was supported not only by the Western Allies but also by the Orthodox patriarchs of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria. They also pointed out that leading representatives of other Orthodox churches under German control, such as the Serbian Patriarch Gavrilo and the Bulgarian Metropolitan Stefan of Sofia, had raised their voices against Nazi crimes. The Russian hierarchs warned Hitler’s supporters that they would share
Germany’s destiny after the war. They also addressed the Orthodox women in Romania with a request to persuade their fathers, husbands, and sons to keep away fTom the satanic endeavor of Hitler. The Moscow locum tenens and the Exarch of Ukraine asked the Romanian episcopate to keep its flock away fTom the alliance with Hitler and to join the Russian prayer for God’s punishment to fall on this cannibal and anti-Christ. At the same time, the Sergian Church did not mention its canonical rights over the Orthodox dioceses in Moldova, Bessarabia, Bukovina, and Odessa. This silence, however, did not mean that it had given them up, but instead indicated the priority given to enlist support for the Soviet army, the victory of which would give better guarantees for Moscow’s jurisdiction over them than canon laws.
Easter in 1943 was another occasion for Metropolitan Sergii to appeal to the Orthodox Christians of Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Greece, and other countries With a petition to cease any support for Hitler.270 The document was issued at the request of the Pan-Slavonic Committee for the Fight against Fascism.271 The locum tenens emphasized the heroism of Yugoslav and Greek partisans and the feats of arms on the Soviet-German front undertaken by Czechoslovakian volunteer units in the Red Army. Metropolitan Sergii (Starogorodskii) emphasized that the Russians had always helped Orthodox peoples in the past and referred to the ongoing righteous struggle of the Soviet people against their occupiers.
The victory at Moscow, the break of the Leningrad siege, and the defeat of the invaders at Stalingrad resulted in a mass mobilization of Germans ordered by Hitler to stop Soviet advances on the eastern front. According to the Sergian Church’s leaders, the Nazi regime not only forced the “unfortunate Romanians” to fight against Russians but also wanted to draw Slav peoples to work in German industry and on German farms. The latter, however, was no less felonious than direct military support for the Nazi regime. Therefore, Metropolitan Sergii concluded that every honest Orthodox man and woman was obliged to do everything possible to escape work in German enterprises. If there was no chance for escape, then this man or woman had to sabotage the enterprise. A worker killed as a saboteur by the fascists was the same kind of hero as the soldier who died in the battle. Both were martyrs to their faith and motherland.
The Exarch of Ukraine and Metropolitan of Kiev and Galicia, Nikolay, was also involved in the Soviet propaganda of Pan-Slavism. In May 1943, he attended the third Pan-Slavonic session, convoked in Moscow on the occasion of the second anniversary of the German attack on the Soviet UnioN.272 In his speech, Metropolitan Nikolay expressed the gratitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Slav brothers who were fighting against the enemy outside the Soviet UnioN.273 AS a member of the State Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Villainies in the Soviet Union, he presented a touching picture of all the suffering and sorrow of his compatriots. He believed that God meant justice not sheer force, and thus the ultimate victory would belong to the righteous men. Metropolitan Nikolay concluded that the Russians had succeeded in overcoming the crisis after the Nazi assault; they had mobilized and stopped the enemy. He stated that the most decisive battles were still to come and all Slav peoples had to unite their efforts to defeat the common enemy. The attempts of the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate to gain the support of the Orthodox world for the Soviet fight against Hitler, however, were not successful. The Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union still lacked sufficient authority because of the unsettled patriarchal question.
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