The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The article is devoted to the analysis of the conversation of I. V. Stalin with the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate, held on the night of September 5, 1943. In the course of this conversation, Stalin actually disavowed a number of key provisions of the decree “On the separation of Church and State”. Firstly, his establishment of the Council for the Russian Orthodox Church meant that the state recognised the Church as an integral system. Secondly, the instruction to “ensure the right of the bishop to dispose of church funds” implied the legalisation of diocesan structures. Thirdly, the permission to have candle factories in dioceses was tantamount to granting religious organisations certain legal rights. Moreover, Stalin expressed his willingness to provide the “church centre” with subsidies directly forbidden by decree, which the metropolitans refused on every occasion. Should they agree, the meeting could have initiated a revision of the decree with the participation of the party concerned. As a result of the conversation, two of the metropolitans’ ten requests were implemented within a few days, designed for international resonance: the election of the patriarch and the publication of the “Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate”. Permitting the organization of theological courses, Stalin also proposed to open academies and seminaries. In response to a request by metropolitans to open churches in a number of dioceses, Stalin said that there would be no obstacles on the part of the government. The admission of clergymen in the executive bodies was also allowed without objections, but in 1961 this clause was annulled as a “gross violation of Leninist norms”. The resolution of other issues, such as the amnesty of bishops, the lifting of restrictions on clergy who had served their sentences, arbitrariness in taxation, was postponed. As an encouragement from the government, the patriarchate received a new residence — a non-ecclesiastical building, which was listed for the People’s Commissariat for Foreign Affairs. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that Stalin’s demonstrative move towards the Orthodox Church testified that the elimination of religion in the public space of the USSR was postponed for an indefinite period of time. The analysis suggests that while this move was positive, it was forced, contradictory and accompanied by the increasing state control over church life.