International Activity of the Russian Orthodox Church during the “New Deal” Between the State and the Church. Periodization and the Elements of Crisis

Abstract

The article describes the international activities of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate during the “new deal” in the state-church relations (late 1930s – first half of the 1950s). Depending on the direction of the international activities of the Russian Church, which the Soviet leadership considered to be the priority of the moment, the author outlines five main stages of the “new deal”. The first stage dated to the late 1930s – 1943, when the “new policy” remained a secret policy of the Stalinist leadership aimed at including Orthodox religious structures in the new territories, included into the USSR in 1939–1940, into the management system of the Moscow Patriarchate, and then to establish contacts with allies on religious channels through the anti-Hitler coalition. The second stage occurred in 1943–1948, when the main efforts of church diplomacy were aimed at including the Orthodox Churches of Eastern Europe in the orbit the influence of the Moscow Patriarchate and (after 1945) an unsuccessful attempt was made to achieve the leading role of the Russian Orthodox Church in the world Orthodoxy. The third stage occurred in 1948– 1949, when the crisis of the “new deal” took shape. Finally, the fourth stage began after 1949 with the inclusion of the Russian Orthodox Church in the international movement for peace and overcoming the crisis of state-church relations. The author pays special attention to the Moscow meeting of the heads and representatives of the Orthodox Churches of 1948, which revealed a divergence in the interests of the state and the Church and launched a crisis of the “new deal”. In addition, the article makes an excursion into the history of foreign policy activity of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church in the period before the 1917 revolution, as well as its international relations in the interwar period�

Keywords

• the history of russia (ussr) in the 20th century
• the russian orthodox church
• international relations
• the religious policy under stalin
• the “new deal” in the state and church relations
• the international activities of religious organizations of the ussr
• orthodoxy in the countries outside russia
• the meeting of the heads and representatives of autocephalous orthodox churches in 1948