RUSSIAN RESEARCH CENTER STUDIES, 62

Icon and Swastika

Icon a n d Swastika
T h e R u s s i a n Orthodox Church

u n d e r N a z i a n d Soviet Control

Harvey Fireside

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS

1971
 © 1971 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved

The Russian Research Center of Harvard University is supported by a grant

from the Ford Foundation. The Center carries out interdisciplinary study of
Russian institutions and behavior and related subjects.

Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 70-123567

SBN 674—44160-5
Printed in the United States of America
Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London
To Rose Levenberg
 F o r e w o r d by
P a u l B. A n d e r s o n

Once in talking with Sir Bernard Pares at the School of Slavonic and
Eastern European Studies of the University of London, he remarked that
between the mountains of Wales and the Urals there is no hill higher
than six hundred feet. Having crossed this area many times, I know that,
were it not for the change in village scenes and the great rivers, it might
be uninteresting territory for a casual traveler. Yet the contrary holds
if the visitor has a bent for history, especially the great decisive moments
in the millennium of relations between the Slavic East, basically
Byzantine Orthodox, and the Catholic-Protestant West.
In 19201 drove out of Warsaw and in half an hour came to the forward
Polish positions facing the Bolshevik armies. Two months later there
were the bivouacs of the two hundred thousand interned Russians who
had been driven by the Poles through the Mazurian lakes into East
Prussia. A year later came the streams of refugees from Soviet famine;
I met them at Baranovitse and Rovno, where the Polish-Soviet frontier
had been established well to the east of the Curzon line at Brest-Litovsk.
In the spring of 1939 I visited the ancient fortress there; the frescoes in
the little chapel depicted the historic scenes as the city fell to one side
or the other, to Russians or to Poles. In the last fifty years the frontier
has shifted five times. Religion, or antireligion, can be seen as a major
element behind each change.
Dr. Fireside provides us with a valuable study of the way in which
religion was manipulated on the Eastern front in World War I I by the
Germany army and occupying administration. My own preview of
German policy occurred on a visit to Berlin during the Nazi period, when
I saw Bishop Seraphim Lade several times and also visited the beautiful

vii
vili / Foreword

Russian Orthodox Cathedral which the German state had helped the
emigré Church to erect. As the Nazi armies moved into Russian territory
beyond Brest-Litovsk, they helped the Orthodox to open churches, most
of which had been closed by the Soviets, in the same way. As Dr. Fireside
explains, the Nazis made use of Bishop Lade and émigré clergy in their
efforts to replace priests by then dead or exiled to the Far East.
The author's review of Nazi policy is preceded by two relevant
chapters on the background of Soviet religious policy, and on the nature
of Russian Orthodoxy. Both are vast fields, with much documentary
evidence available and many sorts of evaluating opinion to draw upon.
It will therefore not be surprising if some readers object to the interpre-
tation given in Dr. Fireside's brief summary; his ideas are stimulating
indeed.
Nor is documentation lacking on events and policies of the actual
years of German occupation. A wealth of material is available from the
Nuremberg trial, from war memoirs, and from the studies conducted by
Harvard University teams among refugees immediately after the close
of the war. All sources agree that the German administration of occupied
territories was chaotic. The author's analysis of the conflicting policies
of seven major Nazi agencies—military, security, and civil—helps greatly
to see how bewildered the population must have been, and how even a
return to Communist rule must have seemed preferable for some.
There are varied opinions, among scholars, too, on the manner and
extent to which Soviet policy on religion in the war and the postwar
period was aifected by Nazi policy and practice during the occupation.
Numerous conversations with leading Russian hierarchs, both in the
Soviet Union and abroad, would on the whole lead me to support the
author's thesis that Stalin was influenced greatly by the fact that religion
still existed even after terrible atheistic drives, and that it could come to
life even under the rigors of Nazi occupation. Fortunately for the Rus-
sian Orthodox Church, he did not adopt the Nazi policy of arbitrarily
favoring now one, now another, claimant to Church authority, but
instead came out clearly in favor of the Patriarchate. The bishops and
many of the clergy who were active under the Germans fled with the
retreating Nazi armies. Let us hope that a further study will follow these
wartime Orthodox leaders to their new fields of endeavor—often in
competition with one another—in Canada, Australia, and the United
States.
Having visited Metropolitan Dionisius, head of the Polish Orthodox
Church, several times before the war, I went to see him again in 1946.
 Foreword / ix

He related the courtesy of the Russian high command in returning him

from his refuge in Austria to resume office in Warsaw. On another visit,
in 1948, I was told by someone at the door that the Metropolitan could
see no one. In fact, he was under house arrest and was soon deprived of
office.
Dr. Fireside writes of the broad operations of the Moscow Patriarchate
in dealing with heads of other Orthodox Churches and with Western
non-Orthodox churches, and of the 1948 decision not to affiliate with the
World Council that was rescinded before formal entry in 1961. This, of
course, is well beyond the period of German occupation or even of Soviet
expansion westward. The author's closing section, however, brings out
the fact that the foreign relations and peace efforts of the Moscow
Patriarchate share the characteristics of Soviet foreign policy; he ventures
to say that perhaps this "junior partnership" relationship has had a
beneficial effect on the domestic life of the Orthodox Church in the
Soviet Union. He feels that both Church and state are strongly patriotic,
and that this may be a factor in ensuring the maintenance of religious
life in the Soviet Union.
 Contents

Foreword by Paul B. Anderson vii

Preface xiii
Glossary of Orthodox Church Prelates xviii

1. The Background of Soviet Religious Policy 1

2. Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War 37
3. Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion 49
4. Germany Policy Toward the Orthodox Church:
The Minister versus the Commissar 72
5. Germany Policy Toward the Orthodox Church:
The Ancillary Agencies 101
6. The Popular Reaction to German Religious
Policy in the East 131
7. Soviet Response: The "New Religious
Policy" in Full Flower 166

Bibliography 195
Notes 207
Index 235
 Preface

An analysis of the experiences of the Russian Orthodox Church under

German occupation in World W a r I I afforded an opportunity to explore,
in the form of a comparative case study, the systems of Soviet and Nazi
social controls and the degree of popular compliance each was able to
attain. Such a study might provide insights into the strains of the
Stalinist system, as indicated by the reaction of some sixty million people
during the hiatus after Soviet power had vanished and before Nazi
repression had made itself felt. It could also be considered something
like a sociopolitical experiment spanning the period from June 1941 to
July 1944, in which religious organizations under Nazi rule represented
the "experimental group" and those remaining under Soviet rule the
"control group." Finally, it might shed light on the nature of the Soviet
decision-making process, since the religious revival that swept the Ger-
man-occupied areas was evidently related to the subsequent shift in
Soviet policy which brought about accommodation between regime and
Church in September 1943.
It soon became apparent why this specific topic had been treated
peripherally, if at all, in previous studies both of the Church and of the
German occupation. For one thing, the institution being investigated
proved to be not one church but a number of Orthodox factions—a half
dozen in the Ukraine alone—with the antecedents and structure peculiar
to each determining its set of responses. For another, German policy in
this field turned out, on closer examination, to resemble the rationaliza-
tions of planners in Berlin rather than the welter of conflicting directives
and improvisational gestures by which at least seven Nazi agencies
sought to fit the religious question into their respective missions. It
would, therefore, be impossible to arrive at a single, definitive answer
to the central inquiry: How effectively did the German administrators

xiii
xiv / Preface

exploit religious tensions created by the Soviet system? Still, by piecing

together the fragmentary data, one might hope to offer tentative con-
clusions on the two major variables.
Instead of approaching the subject head-on, it seemed more suitable
to take an indirect .pproach, so that relevant experiences and ideological
preconceptions of all the actors could first be viewed in perspective.
Thus, excursions ii to the roles of regional church groups and into the
attitudes of German officials for whom religious regulation was an inci-
dental affair might yield clues to help explain resurgence of the Church
on a grand scale. Introductory chapters would have to supply back-
ground on an institution that had survived two decades of the Soviet
regime's cyclical but inexorable drive toward atheism, as well as on the
German decision-makers who brought to their Russian assignment atti-
tudes shaped by dealing with the churches of their homeland. Finally,
the yardstick by which "effective exploitation" might be measured had
to provide two parameters. First, the efforts of German agencies had to
be gauged by the degree to which they enabled each unit to perform its
immediate function in the short run. Then, they had to be re-examined
in terms of how much allegiance they engendered for the occupation
power, without which any long-run political rule would have been
obviated except at gunpoint.
A good deal has been written about church experiences under the
Soviet and Nazi regimes. It might well be questioned, therefore, whether
brief reference to such sources would not have sufficed. The decision to
present this material anew in three background chapters reflected a
feeling that previous writing had presented documents and other data
from the viewpoint of historians who shrank from drawing conclusions
about the political nature of the institution they were describing. By
covering the old ground with the tools of political sociology, one might
hope to engender new insights about the rationale of totalitarian deci-
sion-making in a comparative context. The actions of individual church-
men could then be seen not as isolated examples of bravery or cowardice,
opportunism or principle, but rather as patterns of response to institu-
tional pressures.
There were additional reasons for an extensive introduction to an
account of the Church under German occupation. Each vital element of
the story was linked to the experiences of the previous generation: the
religious frustrations of the people in the occupied territories, the wide-
spread church revival, the resistance of most congregations to Nazi
exploitation, the factional disputes among rival clerics, the interrelation
 Preface / xv

between church and nationalist movements. Further, the major actors

were keenly aware that theirs was a subplot of a larger drama. Thus, a
German administrator knew that the options in dealing with local church
groups were circumscribed by the demands of Nazi ideology, and he
knew the anticipated response from religious bodies in the Reich and
the capital that Soviet propagandists and partisans would be able to
make of his actions—beyond the net gain or loss in advancing objectives
in his immediate jurisdiction. In like fashion, the men in the Kremlin in
carving out a new role for the Church drew upon their ideological sets,
their intelligence data on what was happening in the occupied areas, and
their assessment of the religious tenacity and political reliability of
Russian believers.
A German official's failure to follow up initial successes of a liberal
religious policy and a Soviet move to capitalize on it would appear as
arbitrary tactical exchanges unless the introductory chapters placed them
in a broader setting. Only then might it become clear whether such
moves kept to lines established in preceding years. Because the most
dramatic change transpired in Stalin's policies, it was of special interest
to determine the degree to which they diverged from the Marx-Engels-
Lenin approach to religion. In tracing these connections, it became
necessary to fill gaps in the existing literature, which has never system-
atically analyzed this strand of Communist ideology. As regarded the
Nazis, again a background section was required to at least offer a
summary account of German church experiences that still await full-
length scholarly treatment. Only by tracing Soviet and Nazi religious
policies to their origins could it become apparent which aspects of them
in the wartime period constituted improvisations, which variations on
older themes.
The most appropriate method of study seemed to be a historical
approach: exploring probable cause-and-effect relations in the data
with a minimum of preconceived hypotheses. The limited original
sources—German documents scattered in various archives, isolated
accounts of Russian and German eyewitnesses, and the hundreds of
interview protocols gathered in 1950-51 by the Harvard Refugee Inter-
view Project—had to be collated and evaluated critically. Any biases or
self-serving statements would have to be disallowed. A similar corrective
factor was required for German and Soviet policy statements on religion
generally, since the explicit rationale of each often covered crucial under-
lying motivations. With these reservations governing the use of sources,
it appeared advisable to allow for theories to follow patterns of data,
xvi / Preface

rather than vice versa. As much as possible, objectivity and rigor of

investigation would have to dictate categorization of fragmentary mate-
rials. An extra share of speculation might be in order, however, for the
final chapter on the "New Religious Policy" in the Soviet Union, in order
to bring the study to bear on questions of current social controls and to
suggest an answer regarding the regime's ability to manipulate the
ideological framework to suit its practical purposes.
It should be noted that I am neither Russian nor Orthodox and have
no particular ax to grind on the politics under discussion. Still, one man's
detachment may be another's bias. For example, it may infuriate some
readers to be confronted with evidence that a number of priests proved
all too human in succumbing to the temptation of giving in to demands
of Nazi Reichsleiter, as they had to Soviet commissars on occasion. No
attempt has been made to excuse or condemn them for such actions.
They are, simply, described as accurately as possible and in the light of
all the extreme pressures that motivated them. It remains to the reader
to speculate whether others might have played such difficult parts in a
different fashion.
The Harvard Refugee Interview Project first drew my attention to the
usefulness of data on the German occupation of Russia in World War II
as a means of exploring the Soviet social controls that were detached for
a three-year period. I owe a great deal to the advice and encouragement
of four of the project's specialists: Dr. Alex Inkeles, under whom I
worked as research assistant at the Russian Research Center; Dr. Merle
Fainsod, who guided my studies of Soviet politics; Dr. David Gleicher,
whom I helped to classify the interview protocols; and, perhaps most of
all, Dr. Alexander Dallin, Harvard consultant on research into the occu-
pation and later director of Columbia University's Russian Institute, who
provided not only many valuable insights through writings and conversa-
tions on the occupation era, but also the urging I needed to follow this
study to its final stage. I am further indebted to Dr. Dallin for generously
allowing me the use of his files, with their store of hitherto unpublished
information. Thanks are also due the New York State Education Depart-
ment's Office of Foreign Area Studies for a grant enabling me, as visiting
scholar at Columbia in 1967-68, to track down the more elusive sources.
Further, I wish to acknowledge assistance of the staff at Columbia's
Archive of East European and Russian History, which granted access to
its manuscript collection and permission for citation. Like appreciation
is due the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research for making available its
files of original German documents, as well as the National Archives for
 Preface / χυίί

supplying microfilms of captured German records. Additional materials

were furnished by the able library staifs at Harvard and Columbia
Universities, the World Jewish Congress, and the Slavonic Divisions of
the Library of Congress and the New York Public Library.
A special measure of gratitude is reserved for Dr. George Ginsburgs,
my adviser at the Graduate Faculty of Political and Social Science of the
New School for Social Research, for his patience, counsel, and wit. To
help the reader keep straight the confusing cast of Orthodox Church
clerics, I have followed Dr. Ginsburgs' suggestion and appended a
glossary of the prelates in order of their appearance in the text. Including
the many variants of their names would only have compounded the con-
fusion, so reference is limited to the most commonly used names, with
surnames or Russian equivalents of Ukrainian and Belorussian clergy
added in parentheses. The transliteration system is a simplified form of
that used by the United States Geographic Board, with diacritical marks
and palatalization signs omitted.
Harvey Fireside

Ithaca
February 1970
 Glossary of Orthodox
C h u r c h Prelates

In Order of Appearance in the Text

Tikhon—elected Patriarch in 1917, failed to rouse resistance to the Soviets,
arrested in 1922 and "confessed" his political errors after his release in
1923, died in 1925.
Sergius—became locum tenens or Acting Patriarch in 1925, arrested in 1926
and 1927, after his release promised political obedience to the regime,
weathered two Soviet antireligious campaigns, called for resistance to the
German invasion, organized Church contributions to the war effort, evacu-
ated to Ulyanovsk 1941-1943, elected to the Patriarchy after his return to
Moscow and a historic interview with Stalin, died in 1944.
Alexis—Metropolitan of Leningrad during wartime siege, decorated for his
part in the city's defense, became Acting Patriarch in 1944, elected Patriarch
in 1945, reorganized the Church administration with the help of new
seminaries and clerics from areas retaken by the Soviets, issued pro-Stalin
appeals and statements in support of Soviet policy.
Nikolai—obtained submission of Ukrainian hierarchs to the Patriarchy after
Soviet seizure of eastern Poland in 1939, became Metropolitan of Kiev
after fleeing from Germans, issued patriotic appeals from Moscow during
the war and served on War Crimes Commission, became the foreign policy
spokesman of the Church in 1945, died in 1961.
Seraphim—émigié bishop selected by the Nazis to head all Orthodox parishes
in the Third Reich, confirmed by the anti-Soviet Karlovtsi Synod in Yugo-
slavia, tried to extend his influence into the occupied territories, restricted
to his Berlin diocese after 1940 except for a special Church conference in
Vienna in 1943.
Sergius the Younger—named Exarch of the Baltic states after their occupation
by the Soviets in 1940, concealed himself to avoid evacuation, supported
the Nazis but maintained nominal allegiance to the Patriarchate, built an
active Church organization extending beyond the limits of his diocese,
murdered in 1944 probably by a German security squad.
Szepticky—Metropolitan of the Uniate Church in the Ukraine, restricted by
the Germans to the Polish General-Gouvernement, died in 1944.

xix
XX / Glossary

Panteleimon—Exarch of Belorussia after Soviet occupation of western area

in 1939, picked by Germans to head Belorussian Autocephalous Church in
1941, exiled in 1942 but recalled a year later to reorganize the Church.
Dionisius—Metropolitan of the Polish Autocephalous Church, tried to influ-
ence Orthodox organizations in Ukraine and Belorussia during occupation
era, displaced by pro-Soviet bishop in 1948.
Vasily Lipkovsky—organizer of Ukrainian Autocephalous Church which made
him a bishop in 1921, ordained many unqualified clerics until Soviets forced
him out in 1928, followers known as Lipkovtsy left with clerical status in
doubt.
Polykarp—Bishop of Lutsk under Polish Autocephalous Church since 1932,
in 1941 with urging of Dionisius re-established Ukrainian Autocephalous
Church (UAPTs) of which he became "Administrator," fled to West
Germany and defrocked by emigré bishops in 1945, though later headed
European section of UAPTs in exile.
Alexei—Bishop in eastern Ukraine, as senior churchman in 1941 became
Metropolitan and acting head of Autonomous Ukrainian Church while
keeping nominal allegiance to the Patriarchate, opposed to UAPTs, assassi-
nated by extremists in 1943.
Alexander—Archbishop of Pinsk and senior primate of Belorussia, helped
Polykarp set up UAPTs in 1941, briefly headed Belorussian Autocephalous
Church.
Hilarión—Ukrainian nationalist in 1918-1919 regimes, later philologist in
Polish area, became Archbishop of Kholm in 1940, during occupation
funneled nationalist clerics into eastern Ukraine and promoted UAPTs.
Palladius—old-time Ukrainian nationalist who became Bishop of Lemko in
1940, then of Cracow, active in UAPTs.
Mstyslav—Stephen Skrypnik, active as politician in Poland, then as publisher
with German approval in 1941, became Bishop of Pereiaslav in 1942 and
one of most ardent nationalists in UAPTs.
Fotius—former Soviet spy in Poland, became Bishop of Vinnitsa in 1942,
dislodged with difficulty by Polykarp in 1943 after having won local German
support.
Feofil—long-time schismatic, allowed to build independent church organiza-
tion by Germans and make himself Metropolitan of Kharkov in 1941,
joined UAPTs in 1942, excommunicated by Patriarch in 1944.
Platon—Bishop of Rovno, one of strongest Nazi sympathizers in UAPTs with
close ties to Bandera partisans.
Manuil—Bishop of Vladimir Volynsk, switched from UAPTs to Autonomous
Ukrainian Church, assassinated 1943 by Bandera band.
Panteleimon (Rudyk)—named Bishop of Lvov after Soviet occupation of
West Ukraine in 1939, loyal to Autonomous Church in 1941, fought with
UAPTs over control of Kiev diocese, succeeded Alexei in 1943.
Gennady—sent by UAPTs to become Bishop of Dnepropetrovsk, backed by
German commissar and local Ukrainian nationalists against Autonomous
Church organization.
Vladimir Benevsky—head of Poltava Church Administration, reorganized
city's religious life under occupation, gave official thanks to Germans.
Icon and Swastika
 1
Tlie Background of
Soviet Religious Policy

When the German overlords were planning their conquest of the eastern
reaches that would supply them with indentured servants for the master
race, they had to admit into the strategic councils psychological as well
as military experts. The wartime strategy called for blitzkrieg, the kind
of lightning advance that had already put the bulk of Western Europe
under the swastika. Assuming that victory against the Soviets could be
snatched with like speed, German civilian administrators would be faced
with a gigantic task in the newly conquered area. Hundreds of millions
of future colonial subjects had to be provided for.
The waiting Aryan governors knew that the mentality of their future
subjects was not the blank slate that would have been the ideal medium
on which to inscribe the New Order. In order to harness the Slavs to the
engines of the Third Reich, some account—no matter how grudging—
would have to be taken of their past hopes and frustrations. Likewise,
on the grander plane of the future Teutonic empire, before new social
and political institutions could be erected according to Hitler's master
plan, a massive job of demolition and reconstruction would have to be
performed on the structures that had persisted through the past twenty-
three years of Soviet rule.
In both these respects, the church policy of the German occupiers
was bound to be affected by the religious needs of their subjects, for
these had been conditioned by a generation of Communist practice.
What such needs and practice were must be borne in mind as an imme-
diate backdrop to the occupation drama that will furnish an essential
contrast against which to view German policy and practice—the extent
to which the Germans attempted to undo or parallel Soviet institutions

1
2 / Icon and Swastika

and controls. An overview of the preceding period will also throw light
on the object that German administrators would try to shape to their
purpose: what was the condition of the Church at the eve of the war?
Was it too emasculated to resist any of the new strictures to be imposed
on it? Or, did it have reservoirs of strength which might swell it into a
redoubtable force for the Germans to reckon with, perhaps even a rally-
ing point for the frustrations of Nazi as well as Communist rule?

RELIGION AND REACTION

From the voluminous and easily accessible literature on the Russian

Orthodox Church, data can be culled that suggest certain hypotheses
about the political sociology of religion in Russia. Though the facts are
known, the story has so far been told only in episodic form by historians.
The potential contribution of the following analysis lies in drawing
conclusions from the data, particularly as these highlight the Church as
a social institution interacting with the governmental bureaucracy. To
my knowledge, this is a novel attempt to view features of the Orthodox
organization as response patterns to political pressure.
First, the Church since the early eighteenth century had uncomplain-
ingly done yeoman service on the ship of state. It had no modern record
of opposition to the regime's course, though that course might, in the
opinion of some Church leaders, be heading for disaster. Instead, its
prime role was that of willing handmaiden, receiving the material and
status benefits of an established religion, acquiescing in the personnel
and policy directives received from political decision-makers. Whenever
called upon, it stood ready to anoint the legitimacy of the state and to
rationalize the latest repressions of the government. Its power, which
was considerable, generally lay unexpended. An occasional churchman,
the most notorious being Rasputin, might aspire to primacy in the ante-
chambers of the autocratic court, but he was the exception. The more
consistent stance of the Church in the halls of state was one of passivity;
power strivings were seemingly displaced within the institution itself—
turned inwardly by the hierarchs into factional or personal struggles for
pre-eminence. If such a hypothesis is warranted, it goes far to make
understandable the rather short-lived hostility of the Church to the
Soviet regime, its persistent attempts at the accommodation finally found
in wartime alliance with its self-declared archenemies, and what to some
observers has been a series of moves into a position of abject political
servility.
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 3

Viewed in this light, the factional battles that span Soviet church
history in the prewar period are also easier to fathom. Until the decisive
intervention of the state sealed the issue, each churchman contending
for the patriarchal throne could sustain his claim, on whatever shred of
legitimate basis he found at hand, and try to bluff out his rivals. This
leads to the second hypothesis: that power within the Church was sub-
stantiated by traditional, rather than by charismatic or rational, means.
The apex of the hierarchy is populated not by the spell-binding prophet
or the supple bureaucrat, but by the aged monastic priest from the
upper class with extensive university and seminary education and a life-
time of experience in the lower echelons, where greater store was laid
on theological lore than on social skills, including administrative talent.
Such a man would prove no match for either commissar or Gauleiter;
he might also be hard put to deal with an occasional charlatan aspiring
to high church office; he would have to rely on tested defenses—canon
law, time, and patience.
Centuries of traditional exercise of power could be expected to fossilize
communications and administrative practice within an institution. In
the case of the Russian Orthodox Church, when the word was given by
prelates at the apex of the structure it percolated down slowly and fit-
fully to the typical village congregation at the bottom; any return flow
was negligible. These two strata occupied two different worlds, and,
while both shared a common interest in maintenance of the faith, in
virtually all other ways their roles diverged. The sumptuously accoutred
bishop, a monastic swathed in the mysteries of ancient ritual, stood versts
apart from the peasant world of the married priest, who as often as not
tilled his own fields, dickered with his parishioners over baptismal fees,
or drowned his frustrations in the vodka bottle. 1 At times of chaos, with
sections of the country cut off by civil war or foreign occupation, it is not
unexpected to find that parts of this body existed independently of the
head; after regenerating their own centers of authority, they might even
feel relief at the removal of central church pressures and respond with a
surprising burst of vigor. At other times of general political repression
of religious activity, the semi-autonomous life of individual congrega-
tions could persist remarkably unchanged, making the discovery of a
"catacomb church" by some observers somewhat of a misnomer. In
relation to Church headquarters in Moscow, the small village flock might
often have regarded itself as occupying the ecclesiastical catacombs.
In line with previous assumptions about a church both politically and
administratively wedded to the status quo, a third hypothesis offers the
4 / Icon and Swastika

view of it as a conservative social force. Conservatism, an inherent

resistance to change, is a notoriously relative matter, but it seems to have
a specific bearing here to the Church's self-conception, its ideology, as
well as to its interactions with other institutions. The last ambassador of
France to the Russian Court, Maurice Paléologue, shared many attitudes
of the Petrograd aristocratic circles in which he moved. Yet on February
28, 1917, his memoirs carry the following caustic entry: "All who study
the history and theology of the Russian Orthodox Church, 'the True
Church of Christ,' realize that its essential characteristics are its con-
servative instincts, the immutable rigidity of its creed, reverence for
canon law, the importance of forms and rites, routine devotions, sump-
tuous ceremonial, an imposing hierarchy and humble, blind submission
on the part of the faithful." 2 Those who strayed from the path, seven-
teenth-century schismatics and contemporary, more radical "sectarians,"
tended to end up in extreme positions of their own, with an ultra-
individualistic, disorganized style that Paléologue summarized as "abso-
lute anarchy."
Looking inwardly, the Church cast a jaundiced eye on any attempts at
reform. Priding itself on its calcefied traditions, it disparaged Western
Christianity for its changeableness. 3 Whether in the matter of conducting
services in the vernacular rather than the time-hallowed Church Slavonic
or of grudging a mite of self-determination to the congregations, the
prelates insisted on looking backward. They relied entirely on the
authoritarian solution. Even when change was thrust upon them, as in
the upheaval of the October Revolution, their reaction was retrogressive:
reverting from the synodal form of administration of the past two cen-
turies to the patriarchal office swept away by Peter the Great in 1721.
If a grass-roots demand for reform seized sizable areas of the country,
the orthodox hierarchy stood its ground, using the weapons of recrimi-
nation and anathema, forcing the reformers into an untenable position
as schismatics, most of all counting on the enthusiasm for change to die
down among a flock of believers conditioned to ritualized prayer and
obedience. Inevitably, a few years later, a couple of decades—it didn't
really matter—the factional leaders grew weary of the unequal battle
and came around repentant to seek readmission to the Mother Church,
which usually let them back into the fold with their titles intact, as if the
whole affair had been a youthful prank.
During tsarist times, conservatism was reinforced by the social groups
with which the Church was allied: the nobility and upper bureaucracy
at the top, the peasantry at the base. Notably absent were the catalysts
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 5

of change: the bulk of the intelligentsia at the higher reaches, the

increasingly important industrial proletariat at the lower. Liberal, let
alone radical, forces were not so much arrayed against the Church as
alienated from it. It had little to offer them, so they gave it the cold
shoulder or, at worst, shrugged it off as one more of the deadweights
carried on the bowed backs of the people. As for social pronouncements
of church leaders, they stayed within the narrow confines set by such
civil administrators as Pobedonostsev, Ober Procurator of the Holy
Synod during the reign of the last two tsars and symbol of obscurantism.
Liberalism in politics, according to such guidelines, was as reprehensible
as democratization in church doctrine.

THE WAYS OF SURVIVAL

That this static social institution was able to maintain itself at all—
more than that, keep up an establishment of 130 bishops, some 50,000
priests and 80,000 monks and nuns in 19144—calls for further comment.
Of course, an interpretation of this latest pre-World War I statistic from
reports of the Ober Procurator depends on whether one sees it as genuine
indication of vitality or merely as the last flush of a moribund establish-
ment. A review of most impartial commentaries makes us incline to the
latter option, which is buttressed by the relative ease with which the new
Communist regime could deal with an at first implacably hostile Church
—shifting from a policy of entirely ignoring its challenge to one of
limitations of scope, then harassment and finally open persecution, with-
out ever encountering a general show of popular revolt. Indeed, the
initial strategy of the hierarchs was predicated on weakness, since the
demonstrations they organized in the city streets were meant to provoke
Red soldiers into taking a toll of martyrs large enough for a nationwide
crusade against the regime. True, there were other prelates to be found
blessing the weapons of the White Guard armies during the years of
civil war, but even they failed to arouse the masses and thereby also
attested to the fundamental weakness of the Church base. The church-
men who could be so glaringly ignored then were in an impossible
negotiating position: boxed into a political nonworld, having made
compromise unthinkable with foes they had anathematized, they left
themselves only the draconic choice of official extinction or total
submission.
The legacy of conservatism had depleted the arsenal of political
weapons available to the embattled Church, stripped it of its defenders,
6 / Icon and Swastika

robbed it of the flexible responses demanded by the revolutionary situa-

tion. Gone now were the faithful nobles and assiduous bureaucrats who
had been its shield, terrorized and disrupted the peasantry that had been
its sinews. Here and there a village stood ready to rally round its priest
against the pillaging Red Guards, but such jacqueries were isolated.
Their emotion was too short-lived and shallow to furnish the grounds for
organized resistance. Too many of the first open clashes were about
church property, which the new regime was trying to seize, for the
peasants to be convinced that defense of silver ornaments was worth the
risk of their lives. It proved more convenient to rely on heavenly wrath
to catch up with the perpetrators of sacrilege than to snatch up one's
pitchfork.
Undoubtedly a deeper reason for the dearth of popular martyrs lies
in the gulf between people and Church. At a simple level this was
reflected in the bickering that surrounded the local priest—quarrels
about his exorbitant fees or his rights as a landowner, suspicions of his
drunkenness and corruption. In the popular view, he was also linked
somehow to the sumptuary trappings of the prelates, subsidized like them
from the coffers of an autocratic state. He was part and parcel of an
establishment which, except for an occasional renegade like Father
Gapon leading the marchers on Bloody Sunday of 1905, sought to fasten
the yoke yet more securely on the necks of the people—an institution
whose ideology made it answer the primordial cries for peace and land
with admonitions to keep fighting and remain content with the old.
Sermons that had automatically been cast into the mold of quietude
could not instantly be reshaped into calls for action. A church anchored
in the status quo was unable to fathom the depth of, let alone build
a programmatic bridge to, the streams of the country's economic and
social frustrations.
And yet the Church lingered on. Not only were patriarch and politburo
eventually reconciled, but the rapprochement uncovered the flocks of
believers who had remained steadfast and now overflowed reopened
chapels and reconsecrated shrines, even oversubscribed in large numbers
the vacancies in the new seminaries. Again a problem of interpreting this
tenacity of religious belief must be faced. Mere habit inculcated into
childish minds before the age of reason does not offer a satisfying answer.
Why did parents bother? Why did many of the children not jettison their
faith when they grew aware of the negative status it carried in Soviet
life?
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 7

Communist ideologists, using as a springboard the social Darwinism

of Engels, would jump to the prediction of godless generations meeting
the dawn of Communism, having discarded their faith like a maladaptive
vestigial organ after sufficiently long exposure to the classless conditions
of socialist society. In thus circumventing the problem, however, they
have transposed it into a nonpragmatic framework. Who can check how
long will be long enough? The enlightenment drive in the Soviet Union
has littered recent history with false forecasts; the Militant Atheist
League pronounced a death sentence over the Church in the thirties, yet
it continues as a viable institution three decades later.
Equally unconvincing rings the suggestion of some anthropologists,
taking another leaf from Engels, who conclude that Russian religion at
some primitive level satisfies the demands for nature-worship of the
Russian peasant. Major church holidays may relate to the seasonal cycle
which dominates the life of tillers of the soil—the vernal rebirth of
Eastertime, for instance. But what attracts the peasant, admittedly the
most devout of the believers, to a daily or weekly service? Why did the
drive for "godless collective farms" of presumably rational socialist
farmers fizzle out? Further, how can the ever new reports of religious
observance in the cities by workers, even professionals (notably an
Alleluyeva), a couple of generations or more removed from the country-
side be explained?
Nicholas Timasheff has pointed to the beauty of the divine service
itself as providing "the strongest attraction to the Russian Orthodox
Church." 5 The elaborate ceremonial, especially the glorious songs, are
said to offer a respite from the ugliness of Soviet local "cultural insti-
tutions." If that were the case, however, a beautification program for
village Houses of Culture would strike a deathblow at the faith. The
roots seem to go deeper, though this does not gainsay the connection
between bureaucratic drabness at marriage registration offices and the
widespread preference of young couples for a church ceremony, for
example. Soviet officials have shown that they appreciate the effect by
literally rolling out red carpets for civil nuptials and adding recorded
music in an obvious effort to meet the competition.
The people's psychological thirst for religion appears to embrace,
beyond a craving for esthetic rewards of the service, a search for
symbolic rewards, in part substitute, in part supplement for the meager
material rewards offered by the Soviet system so far. At least the average
Russian consumer hangs a considerable distance below the "new class"
8 / Icon and Swastika

of the political and professional elite when it comes to priorities for

better housing, clothes, and luxuries. Yet in his church he can enjoy
spiritual benefits, including the promise of eternal rewards that are
barred to his social betters by official sanction. In this realm he is king.
He is able to envisage himself master of his destiny, a prospect appar-
ently worth the price of state-sponsored caricatures of his "superstitions."
But at the same time the Russian churchgoer is more than an indi-
vidual whom official ideologists denounce as a spiritual dope addict. He
belongs to a whole cult of fellow addicts. Here may well lie a clue to the
social nexus for the hardiness shown by beleaguered congregations. The
collectivization and industrialization drives launched by Stalin in the
late twenties brought in their wake a vast disruption of traditional social
patterns. To a great extent the society was atomized, with individuals
uprooted from their extended family and community relations to fill slots
in the rosters of collective farm or factory, their work depersonalized to
specialized functions paid by the hour or piece instead of continuing in
the old work cycle of the small farmer or craftsman, their locally limited
world shattered by the demands of "horizontal and vertical mobility"
that might deposit them and their immediate kin in the metallurgical
plant of a new city like Magnitogorsk or a pioneer kolkhoz in Siberia.
Their children, too, would no longer follow the traditional family occu-
pations but go far from the hearth to prepare for their careers.
Against such social storms the religious congregation provides a
buffer. Its very existence bears witness to the persistence of the com-
munity below the surface of the economic plan in which the person
figures as a production statistic, perennially short of his output quota.
The brotherhood of believers is exemplified around the baptismal font
where the infant is accepted into the fold, surrounded by family, god-
parents, and the remainder of the congregation; Soviet society is typified
in the factory or farm brigade where money and honors go to the worker
who outperforms his fellows, the Stakhanovite who stands on the
shoulders of hundreds of plodders. The sociological terms of the contrast
are Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, the status of ascription versus that of
achievement or, in a nontechnical formulation, the security of an indi-
vidual knowing he belongs without question versus his frantic scramble
for a place in the competition of society's many markets. In a sense, the
Church promises to everyman what the Party does to a relative few, and
it casts its spell of kinship without fear of purge or denunciation. It has
no niche for the ambitious who would rise in the ranks, if need be over
the prone bodies of a rival clique.
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 9

The societies of "the chosen" in Church and Party offer some surpris-
ingly similar psychological rewards to their faithful. The members of
each, once past initiation rites, are expected to remain for life, depart-
ing only "feet first" unless an order from the authoritarian center ban-
ishes them for infraction of organizational commandments. Each of the
two orders has its scriptures, its canon saints whose relics are revered
by pilgrims, and its rogues' gallery of schismatics. In each the primary
channel of communication is downward, conveying instructions, whether
in pastoral letter or Central Committee directive, that require unques-
tioning obedience. Both have a ritual of confession followed by acts of
penance as a central obligation of their practicing members. Finally, they
share, to some degree, a claim for universal dominance—in the "Third
Rome" image of the Church and the socialist world headquarters of the
Party, as well as in a Utopian future held out to believers in compen-
sation for the host of contemporaneous privations.
Naturally, during the Soviet era the scope of the Party has expanded,
that of the Church shrunk. The Church has been largely stripped of its
educational, charitable, social, and politically influential functions and
has held only conditional title to a much reduced inventory of property.
The Party, on the other hand, exerts the decisive power in all social
institutions—to an extent that has been aptly characterized as akin to
a board of directors of the entire country.6 The status difference between
Party and Church thus boils down to an ideological monopoly facing
a lumpenproletariat. The haves loom over the have-nots. They can kick
and scoff at them, threaten them with imminent extinction, snatch what
shreds of legitimacy have been left them—better yet, they can occasion-
ally gratify their egos by granting some limited rights to the religious
suppliants and garnering odes to their benevolence in return. Although
its dogma assures the Party that, in the process of constructing Com-
munism, it will automatically be rid of the spiritually benighted, in the
meantime it might even begin to get used to having them around,
living examples of an outworn past, for purposes of amusement and
of furnishing object lessons in how not to succeed. By the end of the
thirties, at least, they had been rendered harmless; at that point they
could even be mustered for special menial tasks in support of the system,
but any such bargain would clearly be struck between unequal partners:
talk of a concordat7 completely misses the realities of power in a situa-
tion matching leviathan with sacrificial lamb.
Whatever truce was achieved was bound to be unstable. An implicit
part of the bargain between Party and Church was that the former re-
10 / Icon and Swastika

tained all rights of unilateral abrogation, the latter only a tenuous claim
to survival at the sufferance of its masters. The antireligious dogma of
the Party was not negotiable, so that a rise in the status of believers
was restricted to the minimal. Party members and a scattering of non-
members who were ideologically reliable maintain their pre-emptive
claim to all leading positions in the administration, professions, and
other cadres; the Party elite continues to claim the lion's share of de-
cision-making and supervisory functions throughout society. And Church
membership remains incompatible with the occupation of such status
according to official standards; conversely, a devout believer still finds
the doors to advancement shut unless he can practice his faith sub rosa,
with the attendant hazard of being found out eventually.

MARXIST DOGMA AND THE OPIUM HABIT

Karl Marx launched his broadsides against religion in the 1840's;

Frederick Engels refined the attack and gave it some sociological under-
pinnings in the 1870's; Vladimir Ilich Lenin had absorbed their teach-
ing and was adding marginal notes relating them to contemporary con-
ditions in Russia by the 1900's.
Each of the three oracles of Communism pronounced a curse on re-
ligion, not simply as an antiscientific doctrine, but specifically as the
narcotic used in Machiavellian fashion by the forces of reaction upon
their victims to deaden the blows of the exploiters' knout. Christianity
celebrated the patient bearing of adversity; what was worse, it made
a virtue of turning the other cheek. Behind each capitalist there was a
priest spreading unction; they formed, indeed, an unholy alliance drain-
ing the proletarian of his willpower as well as of his lifeblood. In order
to weld together a revolutionary workers' party, one had to rouse the
people from their torpor of piety and not only turn them away from
religion, but marshal them to storm the palisades of faith that fortified
the citadel of the bourgeoisie.
This theme runs through the writings of all three grand masters
of Communism. Marx's opening salvo in 1844 marked the line of attack
along which all later polemics would fly: "The struggle against religion
is, therefore, indirectly a struggle against that world whose spiritual
aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at the same time an expression
of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the
sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and
the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The aboli-
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 11

tíon of religion as the illusory happiness of men is a demand for their

real happiness."8 Subsequent forays, whether by him or Engels or
Lenin, only elaborated the theme, footnoting it to refer to particular
conditions in Germany, France, England, or Russia or to credit its
genesis to the French encyclopedists and distinguish it from the cruder
deviations of Ludwig Feuerbach and Eugen Dühring. Yet, having un-
masked the cleric as an archenemy of the proletariat, all three ideologues
surprisingly wasted very little ammunition on him.
Antireligious passages lace enough writings of Marx and Engels for
a publisher to have brought them out in book form; likewise for Lenin,
but the editors of both volumes had to include quite a bit of incidental
material to pad them out.9 And even then it is clear that neither work
harbors a single major essay or a full-dress presentation of critical
theory on the subject. Both are beset by a basic logical inconsistency:
religion generally induces a harmful narcotic state in the working class,
but under extraordinary circumstances in past times and present the
cross has been held aloft by revolutionaries. The exceptions—ranging
from communistic early Christians to the leaders of the Peasant War
in the early sixteenth century, from the Levelers of Cromwellian England
to the Christian socialists of present-day Europe and even to a Father
Gapon of 1905 Russia—leave the crude tenet in shambles. How can
an antiscientific illusion have advanced the cause of progress, a soporific
have spurred its victims into action?
Fundamental Marxist theory is aware of the question, yet the answer
is wanting. An ambivalent diagnosis of the divine disease—now wholly
evil, now mysteriously beneficial—stops the communist doctors to a
society of "addicts" from prescribing radical withdrawal. The opium
habit, they insist, is not to be stamped out by fiat but to be gradually
extinguished when the revolution has created conditions for its replace-
ment by proper socialist habits. Like other forms of exploitation in
bourgeois institutions, the church will wither away with the ultimate
resolution of the class struggle in the utopia of communism. Marx,
Engels, and Lenin, in their writings on religion, reserve their sharpest
invective for the crude deviations of materialists like Eugen Dühring
whose approach is much more straightforward: a radical remedy, aboli-
tion of religion, as a political platform.
Orthodox Marxists, once they have slapped the priest in the face by a
calculatedly insulting epithet, seem to hesitate—as if it might be a
mistake, after all, to expend too much force on a protagonist armed
only with an error-ridden Bible. Their pause also suggests that a
12 / Icon and Swastika

general attack would be out of order when the opponent may only
have extended his hand in friendship. Behind the banner of religion
marches not a lockstep army, but a motley retinue of the disestablished
as well: dissenters, schismatics, sectarians, and untouchables like Jews.
The revolutionary party of the downtrodden cannot easily stuff all
of them into the same sack as followers of the state-sponsored Church.
To do so would mean endorsement of the policy of Bismarck's Kultur-
kampf against German Catholics or the persecutions and pogroms
countenanced by the tsar's ministers.
Marx and company end up drawing much finer distinctions in their
analysis of religion than do their implacably atheist contemporaries
among European socialists. The greater finesse in theory is grounded
in tactical requirements. They are obviously aware that their fairly
feeble movement could never attract the minions needed to storm the
barricades if it drove away all those who clung to their faith as one of
a few inviolable treasures. They know they have to forge a party of
disparate elements or they may end up with just another philosophical
debating club. Here, as in other twists of the Marxist line, the snarls
are attributable to programmatic needs.
The Communist Manifesto in 1847-48 charges that "the parson has
ever gone hand in hand with the landlord" and discounts any egalitarian
movement he may lead. In Marx's and Engels' early phrasing, "Christian
socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the
heartburnings of the aristocrat."10 The nobleman's internal complaints
apparently derive from the defeat his feudal class sustained a century
before at the hands of "the then revolutionary bourgeoisie." It was the
latter class that undermined the claims of established churches with
"ideas of religious liberty and freedom of conscience" not in accord
with any immutable principle of justice, but with its ethics of the
marketplace; that is, it thereby "merely gave expression to the sway
of free competition within the domain of knowledge."11
Christian socialism is discussed under the heading of "reactionary
socialism," since the priest as agent of the aristocrat is presumably trying
to reverse the historical clock, to worm his way back to the place of
social eminence from which he was toppled by the bourgeoisie. In these
efforts he does not play the part of an independent variable in the
historical process, but of camp follower to a party in the class struggle.
His realm is merely a sector of the superstructure—at that, of one which
disintegrated a hundred years before. Marx and Engels can entirely
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 13

dispense with his anachronistic reappearance on the scene during the

euphoric days preceding the 1848 revolutions.
This was also the time when Marx was contributing to a Brussels
newspaper a vitriolic column on German conservatism with the follow-
ing intrasigent catechism:

The social principles of Christianity justified the slavery of An-

tiquity, glorified the serfdom of the Middle Ages and equally know,
when necessary, how to defend the oppression of the proletariat,
although they make a pitiful face over it.
The social principles of Christianity preach the necessity of a
ruling and an oppressed class, and all they have for the latter is
the pious wish the former will be charitable . . .
The social principles of Christianity declare all vile acts of the
oppressors against the oppressed to be either the just punishment
of original sin and other sins or trials that the Lord in his infinite
wisdom imposes on those redeemed.
The social principles of Christianity preach cowardice, self-con-
tempt, abasement, submission, dejection, in a word all the qualities
of the canaille; and the proletariat, not wishing to be treated as
canaille, needs its courage, its self-feeling, its pride and its sense of
independence more than its bread.
The social principles of Christianity are sneakish and the pro-
letariat is revolutionary.
So much for the social principles of Christianity.12

And, one may add, so much for the self-confidence of 1847.

Two decades of European reaction had followed by the time Das
Kapital appeared, and neither there nor in other post-1848 writings of
Marx or Engels were the strident notes of the early countercrusade
heard again. Marx's magnum opus declares that "the religious world
is but the reflex of the real world,"13 a much muted refrain of the old
battle cry. The dominant theme had been softened and embellished,
calling for variations when touching on different religions in varying
social contexts. Marx concluded this passage on religion by calling for a
critique of the subject relating it to its materialist substratum, the pro-
duction process. The evolutionary method developed by Darwin, he
suggested, could aptly be applied.
Engels responded to the hint of his mentor a decade later, in 1878,
in a polemic against one of the many "vulgarizers and distorters" who
14 I Icon and Swastika

by that season had become fair game for the guardians of true commu^
nism. "Herr Dühring" is roundly taken to task for spinning Marx's
early anticlericalism to its logical conclusion: including in his socialist
platform a plan for total abolition of the church. What might have
been deemed a virtue thirty years before had by now become a sin—
first of ignoring new conditions, especially the anti-Catholic legislation
promulgated in Prussia in May 1873. Dühring "out-Bismarcks Bismarck,"
says Engels, because his proposals would be directed "not merely
against Catholicism, but against all religion."14 Secondly, he has com-
mitted the sin of historical misinterpretation and impatience unworthy
of a true socialist by provoking action where none is needed. Instead
of realizing that iron laws of evolution forecast the automatic extinc-
tion of religion once the era of bourgeois exploitation is over, Dühring
"cannot wait until religion dies a natural death."
Engels contends that a policy based on such misunderstanding can
only backfire. Dühring "sets his gendarmes of the future on religion
and thereby gives it a longer lease of life by martyrdom." The implica-
tions of the new theological Darwinism are quietist—waiting for the
priest to dig his own grave—where the early charge of Marx had been
activist. In the process, the garb of the clerical enemy is shown to be
no longer all black but an indeterminate shade of gray, depending
upon circumstances. Early Christianity displays as a central positive
feature a belief in the equality of all men, although according to Engels
it degrades that egalitarianism by casting it into a negative form
"of an equal taint of original sin." Such a version, naturally suited to
the beliefs "of slaves and the oppressed," was relegated to the closet
when hierarchical distinctions were established within a church that
had achieved legitimacy and begun its persecution of pagans and
heretics. The rise of the bourgeoisie, however, brought a resurgence of
the demand for equality by the newly disadvantaged class of prole-
tarians that dogged its steps. "This was first made in a religious form
and was based upon early Christianity . . . as was particularly the
case at first, in the Peasants' War . . ,"15 ,
Engels waxes even more eloquent in the praise of folk heroes among
the Christian opium addicts in his 1894—1895 essays "On the History of
Early Christianity," which open with a surprising note of appreciation:

The history of early Christianity has notable points of resemblance

with the modern working-class movement. Like the latter, Christian-
ity was originally a movement of oppressed people; it first appeared
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 15

as the religion of slaves and emancipated slaves, of poor people

deprived of all rights, of peoples subjugated or dispersed by Rome.
Both Christianity and the workers' socialism preach forthcoming
salvation from bondage and misery; Christianity places this salva-
tion in a life beyond, after death, in heaven; socialism places it
in this world, in a transformation of society. Both are persecuted
and baited, their adherents are despised and made the objects
of exclusive laws . . . And in spite of all persecutions, nay, even
spurred on by it, they forge victoriously, irresistibly ahead.16

To some students of Marxism such qualified appreciation counts for

little. They would deprecate it as a temporary tack en route to the un-
changed goal of an atheistic society. That kind of analysis, however,
relies on circular logic—forcing all data around its foregone conclusion,
the inflexibility of Communist doctrine. In quite another area, Soviet
foreign policy, it insists on the primacy of the drive for world domina-
tion, interpreting coexistence as only a subterfuge for continued im-
perialist expansion by the Kremlin. It further denies the validity of the
Sino-Soviet rift, affirming that not far below the stormy surface the
foundations of "the Communist bloc" lie undisturbed. The trouble with
such a model of the implacable enemy is not only its dogmatism,
rationalizing all data into its closed system, but also in its failure
to appreciate the causes and significance of altered Communist policies.
In a sense, it depends on reification of doctrine, making it appear to
exist independently of those who formulate it and reshape it to conform
to new exigencies.
For present purposes, it is helpful to dispense with such a Platonic
idea world in interpretations of Communist ideology and instead to
focus on the very real sources and effects of programmatic change. Even
what is termed a tactical shift or a difference of degree can matter
quite a lot when Christian socialists, for example, are approached by the
Party as potential collaborators rather than arraigned as class enemies—
just as it has mattered whether Moscow sends out trade missions or
an order for a renewed blockade of Berlin. For purposes of understand-
ing, possibly predicting, Communist strategy, it is best to dispense
with the image of the Marxist mastermind who juggles a variety of
disparate programs intent on the ultimate success of his act. If he did
exist, for one thing he would be able to point to a much more con-
sistent record of achievements; for another, he would surpass human
understanding of his ultra-Machiavellian method.
16 / Icon and Swastika

Marx and Engels are much more comprehensible when reduced to

a scale where doubts, contradictions, and changes of mind are possible
than on the ideal plane where all their words and deeds fall perfectly
into place. The "abolition of religion" that Marx posited in 1844 became
a doctrinal encumbrance in the Europe of the 1870's and could be
relegated to the distant evolutionary future; by the ΙΒίΧΧβ it had turned
out to be anti-Marxist heresy. At that juncture, Engels decided that
Communists and Christian socialists were marching from similiar start-
ing positions, traveling parallel roads beset by like dangers, heading
for a common destination. The only tangible difference is one of time
scale—whether the goal is attainable in a reasonably immediate future
or not until the afterlife. This distinction bolsters the Communist
claim of priority in having the true key to history, but it poses no
major practical barriers to alliance in the common cause. The two
parties can join without qualm in pulling down the old order, whether
for its capitalist or un-Christian features. History can decide whose
victory the new order represents, that of the revolutionary priest recon-
structing the City of God or that of the commissar in a classless
society that is shedding its outworn dogma as painlessly as an old skin.
So much for the grand stage, as set for either earthly or heavenly
apocalypse. In the more intimate arena of the Party, the issue seems
to have been resolved in favor of dual membership—open enrollment
of Christian applicants. Although the two doctrines are bound to clash
inevitably at an abstract level, in terms of immediate allegiance they
overlap sufficiently to accommodate that anomaly, a Christian Com-
munist. His position is sheltered by the sheathing of the Party's anti-
religious sword for the time being, the soft-pedaling of its activist atheism
in pursuit of a surpassingly important goal: seizure of power.

LENIN'S PRAGMATISM AND THE CHURCH

The implications of the Marx-Engels dialectic on religion were not

lost on their assiduous student Lenin. His teen-age enthusiasm for the
shocking truths of atheism battened on the mottoes of the early Marx,
as well as on a revolt against the pious habits of his mother and at least
the letter of church law that his father, a tsarist official, was bound to
observe.17 His tutor to enlightenment seems to have been his older
brother, Alexander, who introduced him to the opium metaphor in the
Marx critique of Hegel. At fifteen, Lenin is reported to have torn
a crucifix from the wall and flung it on the ground in response to an
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 17

official's admonition about his failure to attend services. During his

high school days in Simbirsk, he is said to have pointed out the Spassky
cloister to a friend, with the comment: "That's where people run from
life and hide themselves alive! Good, I suppose, for them if they find
solace in this prison."18 A recent biography comments on the flimsiness
of such anecdotes, also pointing out that Lenin's own party question-
naire declares him to have retained his religious beliefs until after
the age of sixteen.19
In any case, after recounting this promising start and adding to it a
number of equally pointed anecdotes, Lenin's atheist editor is forced
to admit that "the question of war against religion did not occupy
a central place in Lenin's opinions."20 The mature captain of Russian
Bolsheviks had recognized that a fight against crucifix or cloister could
bog down his phalanx in a skirmish incidental, perhaps detrimental, to
the central struggle for power. In 1909 the chronic problems of an
undermanned organization forced him to proclaim: "We must not only
admit into the Social-Democratic Party all those workers who still retain
faith in God, but we must redouble our efforts to recruit them. We
are absolutely opposed to the slightest affront to the religious con-
victions of these workers. We recruit them in order to educate them
and not in order to carry on an active struggle against religion."21 Even
a priest could qualify for his Party card as long as "he conscientiously
performs party work and does not oppose the party program."
The young Lenin showed a more personal and hysterical recoil from
religion than the early Marx or Engels; but the seasoned Russian leader
went further in his willingness to compromise with the forces of the
church than did his preceptors. By the turn of the nineteenth century,
the clerical Communist or fellow traveler was no longer a hypothetical
creature. As an émigré, Lenin had learned of such strange phenomena
as special Social-Democratic churches in England in which the congrega-
tion sang hymns asking God to lead them from the capitalist wilderness
to the promised land of socialism as He had led the Jews out of Egypt. 22
Closer to home he knew of the First and Second Dumas, in which small
groups of priests defied the Synod by speeches in behalf of the masses
and against the government. 23 In 1908 he was ready to concede that
behind such freak examples lay a factor of immense significance for
a party that would make revolution in a predominantly rural Russia.
To the rhetorical question in the Duma, why do village priests "emerge
more on the side of the peasant than does the bourgeois liberal," he
replied that the priest "lives side by side with the peasant, is tied to
18 / Icon and Swastika

him by a thousand circumstances, even at times—through the small

landholdings they work on church soil—occupies the same hide as
the peasantry." He concluded by embracing the priest-deputy Tikhvinski
as a "fearless and resolute defender of the interests of the peasantry
and the people."24
If Bismarck's Kulturkampf stole the thunder from the Marx-Engels
campaign against religion, the 1905 revolution can be credited with
bringing Lenin down from the heights of atheistic theory to the thickets
of Russian political reality. Unprepared as he and his party were for
that event, he proved able to distill pragmatic lessons from its failures
and to make the painful readjustments in tactics that would assure
successful exploitation of revolutionary circumstances the next time
around. First of all, he had to come to terms with the living example of
a priest, Father Gapon, leading the procession which sparked the revolt
to the Winter Palace. This was enough to shatter once and for all the
Marxist stereotype of the clerical opium peddler deadening the frustra-
tions of the masses. Lenin did not try to laugh away Gapon's action
as a historical accident; instead, he interpreted it as part of a new
pattern: "the presence of a liberal reformist movement among some
parts of the young Russian clergy," with "exponents at the meetings of
religious-philosophical societies and in churchly literature. This move-
ment has even acquired its own name—the 'neo-orthodox' movement."25
From this premise Lenin jumped to the strange speculation that "it is
impossible, therefore, to absolutely rule out the thought that Father
Gapon may be secretly a Christian socialist."
Unwarranted as Lenin's conclusions about Gapon's organizational
affiliations may be, the revised instructions to the Party are substan-
tiated in any case: don't turn away such a strange bedfellow as a
revolutionary priest. Further, abandon the dogmatic antireligious atti-
tude that would obviate such curious collaboration. As a consequence
of the 1905 revolution, Lenin admonishes, the fight against religion
must take a back seat. Disputes in this area, as in the field of national
allegiances, must not be allowed to disrupt the unity of the working
class: "The unity of the revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class
to build paradise on earth is more important for us than the single-
minded opinion of the proletariat about paradise in heaven."26 Only
with this revised order of priorities were the Bolsheviks later able to
look the other way while an Orthodox sobor was re-establishing the
patriarchate and ceremoniously installing an arch-conservative in oifice
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 19

—literally a stone's throw away from their own 1917 revolutionary head-
quarters in the same Kremlin.
By that time the Party had had a dozen years to absorb the lessons
of 1905 that had "made even some natural friends of autocracy, such
as some of the clergy, act against it and help burst the bonds of police
bureaucracy." Lenin had lauded Bolshevik flexibility in accommodating
these potential allies and scoffed at the rigidity of other groups like
the anarchists who refused to cooperate with the clergy in any way.
The conditions of 1905 disclosed to him more than one flock of the
faithful who, rapt in "the striving for new forms of life," were naturally
suited to follow the proletarians' vanguard. They included "Christian
socialists and Christian democrats, the indignation of 'the heterodox,'
sectarians, etc. . . . whether voluntarily or involuntarily, consciously
or unconsciously, growing supporters of the revolution, not only daily
but hourly."27 Once he had dropped his early antichurch stand, Lenin
was able to exploit the grass-roots dissatisfactions within the established
Church itself. Most of Russia's non-Orthodox and many of her Orthodox
had long chafed under the repressive conservatism of Synod and Ober
Procurator; to the ears of such groups the revolutionary motto of separa-
tion of church and state sounded like a cry of liberation, stripped of its
overtones implying liquidation of all religious institutions by the time
a ruling party would corner the market on legitimacy.
"Religion is the private affair of each citizen" announced the new
Soviet decrees of January 1918,28 echoing the slogan of the Paris Com-
mune. On the face of it the phrase struck a humanist, libertarian note,
especially after centuries of state-supported suppressions of heterodoxy.
Once the Party had securely installed itself in power, erstwhile
clerical allies would discover the more ominous connotations: curt
dismissal, with an aside from the dictatorial state that from then on all
private affairs would submit to its censorship. Fellow travelers have a
notoriously difficult time collecting on services rendered to a party they
have helped into the saddle.
Among the factions of the faithful, the stigmatized sectarians held
a special appeal for Lenin as prerevolutionary collaborators. To a
veteran in the fine art of "splitting," he saw in them a potent weapon
for undercutting the autocratic-orthodox establishment. Even at the
1903 Communist party congress he had urged a resolution for propa-
gandizing them. The following year, in Geneva, he braved the scorn
of the Mensheviks and particularly Martov in backing a special journal,
20 / Icon and Swastika

Rassvet (Dawn), for sectarian activities.29 When conditions improved

somewhat for the sectarians with the government's tolerance edict
resulting from the 1905 revolution, Lenin withdrew support from these
unstable factions on the peripheries of power, to initiate a subversion
effort aimed at the body of Orthodoxy itself.
Such a new tack was required in the atmosphere of post-1905 liberal-
ism. The hierarchy was becoming directly involved in politics, defending
its budgets in the Duma to unheard-of attacks, and trying to discipline
the priests who appeared as deputies of newly legalized parties. Com-
munists had to shed old habits from the underground as they entered
the new era of political legality; at first some reverted to type by em-
ploying the formulas of dogmatism. One was the Social-Democratic
deputy P. I. Surkov, who delivered a fiery antichurch oration written
by the veteran atheist V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, replete with the outworn
slogan "religion is the opium of the people" and the unregenerate battle
cry "not a farthing of the people's money to these bloody enemies of the
people who darken popular consciousness!"30 The Mensheviks, led by
N. S. Chkheidze, had tried in vain to make Surkov tone down his
tirade and censured him for it afterward, noting that silence should
have been in order when encountering this subject close to the hearts
of the backward peasantry. Lenin, with apparently mixed emotions,
made the best of an embarrassing situation by finding some possible
value in the speech as a call to popular revolutionary action. It is worthy
of note, however, that no other Social-Democratic deputy was allowed
to become intoxicated with the heady heights of the Duma rostrum for
further antireligious vituperations.
Lenin's uncertainty in handling the Surkov affair stems from his
broader difficulties in refurbishing the Party against the new background
of legality. The situation required some ill-fitting adornments for the
sake of respectability—but definitely not at the expense of losing revo-
lutionary identity. On the one hand, the Party had to be distinguished
from Russian liberals like the Kadets, who had surprisingly also come
out for civil control of the Orthodox Church budget; and on the other,
from the Social Democrats in Western Europe who, in the wake of Bis-
marck's repressions and French Republican anticlericalism, were show-
ing a disturbing passivity on the religious question.31 Lenin was searching
for a formula that would guide the actions of his party, of direct rele-
vance to such items as whom to admit as member or ally and whom to
attack as formidable foe without scattering one's shot or frightening
away the masses. Specifically, the posture he sought had to avoid the
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 21

reformist leanings or in his terms "opportunism" of some West European

comrades. The religious line had to weave in some strain of militance,
and in the reactionary Russian Church hierarchy Lenin found a con-
venient target.
Class enemies abounded in bishops like the Moscow Metropolitan
Filaret, whom Lenin could castigate with cause for "prostrating himself
before the laws of serfdom,"32 and in the contingent of leading church-
men in the rabidly anti-Semitic "Union of the Russian People," which
spouted obscurantist politics when it was not inciting pogroms.33 Such
primeval horrors were alien to Western Europe; so much the better for
the revolutionary cause in Russia. And so much of help to Lenin in
trying to solve the dilemma posed by Marx: how to create a revolution
in this least likely of countries which had not yet witnessed the full
emergence of the bourgeoisie. This theoretical drawback could be turned
to good account by an adroit ideologue like Lenin. All he had to do was
concede the feudal phase of Russian society, compared with the rela-
tively progressive West, to create for his party the trenchant role of
fighting oppression which an enfeebled native bourgeoisie could not
possibly undertake. In the West, by contrast, Social Democrats slipped
naturally into an "opportunism" unthinkable in Russia because there "the
revolutionary bourgeoisie" had fulfilled its "historical task . . . its revolt
against feudalism and the Middle Ages." Bourgeois atheism could be
traced back to the French encyclopedists; it was nothing new by the
time the socialists joined the fray, so it robbed them of a pioneering
place in the field. They stood mutely critical while anarchists and
Blanquists led the "ultraleft" legions. Secondly, Western "opportunism"
derived from another circumstance alien to feudal Russia, true freedom
of conscience. Thus a possible communist campaign against the reac-
tionary church was "pushed aside by the fight of bourgeois democracy
with socialism, in which the bourgeois regime consciously tries to turn
the attention of the masses from socialism by setting up a quasi-liberal
'campaign' against clericalism."34
The Russian Marxists emerge from the Leninist dialectic capable of
making the revolution, their opportunistic colleagues of settling for
reforms. Their feudal enemies virtually demand the use of ultimate
weapons which would be out of place in the more genteel class struggles
of France or Germany. Though not spelled out as such, this is clearly the
deduction Lenin wants his adherents to draw, as a way to ward off the
occasionally overwhelming doubts about nursing their tiny flame into a
conflagration amid the morass of their country's backward social condì-
22 / Icon and Swastika

tions and, further, in the face of the prophetic scorn of Karl Marx. In its
small way, the church issue yielded a lot of theoretical mileage for Lenin,
as evident from the following two key passages. In the first, he begins by
analyzing causes for the softness of the West European Marxist stand on
religion, attributing it primarily to the bourgeois anticlerical tradition for
the past two centuries. But Russia, he notes, can point to no such pattern,
nor is one emerging yet "even among the petty-bourgeois democrats
(Narodniki)."35 The task of battling the established Church, he con-
cludes, is left to the working class of Russia, which, unlike that of the
West, must in this sector lead the "bourgeois-democratic revolution" that
will sweep away the institutions of feudalism. The "opportunists" in the
Party are chided for advocating passivity in the antireligious fight
modeled on that of the Western workers; the proper attitude is active
involvement, though with all necessary caveats against extremism that
might alienate the devout masses.
In the second passage, Lenin develops his characterization of the
Russian bourgeoisie. Unlike that of the West, it evinces none of the
hostility to the Church that makes an anticlerical effort by communist
parties there somewhat redundant. Instead, it is trying to modernize
religious practices, implicitly a grave threat to the Party's militance, since
a successfully liberalized institution would no longer be the feudal bogey
which the reactionary hierarchy conveniently furnishes for Lenin's
rhetoric.
Representatives of the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie want to
strengthen religion, to increase the influence of religion on the
masses, feeling the inadequacy, obsolescence, even harm brought
on by ruling classes of "officials in cassocks" who diminish the
authority of the churches. The Octobrists fight against the extremes
of clericalism and police surveillers in order to strengthen the
influence of religion on the masses, to replace at least some means
of stupefying the people—the too crude, too obsolete, too dilapi-
dated, unrealizable aims—by more subtle, improved means. A
police-run religion isn't adequate for stupefying the masses; give
us a religion that's more culture, renovated, cleverer—that's what
capital is demanding from the autocracy.

Where Western Marxists might be tempted to settle for reform, the

Russian comrades must stop their ears to the siren song which could
cause the foundering of their whole revolutionary movement. Lenin is
ever concerned with looking after his Party's élan. Thus, Bolsheviks
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 23

might indeed make common cause with bourgeois anticléricale, but solely
for the sake of expedience: "If our general task consists in helping the
proletariat to rally as a separate class, able to cut itself off from bourgeois
democracy, then part of this task must be the exploitation of all means
of propaganda and agitation, which include the Duma's forum, in order
to make clear to the masses the distinction between socialist anticler-
icalism and bourgeois anticlericalism."36
In this perspective, Lenin's leniency to Surkov's atheist indiscretions
becomes understandable. An isolated display of fireworks could be
tolerated; by itself it could do little to further convince the masses that
the Bolsheviks were tools of the devil. However, it carried a potent shock
for the bourgeois advocates of secularization, keeping them at a respect-
ful distance from Marxist spokesmen who had shown that it was they
who called the dialectical tune. It was equally disconcerting for the
bourgeois would-be reformers of the Church who saw their compromise
position undermined between the two extremes: if a virulent antichurch
attack by Surkov seemed to play into the hands of the reactionary hier-
archs, relative to their liberal critics, so much the better in terms of the
Leninist dialectic. An unregenerate Synod, allied with tsarist autocracy,
was a lot easier for the Party to exploit as a target for popular resentment
than a liberalized, Westernized church council would have been. The
dialectic was predicated on both elements of the Russian religious situa-
tion, obscurantist church leadership and frustrated masses of followers,
to furnish the explosive mixture that a revolutionary spark might ignite.
Lenin reveals an awareness of both factors beneath the surface of
what seems to be his ambivalence toward religion. At one point he uses
the early Marx as his text, to blast religion as a "kind of spiritual moon-
shine in which the slaves of capital drown their human form, their
demands for a somehow unique human life."37 The escape from reality
comes dear to "those who work and are in need their whole lives, taught
humility and patience during their earthly existence by religion, com-
forting them with hopes for a heavenly reward. And too, by teaching
those living on another's labor to be philanthropic in their earthly exis-
tence, providing a very cheap acquittal for all their exploiting life and
selling at bargain rates tickets for heavenly well-being." Small wonder,
then, that on such a faith we find a citadel of reaction, that the "land-
owners and merchants . .. are enraptured with how well the little fathers
comfort and pacify the muzhiks,"38 or that secret police Colonel Zubatov
in 1901 would scheme to subvert revolutionary organizations by infiltrat-
ing them with clerical agents " 'to help' the workers escape the influence
24 / Icon and Swastika

of socialist teachings!—but also, however, to help snare unwary workers

who snap up the bait."39
Yet, in what appears a totally different vein, Lenin relies on late Engels
to praise the "democratic-revolutionary" spirit of the early Christians,
taking this as evidence that at certain historical periods religion could
propagate revolutionary ideas.40 Even the Orthodox clergy might "awake
now to the thunder of the old, medieval order in Russia," and the
ordinary priest "who is called 'a servant of God' might join the demand
for freedom and protest against red tape and official arbitrariness, against
police spies."41 The Party's red carpet is thus rolled out for the anti-
establishment clergy, which is ready to transpose the class struggle to the
confines of the Church. And Engels is again vindicated when Lenin
charts his party's course of action on religion.
He insists on steering a safe middle passage between the "anarchism"
of all-out war against the Church and the "opportunism" of inaction, or a
strict laissez-faire attitude to religion. The former seems to be the greater
danger in his eyes, as well it might in a country where the bulk of the
population still proclaimed their loyalty to the ancestral faith. It is this
setting which makes understandable Lenin's endorsement of the moder-
ate stand of Engels on two issues: first, against the atheistic slogans of
the 1874 Blanquists, whose misplaced zeal promised to fortify rather
than to banish religion because it would produce martyrs around whom
the faithful masses would rally; second, against the obdurate Dühring,
who, in effect, would have the socialists do Bismarck's dirty work for
him, oblivious of the fact that such measures only ended by strengthen-
ing the militant clericalism of the church under fire. If a major cam-
paign against the church in France or Germany was likely to boomerang,
how much more certain that such a policy would be suicidal in a less
enlightened country like Russia, with its unbroken tradition of an
established faith. The "war against religion" motto, Lenin concludes,
must be shunned as an "anarchist phrase." The revolutionary Party had
to resist the temptations of such adventurous politics, relying instead on
the laborious education of the proletariat, which, together with liquida-
tion of the exploiters who represented the social roots of religion, would
eventually lead to the "dying away of religion."42

SOVIET BEGIME VEBSUS ORTHODOX CHURCH

In a typical anecdote, Lenin is pictured addressing a crowd from

Kshesinskaya's balcony in the turbulent summer days of 1917. Suddenly
a heckler's voice rings out, "but do you believe in God, anti-Christ?"
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 25

Lenin answers mockingly: "Fear God, revere the tsar—isn't that how it
goes, batyushka? But I don't revere the tsar, nor do I fear God! Listen,
tovarishch, and I'll tell you why I don't believe . . ." And with a few
well-chosen phrases, Lenin vindicates the simple tenets of atheism,
causing his audience to howl with laughter as his simple-minded
adversary scuttles away in embarrassment. The assembled workers are
heard muttering to themselves: "The tsar and God—they're birds of a
feather. Both are out to fleece and to enslave us. Down with the religious
fraud!" 43
Apocryphal as they probably are, such stories illustrate two facets of
Marxist ideology that are mirrored in Soviet policy toward the Church:
cleverness and naivete. In its Leninist refinement, the theory was sophis-
ticated enough to account for liberal as well as reactionary religious
forces and to develop a rationale for exploiting the former, steering clear
of the crude atheism of the ultras. At the same time, the communist
prophets erred decisively in their forecasts of the withering away of
religion once their forces had seized power, as they also misjudged other
institutions like the family or the state when it came to their supposedly
automatic demise under socialism. Even a few hortatory words of the
genius Lenin did not provide the extra push to send religion flying into
the evolutionary scrap heap. Obviously, the fault lay in equating the
Church with the oppressors' side of the class struggle. Yet it took the
Soviet regime nearly twenty-five years to admit the oversimplification
inherent in its outlook on religion.
Before the cold dawn of the 1943 reassessment by the Kremlin in
which it finally arrived at a modus vivendi with the Church, it conducted
a protracted engagement with the forces of religion to make its prophecy
of their extinction come true. In some phases of the campaign, the Soviet
rulers seemed to accept Leninist ground rules: differentiating between
progressive and die-hard factions in the Church, saving their fire for the
latter, avoiding an official all-out war and the blows on popular sensibili-
ties that might redound to the benefit of a martyred Church, yet always
keeping an activist stance—backing some church groups while checking
others—rather than merely turning their backs on the religious sector.
When these tactics achieved notably little success, the men in the
Kremlin suspended the rules. In their haste to make the historically
inevitable transpire within the near future, they at times launched anti-
religious crusades under the banner of blatant atheism and seemed
purposely to confuse the withering of religion with the liquidation of
the religious, as evidenced by shuttered churches, jailed priests, and
persecuted believers.
26 / Icon and Swastika

A survey of the extensive accounts of Soviet religious policy and prac-

tice suggests that these diverse tactics do not form random episodes of
foray and retrenchment. Rather, they follow a distinct pattern spanning
the 1917-1939 period if the following three determinants are hypothe-
sized as having guided Soviet decision-makers. ( 1 ) Soviet policy stead-
fastly upholds the ideal of an atheist society, whether to be attained by
foul means or fair, whether in the proximate or the distant future. This
tenet of the communist faith is above question, and it makes any truce
with the Church perforce unstable. The true communist society can be
realized only by a major human transformation, and "the new Soviet
man" can never exhibit such a vital weakness as belief in God. ( 2 ) The
antireligious struggle must not preoccupy the Party or distract its
energies from more important engagements. Thus, the godless state can
never be an objective of the first order. This secondary ranking has two
practical consequences for the atheist drive: it can be conducted only
when there are no primary national problems pressing for resolution, and
it has to be put on ice in times of general mobilization or crisis.
(3) Soviet attacks on the Church fall naturally into a cyclical pattern.
We can discern three rounds of battle followed by periods of relative
quiet.44 At each successive round, the regime steps up the attack against
a progressively exhausted opponent, adds new weapons as it sharpens
the old, closes in from general economic and legal strictures on the
Church to individual jailings and executions of churchmen.
In abstract form, Soviet policy-makers appear to have been tracing
out a sine curve from an origin representing a religious society to a goal
standing for the irreligious state of the future. 45 The oscillations of the
curve swing more widely—surprisingly ending on the downbeat, or rela-
tive accord with the Church, rather than on the parapets of the objective
that seemed about to be scaled. A striking feature of the pattern is that
the cycle of antireligious policy describes phases almost directly counter
to those of political crisis. While the latter is touching the nodes of
civil war or the advent of World War II, the assault on the Church shifts
into lower gear. When the crises have been surmounted the anticlerical
attack is stepped up. Only during the regime's onslaught against private
farming does an overlap occur between the targets of churchman and
"kulak" (in effect, any opponent of collectivization); but, then, in the
massacre on the countryside of 1929 the two are hard to tell apart.
In practical terms, Soviet rulers can be viewed as too preoccupied at
generally critical times with what they consider more formidable foes—
White Guard and foreign interventionists, the Germans threatening from
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 27

the west—to bother with a clerical adversary. He can be picked off at

leisure. His powers of active resistance, puny enough to start with, have
been fading fast with each passing round. Once he has ended up on the
ropes, it seems pointless for the regime to deliver the knockout punch
and much more profitable to assign him some pressing new chores:
having him pacify the Orthodox populations of the territories seized in
the wake of the Nazi-Soviet pact or letting him do his bit for the war
effort, for example.
Such an interpretive model helps put the discrete phases of the policy
into perspective. Each fresh tack of the regime—a wave of new repres-
sions, or some special dispensations to the Church—cannot simply be
taken at face value as sign of deviation from the basic objective, the
withering away of religion in the long term. Conversely, a retreat by the
regime, no matter how tenuously staged, cannot be written off as without
effect here, as in any other social sphere. The institutions of Soviet society
are closely inter-related. Once the rulers have given a respite to the
Church, other elements are likely to veer closer to it, lending their
weight to a permanent extension of the truce and making it that much
harder to resume hostilities later on.46 Also, the Church itself does not
merely lie prone during the intervals but uses them to recoup what
strength it can as its leaders grow more adept at using certain techniques
to ensure survival. By the time the third round of the conflict was over,
they had proved chastened but apt pupils of Soviet conditioning; nearly
the entire set of their initial responses to the regime had been discarded
in favor of a new range of pliant reactions necessary to seizing the chance
at final rapprochement.

ROUND O N E

The revolutionary year 1917 saw the long-delayed convocation of a

general council, or sobor, of the Russian Orthodox Church that was
initially dominated by the liberals who had been pressing for it over one
decade. At their first meeting on August 15 at Uspenski Cathedral in the
Kremlin, the assembled churchmen postponed parochial business to
meet the political challenge already posed by secularization measures
of the Kerensky government, especially its nationalization of some thirty-
seven thousand parochial schools (one-third of the country's total) and
its making religious education in the public schools optional rather than
compulsory.47 The Bolshevik revolution in November tipped the sobor's
balance in favor of the clerical conservatives, able to roll up a 141-112
28 / Icon and Swastika

majority in favor of re-establishing one-man rule of the Church in the

person of a patriarch who might be better able to face up to the dreaded
new regime than would a collégial synod. The dark-horse choice for this
post, Tikhon, was installed in a magnificent Kremlin ceremony.
The Moscow Soviet lent its specific permission to this ceremony,
maintaining the benevolent neutrality which had been its strict policy
toward the uniformly hostile clerics from the outset. Lenin proceeded
warily indeed against a church that "until the end" had "remained
fettered to a state controlled by a tottering government."48 Even the
three decrees issued by his Petrograd regime in December did little more
than confirm the status quo: church and monastery holdings were in-
cluded in the lands to be nationalized, but this only legalized for the
most part the seizures peasants had already conducted on their own;49
a takeover of church schools merely confirmed the previous actions of
the Provisional Government; secularization of birth, death, and marriage
registrations remained a dead letter as long as the new regime lacked
personnel to open its registry offices. Tikhon hardly required such provo-
cation to pronounce terrible anathema on the Bolsheviks on January 19,
1918, in a message that told Russia's over one hundred million believers:
"I adjure all of you who are faithful children of the Orthodox Church of
Christ, not to commune with such outcasts of the human race in any
manner whatsoever."50 His rallying call to laity and clergy to defend
their church to the point of accepting martyrdom for her sake if neces-
sary was a scarcely veiled call to an anti-Communist crusade. That,
except for scattered local incidents, the battle cry of the Patriarch pro-
duced no bloodbaths is as much a tribute to Lenin's middle-course
tactics as it is an admission of the eroded contacts the Church had with
its communicants.
The new Soviet power began a three-pronged counterattack on the
Church striving to deprive the institution of its economic base and
social status as well as clashing openly with it ideologically, four days
after Tikhon s proclamation. ( 1 ) The first of its paper bullets was meant
to destroy the material and legal basis for organized religion. A decree
released January 23, 1918, announcing the separation of church and
state and church and school, nationalized all church property. Monas-
teries were to be broken up and the Church deprived of its legal status
as a juridical person eligible for government subsidies. (2) Next, the
regime undercut the status of priests to drive them into other occupa-
tions and discourage further aspirants to the priesthood; according to
the Constitution promulgated on July 10, 1918, they were nonworkers
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 29

and servants of the bourgeoisie. They were denied the franchise, with
a concomitant loss of ration privileges and education rights for their
children. Active laymen came under the same ban. (3) Finally, the state
moved against the social influence of the Church, especially in the field
of education. The 1918 Constitution's famed Article 13 provided illusory
equality of free religious and antireligious propaganda. But the protago-
nists of this handicapped rivalry were to be a church shorn of its material
base and a state carrying the loaded punch of a Communist party with
a monopoly on political legitimacy. "Actually the formula in the new
Constitution was a declaration of war against religion."51 Religious
instruction of children under eighteen was prohibited altogether, that of
adults restricted to seminaries of rapidly dwindling number.
These measures indicate Lenin's awareness that oratorical mockery
would no longer suffice to blunt the lance of the Patriarch's crusade. Yet
the alternate weapon, governmental decrees that could not be enforced
through the Civil War years, scarcely served to join the issue. The
Patriarch still claimed the initiative as he led protest processions through
the streets of Moscow, denounced the decrees and in their turn the
Brest-Litovsk treaty and the murder of the Tsar, called for general
resistance to deal with sporadic and uncoordinated ( by most accounts )
harm to priests or church buildings by Red forces, lent his tacit approval
to churchmen blessing weapons of the White Guards, and surrounded
himself with a round-the-clock bodyguard to await his martyrdom. The
governments' devastating response was to ignore his challenge.
The abortive crusade collapsed for lack of cause as no injuries came
to Patriarch or the sobor, whose proceedings petered out in September
1918 with empty threats of excommunication against all persons par-
ticipating in the "blasphemous" seizures of the "property of God." The
major immediate damage the regime had inflicted on the Church was
measured in rubles and desyatines of land, not in personal casualties.
And Lenin's carefully calculated tactic paid off, as "confiscation of the
church's land and investments did not arouse the masses to fighting
pitch." 52 Tikhon took stock of his losing position and in 1919 called on
his clergy to abstain henceforth from political activities—an appeal that
was generally heeded. 53
Having come out victorious in the initial showdown with the forces
of religion, the political leadership that had staved off foreign and
domestic attack successfully in the Civil War decided, with more vital
affairs now out of the way, to step up the pace of its anti-Church cam-
paign. This thrust significantly coincided with the advent of the New
30 / Icon and Swastika

Economic Policy, Lenin's "holiday" for state activities on other fronts. In

marked contrast to the regime's retreat to the "commanding heights" of
industry and trade, ideological warfare was accelerated. A somewhat
chastened Church let itself be provoked into abandoning caution to
furnish the precipitating cause of the new clash. It rushed to resist a
decree of February 16,1922, ordering the surrender of all precious metals
and jewelry to the state on the fairly specious grounds that they were
needed to be turned into relief funds for the sufferers of the 1921-1922
famine. Again the call for resistance by the Patriarch was predicated
on the defense of property—this time an assortment of consecrated
utensils—and once more it was foredoomed. "The State was able to
mobilize vast public resentment against the Church, which found itself
in the uncomfortable position of apparently condemning millions of
innocents to a cruel death by starvation merely for the sake of a few
ancient rules."54
Lenin brought the full force of the state's repressive machinery to
bear on his discredited, outmaneuvered opponent. Tikhon himself was
arrested in May 1922 and eighty-four bishops and over a thousand priests
were forced out of office.55 In the ensuing series of trials of traditional
churchmen, Metropolitan Benjamin of Petrograd was condemned to
death and it seemed that the same fate might be in store for the Patri-
arch. Not content with this frontal attack, Lenin also lent his support to
a major flanking movement—a faction known as the "Living Church,"
which advocated a program of Orthodox "renovation" including eligi-
bility of married priests for high office and the recasting of the service
in the vernacular, as well as ardent collaboration with communism.56
The splitters went so far under government auspices as to hold a rump
sobor in Moscow in April 1923 that stripped Tikhon of all clerical office
and made one of its leaders, Bishop Antonin, "Metropolitan of Moscow
and all Russia."57 What the regime could not storm by direct assault it
evidently hoped to capture by means of this Trojan horse.
With the battle all but over at this early stage and tickets being dis-
tributed for the forthcoming trial of Tikhon, the government abruptly
rang the bell and released him on June 25.58 His price was a "confession"
carried two days later in Izvestiya that acknowledged his past political
opposition and promised to desist from it henceforth. No doubt the
regime put great value on this document as evidence that could dis-
credit church leadership in the eyes of the populace; further, it did not
hesitate to pull the rug out from under the Living Churchmen, who had
been singularly unsuccessful in winning over a sizable fraction of the
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 31

faithful; finally, it found expedience in yielding to mounting protests

from abroad over the anticlerical purge, which had begun to claim
Roman Catholic victims and was causing Britain to threaten withdrawal
of her trade mission to the Soviet Union. In any case, the weight of the
extorted confession was over-rated, as shown by the immense crowds
that flocked to Tikhons first services after his release and, more impor-
tant, by the ease with which he voided the acts of the Living Church
and reclaimed his organizational primacy.

BOUND TWO

By its sudden cessation of direct conflict with the Church in the

summer of 1923, the Politburo acting in stead of the stricken Lenin
tacitly conceded that the social roots of religion ran deeper than one
might have assumed for a capitalist dope habit. Nevertheless, if they
could not be yanked out summarily in one giant effort, the regime still
did not have to stand by idly until the distant day when they would
wither away by themselves. The period of armed truce with the Church
in which the latter had been grudgingly recognized as a bargaining
partner could be useful to the regime in continuing to erode the Church's
supports and prevent recovery of its lost strength. This extension of its
lease on life was clearly meant to be conditional and temporary, and to
have no renewal clause.
Among the old harassments that were kept up now was censorship of
sermons (instituted December 26,1922), adherence to a new calendar on
which church holidays became working days (July 30, 1923), and a ban
on religious instruction even in the churches (June 16, 1924). Material
support of the churches was further whittled away by raising taxes on
their remaining land and imposing compulsory insurance on their prop-
erty with the state as beneficiary. The government's decision-makers in
the field of church affairs also did their utmost to spread and perpetuate
the confusion besetting the hierarchy after the death of Tikhon in 1925.59
His would-be successor, Sergius, had to defend a second-hand claim:
Tikhon had appointed three other bishops to succeed him as locum
tenentes and, when they had been sidelined by exile and imprisonment,
the number three deputy had in turn named three others.60 Sergius, last
on that list, had to contend with the other five, who could be freed at
any moment to assert their precedence, as well as with the leaders of
leftist and rightist factions endemically threatening to split the Church
over his moderate policies.
32 / Icon and Swastika

The basic terms of the 1923 truce seem still to have been in force in
1926, however, even when Sergius was arrested at the beginning of the
year along with many of his clerical supporters. 61 Tenuous as it had
become, the Church knew that the short-term lease on its existence had
not run out, that its rights to some sort of a bargaining position were
still admitted by the Kremlin, where Stalin was now engrossed in
liquidating his combined foes. On his release, Sergius evidently thought
he had secured validation of his own claim and that of the Church
administration to legitimacy at a price no greater than had been paid by
Tikhon: a guarantee of political neutrality to the regime.62 The political
supervisors appear to have had second thoughts about their end of the
deal—by December Sergius was back in jail and the secret police were
putting virtually his whole ecclesiastical contingent behind bars. When
he was unexpectedly freed once more on March 30, 1927, he was ready
to go the whole way in paying political tribute to the regime in return
for its toleration of his administration. By June 14 he was castigating the
emigré group of Russian clerics in Yugoslavia who constituted the
monarchist Karlovtsi Synod; by July 29, he went whole hog in political
submission with a "Declaration" that called on the Church "to recognize
the Soviet Union as our civil fatherland whose joys and successes are
our joys and successes and whose misfortunes are our misfortunes."63
As his quid pro quo, Sergius pointed to a new central administration,
a "temporary Holy Synod," he had been allowed to set up two months
before, as well as calling for a second sobor to complete his reorganiza-
tion—although the regime would block its actual convocation for another
sixteen years. All blame for delay in securing official recognition of the
Church was placed on the conveniently available emigré clergy, thus
neatly absolving the Soviets of any antireligious misdeeds and propa-
gating the fiction, nurtured ever since by the Patriarchate's pronounce-
ments, that there has never been such a thing as religious persecution in
the Soviet Union. A vital but unwritten part of the deal legitimizing the
Sergius-led Church revealed itself in the fate that befell the stunned
critics of his declaration, who were speedily silenced by the GPU.64
The regime's 1927 skirmish with the Church and the resultant truce,
with its benefits for both parties—a clergy politically submissive to the
state but headed by a duly legitimated directorate—promised an ex-
tended era of coexistence. Yet, only a year later this battlefield became
just a secondary sector of the full-scale offensive in the countryside
mounted by Stalin,65 with the twin objectives of outflanking the rightist
opposition and herding millions of recalcitrant peasants into collective
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 33

farms in order to squeeze from them the capital for massive industrializa-
tion. The Five Year Plan promulgated in 1928 amounted to programmed
civil war. Not unexpectedly, antireligious action was included among
the targets for the Plan's "cultural front."66 The prosperous peasant
whose third cow now earned him the title of kulak and thereby his
"elimination as a class" was also invariably a pillar of his local congre-
gation.67 His liquidation by the agents of rural terror also necessarily
robbed the Church of its entire local leadership. Some fourteen hundred
shuttered churches and uncounted numbers of executed priests bore
witness to the 1929 bloodbath which even a hierarchy protected by oaths
of loyalty to the state was powerless to stem.68
The three-pronged assault on organized religion subjected its victims
to cultural and economic isolation, loss of social status, and ideological
attack in the following ways. (1) Removal of any cultural services that
had remained under Church auspices : a decree of April 8, 1929, barred
all social and cultural activities of churches apart from bare services.
The constitutional liberty of religious propaganda was annulled by an
amendment on May 22, 1929, which provided only "freedom of religious
worship and of antireligious propaganda." In autumn 1929 the major
trade unions announced that they would have no contact with the
Church. Deserted by printers, transport workers, and post and telegraph
employees, the Church was plunged into social isolation. On Decem-
ber 27, 1932, priests were forbidden to live in cities and, consequently,
urban services became a rarity. (2) Extension of social inferiority to all
active lay members of the Church: as opprobrium became automatically
attached to church affiliation, overt believers found themselves barred
from any administrative, professional, or industrial careers. ( 3 ) A switch
around 1929 from a-religious to actively antireligious teachings in Soviet
schools: a League of Militant Atheists was overfulfilling its own Five
Year Plans with a claimed membership of five and a half million by 1937.
Nonetheless, when the dust cleared in the early thirties, the regime
once again let its adversary be saved by the bell. It sheathed nearly all
weapons of direct attack, although restrictions on cultural activities
lingered until the full suspension of hostilities with the Church, which
took place from 1934 to 1937. One factor that caused the dampening of
open warfare was the mounting foreign protest from Catholic as well as
Protestant quarters. An even more efficacious pressure arose once the
state had crushed resistance to the collectivization program "when reli-
gious leaders often became foci of opposition."69 Afterward the regime
had grounds for coming to terms with the Church, an opponent formid-
34 / Icon and Swastika

able in the countryside but now neutralized. The tempestuous agri-

cultural episode had subsided, so the Party could well afford to grant the
battered Church a temporary respite which would also assuage the
feelings of the populace, still raw from the collectivization era's suffer-
ings.
The regime extended this religious truce in the nature of a sop to the
people in the "general holiday" proclaimed by Stalin after the domestic
successes of 1935.70 Further, it fitted in nicely with the stabilization of
social relations then evident along the broad range of Soviet institu-
tions.71 Instead of exhausting itself in more all-out attempts to remold
social patterns, the Soviet leadership, husbanding its energies for the
sustained haul needed to operate a planned economy, now turned to the
basic institutions for support. True, the decision-makers tended to view
the Church less as a permanent institution than as an ephemeral dis-
turbing feature. To that extent, they would not strengthen it in the sense
that they reinforced basic institutions like the family. Yet, provisional
benefits could let it linger quietly on the sidelines while essential insti-
tutions were being buttressed.
Visions of the withering away of the state, of law, or of the family
could be discreetly tucked back into the Marxist hope chest when Stalin
found it served his basic aim, "turning the Party into the nation, and the
nation into the Party."72 The withering away of religion, however, was
an ideal not so easily put in mothballs. During a period when the Party
was attempting to enthrone rationalism at the head of its order of social
values, it could brook no claims from ideological pretenders. The doc-
trine which claimed to submit all phenomena to scientific analysis was
incompatible with any faith but a faith in its own infallibility.
Isolated church leaders may envisage an eventual fusion of commu-
nism and Orthodoxy. The village priest and his flock might be forced to
bow to both, but as manifestations of two disparate realms. The fact that
the perfect being of Marx's utopia displayed features not markedly
different from those of the ideal Christian would still not reconcile most
believers to the realities of Stalinist Russia. Nor did it really alter the
regime's dogma of skepticism during the mid-thirties truce. It may, how-
ever, have subsequently induced Stalin to see in religion a force for the
uplifting of morals, which could be geared into his drive for legality and
stability based on "socialist morality." To persons of less political sophis-
tication than the Party elite such concepts as sacred "socialist property"
carried less weight than the simple commandments of their priests.
 The Background of Soviet Religious Policy / 35

ROUND THREE

The last prewar Soviet onslaught on the Church spanned the years
1937-1939. Shortly before, the 1936 "Stalin Constitution" had lifted the
disfranchisement previously imposed on priests as on other "nonworkers."
It had also equalized the peasant franchise with the more reliable urban
vote. Then, from the suppressed results of the 1937 census, Soviet leaders
were appalled to learn that about two-thirds of the village population
and one-third of city residents (roughly a total of half of all citizens)
still considered themselves adherents of the various churches.73 With
elections to the Supreme Soviet in the offing, the regime sparked a new
outburst against religion to keep the churches from influencing the vote.
In general, the leadership judged the situation propitious for finally
liquidating this endemic focus of opposition and persistent rival for
popular allegiance.
The greatest intensity of the new antireligious assault coincided, too,
with the all-engulfing purge directed by Ν. I. Yezhov. Both campaigns
showed a like desire of the regime to annihilate once and for all every
element of possible internal disloyalty, prerequisite to the tightening of
defenses against threats looming from abroad. It is notable that in the
case of the church leaders, as in indictments of other groups that fell
under the shadow of the Yezhovshchina, the purgers linked charges of
spying and wrecking of the defense effort to less tangible sins related to
the status of the accused as generally undesirable elements in the state.
The series of trials during 1937 and 1938 charged churchmen with
German and Japanese sabotage and espionage, amid a host of other,
equally fantastic charges.74 During the phase of economic construction,
the regime had been content with sidelining ideologically impure ele-
ments, encysting them socially; on this day of total mobilization, how-
ever, nothing less than one hundred percent loyalty was the standard for
permission to exist. Generals, engineers, and other personages instru-
mental in the establishment of Soviet power were joined in the dock by
churchmen who had contributed little beyond extorted oaths of fealty.
When Old Bolsheviks in high government posts, and tsarist officers for
decades the backbone of the Red Army, went the way of all counter-
revolutionary flesh, the purge of the priests came as no great surprise.
The regime still was at a loss about how to deal with the immense
number of believers, probably under-rated by the 1937 census, since
many citizens had refused to answer the religion question. Rather than
36 / Icon and Swastika

provoke them into rebellion by violent repressions, the regime preferred

to frighten them into submissiveness through the pointed example of the
purge trials. It even added to its image of tolerance at the grass-roots
level of religion by issuing bans on direct interference with public wor-
ship and on the campaigns of overzealous local Party chieftains shutting
down churches in their domains. The body of the faithful was still too
extensive for a mass purge. The political leaders could keep it im-
mobilized with their network of controls; as long as the decimated hier-
archy was suitable intimidated, the Church was unlikely to have the
energy of resources for a fusion with anti-Soviet groups.
The regime's insistence during this period that the Church purge itself
of any remaining political affiliations was a necessary prelude to the
policy of aligning the "cleansed" institution on the Soviet side at the
next juncture. That "New Religious Policy," as Timasheff calls it, was
launched right after Yezhov, ringleader of the latest purge, had been
removed. Because it did not get fully under way until 1941 and was
propelled largely by reaction against the threat of a Nazi "crusade," its
consideration is reserved for the concluding chapter.
 2
Soviet Believers on
the Eve of the War

In their prewar approach to the religious question, Soviet policy-makers

called a number of strategic retreats, during which they dispensed con-
cessions to the Church, before resuming the march to a goal they never
lost sight of: eventual extirpation of all religious sentiment. The onset of
each deviation from the route of direct attack upon the Church came as
a surprise to foreign observers, who tended to interpret it as an admission
by the Politburo that it was encountering resistance. My analysis of
prewar Soviet church policy suggests the contrary conclusion. The men
in the Kremlin suspended repressive measures either when a church
truce might help advance a new general objective, such as the establish-
ment of foreign trade relations in the early twenties or the consolidation
of social controls in the middle thirties, or when a political emergency
like the Civil War or mobilization for World War II drew their fire from
the church problem. At such times the regime let up in its antireligious
attacks, only to resume them under more propitious circumstances.
Whatever concessions were granted the Church prior to World War II,
they were little more than straws to clutch at. The regime yielded
nothing in the implacability of its atheism. It gave no ground for hope
that doles parceled out to believers betokened anything more than the
largesse of a Party that felt so secure against Church resurgence that it
could afford to be generous to a condemned victim. In this sense its
tactics do not constitute retreats, since none was extorted by actual or
potential threat from the Church. They can be viewed as retreats only
in that the government could not afford to permanently alienate the
bulk of its subjects.

37
38 / Icon and Swastika

At critical times, when major sectors of the Church allied themselves

with anti-Soviet forces such as the Whites or the kulaks, they met the
same withering fire as all "counter-revolutionaries." The Church enjoyed
a breathing spell only when it appeared no longer capable of resuming
open resistance, as in the mid-thirties. In the collectivization era, despite
protestations of loyalty from the central hierarchy, priests shared the
suiferings of peasant parishioners under the brutal excesses that marked
the government drive.1 Their relief came in sight only later, when the
regime tried to recoup its losses of public allegiance. The next crest in
religious repressions coincided with a turbulent era of Soviet history, the
Great Purge, when the Church was again suspect of becoming a focus
of resentment. Thus, the New Religious Policy that began to stir in 1939
represents a unique coincidence of national danger and government
toleration. It came none too soon.

THE LIMITS OF ENDURING FAITH

Having encountered government attack at any moment for cohesion

and united action ( and Soviet dispensations when the moment had gone
and the Church was obliged to sing praises to the state for such meager
rights as the issuance of wedding rings), the Russian Orthodox faithful
were demoralized by the end of the 1937-1939 purge. An uncounted
number, whose spirits were not yet crushed, practiced their faith sub
rosa in what came to be known as the "catacomb church." With cells of
believers in collective farms or apartment houses shepherded by a priest
who emerged from retirement or from a more mundane daytime job for
the occasion, such a religious underground followed the organizational
lines of the prerevolutionary Party. Its aim, however, was not to seize
power, but merely to keep the guttering candle of faith from being
extinguished altogether. 2
If Soviet policy had not undergone its final démarche toward religious
coexistence, there is a likelihood that virtually all believers could have
been forced to give up public practice of their religion. With the rise of
a new Communist-indoctrinated generation, the number of Russians who
would brave the perils of clandestine worship might also have dwindled
to insignificance. Harvard Russian Research Center interviews of some
three hundred Soviet refugees who made their way to West Germany
during the war reveal the limits of endurance of religious faith. 3 Because
of the anti-Communist bias of this sample, the group cannot be taken as
representative of the general population; but in the absence of any
 Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War / 39

reliable measure of Soviet public opinion, the qualitative validity of the

responses makes them a unique source of insight into some aspects of
life in the USSR. Use of the Harvard interviews is dictated by lack of
any other sizable sample as well as by indications that there was minimal
distortion on cultural data, compared with political or social items, in
the "life history" protocols.
The younger members of the group generally stumbled over the
negative status of keeping the faith. Their teachers and members of their
peer groups had brought home to them the rule that religious affiliation
would blight their careers.4 Only a few claim they did not take the
consequences. One young man recounts: "Until I entered the Pioneers,
I was a believer. I knew my prayers and I went to church regularly with
my grandmother. But after a couple of years in the Pioneers and in
school, I was a complete atheist." He goes on to describe his conflict with
family patterns when he entered the next oldest group of Communist
youth, the Komsomols. "My mother was a believer. I once told her to
take down the icon which she kept hanging over her bed because it was
awkward for my friends to see it."5
Another typical case shows what happened when a devout mother
would not accede to her son's pleas to save him from the opprobrium of
his colleagues, for whom the mere presence of a religious symbol was
de facto evidence of hostile propaganda. Soon after his friends have
spotted the icon this mother kept on the wall, "at a Komsomol meeting
the secretary declared that there was one member present who had in
his home an icon on the wall, that he hoped it would not happen in the
future. I felt wounded by the remark and was obliged to answer it. I
told them I could not separate myself from my family. The next day the
director of the school called me into his office and warned me that I was
spreading a dangerous form of religious propaganda among the students.
'It will spoil your future,' he said."6 The blocked-off mobility that
awaited young believers proved one of the most potent means by which
the regime tarnished the prestige of the Church.
Those who openly practiced their religion were, by the regime's
criteria in the thirties, going beyond disrespect to the prevailing ideol-
ogy. They were slipping backward, flying in the face of the ethos of
progress, denying by their example the validity of economic and social
gain as a motivational spring. In Alfred Meyer's opinion, the Orthodox
mentality clashed down the line with civic responsibilities required by
the regime's program of rapid industrialization.
40 / Icon and Swastika

For one thing, religious practices interfere with daily work. Reli-
gious holidays constitute a disruption of the citizens' duties. Fasting
weakens their efficiency. Religious prayers mean time out from
work . . . Religious food taboos and other dietary practices interfere
with the regime's food distribution system; any special consideration
given to religious believers thus threatens the efficiency of the
political and economic bureaucracy . . . Religious law may come
into conflict with Soviet law, and must therefore be outlawed.
Religious education is opposed to Soviet education. Religious
organizations dealing with any problems of secular life compete
with bureaucratic agencies and mass organization of Soviet society.7

The population group with the least to lose by way of further upward
strivings was also the one for whom the political elite had the lowest
expectations as subjects for remolding into new Soviet men: the older
generation, with a lifetime of religious habit behind it. The Harvard
interviewers found that this group constituted the core of the faithful,
ever ready to run the perils of secret observance if need be. If the status
of older believers was low when their practices were uncovered by the
authorities, they were likely to be let off with a reprimand or have their
"deviation" passed over as of little consequence. If their social station
was high, they might have sufficient vested power to get away with this
one idiosyncrasy, especially if their work was not purely ideological.
The interviews mention older army officers attending services, with no
apparent political ill effects. Such phenomena trace their precedent to
the days of the Revolution, when an Old Bolshevik amused the atheist
elite by writing at the top of his Party questionnaire, "In the Name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen."8

THE SPRINGS OF BELIEF

The tenacious life of the religious flame in spite of all official attempts
to extinguish it owes much to its shelter at most Russian hearths. The
Harvard interviews are practically unanimous in singling out the family
as the source of belief for persons who remained faithful, as well as for
those who later became free-thinkers. Typically, the mother or grand-
mother of the respondent is said to have instilled religious feeling and
to have escorted him to church for the first time. The paternal Party soon
runs at odds with this maternal transmission belt of Orthodoxy. The child
who finds that communist indoctrination clashes with his early teachings
 Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War / 41

is plunged into psychological conflict. For the Church to tip the scales
of his divided loyalty, the youth must have shown a high degree of
identification of religion with his family—a factor dependent in turn on
the strength of his family ties.
The causal chain is described in one interview: "I did not feel the
influence of anti-religious propaganda because my religious feelings were
closely connected with my family life. Therefore, the attack on religion
was an attack against my family. Religion and family existed in my mind
as one undivided whole."9 In this light, the early phases of the regime's
attack on religion can be interpreted as only the obverse of the assault
on family solidarity—the pro forma civil ceremonies and "postcard
divorces" of the revolutionary era, the legitimation of common-law
marriage during the twenties. When the retrenchment of the mid-thirties
called for restabilizing the family, Soviet cultural policy also had some-
how to accommodate the religious feelings anchored at the hearth.
Walter Birnbaum notes that the display of basic religious strength in the
1937 census coincided, happily for the future of the Church, with edicts
that were meant to reshape the family into a "basic cell of the state":
rewards for many children, a ban on abortions, and stiffer divorce laws.10
Walter Kolarz sets the consolidation of the family into the broader
framework of the new "Soviet morality."11 He quotes Lenin's widow,
Krupskaya, as pointing out in 1937 that religion should not be under-
rated as a source of morality when parents continue to be impressed by
the superior behavior of children with religious education; the state
should not eradicate religion unless it first proved able to supersede it.
But it must be kept in mind that the family which the regime was
striving to reconstitute was not the old-style unit in which religion had
played a dominant role. Soviet spécifications foresaw a new socialist
family stripped of religion so that it could concentrate all energy on
work and communal activities of value to the state. The persistence of
religion gave the regime pause, perhaps moved it in the mid-thirties
"holiday" to admit tacitly that organized belief could not be demolished
at one fell swoop. The short duration of that breathing spell, however,
suggests that the regime remained unconvinced of the efficacy of its
watch-and-wait policy. The petty pace at which religion was receding
even in an evidently unfavorable environment caused the dissatisfied
political leadership to explode its most violent onslaught on the Church
in the late thirties.
Such direct attacks, Lenin had recognized, carried the danger of back-
firing. Not only did they create a new gallery of martyrs for the faithful
42 / Icon and Swastika

to venerate, but their cruder excrescences rubbed raw on popular sensi-

bilities and made many theretofore uncommitted persons sympathize
with the victims. In this connection, it should be noted that the younger
Soviet escapees interviewed by the Harvard team repeatedly expressed
convictions approving religion on humanistic grounds, although they
were devoid of genuine religious fervor. Their broad pleas for toleration
are invariably linked to endorsement of a cause their former masters
tried so ruthlessly to suppress; they also reflect the situation described
by Krupskaya in which the Party offers no adequate surrogate for the
moral force of religion. The escapees reveal their indignation at the low
level of Soviet morality, which they associate with communism. As one
relates: "When I was five or six years old . . . I became an atheist and
forgot all about religion. But when the Soviets attacked religion very
much, something in me woke up, and I returned to the Orthodox
Church." 12 Most other responses of this youthful group do not go so far
as actual reconversion. They express a vaguer desire for something the
Communist party ethic has not been able to supply. As one Russian
defines it, "faith means respect, conscience . . . Even the non-believers
must all have some faith." 13 The many Soviet citizens who subscribe to
such a formula represent neither doctrinaire believers nor proponents
of the vilification employed in the regime's campaigns against the
Church. Yet this sizable group could not maintain its natural neutrality
when attacks against religion were mounted along the old frontal lines.
Their sympathy was drawn to the embattled faithful.

THE ATHEIST COUNTERCBUSADE

Conspicuous among the regime's antireligious tools was the League

of the Godless, which turned into a boomerang because of the misguided
zeal with which it was wielded against the legions of faithful. It had
been formed without fanfare on Easter Sunday 1925 and operated with
consummate discretion, in order not to alienate the peasants, until 1929.
Then the term "Militant" was inserted into its title, and its coterie of
Old Bolshevik and journalist leaders let loose to do nationwide battle
with religion as a key feature of Stalin's campaign to smash the barriers
against collectivizing and industrializing the country. Sporting its full
regalia of central committee, departments, and sections, the League
embarked on Five Year Plans to achieve godlessness and to enroll millions
of people into a kind of antichurch of materialism triumphant. The
discovery was soon made that it was easier to shut down churches and
 Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War / 43

roll up fantastically inflated membership figures overnight than to pre-

sent atheism as a popular emotional substitute for traditional belief.14
Soviet citizens did notflockto "Red Weddings" at factories or bring their
babies to be dedicated to the Revolution in a ceremony that was sup-
posed to replace baptism; neither did they embrace a calendar in which
Sunday and religious festivals were supplanted by assorted communist
anniversaries.
Under the unsteady baton of the Old Bolshevik Emelian Yaroslavsky,
the League fostered a purge of thousands of Party members who had
not severed their ties to the Church—in 1929-1930 and again in 1933—
but a distressing number of persons in high places stubbornly refused
enlightenment. The Central Purge Commission in 1933 was aghast to
find Party members gathering funds to repair churches and, supreme
insult, singing hymns while attending meetings of the commission. The
so-called "Easter-Cake Communists" (kulichniye partiitsy) of revolu-
tionary days, who kept up religious observances out of regard to their
families, continued to pop up in Soviet press reports. The comic-opera
spectacle of the atheist campaign, with its perennial complaints that its
"godless" factory brigades and collective farms were being infiltrated by
Orthodox believers who used them as protective cover, carried grim
overtones for the Church groups it frightened out of existence. In reac-
tion to the 1937 census results that punctured the naive claims of impend-
ing atheistic victory, the inept directors of the League were themselves
purged and a new drive brought membership, which in six years had
slipped nearly 80 percent from its 5.7-million peak in 1932, back to 3.5
million in 1941, a 50-percent recovery.15 With a tougher new leadership
conducting a more realistic campaign, the League might have come
closer than ever before in its history to making good a threat: "another
twenty-year period of determined antireligious effort" could succeed in
"reducing religion in Russia to a curiosity for museums."16 To that end,
Yaroslavsky proposed in a talk over Radio Moscow at the end of 1939
that the state should take away children from those parents who refused
to send them to atheist classes.17 With the outbreak of World War II,
however, the government quietly put the League out of business.
Though not numerous enough to furnish conclusive evidence, refer-
ences to the League by refugees in the Harvard project lend substance
to the foregoing picture of its early failures. Where they attribute any
effectiveness at all to atheist propaganda, their impressions date back to
grammar school years; not one credits it with a positive influence on
his outlook during adulthood. On the contrary, those who were relatively
44 / Icon and Swastika

uncommitted in their religious attitudes generally recall the negative

effects of League propaganda. One of them relates that his initial cool-
ness to religion was reversed by a godless parade in which people
dressed up as priests and nuns were shown in obscene poses. Such crude,
irrational tactics (which included the drowning out of church services
by "noise demonstrations" of League members gathered outside) bore
the stamp of "opium for the masses" too much themselves to lay that
charge convincingly at the door of the Church. The man who recoiled
at the tasteless parade explains: "Without understanding the substance
of religion, I got on the path of belief in God as a means toward the
education of the people."18 His case is noteworthy further because,
despite his newfound awareness of the social potential of religion, his
education had ingrained the tenets of Marxism so deeply in him that he
continued to subscribe to them as well. It is possible that cases of mixed
loyalties like this betray receptiveness to the ritualism of both Church
and Party observances.
By keeping its ties to the League under cover, the regime maintained
freedom of movement in dealing with the Church. Though few citizens
were fooled by the supposedly spontaneous nature of the atheist cam-
paign, they did not fully equate the League's policies with those of the
government. The fluctuating Party line on the Church further served to
strengthen the popular image of the League as a tool that political
leadership might employ or discard, as suited its purposes. Again and
again the regime underscored the distance that separated its stand from
the atheist establishment—now by official reprimands of League goings-
on that bordered on vandalism, now by a renewed stress on the wither-
ing away of religion as a natural process which could do without puerile
efforts to hurry evolution along. The League could quote Marxist chapter
and verse to justify condemnation of organized religion, but its manic
existence was pointedly not officially endorsed by the administration. By
merely condoning the League unofficially the government left the back
door always open to the rapprochement with the Church that finally
took place in World War II.
Of more immediate consequence, indirect exploitation of the League
allowed the Politburo to shrug off foreign protests by blithely denying
the campaigns that Soviet citizens were conducting "on their own initia-
tive." The regime could bolster this fabrication by corroborations from
Orthodox Church heads like Acting Patriarch Sergius, who in 1930 told
a group of foreign correspondents that there was no religious persecution
in the Soviet Union.19 In this make-believe world, the clergy could not
 Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War / 45

expect to improve its existence by recriminations against the govern-

ment; it had to rely on stoic endurance to keep alive the chance for an
extensive truce on the religious front, an option the regime implicitly
preserved by its divorce from the League.

PILLABS OF THE CHURCH

Waves of violently repressive measures and constant pressure from

political and social elites eroded the religious faith of many Russians.
Many others, however, went beyond mere sympathy with the harried
flock, or lip service to Orthodox moral values; they continued to count
themselves as active Church members and to maintain in some measure
the ties that kept their religious communities alive. Their numerous
representatives among the group questioned by the Harvard interviewers
have recounted the obstacles to practice of their faith. From these
accounts the effects can be traced of the three-pronged offensive carried
on against them by the regime in what amounted to a war of social
isolation on their congregations. The official intent had been to choke
off communications among believers and to prevent their crystallization
into an autonomous social force.
The government's most direct course was simply to shut down
churches. One peasant recalls, "Our children were baptized. We fulfilled
all the rites. But there was no church in our village . . . Most of our
friends are believers, too."20 According to a boast of the atheist journal
Antireligioznik in 1939, 75 percent of the 80,000 Russian Orthodox
churches that existed in 1917 had been closed;21 a foreign expert's more
reasonable statistics put the prerevolutionary figure at some 40,000, the
pre-World War II total at 4,000.22 The government replied to recurrent
foreign protests by hypocritically claiming that, since there was no law
against the existence of churches, the members must have folded up shop
for lack of attendance. They did not bother to point out that closings
often followed infiltration of congregations by atheist agents, arrests to
reduce the membership below the statutory number of twenty, or simply
the revocation of building permits. 23 Believers managed to conduct
services anyway—illegally, at each other's homes—their religious faith
often the only thing that made the economic deprivations of the Stalin
era bearable. Many peasants clung to the hope for an afterlife held out
by church doctrine as sole escape from the miseries of collectivization.
For some, turning their backs on directives from Moscow had become a
traditional communal response; others found in religion a spiritual
46 / Icon and Swastika

rationalization for a catalogue of seemingly senseless suffering. A former

village resident sums it up: "In 1929 things got bad . . . perhaps it's all
a curse sent by God . . . the shootings and the hunger."
The second stage of the regime's campaign to impose a quarantine on
believers invoked the aid of other institutions to bring home the message
that the practice of religion constituted exhibition of a diseased bour-
geois frame of mind. Peasants who lit Christmas trees or observed Easter
were reported to kolkhoz authorities through the omnipresent informer
system and dealt with by reprimands or sterner measures. A similar
system of controls pervaded industry and the armed forces. A former
Red Army man reports that "it was very hard to be religious in the army.
If I tried to sit down and say my prayers, someone came over and cursed
me out."
In its third phase, the regime's assault on the Church as a social
institution made each individual home a battlefront. Here the essential
objective was to disrupt the transmission of religious traditions within
the family; at stake was the ideology of the youth to whom the Party
entrusted its future. Responses of the Harvard group confirm the virtual
impossibility of "enlightening" those devout oldsters who declare, "I
would rather die than give up my religion." The regime had to prevent
them from passing on their faith to their children, for with prohibitions
against religious instruction by priests, the family had become the last
outpost of Orthodoxy.
For the young, even the prospect of a blighted career might not suffice
to uproot a faith securely implanted by parents. The government had
therefore to confront their elders with sanctions for giving religious
instruction and thereby undermining the materialist outlook fostered at
school. This process is acknowledged by one older Orthodox believer:
"I wanted my children to be honest, to be religious . . . They used to
pray in the morning and in the afternoon when they returned from
school. They never told anyone about their praying. They were afraid.
Students used to be suspicious of them. Teachers told the children to
investigate and report those who were religious."24 Another devout
couple reports that the ubiquitousness of official sanctions made them
decide to drop religious discussions at home. Nonetheless, they were
threatened with exile by the authorities when their child blurted out to
his teacher that divine vengeance was sure to follow an atheist lecture
in class. Only by proving that the child's old nurse was instilling such
dangerous thoughts did the parents earn a reprieve.
 Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War / 47

Under such constricting circumstances there was little for parents to

do, especially when the regime's atheist campaign shifted into high gear,
except to limit the spiritual care of their offspring to secret baptism.
Even this resource was condemned by official propaganda on hygienic
grounds. In the baptismal ceremony, according to a Soviet wartime
publication, "the weak baby is undressed in the cold church and dipped
into cold water. It is also common for the priest to baptize several babies
in the same water." And this was but the first step in a series of germ-
laden practices: "At mass, dozens—sometimes hundreds—of people
approach the priest and receive communion from the same cup, while
during the ceremonial kissing of the cross thousands press their lips to
the same spot."25 At the height of the last purge, ingenious believers
found ways to avoid microbes and police agents: "in Alma-Ata it is now
unnecessary to go to church to baptize an infant, to be married, or to
conduct funeral rites. All these ceremonies are conducted by correspon-
dence, or the priest comes on summons."26 Even members of the elite
ignored threats to bring their children to the font. On one occasion, plans
to prosecute a Party member for having his children baptized were
dropped when it was discovered that all his local comrades had done
likewise.27
The holy water was hardly dry, however, before children growing up
in the Stalinist era were subjected to the pressures of Communist youth
groups and Soviet schools. These were forces that a muted Church and
its silent adherents could not hope to counter effectively. Reports from
Soviet prisoners of war, interviews with émigrés, and data from Nazi
occupation authorities all confirm the widespread loss of faith among
the youth who had grown up under that system. Even the sons of devout
farmers found it convenient to stay away from services, rationalizing
their apostasy by citing the scarcity of priests or simply claiming that the
rigorous work schedule left them no time for such things.28 An official
of the newly opened Moscow Theological Academy offered the following
assessment of the first wartime entering classes: 'The instructors saw
before them students who were unlike the former ones who had been
brought up from their childhood in the spirit of the Church; these were
grown men of the present, not seldom only recently converted to religion
and having not the least notion of it save the inner impulse to serve
God."29
If the younger generation had, by and large, lost its faith by World
War II, it showed very little enthusiasm for an out-and-out war on
48 / Icon and Swastika

campaign of socially isolating believers had taken it further along the

religion; most people favored toleration of the Church. The regime's
road to atomization of Soviet society. The very arsenal of weapons
employed by the political leadership in molding opinion generated
internal resistances which could not be penetrated by the most potent
propaganda. Utilizing educational mechanisms, like rewarded learning
and simple repetition, the ideological chiefs could make most of the
populace adopt the Stalinist belief system virtually as an implicit,
unquestioned value. But to reach this level, they had to sell the system
to their potential audience in a manner that would leave a modicum of
free choice, at least in the sense that anyone properly "enlightened"
would buy this set of values because of its superior qualities. The young
Communists who endorsed religious toleration were thereby manifesting
concretely their nebulous right of free choice. They were also limiting
their ideological conformity to top-priority goals, not volunteering for
the atheist campaigns conducted by the regime in fits and starts. Finally,
permitting their elders a fairly harmless aberration gave them a chance
to vaunt their own progressive advancement.
By differentially tolerating religion for the masses whenever a new
atheist shock wave had passed, the regime furnished its "vanguard"
another standard by which to claim their title. A second advantage for
the regime in finally retarding this phase of social atomization lay in its
ability to call on believers to unite in "the holy war for the motherland."
 3
Nazi Ideology and
Administrative Practice
on Religion

Nazi ideology was just as adamant as the teachings of Marx and Lenin
in denying organized religion a place in the new social order. Taking
their cue from Nietzsche, Hitler and Rosenberg rejected the tenets of
Christianity as a papfitonly for weaklings and slaves.1 The master race
was to be nurtured on sterner stuff than a commandment against killing
or injunctions to turn the other cheek and love one's neighbor. As had
the Marxists before them, the Nazis blamed the priesthood for the
enfeeblement of the masses and the anointment of the old exploitative
classes.2 Each group expected its new order to bring about a final solu-
tion to the religious question as youthful generations stamped out the
traditions of their fathers.
The similarity in approach, however, concealed basic divergencies.
While the Soviet leaders relied on a syllogism in which the rationalism
of communist theory would vanquish the irrational dogma of the church,
the Nazi regime evoked the atavistic powers of racism and the Fuhrer-
prinzip to propel their nation on a course for which Christian teachings
had no relevance. When it came to offering alternatives to religion, the
Soviets looked ahead to the "construction of socialism" and the Nazis
backward to a reverence of the Teutonic past that amounted to a new
mystique or, as harsher critics termed it, nihilism.3 A case in point is the
difference in Lenin's and Hitler's expressions of their common belief that
science would dispel the religious superstition of the masses. For Lenin
this meant a program of technological change that would liberate the

49
SO / Icon and Swastika

farmer and worker from the nexus of exploitation. As he put it to a

Party congress: "If you procure tractors, you do away with God."4 For
Hitler it meant a civic project centered on an observatory that would
attract its share of Sunday pilgrims: "They'll have access to the greatness
of our universe . . . It will be our way of giving men a religious spirit,
of teaching them humility—but without priests . . . Put a small telescope
in a village and you destroy a world of superstitions."5
Both eiforts foundered. Lenin's naïve prescription produced the
notably undesired consequences of priests holding thanksgiving services
for the arrival of tractors in their villages and peasants affixing crosses
to the machines.6 Hitler evidently had second thoughts about his rural
astronomy program. Further, by 1937 he had shelved plans for a Nazi-
dominated Reichskirche to supplant existing churches; 7 during World
War II, Protestant and Catholic leaders became more outspoken in their
criticism of the regime,8 but he had to content himself with privately
uttered threats to do away with them at a later date. 9
A second basic difference between Marxist and Nazi ideologies which
helps explain their divergent approaches to the church problem stems
from the relative weight accorded them by the two sets of leaders. The
Soviet leadership seems to show a high regard for ideology as a guide
to action and tries to make any shifts in its program appear to fit in the
light of consistent theory, although experts disagree on the success with
which this has been carried off.10 Nazi leaders, on the other hand,
demonstrated a notable unconcern for congruence in their patterns of
belief. They evidenced none of the compulsions of a Lenin making clear
in 1921 that the New Economic Policy was no more than a strategic
retreat. 11 Neither did they offer a parallel to the Soviet regime's short-run
tactics in religious policy, which denied that concessions—from ad-
mitting God-fearing candidates to Party membership in prerevolutionary
days to intermittently granting breathing space to the Church in response
to domestic or foreign pressures—entailed any revision of the long-range
program of social transformation, in which the survival of religious
belief was not provided for. The Kremlin again and again succumbed
to the temptation to give atheist evolution a helping push, to drop any
temporary stance of toleration for yet another assault on the Church.
Indeed, this stubborn concentration on the regime's ultimate aims was
responsible for the harvest of paper successes in the drives for godless-
ness and for the ever more deeply rooted faith practiced in the "cata-
combs," beyond the reach of official surveillance.
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 51

Nazi leaders hardly bothered to cloak the paradoxes in their ideo-

logical potpourri, whether these related to the remarkably un-Aryan
physique of its Führer or to weightier matters such as their "socialist
workers" party coming to terms with the East Prussian Junkers and the
Ruhr industrialists in return for contributions to the party coffers.12 The
one unifying ingredient of contradictory actions was supplied by the
leadership's continuous accretion of power. In this quest, expediency was
its own excuse. One day Jews could be considered suitable only to fill
gas ovens, the next they could be re-evaluated as a fit medium of
exchange for trucks.13 A foreign policy which, on geopolitical and racial
grounds, sought to make common cause with Great Britain could be
reversed overnight. Lacking any central rationalizing principle approach-
ing the authoritativeness of Marx's and Lenin's dicta for the Soviet
regime, the Nazi leadership fell back on the guidance of now one, now
another tactical formula spawned by its many contending cliques. The
copies of Mein Kampf and Rosenberg's Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts that
jammed the bookshelves of the Party remained largely unread because
of their turgid prose.14
The final arbiter on the latest fashion in theories was Hitler, equipped
with his notoriously erratic intuition. Once he had taken solitary counsel
and announced a new party line, the wary among his lieutenants knew
enough to renounce their erstwhile allegiances (for example, Goebbels
to the socialism of the Strassers in 1926, Rosenberg to the Russophobia
that was out of place in the era of the Nazi-Soviet pact),15 while the
more naïve were left dangling (S.A. chieftains in their bid to supplant
the Army High Command in 1933, or Rudolf Hess on his quixotic mission
to England in 1941).16 In such a setting, a "tactical retreat" might be as
meaningless as the Munich Agreement or as irrevocable as the scrapping
of socialism in the mid-1920's. Consequently, no churchman could be
sure whether the Führers master plan for a Nazi church would remain
an empty threat.

EFFORTS AND RESULTS OF CHURCH POLICY

When the Nazi regime encountered traditional social institutions like

the church, its standard response was a policy known as Gleichschaltung
( coordinating, bringing into line ). In the lexicon of political expediency
this could mean anything from leaving the institution alone, as long as it
did not venture into opposition, or radically transforming it with full use
52 / Icon and Swastika

of the terror apparatus. In other words, the leaders sought to apply the
proper amount of pressure to gear the institution into their hierarchical
power complex. Their initial argument for securing a group's subordina-
tion tended to be couched in terms of mutual self-interest. Thus, labor
leaders were "persuaded" to abandon potentially troublesome inde-
pendence in return for the promised benefits of full employment in a
war economy, while industrialists were sold on guaranteed rates of profit
and the exploitation of slave labor. In the same way, the Protestant
churches, with their Lutheran doctrine of submission to secular author-
ity, might be bypassed on the road to power; but the Catholic Church,
with its supranational ties, called for more direct intervention by a
regime that tried to silence it at first through the Concordat of 1933,
later through censoring its utterances and closing its parochial schools
and theological academies.17 "Divide and rule" was the tenet of bureau-
cratic practice in domestic as well as foreign policy, and if the Catholic
hierarchy was largely able to maintain its solidarity, the more than two
dozen Protestant denominations were natural prospects to be played off
against each other by the regime.
Finally, the contrast between Soviet and Nazi ideologies on the church
points up a reversal in the political effects generated by each of the two
systems. The Soviets more often turned to open repression, although
their rationally framed policy forecast attenuation of the antireligious
line, once resolution of the "class struggle" had removed the fangs of the
churchly enemy. The Nazis, whose dogma was bound to clash head-on
with Christian teachings, generally acted with greater restraint; rela-
tively few churchmen were arrested by that regime, which remained
circumspect in handling an institution whose sizable popular following
it respected. Yet it was the Soviets who managed to achieve a compre-
hensive accord, with the church of their land, granting it official status,
coordinating its efforts with the government's wartime and later foreign
policies—while the Nazis, more inlent on short-run power goals, proved
never able to cash in on the potential benefits of turning the churches
into active allies of their regime and, on the contrary, drove more and
more bishops into vocal opposition. As will be seen later, this hypothesis
holds as well for the German-occupied areas of Russia, where the Nazis
quickly wore out their initial popular welcome as liberators through
their merciless treatment of prisoners of war, general rule of the popula-
tion as Untermenschen (subhumans), forced labor drafts, agricultural
requisitions, and many other draconic measures. At the very same time,
the Soviet regime was getting the refurbished Patriarchal Church to
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 53

donate large sums to the war effort, issue a spate of propaganda appeals,
and generally lend its moral weight to a national campaign against
Hitler as Antichrist.

"POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY" IN ACTION

The complexities of Nazi church policy have only recently been sub-
mitted to objective scholarly analysis, notably in the writings of Guenter
Lewy and J. S. Conway. There has been no dearth of data, however, to
document that Hitler and his chief ideologue in this field, Alfred Rosen-
berg, shared an equally strong antipathy to Christianity and that Hitler
was by far the more cautious of the two when it came to publicly voicing
his feelings. Even privately he paid grudging respect to the power of the
Catholic Church organization and reined in his restive subordinates
when they proposed to tangle with it directly. In this he was not only
bowing to the practical problems of dealing with thirty-five million
German Catholics, but also applying the lessons of his Austrian and
Bavarian experience.
Hitler's youth included a traditional Catholic upbringing, which
exerted a lifelong influence on him. Even in March 1942 Goebbels con-
fided in his diary: "the Führer declared that if his mother still lived, she
would undoubtedly go to Church today, and he could and would not
hinder her . . ,"18 Subsequent years in Vienna taught Hitler the practical
rules for success in politics; as he recounted a dozen years later, Georg
von Schönerer's Pan-German Nationalist party committed the funda-
mental tactical mistake of attacking the Catholic Church and thereby
splintering its forces.19 The Christian Socialist leader Karl Lueger, on
the other hand, knew enough to tie his mass appeal to the established
Church. In Hitler's words, "he was quick to adopt all available means
for winning the support of long-established institutions, so as to be able
to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from those
old sources of power."20 The lesson was not lost on Hitler in Bavaria, the
stronghold of German Catholicism: though his 1925 truce with the
clerically dominated Bavarian government roused the scorn of his north
German nationalist allies, he held fast to the pro-Church line.21 His new
partners, he announced, were more important to him than his old anti-
clerical supporters.
The way to collaboration with the forces of the Church had been
pointed out in the Nazi party program of February 1920, whose Section
24 posited "freedom of all religious confessions in the state, as long as
54 / Icon and Swastika

they don't threaten its existence or transgress against the morality of the
German race. The Party as such represents the viewpoint of a positive
Christianity, without tying itself to any particular confession."22 Hitler
echoed the same sentiments four years later in Mein Kampf, coupling
praise of both churches for their moral support to the nation with a thinly
veiled attack on the Catholic Center party, a formidable roadblock on
the Nazi way to power. He maintained his conditional acceptance of
religion in public pronouncements following the Nazi takeover, but
privately, as in his talks with Rauschning, he revealed an unbending
hostility to the values of the Church. Thus, "whether it keeps the jewified
Christian faith with its weak morality of compassion, or takes up a
strong, heroic belief in God in nature, God in one's own people, God in
one's fate, in one's own blood"23 he deemed decisive for the German
people. And, he went on, "a German church, a German Christianity is
nonsense. One is either a Christian or a German. One can't be both."
The "positive Christianity" of the 1920 program came to be defined
more and more narrowly by the regime. In the 1933 Concordat with the
Vatican, Article I liberally decreed: "The German Reich guarantees
freedom of conscience and the public exercise of the Catholic religion."24
But the following year, third-grade pupils were ordered to recite a creed
that began, "As Jesus freed mankind from sin and hell, so is Hitler
rescuing the German people from destruction. Jesus and Hitler were
persecuted but, while Jesus was crucified, Hitler was appointed chan-
cellor" and concluded, "We hope that Hitler will himself be able to
complete his work on earth. Jesus was building for heaven, Hitler for
the German earth."25 And in 1935, the journal Wille und Macht defined
"positive Christianity" as "belief . . . that, in regard to itself and to the
state, stays within the appointed limits";26 that meant not venturing into
the political sphere, understood broadly as "anything even of the least
relevance to the community of the people," and keeping to a religious
sphere restricted to "belief in the supernatural."
Hitler never intended to take any of the Concordat's provisions favor-
able to the Church literally, as he assured his cabinet in July 1933.27 The
Vatican accord was an undiluted triumph, in his view, because (1) it
refuted claims that national socialism was unchristian or antichurch;
(2) it represented unconditional recognition of the regime by the
Vatican, going so far as to require its bishops in Germany to take an
oath to the state; and (3) it spelled the destruction of the Christian labor
movement and the Catholic Center party. Less than a year later, the
Catholic youth organization was already banned in contravention of the
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 55

Concordat and the publications of the Church put under even greater
restriction. Soon parochial schools and Catholic welfare activities also
fell under the interdict. 28
If in November 1941 Hitler could conclude that "the Party has been
right to steer clear of the Church," 29 he only meant that the Church had
been so effectively emasculated as a potential opponent, there was no
point in martyring the few bishops who refused to be silenced. When
the Vatican tried to intervene in Church affairs of the occupied terri-
tories, Hitler denied the Concordat's applicability beyond the borders
of the 1933 Reich.30 His pique had been aroused by the Vatican's refusal
to recognize the legitimacy of Germany's conquests and by its persis-
tence in maintaining relations with East European governments in exile.
Foreign Minister Ribbentrop boasted in May 1942 that he could stifle
any outcry from Rome in the usual manner: "The Foreign Office has
always taken the Führer's inclination to the subject into account in its
relations with the Vatican—as the Republic of Venice is supposed to
have done for a generation. We have filled an entire registry office with
all kinds of unanswered notes from the Vatican!"31

OVERCOMING PROTESTANT RESISTANCE

Hitler succeeded in rendering the Catholic Church irrelevant as a

political factor, having constricted its scope by a series of decrees against
which it could only lodge legalistic protests that were shrugged off by
the regime after the Gestapo halted their circulation.32 The Vatican had
trapped itself into this position by its hasty accession to the Concordat,
the first of the many foreign accords Hitler signed without any intention
of keeping. Still, the Church proved able, after a fashion, to remain
master of its own spiritual house. The score of Protestant churches could
claim neither a counterpart to the Catholics' unified doctrine and organi-
zation nor an international spokesman with the Pope's prestige; in
dealing with them, Hitler saw no need for the arms' length treatment
appropriate to the Vatican. Instead, he found among them a nationalist
sect, the so-called "German Christians," who cheered his assumption of
power in 1933 and virtually begged him to assent to their staging a coup
d'église of the Evangelical establishment on his behalf.
At the outset these Nazi churchmen had seized control of the Protes-
tant general synod and rammed through the Aryan Paragraph excluding
from the priesthood anyone of Jewish ancestry. By November 1933 they
were demanding unconditional acceptance of this edict by all denomina-
56 / Icon and Swastika

tions. Further, they asked the removal of all "un-German elements in

service and confer ;ion, especially of the Old Testament with its Jewish
'enders' morality." !3 No end was in sight for interdenominational strife,
they announced, until "the transfer or removal of all priests either un-
willing or unable t j take a leading part in the religious renewal of our
people and in the fulfillment of the German reformation in the spirit of
National Socialism " Their later demands included reconstruction of the
church according to the Führerprinzip and an oath to Hitler to be taken
by the clergy as it had been by the state bureaucracy. 34
Resistance to nazification of the Protestant churches came haltingly at
first. A small Pastors' Emergency League rallied around Martin Nie-
möller in Berlin-Dahlem to argue the legality of the "German Christian"
decrees.35 It did not venture to preach opposition, but only pleaded for a
"depoliticized clergy" that would be allowed to plow its spiritual furrow
undisturbed. It took a year of state intervention in church affairs before
the handful of churchmen, centered in Prussia, was able to expand its
program and membership into a national resistance to the demands of
totalitarianism. The synod of the new Confessing Church, meeting in
Barmen in May 1934, cited Scripture to back its contention that the
church could never be reduced to an organ of the state.36 By then the
regime had gone far in filling leading church positions with trusted Nazis
and in controlling clerical affairs at strategic points: 37 new elections to
church councils had been held under duress, church finances put under
state control, commissars installed over the churches of the individual
Länder, and a former Navy chaplain, Ludwig Müller, placed at the head
of the German Evangelical Church as loyal Reichsbishop, complete with
bureaucratic apparatus. 38
By October 1934, the Confessing Church acknowledged that the fight
could no longer be carried on within the confines of the regular church
organization. From now on it would rely on self-decreed emergency law
to reject the nazified church government, with its slogan O n e State—
One People—One Church" and its papist pretensions exemplified by the
Reichsbishop. The intrepid pastors threw all caution to the wind in
March 1935, in a message that left no doubt that their quarrel was not
with a new creed but with Nazi ideology itself. They specifically de-
nounced the "racist-ethnic Weltanschauung" that was making "blood and
race, the nation, honor and freedom into false gods."39 The regime
reacted predictably with the arrest of seven hundred priests who had
dared to recite the message.
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 57

The surprising thing is that it took so long for the state to gain
retribution. Evidently, Nazi leaders had underestimated the lengths to
which the recalcitrant parsons were willing to go. This is understandable
if one accepts the expert opinion of Karl Barth that German Protestants
"almost unanimously welcomed the Hitler regime with real confidence,
indeed with the highest hopes."40 Even if there were some among them
whose "Heil Hitler!" later stuck in their throats, they were unlikely to
couch their dissent in political terms. After all, they had been brought up
on the teachings of Luther, larded with passages admonishing obedience
to the ruler no matter how unjust he might be.41 The regime appears to
have overlooked the fact that Luther, while never condoning violent
resistance, does prescribe civil disobedience in two special circum-
stances: if the ruler forces a believer to break the commandments and
cause harm to others, or if he tries to pervert church doctrine and claims
to "lord it over men's conscience and faith," the subject must disobey.42
Both grounds furnished the Confessing Church leaders their platform of
protest, which attracted enough of a following to convince Hitler, by
February 1937, that he could not enforce pro-Nazi uniformity on the
refractory Lutherans. 43
Hitler had from the first shown as much contempt for the Protestant
clergy as awe for the Catholic hierarchy. They would be easy to push
around, he told a circle of his intimates in April 1933: "They will submit
. . . they are insignificant little people, submissive as dogs, and they
sweat with embarrassment when you talk to them. They have neither a
religion they can take seriously nor a great position to defend like
Rome."44 He dropped them apparently with no regrets when they did
stand up to him in their 1935 declaration and, more openly, in a
memorandum addressed to him in May of the following year.45 There
the list of grievances went beyond the travails of the churches to the
illegality of Gestapo actions and concentration camps and infringements
on freedom of speech and press. Hitler's response was to loose a new
wave of clerical arrests, shut down resistant theological academies, and
proscribe the Confessing Church altogether. He also made sure that
Niemöller, arrested in July 1937 and released by the court after seven
months' incarceration awaiting trial, was sent to a concentration camp
and not freed despite repeated church pleas.46
Still, with the clerical opposition decimated, Hitler hesitated to make
the strife-torn church into a vehicle for his new order. In 1940, he
admitted to Rosenberg that it had been a great mistake to try to build
58 / Icon and Swastika

up a unified Evangelical Church as a counterweight to the Roman

Church. 47 He recalled a reception he had given for church leaders at
which the "true believers" and the "German Christians" had nearly
come to blows over questions of precedence. Finally, he parodied an
unctuous address by Niemöller spiced with the nautical terms that
marked the pastor's speech. For Hitler, such churchmen were objects of
derision, not serious contenders for power. If they had not been brought
to heel as simply as he had once envisioned, so much the worse for them.
In two hundred years, he prophesied to Rosenberg, the people would
come to embrace beliefs consonant with Nazi ideology.48

BOSENBERG: THE IMPOTENT IDEOLOGIST

Twenty years would suffice for the triumph of the Nazi faith, Rosen-
berg assured his Führer. Rosenberg's reply deserves extended comment
because of his two-fold place in this analysis, here leading ideologist
with special responsibilities for Nazi doctrine, later minister in charge
of the occupied territories in Russia. In both fields, his grandiose aspira-
tions outran his limited administrative talents—not the least of the rea-
sons Hitler selected him for such posts, buttressing his own role as
arbiter of the infighting that was sure to ensue. Throughout all his ups
and downs on the Party and Reich political ladders, Rosenberg was
driven by his ambitions to shape history as well as by the gratification
of an occasional word of praise from Hitler. Yet before long it became
plain to him that his advice was not being taken seriously, his orders
to nominal subordinates countermanded or ignored. The excerpts from
his diary that have been published and even the memoirs composed
in his cell at the time of the Nuremberg Trials constitute one long com-
plaint at other members of the Nazi elite who crowded him aside in
Hitler's council chambers. He fails to identify a single ally among them
in his scramble for power, but he shows no inkling that his record of
frustration was due to possible shortcomings in himself.
At the 1940 meeting, Hitler was in effect saying that he was washing
his hands of church affairs for the duration and that creation of a
substitute Nazi faith would have to await the indefinite future. But
Rosenberg refused to take the hint; he was too wrapped up in his
early schemes for a new faith, with himself as its prophet, to view
the fact that it did not catch on with the people as anything more than
a temporary hindrance. Another generation, he explained, would be
enough to sever totally the influence of older people on German youth.
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 59

When he told Hitler that "surely, sometime someone will lead a new
Reformation," it is very likely that he had his own eye on the mantle
of Luther. When he later headed the Ministry for the East, he again
projected designs on a grand scale, not merely administering subject
peoples but building a vast colonial empire of which he would be pro-
consul. In neither case did he achieve a decisive say on actual policy
or markedly affect operations in the field.
In the early days of the Party, even during Hitler's accession to
power, Rosenberg was taken quite seriously by friend and foe alike.
He had come to Munich in 1919 as one of the ultranationalist Volks-
deutsche (Germans bom abroad) who were to play leading parts in
irredentist Nazi foreign policy.49 His German ancestry had been a
mark of distinction for his petit bourgeois family in the Estonian capital
Tallin, formerly the Hansa city of Reval. It recalled him to his defeated
fatherland after the Bolshevik Revolution had cut short his architecture
studies in Moscow. His first call in Munich was paid to Hetmán Paul
Skoropadsky, leader of the Russian émigrés, who had headed a reaction-
ary government in the Ukraine in 1918 under German aegis.50 This led
to acquaintance with the whole circle of the White Guard whose anti-
Semitism drew them into the vortex of disgruntled elements out of
which the Nazi party emerged. When Rosenberg became an editor of
the party journal, Völkischer Beobachter, in 1921, his links with the
émigrés provided it with financial support while it furnished them an
outlet for their propaganda.
The journalistic post that Rosenberg occupied until 1932 gave him
a platform to preach his mystique of racism and Germany's necessary
expansion into the Ostraum (roughly, eastern space) and also afforded
sufficient freedom for forays into other fields. On November 8, 1923, he
marched at Hitler's side in the beer-hall putsch and, after the Führers
arrest, was named by him to lead the Party in his absence. The rivalries
that soon erupted around him seem to confirm the surmise that Hitler
had chosen him precisely for the ineptitude that would prevent him
from establishing a rival power base.51 In any case, Rosenberg went
against the Führer's advice to embark the Party in the 1924 elections
and, probably because of the unexpected success in getting thirty-two
deputies into the Reichstag, found himself stripped of the office of
deputy leader.52 Following this rebuff in party administration, Rosen-
berg steered his career in a new direction.
He had served as Hitler's foreign policy adviser from the first, so it
was only natural that he became the Nazi party delegate to the Reichs-
60 / Icon and Swastika

tag's foreign relations committee after his election to the German

Parliament in 1930. From there he moved to leadership of the Party's
own Foreign Policy Office and, after the 1933 Nazi assumption of power,
appears to have been confident that he was in line for the Foreign
Ministry. However, the vacancy caused by ouster of the old Hindenburg
appointee von Neurath was filled by Ribbentrop. To compound Rosen-
berg's frustration, directives from his party office were ignored by the
diplomatic staff.53
The choice official assignment seemed always to elude Rosenberg's
grasp. By 1940 he felt he had reached an utter impasse: another ap-
parently sure thing, a job as Minister of Education, fell through.54 This
time he rationalized Hitler's broken promise as giving in to the sensi-
bilities of Mussolini for the Catholic Church, which Rosenberg had
been attacking without pause. But this unsatisfying explanation could
not salve the indignity of the chore Hitler did saddle upon him, that
of heading a special staff to salvage archives and art treasures in
Nazi-occupied areas for possible use by the Hohe Schule, the super-
university that was to be built after the war.55 From the near-obscurity
of this, his first state post, Rosenberg was plucked by Hitler in April
1941 to become governor of the vast Russian reaches the regime planned
to occupy following its surprise attack set for June 22.
The unexpected elevation to office, a shock even to Rosenberg himself,
brought in its wake the familiar administrative muddles that dogged his
career. Events in the occupied areas seemed to transpire virtually in-
dependently of the directives he issued from the Ostministerium head-
quarters in Berlin. His memoirs tell the usual tale: he was being
outmaneuvered by rivals, primarily Gestapo chief Himmler, the Führer's
deputy Bormann, and Marshal Goring, super-tsar of the economy; he
was stuck with hostile subordinates, particularly in the Ukraine, where
Reichskommissar Erich Koch went his own merry way; he was being
given the run-around by Hitler, who saw him less and less frequently
and cut off his complaints with markedly greater impatience.56 This
was a predictable fate for an ideologist who in 1942 was still clinging
to his schemes for a new Nazi religion that would replace the Bible
entirely by Mein Kampf.57

ROSENBERG: THE E N E M Y OF ROME

The great stream of articles, pamphlets, and books Rosenberg had

been producing since 1921 was less notable for the originality of their
ideas than for the scurillousness of their attacks on Christian doctrines,
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 61

notably Catholicism. Justice Robert H. Jackson, chief United States

counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, surveyed the monumental Rosenberg
opus and concluded wryly that it amounted to a "wooly philosophy"
which "added boredom to the long list of Nazi atrocities."58 At the
other end of the critical scale, Hitler, though time and again rescuing
Rosenberg from official oblivion, privately admitted that he wouldn't
waste time actually reading his protégé's masterpiece, Der Mythus des
20. Jahrhunderts.59 No doubt Rosenberg himself perceived that the work,
which had sold three-quarter million copies since its publication in
1930, owed its success more to notoriety than to the clarity and
persuasiveness of its argument.60
In July 1939 Rosenberg finally acceded to perennial requests to present
the ideas of the Mythus in abbreviated, comprehensible form.61 The
resulting "Theses on Weltanschauung" echo the earlier work's scorn for
existing religions but are equally devoid of concreteness in their
description of the Volksreligion that is supposed to replace them.62 In
the Mythus his offer of tolerance for the prevailing churches had been
predicated on curious conditions: that they do nothing to interfere
with the "supremacy of national honor"; that they substitute Nordic
sagas for the "cattle-trading tales" of the Old Testament; that they delete
"superstitious passages" from the New Testament; that they make sure
Jesus is portrayed blond and slim, a "spear-carrying" God instead
of the subject of a "perverted crucifixion"; and that the gallery of martyrs
be refurbished with the fallen heroes of World War I. In the "Theses,"
he peremptorily dismisses the "Oriental, Jewish-Syrian" teachings of the
Rible. In their stead he sees the "unity and will power personified by
the Führer animating a new Germanic community which has renounced
all foreign influence to receive guidance from its "racial soul."
For all its obfuscation, the Rosenberg mystique did play a part
in the regime's religious policy. As far as the Catholic Church was
concerned, Rosenberg's gospel represented a mortal danger. Rosenberg
recognized tha his Mythus was a liability to Hitler in the policy of
neutralizing the forces of the Vatican; he bowed to considerations that
kept Hitler from proclaiming the work as an official document and
even went so far as to offer to resign from the Party if it would ease
matters for the Führer. The proposal was rejected, but the attacks
from Catholic quarters mounted. Ry 1935, Cardinal Faulhaber of
Munich had spoken out against the Mythus, but Rosenberg conceded that
"it would be politically inadvisable" to proceed against him; however, he
departed from the realities of the Church-political situation by thinking
he could simply have the Cardinal "jailed according to the 1934 law
62 / Icon and Swastika

against attacks on Party and state."63 If Rosenberg consistently under-

rated the forces of the Church, the Church committed no like error
of judgment in regard to him. Pope Pius XI apparently even took the
pains of wading through the Mythus, and in January 1936 he protested
to Hitler "the poison of libel and detraction of the Church, its history
and its institutes, its servants and its leaders, that trickles daily from
this source." Rosenberg was at the core of the Church's problems in
Germany. It is the "writings of this influential official of the leading
party in the state that have truculently presented the anti-Church and
anti-Christian spirit which is now permeating the entire educational
system, under official and semiofficial auspices."64
The regime evaded the Pope's protest by claiming that Rosenberg
was only speaking for himself, but its repressions of Catholic social
and cultural organizations betrayed its sympathies. Pius pursued the
issue, summing up his outrage most openly in the message Mit brennen-
der Sorge (With Burning Sorrow), published in March 1937, which
refuted the Nazis' deification of race, nation, and state as counter to
Christian doctrine. But the grounds for this protest were still legalistic
—infringement of the Concordat's provisions—and thus proved ineffec-
tual in moderating anti-Church policy. The regime's lawyers prepared
denials and countercharges, while its police stopped distribution of the
papal message within Germany.65 Soon the kid gloves were removed
entirely with a propaganda attack on alleged immorality in the mon-
asteries that produced not only a spate of sensationalist news stories
to titillate the readers of Sunday supplements, but also a series of
show trials of monks and priests accused of assorted currency manipu-
lation and morals charges. The aim, as a secret Gestapo directive of
1938 makes clear, was the destruction of Catholic religious orders.66
Throughout this period Rosenberg'was chafing at the bit, impatient
for Hitler to signal total warfare with the Church, and marshaling his
forces for the showdown he expected momentarily. In 1935 he in-
structed the Party Reichsleiter and Gauleiter (national and provincial
chiefs) to screen their staffs for anyone who might side with the
Church rather than the Party when the hour struck. Later in the year
he lamented that "it is still too soon to let the Hitler Youth loose." His
ire was especially aroused by civil servants of the pre-Nazi era who
quietly blunted the edge of anti-Church measures "and encourage
the bishops to continue their sabotage."67 In the army he railed against
the officer corps, "a religiously conditioned group" that passed over
young Nazis for promotion if they did not attend church on Sundays.
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 63

Even after he had succeeded in getting an official ban on compulsory

attendance, he heard that soldiers who shunned services were made
to scrub barrack floors.68
At every turn Rosenberg met resistance: from Hitler, who continued
dousing his anticlerical ardor and shelving his plans for all-out spiritual
war; from the other Nazi leaders, who left him eating the dust in the
race for power and for whom his preoccupation with ideology was at
best a nuisance; from Catholic clerics, who had the temerity not to
succumb gracefully to his announcements of their immediate demise.
Rosenberg's chronic frustration at the petering out of his grand efforts
was relieved at times by the conviction that history was on his side, a
belief that was reinforced whenever he surveyed the cheering masses
from the rostrum at Nazi meetings. This was particularly gratifying
in "black Münster, the ancient citadel of the Vatican" and headquarters
of his archenemy, Bishop Clemens August Count von Galen, where he
basked in a "seemingly endless ovation" from a rally of twelve thousand.
He concluded that it showed "the great breakthrough is continuing
and we only have to take care there is no deluge."69
In the same year, 1939, Rosenberg mounted a new ideological barrage
against the Church. In his "Theses" he declared: "The habit of a
Roman Priest is the uniform of the mortal enemy of German rebirth,
the opponent of a united German Reich."70 In November he persuaded
Hitler to give him a new assignment: to bring about "the unification
of National-Socialist philosophy."71 What might be thought an unen-
viable task would, he hoped, finally give him the chance to vanquish
Church sympathizers in the army. His new duties entailed setting up
"an educational center for selected officers to instill in them historical
consciousness of our struggle, to extend it to the barracks and camps,
and to assure National Socialism the leadership in the spiritual war."72
But hardly a week after this rare gesture of Hitler's encouragement,
a chagrined Rosenberg faced up to the vitality still shown by the sup-
posedly stricken Church. As he noted in his diary: "The clerical printers
are working overtime—tracts, sermons, and psalm books inundate the
front. There are now some churches in which sermons are held that
represent deliberate sabotage." He had at hand reports from Party
leaders all across Germany attesting the resurgence of the Church
enemy. From some pulpits "the war is being portrayed as God's punish-
ment on National Socialism." Certain theologians even had the temerity
to petition the government to have the educational system put into
the hands of "the professionals of the churches." At the end of the pas-
64 / Icon and Swastika

sage Rosenberg makes the startling admission that the exigencies of

World War II may have made his whole ideological effort redundant:
"It has been proven that, as a Nazi, one can fight against Marxism
and democracy without knowing the least bit of Weltanschauung of
the new age."73 That is a curious confession for the certified philosopher
of the Nazi party.

ROSENBERG: THE WOULD-BE REFORMER

Rosenberg's alternate project, to supplant the Protestant churches

with a new faith that would involve his filling Martin Luther's shoes,
had also been checkmated by this time. The configuration of forces
that defeated it differed somewhat from that which scuttled his anti-
Catholic campaign. In this sector there was none of the regime's con-
cern for the international resources of the Vatican, for not pushing a
unified church beyond the point of no return to the anti-Communist
rationale of the Concordat. But beneath the surface Nazi leaders per-
ceived the same dangers in the scattered Evangelical denominations
as in their centralized Roman counterpart. An attempt to infiltrate either
institution could backfire and result in conversion of the would-be quis-
lings. In the end the safest policy for both churches was an armed truce,
on the assumption that they would continue to lose ground under the
emergency conditions of World War II and that they could be totally
suppressed after its victorious end.74
In fulminating against the "sabotage" of isolated church leaders,
Rosenberg had never grasped that for Hitler even an unyielding bishop
could have his positive uses. As long as he addressed his protests to the
proper authorities, he in effect "stayed within the bounds of allegiance
to the legitimate, God-willed authorities, within the bounds of allegiance
to Führer and Chancellor. In spite of everything, the masses of believing
people were put at Hitler's disposal for his crusade against Bolshevism
and were led into battle by the army chaplains of both religious confes-
sions."75 The isolated priest whom Rosenberg accused of drawing anti-
Nazi lessons out of the horrors of war was far outnumbered by his
brethren, who offered solace untainted by recriminations in their
churches. This was also fully appreciated by Hitler; as he told Himmler
in 1942, "if filled churches help me keep the German people quiet, then
in view of the burden of war there can be no objection to them."76
Secret police chief Reinhard Heydrich had recruited former priests
for an intelligence network that stretched as far as the Vatican, but
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 65

his scheme to infiltrate the Catholic clergy with Hitler Youth as under-
cover seminarians, who would attain leading positions in twenty years
from which they would subvert that Church—and Protestant ones in
the same way—was vetoed by Hitler, apparently out of fear that their
religious immersion would leave lasting effects.77 Rosenberg had pinned
his hopes on Reichsbishop Müller, whose nazified Evangelical Church
was to present him with a forum for his Volksreligion. Amid the dissen-
sions of German Protestantism, that project never got off the ground
either. At first the regime tried to salvage what was possible by two
contradictory tactics: denying any rift in the Protestant establishment,
yet setting up a Ministry of Church Affairs under the Prussian bureau-
crat Hanns Kerrl to force the warring factions together. 78 Later, during
the war, Nazi leaders circulated secret directives which admitted that
neither tactic had worked—if anything, the interdenominational struggle
had been exacerbated. Therefore, the regime was to reverse its strategy:
from now on it would promote, rather than stifle, dissension in Protestant
ranks. Instead of backing a Trojan-horse group to seize control of the
clerical establishment, it would make life equally difficult for all church
factions.79 Their internecine struggles were sure to reduce their hold on
individual believers, creating a gap that the Party would rush in to fill
with its credo.
Amid the twists and turns of Nazi church policy, all dictated by
expediency, Rosenberg saw the progressive frustration of his plans for a
new Nazi faith and the decline of his powers to influence the course of
events. In August 1934 he recorded his growing disenchantment with
Reichsbishop Müller, who, even through his loyal Reichskirche, still
insisted on going through the motions of a religious leader. What irked
Rosenberg particularly was that Müller had stripped one of his officials
of all church offices for attacking the Bible at a Party rally in Berlin the
previous November. After all, notes Rosenberg, the offending Dr. Krause
"was merely repeating my Mythus!" If Müllers sect looked none too
promising as a vehicle for Rosenberg's ideology, it might be better just
to have "the churches dry up" and to wait for a new medium to emerge
out of the Hitler Youth. That would not take too long, according to
Rosenberg: "In ten years the time may be ripe for a Reformer who will
remodel the churches and give them the heroic lines of our time."80 This
is the role to which he aspired.
Rosenberg was generally too preoccupied with the attacks being
directed at him from Catholic quarters, and with Hitler's failure to order
an official counterattack on his behalf, to pay much heed to sniping from
66 / Icon and Swastika

the Protestants. It came as a shock to him to find out in early 1935 that
even they "have issued half a dozen brochures against me." They were
distinctly the lesser clerical evil, their critiques "decent in form, boring
in content." Still, Rosenberg was disturbed by their display of "common
convictions" with the Vatican, and he asked sarcastically "why they don't
return to Rome, into the big sheep-pen out of which they have strayed,
to now stand around shivering."81 Whatever relief he may have felt at
the dumping of the Reichsbishop was soon dissipated by the appoint-
ment of the Church Minister in 1935. Müller at least had been an apostle
of the Mythus though, according to its author, an imperceptive one;
Kerrl was too close to the old-line Protestant leaders with whom he
sought to make the regime's peace, too disinterested in ideology to suit
Rosenberg's purposes. 82
When Rosenberg notes the fact that Kerrl is Göring's protégé, he also
implies resentment that others of the Nazi elite surpassed him in in-
fluencing religious policy. Yet 1935 marked only the first stage of that
process, capped in 1940 by Bormann's clear pre-eminence. In one of the
ironies of Nazi history, Bormann's guidelines call for the "withering" of
all Christian denominations, coming as close as official policy ever did to
realizing the first phase of Rosenberg's earlier plans.83 But the second
phase, erection of a nazified church, was no longer under serious con-
sideration by the leaders who had shouldered Rosenberg aside—al-
though he remained true to his quixotic pattern by offering yet another
proposal for a National Reich Church in January 1942, in more radical
form than anything he had suggested in the Mythus.8* If occasionally his
memoirs betray an awareness of how low his status as ideologist had
sunk, that does not seem to have discouraged him from the single-minded
pursuit of his counter-religious objectives. For instance, he shrugged off
the news that Bormann, since 1941 in sole charge of Party policy on the
churches, scrawled on the margin of the latest Rosenberg memo, "I am
not accustomed to deal with idiots."85
Before Bormann stepped into the Deputy Führers post vacated by
Hess in 1941, Rosenberg was trying to win the bureaucratic infighting
that could have raised him on the reformer's pedestal by three means:
collaborating with Müller to resurrect the Reichskirche scheme, shaming
or coercing the other denominations into falling in line behind it, and
checking the "unideological" policies of Church Minister Kerrl. First, he
rushed to the defense of Müller, despite the low esteem he had earlier
expressed for his abilities, to protest the "shabby treatment" of the
Reichsbishop at the hands of the new Ministry.86 Second, he kept up a
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 67

steady sniper s fire at the Protestant establishment for its lack of fervor
in supporting the Nazi cause. A typical passage from a speech to a Party
congress at Nuremberg in 1937 reads: 'The churches had the grand
opportunity of putting their work at the disposal of Adolf Hitler, when
the new state was being built, and of marching with him. They let the
opportunity slip, and when one does not, or will not, recognize such
chances of world history, one has oneself spoken the verdict of destiny."87
Third, he fulminated against the compromise course of Kerrl, a "sub-
altern type," whom he held responsible for the resurgence in church
strength by 1939.88
While Hess was still at Hitler's side, Rosenberg turned to him for a
sympathetic hearing of charges against Kerrl's competence. He attacked
the Church Minister, both for his imprudence in discussing the Party's
anti-Christian stand in a church journal, and for his disobedience of
Hitler's instructions by continuing attempts to weld the denominations
together in a church union. His sharpest shaft, however, was directed at
Kerrl's explanation that it would be pointless to cut off subsidies to the
churches since there was no positive substitute to take their place; this
betrayed his utter ignorance of the proper Weltanschauung, according
to Rosenberg. Furthermore, restricting Nazism to the guidance of scien-
tific research or governmental affairs, as Kerrl had suggested, would
take no account of the new belief Rosenberg had been propounding in
the past fifteen years. It would amount to leaving the field "to the
warmed-over Protestant confessions, which are crumbling apart today,"
and, in the wake of their certain failure, to letting the Catholic Church
reassert its leading role.89

BOHMANN'S DOCTRINE OF EXPEDIENCY

By the time Bormann was in the ascendancy, Rosenberg had lost his
audience in the inner circles of the regime, and it was now his turn to
come under fire.90 Bormann first took him to task for approving Müllers
project of writing "Guidelines for Religious Instruction," a draft of Party
orders to the schools. Surely Rosenberg should understand that the Party
couldn't involve itself in Christian teachings—"Christianity and National
Socialism are phenomena due to totally different basic causes. They
differ so radically from each other, it's impossible to develop a Christian
teaching that can be approved on the basis of the National Socialist
Weltanschauung, just as the Christian denominations can never agree
fully to embrace the Weltanschauung of National Socialism." In short, it
68 / Icon and Swastika

was futile to talk of a synthesis of the two faiths, in Bormann's opinion,

if only because Christian teachings had no place for "the racial question,
the question of preventing or destroying worthless life, and the [Party's]
position on marriage, as is evident from priestly celibacy as well as the
orders of monks and nuns, the dogma of the immaculate conception of
Mary, which contradicts the Germanic spirit, etc." By this time, Rosen-
berg must have been aware that his dream of a nazified church lay in
shambles. The Party would refrain from the remodeling of the churches
he had been demanding with himself as the would-be architect of a
new Reformation.
Indeed, Bormann went on to put the Party's religious policy in such
basic terms of expediency that it reduced the functions of the ideological
niche Rosenberg had carved out for himself to the menial task of a scribe.
The policy could not deal with church affairs in the broad fashion of
Müllers "Guidelines," since that "would just transfer the confessional
fight to the arena of the Party." Admittedly, as Rosenberg had pointed
out before Hess, Christian teachings would have to be replaced with
something better. But, as Bormann turned this argument around, it
meant either not doing anything to the churches until the appearance of
the new faith Rosenberg had constantly predicted or adding a few
special Nazi commandments to the biblical ten. The Decalogue itself
must not be tampered with, as Rosenberg had earlier demanded, because
"for most comrades today it represents the only guideline for their moral
conduct and for an orderly social life in the national community"—quite
an admission for a Nazi leader with no use for organized religion, and
one which Rosenberg could never have been expected to agree with. But
for Bormann even a despised faith could have its uses, if only it helped
maintain a pacified population. Here he gave a more mundane reason
to Rosenberg for tolerating religious instruction: if the Party did not do
so, it would likely be blamed for the current rise in juvenile delinquency.
The only job left was the writing of some extra commandments, for
example, for bravery, against cowardice, for the love of all animate
nature, and to keep the blood pure. Should Rosenberg accept the chal-
lenge (he never did), he could presumably busy himself with the prep-
aration of such a Nazi catechism to be imparted to all German youth.
By June 1941, a month after the departure of Hess, Bormann felt
securely enough entrenched to spell out the Party's opposition to the
churches without reservation, in a top-secret decree to all Gauleiter
entitled "The Relation of National Socialism to Christianity." 91 It opens
with the thesis that "National Socialism and Christian concepts are ir-
 Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion / 69

reconcilable." The scientific truths of the former are contrasted with the
false dogmas of the latter. From this it follows that the Party must "refuse
to strengthen existing denominations or to promote emergent ones. No
distinction can be drawn here among the various Christian confessions.
For the same reason, the proposal to erect an Evangelical Reichskirche
through a union of Evangelical churches has been irrevocably cancelled,
because the Evangelical church faces us with the same hostility as the
Catholic. Any strengthening of the Evangelical church would merely
work out to our detriment."
At this juncture of World War II, on the eve of the German invasion
of Russia, Bormann felt that the Party not only could dispense with the
services of denominations it had once sought to exploit, but also that it
no longer needed biblical injunctions to regulate a populace mobilized
for war. His decree goes on to announce:
For the first time in German history the Führer consciously and
completely has the leadership of the people in his own hand. With
the Party, its components and attached units, the Führer has created
for himself and thereby the German Reich leadership an instrument
which makes him independent of the Church. All influences which
might impair or damage the leadership of the people exercised by
the Führer with the help of the NSDAP, must be eliminated. More
and more the people must be separated from the churches and their
organs, the pastors . . . Just as the deleterious influence of astrol-
ogers, seers and other fakers are eliminated and suppressed by the
State, so must the possibility of Church influence also be totally
removed. Not until this has happened does the State leadership
have influence on the individual citizens. Not until then are people
and Reich secure in their existence for all the future.

He concludes with an admonition drawn from the "divide and rule"

principle, which symbolizes the way in which Nazi church policy had
come full circle: "The interests of the Reich do not lie in the surmounting
of factionalism in the Church, but rather in maintaining and strength-
ening it."92

CONTINUITIES OF DOMESTIC AND OCCUPATION POLICIES

The regime's tactics toward the Protestant churches thus ran the
gamut from a fifth-column attempt to seize control, to a state-sponsored
scheme to impose unity on the denominations, to interventions of the
70 / Icon and Swastika

terror apparatus to suppress the church factions that refused to be "co-

ordinated," finally to a negative neutrality toward all factions while
dissension among them was fostered behind the scenes. When the same
leadership had to address itself to the task of developing a policy to
govern Church affairs in Russian areas under Nazi occupation, it resorted
to a virtually identical arsenal of measures. Instead of following a some-
what logical sequence, however, as it had domestically, the regime mixed
its weapons arbitrarily and in a self-contradictory fashion in dealing with
the Russian Orthodox Church. In both spheres, it seemed to force the
pattern of events into confirming the expectations of its ideology,
beginning with a situation that appeared promising for exploitation but
ending up with one in which most church groups had, indeed, become
the opponents they were all along suspected of being.
In one sense, then, Nazi policy toward the Russian church groups
represents a set of reflex actions that proved inappropriate for a range of
conditions radically different from those of the domestic setting. In
another sense, the course was predetermined for the German occupation
authorities, since any departure from it, either in the direction of total
war on religion or in the form of genuine tolerance, would have upset the
balance achieved back home. Especially when it came to considering
official support of church groups, Nazi governors have indicated that
they were aware that such a move would be misconstrued as a shift in
the basic Party position, hence they shrank back. It was unthinkable, in
Bormann's view, to have the antireligious ideologue Rosenberg—by then
Minister for the East—proclaim religious freedom in the occupied areas
in May 1942.93 He apparently persuaded Hitler to reject the idea because
of the storm of protest that might have been expected from German
churches not getting the benefits proffered by Rosenberg to his Russian
subjects.
The preceding survey of Nazi domestic religious policy indicates the
palette of options available to occupation authorities in the Russian
territories; two other factors that determined the particular policy mix
selected for the areas under their separate jurisdictions must also be
considered. First, each German official to some degree was guided by the
overall goals of occupation policy, of which the regulation of religious
life was only a minor part. Second, of much more direct relevance to his
administrative behavior in this field, he had to accommodate the interests
of the Party or special state agency that he served. These had a two-fold
bearing on his decisions of church questions: he had to consider whether
each decision could be rendered in a way that would facilitate his fulfill-
 Nazi Ideobgy and Administrative Practice on Religion / 71

ment of key assignments, and he was drawn to adopt a positive course

of action which was most likely to enhance the power of his office and
agency vis-à-vis that of his rivals.
The fluid conditions of the occupation were even more conducive than
those of the domestic setting had been to the development of informal
lines of authority and the clash of bureaucracies arrayed about rival
leaders. Each subordinate official quickly became attuned to this con-
stant competition for pre-eminence, playing for progressively higher
stakes the closer his status to the inner circles of Party and state. He
soon learned to discount ideology and the theoretical bases of policy as
crucial factors in the resolution of problems and instead, to invoke them
in order to secure a tactical advantage for the position of his office at the
expense of others. To some extent the contradictions in policy were an
inevitable consequence of the pervasive power struggle among the
occupation agencies. Frequently they were also deliberately staged as
tests of strength between bureaucracies with intersecting fields of
authority, of which there were at least seven involved in the administra-
tion of Russian Church affairs.
 4
G e r m a n Policy T o w a r d
the O r t h o d o x C h u r c h :
The Minister versus
the C o m m i s s a r

If German policies toward the Church in the occupied Russian terri-

tories were beset by inconsistency, contradiction, and petty bureaucratic
bickering, they only reflected in microcosm the conflicting aims of the
Nazi drive eastward. Grandiose dreams of the past decade had en-
visioned an empire in which millions of bovine Slavic subjects existed
for the greater glory of the Third Reich. The native population proved of
no practical use to military and civil administrators, for whom they were
at best a mass to be squeezed dry of labor and foodstuffs and at worst a
rabble to be ruled at gunpoint. Local officials, as members of agencies
with overlapping areas of jurisdiction, also found themselves caught up
in the feuds of their chiefs. Any long-range political objectives were
soon lost sight of as each satrap competed for quick successes that could
aid his scramble for advancement and the enlargement of his pre-
rogatives.
On the ideological level, Nazi leadership never came to terms with the
realities of Soviet Russia. The daily life of the people and their problems
had little relevance for the rhetoric of Hitler and the man he selected in
April 1941 to be Commissar for Questions on the East European Space,
Alfred Rosenberg.1 Considerations at that airy level centered on the
mystical concept of the Ostraum. This term carried much more than the

72
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 73

connotation of a strategic factor; it also connoted an ambivalence in

which fear of the Russian hordes mingled with longing to turn their vast
resources to German advantage: the borderlands to be a giant buffer
zone against Asiatic invasion, the inhabitants shifted like pawns to
facilitate their submission, their labors to bear trains of luxuries to the
tables of the master race.
In the books of the Nazi planners, German domination of Russia rested
on the circular logic of racism and the inexorable demands of national
destiny. If this was cloaked in the language of eighteenth-century
colonialism, there was, nevertheless, no complementary understand-
ing that civil servants would have to be trained for their adminis-
trative posts in the East, nor any recognition of responsibilities toward
the future subjects in something like a "white man's burden." Simple
application of Teutonic force would suffice to yield one-way benefits.
In Mein Kampf Hitler had already pointed at the course of German
expansion eastward as the means to satisfy Germany's need for enough
Lebensraum to provide permanent security.2 Shortly after the invasion
of Russia, he translated his plans into the terms of classic imperialism.
"What India was for England, that the Ostraum will be for us," he
declared, specifying Russia's future functions to consist of supplying the
Reich with food and other "useful articles."3
In the context of Nazi colonialism, a faithful party Gauleiter became
ipso facto qualified as a Generalkommissar administering the entire
Ukraine or Belorussia, and an ideologist like Rosenberg qualified to take
complete charge of the Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories or
Ostministerium, in July 1941.4 This was a rationale conducive to fanciful
estimates of Russian social forces. When it came to religious policy, for
example, the preconceptions of German officials led them to assume that
they would be dealing with some sort of primitive tribal rite. As Rosen-
berg assured Hitler, it did not have to be taken seriously, this "oriental
custom with nice songs," which amounted to little more than "fetishism."5
German administrators could afford to be indulgent about such practices;
they might even be fostered as a means of keeping Slavic subjects trac-
table. The pattern of cynicism had been established by Hitler for Poland
in his 1940 strategy sessions: "Polish priests will receive food from us
and will, for that very reason, direct their little sheep along the path we
favor . . . If any priest acts differently, we shall make short work of him.
The task of the priest is to keep the Poles quiet, stupid, and dull-witted.
This is entirely to our interests."6
74 / Icon and Swastika

The colonialist analogy soon proved irrelevant to day-to-day adminis-

trative tasks of the occupation. The oversimplified guidelines based on
it were of little use to an official deciding which one of several rival
religious associations to license or whether to grant subventions to a
pro-German church. Prewar Nazi planning had set up a model in which
superior force shuffled inert groups of subjects at will. When the dust
had settled behind the first wave of German panzers, however, there
were neither sufficient staffs of administrators available to pursue policies
except at critical points in the rear areas, nor did the population take
readily to its preordained status of subservience. The early master plans
of Rosenberg had foreseen an empire of small dependent states carved
out of Russia, with "depopulated Slavs" displaced in key regions by
German settlers.7 Once the occupation was under way, publication of
such partitioning schemes would only serve to stiffen the resistance of a
population already antagonized by economic extortion and political
repression, as the Wehrmacht's propaganda branch pointed out.8
The empire builders shelved their projects for the duration when the
requisitioning agents and SS squad leaders took command of the occu-
pied Russian territories. The subtlety of long-range designs was lost on
administrators pressing immediate aims under conditions of total mobil-
ization. If their operations required theoretical justification, it was pro-
vided by the pragmatic rule: any measure has to yield the maximum
gain to the Reich's military-economic power for the minimum expendi-
ture of human and material resources. In the Russian case this amounted
to instant exploitation, as suggested by Rafael Lemkin's classification of
European territories under Nazi rule: ( 1 ) the so-called "German lands"
like Austria were absorbed under the pretext that "we're only taking
back what belongs to us"; ( 2 ) in relatively nonstrategic countries such
as Denmark, cooperation was "forced" through existing social institutions
with German supervision in crucial areas; ( 3 ) "despoliation" was applied
to territories like Poland, where little collaboration could be expected;
( 4 ) the Ukraine and other parts of Russia were unmitigatedly exploited
as Interessengebiete (interest areas), where "the main task of the
occupying power is to draw . . . raw materials, food and labor," since no
indigenous elements were deemed fit to participate in the organization
of central governments.9 The propinquity of the former Soviet areas to
the front and their links to a nation whose government kept transmitting
calls for resistance furnished added reasons for an ironclad set of Nazi
controls. For the population the system amounted to a virtually un-
relieved state of siege.
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 75

Whatever small part Orthodox Church leaders had hoped to play in

the imperialist script of Rosenberg's ministry was gradually trimmed off
by the regional and district commissars who directed the local occupa-
tion dramas. In Berlin the order of priorities had reserved a low but
positive function for churchmen; among the daily pressures of the field
there was less and less concern for such factors bearing on popular
morale. It was of little import to Nazi commissars whether laborers were
loaded onto cattlecars bound for Germany willingly or not, or whether
farmers yielded up their produce to armed squads with a smile. Within
a few months of the invasion, the authorities increasingly relied on force,
rather than persuasion, as the instrument of rule. Russian clerics, like the
nationalist leaders of the Ukraine and Belorussia, found themselves no
longer singled out for special treatment but lumped with the population
at large, randomly suspect of potential rebellion. Both groups thus found
themselves deprived of the middle ground they needed to survive,
because by official standards any neutral force was an enemy in disguise.
They were left with the dismal choice of collaborating with a despised
regime that had no use for them, and losing their following in the
process, or taking up with the partisans and leaving their flocks leader-
less.
The majority of the cultural elite appear to have circumvented the
dilemma by combining lip-service collaboration with inner resistance,
as will be seen in Chapter 6. They temporized in the hope that rendering
the smallest possible service required by the authorities for survival
would not compromise them in the people's eyes. At times they did so in
the desperate belief that Nazis and Soviets would mutually annihilate
each other and that in the ensuing anarchy, like that of the post-World
War I period, a third force might prevail.10 Even so, churchmen and
nationalists were left with the problem of searching among the myriad
agencies of the German occupation to find one willing to purchase their
token support. None seemed notably eager on any terms, at least until
the waning months of the war, when Nazi leaders were re-evaluating
their forces in the light of disastrous defeats. Still, there were degrees to
this unwillingness; on closer examination, German bureaucratic hier-
archies disclose a spectrum with varying intensities of anti-Russian atti-
tude. Some of the less intransigent, though they were also the most
impotent, offered half-hearted collaborators terms they could live with.
As they became aware of the rivalries that existed among these com-
peting structures, priests and nationalists could become adept at playing
one off against another—though admittedly their leverage was minimal—
76 / Icon and Swastika

and gain a toehold for survival in the spaces left by conflicting direc-
tives.
German policy in the occupation of Russia was mainly refracted
through the following structures. The first, led by Hitler, Bormann, and
Erich Koch, Reichskommissar for the Ukraine, barred the Russian people
from participation in the "New Order," since such Untermenschen were
not fit to assert any rights; this attitude was largely shared by Himmler's
SS, especially its Einsatzgruppen (breach troops), charged with exter-
minating Jews and certain other categories of the population, though it
did permit a select few collaborators to don its black shirts. Next were
the economic agencies, like those in charge of farming and forced labor,
intent on little beyond the most efficient exploitation of their subjects.
Then came the Ostministerium, which saw the enemy as the Kremlin
and the Great Russian people and, therefore, was ready to enlist the
support of other Soviet nationalities; this was generally consonant with
the approach of the Propaganda Ministry, trying to win popular acclaim
for its anti-Communist message. Further along this continuum of
diminishing anti-Russian outlook stood the military commanders seeking
to secure their rear through sporadic gestures of accommodation; most
favorably inclined was the Foreign Office, whose influence evaporated
as the war progressed.11
Instead of a single German policy, then, there were some seven
approaches to the administration of Russian lands. Investigation of the
specific decisions in the religious field can be pursued along these lines,
but none of them constitutes a policy—a reasoned and consistent course
of action—so much as it does a shorthand account of directives that
served as afterthoughts of the staffs and factions within them intent on
advancing their statuses. Organization tables of the occupation hierarchy
introduce a false note of bureaucratic rationality into the picture. The
fundamental layer consisted of medieval fiefs which the retinues of Nazi
officials claimed for themselves, where staff and line authority stood for
little. What mattered was the personal connection each could trace to
the camarilla surrounding the Führer. By the arbitrary favor of this
court, subordinate could dictate to chief, a government minister be
consigned to the futile job of issuing unanswered memoranda. In an
attempt to gain that favor, an isolated overlord like Rosenberg could
and did reverse positions repeatedly—a foredoomed quest, since mili-
tary-economic necessities had overtaken political considerations in the
first year of the occupation.
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 77

RUSSIAN ORTHODOXY I N THE THIRD REICH

Political factors had played a role in the schemes that attracted the
Nazi leadership three or four years before the invasion of Russia. Even
then, however, the projects did not allow for the future expression of
popular aspirations. The reading of social realities drew on the wishful
counsels of 1918 vintage émigrés, the die-hard variety that had embraced
Hitler in his fledgling days in Munich. Typical was the plan to build up
an organization of Orthodox clerics in Germany for eventual use as a
fifth column to take over the Church within Russia. By 1938, the regime
had gone so far as to erect in Berlin a fine new Russian cathedral, which
"was becoming a beacon for all the Orthodox in Europe, especially for
Soviet refugees." 12 In addition, nineteen other Orthodox churches in the
Reich had recieved government funds for repairs.
The man chosen by the psychological warfare strategists to captain
this project was a figure of curious antecedents and abilities, equally
fluent in German and Russian: Archbishop Seraphim, also known by his
German name, Lade. According to a Swiss source, Seraphim had been
converted to Orthodoxy in Russia and, after his deportation by the
Soviets, had surfaced in Germany as an anti-Bolshevik propagandist. 13
He owed his investiture in the "Living Church of the Ukrainian Reno-
vators" to a Russian émigré newspaper in Paris, Poslednye Novosti, but
had yet to find a legitimate Orthodox Church body to certify his
episcopal rank. Undeterred by his checkered past, the Nazis named him
"Leader" of all Orthodox in the Third Reich and in all the territories it
controlled. His authority as Bishop of Berlin and Germany was even-
tually confirmed by the Karlotvtsi Synod, the monarchist émigré church
center in Yugoslavia.14
The advent of Operation Barbarossa found Seraphim ready to repay
his German sponsors. In an "Appeal to All Russian Believers" on June 22,
1941, Seraphim exhorted the faithful of his homeland to join Hitler's
"crusade against the enslavers of Russia" and to do away with "the Red
devils."15 The singular lack of response to his appeal was matched by the
reluctance of churchmen in areas quickly overrun by German arms to
put themselves under his jurisdiction. The German seizure of western
Poland two years before had marked the apogee of his power, for he had
then been able to pressure the Orthodox metropolitan of Warsaw,
Dionisius ( Valedinski ), into submission.16 It had proved a short-lived
victory, however, because in September 1940 the German governor of
78 / Icon and Swastika

Poland, Hans Frank, buttressed his own power base by restoring eccle-
siastical sovereignty to Dionisius in return for a pledge of civil obedience,
thus effectively pushing Seraphim out of the picture. 17
Back in Berlin, Seraphim seems to have channeled his reduced influ-
ence to shaping developments in the occupied Russian territories through
the Cultural Ministry representative on the Eastern Church 18 —a frail
reed on which to anchor his great ambitions. From time to time in the
first years of the war, a bishop of right-Ukrainian persuasion would
declare his allegiance to Seraphim, overestimating the latter's abilities
to intervene in diocesan Church feuds. 19 Seraphim had to pass up such
opportunities because the regional commissars kept him out of their
fiefs, preferring to work with local churchmen whom they could manipu-
late more directly. Toward the war's end he had become a somewhat
chastened figure, conducting services for the Ostarbeiter (forced
laborers ) and prisoners of war at their camps in the Berlin area.20
The inglorious end of Seraphim stands in marked contrast to the grand
future that appeared to lie in store for émigré clerics in prewar Nazi
councils. When the influx of Austrian and Czech believers in 1938 into
the Berlin diocese had outdistanced its available supply of priests, for
example, a German-sponsored Orthodox theological faculty was set up
in Breslau ( Wroclaw ) the following year. Its director had also come by
a circuitous route: Archimandrite Vassily Pavlovski, from the seminary
in Harbin, Manchuria, elevated to bishop by the Serbian Patriarch
Gavrilo. Thus the apparatus of a pro-Nazi church movement was primed
for subversion of Orthodoxy in the East, its prestige gilded by the reac-
tionary wing of émigré Church leadership. It had been endorsed by no
less than Metropolitan Anastasius, head of the Karlovtsi Synod, "the
most respected Russian cleric in the Balkans" at the time.21 For all its
resources and backing, however, the movement depended on a sum-
mons by German administrators in the field that never came.
The occupation authorities passed up the devious schemes of the
fifth-column advocates for functional and personal reasons. They were
caught up in a succession of immediate local crises for which more
direct, cruder methods seemed appropriate. They found little practical
use in the projects of émigrés, out of touch with a new generation of
Soviet social realities. When Hitler learned in May 1942 that former
Russian princes and politicians had assembled at the Hotel Adlon in
Berlin to press their views on some sympathetic officials from the
Foreign Office, he ordered an abrupt halt to the proceedings. 22 Less
impotent quarters than the diplomatic were made impervious to the
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 79

temptations of such gatherings by their anti-Russian bias. If they did

not subscribe entirely to the Untermensch formula and stressed the
utilization rather than the extermination of their Eastern subjects,
German policy-makers still looked only to non-Russian nationals for a
modicum of collaboration. They tended to make an oversimple equation
of Russians with Communists and therefore deferred the employment of
anti-Soviet forces under their own leaders, like General Andrei Vlasov,
until the desperate final months of the war.23

ROSENBERGS DREAM OF EMPIRE

It was hardly accidental for most German civil administrators in

Russia to despise their subjects—if only because the rulers included a
disproportionately high number of Volksdeutsche, naturally predisposed
to such an attitude. Hitler showed some understanding of the sub-
conscious self-hatred which motivated that group when he asked: "Have
you noticed that Germans who have lived a long time in Russia can
never again be Germans?" His answer was: "The huge spaces have
fascinated them. After all, Rosenberg is rabid against the Russians only
because they would not allow him to be a Russian."24 Yet it was the
same Alfred Rosenberg whom Hitler chose to head the Ostministerium,
theoretically the command post for Nazi rule of the occupied territories.
Choice of a minister afflicted, not only with psychological blind spots to
his assignment, but with a twenty-year record of ineffectual administra-
tion, would seem perverse unless it is concluded that those were the
very qualities for which Rosenberg was picked. He would command only
a staff of counsellors in Berlin, drawing a veil of legality over the brutal
political and economic actions of the field forces who did the actual
ruling.
But Rosenberg had something more than incompetence to recom-
mend him. He had also authored the grand plans for transforming the
Soviet state into a conglomeration of dependencies that could be
manipulated from Berlin. This dream of empire echoed Hitler's own and
furnished an ideological justification for the undertaking in Russia, which
was not supposed to meet with any native resistance. From the first,
Rosenberg had been convinced that a host of "friendly nationalities"
waited to do the Germans' bidding because of its hatred of the Great
Russians. As far back as 1934 he had reported to the Führer ( whom he
worshipped) on "the centrifugal forces at work in Russia," volunteering
to follow such events closely, since "one has to be ready when things
80 / Icon and Swastika

have developed far enough."25 The repressive measures of Nazi commis-

sars severed such schemes at the root, though that did not prevent Rosen-
berg's aides from trying to revive the idea by showers of memoranda.
It had become virtually a reflex for the grand strategists to advocate
their devious projects by the time the pressures of the invasion calendar
had made them obsolete. Relevant only to the embittered hopes of pro-
Nazi émigrés, such briefs were couched in terms to appeal to the pragma-
tists, promising to advance the German war effort at minimal cost. In
this vein, Arno Schickedanz, an assistant to Rosenberg who later became
his overseer for the Caucasus, in 1939 addressed a memorandum on
future policy for Osteuropa to Hans-Heinrich Lammers, chief of the
Reich Chancellery. He argued that military as well as political plans for
"the future solution of East European questions" must focus on "the
politico-psychological preparation of the population of these areas, on
the one hand to facilitate purely military action, on the other eventually
to exploit broadly the various nationalities for German interests, which
will be decisive for the future order of the entire Ostraum." He held out
high hope that Ukrainians and Belorussians would be ready "to welcome
a power that will protect them from Moscow—at the same time, helping
to secure German Lebensraum far into the East, and with their own, not
with German, blood." This was the shortcut to the "extensive destruction
of Russia, as unsuccessfully pursued by Charles XII . . . The collapse
of the Soviet paradise will come with the revival of all the national-
political forces suppressed by the Soviet regime . . . that would also be
the right moment for using both these peoples in the service of German
interests to push back Muscovy."26
The characteristics that had cast Rosenberg into the role of an
idéologue manqué before the opening curtain of the occupation drama
later made him into a natural loser to rivals heading other agencies out
for quick exploitation. He sensed the defeats ahead of him in a note of
April 2, 1941, on the "aims and methods of the future occupation of the
Soviet Union."27 In order to establish a reason for the existence of his
ministry, however, he was driven to insist on the priority of its "political"
mission and to decry a policy determined solely by "military-economic
necessities." Here he admitted the importance of economic goals but
contended that only long-term ones would assure a steady flow of mate-
riel from Russia for use on the Western front. The unspoken implication
is that, if stripping and pillage were to yield to more sophisticated forms
of exploitation, the Ostministerium, as the only available center for
political coordination, would have earned for itself a leading part.
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 81

When it comes to religion, Rosenberg was moved by the same con-

figuration of motives to paint great opportunities in strokes of extreme
caution. The policy was framed in a way that provided full employment
of Ostministerium officials, since they were only to support select
denominations that intensive screening had indicated would be the aptest
vehicles for anti-Russian exploitation. The complications are emphasized
in Rosenberg's memorandum of April 29, 1941: "Church questions
throughout the East are of varying nature and require careful treatment
in regard to their history, present legal condition, and the relations we
desire to achieve in the future." 28
The following month, Rosenberg lectured his future Reich commissars
on the federative empire of puppet states he planned to carve out of
Russia. "In the field of church policy," he stated in a section deleted
from the final draft, "tolerance edicts may guarantee freedom of purely
religious belief, although without any assumption of governmental
responsibility for it. Here, too, we will have to take measures that reflect
the varied conditions of each Reichskommissariat."29 Rosenberg may
have retracted these sentences because he had second thoughts about
the domestic repercussions of issuing even semiofficial declarations of
tolerance for occupied areas when the regime had never admitted such
rights at home.30 It was over a year before such an edict finally appeared
—and then it was in the hands of the regional commissars—to enhance
their powers rather than Rosenberg's. But before discussing this further,
it would be well to summarize the position in which the Ostminister saw
himself progressively isolated at his headquarters, the former Yugo-
slavian Embassy on the Rauchstrasse in Berlin.
A thumbnail sketch of Rosenberg during the occupation period would
have to begin with the judgments of postwar commentators that this was
a minor figure with "ambitions and hopes out of proportion to his
talents."31 Though it is quite true that he suffered from "too much
thinking, too little commanding,"32 this is only half the story. The two
men whom Hitler selected to do the actual governing—Erich Koch in
the Ukraine, Hinrich Lohse in the remaining areas lumped together as
the Ostland—had been party Gauleiter in their own right. With the
Führers tacit consent, they lorded it over their private empires, for-
bidding their subordinates to receive the Ostministerium's deputies and
not bothering to call on their nominal chief during rare visits to Berlin.
Under such circumstances it is small wonder that Rosenberg hardly ever
ventured into the occupied area and that his field trips were brief, cere-
monial affairs.33 Rather than risk being snubbed by underlings who out-
82 / Icon and Swastika

stripped him in power because of their entree to Hitler and Bormann,

Rosenberg nursed his injured pride behind his Berlin desk.
From his paper throne, Rosenberg could for a time console himself
with a twin set of delusions: first, if Hitler would only listen to his
proposals, he would be convinced of their excellence, succumb to the
cameraderie of the old Munich days, and put the Ostminister into his
deserved place of precedence; second, if he tacked the course of his
policy to draw alongside that of the other agencies involved in the
occupation, he could form a combination formidable enough to bring
his subordinates to heel. At the end of two years, both hopes lay
shattered. The intervals between visits to the Führer lengthened. Rosen-
berg saw him three times after the invasion in 1941, three more times in
1942, and then at a disastrous final session on May 19, 1943.34 With each
conference, it became more evident that Hitler had no patience for
Rosenberg's grand schemes; he turned the occasions into schoolboy
lectures on the need to learn from the "practical experiences" of brutal
commissars like Koch instead of criticizing them. Temperamentally in-
capable of accepting this rejection from his leader, Rosenberg blamed
his troubles on Himmler and Bormann for having turned Hitler against
him.35
In his second vain endeavor, the search for bureaucratic allies, Rosen-
berg showed that, persistent as he might be in his loyalties, he was
inconsistent in his policies. Time and again he sought to make common
cause with rival officials, ready to trade key parts of his program for
their support. Even his nemesis, Himmler, was pursued as a possible tool
to put Koch in his place. The desperate bid included an offer to have
SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger head a "political guidance staff"
in the Ostministerium in summer 1943.36 Like the other abortive coali-
tions this one crumbled, leaving Rosenberg shorn of yet another sector
of his shrunken jurisdiction. Such trades were bound to work out to his
disadvantage, since his opponents in Party, state, and secret police
apparatus held all the trumps : power, entree to Hitler's inner circle, and
an undeviating line of total exploitation of subject peoples without any
of the niceties Rosenberg wished to observe.
The man who had begun his ministerial career with a policy premised
on winning the allegiance of his Russian subjects had shifted his ground
so much by July 1944 that he endorsed the so-called "Hay Action," an
abortive SS plan for "reducing the biological potential" of the Slavs by
abducting all children between the ages of ten and fourteen. 37 Even this
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 83

kind of reversal could not change Hitler's rejection of him as a "senti-

mentalist" nor persuade the hard-line officials that they had any need of
him. By October 1944, self-delusion had finally given way to despair,
and Rosenberg tendered his resignation to the Führer. 38 The last act was
as anticlimactic as those foregoing: there was no acknowledgment of the
resignation letter, and Rosenberg stayed on till the end, surrounded by
stacks of his unanswered memoranda.

EVOLUTION OF THE "TOLERANCE EDICT"

A typical excursion by Rosenberg, the paper warrior, is described in

his attempts to produce a workable system to regulate religion in the
occupied Russian territories. This labyrinthine quest occupied the better
part of a year, during which his staff labored over sixteen draft proposals
and endless revisions, only to accede to Bormann's pressure and have
authority under the final "Tolerance Edict" of June 1942 end up in the
hands of local commissars.39 It had begun as a fairly simple idea: to
incidentally stake out an area for the Ostministerium's jurisdiction. It
ended up as a cumbersome legal document erecting a licensing pro-
cedure to keep church associations geographically limited and politically
impotent. To Russian believers under German rule, this meant another
set of Nazi restrictions—and, over an activity conducted freely for the
past year, cause for resentment rather than the gratitude expected in
Berlin.
The initial call for religious toleration might be thought to have stuck
in the throat of a man like Rosenberg, who had inveighed so long and
loudly against the organized religions of Germany. He appears to
have made up his mind, however, that such negative attitudes would be
out of place in his new position as would-be lord of empire in the East.
Indeed, he seems to have convinced himself that he had actually issued
"a special church tolerance' edict" in 1941, though he could produce no
evidence to substantiate this claim at his Nuremberg trial.40 At the outset,
the project was overlaid with wishful thinking. A simple expression of
the Reich's benevolence was expected to bring churchmen to the Nazi
cause, as Hitler's first speeches had once persuaded right-wing émigrés
to subsidize the Völkischer Beobachter under Rosenberg's editorial guid-
ance. In this spirit, an early draft of the edict confined itself to the
following three provisions: "1. All residents of the occupied eastern
territories are guaranteed freedom of religious belief. 2. Persons who
84 / Icon and Swastika

share the same religious belief are given the right to form religious
associations. 3. Implementing orders will be issued by the Reich Minister
for the Occupied Eastern Territories."41
A universalistic declaration on this order might have led to a propa-
ganda victory for the German administration if it had been issued
early enough; but before it could be launched it was scuttled from four
directions. First came Rosenberg's own reservations toward the Catholic
and pro-Russian Orthodox denominations, for whom intolerance and
repression were in store. Next, the scheme was punctured by objections
of the Ostministerium departments heads, who became embroiled in
controversies over such details as appropriate forms for registering each
church, how the political reliability of its membership could be ascer-
tained, and what civil code provisions were relevant to its property
holdings.42 Third, Bormann took the opportunity on April 3, 1942, to
hurl a missile at the now legalistically embellished draft in the shape
of a ten-page critique that proved he could beat Rosenberg's bureaucracy
at its own game. After seizing on a number of oversights in the draft,
such as its lack of guidance on how to dispose of the property of a
church which had been denied a license, Bormann twitted Rosenberg
with the question: was it right for a Reich Ministry in the midst of war
to occupy itself with registering the tiniest sect and scrutinizing each of
its budgets? Finally, the stillbirth of the project was being assured by
the ongoing programs of the secret police and the other agencies engaged
in the occupation, whose inhuman approach was driving the potential
quislings Rosenberg's scheme had counted on into isolation or deter-
mined opposition to the Germans.
In regard to the first factor, Rosenberg had made clear all along that
he had no intention of suspending his anti-Catholic and anti-Russian
biases in formulating a tolerance edict. Its positive features were exclu-
sively intended to benefit churches hostile to the Moscow Patriarchate—
mainly nationalist factions in the Ukraine and, to a lesser degree, in
Belorussia. But each of these two major provinces under occupation also
contained sizable groups of Catholics—concentrated in the western
regions, and in the Ukraine predominantly affiliated with Uniate
churches that combined Slavonic rites with allegiance to the Pope. In
them Rosenberg recognized his natural enemies. Any extension of their
influence would encroach on his sphere for manipulation.
These considerations already dominated the policies Rosenberg
sketched out on May 7, 1941, before he had any Russian territories to
administer.43 He begins by referring with trepidation to a "large instruc-
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 85

tion center for Ukrainians in the Vatican, trying to strengthen Catholic

influence in the Ukraine." Then he takes note of the traditional bonds to
the Kremlin that have made the Orthodox churches in the Ukraine "an
immensely strong tie for Russian imperialism." Both of these elements, he
cautions, should be borne in mind by his future commissars to avoid
supporting any church that might turn out to be a two-edged sword in
their hands. Their first step must be to survey thoroughly "how much
churchdom has been stamped out" in their domain. Then, they are to
tread a narrow middle road, "neither reactivating the repressed church-
dom nor continuing the Bolshevik stand on religious extermination."
The paramount aim of the officials is to maintain the upper hand, not to
set in motion forces they will be unable to control. Rosenberg rec-
ommends permitting "confessional associations . . . but without govern-
mental support" to prevent churches from growing to the stature of
national political centers, while leaving German officials free to switch
their backing to rival groups who might prove more pliable. Finally, it
is axiomatic for him that "church possessions are the property of the
state" and that "the German Reich . . . will have to decide whether and
when new confessional arrangements are to be allowed."
As Soviet experience had shown, a social institution with latent
political force, such as the church, had first to be depoliticized—purged
of its traditional web of associations—before it could be converted into
a tool of the regime. For Rosenberg, drafting a policy for the occupation,
the lesson translated itself into a de-Russification program for the
Ukrainian Church: "The basic rule must be that the language of all asso-
ciations be exclusively Ukrainian and that all priests belong to the
Ukrainian populace." While that church, like the one in Belorussia and
in the Baltic states, could be cut down to size by ethnic-denominational
barriers, churches in the "parts inhabited by the Russians" were to be
fragmented horizontally, along geographical lines. They were to be
restricted to local associations, severed from the upper layers of their
hierarchies.
A year later, in May 1942, Rosenberg submitted Draft Number 16 of
the Tolerance Edict to Lohse and Koch, his commissars for the Ostland
and the Ukraine, and in the letter of transmittal showed a bland assump-
tion that he could still put into effect his multifaceted religious policy to
the last particular. 44 The letter's imperious tone betrays no doubt that the
Ostministerium lacked vital data on any of the myriad sects in the
occupied territories, as well as any awareness that it had insufficient
power to implement its schemes in every locality. Rosenberg announces:
86 / Icon and Swastika

"We have been acting from the viewpoint that there must be no religious
associations in the occupied territories which might somehow, by means
of pastoral action, build up political configurations directed against the
German administration." The "eastern peoples" would have only priests
who belonged to their nationality and not to "universalistically inclined
churches and religious associations." Specifically, this meant fragmenting
the Baltic Protestants along ethnic lines and Belorussian believers by
denomination, and keeping Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches in
check.
Rosenberg goes on to provide for every eventuality in the case of the
Ukraine, where German policy is to plumb the depths of deviousness
by countering "the domination of the Russian Orthodox Church" with
an insurgent nationalist wing, the Autocephalous Church, but to guard
against pitfalls in the process. As he puts it: "We expect the Auto-
cephalous Church to become a rallying point of many Ukrainian
nationalists. I don't see any danger in that, since that would give us the
best opportunity to keep an eye on them. It might even be advisable to
include them on the church councils, so that they can in this way work
off their energies on churchly matters."45 For the project not to backfire,
German officials would have to render their support surreptitiously. And
in order to undercut the position of the metropolitan who headed the
Autocephalists they were backing, the commissars had to circumvent him
and deal directly with his bishops. Any religious strife that follows such
machinations was of no great concern to Rosenberg, "as long as the
commissars do not let it be expressed in ways that are harmful to the
economy." His conclusion, couched in the naive terms that equate his
pronouncements with accomplished fact, declares: "The new order in
agricultural relations and the granting of religious freedom are the basis
for popular leadership in the East."
What Rosenberg had not foreseen was that when German promises to
remove Soviet controls in key fields such as agriculture and religion
merely brought in their wake new sets of repressions, the popular mood
of frustrated optimism would turn to vengeful bitterness. Thus Rosen-
berg had stirred the hopes of Latvian cultural leaders in a speech of
May 15,1942, by declaring: "It will be the task of German leadership in
the future to create the prerequisites for popular cultural activities in
the course of time. If, for example, the Reichskommissar for the Ostland
soon issues an order to regulate the question of the legal rights of
religious organizations, thereby religious toleration will be restored as
the natural basis for the internal life of the liberated people by an action
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 87

of the German administration against the antireligious Soviet system."46

The actual text of the Tolerance Edict issued on June 19 showed that, in
the practice of German officials, regulation was to outweigh toleration.
All religious organizations were required to register at the office of the
district commissar, who could remove any member on their roster if
there were "doubts of a general political nature about him." Further,
"religious organizations and their local and higher organs" were ad-
monished "to restrict their activities to the execution of religious tasks,"
under penalty of fines or dissolution if they were to stray from this path
or "endanger public order and safety."47
In the final analysis, the debacle of the Ostministeriums religious
policy was due not so much to its hesitancies and miscalculations as to
the fact that its implementation was entrusted to two Reich commissars
who had little use for it. Lohse, in charge of Belorussia and the Baltic
states, was too intent on pursuing his feudalistic pretensions—requisi-
tioning suitably furnished castles for himself and his staff—to concern
himself with the needs of his subjects.48 The much more formidable
Koch, whose Ukrainian domain embraced the bulk of the population,
industry, and natural resources in the occupied Russian areas, displayed
contemptuous indifference to social institutions like the church, which
might detract from his prime aims: economic exploitation and political
repression. When a Ukrainian Autocephalous Church did develop, as
Rosenberg had anticipated, Koch's reflex was to suppress it because it
might grow too powerful to dominate; he had his staff give desultory aid
to rival religious organizations as part of his standard "divide and rule"
response.49 Rosenberg protested to higher headquarters such sacrifices
of long-range policy for the sake of immediate results but, time after
time, in vain. In his Nuremberg cell, he refused to concede that his quest
had been hopeless—if only Hitler had lent a sympathetic ear to his
"proposals regarding the political and cultural autonomy of all the
peoples of Eastern Europe." 50

POLITICAL PRESSURES AND CULTURAL FORCES

Of course, Rosenberg was indulging in a self-serving exercise when,

in retrospect, he made it appear that he had lost valiantly in an attempt
to promulgate a more enlightened and humane cultural policy than that
of his rivals in the occupation hierarchy. During his term of office, he
had been ready to endorse brutal measures in principle. He had dis-
tinguished himself only by questioning whether the desired effects could
88 / Icon and Swastika

not be achieved with greater subtlety. It was small wonder that such fine
distinctions were lost on officials in the field, who were carried away by
the destructive spirit of the invasion and the Nazi racism Rosenberg
himself had fostered. One of his typical memoranda sums up the priori-
ties for administering the "Eastern Occupied Territories" in the follow-
ing terms: "The attitude of the German offices to the native population
is determined on the one hand by political and economic goals and on
the other by the attitude of the population to the Germans."51 With
reference to the second aim, he adds the caveat: "Groundless strict
measures are not desirable and are, therefore, not to be taken." There is
no evidence that such vague afterthoughts led to any perceptible easing
of the desperate conditions imposed on the subject peoples.
The local German commissars who dispensed life and death were
hardly ever of the opinion that their arbitrariness was "groundless."
Their own Ostminister had explained to them two days before the inva-
sion that they should feel no obligation to feed the Russian people from
the granary of the Ukraine. This was "a hard necessity that lies outside
any feelings," because German needs dictated that "the future will hold
very hard years in store for the Russians."52 A year later, Rosenberg had
lectured: "that thousands are badly cared for or are badly treated is
taken for granted"—followed by the cavalier assurance, "You don't have
to grow gray hairs over that." 53 If he balked at the prevalent strong-arm
methods, it was not for reasons of policy, but of expediency: "We have to
find the psychological points where we can dominate them with less
strength and get the same results as though we had a hundred police
battalions."
It was to safeguard a paper empire dependent upon long-range polit-
ical tactics that Rosenberg repeatedly wrung his hands over the other
occupation agencies that refused to see beyond "military-economic" aims
or to refine the techniques of terror he decried later at Nuremberg as
"Heydrich's methods."54 The letters he wrote in 1942 to Fritz Sauckel,
the plenipotentiary general for labor mobilization who was in charge of
the universally hated labor draft, read like the protests of a Western
humanitarian until it is realized that they merely express the indignation
of a satrap resisting encroachments on his domain. Rosenberg is dis-
mayed at the brutal seizures of men and women and even "youngsters
from fifteen years on up . . . allegedly picked up on the street, from the
market places and village festivals, and carried off." At the same time,
the Political Department of the Ostministerium was piously exclaiming,
"In the prevailing limitless abuse of Slavic humanity, recruiting methods
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 89

are used which probably have their origin in the blackest period of the
slave trade." 55
Secure in a niche protected by the camarilla around the Führer,
Sauckel could scoff at such "atrocity reports." After all, he had always fed
the foreign workers, twenty-seven million of whom he boasted of having
carted off from all Nazi-occupied territories by spring 1943; no one need
remind him that "a machine runs only as long as there is fuel."56 If
anyone were at fault here, Sauckel maintained in his rejoinder, it had to
be the Ostministerium officials not cooperating sufficiently with his staff.
The criticisms leveled by Rosenberg could hardly be expected to bring
about change, since they offered so little by way of alternative. He had
objected to labor draft methods as "not thought out and unjust," only to
commend the "cleverness" of some commissars who had seen to it that
"workers were brought to the railroad station to the accompaniment of
music as they departed for their assignments in Germany."57
The same quibbling over details and an overriding concern for his
ministry's prerogatives characterize Rosenberg's pleas to Army Com-
mander General Wilhelm Keitel for better treatment of Russian prisoners
of war, some three million of whom are estimated to have starved to
death in the German camps.58 To Rosenberg's mind, the whole affair
amounts to little more than a botched-up job of public relations: "The
camp commanders have forbidden the civilian population to put food at
the disposal of prisoners, and they have rather let them starve to death.
In many cases, when prisoners of war could no longer keep on the march
because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the
horrified civilian population, and the corpses were left."59 Once he had
gone through such perfunctory motions and seen his remonstrances
tossed aside, Rosenberg invariably fell into line, passed the offending
orders along to his staff, and, more surprisingly, even discovered ration-
alizations for the kind of crude exploitation he had resisted earlier. Thus
he finally did approve the proposed deportation of youth from occupied
territories on the grounds that "a desired weakening of the biological
force of the conquered people is being achieved."60
The superficiality of Rosenberg's divergence from the more vicious
makers of occupation policy also conceals an underlying conformity
regarding the church question. Rosenberg might have looked askance at
the rounding up of worshipers leaving churches he had intended to
exploit or, on the occasion of a priest's visit to a prisoner camp, be-
moaned the bad local publicity that leaked out.61 But, while he would
later claim in his war crimes defense to have been put off by it, he was
90 / Icon and Swastika

not at the time essentially at odds with Bormann's crass position as

expressed in 1942: "The Slavs are to work for us. Insofar as we don't need
them, they may die . . . Religion we must leave them as a means of
diversion."62 This also amounts to "toleration" of sorts. In delving
through other layers of the German administration, the "leaving" of
religion is a recurrent theme. Crucial distinctions crop up, however, in
regard to what religion should be left for—what the social context of the
church was to have been. "Religion left to the people" held a different
meaning for Rosenberg's Russians, given permits to build churches if
they manifested the proper anti-Soviet spirit, and to Bormann's Russians,
allowed to mumble prayers while being dragged off to slave-labor
camps.
Hans Koch, a former German intelligence officer whose work with
Ukrainian nationalists involved him in church affairs during the occupa-
tion, later recalled to a Harvard interviewer that "the official, Bormann-
sponsored view was that 'there is no church question.' "63 In contrast to
such a negative attitude toward indigenous institutions—letting any-
thing that was of no immediate use perish—Rosenberg addressed the
following words to a meeting of army commanders: "the position of the
Church in the north and middle occupation districts is absolutely posi-
tive [potentially pro-German]—till now there has been little use made
of it."64 This was said in January 1943; but nine more months passed
before the fading German fortunes of war combined with the news of
Stalin's September reception of Metropolitan Sergius in the Kremlin to
erode the adamant stand of Nazi leaders opposed to open collaboration
with the Orthodox churches. They now permitted the convocation in
Vienna of a special conference of eight Orthodox bishops led by that
faded white hope of the fifth-column advocates, Seraphim of Berlin.
The reaction among churchmen in the occupied territories to such
belated attempts to revive the appeals of the Karlovtsi Synod was
exemplified by the Orthodox head in the Baltic, Metropolitan Sergius the
Younger. He thought the proposed alliance between Church, monarchist
councils, and Nazis would be disastrous because "the Bolsheviks would
depict it as if the émigré bishops were utterly subservient tools of
Germany policy."65 The same circumstances that had produced the
Vienna conference were yet to cause eleventh-hour reversals of German
policy in the two major provinces under occupation. The spring of 1944
witnessed church councils of Belorussian as well as Ukrainian Autoce-
phalous clerics, or at least of the handful that could be hurriedly assem-
bled by the retreating Germans to make meaningless declarations of
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 91

unity in the anti-Soviet cause. The Belorussian council in Minsk was

held after three years of consistent repression by the Ostland Commis-
sariat of nationalists who had steered the movement for church auton-
omy.66 A similar air of unreality pervaded the council in Warsaw, where
fleeing representatives of the two main Ukrainian Church factions that
the German Commissariat had deliberately kept at loggerheads till then
were exhorted to unite. 67 Even at this low point in their fortunes, they
were kept apart by disputes over precedence.
The Ostministerium was behind these last-ditch attempts to salvage
whatever possible of its earlier plans for non-Russian, anti-Soviet insti-
tutions on which to erect a German puppet empire in the occupied
territories. But the end had been lost sight of in the face of the Red
Army advance, and the means came to hand only because the Gestapo
had dropped its disdain of them. Nationalists in churches and elsewhere,
rejected as untrustworthy and unnecessary partners in the power of the
occupation authorities, suddenly looked attractive as a rear guard that
might help stave off defeat. The re-evaluation was based on expediency,
as a letter from the SS liaison to Rosenberg makes clear: "We should
establish closer relations to use the Church for our ends. Since the
Orthodox religion is alien to Germany, it will have no bad results here
[unlike Bormann's and Rosenberg's initial fears]. We should encourage a
union of the [Ukrainian] churches, as this would lead to a depolitization
of religion, whereas now the conflicting groups use the religious conflict
as a screen. Religion is per se a pacifying factor." 68 Such unanimity be-
tween security police and Ostministerium views might have drastically
altered the course of German church policy if achieved at the onset of
the occupation. Coming as it did in June 1944, it was too little and too
late to have any practical consequence.

KOCH'S UKRAINIAN DOMINION

Erich Koch, Reichskommissar for the Ukraine, was technically sub-

ordinate to Rosenberg, whose ministry had been charged by Hitler with
administering all the "eastern territories." But in effect, the power of the
lieutenant outclassed that of his chief. The informal lines of organization
that Koch would use to construct his well-nigh invulnerable position in
the occupation hierarchy were already forged at the meeting in which
Hitler decided his appointment.
As recorded with evident satisfaction by Bormann, the session of
July 16, 1941, began with a lecture by Hitler directed at Rosenberg,
92 / Icon and Swastika

Goring, General Keitel, and State Chancellery head Hans-Heinrich Lam-

mers on the secret aims of German policy in Russia.69 Strategic areas,
such as Galicia and the Crimea, were to be "Germanized," the population
to be displaced by Aryan settlers, and the remaining Russians to be im-
pressed into a permanent slave empire. In the Führers voracious figure
of speech, "the basic problem is to split up the giant cake into bite-size
portions, so we can first dominate, second administer, third exploit it."
Rosenberg rose in alarm to defend the political mission of his ministry,
with its positive assignment for non-Russian people, the worthiest of
whom would be chosen to serve as aides of their German masters. Each
Reichskommissariat, he contended, had to treat its subjects differently.
In the Ukraine, particularly, this meant that the Germans had "to appear
as protectors of culture," found a university in Kiev, reawaken the
people's "historical consciousness," and even "promote certain strivings
for independence." The coldness of the other Nazi leaders to such
projects was expressed in the curt rebuttal of Goring, not in his capacity
as air force chief but as director of the Four-Year Plan for the Economy.
Our immediate aim, he reminded Rosenberg, is "to secure our food
supply"; everything else on the occupation agenda would have to be
deferred indefinitely. Then he turned aside Rosenberg's nominee for the
Ukrainian post and submitted Koch as the man with "the best drive and
preparation for the job." Hitler's perfunctory approval of Koch sealed the
issue.
The new commissar of the richest agricultural and industrial province
of the occupied territories launched a campaign of gross repression in
the Ukraine, with his flanks fully protected. When he curtly informed
his staff, "I will draw the very last out of this country. I did not come to
spread bliss,"70 he was justifying the faith of his sponsor, Goring. When
he lumped his subjects indiscriminately with other Slavic peoples as fit
for nothing but enslavement, he could call on an even more potent
protector, Martin Bormann, who proved always ready to intercede with
Hitler on Koch's behalf. By the time Rosenberg managed to see the
Führer to argue preferential treatment for Ukrainians, he met only
rebukes for his own "softness."71
In addition to his personal tie to Bormann, Koch could maintain a
direct line to his superiors in the party hierarchy by retaining the post
of East Prussian Gauleiter (provincial Party chief) that he had occupied
since 1928. This offered him two opportunities: first, easy access to
Hitler's wartime headquarters; second, a convenient source for like-
minded staff members to replace the relatively "liberal" specialists fur-
nished him by the Ostministerium.72 Koch's ruthless rule also earned the
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 93

admiration and support of the security forces under Himmler, as well as

of the agents conducting the labor draft and agricultural requisitions.
While Rosenberg could only dream of empire, Koch earned the epithet
Grossherzog (Grandduke) Erich by lording a realm from the Baltic to
the Black Sea.73
If Rosenberg was to obtain a modicum of implementation for his
decrees on the occupied territories it would have to come from Lohse,
his own nominee to govern the Ostland, that is, the Baltic and Belo-
russian areas—not that this Reich commissar had greater respect than
Koch for his impotent chief, but just that he also looked on his subjects
as possible collaborators rather than as mindless slaves. Lohse, however,
had none of Koch's contacts, executive abilities, or unyielding deter-
mination. In the minor part he did play, there was, furthermore, none of
Rosenberg's hatred for the Russians and for institutions carried over
from the Soviet era. "It doesn't matter whether we use the old Bolshevik
or the new Nazi economic forms," he told his staff. "What counts is
which ones deliver the most."74
When both Reich commissars published an Ostministerium order,
Lohse might accept its intent but observe only the sections that suited his
pragmatic purposes; Koch tended to disregard it altogether. Thus, both
men had issued virtually identical decrees in June 1942, governing the
registration of religious groups.75 In the Ostland, some measure of
"toleration" did indeed ensue, as described in Chapter 6. The religious
revival was permitted to extend to the Russian Orthodox dioceses,
although a directive from Rosenberg's staff had earmarked them for
"opposition and eventual extinction" as "major carriers of Russian influ-
ence" in the Baltic.76 In the Ukraine, the entire spirit of the order was
negated: Koch's staff at first dismissed the issue as another of Rosen-
berg's ridiculous attempts to enhance the image of the German adminis-
tration, then frustrated the efforts of any church that showed signs of
developing into a genuine popular force. Such a response ran true to
form for an officialdom that had nothing but contempt for its subjects,
and for a man like Koch, who could hurl away the traditional bread and
salt offered by a village delegation with the snarl that it was an insult
to dare to offer gifts to a German dignitary.77

UNTERMENSCHEN AND THEIR BELIEFS

Rosenberg had promoted the deliberate, though often covert, subven-

tion of non-Russian cultural institutions because he intended them to
form vital links in an anti-Muscovite federation. These appeared as
94 / Icon and Swastika

dangerous vagaries in Koch's eyes: Ostministerium plans to establish a

four-year Ukrainian school system, for example, were only inviting
trouble; they would have to be sabotaged in order to keep the population
in impotent ignorance.78 Koch tackled the religious question in the same
spirit, the common denominator being his conception of all Slavic
nationals as brutish Untermenschen. This is evident from his remarks to
a staff meeting at his headquarters in August 1942: "The attitude of the
Germans in the Reichskommissariat must be governed by the fact that
we deal with a people which is inferior in every respect . . . From a
cultural point of view, we have given the Ukrainians both churches.
Further cultural work is out of the question."79 Religious organizations
could be "given" when no expenditure was entailed and because Koch
regarded them as harmless conclaves furthering the stupefaction of his
subjects.
Dependent for the implementation of his religious policy on Nazi
cadres that shared Koch's prejudices, Rosenberg could expect his most
strenuous efforts to produce at best a hollow victory. For the first year of
the occupation, he had labored to budge Hitler from snap judgment "that
church activity is entirely out of the question."80 A toleration decree had
become essential in early 1942, Rosenberg argued to the Führer, because
a spontaneous religious revival had transpired in the meantime, and by
further ignoring the issue the Germans risked being confronted with the
fait accompli of strongly entrenched church organizations. In the logic
of expediency Rosenberg used to marshall his case, "various large church
groups were organizing, but such a development could not be allowed to
proceed unsupervised; it had to be guided, so that the proposed instruc-
tions, or orders, were meant to prevent our being faced with undesired
surprises." Hitler was persuaded to lift his veto, but not before Bormann
had revised the proposed decrees to leave their promulgation to the
Reich commissars, so that any new control functions would enhance
their powers instead of Rosenberg's. In the hands of a man like Koch,
Hitler and Bormann could safely assume, the Toleration Edict would
be a mere bone to toss his subjects to make them more docile. As a
postwar German account sums it up: "The Tolerance Edict could be
passed more easily since Koch didn't interest himself in this problem
and offered less resistance to its solution. It met an enthusiastic response
from the population, especially the Orthodox clergy of the Ukraine . . .
Not the Tolerance Edict but its good results enraged Erich Koch."81
Koch may indeed have been irate at the relish with which his bare-
bones toleration was snapped up by the Ukrainians, particularly by the
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 95

nationalists among them who extracted from it what they could to

nourish their ailing cause. But it would be naive to assume that his off-
hand gesture had not been directed by ulterior motives from the start.
It seems much more likely that he found it congruent with the rationale,
stemming from the Untermenschen stereotype, that Hitler had ex-
pounded at his headquarters on April 11, 1942: "In any event . . . the
creation of uniform churches for larger Russian areas is to be prevented.
It would simply be in our interest if each village had its own sect, which
developed its own conception of God. Even if, in this way, scattered
villages form magic cults like the Negroes and Indians, we would only
welcome it, because we would only be increasing the divisive elements
in the Russian space."82
Nazi leaders who fixed the aim of the occupation in terms of maximum
exploitation at minimal cost were prone to view obstacles to its realiza-
tion in an oversimplified manner, within narrow time limits. The pre-
dominant concern of the Hitler-Bormann-Koch clique was the steam-
rolling of any resistance offered by their subjects and the discounting
of any political complications that might ensue. "Divide and rule" had
been Hitler's trusty formula for the extension of power, domestically
and internationally. Transposed to the occupied territories, the device
became the "divisive elements" formula, an attempt to disrupt all forms
of social cohesion. The toleration Hitler was finally moved to authorize
was of a specious variety to confound a Russia he had called "the most
God-obsessed state ever. Everything is accompanied by religious cere-
monies."83
Hitler's prescription, as dispensed by Koch, called for the calculated
confusion of religious life to engender a proliferation of local sects whose
squabbles would make them an easy mark for German domination. It is
in this context that Koch spoke of giving "both churches" to the Ukrain-
ians—if there had been only one, it would not have merited his charity.
Açtually, his domain embraced three major churches, the first two pre-
vailing among the peasantry: (1) the Ukrainian Autocephalous Ortho-
dox Church (known by its Russian initials as UAPTs), which sought
total independence from Moscow church authorities, use of Ukrainian
liturgy, and collaboration with radical Ukrainian nationalists; (2) the
Autonomous Ukrainian Church (or AUTs), permitting local substitution
of Ukrainian vernacular for the Slavonic liturgy it generally preferred
and favoring loose ties with the Patriarchy after it had gained its rights
by mutual consent rather than revolution; (3) a group maintaining its
allegiance to the patriarchal hierarchy, concentrated in russified cities
96 / Icon and Swastika

like Kiev and Kharkov, continuing Church Slavonic services, recognizing

Moscow's ecclesiastical authority but demanding autonomy in some
areas, and, unlike the other groups, not objecting to Russians holding
high church office in the Ukraine.84 There were also some half-dozen
minor groups, the most sizable including remnants of the so-called
Living Church and the Renovators, driven underground because of their
pro-Soviet views, as well as some surviving congregations of "Old
Believers" among the Great Russian population. 85
The resulting religious complexion of Koch's domain was so splintered
by factionalism, without even taking non-Orthodox groups like the
Uniates into account, that an effort by German officials to keep the
churches from coalescing was hardly required. The following picture
emerges from the expert testimony of Dr. Hans Koch: "[In the Ukraine]
there was no German over-all policy towards the Church. In effect, each
district commissar decided for himself. Often, perhaps too systematically
to be an accident, neighboring areas adopted contrary policies; this
seemed to be an implementation of the 'divide et impera' pattern. There
was thus an artificial effort to keep the different trends in balance so as
to prevent the unification of the population around any one of them."86
The experiences of regional church bodies, described in Chapter 6, bear
out the surmise that the contradictions of German religious policy were
indeed deliberate: invariably, official recognition was given to a church
faction that did not represent the consensus of the area.
As long as grass-roots dissension persisted, Koch did not have to inter-
vene personally in the affairs of fragmented church organizations. He
could generally rely on his aide, Joachim Paltzo, head of the Political
Section, to maintain developments at a stage of controlled unrest. 87
Paltzo's simple device was to foist unpopular bishops on recalcitrant
congregations, for such hierarchs would naturally be most pliant in the
hands of his staff. When the heads of the Autonomous and Autocephalous
Churches tried to reconcile their differences behind German backs, the
Reichskommissariat summarily vetoed their tentative agreement in Octo-
ber 1942.88 Most of the time, the clash of personalities within the
churches kept them out of negotiating distance. Koch's officials not only
managed to stay on top of a chaotic situation they had helped to foster;
they also exploited the confusion that made Ukrainian believers the most
helpless victims of draconic measures such as the labor draft, seizure of
produce, or extermination of Communists, partisans, and Jews.
Rosenberg, in his cautious way, raised "no objection to occasionally
contributing supplies for the reconstruction of churches,"89 though he
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 97

would stop short of officially backing religious organizations to avoid

identifying the Germans with a group whose prestige was an incalculable
factor. Koch did not even permit fund-raising which might promote
church interests beyond the local level. On February 19,1942, he ordered
that "no taxation for religious purposes is to be imposed. Religion is the
private affair of everyone. The cost of private matters must be borne by
the individual. Therefore, the care of Orthodox priests must be financed
by voluntary donations from those who enjoy their services."90 On May 4,
he informed Autonomous and Autocephalous Church leaders at his head-
quarters that they would have to stay out of parish policies, that churches
were not allowed to own land, and that religious instruction would be
prohibited in schools.91 Koch found it anathema to enter into paternal
relations with the Untermenschen or to expend German aid on their
churches.
Subsequent regulations by the Reichskommissariat Ukraine further
narrowed the scope of religious activity. The Toleration Edict of June
1942 was followed the next month by an order restricting ecclesiastical
organizations to individual districts.92 Four months later an edict offi-
cially dissolved the sobors, or governing councils, of both Autonomous
and Autocephalous Churches. On November 18, Koch criticized the
frequent closing of local administrative offices on weekdays that were
Orthodox holidays. He considered this "not admissible when German
holidays have been moved to Sunday to eliminate stoppages in the labor
process. The only Greek Orthodox holidays allowed are Christmas, New
Year's, and Easter."93 On November 29, the order was extended to indus-
trial and agricultural establishments. Any potential lowering of work-
man's morale and loss of productivity caused by such measures did not
concern a commissar obsessed with the day-to-day exploitation of his
subjects.
In vain did Rosenberg's office protest the "manhunt without regard to
health or age" that was being conducted with particular savagery in the
Ukraine by the labor recruiters, as well as other brutal actions of Koch's
staff which "fly in the face of all political knowledge."94 The secret
memorandum of October 25, 1942, containing these charges, also
lamented the lapses of church policy: "The religious freedom was . . .
supposed to evoke a propagandistic shock wave. However, after months
of negotiations, it was decided not to announce religious freedom offi-
cially, instead to let it occur without causing a ripple. Thus the propa-
ganda effect was generally lost." It concluded with a plea to reverse
"a policy of treating the occupied population as second-class whites,
98 / Icon and Swastika

whom providence supposedly gave as its sole task the provision of slave
labor for Germany," and called for the ouster of Koch. Hitler and Bor-
mann turned a deaf ear to such indictments, since their man in the
Ukraine was merely embodying their own views on the occupation. If
anything, the attack of the Ostministerium heightened the stature of
Koch. It made him appear as a "realistic" administrator in the eyes of the
Nazi leaders to whom Rosenberg's men were addled "romantics." In
1943, Alfred Fiedler, the SS officer whom Koch had made his deputy for
labor conscription, could still compose a public pamphlet characterizing
the Ukrainians as typical Untermenschen whose primitive mentality
called for the use of clubs.95

TWO BRANDS OF UNREAL ISM

It is interesting to note how the internal strains of the Nazi administra-

tion pushed Rosenberg and Koch into positions on church policy that
ran counter to their earlier inclinations. Rosenberg's antireligious bent
shaped his criteria in selecting officials for his new ministry. "The whole
Christian outlook makes one incapable of carrying on work in the East,
for the community of the hymnbook is put ahead of the needs of the
Reich," he wrote in July 1941.96 By May of the next year, however, he
was promoting the cause of selected church groups, such as the Auto-
cephalists in the Ukraine, as cultural barriers to Russian influence. He
went to the overoptimistic lengths of informing Hitler that "it was easily
possible that the Ukrainian church leaders would get together to elect a
Patriarch. I pointed out that this had virtually been done .. ."97 Of course,
these forecasts were wrecked by Koch's manipulation, but even without
that intervention it is hardly likely that the atheist staff of the Ostminis-
terium could have effectively come to terms with the native church
leadership.
Erich Koch, on the other hand, prided himself on his Protestant up-
bringing as well on his efforts to bring about a union of Evangelical
denominations in Germany. His memoirs, though no doubt colored by
having been composed in the Polish prison where he was undergoing a
war crimes trial, recount his nascent Marxist sympathies as a young rail-
road worker in the Rhineland and his conversion in the early 1920's to
the Nazi party because of the toleration plank in its platform.98 Identified
with the left wing of the party led by the Strasser brothers, Koch claimed
to have kept both his socialist and Christian sympathies intact during
his tenure as East Prussian Gauleiter. He had a curious way of express-
ing the socialist sympathy, for in fifteen years he had turned the stock
 The Minister versus the Commissar / 99

manipulations of his personal "foundation," the Erich Koch Stiftung,

into a fortune of four hundred million marks. His proletarian antecedents
stood him in good stead in the spring of 1945, when he refused Hitler's
order to stay at his post." They enabled him to melt into the refugee
stream that escaped the Red Army's advance into East Prussia, and to
assume the identity of the worker Rolf Berger in a Hamburg suburb
until war crimes investigators tracked him down and handed him over to
the Poles for a long deferred trial.100
Hitler's assignment of Koch to the Ukraine in 1941 seems to have
caught him unawares, uncertain at first of what course to pursue. He
attributed his selection to his successful record in pig production for the
Four-Year Plan, and maintained later that he had shown his socialist
faith by promoting sovkhoz-type agriculture in his commissariat. Again
a note of skepticism is called for, because the collective farms that were
kept in operation by the Germans, despite popular demands to dis-
mantle them, conveniently suited the conclusion of Goring that "to avoid,
as far as possible, halts in production and interruptions in the delivery of
agricultural products, the present kolkhoz system will have to be main-
tained."101 Koch put it the following way in August 1942: "The only
contribution which the indigenous population can make to its liberation
is to repay Germany by labor and food deliveries for a small part of what
Germany has sacrificed in the blood of its best sons . . . And if we are
faced with the choice of whether our fellow nationals in Germany or the
Ukrainians should starve, we certainly know which choice to make."102
Socialism to Koch meant little beyond an extension of Stalinist
methods to subjects he still considered in 1943 "too inferior to be com-
pared with the Germans,"103 since "the least German worker is racially
and biologically a thousand times more valuable than the population
around here."104 In such a perspective, religious toleration, too, could be
translated only into a cycle of repression against pro-Russian and pro-
Ukrainian church groups, as each in turn was deemed a greater threat
to total dominance by the occupation authorities. Whatever Koch's
motives when he worked for unity among the Protestant denominations
of Germany, his repressive regime in the Ukraine, grafted onto his
stereotyped view of the people, led him to reverse his tactics when
dealing with the native church factions. As late as June 1943, a secret
report of the German Propaganda Ministry confirmed that Koch "insists
on having clashes between the Autonomous and Autocephalous Ukrain-
ian Churches to prevent a unitary movement."105
Rosenberg's idée fixe was that a derussified Soviet Union, split into
national units, would welcome the hegemony of the Third Reich. This
100 / Icon and Swastika

proposition assigned an important role to popular reaction, although it

reserved for the Germans a monopoly of political initiative; its missing
middle term was the position of the Great Russians, from whom the
other nationalities were to be "liberated." Even they might not be
entirely excluded from cultural activities, as indicated by Rosenberg's
vague assertion that "Russia proper must put her own house in order."106
Attention to psychological factors disposed the Ostministerium to at-
tempt a grand gesture regarding religious liberty and, while that was in
abeyance, to milk the most propaganda value possible from whatever
gains the churches were making on their own by "circulating pictures
and stories of services showing believers, who had been brutally perse-
cuted by Bolshevism," in their refurbished quarters. 107 The morale of a
people fit only for servitude was irrelevant for the clique around Hitler,
Bormann, and Koch, whose sole standard was the maximum exploitation
of labor in which only the length of the workday and the stripes of the
taskmaster's whip were admitted as determining factors. The one mental
attribute of slaves that might be of concern was their impulse to revolt,
and the Reichskommissariat's prophylaxis for this was a divide and rule
formula based on the masters' preponderance of force.
Rosenberg's and Koch's conceptions of their subjects represent two
variants of unrealism. The Russians, treated according to the former as
feudal serfs for a future Germanic empire of the East who were to
display devotion in gratitude for circumscribed dispensations, or im-
pressed as slaves into the service of the latter, were in neither circum-
stance permitted to emerge as human beings with a right to private aspira-
tions. Thus genuine cooperation on their part was precluded by the
Germans, who thereby failed to pick up what might have been a decisive
advantage in their Eastern campaign. Resentments of the population
against their former Soviet rulers, auguring a friendly or at least hopeful
reception of the Germans at the onset of the occupation, were left largely
untapped. Soon the people had good reason to be overcome by hatred
for their new masters, who not only treated them as pawns but did so
with a ruthlessness surpassing Stalinist methods. The initial popular
consensus had been that German policy had brought significant improve-
ment at least in the life of the repressed churches. In the course of the
occupation, enthusiasm in this sphere wilted, as it had in the political
and economic areas, when news of the Kremlin's amelioration of the
Church's plight trickled through to a population disillusioned by the
arbitrariness and negativism of German policy.
 5
G e r m a n Policy Toward
the Orthodox Church:
The Ancillary Agencies

While the primary struggle over occupation policies was pitting Reichs-
minister Rosenberg against Reichskommissar Koch, five other German
agencies were also engaged in the competition for primacy in making
decisions in this area. Unlike the main contestants in the battle, these
ancillary agencies were preoccupied with missions outside the con-
quered Russian territories. But, like the protagonists, they improvised
policies to advance their status in the Nazi hierarchy, though their posi-
tions tended to array them with either the "hard-line" or "soft-line"
advocates in approaching the subject peoples. As might be expected, the
latter camp lost—just as Rosenberg had been stymied in his efforts to
upgrade the priority of cultural-political as against military-economic
goals.
To an even greater degree than it had for the Berlin Ministry or the
Ukrainian Commissariat, the religious question played a marginal role
for these agencies, hence they did not assign special staff sections to
handle it. They had not expected to encounter the problem but found it
thrust upon them. As Orthodox congregations attempted to reorganize
themselves and as church factions contended for diocesan authority, the
German official on the spot—whether commander of a security squad or
an army unit, propagandist or economic administrator—had to decide
how to steer developments in the most advantageous manner for the
accomplishment of his primary mission. In Berlin, diplomats of the
Foreign Office were also trying to have their say on this issue, since it

101
102 / Icon and Swastika

bore on the conduct of policy toward neutral states and the Vatican.
The official reactions to the Church ranged from cynical manipulation of
Gestapo detachments to the substantial help rendered by some regular
army units. These contradictory approaches allowed a resurgence of
religious life to take place, but their inconsistency and the clear edge
of the "hard-liners" in determining the course of German policy left the
population with no general feelings of gratitude for the authorities.

T H E TERROR APPARATUS

One inherent characteristic of "security organizations" in a totalitarian

state is a striving to expand their sphere of operations and prevent
intrusions from competing agencies. Such organizations force more and
more groups into the category of "enemies of the people," for without
victims the apparatus would grind to a standstill. The political police
inject the suspicion of danger into every situation facing the regime
so that its services will be required. This overemphasis of and hypersen-
sitivity to political danger runs through reports of the Einsatzgruppen,
the special extermination squads of the SS and SD that Himmler as-
sembled to liquidate Jews, Gypsies, and other "undesirables" in the oc-
cupied territories. Divided into four units of some five hundred to one
thousand men each, they were to sweep the rear areas—Gruppe A in the
Baltic states, Β in Belorussia, C and D in the Ukraine—murdering untold
millions.1
One such report contains a section on religious activities during the
period from July to September 1941 which reads: "The Orthodox Church
is trying to gain ground again, especially in areas always part of Russia.
The danger exists that it may exploit the readiness to cooperate of the
population, which till now has been suppressed in all spheres, by giving
it a nationalist shape. Clergy of all denominations are, therefore, permit-
ted to exercise their spiritual functions only after a political examination."
A curious admission after this diagnosis of dangers that lurk in the church
picture follows: "However, the religious need of the population is so
spontaneous and primitive that they do not care in what liturgical form
services are held."2 It is difficult to find an adequate explanation of that
sentence. It could be a bow to Hitler's conception of the Untermensch,
with his many strange sects requiring German provocation to erupt in
strife. It could, as well, imply that there are sinister forces at work giving
a reprehensible twist to the fundamentally simple popular sentiments.
The security police would then assume the practicable task of ferreting
 The Ancillary Agencies / 103

out a few nationalist church leaders, rather than having to repress all
believers.
Himmlers files contain a memorandum stating that his discussion with
Rosenberg on November 15,1941, to propose an SS liaison on the church
question ended in an "uncompleted conversation."3 The abortive arrange-
ment would no doubt have foundered on the insistence of Himmler that
distinctions could not be made among that "entire East European-Cen-
tral Asiatic horde" into which he lumped all the Slavs. In dealing with
them, he proclaimed on October 14, 1943, "we must renounce false com-
radeship, misunderstood generosity, false weakness, and false apologies
to ourselves. In these things we must recapture the courage of brutal
truthfulness and frankness." 4
Of all the policies fashioned by Nazi occupation authorities regarding
the churches, that of the SS-SD-Einsatzgruppen is extreme in the degree
to which it is shot through with inconsistencies. In part, these may repre-
sent the deliberate working out of the divisive formula fashioned by
Erich Koch in the Ukraine. Yet, where Koch tended to dismiss the reli-
gious question as nonexistent, the Einsatzgruppen generally rated it as
a crucial factor. Some of their contradictory practices may have been a
function of the varying conditions encountered in their field work; ad-
ministrators like Koch and Rosenberg remained tied to preconceptions
about their subjects and changed their policies notably little in response
to reports from their sparse staffs.
In a file of Einsatzgruppen reports, the summary statement "church at-
tendance heavy" echoes from widely scattered parts of the occupied area.
Isolated instances of drastic measures against churchmen are reported,
such as the notation of December 5,1941: "Occasionally a religious meet-
ing in Kiev. Archbishop Alexei Gromadski was taken prisoner. Two
priests were executed because they were considered Communist agents."5
Gromadski of Volhynia, foe of Ukrainian autocephaly, was released in
short order only to be eventually assassinated by either Germans or na-
tionalists on May 7, 1943. The most credible versions of the incident
blame his murder on Melnyk's or Bandera's bands of partisans, whether
by design or in a flurry of gunfire directed at the official German vehicle.6
In any case, there are no doubts about the SS killing of the two priests as
NKVD agents because one was found with a leaflet from the Metropoli-
tan of Moscow calling for resistance against the Germans. In this, as in
other cases, the terror apparatus displayed few qualms about shooting
priests on any weightier pretext than served it in the execution of secular
suspects. In 1942, for example, another typical entry reports that "a
104 / Icon and Swastika

Russian priest was shot in Tossno for resistance to the Germans," with a
similar unconcern for detailing any evidence.
The priests tolerated by the Einsatzgruppen, according to their re-
ports, were forced either to stay out of politics altogether or to toe the
Nazi line without deviation. One of the SS units reported the issuance on
July 5, 1941, of a "nonpolitical and supraparty national Ukrainian news-
paper whose first copy contains greetings of the Uniate Metropolitan
Szepticky." This church head was also "to read a 'Hitler letter' on July 6,
thanking the Germans for the liberation, with text agreed upon by us."7
The venerable bishop, scion of the Polish aristocracy, with a lifetime of
service to Greek Catholicism and Ukrainian nationalism behind him, de-
livered his Nazi-edited sermon the day after the SS had crushed an at-
tempt by Iaroslav Stetsko, lieutenant of Stephen Bandera, to take advan-
tage of the chaos in Lvov, the capital of Eastern Galicia, to proclaim the
formation of a "Ukrainian State" there. Once the coup he had backed
was in shambles, Szepticky could do little for his cause, except render
the required homage to Germany, if he were to escape the arrests in store
for the ringleaders. 8 From his see in the General-Gouvernement ad-
ministered by Frank, Szepticky kept trying to influence church develop-
ments in the Reichskommissariat run by the much more intolerant Koch.
An attempt to increase his leverage in August 1941 by linking up with
the Uniates of the Reich was vetoed by the Gestapo because it portended
"an undesirable strengthening" of that church. 9 At the same time, his
assurances to the Germans that Uniates would help promote popular co-
operation better than other church groups were discounted as self-serv-
ing.10 So were his declarations against Banderovites and other anti-Ger-
man Ukrainian nationalists.11 The continual frustration of his efforts and
a growing awareness that the only use the SS had for Ukrainians was as
accessories to Einsatzgruppen mass murders made him more skeptical
about the benefits of collaboration.
A secret report of the German Foreign Office concluded "that the
Metropolitan was adamantly opposed to the Nazi anti-Semitic outrages
and that by late 1943 he had come to regard Nazism as even a greater evil
than Communism."12 For the SS, however, even a reluctant ally could
have his uses. Although Himmler knew that Szepticky had protested the
Nazi-organized pogroms, he was still able to obtain from the bishop an
endorsement of the new volunteer-staffed unit of the Waffen-SS, the so-
called "SS Division Galicia," thirty thousand strong. What's more, he got
Szepticky to help furnish chaplains for each of the division's detachments
and even to supply Father Laba, of his own staff, to be chief chaplain.
 The Ancillary Agencies / 105

That the Church received the short end of this bargain is indicated by a
letter from SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger, Himmler's liaison
with the Ostministerium, on July 22, 1943, transmitting a copy of Laba's
sermon asking all Galicians to help "Hitler and the German people de-
stroy Bolshevism." Berger notes that the sermon contains "dangerous ex-
pressions," a reference to its nationalistic overtones, but that "we will
soon pull this tooth."13 He goes on to comment that although Himmler
was willing to use the clergy's influence in the division, if they began to
"agitate" they would be thrown out and the Metropolitan himself "would
have to bear part of the consequences." There is no further record of
failure by the bishop or his aides to abide by their code of conduct as
laid down by the SS. The Germans kept deferring use of the Galician
division until their desperate military straits of summer 1944. Szepticky's
death later in the year at least spared him the harsh wave of repression
that engulfed his Uniate brethren when the Soviets retook the area.
Where the SS had found it profitable to manipulate Uniates in the
Ukraine, it had no qualms about assuming the anomalous position of a
protector of Orthodoxy in Belorussia, at least against domination by any
outside force but itself. An Einsatzgruppen report of July 28, 1941, out-
lines the following countermeasures to be taken against attempts of
Roman Catholic clergy to infiltrate the area from Poland for missionary
work: " ( 1 ) Prohibiting the influx of Roman Catholic clergy into White
Russia; ( 2 ) returning those already there to their places of origin under
any pretext; (3) restricting Roman Catholic clergy resident in White
Russia to their places of residence and not allowing them to take any
trips, ostensibly for security reasons; (4) checking émigrés returning to
White Russia on their Catholicism and treating them accordingly; (5)
rapidly activating and supporting the work of the Greek Orthodox
Church."14 A dual motivation for the surprising fifth point is supplied
later by the same report. To cap an account of overflow services in the
Orthodox cemetery chapel at Minsk, during which two thousand be-
lievers assembled and forty-five children were baptized, it is stated that
"the sermon was delivered in the form of thanks to the Führer." Catholic
priests, on the other hand, were suspected of using their proselytizing to
win Belorussian converts to Polish nationalism.
Part of the contradiction between sporadic repression and encourage-
ment of church activities by the Einsatzgruppen is resolved in view of
their primary role. As a field force, they were under constant pressure to
act toward any native institution in some fashion, to edify their Berlin
superiors with reports of ever new successes. Of course, they had to jus-
106 / Icon and Swastika

tify such actions in term of their mission: the elimination of political

opposition. Wherever they stumbled upon strong religious sentiment,
they were prone to adapt it into their policy in an ad hoc fashion, notably
by making priests tractable mouthpieces of German propaganda even
while disparaging such pliant clerics as "primitive folk."15 They were
also aware that accomplishment of their routine tasks, especially detec-
tion and destruction of partisan bands, would be greatly facilitated by
popular cooperation secured by the clergy in general as well as intelli-
gence obtained by select priestly agents of the SD.16 Thus, although just
as adamant in their Untermensch views of the Russians as Koch or Bor-
mann, and lacking in any respect for the clergy, the security police units
"activated" religion whenever it seemed expedient to serve their short-
run interests.
The unrealized promises of the approach to church groups by the
Einsatzgruppen is aptly illustrated by one of their reports, dated July 26,
1941, from the Baltic. It observes that Latvian peasants, particularly
older ones, have acted in a friendly fashion to German troops, in contrast
to the hostility shown by the urban population. In an illuminating aside,
it refers to the "religious question" as "perhaps decisive in determining
the attitude of the rural population in the future as well. A clever propa-
ganda could find the crack here for an open break with the Soviet re-
gime."17 That conclusion represents the most explicit acknowledgment
by any occupation agency of the inherent anti-Soviet quality in the re-
lease of religious feeling suppressed under Communist rule. It is echoed
in a report from the Ukraine pointing to religion among the peasantry as
a key "to ruling this people easily."18 Exploitation of this potential force
was, however, once again nullified by the Einsatzgruppen tactic of press-
ing too fast, too hard. Preoccupied by their repressive tasks, they could
not rest content to develop a slow but perhaps lasting friendly spirit with-
in the population toward its Nazi rulers. By purging independent-
minded priests and dictating the texts of sermons to be cast into paeans
of praise to Hitler, they only conjured up the image of former Soviet
methods, which was bound to chill any popular illusions regarding Ger-
man tolerance. The persuasiveness of such extorted homilies, lacking
genuine conviction on the priests' part, must have been largely lost on
the believers.
The Einsatzgruppen reports salted magnified appraisals of pro-German
sentiment with terse comments on threats from certain churches such as
Orthodox Renovators and Old Believers, but above all Catholics. Some of
this slanted reportage may have been intended to impress higher-ups.
 The Ancillary Agencies / 107

In addition, it may reflect the self-delusions entailed by subjective

methods of investigating popular attitudes. A typical report, dated
August 31, 1941, describes "clerics who have so far been encountered
outside large cities" as "primitive people. They are praying in their
churches for the victory of German arms and calling upon the population
to fight together with the Germans against the Partisans."19 This stands
in direct contradiction to laconic notices of priests shot for anti-German
activities including the harboring of partisans. Sermons that the security
troops heard were arranged by them or performed for their benefits. Yet,
through an echo effect, they are interpreted as signs of either the "primi-
tive" nature of the clergy (the ease with which they could be turned
into German tools) or a genuine desire for collaboration.
The Einsatzgruppen fathomed the complex nature of the church prob-
lem when they declared the "fundamental question" to be "whether it
will be possible to re-erect the God who has been deposed and made
ridiculous—and to give him an authority which will transcend outer
ceremonials and lend him moral significance."20 Such an assessment jibed
with the private aims of Hitler: "The Russians will be allowed to turn
against their priestlings but not to turn that into a struggle against
authority."21 The difficulty in moving from such judgments in 1941 to an
effective policy in the central years of the occupation can be traced to
official inability to come face to face with the actual conditions pervad-
ing Russian church life.
For one thing, the Germans lacked a reliable index to gauge native
religious strength. The preconceptions and the conflicting criteria they
did employ inevitably led to a potpourri of policies. Besides the review
of sermons already mentioned, and the more realistic estimates of church
attendance—even though they were often listed only in general terms
such as "light" or "heavy"—the Einsatzgruppen had no standard for
ordering their scattered sampling of active, church-going religious feel-
ing. Official reports only occasionally guessed at the sentiment of the
bulk of the populace, which was not to be found attending officially
sanctioned sermons. One of the security squads arrived at the conclusion
that "religion is an important factor," on the surprising grounds that
"even Old Bolsheviks prayed before their execution."22 Another group
generalized from what it took to be the typical "first question of a local
Ukrainian, 'When can we go to church again?' "23 In contradiction to the
repeated finding of other reports from all occupied areas that religion
was the sole preserve of elderly female peasants, a third squad in the
Zhitomir area asserted categorically: "The opinion that the youth is
108 / Icon and Swastika

indifferent to religion is incorrect for the countryside and only partly

applies to the cities."24 This analysis then touches on another factor over-
looked by previous reports: "It is apparent that Orthodox self-expression
is markedly weakened; there exists a catacomb religiosity like that of
ancient Christianity."
The security police in a totalitarian regime maintains notably close
ties to the leadership, to which it presents an endemic danger of running
amuck and inflicting irreparable damage to the economy or of aspiring,
itself, to the supreme power. The blind obedience which it is called upon
to exhibit by a regime that seeks to guard against such eventualities
often saps its initiative; it is appropriately termed an apparatus or a
machine. The confusion of the Einsatzgruppen when plunged into inde-
pendent decision-making on religious issues can be regarded as a
minor but typical symptom. The church question fell outside the beaten
path of security problems, so that responses tended to be ineffectual,
even grotesque. As the final hour was striking for the Third Reich in
April 1945, Himmler is seen by one dramatist in the characteristic act of
contemplating "the colonization of the Ukraine with a new religious sect
recommended by his masseur."25
The very introduction of the church item into the security agenda
illustrates the aforementioned propensity of the apparatus to stake out
ever new claims. If it found such an area virtually bare of politically
dangerous elements, it was at a loss as to how to proceed. This tactical
ambivalence helps account for the paradox that the Gestapo could at the
same time represent the branch of occupation administration with the
greatest potential and opportunity for action, yet be the one least active
in religious affairs in any consistent way. It called for a "quick decision
of the church question" but expended its energies, not on concrete pro-
posals, but on schemes to make army commanders grant it political
screening rights over church elders and priests who could be forced into
"closest dependence" to its offices no matter what the policy was to be.26
The agency which alone was able to glimpse the chance of using the
church as the wedge to sever all popular ties with the Soviet system will
be remembered only for its shooting of "leftist" priests, hampering of
Catholic expansion, and censorship of sermons.

THE PROPAGANDISTS

The Propaganda Ministry of Joseph Goebbels could claim its full share
of ideological contradictions and interagency rivalries when it undertook
 The Ancillary Agencies / 109

its assignment: broadcasting the Nazi message to the peoples of the

occupied areas. Thus, Goebbels had to resolve the dilemma of making a
successful presentation of the German case to an audience of Russians
whom he, no less than Bormann or Koch, regarded as Untermenschen. 27
He also had to come to terms with the nominal head of all political work
in the East, Alfred Rosenberg, for whose administrative abilities he had
nothing but contempt, as well as effecting some sort of liaison with the
commissar of the Ukraine, Erich Koch, whose strong-arm methods hardly
softened audience resistance to a sales pitch by the propagandists. 28 The
Goebbels staff, however, never admitted to the temptation of dismantling
its information mills aimed at subjects of such inferior status as to be
unworthy of the trouble involved in their enlightenment. On the con-
trary, it sought continually to step up the efforts of its Eastern section,
headed by Eberhard Taubert, who had given proof of his limited abili-
ties in 1933 when he helped assemble the flimsy evidence against those
accused of setting the Reichstag fire.29
Where internal policy contradictions might have vitiated any achieve-
ments by an activist or administrative agency, for the Propaganda
Ministry they could be turned into an opportunity to modulate its mes-
sage for different groups of listeners. In the cynical exercise of his func-
tion, Goebbels had as little use for consistency as he had for truth. These
were dispensable qualities when communicating to various audiences;
they only mattered in formulating the confidential reports on public
morale which were meant to guide other agencies in selecting the proper
arms for winning their subjects' allegiance. A directive, circulated
"strictly for official use" toward the end of the occupation era, exem-
plifies the insidious approach that the "highest government offices
concerned" had sanctioned toward the Russian Orthodox Church: "Propa-
ganda in the area of church questions is to be aimed so that the churches
can be harnessed to the support of our cause, but not so that we have to
identify ourselves with the churches, if merely for the reason that only
the older generation still adheres to them."30 The directive does not spell
out how German officials are supposed to "harness" religious feeling yet
do it so inconspicuously that they could not be "identified" with the
churches.
Harnessing implies going beyond the censorship of sermons, and
indeed, there is evidence that propaganda workers often scoured former
godless museums to procure religious books and implements for services.
The population could not help noticing such interventions and, conse-
quently, "identifying" the Germans with the churches to some extent.
110 / Icon and Swastika

The Goebbels staff might have salvaged some measure of the neutrality
demanded in the directive by making it appear that it was granting
dispensations only in response to the insistent wishes of the people. It
was also aware that it had to parcel out these subsidies in order to
prevent the objects of support from developing a strength and inde-
pendent spirit that might make them spurn the Nazi harness. The
achievement of docility was the principle needed to justify any action
on behalf of the churches. It lay behind the top-secret evaluation by the
Propaganda Ministry of the so-called toleration decrees in June 1942,
which it saw "preventing the occurrence of religious strife and, while
fully assuring freedom of religious belief, eliminating the political influ-
ence of religious organizations—especially of the Russian Orthodox
Church." 31
The harnessing theme of Goebbels strikes a markedly different note
from the harsher tones of brutal exploitation, such as Koch's, and those
of repression by Himmler s security forces. It should logically have
harmonized with the approach of the Ostministerium, since in the reports
of both there is a like regard for popular support, a regret for the lost
opportunities in securing it, and a dismay at the gratuitous use of terror
that makes "political work" well-nigh impossible. The discord that
actually sprang up between the ministries of Goebbels and Rosenberg
can be attributed primarily to "personal and departmental jealousy."32
Superimposed on the mutual hatred of these two chief intellectuals of
the Nazi elite was an extended strife over jurisdiction of propaganda
work in the occupied territories, which came to a head in May 1943 with
an appeal by Goebbels to the Führer against Rosenberg's attempts to
stake out a monopoly in the field that went so far as to request that the
Finance Ministry stop payments to propagandists in the occupied terri-
tories.33 Hitler's decision in August 1943 seemed to settle the issue, with
policy set by the Ostministerium and field work to be done by branches
of the Propaganda Ministry.34 This apparent victory of the propagandists
caused Rosenberg to protest that they were interpreting it too broadly,
trying to take over control of the entire press in the occupied territories.35
The final entry in Goebbels' diary shows that the wrangle was far from
over four months later:

How badly we are doing our political job in the East can be seen
from the fact that Rosenberg has still not carried out the Führer's
order to transfer the propaganda there to us. He is doing everything
he can to sabotage and torpedo it. I don't understand how the
 The Ancillary Agencies / 111

Führer can leave such an obstreperous nincompoop in his job. If I

were in his place, I would clear the boards in a hurry. Rosenberg
has done more harm than good, not only in the East but also in the
realm of politics generally. It is high time for a showdown.36

Behind the clash of personalities and bureaucracies, the Goebbels-

Rosenberg discord also revolves around a difference in strategies. Both
insisted that political aims should take precedence over immediate
economic extortion and the rule of terror; but Rosenberg took German
promises to the population seriously, whereas for Goebbels they were
just a cheap method of winning instant acclaim. Where Rosenberg kept
in sight his vision of an anti-Russian empire under the swastika while he
drafted directives to foster such indigenous forces as the Ukrainian
nationalists, Goebbels focused only on the short-run objectives of psycho-
logical warfare. The propaganda chief's concern was with appearances
rather than with the content of policy. He was repelled by measures of
crude exploitation only because they were crude, not because they were
exploitative. His penchant for the refined twist is shown by his endorse-
ment of the toleration decrees, not in the pronationalist spirit in which
Rosenberg had conceived them, but as a distraction of the people from
the stringent features of the control system:

We have finally had the good sense to issue a decree which guar-
antees absolute religious tolerance in the eastern [occupied] areas
. . . Personally, I believe we must change our policies essentially
as regards the peoples of the East. We could reduce the danger of
the partisans considerably if we succeeded in at least winning a
certain measure of confidence with these peoples. A clear peasant
and church policy would work wonders there. It might also be use-
ful to set up sham governments in the various sectors which would
then have to be responsible for unpleasant and unpopular measures.
Undoubtedly it would be easy to set up such sham governments,
and we would then always have a façade behind which to camou-
flage our policies.37

Goebbels' cynicism puts him at a greater remove from the naïveté of

Rosenberg than from the barbarism of Koch. In May 1942 he received a
briefing from Koch's aide, Joachim Paltzo, which included complaints
against the ineptitudes of the Ostministerium that were music in Goeb-
bels' ears. He concluded afterwards that "Rosenberg himself is by nature
a theoretician, and it is quite evident that he must have constant con-
112 / Icon and Swastika

flicts with so pronounced a man of action and brute force as Koch."38

That the comparison was intended to be invidiously applied to Rosen-
berg is confirmed by Goebbels' subsequent self-satisfied note: "Koch
asked me to give him substantial support in matters of propaganda and
stated that our work alone had thus far been of assistance in his difficult
tasks in the Ukraine."
An appreciation of Koch's aims was likewise mixed with a disdain for
the "suicidal" methods through which they were pursued in a September
1942 report on an extensive survey of the occupied territories by Dr.
Taubert and Eugen Hadamowsky, director of Radio Berlin.39 These two
top propagandists saw nothing wrong with the forced labor program
and even asked for wider use of beatings by the security police to replace
softer punishment of the resisters among the population. Koch's fault lay
not in his employment of the stick but in his disregard for the efficacy
of the carrot: "The Eastern peoples must be given a program, though
none of its promises are carried out before victory is achieved. Instead,
this program must be held out as a goal for which the Eastern peoples
think it worth investing their labor and risking their blood."
The manipulation of religious feeling was to play a central part in such
a strategy, according to Taubert and Hadamowsky:
Above all, the person of the Führer must be presented—in a way
that might seem mystical by German standards—as bringer of light,
liberator, and bearer of joy who is to lead the way to a heavenly
future. Our current posters "Hitler, the Liberator" have become
sacred possessions in all peasant and worker shacks throughout the
East. The Greek Orthodox Church, at least in part, prayed on the
Führer's birthday. All means of the churches, mysticism, religion,
and propaganda must henceforth be employed to this end: "Hitler
against Stalin!"—or "God against the Devil!"40

The prime mistake of Koch and administrators of his ilk consisted in

flaunting their contempt for the cultural institutions and beliefs of their
subjects: "If our own people do not understand this theory but continue
to speak cynically about the natives,' 'half-monkeys,' colonial policy,'
'exploitation,' 'liquidation of the intelligentsia,' a limitation of education,
closing of universities, suppression of artistic and cultural life, sabotage
of churches, etc.—then our propaganda will ultimately appear cynical
and backfire." The implication of the report is that not the doing, but the
indiscreet speaking of such things was to be avoided. If churches were
to be sabotaged, for instance, this intention was to be shielded behind the
 The Ancillary Agencies / 113

secrecy of internal German memoranda. In the words of the report: "We

must, therefore, speak two tongues."
Goebbels over-reached himself when in the beginning of 1943, after
the German reversals at Stalingrad, he tried to persuade Hitler to issue
"A Proclamation for the East"—the ultimate in high-flown promises to
the people of the Soviet Union, which its proponents had not the least
intention of keeping.41 The draft prepared by Goebbels indicates the
continued high estimate he put on the potential strength of the popula-
tion's frustrated strivings for an unfettered church: "Fight on with us
against hated Bolshevism, bloody Stalin, and his Jewish clique; for free-
dom of the individual, for freedom of religion and of conscience, for the
abolition of slave labor, for property and possessions, for a free peasantry
on its own land . . . for everything of which Bolshevism has deprived
you."42 It is highly unlikely that anyone would have put great stock in
such pledges once two years of German occupation practices had given
them the lie. Apparently Hitler, in rejecting the proposal, did not think
so either.
The Propaganda Ministry thus had to fall back on its meager resources,
rendering sporadic and furtive aid to churches it remained convinced
could be turned into tools of the German war effort despite the misgiv-
ings of higher-ups and the countervailing attitudes of other occupation
agencies. Its major energies were expended on interoffice memoranda in
Berlin, for until early 1944 its workers were effectively kept out of the
field, and by then estrangement of the Russians from their overlords in
the occupied areas had probably reached a point of no return. The
inclination of the propagandists to put the Church to "positive" use, for
all their distorted understanding of it and their limited means of action,
resembled the approach of the security troops. The prime task of both
was the elimination of political opposition. The tactics of the two forces
diverged, however. Where the Einsatzgruppen resorted to prophylactic
or retaliatory measures against outbreaks of resistance, the Goebbels
staff concentrated on changing attitudes. The obsession of the security
forces with political dissidence let them utilize the Church positively
only in isolated instances; on the whole, they were more attuned to the
potential dangers it represented. In their reports, clergymen appear as
something akin to witch doctors, perhaps useful "in the inner pacification
of the Russian space" but whose simple rituals would merely be un-
settled by a Kraft durch Freude (strength through joy) campaign. 43 Only
the exceptional priest was of interest, to be charged as a Soviet spy or
hired as a Nazi agent. The propagandists could adopt a more consistently
114 / Icon and Swastika

constructive approach, in line with their attempt to engender friendly

feelings for the Third Reich among the occupied peoples, rather than
rely on fear alone.
But a strange air of unreality pervaded the efforts of the Goebbels staff
to find a common ground for collaboration with the forces of religion.
The spiritual nature of the Church constituted an extraneous element
for them. The security police had fumbled with this problem, largely
peripheral for their mission, having spent most of their time trying to
estimate its strength and direction. The "enlighteners" saw in it little
more than fallow ground for ideological exploitation. They had no use
for all the precise distinctions applied by the Einsatzgruppen. Whether
the religious stratum was old or young, rural or urban, whether it
favored autonomy or autocephaly, whether it expressed its beliefs openly
or in "catacomb" services—as a popular force with no essential ties to
the Bolsheviks it was to be encouraged and, in turn, forced to express
gratitude for its "liberation." In this simple proposition, the Germans
retained an escape clause by acting only behind the scenes. With their
puppet strings to the Church adequately concealed, the Propaganda
Ministry's men had no reservations about eliciting the Church's identifi-
cation with them; their only caveat was to prevent a possible liaison
between the Church and those nationalist groups they deemed "polit-
ically unreliable."
The foregoing policy determinants are reflected in a report entitled
Probleme des Ostraumes (Problems of the Eastern Space), by Herr
Oberführer Scheidt, director of the "head office for church-political tasks
in the occupied Eastern territories," part of the Ostministerium's political
department. First, Scheidt comments on the widespread religious revival
evident by 1942, interpreting it as a protest against Bolshevism rather
than as a symptom of deep faith. Then he declares: "We don't have the
intention, derived from German preconceptions, of determining the
religious life in the occupied Eastern territories. We confirm the religious
impulse and do not interfere with the form in which it is expressed. What
we demand of followers of the religious life is a loyal attitude to the
institutions created by the Reich, and the complete separation of reli-
gious and political matters; the Church has to limit itself to exclusively
spiritual affairs."44 Though this passage emanates from Rosenberg's
rather than Goebbels' ministry, it covers virtually all the bases in the
evolution of a propaganda line on the church question. Another propa-
ganda directive from the same source in March 1942 recommends the
circulation of pictures and stories of services showing "believers who had
 The Ancillary Agencies / 115

been brutally persecuted by Bolshevism" in their renovated churches.45

It notes that such publicity would help break down popular misconcep-
tions that German occupation authorities were merely following domes-
tic religious policy.
The psychological warfare legions simplified their audience problem
in the occupied areas by consolidating targets, lumping together all sub-
groups reached by the religious appeal. They found in packed churches
alone a sufficient gauge of the depth of religious feeling; still, they
hesitated to link the German administration to what might be an obso-
lescent feature of the cultural scene. Although the Rosenberg and
Goebbels ministries tended to disregard this qualification in practice, its
persistence in their thinking calls for added comment. In essence, these
officials did not want to hitch their propaganda line to a sinking ship.
If religion was only the preserve of the older generation, its support
would evoke the scorn of irreligious youth. The compromise lay in a
policy of backstage liaison. If the Germans had the priests praise them
and laud Hitler as a saviour, a substantial part of the population, the
churchgoers, might become Nazi sympathizers or at least immunized
against the charge that Hitler was an antichrist. Yet, by not committing
German administrators publicly to the restoration of Orthodoxy, the
Nazis might appear to the freethinking groups not as backers of religion
but merely as protectors of freedom of conscience. By such a surrepti-
tious approach, then, the propagandists stood to gain all around.
The benefits of relaying favorable religious bulletins from the occupied
areas to German publications represented a bonus for the propaganda
experts in their exercise of distilling maximum profit from a minimal
investment. Domestic religious bodies had long been a thorn in Hitler's
side. Congregations of pastors like Niemöller constituted one of the few
"Aryan" groups that dared openly defy the leadership. Portraits of the
Führer on altars may have found favor with the masses, but they clashed
with the sensibilities of the strongly devout. By depicting the Wehrmacht
as liberators of religious Russians from Soviet persecution, the propa-
gandists tried to dramatize the compatibility of Nazism and Christianity.
Their frequent references to Soviet "atrocities" against believers were
designed to make Nazi church administrators look like crusaders in
comparison.
A special edition on the Western front by the Berlin illustrated maga-
zine Signal (December 1943) transmits a message in this vein. Promi-
nently featured is a picture of a crowded church service in which nearly
all the worshipers appear to be women, with the following caption:
116 / Icon and Swastika

It doesn't require great fantasy to imagine what the people of the

East, who for centuries have been counted among the especially
religious people of the Christian world, suffered under such a
regime. Today, in the free Eastern territories the churches have
been reopened and are packed for every service . . . Believers queue
up the street, finally liberated from the terrible pressures of not
being able to practice their religion. High up on the steeple the bells
sound their eternal bronze speech . . . Thus it once was in Russian
churches . . . but the Soviets destroyed churches or turned them
into storehouses, stables, or godless museums.46

Another photograph, depicting an Orthodox baptismal ceremony, is

captioned: "Like the old, the youth again goes the way of belief. Parents
can baptize their children once more." From such a text it is possible to
infer the Propaganda Ministry's unsureness regarding the religious re-
sponse of the younger Russian generation. Whether or not deducing
from a single baptism that "youth again goes the way of belief" consti-
tutes wishful thinking, it is certainly stretching a point when none of the
photos in German wartime publications shows adolescents or young
adults attending Orthodox services.
Always in the back of the minds of the Goebbels staff, in working in
the occupied territories, was its primary ideological assignment in
Germany. It was fully cognizant of the problem of tailoring news from
the East to suit a domestic audience that, in the religious sphere as in
many others, had long chafed under a rigid control system. Nazi leader-
ship could hardly be made to appear more intolerant to the master race
than to the Untermenschen. Thus, the Propaganda Ministry announce-
ment of the tolerance decrees by the Ostland and Ukraine commissariats
in June 1942 bore the footnote that these measures were "too adminis-
trative in character for publicizing."47 The intent of the notation is borne
out by a highly classified directive of the same date providing that "news
about church conditions in the Eastern occupied territories, which was
released there, is not to be received by the German press."
How, then, account for items on the order of the above-mentioned
Signal issue? The answer lies in characterizing the religious revival as
entirely spontaneous in nature. Christians back home are thereby given a
living example of churches that are content to simply express gratitude
to their Nazi supervisors without making any demands in return. Only
news of this sort was passed by the censors. The blackout covered bulle-
tins that might show active involvement of German administrators in
 The Ancillary Agencies / 117

Orthodox Church life, as well as reports of negative developments, such

as the interdenominational strife of the Ukraine. The noninvolvement
precept of the propagandists thus yielded domestic fruit besides its uses
by fieldworkers. In the occupied territories, their pose of benevolent
neutrality had been meant to leave them sufficient distance to exert
leverage behind the scenes. The inherent limitation of such arm's-length
treatment lay in the inability of the Goebbels staff to keep control of
their subjects, as churches slipped the Nazi grasp to pursue their own
ends often in opposition to the increasingly stringent measures of the
authorities. Once priests found praises to Hitler sticking in their throats,
there was little the Propaganda Ministry could do to reverse develop-
ments.

THE ARMY

Although individual Wehrmacht units and commanders rendered

more direct aid to Russian religious groups than any other German
agency, it would be overstating the case to say that this amounted to a
conscious policy on their part. Without any deliberate plan, officers of
advancing units would accede in an off-hand way to petitions from the
people of a newly overrun town for the reopening of churches. At times
chaplains accompanying the regiments would help organize the first
services, or some sympathetic soldiers during a lull in the fighting would
personally take part in restoring church buildings that had fallen into
disuse. Occasionally, a local religious renaissance in the East Ukraine
was supervised by a Galician or West Volhynian churchman who had
tagged along with the Germans. But against this record must be con-
sidered the evidence of perhaps the bulk of the military, obeying orders
from the High Command to stay out of church affairs altogether until
civil administrators took over—not to mention instances of vandalism
and desecration of churches by German soldiers.48
Still, the Wehrmacht in the field compiled an impressive list of acts of
assistance to native religious organizations, on the whole. Attempts were
also made by the military governors of certain rear areas and by some
Abwehr (counterintelligence) officers to translate such uncoordinated
efforts into a consistent German occupation policy of support for reli-
gious freedom. But these efforts failed for at least three reasons: Rosen-
berg and other civilian officials resisted the potential encroachment of
the army on their preserve; the security troops, whose authority super-
seded that of military governors, were opposed to the ad hoc handling
118 / Icon and Swastika

of the church question by army commanders; the High Command

pressed its demands for noninvolvement by the army in indigenous
church affairs, in accord with the Nazi party line.
Field-Marshal Maximilian von Weichs painted the following picture
for an American interrogator after the war:
German soldiers entering the Ukraine wasted no time removing the
disgraceful decorations of local churches. They cleaned the build-
ings and prepared them for services. No move could have helped
German propaganda more than the first religious service held in
such a church. It resulted in a rapid improvement of morale among
the local populace and a great willingness to make donations to the
church. Ignoring this fact completely, the German High Command
[in Berlin] issued an order shortly after the beginning of the Russian
campaign forbidding soldiers all participation in the rebuilding of
churches and prohibiting the conduct of army church services in
Ukrainian buildings . . . Any open-minded German could recognize
the deeply religious leanings of the Russian population, prevalent
mainly among the older people. Yet we frequently chose to ignore
the fact that large segments of the population which had remained
in the occupied territories were composed of children and old men
who had lived in pre-Bolshevik Russia. There were many instances
when German officials publicly expressed the view that their task
was to control a mass of beastlike Bolsheviks.49

The recollections of von Weichs, like those of innumerable other

retired Wehrmacht generals, do not disguise their self-serving features,
their common refrain of "we would have won if it hadn't been for"
Hitler's madness or the stupidity of certain Party officials or the blind-
ness of the High Command. They are also typical of the postwar military
memoir in depicting the author as a humanitarian, hailed by his con-
quered foes. It was in the same vein that Panzer General Heinz Guderian
recounted the taking of Glukhov, a town near Briansk, where "the popu-
lation asked our permission to use their church as a place of worship
once again. We willingly handed it over to them."50 Guderian, who
became army chief-of-staff in the final year of the war, likewise com-
mented on the changed mood of his subjects from the open-arms wel-
come given the Wehrmacht to the coldness evoked by civilian adminis-
trators.51
Wartime reports of German soldiers buttress the benign pose of the
memorialists, at least for the first few weeks of the Russian campaign.
 The Ancillary Agencies / 119

One correspondent describes the "first church services in Smolensk in

twenty years," held in August 1941 at the cathedral, which had been
reopened with Wehrmacht help.52 He tells of "people coming through a
desert of destruction in their joyously bright clothes with Sunday bou-
quets" and expressing their thanks to the German infantrymen who
stand by. The ancient priest conducting the worship is found hidden out
in the cathedral cellar, having survived Soviet repressions by working
on farms and in road gangs. What the reporter is evidently ignorant of
is that the very success of the Smolensk services led to the "Führer
Order of August 6, 1941," prohibiting further army assistance to the
churches, that von Weichs had fulminated against. Reinhard Heydrich,
chief of the security police, had been infuriated to hear of Germans
going out of their way to "revive religion in the East," the habitat of the
Untermensch. 53 The pressure of the SS, added to the protests of the
Ostministerium, made the High Command yield, thereafter barring army
chaplains "from participating in the religious life of the civilian popula-
tion."
The particular ire of the Einsatzgruppen was directed at the Catholic
chaplains of the Wehrmacht and to some officers who countenanced
their crusading efforts. Reports from Relorussia—Raranovitse, Minsk,
Vitebsk, as well as the Smolensk area—speak in alarmed tones of army
services open to local civilians.54 As a result, some native Catholic
priests—automatic suspects of the Gestapo—won a favored position and
were occasionally assigned a vacant chapel by the local commander. Of
even greater concern to the security troops was a Catholic revival being
exploited by "Polish nationalists."55 Orthodox religious forces were not
viewed as a threat of the same order: the SS was content to press for
High Command agreement to allow security screenings of priests and to
prohibit church organizations above the district level, both of which had
been obtained by December 1941.56 A year later, German commanders
in Ukrainian front-line areas helped reopen churches, with soldiers even
serving as godfathers at baptisms; but the Einsatzgruppen merely noted
that such events could "strongly influence the population in a pro-
German sense and extend pacification of the area."57
This kind of Wehrmacht support to the churches was perforce given
unofficially, by local commanders who dared to defy the hands-off policy
of Rerlin. Even where they chose merely to observe the letter of the
nonintervention order, however, they recognized the fait accompli of
the religious revival that had transpired before the August interdict.
Friedrich Heyer, who later became a scholar on Ukrainian church affairs,
120 / Icon and Swastika

was a soldier in front-line units that witnessed the resurgence of congre-

gations "in nearly every Ukrainian town . . . [Invariably] the German
Kommandatura orders the reopening of the church."58 Sometimes, as in
Zhitomir, the army chaplain helped organize the initial service; some-
times, as in Proskurov, this was done by a priest who had accompanied
the Wehrmacht from Galicia. The first military edicts, according to
Heyer, also provided for the return of former church properties.
Emigré testimony, from a former director of a refugee relief com-
mittee in the occupied territories, confirms that in northern Russia, too,
"the German military authorities gave encouragement and support to
the Church." But he makes the further point that such aid had to be
provided outside official channels: "In some instances they restored to
the Church the property which it had owned before the October Revo-
lution (though they did not restore the legal title of the Church to the
property)." 59 With direct subsidies or other administrative support of
the churches ruled out, local commanders followed their personal incli-
nations in ruling on religious matters. The resulting picture is marked
by the same inconsistency that the military had shown in deciding
whether to keep schools in their command open or to shut them down.60
Positive army contributions to the churches over an extended area often
amount to little more than historical accident. Thus, a number of Ukrain-
ian congregations benefited from the decision of General Karl Rudolf
Gerd von Rundstedt, in charge of Army Group South, to leave church
questions to a staff member who happened to be a Protestant theologian,
well versed in and favorably disposed toward Orthodoxy.61
It is the same staff officer to whom Heyer attributes the sympathies
to Ukrainian nationalism and the Autocephalous Church which led to
the first direct German support of that denomination.62 The stage for
such intervention had, however, already been set by the decision of
Admiral Canaris' counterintelligence branch in 1940 to help the West
Ukrainian nationalists organize units for military service in the ap-
proaching Russian campaign, as well to establish puppet local govern-
ments.63 In both operations the separatist church groups whom the
nationalists favored became the indirect beneficiaries. But this link also
exposed them to the SS crackdown on nationalists who overstepped their
quisling assignments by proclaiming their autonomy. Entry of the
Einsatzgruppen on the scene marked the end of effective military
authority.
The temporary check to the fortunes of the Autocephalous Church
was made permanent by the regime of Erich Koch. His "divide and rule"
 The Ancillary Agencies / 121

tactics against the churches formed but one facet of a strategy of riding
roughshod over native aspirations and institutions. With his lines to the
Führer intact, Koch had nothing to fear from the protests of Generals
Hallstein and Heusinger that his actions were "sabotaging" the German
war effort.64 As long as the Untermensch outlook he epitomized reigned
supreme at Hitler's headquarters, military commanders were only
wasting their breath urging a psychological warfare campaign in which
Russian churches would play a central role. The two most notable such
proposals were proffered by General Friedrich von Unruh in November
1941 and by General von Schenkendorff in March 1942. Both these com-
manders of rear areas of Army Group Center concluded that in trying
to win the Russian people over, "religious freedom" would have to be
granted right away.65 Their conclusion may also reflect an attempt to
outflank the pressure of the Gestapo, which had focused on their com-
mand in its protests against joint military-civilian services.66
The possibilities glimpsed by the generals were effectively, if un-
officially, put into practice by various of the front-line units. They
helped churches, generally on the pragmatic grounds that such actions
engendered a friendly response from the population, facilitating their
supplies, communications, and social relations and protecting their rear.
No doubt, a special effort to help was made by the strongly devout who
could still be found among the rank and file and, as Rosenberg had noted,
particularly in the officers' corps.67 In their grappling with the realities
of Russia, many soldiers discarded the stereotype of the subhuman
native, as shown by their books and articles from the Eastern front.
They looked on the persons they encountered not as future slaves, but
as representatives of a new order to replace Soviet domination. They
explained any objectionable traits of the native population as due solely
to the evil traces of Bolshevism: after these superficialities had been
swept away by German enlightenment (usually a brief conversation in
sign language with the soldier writing the book) the Russians of course
realized all errors of their previous Communist ways and became fervent
disciples of Nazism. The Russian people, especially the peasantry, was
seen as basically good; Communist delusions were attributed entirely to
the threat of the Kremlin—and once that pressure was removed they
could be easily discarded.
Typical of this genre is August Haussleiter's An der mittleren Ostfront
( On the Middle Russian Front ), published in 1942, which describes the
many churches of Kaluga whose "decorations had long crumbled away."
In the only chapel still fit to function, "candlelight yet flickers in front
122 I Icon and Swastika

of the darkly varnished icons, and old people bend their knee at the
altar." Haussleiter feels himself in a land where "churches have been
turned into stables, ceremonious old Christmas pictures painted over
with whitewash, and feeding troughs set up where once the altar
stood."68 Another account by Paul Werner, Ein schweizer Journalist sieht
Russland (A Swiss Journalist Sees Russia)—though hardly through
neutral eyes-—tells what happened when German soldiers moved beyond
observation to participate in the native religious rebirth. The scene is
Kiev, the Ukrainian capital that had been occupied on September 19,
1941, and where a nationalist unit under the command of Andrew
Melnyk had arrived three days later to set up a new local administra-
tion.69 "The Germans cleared the mines from St. Andrew's Church in
Kiev. Five days after the occupation, they received and sanctioned the
request of a Ukrainian delegation to hold services there. Daily masses
were organized after utensils had been obtained from a museum, and
huge crowds attended services."70 The photographs documenting Wer-
ner's report are notable for showing several young people, mainly peasant
girls, taking part in the services.
A secret dispatch by Major O. W. Müller describes burgeoning reli-
gious life in the occupied territories as encompassing all groups except
urban youth.71 As a result, he notes that, by autumn 1942, there was an
acute need in the central areas for church equipment, religious pictures,
books, and so on, which he asked the Propaganda Division to supply.
In addition to a shortage of younger priests, there was an opening for
a bishop in the "Army Group Center" sector that he "urgently requests"
be filled. Evidently, Orthodox organizations were still directing requests
to occupation authorities, as they had a year before, to distribute the
limited supply of priests more evenly through the countryside.72 An
interesting sidelight on Müller is that he served as Ostministerium rep-
resentative to his army group, indicating the liaison that existed between
Rosenberg's staff and the military.
Indeed, there were common grounds to motivate joint action by
officials of the Ostministerium and army commanders. Rosenberg's poli-
cies of religious toleration and cultural development jibed with the atti-
tudes of the more liberal generals. By the second year of the occupation,
their jurisdictional disputes were being transcended by a shared revul-
sion against the terrorist methods of the Einsatzgruppen, the Ukrainian
commissariat, and agents of the labor draft and agricultural requisition
—all of whom were fueling popular hostility and a formidable force
of partisans. On December 18, 1942, the Rosenberg ministry hosted a
 The Ancillary Agencies / 123

prominent assembly of army officers and, at this unique gathering,

agreed to work out a platform stressing positive political aims to meet
the requirement for "a radical change of Germany policy."73 The incipi-
ent breakthrough in civilian-military cooperation was squashed peremp-
torily by Hitler. When the Führer learned of the conference, he admon-
ished Rosenberg not to meddle in military affairs and the army repre-
sentatives not to venture into political matters without express approval
from the High Command. Thenceforth, decision-making powers over
the occupied territories swung back to the forces of repression and
terror. In the sphere of religion this spelled the undoing of the military
measures that had been promoting local church activities. Among the
population it engendered yet another wave of disillusionment, as reli-
gious rights granted by the advance guard of the conquerors were ab-
ruptly circumscribed or denied altogether.

THE ECONOMIC AGENCIES

A welter of German bureaucracies concerned itself with the economy

of the occupied territories; Goring, as head of the Four-Year Plan, was
nominally in charge, laying down overall policy through the Wirtschafts-
führungsstab Ost (Economic Directorate for the East) and trying to
coordinate parallel functions of the Ministry for Economics, the Minis-
try for Food and Agriculture, the Ostministerium, and the High Com-
mand's Office for Armament Economy. The common denominator of all
these agencies was an insistence on squeezing the last drop of work and
supplies out of the subject population. As Goring had expressed it when
he cut short Rosenberg's dissertation on Russian cultural values at the
meeting with Hitler on July 16, 1941, the immediate aim was to secure
the food supply; everything else would have to wait a long time.74
The Agricultural Administration, under the direction of State Secre-
tary (later Minister for Food and Agriculture) Herbert Backe, employed
the simple yardstick of food deliveries to the Wehrmacht and the Third
Reich to gauge its achievements in the occupied territories. To obtain
maximum leverage from its limited staff, it latched onto the existing
kolkhoz and sovkhoz systems as furnishing readymade machines for ex-
ploiting the Russian peasant. The universal hope of the farmers for the
dismantling of collectivized agriculture was cruelly frustrated. 75 In a
policy that one analyst has termed a mixture of compromise and deceit,
German "reforms" changed little in the old system except the name
of the despised kolkhoz (to Gemeinwirtschaft).76 The upshôt was that
124 / Icon and Swastika

a motley crew of Landwirtschaftsführer (agricultural leaders) super-

vised the fulfillment of quotas now determined in Berlin instead of
Moscow. The Orthodox congregations who had dedicated services to
the Germans in April 1942 for the promised abolition of collectivized
agriculture found that their thanks had been rendered prematurely. 77
German reluctance to tamper with institutions that had already proved
their value as political controls extended to the Agricultural Adminis-
tration's approach to the churches. The tenth of "Twelve Command-
ments" which were to guide the activities of agricultural district leaders
proclaimed: "We do not want to give the Russians a new religion. But
the Russian is in his way a religiously superstitious person—that you
should take cognizance of. However, dealing with religious questions
is not part of your task."78 This fitted into the framework regarding ideo-
logical issues in general, laid down by the ninth commandment: "We
do not want to convert the Russians to National Socialism, but to make
them our tools."
The "Commandments" were released on June 1, 1941, twenty days
before Hitler unleashed Operation Barbarossa. But their cynical tone of
unvarnished exploitation dominated Nazi economic policy throughout
the occupation. In pursuit of Germany's profit, all other concerns became
secondary, even to Ostminister Alfred Rosenberg. His directive on the
employment of native labor in the economy of occupied territories tersely
commands that "the handling of religious questions must be sus-
pended." 79 Economic administrators would only be distracted from their
tasks by getting themselves embroiled in cultural matters.
The shortsightedness of such a view was apparent to some lesser
officials of the Ostministerium, as well as to the more perspicacious
generals and diplomats. But against the regnant policies of Goring,
Backe, and Koch their plaintive protests could not make a dent; they
are epitomized in a secret memorandum by Otto Bräutigam, a section
chief in the political department of Rosenberg's ministry, dated October
25, 1942.80 He reviews the three German "war aims" in the Russian
campaign and contends that if they had been limited to the first, "to
destroy Bolshevism," the war would have ended long ago because it
coincided with the wishes of the population, especially the peasantry.
Even the second aim, "to smash the Great Russian empire," might have
been accepted by most people as the price of their military defeat. But
the final goal, "to win colonial territory for the purposes of settlement
and economic exploitation," could not help but evoke widespread resis-
tance, "since even a primitive man can realize that our slogan, 'Libera-
 The Ancillary Agencies / 125

tion from Bolshevism,' is only a pretext for applying techniques to enslave

the Slavs."
Bräutigam defends this position against charges that it is "soft, senti-
mental, and humanitarian." On the contrary, he claims, it represents just
sensible Realpolitik "to maintain the friendly welcome given us as libera-
tors, in order to make military, political, and economic capital for Ger-
many out of it." Yet the initial proposals of his office to dissolve the
kolkhozy and introduce private farming had been rejected by the Four-
Year Plan administration on the grounds that "organizational changes
during the war were out of the question." The reform plan that was
finally approved in February 1942 provided for a two-stage transition
from collective to cooperative, then to individual farming. However, the
Beich commissars held up its execution until the spring, when there were
still reports of delays due to the lack of title books, surveyors, instru-
ments, and so on.
It is clear from this account that agricultural reform did not have a
chance, if only because Koch could sabotage the program in the rural
heartland, the Ukraine. There, as Bräutigam notes, only ten percent of
the kolkhozy had been converted into cooperatives after eight months
of reform, and from all indications that was the point at which things
would stall. He goes on to comment on the similar impasse in plans to
promote religious freedom in the occupied territories. Although he casts
no blame here, it is evident that the same constellation of administrative
forces that had dashed liberal hopes when it came to economic questions
was dooming genuine improvements in the cultural sphere. German
"hard-liners" who insisted on the most rigid controls for the peasant had
as little use for his churches as Soviet agricultural overseers had had in
their time.

THE FOREIGN OFFICE

Among the German agencies that had some bearing on policy toward
the Bussian Orthodox Church, the Foreign Office is remarkable for the
vast gap between the goodness of its intentions and its utter inability to
put them into practice. Largely responsible for the former was Franz
von Papen, the ex-chancellor who had been instrumental in negotiating
Hitler's Concordat with the Vatican and had become one of a number of
highly placed Catholics who rationalized the attack on Bussia as a blow
against atheism.81 Advocates of the fostering of religion in occupied
territories were the fairly sophisticated experts on Bussia who had been
126 / Icon and Swastika

assembled by Councillor Georg Grosskopf in a body known as the Russ-

land-Gremium. 82 In short order they joined von Papen in the ranks of
impotent bureaucrats whom Hitler suffered for no apparent reason ex-
cept that they furnished the butt of his jokes. Their ineffectuality was
abetted by their bumbling chief, Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribben-
trop, whose rare attempts to relay the moderate views of his staff to
Hitler invariably ended in servile retreat.
The notes of the July 1941 conference of Nazi leaders on the future
administration of Russian lands contain the following entry: "By the
way, the Führer emphasizes that church activity is entirely out of the
question. Papen has already sent him via the Foreign Office a long
memorandum in which it is claimed that now is the right moment to
introduce churches again, but that is entirely out of the question."83 The
suggestion has been made that Ribbentrop fully expected Hitler's rebuff
and, indeed, only passed along the proposal of his fierce enemy, von
Papen, in order to have the roof fall in on him.84 This seems a rather far-
fetched hypothesis in view of the fact that von Papen had been out
of favor with the leadership for some time by then. 85 It is also unlikely
that Ribbentrop would have been unaware that by this move he was
implicating himself in a project that would rouse Hitler's scorn. His own
version of the incident admits no ulterior motive, though it must be
read with the skepticism due such postwar accounts composed in the
cells at Nuremberg. For what it is worth, he relates : "Papen was attacked
by the Party, especially by Himmler, for his Catholicism and, if it hadn't
been for my protection he would have been in deep trouble because
of his work on behalf of the Catholic Action. I myself was favorably
inclined when it came to church questions, if only because of foreign
policy reasons."86
Although they were not spelled out by von Papen or Ribbentrop,
these foreign policy reasons can be fairly well deduced in the case of the
Russian Orthodox Church. Nazi diplomats could have recognized sev-
eral profitable uses for a religious "liberation" in the occupied territories
conducted under German auspices. News of it could have been trans-
mitted to neutral countries and the United States ( at least until its entry
into the war) to offset the bad impressions created by stories of Nazi
atrocities; it would have been particularly helpful in angling for the
support of Greek Orthodox churches in these countries. A German
modus vivendi with the Orthodox Church would also cement relations
with pro-German Balkan governments of countries that had sizable con-
tingents of believers. The dividends of such a venture were further indi-
 The Ancillary Agencies / 127

cated by the German alliance with the Grand Mufti, for which the
groundwork had been laid by an extremely liberal policy in Berlin
toward the Moslem nationalities, with religious toleration toward Islam
constituting a vital part. 87 That alliance brought about the formation of
German legions from Moslem areas of southern Russia and the closest
collaboration the Germans received anywhere in their Eastern territories.
In any case, little more is heard on this subject from the diplomats
beyond an occasional futile protest, such as the one tendered by the
Russland-Gremium when the High Command barred further military
assistance to Russian churches. 88 Russian questions as a whole were put
outside the purview of the Foreign Office by 1942, on orders from
Hitler. 89 Ribbentrop's staff remained only indirectly involved, through its
dealings with the Vatican, which had for fifteen years "been quietly
training priests to do missionary work in Russia" and wasn't about to
recall them in the face of Rosenberg's orders not to admit them into
occupied territories. Under the protection of some army officers, a num-
ber of the more persistent missionaries evidently managed to elude the
ban. One source has gleaned from the Vatican that "the Germans were
willing to allow the priests to carry out their duties because they be-
lieved that many Russians and Ukrainians secretly yearned for religion
and, therefore, if the German army was followed by priests, it would
help to reconcile the Russians to German occupation." 90 When the papal
nuncio brought protests against official German harassment in the area,
the Foreign Office would have the task of turning them aside, Lammers
informed Rosenberg in October 1942.91
The desire of the Einsatzgruppen to keep Catholic missionaries from
exploiting the disorganized church situation in Belorussia in order to
win converts has already been noted. Security reports from the Ukraine
also stress "the danger of Roman intervention . . . if no internal stabiliza-
tion takes place in the traditional Eastern Church." 92 A further analysis
in the summer of 1941 finds that "on former Polish territory, the Catholic
Church is seeking to . . . gain political influence through the remaining
Polish administrative machinery. Polish activity includes the baptism
of Orthodox children, especially orphans, in the Polish Catholic area.
With rare exceptions, there is no evidence of anti-German activity among
the Polish clergy, but the latter probably identifies with Polish intellec-
tuals who seek the re-establishment of an independent Poland." 93
In the security police scale of values, Greek Orthodoxy, which might
be kept from allying itself with nationalist groups, was relatively pref-
erable to Catholicism, already fused with anti-German Polish patriotism
128 / Icon and Swastika

or the extreme nationalism of the West Ukraine. Following an extensive

survey of Ukrainian religious trends, an SD report concludes: "We need
hardly add that Roman Catholicism and the whole Catholic way of
thought evident among some Great Russian émigrés (naming the state
as 'enemy' of the Church, declaring 'rights' of the Church) represents
the real church-political danger in the East."94 For the Einsatzgruppen,
with their utilitarian approach to religion, the Orthodox churches, too,
had their established predominance in the occupied territories to recom-
mend them as candidates for collaboration; and they were no doubt
influenced by the record of recent frictions between Germany and the
Vatican, as well as by the anti-Catholic bias of the Nazi leadership that
made them regard the incipient missionary effort as a direct ideological
threat.
The papal see, outside the sphere of German hegemony, possessed
enough power of independent action to issue widely circulated protests
against Nazi inhumanities, at least on those rather rare occasions when
it was deemed politic to do so. An Einsatzgruppen report which charac-
terizes the Lvov clergy as chauvinistic and anti-German refers to such
unfavorable publicity: "The Vatican reports alleged Nazi cruelties
against the Polish clergy."95 The second type of Vatican pressure con-
flicting with German interests, protests of the controls imposed by
German church administrators, is also taken up in the report. Later
dispatches reveal the paranoid strains in the Gestapo psyche, ranging
from rumors that Belorussian missionary work was being done on the
Pope's orders by Polish priests disguised as peasants, to the ultimate
fantasy of an alliance forged by Catholic and Soviet leaders for their
personal aggrandizement. 96
If hamstringing the Catholic missionary effort was primarily the duty
of the Einsatzgruppen with the unstinting support of the Ostministerium,
the necessarily ruffled feelings of the Vatican meant that the Foreign
Office had a new job to do, too. Thus the results of a meeting between
Hitler and Rosenberg, on May 3, 1942, were transmitted to Ribbentrop
to guide his Vatican diplomacy. At the meeting "it was mentioned . . .
that the Vatican was already naming bishops for the Ostland Reichs-
kommissariat who had become independently active, without liaison
with the respective German administrations."97 Hitler had assigned to
Rosenberg's staff the handling of anticipated friction with these Catho-
lic Church representatives, leaving it to Ribbentrop to ward off all such
future requests and complaints expected from the papal nuncio—a task
to which he sprang with alacrity.98 In short, Foreign Office diplomats
 The Ancillary Agencies / 129

were deemed worthy of spinning red tape and deliberately "passing the
buck" in response to Vatican remonstrances. By this time they had
already been relegated to such minor service functions and excluded
from genuine policy-making, for which their refusal to acknowledge
the precedence of military-economic over political factors had made
them unfit in the eyes of the Nazi leadership.

The sidelining of the Foreign Office represented a triumph for Rosen-

berg. He had won out, for once, over a rival. True, the vanquished was
only Ribbentrop, an official with even fewer administrative talents and
bureaucratic allies to marshal in his cause than Rosenberg could boast.
To compound the hollowness of the victory, the Foreign Minister had
been checkmated merely for trying to put into practice the theories of
the Ostministerium. His debacle had come when he had tried to enlist
anti-Russian nationalities in the German war effort by assembling émigré
leaders, mainly from the Caucasus, at the Hotel Adlon in Berlin at the
end of April 1942." In persuading Hitler to call a halt to the proceed-
ings, Rosenberg won the battle for his bureaucratic prerogatives but
lost the war for his policies.
This example illustrates, if in an extreme form, how German occupa-
tion policy was permeated with struggles for personal power among the
Nazi elite. If the failure to develop consistent policies is to be under-
stood, one must begin here: with the feuds that pitted Rosenberg
against Koch, Goebbels, and Ribbentrop; with the backstairs intrigues of
Bormann and the temporary alliances between generals and Ostminis-
terium officials, propagandists and security units; with the appetites of
Göring, Himmler, and Koch for à lion's share of the prizes to be snatched
from Russia. To the Eastern subjects of the Third Reich this meant
being thrust into a role of pawns in a game they did not fathom. All
they knew was that their aspirations counted for naught and that
a bewildering succession of promises and threats from their German
masters left them no option but to survive somehow beneath the clashing
factions.
On the ideological plane, the battle lines of the bureaucrats were
drawn in terms of the tension, recognized at the outset by Rosenberg,
between long-range political and short-range military-economic advan-
tages to be derived from the occupation. With fierce battles raging only
a few miles away, it is small wonder that German officials in the field
never managed to resolve this dilemma, especially since their chiefs per-
sisted in coloring overall objectives in the light of their agency's peculiar
130 / Icon and Swastika

functions. The course of these divergent approaches as they were re-

flected in the microcosm of church policy has been traced here. In the
absence of any coordinating mechanism for ideological conflicts of this
type, it was perhaps inevitable that practices varied sharply and often
contradicted each other. The population, caught in the middle, saw
here but one more instance of grand promises matched by paltry fulfill-
ment. Instead of becoming the tool the Germans had desired, the body
of the faithful, its hopes roused only to be frustrated, turned into another
of the potentially hostile forces that could be and was activated in the
Soviet favor by German repression and military defeats.
 6
T h e Popular Reaction to
G e r m a n Religious Policy
in tlie East

German agencies involved in the administration of occupied Russian

territories shared a common assumption: the Russian Orthodox Church
could in some fashion be molded to suit their purposes. At the very least,
for the fanatic advocates of the master-race thesis, this meant seeing the
Church as a means to make the populace tractable to the German yoke;
in the more sanguine plans of the psychological warfare strategists, the
Church was to play a positive role as a potential ally in the war against
Bolshevism. The survey of German policies regarding the Church pre-
sented in this book suggests that they were too beset by contradictions,
dilatoriness, and petty considerations to achieve any but chaotic results.
The data must now be reviewed to reconstruct the picture of church life
under Nazi rule from a different perspective—that of the believers—in
order to focus on elements of order beneath the chaos.
At the outset, the extent to which patterns of popular reaction vali-
dated the German assumption should be determined. Four questions can
be explored: To what degree did German church policy succeed in mo-
bilizing popular resistance to the Soviet regime? If some Church groups
did collaborate with the Germans, who were they and to what lengths
did they go? If others were antagonized by German policies, were they
moved beyond passive resistance to open friction with the authorities?
If, apart from political factors, the people manifested a long-suppressed
desire to express their faith, which strata were caught up in the religious
revival? Definitive answers to these questions would do much to shed

131
132 / Icon and Swastika

light on the inner workings of the Orthodox Church as an institution;

however, the data are too fragmentary to lead to anything but tentative
conclusions. As far as they do go, they indicate that the answer to each
question cannot be an unequivocal yes or no, an unhesitating identifica-
tion of clerical quislings and partisans or an unambiguous evaluation of
motives for popular participation in Church activities.
The very qualification of such answers casts doubt on simpler deduc-
tions drawn, for example, by official Soviet historians who have taken
the rarity of occurrence of overt collaboration as proof of pro-Soviet
loyalties of the Church masses and leaders under the occupation. 1 On the
other hand, it raises questions about the validity of contrary conclusions
advanced by scholars whose sympathies for the pre-war plight of Russian
believers may have predisposed them to over-rate pro-German sounds
in the popular cheering that followed the removal of Soviet controls.
Thus, David Dallin's judgment: "Many orthodox priests in occupied
regions of Russia entered into collaboration with the German authori-
ties. This was significant because the priests would not have ventured to
act contrary to the sentiments of their parishioners."2 Dallin's premise is
subject to criticism because he limits his evidence for collaboration to
the official thanks for their "liberation" that was tendered by a number
of Church dignitaries to the Germans; his inference is the more dubious
for not taking the unsettled social and political conditions of military
occupation into account.
A critique would raise at least the following three objections: (1)
much of the thanks poured out to Hitler by Church leaders bore the
earmarks of extortion by German pressure; (2) some of the newly
installed Church heads had been brought along by the Germans and
were merely playing puppet roles according to a prepared script; (3)
with the sudden need for priests to meet the upsurge of new congrega-
tions, many laymen (presumably more loyal to the Nazis, to whom they
owed their offices, than to their parishioners ) had to be invested. Except
for the latter two groups, collaboration may have amounted to little
more than rendering Caesar his due. Too much cannot be made of an
occasional sermon written according to Nazi specifications. With the
keen noses of the German political police sniffing out any signs of dis-
affection, the priests could hardly have been expected to preach insur-
rection.
Before examining in detail the three special factors that cast doubt on
the genuineness of collaboration by the clergy, a qualification must be
introduced. During the first few weeks of the four-year occupation
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 133

period, priests and believers were caught up in the general euphoria of a

transition period that had witnessed the overnight disappearance of
Soviet controls but had not yet felt the brunt of German repression. The
prevalent mood of the population, as recounted by several observers,
was a mixture of hope and dread. 3 While the fears soon proved well
founded, the aspirations were often rooted only in wishful thinking. "It
can't be worse" was the byword of the moment. 4 Ukrainian believers
greeted the Wehrmacht as a "punishing arm of God" and misread the
black cross on tank turrets as a sign of Christian devotion.5
Where German military units helped to reopen churches, their un-
official and sporadic actions were interpreted by a confused populace as
a harbinger of better days to come. The initial wave of welcoming
speeches and "thank-you notes" was followed by swift disillusion. "We
soon realized that the Germans hadn't come to liberate our people from
Bolshevism but to subdue them for so-called Lebensraum," says one
report. 6 The primary reason for the evaporation of popular gratitude
after the first holiday flush lay in the worsening of material conditions,
which far outweighed any of the spiritual concessions the Germans
granted grudgingly. Religious freedom often remained a plus factor.
"The church was overwhelmingly considered the sole area in which
German rule brought decided improvement," concludes Alexander
Dallin from his interviews of Russian escapees for the Harvard project. 7
Any thankfulness here was canceled out by four minuses: the brutal
treatment of war prisoners, the harshness of German agricultural policy,
starvation in the cities, and the ruthless labor draft. 8 Even in the church
sphere, however, there was a growing resentment against heavy-handed
administrators who extorted loyalist sermons, installed their puppets in
leading church positions, and sanctioned arrests and executions of inde-
pendent-minded clerics.

LIMITS OF PRESSURE : THE CASE OF SERGIUS

From the account of Gestapo and Propaganda Ministry practices in

the last chapter, it is clear that the doctoring of sermons was no rarity;
neither was the extraction of pro-Nazi appeals from reluctant church
heads, at gunpoint if necessary. One of the most significant cases of such
forced collaboration opens with a German Security Office report on
July 11, 1941: "Metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox Church for the
Baltic Lands, Sergei [Sergius] in Riga, is ready to release an appeal to
the believers of Russia against Communism . . . Draft of the appeal is
134 / Icon and Swastika

being prepared at this time."9 The report does not bother to amplify the
illustrious background of Sergius, merely noting that he has been "in
Riga since 1941 . . . previously, 23 years in Moscow. He is a Great
Russian. Civil name: Voskresensky."
Among the data not mentioned in the report was that the forty-two-
year-old Sergius had risen meteorically in the Church, having been made
a bishop twelve years before and soon becoming a chief adviser to his
older namesake, who was to become patriarch. 10 On behalf of the latter,
he had been sent to newly Soviet-occupied Volhynia in 1939 to sell the
local clerics on the benefits of cooperating with Moscow. As principal
liaison man to the Kremlin on behalf of the elder Sergius, he had shown
the acumen which made him a logical choice for exarch, or supervisory
bishop, for the Baltic states occupied by the Soviets in August 1940.
When ordered to return to Russia because of the German advance, the
younger Sergius made a crucial decision to disobey. Whatever his private
reasons—perhaps the arrest of his father in the 1935 purges—he con-
cealed himself for four days in the crypt of the Cathedral of Riga,
emerging only to be arrested by the Gestapo.11
The pressures exerted by the German security officials on Sergius the
Younger to make him issue the prepared text of his anti-Communist call
to arms can only be conjectured. Evidently he was able to strike a bar-
gain. During the next months he issued telegrams of greeting to Hitler,
but he did not renounce his allegiance to the Church head in Moscow
until his September 1942 denunciation by the Patriarchy made a rupture
unavoidable. 12 In the meantime, his actions had made abundantly plain
that his prime aim was the revival of religious life and the maintenance
of a unified Church organization in his domain; pro-German prayers
might be a necessary price, but they deliberately stopped short of a
renunciation of his Russian national values. What they purchased was,
first of all, the backing of the Ostland Reichskommissariat that over-
came the resistance to Sergius' authority by Estonian bishops who had
been supported by their Generalkommissar.13 No sooner had his claim
been validated for the Baltic than Sergius stretched it to cover the
Russian areas to the east that the Wehrmacht had taken on its way to
Leningrad. Particularly in the Pskov region, where not a single parish
had survived, he built up a thriving mission with hastily commissioned
lay priests and by 1943 was able to boast some two hundred congrega-
tions, workshops for religious objects, a parochial education system,
record attendance at services, and a clerical journal.14
Perusal of Gestapo reports reveals that the exceptional success of the
Orthodox mission in the Northern Military District, on the approaches
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 135

to Leningrad, was no fluke. It is a tribute to the organizational skills of

Sergius that he could make Pskov, as well as nearby centers at Ostrov
and Luga, into economically thriving and well-staffed enterprises. No
less does it bear witness to the Exarch's diplomatic skills in neutralizing
his ecclesiastical competitors—particularly the nationalist clerics of
Estonia and Latvia, who denounced Sergius for his Muscovite ante-
cedents as a Bolshevik agent—while impressing his Nazi overseers as
their potential tool or, at least, as a lesser evil than the local nationalists
in the Baltic. The initial Einsatzgruppen dispatches from Pskov, Ostrov,
and Luga depict the early spontaneous nature of the popular religious
revival.15 The German reaction is ambivalent, viewing the phenomenon
as a clue to "pacification" of the countryside but discounting it as limited
to the older peasantry. By February 1942, however, there was a reassess-
ment: activities in the area between Lake Peipus and Lake Ilm en were
attributed to the "Administration of the Orthodox Mission in the Liber-
ated Areas of Russia," involving some forty priests under Sergius, whose
position had presumably been underwritten by officials in Berlin.16 The
missionaries were promoting plans for religious instruction of children
and they had recently staged (partly for German benefit) an admittedly
imposing religious procession to the Pskov Cathedral with about two
thousand celebrants (though mostly female), to dedicate an icon of the
Madonna of Tikhvin that German troops had saved in recent battle.
Up to this time, the German security offices appear to have been
skeptical about Latvian nationalist hostility to Sergius, even to charges
that he was on the NKVD payroll and had ties to the Living Church.17
As when Sergius repelled advances from the Karlovtsi emigres operating
through Bishop Seraphim in Berlin, or helped undercut the authority of
Metropolitan Augustin in Latvia, the pragmatic Gestapo hesitated to
back unreliable and weak competitors. After it had taken the measure
of Sergius' organizational strength, however, it was happy to endorse the
Reichskommissariat order of February 23, 1942, giving him ten days to
move to Vilna, Lithuania, and putting Orthodox Church affairs in Latvia
in the hands of his rival, the Estonian Archbishop Alexander, during an
extended · "vacation" of Metropolitan Augustin.18 There can be little
doubt that transferring Sergius from Riga was calculated to disrupt his
communications with the Pskov area.
A month after his move to Vilna, Sergius was able to convince the
security chief of Lithuania of a "pro-German direction in his speeches
and actions," a tactical maneuver that appears to have enabled him to
bring the economic and spiritual fortunes of the Pskov and Luga missions
to new heights by autumn 1942. And the SS kept close watch over his
136 / Icon and Swastika

balance sheet.19 Thus an Einsatzgruppe reported on the operations of

the Pskov organization that turned popular contributions into an income
of 10,000 Reichsmark per month by tithing its parishes and transmitting
half of this amount to Sergius. Kyrill Saitz, the priest in charge of the
mission, requested German legitimation of administrators appointed by
Sergius down to the parish level, as well as "all possible help" from
German and local Russian government offices. His specific demands
included permission for the Estonian diocese to resubmit to the Exarch's
control, for "politically reliable" émigré priests to join the mission, and
for theological courses to be set up in Riga, Vilna, and elsewhere to
supply more priests. Along economic lines, he asked that taxes on
parishes and "enterprises run for their benefit" be suspended and that
procurement and transport of clerical supplies, such as wax for candles,
be provided at fixed prices. The chief enterprise appears to have been a
candle factory, whose sales account for eighty percent of mission income,
though additional workshops produced icons and other items. In the
town of Luga, churches were said to have taken in 9,000 rubles per
month, with a savings account balance of 29,000 rubles by September
1942.
The German attitude implied in this report is wary, though not yet
hostile enough to warrant the recommendation of drastic counter-
measures. This fact can be gleaned from the report's deduction that a
recent decline of sums spent on "charitable activities" by the Pskov
mission from upwards of 10,000 rubles a month to one-tenth of that sum
may have been due to the pocketing of funds by mission staff or to the
siphoning off of a greater share by Sergius. Claims of an Orthodox priest
strengthened Nazi suspicions that the mission had mishandled large sums
and used a courier service to Sergius to escape German control of moneys
and mail, indeed that Sergius may have been an NKVD agent after all.
There is no gainsaying, however, the mission's hold over some ten
thousand believers in the Pskov area; the thousands of baptisms and
other religious rites performed; the ability of priests and deacons to
support themselves entirely from ceremonial fees. Only occasionally did
the Kommandatura betray skepticism about the operation, by presuming
that some men and youth participating in services did so "out of curiosity
rather than genuine faith." Only incidentally did it put up bureaucratic
hurdles, by prohibiting churchly wedding services without prior civil
registration. And though German officials turned down the mission's
request to institute religious instruction in and out of school—since it
would constitute official recognition they were not ready to grant—they
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 137

accepted a revised proposal for religious courses given by teachers

subordinate to local departments of education. They also took note of vol-
unteer efforts by the people to restore churches but found labor and mate-
rials in too short supply to allow construction of new churches. As for
the mission's desperate efforts to stave off impending income taxes on its
employees and a turnover tax on its products, the Germans made no
move to interfere. Neither did they seem particularly upset by the report
that Bishop Pavel in a speech at Narva, Estonia, accused Pskov priests
of meddling in his diocesan affairs, nor by Estonian clerics' resisting his
offer to subordinate that state's church organization to Exarch Sergius,
whom they considered "a tool of the Communists" unlike their national
champion Metropolitan Alexander. Even with official reaction to Sergius
shifting from benevolent neutrality to thinly veiled hostility, he managed
to write a unique chapter in the church history of the occupation, thanks
to his single-minded dedication no less than his charm, shrewdness, and
administrative skill.
The successes of Sergius derived from the increasing strength of his
bargaining position vis-à-vis the Germans, which in turn depended on
his making the formal pronouncements of loyalty they demanded yet
retaining enough independence of action to convince his flock that he
was doing so under duress. The thin line he managed to tread is indi-
cated by two examples. The first is the ingenious argument he used to
justify not protesting the election of his old friend Patriarch Sergius as
printed in the official German newspaper for the Ostland on March 4,
1943. It would be a mistake for bishops in the occupied territories to take
such steps, he contended, since it would make them look like utter tools
of German policy. By then the patriarchal elevation had been recognized
by all high offices of the Church; rather than contest it, local bishops
should hail it as a concession wrung from the Bolsheviks like their dis-
solution of the Comintern. "One has to play off the Patriarch of Moscow
against Stalin," he advised. German propaganda should stress that "even
today the Soviets have been forced to recognize a Church head as repre-
sentative and symbol of the anti-Soviets . . . It is a sign of the bankruptcy
of Bolshevism if its change in policy leads to the recognition of God and
the Church."20
As relayed by the Ostland security police commander, the views of
Sergius reflect an anti-Communism that falls far short of an espousal of
Nazi aims; their only clear thrust is pro-Church. The same constellation
of sentiments surrounds his response to an order by the Lithuanian
puppet regime to have all parish councils prepare lists of men aged
138 / Icon and Swastika

eighteen to forty-five for impressment into a special SS unit. Failure to

comply with this order of April 7,1943, by May 2 entailed "prompt ship-
ment" of all derelict councillors to a concentration camp.21 Sergius,
evidently unable to forestall this action, telegraphed his bishops urging
them to secure compliance and to explain to the population the severe
sanctions for not answering an SS summons. However, he asked them to
point out to the councillors that such measures were due to the absence
of true popular representatives and that their participation was in the
role of members of a social organization, not as church officials.22
As he dissociated himself more and more from their policy, Sergius
must have made the Germans aware that they had grossly under-rated
him. He had persuaded them that it would be better to deal with him
than with the native Baltic archbishops who wore their nationalism on
their sleeves. He had even cleverly turned the Führerprinzip to his own
ends by using it to buttress his case for Church leadership. 23 Finally, he
had gone behind their backs to contact leaders of the Belorussian Ortho-
dox Church and keep them within his growing sphere of influence. The
result of all these maneuvers was the heightened stature of Sergius and
his organization. When it had transcended that of puppets, the Germans
rang down the curtain. The climax is recounted by an acquaintance of
Sergius in a Harvard Project interview: "Sergius was a determined
Russian patriot. In his sermons he never mentioned the Germans, but
implicitly his sermons did have a political character . . . He hated the
Germans. Evidently there was a denunciation of him by somebody,
perhaps through a special Einsatzkommando . . . Sergius, accompanied
by a couple and the driver, was riding from Vilna, far from town, when
a group of six or seven persons drove up in a car and barred his way.
They shot all four of them with automatic pistols. The local peasants
and partisans had no reason to dislike him so intensely. It seems more
likely that the Germans did it themselves."24
There seems little doubt that the murder of Sergius on April 28, 1944,
was indeed the product of a vendetta by the security troops. Not only
did they have the motive and the opportunity, but they would have
been advised of the travel plans which were to take Sergius to Riga;
furthermore, the authorities remained conspicuously silent to naming any
suspects or disclosing any efforts to track them down. The note of
hypocrisy in the German epitaph for Sergius also strikes a familiar
chord. The official publication of the Ostland Reichskommissariat cites
the statement published by the "trustees" for Estonia, Latvia, and
Lithuania in the June 15 issue of Russki Vestnik (Russian Herald) in
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 139

Riga. Arensburger, Alexeyev, and Stavrovsky, respectively, "bemoan the

murder of Metropolitan Sergius, martyr against Judeo-Bolshevism. No
threats will stop the Russian people in their struggle [against these
forces] ."25
For all its unusual features and somewhat mysterious ending, the story
of Sergius may be taken as a model of the behavior many Russian priests
strove to follow under the occupation. A plethora of verbal evidence
supports a thesis for collaboration—greetings, sermons, and speeches on
behalf of the Germans, most of them clearly delivered on demand—but
very few actions lend them substantive meaning. It is on the basis of
such data that Serge Bolshakoff comments on "the German advance,
accompanied by the closing of the Godless museums and the reopening
of the shut-up churches, where the Orthodox priests were invited to sing
solemn thanksgiving services before the German officers." And he goes
on to conclude that "the Uniate and the Orthodox clergy certainly
abstained from supporting the German advance."26

LIMITS OF ARTIFICE: THE CASE

OF BELOBUSSIAN AUTOCEPHALY

The Germans had originally gambled on Sergius because to them he

seemed a known quantity, as opposed to the potentially more dangerous
unknown factors, the nationalist bishops of the Baltic states. They took
a different sort of risk in Belorussia, where neither of the prevailing
forces—a Russian Orthodox Church loyal to the Moscow Patriarchate
and a sizable group of Catholics and Uniates obedient to the Pope—
was a likely prospect for collaboration, by fashioning a synthetic church
organization to carry the twin banners of clerical independence and the
swastika. The German Generalkommissar, old-time Nazi Gauleiter Wil-
helm Kube, was charged with close guidance of this fledgling "Belo-
russian Autocephalous Orthodox National Church" in a unique example
of official and total German support for a church group in the occupied
territories.27 At his disposal was the repressive machinery to stifle rival
factions and to do away with those Belorussian nationalists who might
try to bend the new movement to their purposes. The only thing he could
not do was to blow life into his creature; that would be up to the
ecclesiastical quislings and their enthusiastic followers who were sup-
posed to have appeared at the appointed time but never did.
The German administration found it far easier to eliminate the compe-
tition than to market its product. The nationalists had never played a
140 / Icon and Swastika

leading role in Belorussia; their sparse numbers were not equal to meet-
ing the challenges of staffing local government posts, when allowed to do
so by the Germans, or protesting the dismemberment of their territories,
with chunks going to East Prussia, Lithuania, the Ukrainian Reichs-
kommissariat, and the army-occupied territories to the east.28 The only
channel left open to them was the underground Party of Belorussian
Independence (BNP), soon joined by a "People's Front" of Catholics
reacting to German persecution, led by an old émigré from Vilna, Father
Vincent Hadleùski (Godlevski), who tried to rally anti-Communists
who had accompanied Wehrmacht units into a force that could be led
by him as bishop.29 Their slogan, "Neither the Russians nor the Ger-
mans," lay tattered amid the German purges of the nationalists that
began in summer 1942 and claimed Hadleùski among its victims by the
year's end. In the removal of Belorussian emblems and flags, the German-
sponsored church, too, was ordered to drop the term "National" from its
title.30
A similar fate was in store for the province's Uniates, some thirty
thousand strong, organized in March 1942 by the Polish Metropolitan
Szepticky as an Exarchate, under Father Anton Nemancevic (Neman-
tsevich ), in a papal move suspiciously noted by the Gestapo.31 This priest,
with several years in Russian prisons and a round of Vatican studies to
his credit, had at first been tolerated by the Germans in his missionary
efforts, which included a decree on the use of the Belorussian language
in sermons. Rosenberg's ministry, with its anti-Vatican bias, wasted no
love on what it called "the Polish-influenced Roman Catholic Church" of
Belorussia.32 The crackdown came in November 1942 with the Gestapo
arrest and presumed execution of Nemancevic and the dispersal of his
forces.33 When the Soviets recaptured Belorussia at the end of 1944, they
found no Uniate organization left to liquidate.
The Germans' initial difficulty in trying to plant an autocephalous
church in Belorussia lay in the absence of any native institution to graft
it on. What there had been of an independent church movement was
almost over before it started, and the legacy it had left was one of
resistance to attempted modernization. It had begun on July 23, 1922,
when Melchisedek (Payevski), the Bishop of Minsk, assumed the title
of metropolitan of Belorussia to proclaim the independence of his ad-
ministration. His grounds had not been nationalist, but ecclesiastical: to
form a group of starotserkovniki, or "Old Church People," hearkening
to the true faith. By the end of 1925, Metropolitan Sergius in Moscow
had convinced him to renounce his title and call the whole thing off.
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 141

Melchisedek seems not to have been connected with the Minsk confer-
ence of churchmen and nationalists that tried to revive some form of
autocephaly in 1927, only to meet a rebuff from the Patriarchate and to
have most of its lay adherents disappear in the Soviet purges of Belo-
russian "National Democrats" in 1929.34 The three other Belorussian
bishops, Filaret of Bobruisk, Mikhail of Slutsk, and Ioann of Mozyr,
were shut away in concentration camps in the 1937 Soviet "pogrom" that
decimated the Belorussian clergy in small villages as well as urban
centers. When the Soviets annexed the western part of the province in
1939, they met very little resistance in getting most of its church hier-
archy to submit to the Patriarchate.
In short, not only did a new Belorussian church lack respectable ante-
cedents, but it faced a serious staffing problem from the outset. For the
German security police to proclaim in July 1941 that "the Greek-Ortho-
dox Church is to be quickly activated and supported" was one thing.35
To implement its premise that "priority be given to employment of Belo-
russian clergy" soon proved to be another, much more difficult matter.
By September, it had become clear to the Germans that what religious
revival had taken place was spontaneous, without any evidence of
organization. In Minsk, only a few priests were concerned with regional
developments; administrative considerations were far from their minds.
One exception, noted in a report later that month, was Vladimir
Finkovski, subsequently identified as an agent of Metropolitan Dionisius
( Valedinski ), head of the Polish Autocephalous Church. This priest had
succeeded in ingratiating himself with the Germans by conducting
services dedicated to the Führer, but he had also provoked the ire of
local nationalists who saw in him a Great Russian with aspirations to the
Belorussian archdiocese, promoted by the city's church council.
The Germans yielded to nationalist pressure and their own misgivings
about admitting Polish influences into Belorussia. By the end of the year
they had arrested Finkovski and shipped him back to Warsaw. To head
the province church, they brought out of retirement seventy-four-year-
old Archbishop Panteleimon (Rozhnovski) from the western region, who
had been made exarch there under Soviet auspices in 1939. The choice
merely led to a new dilemma, since Panteleimon ( of half-Russian, half-
Polish ancestry) proceeded to use all the power owing to his seniority
and prestige to delay a proclamation of autocephaly, both on canonical
and political grounds.36 In January 1942, an Einsatzgruppen report
announced the formation of a "Belorussian Autocephalous Orthodox
National Church" but went on to accuse its leaders, Metropolitan
142 / Icon and Swastika

Panteleimon and his vicar, Bishop Benedict, of sympathies for the

Patriarchate of Moscow with whom they had been associated.37 Though
nationalists in Warsaw made much of the "Communist past" of these
hierarchs, the Polish Church under Dionisius had recognized the legiti-
macy of the new church as within the bounds of the Constantinople
Patriarch s order of 1924 for a separate church administration in the
province. Along with this endorsement, Dionisius had evidently hoped
to influence the course of the new church by proposing to the Germans
three candidates for dioceses. One of them, Archimandrite Philotheus
(Narko), had already arrived in Minsk and paid a call, jointly with
Panteleimon, on Commissar Kube.38 Among German specifications for
the new church were its canonical, politically neutral existence under
new statutes (to be drawn up ), provision for services in Church Slavonic
rather than the vernacular, and the Germans' right to screen its bishops
and other officials, though "administrative matters" could be handled by
the Belorussians independently. 39
Although his title as "Metropolitan of Minsk and all Belorussia" had
been validated by the Germans, Panteleimon may soon have begun to
doubt that they, no less than local nationalists or the circle around
Dionisius, were prepared to grant it much substance. His strategy seems
to have been to placate them when necessary in turn, but to rely on
procrastination when any of them tried to push him into what he felt
was an uncanonical posture. Thus he outflanked the Warsaw group by
making Philotheus a bishop but, to earn his loyalty rather than his
rivalry, appointed him his vicar in place of Benedict, who had been sent
to the Grodno diocese under East Prussian administration. 40 In March
1942, Panteleimon yielded to the combined pressures of nationalists and
Generalkommissariat officials by presiding at a bishops' council which
drew the structural outlines for the embryonic church in line with
German directives.41 He also elevated another of Dionisius' nominees,
Athanasius ( Martos ) to the rank of bishop; but Athanasius' assignment
to the diocese of Vitebsk and Polotsk meant that, to the dismay of the
nationalists in Minsk, he would be far removed from the church center.42
It became clear to Germans and nationalists that, even though they
could wring concessions from Panteleimon, they were far from obtaining
his capitulation. Only a summons by the head of the Generalkommis-
sariat's political section cut short Panteleimon's delays in appointing an
extreme nationalist, Bishop Stephen (SeübaJ, to the Smolensk diocese.
On June 1, 1942, a German order exiled Panteleimon to the Liado
Monastery, his title intact, but his authority to be exercised temporarily
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 143

by Philotheus.43 This vicar soon demonstrated that he would not gratify

hopes pinned on him by the nationalists, when he resisted their attempts
to call another sobor, in the Metropolitan's absence, in order to bring
autocephaly of the church to fruition. A contemporary analysis of the
security police blames a Great Russian conspiracy, with branches in
Warsaw, Grodno, Vilna, Pinsk, and Riga, for Panteleimon's obstruction
of Belorussian church developments. Its chief agent is Bishop Benedict,
headquartered outside the province's jurisdiction. The real villain, ac-
cording to the SD, is Exarch Sergius at Vilna, whose secretary contacted
a priest close to Panteleimon. Among the communications passed on this
occasion was word that autocephality of the Belorussian Orthodox
Church was just a German fantasy running counter to Great Russian
wishes, as well as advice to hold on till war's end made clear who would
come out on top.44 For the conspiratorial view of the Gestapo, in which
all strands of Russian Orthodoxy ultimately led to Metropolitan Sergius
in Moscow, one might substitute a pragmatic picture of Panteleimon:
a prelate whose religious dedication and long-range vision of the Church
steeled him against the importunate demands of Germans, Poles, and a
small but vociferous band of Belorussian nationalists. As he told one of
the latter—he had managed to survive Poles and Bolsheviks and would
survive him, too.45
With Panteleimon in enforced retirement, nationalist hopes crested in
summer 1942. Impatient Generalkommissariat officials pushed prepara-
tions for a church council that would take the final official step toward
proclaiming Belorussian autocephaly. Philotheus, if somewhat reluc-
tantly, agreed to take charge of a preparatory commission, which char-
acteristically turned into a wrangle with the nationalists demanding
a greater share of delegates to the sobor.46 The commission submitted a
draft of the new church statute to the Germans, who returned it with a
detailed critique insisting that baptism of Jews be prohibited, that no
extrareligious activities be provided for, and that plans for religious
instruction in schools and the opening of new seminaries be reviewed by
civil authorities to make sure the churches were not preparing youth for
future resistance. With the qualified assent of the exiled Panteleimon,
the nationalists, and the German administration, the sobor was finally
held from August 30 to September 2, though several dioceses were not
able to send delegates. It ratified the church statute and, in anticlimactic
fashion, announced Belorussian autocephaly as fact but not canonical
reality. Full church autonomy, it insisted, would be valid only if ratified
by "all other Christian Orthodox Churches."47 This meant addressing
144 / Icon and Swastika

petitions to the several non-Russian Patriarchs, which was finally done

on April 17, 1943 (the Generalkommissariat bringing Panteleimon back
to Minsk just for the occasion), only to have the epistles mysteriously
vanish once they had been handed to Kube's staff for forwarding. 48 The
status of the new church was thus consigned to limbo.
Meanwhile, the German civil administration was encountering bizarre
responses from the synthetic church body it had midwifed into existence.
In the curious realignment of religious and nationalist groups in mid-
1942, the ecclesiastics who had been coolest to the whole project now
stood ready to pay lip service to the Nazis, while those who had seized
upon it as a nationalist vehicle refused to do so. Evidently, the German
clamp-down on the nationalists had disenchanted their sympathizers in
the ranks of the clergy about the benefits of collaboration. A denational-
ized Church, however, appeared as a viable alternative to the politically
neutral clerics. Collaboration was forthcoming from the "pro-Moscow"
church heads, but not any longer from the would-be quislings who had
greeted the Germans as liberators. Thus, just before his expulsion,
Panteleimon apparently composed the following pastoral message in
late May 1942: "The Almighty heard our prayers and, though we had
lost every hope, worked a great and unexpected miracle: Our neighbors
to the west, the German brothers, sent us with God's help their brave
sons, the grand army that took the gruesome Bolshevik yoke from our
shoulders, freed us from the Communist slave chains, and let White
Ruthenia [Belorussia] breathe a new life . . . Our true patriots are only
those who help the brave German army in the total liberation of our
homeland." 49 In direct contrast was the record of his nationalist oppo-
nent, Bishop Stephen of Smolensk, who, according to an émigré account,
"behaved very independently . . . The Germans requested Stephen to
write a pro-German address; he refused and published a purely pastor-
like message."50 Panteleimon's plea may have been a desperate contortion
to salvage his post, while Stephen could afford to play the ingrate from
his newfound position of strength.
The Belorussian Autocephalous Church failed to live up to the hopes
of Ostministerium officials under Kube for political as well as personnel
reasons. The more they intervened in its affairs, the greater the resent-
ment of clergy and parishioners; yet, whenever they loosened the reins,
nationalists used it as a mouthpiece for their grandiose program. More-
over, a nonpolitical clergy without Russian sympathies seemed impos-
sible to come by, as the Security Service—ever the critic of Rosenberg's
"coddling" of anti-Russian nationalists—could gloat in a report to Berlin
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 145

on June 5, 1942: 'The General Commissar [Kube] brought the Auto-

cephalous Orthodox Belorussian Church to life in order to split the Belo-
russians from the Great Russians in the field of religion. It has become
manifest that the Belorussian national church has become a catch basin
for Great Russian priesthood; moreover, there is no national Belorussian
clergy available to replace it."51 Had there been some independent-
minded priests to start with, the Gestapo purges of the nationalists would
certainly have assured their elimination after the summer of 1942. A
typical episode in this self-fulfilling prophecy is the SD arrest and
execution of Alexander Koush, a Vilna priest and leading spokesman
for Belorussian church autonomy, "under the absurd pretext of his being
a Soviet agent."52
The anemic and refractory creature that Kube had on his hands by
mid-1943 might well have been dropped by a less single-minded man;
but instead, he recalled Panteleimon to Minsk in order to supervise a
thorough renovation of the church. The doughty old Archbishop tried
his best, but he was caught in a paralyzing cross fire of nationalist feuds
and German rivalries. He could do little against the machinations of the
nationalist circle around Bishop Stephen—especially when the German
security forces and their agents in a "Belorussian Rada" were aiding his
foes, and when most parishes evinced no enthusiasm for their compro-
mised hierarchs or for the linguistic reform of services advocated by
them. The position in which he was pinned down was particularly
nebulous because the status of Belorussian autocephaly had never been
ratified canonically or officially. An eleventh-hour sobor which the Ger-
mans had Panteleimon assemble in May 1944 put off the issue for the
duration of the war, blithely making plans for new eparchies made
redundant by the Soviet advance. There continued to be no response
from the Eastern patriarchs, who had been asked to acknowledge auto-
cephaly, and even Kube kept hesitating to give it the official German
seal of approval.
Only in June 1944, as the Germans prepared to withdraw from Minsk,
would the Ostministerium admit that its erroneous estimates and half-
hearted policies were partly to blame for the abortive church project:
"It is a fact that the overwhelming part of the Belorussian clergy is
Russian in spirit. The rearing of a Belorussian nationally conscious
hierarchy meets with difficulties; it would be possible only if German
initiative were deployed in the religious field. This, however, runs
counter to the political directives now in force."53 The political bars were
lifted on June 27 to allow a Belorussian "central rada" to meet in Minsk,
146 / Icon and Swastika

while Red Army guns were booming nearby. After Archbishop Philo-
theus offered greetings on behalf of the Orthodox Church, over a thou-
sand delegates went through the meaningless motions certifying a Nazi
puppet regime.54 The ink was hardly dry on their anti-Semitic pro-
nouncements before tainted nationalists and church leaders joined the
retreating Germans. Even in emigration they found it impossible to
raise aloft once more the tattered standard for Belorussian church
independence.

LIMITS OF DISSENSION: THE CASE

OF UKRAINIAN AUTOCEPHALY

Where religious leaders in Belorussia cast their nationalist appeals on

sterile ground, the churchmen of the Ukraine had much more fertile soil
in which to plant an indigenous religious movement. If they suffered
some of the same pressures—manipulation of their group by German
administrators and internecine ecclesiastical rivalries carried to the point
of gang warfare—the Ukrainians found a distinctive way out of their
staffing problem. In Belorussia native hierarchs had been in short supply,
and the shortage of clergy could only partly be satisfied by candidates
from the fringes of legality, as "the new priests included many who had
been arrested, exiled, or who had hidden out."55 In the Ukraine men of
this ilk were also drafted into service at the parish level, but the bulk of
the leading positions was filled by a curious crew of adventurers, poli-
ticians, and Nazi fellow travelers imported from the western regions
under Polish rule since 1920. They displayed none of the compunctions
for canon law that had restrained the Baltic and Belorussian hierarchs,
but simply consecrated each other in a bewildering succession of self-
styled church councils. The resulting religious chaos was at times
abetted by officials of Koch's Reichskommissariat, for it tallied with
their general "divide and rule" prescription.
That the Ukraine had both a religious revival and a resurgence of
nationalism far exceeding those of other provinces under German occu-
pation is largely attributable to the strength of these forces in pre-Soviet
days. Now they were rebounding from a generation of unremitting
Communist repression, the distinctive features of which require a much
closer scrutiny of the record than seems necessary for the Baltic and
Belorussian cases. Russian Orthodoxy had been firmly entrenched by
1917, with about eight thousand parishes, nine dioceses, and two of the
most renowned monastic shrines, the Pecherskaya Lavra in Kiev and
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 147

the Lavra at Pochaev in western Volhynia.56 As for national indepen-

dence, it had been proclaimed by a central rada or council in June 1917,
acknowledged by the Kerensky Provisional Government in July, and
supplanted by a Soviet regime under Red Army auspices in February
1918. This was followed by the puppet regime of Hetmán Paul Skoro-
padsky installed by the Germans and, after their military collapse, by a
three-cornered struggle among remnants of the Rada who called them-
selves the Directorate, White Army forces under General A. I. Denikin,
and the counterattacking Soviet troops who were eventually able to
pacify the province by mid-1921.57
The historical record is of particular relevance in the Ukrainian case,
first as it illustrates how the Church was drawn into the political arena,
second as it bears on the genesis of an autocephalous faction. The Rada
had announced the separation of church and state in a move parallel to
that of the Provisional Government. To leftist nationalists, however, this
seemed a de facto recognition of the russified hierarchy led by Metro-
politan Vladimir, so they helped a small group of radical Kiev priests
set up a rump council in the spring of 1917 with a platform calling for
use of the vernacular in services, the selection of new bishops by
eparchial meetings of priests and laymen, and total clerical independence
from Moscow.58 It was a more moderate group of churchmen, though,
that obtained the approval of the Moscow Patriarchate to hold an All-
Ukrainian Church Council in January 1918—providing a platform none-
theless to such nationalists as Ivan Ohienko ( Ogienko ), a former medical
student and philology professor who had become involved in church
affairs through his friendship with one of the rump council leaders, Vasili
Lipkovsky. The council had been meeting for only a fortnight and had
not yet voted on any resolutions before the advance of the Red Army
caused it to disperse. On January 25, Vladimir was executed by a Com-
munist squad either in a senseless fit of anticlericalism, since he had
been a major foe of the anti-Moscow autocephalists, or in a trap set by
nationalist provocateurs.
In April 1918, a German-sponsored coup enabled Skoropadsky to dis-
place Soviet power and, true to his tsarist military antecedents, to reunite
church and state in his first proclamation. With the nationalist bishop of
Kiev, Nikodim, consecrating the hetmanate and with a minister of
religion sympathetic to their cause, the autocephalists seemed about to
triumph when the regime collapsed. They finally realized their hopes
under the short-lived Directorate of Simon Petlyura. On January 1, 1919,
the Petlyurovite leaders gave their blessings to an autocephalous church
148 / Icon and Swastika

organization with a key feature of its program the severing of all polit-
ical and cultural ties with Moscow.59 The subsequent two years of civil
war, however, put this claim in abeyance. When the smoke cleared in
1921, autocephaly was established only in the western territories that
had been absorbed by Poland, and a Soviet-sponsored but uncanonical
creation was installed in the central and eastern sections retaken by
Russia.
Some four million Ukrainians and Belorussians of the Russian Ortho-
dox rite had come under Polish rule in 1920, and they formed the major
contingent of believers out of which arose, four years later, the Auto-
cephalous Church of Poland, its independence duly certified by the
Patriarch of Constantinople.60 In the Russian-controlled area, Lipkovsky
submitted a brief to the Moscow Patriarchate arguing that the Ukrainian
dioceses had been wrongly put under its control in 1686 and should now
be granted their autonomy. As might be expected, his plea was rejected;
but, undeterred by this canonical rebuff and egged on by the Soviets
who saw his movement as a potential ally in the fight against the
Patriarchate's power, Lipkovsky assembled four hundred of his followers
in a special Kiev sobor that made him a bishop of the new Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church in October 1921.61 This meeting went
on to consecrate another two bishops and to spell out a radical platform
providing for married bishops, lay preachers, the conversion of monastic
communities into working collectives, and the predominance of laymen
in the church administration and liturgy in the vernacular.
Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated Lipkovsky in March 1922, but the
Autocephalous Church merely entered a new period of hothouse growth.
Two years later, it claimed some three thousand of the Ukraine's
parishes, a clergy numbering twenty-five thousand, and twenty-six
bishops.62 This was the period of Lenin's New Economic Policy, during
which nationalistically inclined Communist leaders such as N. A. Skryp-
nik in the Ukraine promoted indigenous education and culture; it was
also a time of Soviet repression of Orthodox hierarchs in Russia and
promotion of factionalism in such forms as the Living Church.63 With
the official odds thus stacked in their favor, the followers of Lipkovsky
—Lipkovtsy, as they were known—had a clear field in which to exploit
genuine popular desires for church reform. As the NEP drew to a close,
Lipkovsky made a belated attempt to screen out the many poorly trained
clerics in his ranks, but the Soviets forced him out of office in 1928 for a
more tractable leader and, by the following year, withdrew their backing
entirely from a church they had reclassified as a "bourgeois counter-
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 149

revolutionary oganization."64 The Lipkovtsy hierarchy was caught up

with other Ukrainian nationalists in the purges and treason trials of
1929-1930; even a contrite confession of "anti-Soviet activity" at an
extraordinary sobor in January 1930 could not stave off its doom.65
It was this defunct movement that the Polish Metropolitan Dionisius
( Valedinski) now hoped to revive under German auspices in World War
II. His agents were to be three bishops of his staff: Polykarp (Sikorski),
Hilarión (Ohienko), and Palladius ( Vydybida-Rudenko ). It was a
choice that meant, first, giving the revived Autocephalous Church a
carpetbag character, since its leaders were to bring sizable missions of
Galicians and West Volhynians with them into the Eastern Ukraine;
second, guaranteeing that the new hierarchy would have a strongly
political cast, for all three bishops had been officials in the days of the
Directorate; third, setting the stage for an ecclesiastical struggle with the
established bishops for control of key church centers. The evidence
leaves little doubt that these consequences did indeed transpire, whether
or not one agrees with analysts who blame the ultimate failure of the
Autocephalous Church on its popular rejection as a tool of the Nazis or
with others who say it met with popular acceptance until it was ham-
strung by Koch's Reichskommissariat.66
The senior agent of the revival, Polykarp, could claim a church career
covering two decades among the Orthodox of Poland. Presumably keep-
ing in touch with the Lipkovtsy, Polykarp had served as archimandrite
(monastery head) in Volhynia; in 1932 he had become Bishop of Lutsk,
making that city a center of the Ukrainian Church brotherhood that
inveighed against Slavonic rites and sermons.67 That force had the
backing of Polish authorities until 1938, when the regime launched a
campaign to destroy Orthodox shrines and convert the faithful to Cathol-
icism. When the Soviets occupied the West Ukraine in September 1939,
the Patriarchate had sent first Bishop Sergius the Younger, then Bishop
(later Metropolitan) Nikolai (Yarushevich) to call on the heads of all
the newly acquired dioceses and secure their submission.68 Polykarp
rendered his pledge of obedience along with the rest to Nikolai, the
official "Exarch of the Western Ukraine and Belorussia and Metropolitan
of Volhynia." With Nikolai s flight at the advent of the Germans in 1941,
a bishops' sobor had followed canon law in making Alexei (Gromadski)
provisionally the Metropolitan, or acting church head, of the Ukraine.69
Their organization, the Autonomous Ukrainian Church, was not ready to
forswear totally its ties to the Patriarchate, so Polykarp and a second
bishop who had boycotted the sobor, Archbishop Alexander (Inozem-
150 / Icon and Swastika

tsev) of Pinsk, the senior primate of Belorussia, whose Polessian diocese

had been attached to the Ukraine, began laying plans for a rival, out-
spokenly nationalist organization. Dionisius instructed the two bishops
in September to substitute the vernacular for Church Slavonic into
services in a gradual fashion that would not antagonize the parish-
ioners.70
Beside Polykarp and Alexander, the other two prime movers for
autocephaly had more obvious political, rather than clerical, qualifica-
tions for their posts. Hilarión, who had been made Archbishop of Kholm
( the Orthodox center of Poland ) by Dionisius in October 1940, was the
same philologist Ivan Ohienko who had been an active nationalist under
the 1918 Rada. He had gone on, after a brief term as minister of religion
under Petlyura, to become rector of Kamenets Podolsk University, as
well as publisher of two Ukrainian journals in the area governed by
Poland.71 A month after the Germans invaded Russia, he obtained
approval of their Ostministerium and counterintelligence officials to
gather some two hundred Galician and West Volhynian priests to move
into East Ukrainian parishes and promote the autocephalist movement.
Even the Nazis were soon to characterize Hilarión as "more the politician
than the prince of the church," and they found the reports of informers
accusing him of NKVD ties unsubstantiated "but, in light of the bishop's
character, not implausible."72 Palladius had been vice-minister of finance
in the Petlyura regime, then had mixed nationalist and monastic careers
in the Polish territories until selected by Dionisius to be bishop of the
small Orthodox population in the Lemko region in December 1940;73
later he had been transferred to the see of Cracow. At his consecration
in February 1941 he had pledged loyalty to Governor Frank and received
a promise of German support in return. 74
The rise of these bishops depended on the grace of Nazi administrators
—the same arbitrary officialdom who restricted Dionisius, their superior,
to Orthodox Church affairs in Frank's General-Gouvernement but per-
mitted them to proselytize for their cause in Koch's Reichskommissariat.
Their professions of loyalty carry a more voluntary and insistent note
than the pro forma welcomes extended to the Germans by other church-
men. Hilarión, for example, offered the bronze bell of Kholm Cathedral
as a donation to the German defense effort in 1941, transmitted Easter
greetings to Governor Frank in 1942, and conducted thanksgiving ser-
vices in April 1943 on the occasion of Hitler's birthday. 75 Since by then
he had been able to put a sizable number of Ukrainian churches under
his sway, such gratitude was evidently not misplaced.
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 151

The rebirth of autocephaly took place with little regard for canonical
niceties. It began with the announcement of Dionisius in Warsaw on
Christmas Eve 1941 that he was making Polykarp "Temporary Adminis-
trator of the Orthodox Autocephalous Church in the Liberated Areas of
the Ukraine," with the rank of archbishop.76 Not only did Dionisius
thereby exceed the authority he had been granted in 1924 by the Con-
stantinople Patriarch to minister to the Orthodox of Poland, but, as some
indigenous bishops were quick to point out, he was also creating a title
(Administrator) that had currency only in Catholic, not in Orthodox,
church life.77 There was also the technical objection raised by Alexei:
Polykarp and any other regnant Volhynian bishops who joined him in
the anti-Muscovite church were going back on their 1940 pledges of
obedience to the Patriarchate.78 The rebuttal of Dionisius, contending
that those oaths had represented sinful acts "against Church and nation"
which "wartime developments" now permitted them to recant, was not
very convincing on legal grounds. The confidential notes of Dionisius
further indicate that his appointment of Polykarp was neither an inde-
pendent resolve nor one motivated primarily by canonical factors. He
had merely responded to the demands of a Volhynian delegation that
called on him in mid-December, and his initial scruples had been over-
come by the assurances of a Berlin delegate that the Ostministerium
was in favor of the move.79 There Seraphim's hand seems to have helped
push the switch starting the operation.
In any case, Polykarp had yet to be provided with a church to admin-
ister in the Ukraine. This was at last done by a sobor convened on
February 8, 1942, at Pinsk by the Belorussian primate Archbishop
Alexander. Here was the occasion for officially resurrecting the Ukrainian
Autocephalous Orthodox Church (UAPTs) of 1921 vintage, peremp-
torily elevating two priests to flesh out its hierachy and filling the ranks
with some fifteen hundred surviving Lipkovtsy.80 The recruits were only
too willing: Alexei's Autonomous synod had been requiring them to
resubmit their shaky credentials for certification to their posts, while the
UAPTs welcomed them back, no questions asked. After Erich Koch's
Reichskommissariat had legitimized the new church on May 5, 1942, it
held another sobor later that month in Kiev, where seven more bishops
were installed and the political character of the organization became
even more apparent.
Stephen Skrypnik was the most prominent of those who made the leap
from layman to prelate. A nephew of Petlyura and a former member of
the Polish Sejm, he had been selected by the Ostministerium in July
152 / Icon and Swastika

1941 to advise Army Group South on candidates for local administrative

posts. The following month he had secured permission to set up a
nationalist newspaper, Volyn (Volhynia), in Lvov, and later to transfer
it to Rovno, the administrative center of the Reichskommissariat. This
offered him a forum for virulent attacks on Orthodox priests who had
not bowed to demands for the total Ukrainization of the church. 81 Now,
as Bishop Mstyslav of Pereiaslav, he had the clerical as well as political
means to enforce his program. His prowess in the latter regard eventually
clashed with the prerogatives of Erich Koch, who insisted that his actions
were more those of "a prominent Ukrainian politician" than a prince of
the church.82 As Koch complained to the Ostministerium in March 1943,
Mstyslav's chief occupation seemed to be trying to turn Wehrmacht
officers against the Reichskommissariat bureaucracy, in other words,
trying to salvage his slipping power base by calling upon his old contacts
in the army.
Outstanding among the priests who now held bishops' staffs, thanks
to the liberal personnel policies of the UAPTs, was Fotius (Timoshchyk)
in the Vinnitsa diocese. His case illustrates the scandal-ridden atmo-
sphere which permeated the inflated new hierarchy. Fotius had popped
up in Poland in 1932, passing himself off on Dionisius as a priestly
refugee from the Bolsheviks. Two years later he was arrested as a Soviet
spy, convicted of killing a Polish border guard on his way from Russia,
and given a ten-year sentence, only to be freed by the Red Army in 1939
when it occupied Galicia.83 His past seems to have escaped the notice of
the Kiev sobor that sent him to Vinnitsa in May 1942, but in August it
was brought to Polykarp's attention by Kendzeryavy-Pastuchiv, the
priest in charge of the town's cathedral. 84 Polykarp ordered Fotius dis-
missed in September, but the Bishop's response the following month was
to renounce UAPTs jurisdiction and proclaim himself head of a true
church of his own. His coup had the backing of the Gebietskommissar
in Zhitomir, who obliged him in November by decree to have Fotius
become Oberbishop" of the district reporting directly to him. At the
end of the month, Fotius ordered Kendzeryavy-Pastuchiv to hand over
control of the cathedral and its funds, which the hard-pressed vicar
refused to do.
Polykarp found it considerably harder to remove a bishop than to
install one as long as the German authorities turned their backs on this
muddle. On December 14 Polykarp forbade "the former Bishop Fotius"
to hold services, on pain of being read out of the church, and held out
like punishment for all churchmen of the diocese who continued to
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 153

"maintain religious contact" with him. Fotius ignored the order and even
persuaded his patron, the Gebietskommissar, to give him additional
powers in 1943 that included the convocation of church assemblies, the
promulgation of canon law just for that district, and the nomination of
another bishop in Zhitomir. When Fotius prepared leaflets accusing
Polykarp of having sold out to pro-Moscow church factions, Polykarp
addressed a desperate plea to the Reichskommissariat. The convincing
part of his brief appears to have been the charge that the Orthodox
population of the district was interpreting the Gebietskommissar's inter-
vention as proof of Communist claims of German religious intolerance.
In April 1943 Fotius, deprived of ofBcial support, finally surrendered his
ofBce to Gregory (Ohiychuk), the bishop of Zhitomir whom he had been
trying to supplant.85
If the UAPTs allowed nationalists and an occasional adventurer to
infiltrate its hierarchy, this was as much out of necessity as of choice.
By far the greater part of previously ordained priests and bishops in the
Ukraine wanted nothing to do with Polykarp's minions from formerly
Polish areas.86 The only exceptions among the leadership were Bishop
Nikolai (Amasiiski) of Rostov-on-the-Don and Metropolitan Feofil
(Buldovsky) of Kharkov.87 Feofils case seems to have been one that
combined long-time alienation from the Patriarchate with new nationalist
pressures. The eighty-year-old bishop had been involved with schis-
matics for fifteen years, earning himself the epithet "Sectarian of
Lubny," when the German invasion gave him the chance to develop an
independent church and, in November 1941, to make himself its
"Metropolitan."88 He extended its sway to the nationalist stronghold of
Poltava, then in 1942 to the newly occupied areas of Kursk, Voronezh,
and the Donbas. As long as these territories were under German military
administration, he was spared the choice of affiliating with autonomous
or autocephalous synods. Only in July 1942 did Mstyslav prevail on him
to be his emissary to Polykarp and join his diocese to the UAPTs.
As for the middle and lower levels of the church, we have the expert
testimony of Professor Hans Koch, active in Ukrainian religious affairs
as a counterintelligence officer, that they were staffed by "many émigré
priests" who "returned from the West" in the wake of the Germans.89
Some, according to the Gestapo, accompanied Wehrmacht units in the
role of interpreters.90 Those who emerged from hiding under the Soviets
were far too few to take care of the many reopened churches. "Priests
were 'exhumed,' but the demand far exceeded the supply; yet more than
I had expected did turn up—many had spent years as workers in the
154 / Icon and Swastika

Donbas, had sung as basses in factory choirs, etc. They themselves now
offered their services, often so as to improve their social status." Even
with the Reichskommissariat's restriction of church funds to the dona-
tions of believers, the priests maintained relative affluence in a starvation
economy. "The priests were paid in kind by the population. Periodically,
the batinshka would go around the villages of his parish, catch up with
baptizing, marrying, burial for the past fifteen years. All these services
were paid for—usually a loaf of bread being the unit of payment."91 An
Einsatzgruppen report from the Ukrainian frontal areas also points to
the meteoric rise in popular prestige accorded the formerly déclassé
clerics.92
Admissions standards for the priesthood were flexible in the extreme.
In the Ukraine "the bishops consecrated many new priests: either plain,
decent, literate people, or else former theology students, or else people
whom the community desired."93 Even these criteria, mentioned by an
émigré who had himself entered the priesthood under the occupation,
were probably flouted in practice. Data from all parts of the occupied
territories point up the indiscriminateness of both the bishops investing
new priests and the congregations accepting anyone willing to take on
the accumulated backlog of rites. A Ukrainian nationalist recounts : "Our
priest was a former dekulakized peasant who had hidden in the next
village and had later worked as watchman in Kharkov and returned
under the Germans."94 The Gestapo was aware that the UAPTs used
mass consecrations to pull ahead in the clerical competition with the
Autonomous Church, as well as employing pressure on local government
officials and terror on unaffiliated priests to make them turn over control
of their parishes.95
It might be assumed that priests of such incongruous origin, like their
superiors who had become bishops by grace of the Nazis, would be the
church contingent most prone to overt collaboration. But there seem to
have been two mitigating factors. First, the pressures to follow the
German line impinged primarily on the clergy in district capitals where
the understaffed Reichskommissariat bureaucracy maintained its of-
fices.96 In the "deaf corners" of the countryside, the sporadic sweeps of
the Einsatzgruppen and the agricultural overseers proved inadequate to
sustain native compliance. Second, once they had been ordained in
impromptu fashion, the new priests found that their status and its
perquisites depended exclusively upon their parishioners. Their tendency
was to absolve themselves of any obligation to the occupation authori-
ties by token verbal obeisance but, beneath this cover, to identify increas-
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 155

ingly with the interests of their congregations. The latter in short order
suffered from a succession of German repressive measures, leading to
almost universal resentment expressed either in covert form or in the
opening salvos of partisan warfare.
Thus, active collaborators among the priesthood constituted a distinct
minority. In the Ukraine they appear to have" been limited to a few of the
"carpetbaggers" who had been funneled into the province by Bishops
Seraphim, Polykarp, and Hilarión and who had been given their march-
ing orders by Ostministerium officials intending them to be a fifth
column for the takeover of the church and initially promoted by the
Reichskommissariat in aid of its divisive policies. It was this group that
Professor E. Markert, a German church administrator, had in mind when
he attributed the low prestige of the UAPTs in the East Ukraine to the
fact that some priests worked in the political secret service and the
people found this out.97 The most notorious quisling of the Church,
Bishop Platon (Artemyuk), operated in the shadow of Erich Koch's
headquarters at Rovno. He sought out and met several times with the
youthful gangs of Bandera's partisans, dressed in Gestapo uniforms, who
terrorized the area and may have been implicated in the assassination of
the Autonomous Church head, Archbishop Alexei, in May 1943.98
Whatever the true facts of the Alexei case, it illustrates the way church
rivalries became subsumed in the political struggle pitting extremist
Ukrainian nationalists against all comers. In the process the UAPTs dis-
sipated its energies in internecine warfare rather than devoting them
to fortifying its religious base. The issues were even clearer cut in the
murder of Bishop Manuil (Tarnavsky) by Bandera's men in August
1943. Hanged at their forest headquarters after they had abducted him
from Vladimir Volynsk and found him guilty of "treason," Manuil seems
to have committed no worse crime than to have transferred allegiance
from the UAPTs, because he came to question its canonical validity, to
the Autonomous Church in July 1942." Though Autocephalous hierarchs
could not be identified as accessories, the public drew contrary conclu-
sions, as it did in the slaying of other priests who had resisted demands
for total Ukrainization.100
Viewed in historical perspective, the vendettas of 1943 turn out to
have been only a promontory of the iceberg symbolizing the two preced-
ing years of "cold war" between Autonomous and Autocephalous church
leaders. The platform of the former had called for gradual reforms, a
fairly meaningless recognition of the Patriarchate's ultimate authority,
and local option on Slavonic or Ukrainian services; that of the latter for
156 / Icon and Swastika

immediate reforms, severance of all ties to Moscow, and insistence on

employment of the vernacular. Operating against the Autocephalous
reform program, as the Gestapo recognized, was the parishioners' adher-
ence to traditional forms—as well as a shortage of priests able to speak
Ukrainian and of prayer books written in that language.101 These did
not constitute the dramatic differences one might expect to find under-
lying a blood feud. Indeed, they were only the shibboleths of the power
struggle between two clerical factions, abetted in the first instance by
German administrators to whom a united Ukrainian church represented
a political threat, in the second by nationalists who donned UAPTs
cassocks as protective cover for their otherwise forbidden activities.102
At stake was not merely a disputed point of canon law, but control of
church organizations in the large towns and cities, with the material
perquisites and the leverage on local administration that entailed.
One plum of the contest was the capital city of Kiev. At the outset of
the occupation this was the temporary seat of Bishop Panteleimon
(Rudyk), whom the Patriarchate had installed in Lvov after Soviet
occupation of the West Ukraine. The Autonomous leader, Alexei,
realized that such a cleric, while loyal to him, would never be accepted
by the nationalists who prevailed in local religious councils. He worked
out a compromise by which a bishops' council on November 25, 1941,
selected Hilarión, who possessed all the proper nationalist credentials, to
take over from Panteleimon, who was to be transferred to Poltava.103
The carefully laid scheme never got off the ground because dissident
Lipkovtsy refused to undergo the reconsecrations required by Pante-
leimon, he remained in the city to marshal the pro-Patriarchal forces,
and the nationalists set up a rival UAPTs center that soon fell under the
sway of the extremist Bishop Mstyslav. The city's nationalist mayor had
turned the local Department for Religious Confessions into an Auto-
cephalist center, taken up personal contact with Metropolitan Dionisius
in Warsaw and Archbishop Hilarión in Kholm, and at the end of
December 1941 communicated veiled threats to Panteleimon unless he
took "a strong Ukrainian direction."104 An odd aspect of the rivalry in the
Kiev diocese was that a formidable revival of religious life developed in
spite of it, and the two church factions shared its benefits almost equally.
The 1,435 priests of pre-1917 vintage had dwindled to a mere 3 under
the Bolsheviks; by the end of 1942, the Autonomous Church claimed 434
new ones and the Autocephalists 455, of whom 226 were newly invested
laymen.105
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 157

The constellation of forces that allowed the UAPTs to hold its own in
Kiev was composed of a favorably inclined German Stadtkommissar, an
extreme nationalist mayor who was a former Lipkovtsy priest, and
enough disgruntled priests and laymen aspiring to the cloth to staff
hundreds of parishes. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, the latter two
elements were absent, so that intervention of German officials, who
recognized that a majority of the populace favored the Autonomous
Church, was much more pronounced.106 Indeed, the bishop sent by the
UAPTs, Gennady (Shirpikevich), was handed his staff at a marketplace
assembly by the Gebietskommissar, who followed up this welcoming
gesture by seizing most of the Autonomous churches and turning them
over to the Autocephalists.107 The indigenous members of the press and
the city administration did not take kindly to the imported bishop;
neither did the population, as shown by acts of vandalism against some
of the transferred churches.108 Gennady was apparently able to carry on
only with the help of the liaison he set up with local partisans under
the commands of both Melnyk and Bandera. It was the Melnyk group's
influence, for example, that convinced the city university to begin train-
ing clergymen for Gennady's staff.
Such instances of German benevolence to the UAPTs, as Heyer points
out, represent a fairly consistent policy of the Reichskommissariat of
supporting bishops whose unpopularity was a measure of their openness
to manipulation by German officials.109 At least until 1943 this meant
only a modicum of toleration for the Autonomous congregations that,
according to most German and Russian sources, accorded with the
desires of the bulk of the population.110 A writer for a Kiev newspaper
under the occupation paints the following picture: "The last citadel of
the Ukrainian extremists was the Autocephalous Church. This was purely
a political affair, which included many Petlyurovites. The Germans tried
to conduct themselves 'diplomatically' in this matter; they permitted both
the Centralist [Autonomous] and the Autocephalous Church to exist,
but the Autocephalous had the inside track with the Germans."111 From
his inside position in the German bureaucracy, Markert, too, concluded
that, in the formerly Soviet areas of the Ukraine at any rate, the popu-
lation proved to be "pro-Autonomy and preferred its own Eastern
Ukrainian clergy."112 To a specialist on the UAPTs, Raevski, the new
Autocephalous hierarchs permanently compromised themselves in the
eyes of the people when they turned to the German district commissars
to supply them with facilities.113
158 / Icon and Swastika

The paradox of German policy consisted in its foisting the UAPTs

clergy on the unwilling faithful, then condemning the clerics for taking
the only avenue open to them out of their social isolation by making
common cause with the ultranationaliste. The Reichskommissariat's safe-
guards proved of no avail in blocking this alliance, which was after all
merely the natural outcome of the process set in motion when the
Ostministerium sped the West Ukrainians on their way east. By April
1942, the district commissar at Nikolaev was already warning Koch that
the UAPTs was threatening to become a "national church" in the
northern area of his jurisdiction, so that he was putting all its priests
under close surveillance.114 As noted in Chapter 4, Koch's "toleration
edict" in June had limited the ecclesiastical organization of both
Autonomous and Autocephalous churches to district levels; his October
edict in effect dissolved the respective sobors. A further reprimand was
in store for the UAPTs. On March 29, 1943, the Reichskommissariat
sternly reminded Polykarp "to have no connection with his eparchial
bishops, since these bishops received their orders from the district com-
missars."115 Koch's fragmentation policy was, of course, related to his
earlier discussed veto of the proposed merger between Autonomous and
Autocephalous churches in October 1942. An Einsatzgruppen analysis
of this abortive union indicates the vested interests that made churchmen
of both factions relinquish their support of the projected union.116 The
stage for negotations had been set by the desperation of Alexei, who
headed the Autonomous Church, at nationalist pressures, including
UAPTs penetration of the monkhood at Pochaev, and his failure to
secure mediation from Metropolitan Seraphim in Berlin. A synod of the
UAPTs, held in contravention of Reichskommissariat orders at Lutsk
from October 4 to 8, sent Bishops Mstyslav and Nikanor to utilize Alexei's
vulnerability by having him sign a document recognizing autocephaly
and placing Metropolitan Dionisius of Warsaw at the head of a united
church synod in which they controlled four of six seats. Panteleimon
was thunderstruck when he learned of the signature by which Alexei
appeared to have wiped out a year's objection to autocephaly, and he
planned an Autonomous bishops' council to decide how to dissolve the
pact. The retired but still prestigious senior bishop in the province,
Antony, denounced the accord from the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra. Even
the Autocephalous "Administrator" Polykarp was unhappy at the im-
plied loss of his title and instructed his clergy that the agreement was
only a preliminary step toward eventual union. Erich Koch settled the
issue by calling in Mstyslav, the would-be "secretary" of the new synod,
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 159

and informing him that the decision of an illegal council could not
stand. While Koch, hypocritically no doubt, expressed satisfaction with
the church rapprochement, he claimed that the Reichskommissariat
could not allow the Ukraine to establish its church hierarchy until the
province had been "finally pacified." Even then, the participants in
the present illicit accord would be barred from participation. And for
good measure, he ordered Mstyslav into exile at Pryluki in the West
Ukraine on October 22, to begin a "probation period" during which
he was to refrain from political and religious activités.
Following this interlude, the three-cornered drama between the two
church factions and the German administration started up again. The
denouement was perhaps inevitable. The nationalist leaders Bandera
and Melnyk had been groomed for puppet roles by the Nazis, but by
autumn 1943 had recouped sufficient forces to bid once more for an
independent part. The German response was to clap them, together
with a host of more respectable nationalist intelligentsia, into concen-
tration camps for a cooling-off period. Their allies in the UAPTs hier-
archy were, willy-nilly, caught in the same squeeze play. The Lutsk
commissariat broke off relations with Polykarp, while Professor Ivan
Vlasovsky, his associate and the leading Autocephalous theologian, was
jailed along with a number of other churchmen.117 The official black
cloud was to follow the UAPTs to the end of the German occupation
in the Ukraine.
Only after they had fled the Red Army to Warsaw in the spring of
1944 did UAPTs leaders obtain a brief reprieve, thanks to their old
friends in the General-Gouvernement and the Ostministerium. In this
epilogue of comic-opera proportions, the hierarchs with the least
church experience were deemed worthiest of concluding a union with
the émigré Autonomous clerics on terms that would guarantee Nazi
control. As Rosenberg's agent reported to him, "the nonclerical back-
ground of Hilarión and Mstyslav explains their lack of religious
fanaticism and willingness to consider political factors."118 These two—a
former philologist and a former politician—were supposed to have
concluded the agreement that more reputable bishops had been forced
to retract by Koch in October 1942. The Germans set the stage by
circumventing Polykarp in favor of more pliable UAPTs bishops and
by trying to ship the independent-minded Autonomous leader Pantelei-
mon, who had succeeded the murdered Alexei, off to Riga, where the
assassination of Sergius had created a diocesan vacancy. Even these
desperate shuffles, however, could not bring off the shotgun marriage,
160 / Icon and Swastika

since Autonomous churchmen refused to settle for the minor role as-
signed them by the Ostministerium.119 The UAPTs bishops urged Ukrain-
ians to keep fighting as Nazi allies and went on to give Dionisius the
empty title of Patriarch of the province retaken by the Soviets. In a
final bit of irony, the UAPTs synod in West German exile temporarily
defrocked Polykarp—who had been instrumental in elevating them to
bishops' rank—and took over the direction of the émigré church from
him in April 1945.120

RELIGIOUS REVIVAL AMID POLITICAL CONSTRAINTS

The preceding three cases illustrate the predilection of German ad-

ministrators for church movements in the occupied territories that could
be kept sufficiently weak and fragmented to be manipulated by them
with minimal effort. Religious organizations such as that of Sergius in
the Baltic or of the UAPTs in the Ukraine, which committed the cardinal
sins of becoming either too popular or too embroiled in political causes,
were subject to arrests and executions; only the isolated, nonideological
church, such as that conjured up in Belorussia, was given sustained
blessing. Implicit in these generalizations is the hypothesis that the
great majority of Orthodox believers did not follow the lead of clerical
puppets. They were kept from so doing primarily by the disastrous
living conditions under German rule and secondarily by their absence
from two of the groups that did improve their status during the occupa-
tion. One such group was composed of younger, Soviet-trained men,
especially those of urban background, put in charge of local government,
workshops, and police units. The other includes representatives of those
nationalities later punished by the Soviets for wartime collaboration by
having their sovereignty abolished. All of these—the Kalmyk Autono-
mous Soviet Socialist Republic, the Crimean ASSR, the Chechen-Ingush
ASSR, the Karachai and Balkarian areas—represent non-Slavic, non-
Orthodox populations. This leaves no Orthodox congregations predis-
posed to the pro-Nazi side, with one exception: that wing of the UAPTs
which became linked to nationalist extremists in the Ukraine.
Virtually all sources agree that a substantial religious revival did take
place in the occupied territories; they diverge when it comes to identify-
ing the causes. Emigré accounts uniformly attest to its spontaneous
nature, based on local initiative. Some German reports insist that a
major role was played by German troops and civilian administrators,
who lent assistance to the faithful who had welcomed them as liber-
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 161

ators. On balance, the latter view appears heavily larded with wishful
thinking. In the words of a typical example: "The German advance
forces were greeted at every village and town entrance by representa-
tives of the population with bread and salt, while priests prayed for
the new masters of the country in the reopened churches and cathe-
drals."121 If such prayers were indeed offered out of fear or misplaced
hope, the true nature of the occupation regime soon turned them into
pleas of relief from compulsory labor edicts that made no allowance
for religious holidays. In response to these measures, "the deeply re-
ligious peoples of the Eastern Ukraine were incensed. A good many
joined the partisans; others were forcibly evacuated by the Germans,
like a funeral expedition."122
Any subsequent popular expressions of gratitude to the Germans
for their religious policy lacked positive, concrete steps on which
to rest. At best, a church group might have been thankful for the fact
that German administrators, preoccupied with more pressing matters,
left it alone to reconstitute local religious life. Possibly, if the officials
had not immediately hedged their backing of some congregations for
fear that unfettered candidates for popular allegiance were bound to
turn against them, there might have been a great deal more clerical col-
laboration. As it was, even the friendliest German agency displayed
nothing warmer than an attitude of skeptical neutrality to the churches,
while others showed only callousness when believers could not get
services under way with available facilities, as in the following example:
"Wherever possible, the Army tolerated the restoration of old churches,
but many had been used as museums, hospitals, to store tractors and
other equipment. Then cemetery chapels were used (in general, these
were the only untouched church nuclei left intact under the Soviets)
. . . We wanted to reopen the Kievo-Pecherskaya Lavra but found no
volunteer monks. Then the Lavra was blown up."123
On the whole, believers did better when left to their own devices
than when subjected to German intervention, which tended to be either
negative or heavy-handed. A Belorussian account typifies the ingenuity
shown by a congregation that found itself without a usable church: "The
village club again became a church. The dome was repaired and
the inside painted. Many people were baptized and married in the
church."124 One Ukrainian report comes in two versions: first, the
authorized German form, in which Protopriest Vladimir Benevsky,
head of the Poltava Church Administration, expresses "ineffable thanks"
to the forces of the Nazis "who have opened the door of the Church
162 / Icon and Swastika

of God with their blood"; then, the historical treatise of Friedrich

Heyer, devoid of such credits. Benevsky may have stuck to the truth
when he related that "the German occupation became the signal for a
great flocking of the masses to services, occasioning the reopening of
several churches" and that some believers walked more than seven
kilometers to participate, while there were cases of "grown children
whom we were asked to christen."125 But this gratitude seems misplaced
when one learns from Heyer's account that it was Benevsky himself
who reopened the main church of the city, the Makarievskaya, on
September 8, 1941, the day after the city fell.126 Then this priest, who
had been forced to take up mason's work under the Soviets, rounded
up eighteen other clerics who had gone underground, put five more
churches back into operation, and performed some twenty-five hundred
overdue christenings in the first fifteen months of the occupation. Here
the German role appears limited to giving the green light for the re-
vival, then extorting public thanks while lending no concrete help.
The population groups behind the religious resurgence, according
to eyewitness accounts, turn out to be the same rural, female, and older
age groups identified in Chapter 2 as the main force of the Church in
prewar Russia. The exigencies of German rule brought them even
more to the fore of the faithful. The peasantry, spatially and adminis-
tratively, occupied a position at the furthest remove from the urban
bases of the Nazi control system. Three other factors were at work
to assure the religious predominance of women and the elderly:
( 1 ) many young males had been drafted into the Red Army; ( 2 ) most
Soviet officials and party members had fled or been evacuated;
(3) agents of the German labor draft rounded up fit young men as
they were leaving church. How widespread the latter practice was
cannot be ascertained, but it is mentioned in several accounts, notably
that of a former Ukrainian priest, possibly as a rationalization, to explain
the absence from services of physically fit males.127
When it comes to speculating on the motives of believers who did
crowd into the reopened churches, some analysts focus on the nation-
wide thirst for a long-denied faith. Thus Nikita Struve concludes: "After
twenty-four years of persecution, the people grasped the first oppor-
tunity to give free rein to religious feelings which were all the stronger
for having been so long repressed."128 Others, like Walter Kolarz, feel
that there was more at stake: the population of the occupied territories
"spontaneously reopened the secularized churches . . . with the conni-
vance of the military authorities . . . not only for religious reasons but
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 163

also in the search for a political third solution, neither Soviet nor
German."129 Alexander Dallin would go so far as to relegate religious
motives to secondary significance: "If the Church under the occupation
acquired considerable 'popularity,' one dares suspect that it was not so
much because of an inherent faith as because it became a symbol of
change and improvement over the Soviet era, and at the same time the
only licit focus of national sentiments tolerated by the Germans."130
The trouble with shifting the stress to ulterior motives is that, in
two respects at least, it would leave unresolved doubts about why
the tail was able to wag the dog. First, in order to evaluate the Church
as "a symbol of change and improvement," one must recognize the
potential following it brought along from prewar times. It was this
legitimacy, enhanced rather than tarnished by Soviet repression, that
could now make the Church—not some other institution, like local
government—into a popular symbol. Similarly, the strong undercurrent
of religious feeling must be considered in order to explain how the
Church could become a "focus of national sentiments," especially since
a more logical nexus would seem to have been provided by nationalist
groups themselves. Thus, one is forced to fall back on the deduction
borne out by Gestapo reports, that the people's desires for a recon-
structed church must have been sufficiently basic to permit them to
subsume other aspirations.131
Some qualifications also need to be introduced when dealing with
the subject of "national sentiments." In the Ukrainian case, the degree
to which nationalist leaders used the cassock as protective cover from
the Germans has been noted, as has the considerable extent to which
the Autocephalous clergy was a German import from former Polish
territories into the East Ukraine, rather than an expression of indigenous
sentiments. Under such circumstances, alliances between the UAPTs
hierarchy and extreme nationalist leaders may be viewed as a tactic
by the leaders of two relatively weak forces to combine their command,
a move that bore little relation to the wishes of the people. I have found
only one case in the record showing that religious and nationalist mo-
tives were able to fuse at the grass-roots level: this took place in the
Polotsk area, where a priest known as Father John became the focus
of Russian nationalism among his parishioners, who rejected both
Nazism and Bolshevism.132 Such a phenomenon is not likely to have been
widely duplicated in other parts of the occupied territories, if only
because the pervasive German control system stripped the Church of
any affiliation save one that might be of direct exploitative value. Even
164 / Icon and Swastika

the sole documented instance of a messianic movement—processions of

women and children from the Kiev area, inspired by a vision to reach
the front lines with icons and bring peace by June 1943—led to "quiet
suppression" by Einsatzgruppen even though they could find no church
or other organization behind it.133
Undoubtedly, the pressures impinging on believers did propel them
in the direction of becoming a "third force," in the same sense that Dallin
observes that a revulsion against Soviet and Nazi controls gripped all
other sectors of the population. The Orthodox faithful had no reason to
long for a return to the restrictive conditions of worship under Com-
munism. Once their incipient hope for improvements under the "New
Order" had quickly dissipated under the rigors of the occupation, they
could find little in Nazi arbitrariness to prefer as a lesser evil which at
times promoted, but far more often threatened, their status. As one
priest reports: "With the Germans, a lot depended on the individual;
I was beaten up by one German in the railway station; in other places
I found a lot of respect toward me." The laity, ever uncertain about
the next reversal of German policy, had to rely on rumor: "The Germans
authorized the opening of churches from the beginning . . . there was a
rumor that the Germans would shoot all those who were not baptized." 134
But when these supposed protectors of the faith put top priority on the
exploitation of native labor, "the Germans did not allow the holding
of church holidays, not even the 'twelve high' holidays . . . The German
Catholics and the SS-SD were intolerant of the Orthodox Church."
The power of attraction displayed by the Church under the occupa-
tion was too strong to be explained by negative factors alone—the
refuge it provided from material hardships or the resistance it offered
to arbitrary German regulations. At least four positive factors enhancing
its formidability can be hypothesized: ( 1 ) the genuine faith, particularly
of the older generation in the countryside, (2) the drawing power of
the one institution in which, despite German restrictions, the population
could observe a distinct improvement over Soviet conditions, (3) the
only indigenous group in which membership was fully legitimized by
the authorities, (4) the sole means available to most of the people
for unburdening themselves of their grievances. And, as Samarin has
pointed out, virtually everyone could find plentiful grounds for prayer:

Those who sought relief filled the churches to overflowing . . . They

prayed as they had not for a long time. There wasn't a family with-
out its woes, without its sacrifices: those who had been arrested
 Reaction to German Religious Policy in the East / 165

by the NKVD and sent to die in Siberia, those forcibly evacuated

east, those conscripted into the army and missing without a trace,
those who had perished in prisoner-of-war camps, those killed by
Soviet bombs that fell nightly on peaceful Russian towns, those
doing forced labor in Germany, those who had vanished into
Gestapo camps, those who had remained on the front lines.185

Partly because the momentum of its explosive growth carried it into

new fields, the Church found itself playing a political role as well as
a spiritual one. At times, this was done of its own accord as the Church
enlisted allies among other groups like the peasantry or local intelli-
gentsia—which were also striving for autonomy—in order to build a
broader base for its position. At other times, the nonreligious role was
thrust upon it, either by nationalist infiltrators or by German author-
ities with their insistent demands for professions of loyalty. In either
case, the Church invariably did not yield to the pressures of political
forces with the intent of becoming subservient to them. By keeping
its own interests paramount, the Church became fully entitled to be
judged a "third force" in its own right. The crowded services and
the sacrifices made by the people to maintain their congregations repre-
sent independent variables, not the mere products of German manipu-
lation or spectacles staged as camouflage by assorted nationalists.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that the Soviets, after recaptur-
ing the German-held territories, did not attempt to undo the effects of
the religious revival and that this area survived that war's end as the
center of religious life in Russia. Even in the midst of the war, the
Kremlin had implicitly acknowledged the potency and independence of
this institution in the occupied zone by the dramatic launching of a
"New Religious Policy" that would reverse twenty-five years of Com-
munist hostility to the Russian Orthodox Church.
 7
Soviet R e s p o n s e :
T h e " N e w R e l i g i o u s Policy"
in Full Flower

Stalin's decision in September 1943 to allow the Russian Orthodox

Church to call a bishops' council for the election of a Patriarch was as
dramatic a reversal as any in the annals of Soviet policy. As observed in
Chapter 1, in the two decades following the Revolution the regime
merely shifted tactics along what seemed an inexorable march to the
destruction of the Church from which it could not be diverted either
by the resistance or submission of religious leaders. By 1939, the insti-
tution of Russian Orthodoxy appeared on the verge of extinction, its
163 bishops reduced to seven, its 50,000 priests down to a few hundred,
the 1,000 monasteries and 60 seminaries of prerevolutionary times totally
shut down.1 Now, midway through World War II, the Church was not
just being granted a reprieve—a ceremonial occasion to utter its dying
words; instead, it was given the seal of legitimacy that let it rise from
the ashes during the next decade with the help of 74 bishops, some
30,000 priests, 67 monasteries, and 10 schools of theology. Even if some
of these gains were canceled by as much as fifty percent during the
last four years of the Khrushchev era, the plight of the Church could
scarcely approach its previous hopelessness when, bereft of legal status,
its tenuous existence had been at the mercy of the next assault on
"counter-revolutionaries. "
The genesis of the so-called "New Religious Policy" owes a great
deal to events in the western areas which lent the Patriarchate three
grounds to justify having its lease on life officially renewed. First, it was
needed to keep the population in the path of the advancing German army
166
 The "New Religious Policy" / 167

from welcoming the Nazis as liberators; second, it had to steer the

resurgent mass of believers in the occupied territories away from temp-
tation to collaborate with the Germans; third, it had to reassert its
authority over the churches in areas retaken by the Red Army. In all these
respects, the Church had to convince Soviet decision-makers that it had
a unique political contribution to make, one of sufficient weight in
determining the outcome of the war and the reestablishment of peace-
time controls to earn it a place at the negotiations which would con-
sider the legitimacy of its survival. In passing the first two of its tests,
the Russian hierarchy received the unwitting aid of the German war-
makers who, by fusing anti-Slavic racism with their fight against Com-
munism, left the population little choice but to rally behind the
Kremlin's "Great Patriotic War." 2 Passage of the final test was facilitated
by the Soviet imposition of political controls in Eastern Europe. 3 This
helped to persuade local Orthodox leaders, schooled in a loyalist tra-
dition, to rejoin the Muscovite fold.
My hypothesis is that the reorientation of Soviet religious policy was
essentially influenced by church developments in what were for a time
German-occupied territories. The nature of the causal relation varied
according to the conditions of each of the four phases the New Religious
Policy described. The preparatory period, 1938-1941, witnessed a modu-
lation of antireligious propaganda that may be viewed as part of the
trimming process that mobilized Soviet society for war threats from the
west. The initial phrase, 1941-1943, found the Church as comrade in arms
of a regime concerned with appeals to its citizens under enemy rule. In
the peak phase, 1943-1945, the Church was rewarded for its wartime
contributions, not the least of which was having kept collaboration by
its forces with the Germans to a minimum. More substantial rewards
came with the secondary phase, 1945-1947, as the Church was allowed
to consolidate most of the organizational gains made by dioceses form-
erly under Nazi rule. Its status had changed during the course of the
war from probationary servant to junior partner of the state. Churchmen
who had begun the period by thankfully grasping the chance to address
patriotic broadcasts to the people ended it by assuming such privileges
as government-sponsored flights to visit fellow prelates abroad. 4

PREPARING FOR WAR

During the two or three years preceding World War II, the Church
became the indirect beneficiary of government measures to mobilize
168 / Icon and Swastika

the society around themes of national unity. The Great Purge had
petered out with the removal of Yezhov as head of the NKVD in July
1938; and the eclipse of the purgers also cast a shadow on other divisive
forces, such as the League of Militant Atheists, whose paper successes
had just been underscored by the large number of believers turned
up by the 1937 census. It is hardly likely that strictures on the League
were intended by the regime to yield any profit to the Church. It is
only by hindsight that they can be pointed out as portents of funda-
mental change. At the time it must have appeared to Church leaders
that they were enjoying a brief respite only until the government
selected a more efficient instrument for their destruction. Weapons had
been alternated before, the atheistic timetable on occasion extended as
well as contracted, but there had never been doubt about the ultimate
destination: the extinction of religion in Russia.
If a more subtly conducted atheist campaign posed a graver threat
in the long run than had the vulgar demonstrations just past, the
Church nonetheless derived some short-run advantages from the shifting
of gears. First, it gained a new measure of respectability regarding its
origins. Thus, the revised credo of the Atheist League announced
that it was a mistake to automatically identify Christianity with capital-
ism; the cultural contributions of the former, especially its beneficial
influence on morality and the development of family relations should
not be denied. 5 The Church also could bask in the light reflected from the
rediscovered glories of the Russian past. Commenting on the filmed por-
trayal of Alexander Nevsky in which the clergy had been conspicuous
by its absence, the League advised that "there is . . . no reason to be
afraid of objectively showing the role of the Church in Russian history.
Antireligious propaganda is permissible in films of this kind; however, it
must be directed not against the Orthodox clergy but against Catholic
monks and the Roman Pope."6
The Communist leadership, in taking up the theme, betrayed the fact
that the League's change of heart had not been entirely spontaneous.
By the spring of 1940 the official word went out that the League and
some overzealous Party members had strayed from the true Marxist
path by denying the rightful place of the Church and falsely tracing
the roots of religion to ignorance of the masses and their betrayal by
priests.7 The League, in its turn, joined in the rewriting of history by
claiming that, indeed, it had "never fought" religion, but merely its pre-
rogatives as a private affair of citizens. Quite to the contrary, it had been
 The "New Religious Policy" / 169

the true champion of religion "against those who exaggerated its impor-
tance and demanded its extermination by administrative measures."8
Finally, in being once more relegated to the status of a secondary tar-
get, the Church gained a little breathing space to recover from the latest
round of repression. The League was told to sheathe its weapons for the
time being and subordinate its activities to the major political tasks that
were currently engrossing the regime's attention. Party members who ad-
vocated the closing of churches were punished; others who had been
disrupting services and exposing religious objects to public ridicule
were said to have "caused immense harm to the Soviet government . . .
The result was not a decrease in religious sentiment but an increase
in anti-Soviet feeling."9 Atheist propaganda was couched in more civil
tones, and the trials of churchmen came to a halt. The last one took
place in eastern Siberia in April 1939, perhaps because the Party line
could not be so efficiently transmitted to such a distant spot, when clergy
and kulaks were charged with conspiring to overthrow the Soviet govern-
ment at the instance of Japan.10
The muzzling of rabid atheists before World War II did not at the
time seem to presage a rapprochement between state and Church. The
churchmen could merely expect that, in accordance with the previous
twenty-year pattern, the regime was shifting from a frontal attack to
more subtle enveloping tactics against the die-hard remnants of the
faithful. In order to extend the truce, they would need an occasion to
justify their existence in terms of positive service to the state. This was
furnished by Stalin's decision of September 17, 1939, to annex the
eastern half of Poland in the wake of the Nazi-Soviet pact. By this move
and, to a lesser degree, the incorporation of Bessarabia and the three
Baltic states into the Soviet Union during the summer of 1940, "several
millions of Orthodox Christians, active members of Churches that were
very much alive," were inadvertently allowed to infuse fresh life into
the ailing body of the Church within Russia.11
The Orthodox establishment reaped a twofold benefit from the an-
nexations. It gained new cadres—some thousand priests whose vigor had
not been diminished by decades of Soviet control, now available to
staff untended parishes within Russia.12 Of even greater import was
Stalin's call on the Patriarchate to bring the churches of the newly
acquired areas under its control.13 This pro-Soviet coordinating mission
took Bishop Nikolai ( Yarushevich) to the lands carved out of Poland,
Bishop Sergius the Younger to the Baltic, Bishop Alexis of Tula to
170 / Icon and Swastika

Bessarabia. Local prelates were pressured into rendering submission

to Acting Patriarch Sergius—some at the forced invitation of Moscow,
from whence they returned rather shaken, telling their subordinates
back home to "be glad you're not a bishop."14
At first glance, the Russian hierarchy would seem to have done little
to be proud of in performing such menial tasks on behalf of the
Kremlin's imperialism. But the pawn's role they accepted marked a
vital transition from that of the arch-villian to that of bargaining partner.
Muting of the atheist campaign had meant, according to the Party line,
lightening the image of blackness that had been projected onto the
Church; to a limited extent it could now emerge from its twilight world,
projecting the colors of Russian nationalism in the western borderlands.
If the Church was not yet considered, in official eyes, a positive force,
at least it was clearly a lesser evil than non-Orthodox denominations,
particularly Catholicism. The latter felt the full force of Soviet suppres-
sion, while Orthodox churches in the new dioceses, though stripped of
their real property and monastic centers, enjoyed a vital relative advan-
tage—their right to survive for the time being.15
As long as they had their new chore to do, the Russian hierarchs
could feel secure from further state harassment. There was yet no
question of any major rewards or of a long-term lease to Russian re-
ligion, but by 1940 some legal crumbs fell to the lot of the faithful.
Official restoration of the regular workweek, while justified on grounds
of workingman efficiency, did again leave Sundays open for attendance
at services.16 Other government dispensations included supplying oil
for icon lamps, permitting the restoration of icons, and allowing the
celebration of Easter once more.17 Still only faint indications, rather
than clear proofs of a policy change, such measures may nevertheless be
taken as indications of Stalin's dawning awareness that, to meet the Nazi
threat now at his gates, he might have to enlist the legions of believers
in his cause.
It is surprising that the Soviet regime did not go beyond a grudging
degree of tolerance in the immediate prewar period, since it must have
known of the early successes of the Berlin diocese and the promotion of
the Church in the General-Gouvernement under Nazi auspices. Perhaps
Stalin deluded himself with the permanency of the Nazi-Soviet pact
to an extent that kept him from appreciating the potential of the
Church as a wartime ally. Anyway, his excision of virulent atheism re-
moved a chronic irritant from Soviet international relations and facili-
tated the search for Western allies. The pan-Orthodox slogans, which
 The "New Religious Folicy" / 171

the Church was now allowed to issue, further meant garnering an

appreciative audience in the crucial neighboring countries of the Balkans
and the Middle East. It can be concluded now, in retrospect, that much
more could have been asked of the Church and far greater use made
of it as a national rallying point.
What the Church did accomplish in the prewar period was to pass
muster as a candidate for political probation; on the opening day of the
war it was allowed to add its voice to the call for defense of the father-
land. That the real test was put off until the first two years under fire
does not diminish the essential nature of the preliminary relaxation—
part of the general letup following the bloodbath of the mid-thirties.
Analyses of the New Religious Policy that see it merely as a reward for
political services well rendered would seem to put the cart before the
horse. 18 If the official opprobrium over the Church had not lifted before
June 1941, it would hardly have been given a chance to redeem itself
by its wartime conduct any more than were kulaks or "counter-revolu-
tionaries" in labor camps, whose chance at rehabilitation came only
later and in more circumscribed fashion when some were enrolled in
"death battalions" of the embattled Red Army. Further, a Church which
had experienced only unrelieved repression at the time of the Nazi
invasion would have had little inclination to throw its forces to the
Soviet side, to reject out of hand the German promises for relief from
Stalinism. The small but distinct change in Soviet religious policy from
1939 to 1941 represented a straw at which the embattled hierarchs
had to clutch for a chance at survival. Also, a Church whose prestige
was beginning to be refurbished, along with the glories of the Russian
past, could link its interests with that of the nation and be dissuaded
from looking to foreign intervention for restatement of its viability.

CONTRIBUTING TO DEFENSE

In the light of the patriotic traditions of the Russian Orthodox Church,

it might not appear especially remarkable that its leaders rallied round
the flag during a struggle in which national existence was evidently
at stake. There are, however, two noteworthy features of the part played
by the Church in the period from mid-1941 to mid-1943: (1) the celerity
and unstinting effort that marked the contributions, with virtually no
concessions by the state to spur the drive; (2) the acceptance by the
regime of this unlikely volunteer, whom official antireligious publications
were still castigating until October 1941, after twenty-four years of
172 / Icon and Swastika

ideologically grounded repression. Of course, these first two years of

World War II were critical ones for state as well as Church, and the
leaders of both operated under extraordinary pressures that facilitated
a break in their set pattern of relations. The hierarchs were not so much
pursuing a period of trial as accommodating themselves to the test thrust
upon them; if they could not keep their followers in line, their doom
would be imminent. Political leaders, by the same token, did not go
out of their way to enlist the support of the Church, but this aid, once
offered, could be rejected by them only at the peril of driving a
substantial segment of the population into the arms of the enemy. Col-
laboration, then, took place not by choice, but by necessity; not because
of advantages anticipated by either side at the outset, but in reaction to
the suicidal aspects of other alternatives.
Acting Patriarch Sergius apparently wasted no time checking with
the authorities on June 22, 1941, to issue a proclamation "To the Whole
Church," damning the "Fascist bandits" who had invaded Russia and
blessing "with heavenly grace the people for their heroic battle."19 He
condemned any laggard clerics shrinking from wartime involvement for
personal advantage, for they would thereby "betray their duties to the
fatherland as well as their pastoral responsibilities." Even Stalin waited
another ten days, in the belief that the Nazi move was merely an act
of provocation, before making his first appeal to the people.20 By then,
Sergius had already spoken out a second time, at a Te Deum for
Russia's victory on June 26 that attracted an estimated twelve thousand
worshipers to the Cathedral of the Epiphany. Once more his theme
was broadly patriotic, with no reference to the Soviet government, but
this time he took cognizance of the danger that his hard-pressed flock
might welcome the Germans as liberators.21 Such a turn of events, by
implication, would unloosen the ultimate in Soviet religious purges.
Therefore, he admonished the Orthodox not to commit the "sin" of
lagging in the defense of their country and assured them, out of his
own knowledge of German conditions, that they would soon prove
terribly mistaken if they thought "the enemy will not attack our sanc-
tuaries or our beliefs." Metropolitan Nikolai elaborated on the theme in
a speech of August 8, reminding believers of the "well-known fact that
Hitler brings with him his atheist world view and his cult of the pagan
god Wotan."22
On October 14, another proclamation by Sergius shows him aghast
at "rumors that there may be, even among our Orthodox clergy, some
who are ready to enroll in the service of the enemies of our fatherland
 The "New Religious Policy" / 173

and Church—to be under the shadow of the pagan swastika instead of

the holy cross."23 Those unnamed persons—whose ranks Sergius must
by then have known included his younger namesake in the Baltic, as
well as the Autocephalists of the Ukraine—were admonished to "repent"
under threat of being defrocked, excommunicated, and subjected to
divine punishment for breaking their oaths of clerical obedience. The
analysts who see in such loyalist appeals a desperate attempt by Sergius
to save himself and his Church do not mean to derogate the genuine-
ness of his patriotic fervor.24 They simply note that Sergius was safely
evacuated from embattled Moscow to Ulyanovsk after this last procla-
mation, while persons whose loyalty had been in doubt were executed
by the Red Army before it gave up towns to the Germans—and some
four hundred priests may have been among their number.25
From his wartime refuge, the Acting Patriarch kept up a stream of
patriotic exhortations, with a special appeal to the Orthodox under Ger-
man rule to stay loyal to the Kremlin so that they would not expose the
Church to charges of treasonable conduct. In January 1942, he warned
them against the lure of "faint-hearted service to the enemy" for material
gain, a course of action condemned as constituting "treason to Church
and fatherland."26 In June, on the anniversary of the invasion, he went
on to urge all the faithful in the occupied territories to support the
partisans fighting the Nazis. In his Christmas message that year, they
were told not to become discouraged, but to "be patient a little while
longer and the light will once more shine upon you." The same note was
sounded by the other hierarchy, particularly Metropolitan Nikolai, whose
Kiev diocese had been taken by the Germans and who had been
allowed to return to Moscow to administer Church affairs in the capital.
His greetings to Stalin on November 7,1942, the twenty-fifth anniversary
of the Revolution, brought wishes for a long life "to cleanse the Ukraine
of the German filth."27
During 1942, the statements of Orthodox Church leaders in Russia
assumed an increasing tone of confidence as they must have become
aware that the great majority of the clergy was refraining from coming
out for the Germans. Sergius had at first hesitated to admit the existence
of clerical collaborators, then to deny they carried any churchly weight.
He opened his letter to Bishop Polykarp on February 5, 1942, by saying
there really was no Autocephalous "movement" embracing any priests
or believers. "Sikorski's action," he wrote, "seems to me of an exclusively
political and not a Church nature. He has done what he has done . . .
under orders from a political party," and his use of Ukrainian instead
174 / Icon and Swastika

of Old Slavonic in the liturgy has stirred the resentment of congrega-

tions among whom "he enjoys neither love nor authority." If Polykarp
continues to extort confessions "in the wake of the German armed
forces," he will be liable to "deprivai of all priesthood."28
On March 28, the Acting Patriarch in a second letter admitted the
seriousness of the schism and Polykarp's heightened defiance but still
suspended final judgment. Sergius abandoned the element of personal
vindictiveness of his preceding note, which had characterized Polykarp
as "a fresh wolf in sheep's clothing," "zealous like a lackey to Hitler,"
and "guilty of simony" and other crimes which "it is difficult to find words
harsh enough to express"; now his focus shifted to the Ukrainian Auto-
cephalists' breaches of Church discipline. Polykarp was ordered to
desist from celebrating services until he either repented or underwent
an ecclesiastical trial—although the preceding note had charged him
with "exclusively political" misdeeds. Sergius conceded that the Auto-
cephalists touched a sore spot when, in their countercharges, they
questioned the legitimacy of his status. He has heard "reports . . . that
in answer to my letter Bishop Polykarp calls me an impostor, as if I
had obtained the office of Acting Patriarch by illegal means," yet he
promises to be "magnanimous, and the affair shall be investigated by a
Church Council and my judgment either will be confirmed or cor-
rected."29 Slurs on his office were not an unmixed curse for Sergius: he
could convert them into a bargaining point with Soviet leaders to have a
sobor convoked that would officially enthrone him in the Patriarchy—an
event that did at last transpire in September 1943.
Until the limited contours of clerical collaboration with the Germans
had become apparent, Sergius had to play his hand with caution. At the
start, he could not be certain that a bolder attitude of recriminations
would not push pro-Nazi sympathizers in the Church beyond the point
of no return. Thus he put off until September 23, 1942, his condemnation
of the Baltic Exarch Sergius the Younger.30 Not only did ecclesiastic
punishment of collaborators by the Patriarchy come remarkably late,
but it was reserved for only a small fraction of their number, apparently
no more than four in all.31 Even though the two main antireligious
journals, Bezbozhnik and Antireligioznik, had ceased publication in
September and October 1941, respectively, because of "paper shortages,"
the fate of the Church hung in the balance, and a pro-Nazi swing in
the occupied territories would have brought swift Soviet retribution. 32
This remained true in 1942, when a de luxe edition of patriarchal
 The "New Religious Policy" / 175

proclamations was printed, evidently by the same press that had been
used for antireligious works in prewar days.33 In his preface to The
Truth About Religion in Russia, Sergius took pains to debunk "the 'cru-
sade' of the Fascists, undertaken by them supposedly for the liberation'
of our people and of our Orthodox Church from the Bolsheviks."34
For the first eighteen months of the war, the regime did little beyond
looking the other way while the hierarchs set about frantically establish-
ing an incontrovertible case for their loyalty under fire. The regime
offered no ideological justification for the quiet demise of the League
of Militant Atheists and other antireligious forums in late 1941, nor for
the religious hour that Radio Moscow began to broadcast.35 Unofficially,
however, it demonstrated a willingness to exploit the propaganda poten-
tial of its clerical volunteers. Soviet aircraft were used, according to
émigré reports, to disillusion the population of the occupied territories
about any impending Nazi "liberation" by dropping leaflets announcing
the support of Church leaders for the war effort.36 Other media were
made available to Sergius and Nikolai to broadcast appeals to Rumanian
soldiers in November 1942 and to Orthodox audiences in Yugoslavia,
Czechoslovakia, and Greece the following Easter.37 Metropolitan Nikolai
had been named to an extraordinary state commission charged with the
investigation of German war crimes in November 1941, in another ob-
vious move to put the lie to talk of any German "crusade."38
In circulating reports of German atrocities against religion, Soviet
leaders may have sought to expunge memories of their own campaigns
against the Church, besides trying for special effects in the West and at
home.39 Reports published in English frequently refer to desecrations
of artistic cathedrals, as in the following example: "The Nazi invaders
do not spare the religious feelings of believers among the Soviet popu-
lation. They have burned down, plundered, blown up, and befouled
hundreds of churches on Soviet territory, including certain unique ex-
amples of ancient church architecture."40 The authors of such accounts
do not pretend to give a balanced picture. They do not cite witnesses,
nor do they admit any relief in the black image of German soldiers
depicted in every paragraph as "beasts," "two-legged jackals," and "de-
praved tools of the master gangster Goebbels." They arefilledwith grue-
some incidents, as in this typical excerpt from an official report: "When
an aged priest, Pomaznev, cross in hand, tried to prevent the rape of
young girls, the Fascists beat him up. They tore off his cassock, burned
his beard, and bayoneted him to death."41 Nazi intelligence coldly took
176 / Icon and Swastika

notice of such alleged atrocities and attributed them to Soviet desires to

placate critics among the Allies and in neutral countries, as well as to
exploit popular religious feelings at home.42
Lurid colors also mark Soviet dispatches released for home consump-
tion, although they carry a unique extra charge: that the Germans were
making Kirchen out of the Orthodox churches under their rule. Metro-
politan Nikolai furnishes an example of such forced Protestantization at
Trubino (Ugodsk-Zavod). There the Germans are said to have thrown
out icons, burned the priests' vestments, and installed a German pastor
with a revolver and grenades stuck in his belt. 43 Russian publications also
carry accounts of other kinds of desecration, such as reports that Ger-
mans used church buildings as barns, in what seems to have been an
attempt to trump memories of sacrilegious acts committed by Militant
Atheists under Soviet auspices a decade before. It was all part of a
gigantic effort at rewriting history to which the hierarchs lent their
imprimatur by shrugging off all clerical victims of past purges as having
merited their fate as undercover counter-revolutionaries.44
A curious feature of the new Party line on religion was that, in por-
traying the legions of Hitler as the embodiment of antichrist, Soviet
leaders found themselves cast by contrast in the unwonted role of true
protectors of the faith. In such a setting, their old antireligious reflexes
had to be extinguished. Victor Kravchenko describes an official rationaliz-
ing the softer line on the Church at a Party meeting in 1942 in this way:
"The enemy is making use of our antireligious attitudes for propaganda
purposes, and the improved relations with the Russian Church cut the
ground from under them."45 Though Kravchenko's veracity is a matter
of conjecture, it is not unlikely that some explanation of this sort was
given when Party members asked embarrassing questions about the need
for a modus vivendi with Church forces. The new course took a long
time to emerge clearly. Even in late 1943 the veteran Bolshevik leader
M. I. Kalinin was still telling Party propagandists that it was all right for
younger men to laugh at middle-aged recruits in the Red Army who
turned up wearing crosses.46
Only by the end of 1942 did Church leaders feel secure enough to
address their pledges of loyalty to Stalin personally, in what was soon to
become a veritable chorus of beatification, and to go beyond their
legally prescribed rights by beginning to collect funds for the Red Army
in a drive that netted 150,000,000 rubles during the next two years.47
A detailed analysis of either activity would be out of place here; what
is noteworthy is that, in its response to what appears to have been the
 The "New Religious Policy" / 177

clerics' initiative, the regime moved from tacit approval to explicit recog-
nition. When on January 5, 1943, Sergei offered the first 100,000 rubles
to equip a tank column named for the sainted medieval hero Dimitri
Donskoi and requested permission to open an account in the State Bank
for this project, Stalin personally granted it in a note of thanks that
constitutes the first official communication between the Soviet govern-
ment and the Church since the Revolution.48 By certifying its status as a
depositor, Stalin was also in a backhanded way conceding that the
Church, denied the rights of a juridical person since the 1918 decree on
the separation of Church and state, was entitled to a new legal lease on
life. With the exchange of telegrams between the Patriarchate and Stalin
in March, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Red Army, yet another
sign pointed to rapprochement of state and Church, as the Gestapo was
quick to note.49
During the first two years of the war, the Church gave much to the
regime and asked little in return. It was a model probationer. Its moral
and material contributions to the war effort were epitomized by the
clergy of Leningrad, led by Metropolitan Alexis, which not only steeled
the populace to withstand the bitter German siege, but collected over
3,000,000 rubles for a defense fund by January 1943.50 By April, the
Germans had become aware that Red partisans were adopting a new
proreligious line; by May, they recognized the efficacy of Soviet appeals
for a "Holy War" and of the Acting Patriarch's blessing of resistance
efforts, even to the death.51 The Church had made no claims on the state
for losses sustained in three waves of repression and, in the manner of
Soviet political prisoners of the Stalin era, confessed that the whole thing
had been its fault. It willingly served the ends of propaganda at home,
in the Balkans, and among Russia's allies in the West. Its signal achieve-
ment, however, lay in retaining the loyalties of the Orthodox who formed
the bulk of the population in the German-occupied territories. In light
of this record, the hierarchs could hardly be accused of making immodest
demands by asking the regime to certify that they had lived down their
status as political suspects.

COLLECTING THE REWARDS

Shortly after his return from Ulyanovsk to Moscow in August 1943,

Acting Patriarch Sergius, together with Metropolitans Nikolai and
Alexis, was able to secure an unprecedented privilege for a Russian
Church head: a meeting with Joseph Stalin, at which something like a
178 / Icon and Swastika

concordat could be worked out to supply the Church with a minimum

of essential means—a flow of fresh believers, priests, and bishops—to
keep it from atrophy. Since no details have ever been released regarding
this historic meeting, analysts must surmise the nature of the bargain
the hierarchs were able to drive from progress the Church made in the
next few months. Probably the session of September 4 only formalized
an agreement worked out in principle beforehand, since Stalin's curt
announcement "that there will be no objections from the Government"
to the election of a new Patriarch was followed posthaste by the assem-
bly of nineteen bishops four days later, and arrangements for their travel
from distant parts of the country would have required more time.52
It can further be inferred that in their session with Stalin the hierarchs
obtained agreement only on the broad outlines of the Church's regenera-
tion, for it took the better part of a year to fill in the all-important
details: setting up the first of a series of new theological academies and
seminaries,53 reopening a limited number of new churches,54 consecrating
some three dozen new bishops,55 and restoring the right of priests to
proselytize and to give religious instruction to children.56 All of this was
evidently worked out by the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Ortho-
dox Church, which had been set up on September 14 to become the first
public body of the Soviet state dealing with religious matters. It seems
fairly well established that the nucleus of the new council was made up
of the NKVD section that had theretofore supervised churches.57 Its first
chairman, Georgi Karpov, an avowed Communist and nonbeliever, was
promptly nicknamed Narkombog (People's Commissar for God) and
Narkomopium ( People's Commissar for Opium ) .58 The council's tainted
antecedents, however, do not detract from the importance of its estab-
lishment as signaling rebirth of the Church as a full-fledged Soviet insti-
tution. Karpov may have formerly commanded a secret police squad to
conduct surveillance of church organizations and restrict their activi-
ties;59 now he directed a field force in all Soviet republics and provinces
charged with a totally different mission, to effect a liaison between
religious groups and local government organizations, to see that ten new
seminaries were opened, and to facilitate the licensing of religious
societies.60
In the context of this study, what is of particular interest is the extent
to which the new course in Soviet religious policy was determined by
developments in the German-occupied territories. Why bother hastily
assembling the bishops to elect Sergius to the Patriarchy by acclamation,
when he himself admitted it changed nothing—"In fact, I have borne the
 The "New Religious Policy" / 179

patriarchal responsibilities for the past seventeen years"?61 One pressing

reason for the conclave's action was the need to lay at rest the doubts
that had been raised by Polykarp and other restive churchmen about the
validity of Sergius' slipping into the office of Acting Patriarch. Why,
indeed reward the Church at all for wartime services at a juncture when
Russian victory seemed certain and clerical volunteers were no longer
needed on the home front? Again, the resurgent church life of areas
being recaptured from the Germans seems to supply a logical link. One
analyst argues that Soviet spies must have reported on the Orthodox
renaissance in the occupied zone, so that one may "view all Soviet
measures as an attempt to offer something like that of the enemy, even
to trump him."62 Furthermore, rooting out the multitude of churches
that had been flowering under Nazi rule would have represented a
virtually insuperable task for Soviet forces in pursuit of the Wehrmacht.
It was a much simpler strategy to reimpose Communist controls on exist-
ing institutions such as the Church—which had remained essentially
apolitical at its base, since most of its pro-German leaders had fled and
the rest were ready to recant.
The bishops who assembled for the command performance of formal-
izing the status of Sergius indicated their awareness of their future duties
in the retaking of the western lands. They took time in their brief pro-
ceedings to condemn any bishop, priest, or layman who had "renounced
the faith and fatherland by going over to the enemy," and to apply the
appropriate punishments: defrocking and excommunication.63 An eccle-
siastical purge was thus coordinated with the political one and its
guidance entrusted to a permanent Holy Synod that was to replace the
temporary body set up in 1927. To carry the relevant announcements, the
Patriarchate was permitted to begin printing a monthly bulletin, Zhurnal
Moskovskoi Patriarkhi, in September 1943, its first periodical in eight
years.64
During the critical first half of the war, the Church proved itself a
trustworthy ally of the regime. During the downhill second half, it could
collect the rewards facilitating its further employment "particularly
essential in the fight against centrifugal forces in the borderlands from
the Baltic states to Bessarabia."65 If the Church was to fulfill its new
political assignment, it would have to speak with authority. To this end,
it was given the ceremonial prestige of Patriarch and Synod and of
churchmen in Leningrad, Moscow, Tula, and other front-line cities, who
began receiving medals in October 1943 for their heroic defense efforts.66
To overcome religious separatism in the borderlands the Church would
180 / Icon and Swastika

also have to stand on a unified base; it is for this purpose that we can
infer political pressure to have been exerted on pro-Communist clerics of
the Living Church to render submission to the Patriarch. The terms of
their penance included stripping some bishops of their ranks, reordaining
most of the clergy, and turning over prestigious icons and churches that
had been under their control in Moscow, Leningrad, Tula, and other
centers of the schism.67
The reintegration of Living Churchmen foreshadowed the forced
"homecoming" to the central hierarchy of priests in areas retaken from
the Germans. There were shotgun unions—particularly in the Ukraine,
where patriarchal emissaries took no heed of local desires for some sort
of clerical self-government that were held even by the moderate majority
constituting that Autonomous Church. Postwar return of the Uniates to
the fold could only be achieved after a military tribunal had dealt with
Archbishop Joseph Slipy and other members of the hierarchy in April
1945 and the Soviet secret police had arrested hundreds of priests.68
Among the liberated Orthodox the official spotlight fell only on clerics
and laymen who had helped the partisans or otherwise proved a loyalty
that could now be rewarded with medals and citations. Scant mention
was made of wartime disaffection by priests who stayed behind, pre-
sumably to vanish into prisons;69 nor was any cognizance taken of the
"third force" churchmen who had sought to forswear subservience to
Soviet as well as German masters.
In the reconquest of the western lands, the Soviets picked up, at times
with hardly a break, where German occupation authorities had left off.
Russian regulations followed almost literally the texts of German orders
which had banned the semisecret "Whitsuntide Congregations" and the
use of "glossolalia," a kind of tongue speech in some parishes that had
been condemned as "too mystical" by an SS office.70 Churches that had
sprung up under the occupation were being turned over to the Patriarchy
purged of all schismatics and mystics who might resist marching in lock
step to the Soviet drum. The Moscow hierarchs were in no position to
cavil at strings attached to this gift: the regained western lands were to
supply them with more than half of all parishes in the Soviet Union,
nearly all of the sixty-nine monastic institutions they could claim as late
as 1958, and a vital middle level of organization that had no parallel in
the shattered ecclesiastical structure of central and eastern Russia.71
In a real sense, all the contributions by Russian churchmen to the
regime during the war, all of what seemed to unsympathetic foreign eyes
like their groveling at the feet of Stalin, was justified in order to gain
 The "New Religious Policy" / 181

this new heartland for Orthodoxy. In the areas that had never left Soviet
control, there may also have occurred something like a religious revival,
though in a much more constricted form than of that in the German-
occupied territories, as far as one can tell from the admittedly skimpy
data. During the war, official publications ignored the resurgence of
belief. Only by the late 1950's did they admit it, rationalizing it as a
phenomenon limited to "a few weak-willed and ideologically unstable
people" whose wartime suffering had driven them "to seek 'solace' in
the churches."72 Contemporary observations come primarily from two
sources, each with its own bias: Church announcements of record atten-
dance at holidays in the Moscow congregations and reports of foreign
visitors focusing on the limits to religious liberty.
The Patriarchate proudly reported the lifting of the Moscow curfew
just in time to let celebrants attend Easter Eve services in 1942.73 A repe-
tition of this measure the next year brought some fifty thousand to mid-
night worship, only a third of whom could squeeze inside the thirty
churches still open in the city.74 Alexander Werth noted a marked differ-
ence in the two observances, the first held in rundown buildings by
priests in shabby robes for mostly elderly worshippers, the second in
renovated quarters with "many more soldiers" in the churches in 1943
than there had been in previous years.75 Even the Gestapo took note of
the "significant attendance" at these services and commented on Red
Army personnel at reopened Moscow churches.76 Eve Curie, on a French
journalistic mission through many Russian cities in 1942, concluded that,
after twenty-five years of antireligious propaganda, the regime could
afford to relax controls, since "on the whole, the young Russian genera-
tion had parted with Christianity . . . had been converted to a new faith
that left room for no other faith." 77 In a New York Times account of
Christmas services in Moscow as late as 1944, the overflow congregation
was characterized as consisting of "a normal sample of Moscow's house-
wives and middle-aged men," devoid of youth except for a few soldiers.78
In the previous fall, Maurice Hindus had commented on the absence of
males and youth at a special service conducted by the Patriarch. 79
What emerges from these impressionistic data is a pale shadow of that
recrudescence of faith under German occupation: this came two years
later, took in a smaller fraction of the population, and was marked by a
much greater shortage of church facilities and cadres.80 It can be
hypothesized that three critical factors account for this divergence. First,
compared to the social conditions of areas that remained under Soviet
rule, those of the occupied zone were extremely fluid. Upheavals in the
182 / Icon and Swastika

system became the norm as the strict Communist order was replaced
more often by disorder than by the "New Order." New social forces,
such as the nascent religious organizations, were relatively free to
organize themselves, at least on a regional level, as long as they stripped
themselves of lingering Soviet ties. Second, there was a difference in the
nature of controls imposed on these emergent groups. In the occupied
areas, there was substituted for pervasive Soviet rule a German martial
law which focused its sporadic surveillance on aspects of behavior that
bore watching for possible rebellion. The Kremlin's church policy had
consistently set limits to the growth of organized religion. Even by the
time the "New Religious Policy" was a year old, a Central Committee
directive was launching a new wave of antireligious activities under the
more subtle label of "scientific educational propaganda." 81
On the one hand, then, Soviet policy-makers limited the benefits of
religious toleration to the lowest and least mobile social stratum, the
older peasantry. 82 Urban youth was to remain hostile to what the Party
termed "survivals of ignorance, superstition, and prejudice." Its text-
books in 1944-1945 still talked of religion as superstition, the stupefying
of people, and a means to enslave the masses.83 On the other hand, the
regime forced the rehabilitated Church to concern itself exclusively with
what it called "practice of the cult." This means, according to William
Fletcher, making the Church turn "her back on the great social issues of
the day" in a narrowing of the mission to a "purely spiritual, super-
natural calling."84 As Alfred G. Meyer views it, the 1943 modus vivendi
allowed the churches to engage in activities "so long as they had a purely
sacramental character" but at the same time prevented them "from ex-
tending their work into areas such as education, social work, charity,
or even social life."85
Here is found the third respect in which believers of the occupied
area gained a critical advantage. German religious measures were—at
times intentionally, generally as a result of bureaucratic confusion—a
welter of contradictions. Yet there was no sustained attempt to suppress
Orthodoxy in any part of the population; only the church cadres were
under pressure to keep out of politics or to issue pro-Nazi sermons. In
the fluid occupation society the Church won an opportunity for cohesion
and communication without the strictures on its appeal that were never
relaxed by the Soviets. German controls in their very contradictions per-
mitted this vital force free movement, except at its apex. As Alexander
Werth has noted, the churches almost at once transcended the anti-
Communist mission for which the Germans had primed them, to aid
 The "New Religious Policy" / 183

prisoners of war, offer relief to the poor, organize "mutual aid circles,"
and, to their administrators' consternation, become "active centers of
Russian national consciousness."86

CONSOLIDATING THE JUNIOR PARTNERSHIP

In the two or three years following the war, the movement of the
Church in the new direction opened by the 1943 concordat gathered
momentum. The hierarchs assumed added measures of prestige. Their
conclaves held in an aura of luxury, their offices richly appointed, their
messages carried in official publications, and their encounters with the
political elite a matter of course, they could be considered to have taken
their place among the privileged classes of Soviet society. They also rose
to new prominence as junior partners of the state. As the cold war
dawned, they tightened their connections with Orthodox congregations
in the East European states which were being drawn into the Soviet
bloc, and their foreign missions carried them to "Peace Congresses" and
to meetings with prelates of the Middle East and Western Europe again
in aid of Soviet foreign policy. Coordination of this new political task
devolved upon Metropolitan Nikolai, until 1960 head of the Church's
Department of External Relations, who apparently was personally as-
signed to it by Stalin in April 1945.87 Nikolai's biographer, William
Fletcher, has ably analyzed the ethical dilemmas of this churchman, who
went to great lengths even in the service of Soviet intelligence objectives
until a crisis of conscience in 1956 appears to have set him on the road
to resistance and eventual martyrdom.
With the death of Patriarch Sergius on May 15, 1944, temporary
leadership of the Church passed to Metropolitan Alexis, who hastened
at once to notify Stalin of the "very deep love . . ." and devotion borne
the "Godgiven leader" by himself and all his "churchly colleagues."88
This was a guarantee of political trustworthiness, evidently a necessary
preliminary to having the regime permit convocation of a sobor to
formally elect a new patriarch in February 1945. The outcome was once
more a foregone conclusion, once Karpov had paid tribute to "the
esteemed churchman and fervent patriot Alexis."89 Rather more un-
expected was the attendant pomp and circumstance: the full complement
of clergy and laity that accompanied the forty-four prelates, the large
contingent of foreign clerics, the splendor of the installation ceremony,
and the concert of church music performed at the Moscow Conservatory
afterward. 90
184 / Icon and Swastika

By its pronouncements, this sobor also offered a clue to the nature of

the modus vivendi that the Church was being allowed to extend into the
postwar period. Prior to the election, it had passed a statute ( on January
31 ) giving in outline form the first rules since the Revolution for internal
government of the Church. 91 A regularized administration was a pre-
requisite for an institution that had hopes of growth, of adding to its
hierarchy, and, as a result of Stalin's sympathetic hearing of the Patri-
arch's requests in April, of setting up new facilities to replenish its
chronically short supply of priests.92 The new statute further put the
financial affairs of the parishes in more permanent order by organizing
the production of candles, whose sale was to provide an essential supple-
ment to donations by the faithful. These very real gains must, of course,
be balanced against the setting of the centralized Church administration
presupposed by the statute, which in effect enabled "the Soviet Govern-
ment to remove and get rid of any bishop whom it finds undesirable." 93
Finally, the sobor indicated clearly the political price the Church
would have to pay unstintingly to earn its future viability. It did so, in
the first instance, by intoning praise to "our beloved leader of the Soviet
state and Supreme Commander of our glorious troops, Joseph Vissarion-
ovich Stalin."94 Such paeans had already become a customary preamble
to ecclesiastical messages; their effusiveness grew with Stalin's advancing
years, reaching something of an apogee in the seventieth birthday wishes
tendered by all the bishops in 1949.95 Even at Stalin's death in 1953, the
Patriarch still took time to bless his "eternal memory" and, together with
two archbishops, to be among the guard of honor at the bier.96 In such
gestures the hierarchs showed that they were relying on Stalin to honor
his word to them; by countenancing them, Stalin implied that he saw
some value in enhancing his legitimacy in the eyes of the faithful.
The second side of the coin tendered by the Church in 1945 repre-
sented its contribution to Soviet objectives abroad. The sobor appealed
to "the people of the whole world" to "raise their voices against the
efforts of those, particularly the Vatican, who, seeking by their utterances
to shield Hitlerite Germany from responsibility for all the crimes com-
mitted by it" were said to be perpetuating anti-Christian, fascist doc-
trines into the postwar period. 97 The Vatican's role as the bête noire of
Orthodoxy was to last until the collective leadership that followed Stalin
adopted a "peaceful coexistence" line. By the end of the 1950s the
Church had made the requisite accommodation, displaying a new taste
for the ecumenical movement which, to the surprise of foreign church-
 The "New Religious Policy" / 185

men, eventually brought its observers to the Vatican Council and made it
join the World Council of Churches in 1961.98
Just as the attacks on the Vatican were noteworthy for their political
rather than ecclesiastical grounds, so the churchly exhortations to punish
the Germans were notably devoid of Christian precepts. Archbishop
Lucas of Tambov declared in the patriarchal journal that the Golden
Rule was not a valid standard for the case: "The despicable Germans
are not merely our enemies but also God's, and who dares to speak of
love for God's enemies?"99 In a later issue, a priest named M. Sernov
found it equally expedient to justify the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war
criminals: 'There are deeds on earth for which there is no forgiveness.
The Redeemer prayed for his persecutors because they knew not what
they did. But our enemies knew very well what they did. Therefore, they
deserve no forgiveness."100
If such vengefulness appears unseemly, it is at the same time consonant
with the official Church view of the German occupation, in which
exaggerated accounts of war crimes crowded out the least mention of
the substantial gains made by religious organizations. In the ecclesi-
astical history of the period, as subsequently rewritten, the Orthodox
under German rule have a monopoly on the gallery of heroes. The stigma
of collaborators was reserved for other sects, particularly the Ukrainian
Uniates whose misconduct could be attributed to their Vatican links,
severed at Moscow's insistence in 1945. The following spring, a loyalist
delegation of Uniates rationalized the imprisonment of scores of their
fellows in the Communist postwar purge as due punishment for treason-
able collaboration with the Germans.101 The leader of this rump group,
Archpriest Gabriel Kostelnyk, may not have been in a position to do
otherwise, for two of his sons are supposed to have fled to the West after
having served with the Ukrainian SS Division, while a third was held
hostage by the Soviets.102 Kostelnyk was assassinated in Lvov on Sep-
tember 20,1948, a crime the Patriarchate was quick to blame on German-
Ukrainian nationalists acting at the instigation of the Vatican.103
In general, it was a much easier matter for Orthodox groups, guilty of
a moderate degree of involvement with the Axis powers during the war,
to have their political sins quietly forgiven upon rendering their sub-
missions to the Patriarchate. The inducement to do so was particularly
strong in the lands that had fallen under the shadow of the Red Army.
Thus, in the Russian zones of Germany and Austria, the congregations
of Berlin, Potsdam, Dresden, Leipzig, and Vienna quickly embraced
186 / Icon and Swastika

Moscow's hegemony.104 Soon after the Soviet occupation of Manchuria

in the summer of 1945, the clergy in the former White Guard stronghold
of Harbin also returned to the fold.105 Even the head of the Polish Auto-
cephalous Church, Metropolitan Dionisius, who had once hoped to
dominate Ukrainian Orthodoxy under German auspices, was released
from the Warsaw jail where he had been awaiting trial after issuing a
penitential letter, though he lost most of his dioceses as a result of
Russia's seizure of the eastern third of Poland. A nationalist Polish
bishop, Timofei, had become acting Church head, but the final step to a
russified hierarchy was delayed until June 1951, when a Soviet bishop,
Macarius of Lvov, a much more pliable figure in the hands of the Patri-
arch, was installed at Warsaw.106
Encouraged by such successfully conducted "homecomings" by the
Orthodox beyond the borders, and reacting as well, perhaps, to the limits
on religious growth set by the regime at home, the Moscow hierarchs
began to revive a forgotten piece of tsarist ideology: that the Patriarchy
could claim to be the "Third Rome." The subject had been broached by
the North American Exarch, Metropolitan Benjamin, at the 1945 sobor.107
He had proposed that an advisory central council be set up in Moscow
to service Orthodox churches around the world. Ambitions along this line
had swelled by the spring of 1947 to the point where the Patriarch
invited the heads of all Orthodox Churches to a Moscow meeting at
which ecumenicism was to be high on the agenda.108 Dreams of such
global unity were punctured rudely by the realities of the cold war. The
session scheduled for November had to be canceled after a number of
anti-Soviet hierarchs, including the Patriarchs of Constantinople and
Alexandria and the Church heads of Greece and Cyprus, begged oif.
The Patriarch had to content himself with revised invitations to the
foreign prelates to a conference in July 1948, in connection with the
celebration of the five-hundredth anniversary of Russian Church auto-
cephaly. The hierarchs from non-Communist countries were conspicu-
ously absent. Speeches were monotonously cast in the clichés of the
cold war vocabulary: denunciations of capitalism, American imperialism,
and, for good measure, the Vatican and the World Council of
Churches.109 Karpov accused "the heads of some ancient Greek
Churches" of having boycotted the meeting for nonecclesiastical reasons,
but this was no less than sour grapes. The aspirations of the Moscow
Church to become the "Third Rome" lay shattered. Its subservience to
the Soviet state bound it to a far more modest role in the foreseeable
future.
 The "New Religious Policy" / 187

THE POSTWAR OUTLOOK FOR THE CHURCH

If the Church embarked in the postwar era as a newly certified Soviet

institution, there still remained grounds for speculation on the amount
and direction of the diffusion taking place between it and other social
structures in Russia. One extreme view, taken by Serge Bolshakoff, held
that the Church, which had "Christianized the most unlikely societies
and institutions," might in time "Christianize the Soviet State as well."110
The antipodal opinion is represented by Miklos Nyarady, who concluded
on the basis of his 1947 diplomatic mission to the Soviet Union that the
Church had simply become the mouthpiece of the government.111 The
true nature of the postwar trend seemed to lie somewhere between these
polar analyses.
Christianization of the state seemed the less likely of the two prospects,
since in 1946 its proponents were ignoring the "considerable evidence
showing that the Soviet authorities still regard religion as an error which
should be combatted."112 The regime was no less determined to prevent
"contamination" of its cadres by religion, as it barred believers from the
Party and Komsomol—both of which continued to espouse antireligious
propaganda, now put on a par with the inculcation of "scientific no-
tions."113 Sunday schools were still prohibited, and parents had no easy
choice in arranging for private religious instruction of their offspring;
they knew that the step could incur sanctions for themselves and impede
their children's careers. Though the Militant Atheist League had faded
away, it had apparently been succeeded by the Society for the Dis-
semination of Scientific and Political Knowledge. For the grotesque
museums and demonstrations of the League, the Society had at least
temporarily substituted lectures and pamphlets to drive out religious
error without direct mention of the Church.
Among the restrictive controls on the Church, there was a continued
hiatus in the cultural activities that had flourished in prerevolutionary
Russia, a ban on public meetings of a religious nature, and a further
dearth of Church literature beyond the limited circulation of the Journal
of the Moscow Patriarchate to ecclesiastical subscribers.114 Christianiza-
tion of the Soviet state remained little more than the fond hope of those
arguing from the premise that "good always triumphs over evil" and
others who saw the Kremlin adopting and shedding policies to suit its
whims. An example of the latter is Stephen Graham, who depicted Stalin
as secretly a Church sympathizer from his Tiflis seminary days, forced
into an irreligious stance by Lenin's uncompromising hostility to the
188 / Icon and Swastika

Church and then, upon receiving a plea for religious liberty from a priest
named Vissarion like his father, returning to the faith—a stray lamb.115
Lenin was, of course, out of touch with the Yezhovshchina, and Stalin,
whose memories of his father were probably replete with the beatings
he had administered, was not seen attending any of the Moscow cathe-
drals.
The second postwar prospect, Sovietization of the Church, cannot be
dismissed as easily as a figment of wishful thinking. But its extreme
interpreters cannot be taken too seriously when they contend that in
1947 Patriarch Alexis was "in constant touch with Stalin and the Polit-
buro members" and had become "an ardent supporter of Soviet imperial-
istic policies because he believes that a Russian victory in the East-West
conflict finally would bring about a long-awaited triumph of 'the only
true church against the heretic Catholic or Protestant churches of the
world' after a thousand-year enmity."116 Equally far-fetched was the
Vatican broadcast claiming that the Orthodox Church, under Kremlin
orders, had transformed forty thousand secret police agents into priests
in order to listen in on confessions.
A much more balanced picture is painted by a German Jesuit priest,
Wilhelm DeVries. He makes a case for political secularization by citing
the absence of religious terminology in the Church leaders' call to arms
for the defense of Russia; the Patriarch's attack on the late Metropolitan
Benjamin, head of the Petrograd diocese who had been executed in 1922
for "having cloaked counterrevolutionary activities by church schism"
and having invoked "state power to assist against clerical enemies"; and
by a like couching of charges against the Ukrainian Autocephalists led
by Bishop Polykarp.117 DeVries seems to have gone astray, however, by
accepting at face value declarations of the hierarchs attesting to the
contentedness of their subservient status. He is on surer ground when
returning to his main theme, one corroborated by other data: high
clerics have played a vital diplomatic role in Soviet foreign relations,
especially within the East European bloc; Church publications, such as
the Patriarchate's journal, were carrying affirmations of loyalty to the
regime and the "God-chosen Leader," Stalin; Church calendars were
made to include Soviet holidays; special services were held on state
occasions, such as Stalin's birthday, according to émigré interviews. Patri-
arch Alexis was supposed to have preached in 1947: "Every true Chris-
tian in the Soviet Union should be ready for a 'holy war' to repel an
eventual attack by the 'American capitalists and Western imperi-
alists.'"118 Although the text is perhaps apocryphal, the likelihood for
 The "New Religious Policy" / 189

Church messages in this vein increased as, amid the exacerbated cold
war, a layman wrote in the patriarchal journal: "The camp of world
reaction, headed by the United States of America, fiercely opposes the
establishment of a stable peace on a democratic basis. The Wall Street
billionaires, who dream of a dollar-dominated world, the colonizers who
make gold and diamonds from human blood, military spies, and provoca-
teurs—these are primarily responsible before humanity, history, and
culture for the propaganda and preparation of a new war."119
After the war, Church leaders found themselves in a privileged posi-
tion, surrounded by the material comforts and perquisites furnished by
the government. Even the base level of clerical salaries exceeded the
earnings of skilled workers or civil servants with senior priests in Moscow
making 300 rubles a month and the lowly village priest relatively well
off.120 That, in this context, they should acquire a vested interest in the
regime and, in their historical role as "junior partners" of the state, per-
form the domestic and diplomatic tasks assigned them is not surprising.
But, according to an interview with N. S. Timasheff, the infiltration of
Soviet standards tends to be limited to the top levels of the Church.
Local priests and believers discounted the loyal protestations of their
superiors, and in their reading of Church publications like the Journal
of the Moscow Patriarchate skipped the first few pages devoted to the
praise of Communism in order to reach the purely theological discussions
that formed the bulk of their contents. Adoption of pro-Soviet positions
by the Church leaders could be viewed as a corollary of their status. With
religious forces concentrated in strata of the population alien to the
cadres of other institutions, the Church was robbed of the means for
independent action. It had to placate the leadership upon whose favor
its future rested by constantly demonstrating that it "knew its place" and
would perform whatever duties might be reserved for a Soviet institu-
tion, still slated to wither away sooner or later according to official
ideology.
The hierarchs could not be expected to face their moribundity with
joy. By performing the regime's assignments with alacrity, they tried to
secure their status as indispensable allies of the state. By displaying
"Communist consciousness," they averted association with "backward-
ness" and attempted to reach a stage of "enlightened religion," in the
hope that the Marxist formulation would eventually be revised. Only
when the Church could declare the "bourgeois superstitious forms of
religion" to have withered away inside Russia might the stage be set for
a permanent rapprochement, the ideology be once again remolded to
190 / Icon and Swastika

current Soviet needs. Not till then could the Church hope to earn its
place beyond question as a fully legitimate component of Communist
society.

I N CLOSING

An attempt has been made in the separate sections of this book to

evaluate the largely scattered and fragmentary data, to explore some
hypotheses regarding causal relations in German and Soviet policies
toward the Orthodox Church, and to reach conclusions on the political
sociology of religion in Russia. A summary of the findings might seem
in order; but, on second thought, it appears advisable to allow the con-
clusions reached en route to stand by themselves. Their tentative and
partial nature is in keeping with materials that, for obvious reasons,
could not lay claim to comprehensiveness, due to the impossibility of
interviewing Nazi and Stalinist decision-makers or of conducting field
surveys among the survivors of the occupation period. It may be of
interest, nonetheless, to return to the purposes of the inquiry outlined in
the Preface and to assess the extent to which they have been fulfilled:
How much light on the institutional characteristics of the Church has
been shed by regarding its wartime experiences as a "controlled experi-
ment"?
At the primary level of popular participation, the "experimental group"
of believers in the German-occupied territories ran true to expectation
by staging a religious revival of proportions unprecedented and un-
parallelled in the areas remaining under Soviet control. This phenom-
enon took place in spite of, rather than because of, intervention by the
Nazi authorities. Indeed, at the level of policy, one witnesses the failures
of these officials to come to grips realistically with the resurgent Church
and sees in them the major source for the frustration of German hopes
to exploit Russian religious forces. Arbitrary as it was, the Nazi system
of cultural controls did not match the pervasiveness of the Soviet net-
work. Within the looser confines of the former, Orthodox congregations
were able to thrive on the peripheries of society under the occupation.
The price they had to pay for survival amidst economic and political
repression was relatively modest: delivering occasional tributes to their
German masters and not venturing into areas of potential opposition.
At the secondary level of the role and status of the Church and its
hierarchy, one somewhat unexpectedly finds that the really dramatic
changes affected the "control group," the Church in the Soviet Union
 The "New Religious Policy" / 191

during the same period. Except for the fairly unsuccessful revolt engi-
neered by outsiders in the Ukrainian Autocephalous movement, there
was no marked transformation of the institution's position under German
rule. In the Soviet area, on the other hand, a policy reversal led to the
proclamation of religious peace for the first time at a moment of overt
national danger. The Church received a reprieve, perhaps permanently,
from execution as an endemic enemy of the regime. It was elevated to
the status of an ally, and the ecclesiastical leaders were "sovietized" by
assuming roles in the state. Ironically, the Germans, by their policy of
negativism, at best neutrality, toward the Church, had furnished the
Moscow Patriarchate the proof it required of the political reliability of
its forces to convince Stalin that a fresh start in Soviet religious policy
was in order.
The objective, unified view of the Church sought at the outset of the
book has not come into focus during an analysis of either Nazi or Soviet
policies. The makers of each brought to their subject only fitful attention
and a set of preconceptions that tell us less about the institution than
about the agencies that tried to manipulate it. In the case of the Germans,
the blinders are provided by the Untermenschen stereotype into which
they forced all Russians and by the preoccupation with its primary
mission shown by each of the bureaucratic machines engaged in the
occupation. All agreed that some form of exploitation should be applied
to native religious organizations, but differences in their respective
orders of priorities led them to adopt tactics at odds with each other.
Soviet decision-makers displayed a similar obsession with manipulative
strategy, although in their case this desire was checked by the ideological
assumption on the incompatibility of religion and communism. Further-
more, their actions were fitted into a more or less unified "line" enun-
ciated by the Politburo, with none of the semiautonomous agencies the
Germans relied on to execute their policies.
If there is something like a true institutional nature of the Church,
it must be reconstructed from blind spots in the official images—from
the areas of resistance to Nazi as well as Soviet pressures. According to
the specialists I consulted, especially Timasheff, the Russian Orthodox
Church is inherently ill-suited to become a tool of any kind. Services
emphasize ritual, and sermons are as a rule devoted to purely spiritual,
otherwordly topics. This hypothesis on the political neutrality of most
Orthodox congregations is corroborated by the spontaneous and autono-
mous nature of their revival under the occupation. Yet these were the
very characteristics that could not be countenanced by the German
192 / Icon and Swastika

authorities, who were functionally incapable of exploiting popular feel-

ing that, to the extent it was left unfettered, the religious sphere was the
area in which significant improvement had been brought about by Nazi
rule. Instead, these officials hinged their measures on the few priests who
could be forced to lend verbal support to the New Order ( and shooting
those who were politically suspect), just as postwar Soviet judgments of
church life under the occupation singled out the handful who had aided
the partisans—or served as quislings. In neither case was the Church
permitted to assert its right to an independent existence, as a "third
force."
Though the sections on Nazi and Stalinist policies toward the Church
have been devoted to contrasting theories and methods, it should be
noted that they also illustrate a common denominator of the totalitarian
approach to cultural controls. In the black and white categories of such a
system, even the most "inherently neutral" institution, as a locus of popu-
lar loyalty, is forced to choose sides. It must become a pillar of support
for the regime ( if policy is to change from repression to tolerance, as in
the Soviet case, and if organization is to be allowed to transcend local
limits, in the German) or it is marked as an obstacle to be overturned.
That the bulk of the believers might not desire to be transformed into
pillars or obstacles was a thought alien to the minds of Soviet and
German decision-makers on the Church.
If this study has an antitotalitarian bias, I am nevertheless hopeful
that it has detached itself from the coloring that overlay much of the
data. Apart from the obviously subjective accounts found in Nazi and
Soviet sources, less direct distortions called for correction. It further
became apparent that, when predicting the future of the Orthodox
Church in the Soviet Union, the writers who foresaw Christianization
of the state turned out to be of Protestant background, the prophets of a
"sovietized" Church of Catholic origin. In another vein, politically
oriented analysts often laid undue stress on the expression of loyalty or
disloyalty by an individual cleric to the German or Soviet regime; others,
of a "pro-Orthodox" bent, overemphasized Soviet religious concessions,
representing them as Church triumphs. Finally, the believers among the
respondents to the Harvard Refugee Interview Project appear also to
have overestimated the strength of religious forces. To the extent this
essay has discounted such preconceptions it may add to a more valid
estimate of the Orthodox Church, of popular religious patterns in Russia,
and of the determinants that governed Nazi and Stalinist policies in this
field.
Bibliography

Notes

Index
 Bibliography

Books

Alexeev, Vasili. Russian Orthodox Bishops in the Soviet Union, 1941-1953.

New York, Research Program on the USSR, mimeographed series No. 61,
1954 (in Russian).
Anderson, Paul B. People, Church and State in Modern Russia. New York:
The Macmillan Co., 1944.
Anderson, Paul B., ed. Major Portions of the Proceedings of the Conference
of Heads and Representatives of Autocephalous Orthodox Churches in
Connection with the Celebration of 500 Years of Autocephalicity of the
Russian Orthodox Church, 8-18 July, 1948. Paris, YMCA Press, 1952.
Anisimov, Oleg. The German Occupation in Northern Russia During World
War 11: Political and Administrative Aspects. New York, Research Pro-
gram on the USSR, mimeographed series No. 56, 1954 (in Russian).
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem. New York, Viking Press, 1963.
Armstrong, John A. Ukrainian Nationalism, 2nd ed. New York, Columbia
University Press, 1963.
Bade, Wilfred, and Wilmont Haacke, eds. Das heldische Jahr. 2nd ed. Berlin,
Zeitgeschichte Verlag, 1943.
Baran, Stepan, Mitropolit Andrei Sheptitski. Munich, Vernigora, 1947.
Bauer, Joseph M. Die Kraniche der Nogaia. Munich, R. Piper & Co., 1942.
Bauer, Raymond Α., Alex Inkeles, and Clyde Kluckhohn. How the Soviet
System Works. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1956.
Beckmann, Joachim. Kirchliches Jahrbuch für die Evangelische Kirche in
Deutschland 1933-1944. Gütersloh, Evangelische Kirche im Dritten
Reich, 1948.
Bell, Daniel. The End of Ideology, rev., ed. New York, The Free Press, 1962.
Bernstein, Victor H. Final Judgment. New York, Liveright Publishing Corp.,
1947.
Birnbaum, Walter. Christenheit in Sowjetrussland. Tübingen, Katzmann Ver-
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Black, Cyril E., ed. The Transformation of Russian Society. Cambridge,
Harvard University Press, 1960.
195
196 / Bibliography

Bolshakoff, Serge. The Christian Church and the Soviet State. New York,
The Macmillan Co., 1942.
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Bonch-Bruevich, V. D. Izhrannye sochineniya, vol. I: O religi, religioznom
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Bottomore, T. B., ed. Karl Marx: Early Writings. London, C. A. Watts & Co.,
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Bourdeaux, Michael. Opium of the People: The Christian Religion in the
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Bracher, Karl D. Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik. 3rd ed. Villingen,
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Braun, Leopold L. Religion in Russia, from Lenin to Khrushchev: An Un-
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Briem, Efraim. Kommunismus und Religion in der Sowjetunion, ein Ideen-
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Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. New York, Harper & Row,
1962.
Carroll, Wallace. We're in This with Russia. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co.,
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Casey, Robert P. Religion in Russia. New York, Harper & Row, 1946.
Chamberlin, W. H. Russia's Iron Age. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1934.
Chandler, Albert R. Rosenberg's Nazi Myth. Ithaca, N.Y., Cornell University
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Cochrane, Arthur C. The Church's Confession under Hitler. Philadelphia,
Westminster Press, 1962.
Conway, J. S. The Nazi Persecution of the Churches 1933-45. London,
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Corsten, Wilhelm. Kölner Aktenstücke zur Lage der Katholischen Kirche in
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Curie, Eve. Journey Among Warriors. Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday & Co.,
Inc., 1943.
Curtiss, John S. Church and State in Russia. New York, Columbia University
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The Russian Church and the Soviet State: 1917-1950. Boston, Little,
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 Notes

Chapter 1. The Background of Soviet Religious Policy

1. See John Maynard, Russia in Flux (New York, 1948 ), p. 35.

2. Maurice Paléologue, An Ambassador's Memoirs (London, 1925), III,
208-209.
3. G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (Cambridge, Mass., 1946),
I, xii.
4. Nicholas S. Timasheff, "The Inner Life of the Russian Orthodox Church,"
in Cyril E. Black, ed., The Transformation of Russian Society (Cambridge,
Mass., 1960), p. 426.
5. Ibid., p. 431.
6. Alfred G. Meyer, The Soviet Political System (New York, 1965), chap.
iv.
7. Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961), p. 48.
8. Karl Marx, "Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of
Right." in T. B. Bottomore, ed., Karl Marx: Early Writings (London, 1963),
pp. 43-44. (His italics).
9. Marx and Engels, On Religion (New York, 1964); I. A. Kryvelev, Lenin
o religi (Moscow, 1960).
10. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, "Manifesto of the Communist Party,"
in Karl Marx, Selected Works (New York, 1933), I, 231.
11. Ibid., p. 226.
12. Karl Marx, "The Communism of the Paper Rheinischer Beobachter," in
Marx and Engels, On Religion (New York, 1964), pp. 83-84. This edition
contains a number of important passages translated for the first time.
13. Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy (New York, 1936),
p. 91.
14. Frederick Engels, "Anti-Duehring" (Chicago, 1907), p. 258.
15. Ibid., pp. 140, 143-144.
16. Frederick Engels, "On the History of Early Christianity," in Marx and
Engels, On Religion, p. 316.
17. Kryvelev, pp. 3-4.
18. Ibid., pp. 6-7.

207
208 / Notes to Pages 17-27

19. Adam Β. Ulam, The Bolsheviks (New York, 1965), p. 9.

20. Kryvelev, p. 19.
21. V. I. Lenin, "Classes and Parties in their Relation to Religion and
Churches" (Sotsial-Demokrat, No. 6, June 4, 1909), in his Sochineniya, 4th
ed. (Moscow, 1942-1966), XV, 377-378.
22. Kryvelev, pp. 16-17.
23. John S. Curtiss, "Church and State," in Black, p. 409.
24. Lenin, "Proposed Speech on the Agrarian Question at the Second State
Duma" (Mar. 21-25, 1908, entry in "Notebooks"), in Sochineniya, XII, 261.
25. Lenin, "Father Gapon" (Vpered, No. 31, January 1905), in ibid., VIII,
86.
26. Lenin, "Socialism and Religion" (Novaya Zhizn, No. 28, Dec. 3, 1905),
in ibid., X, 68-69.
27. Lenin, "The Third Congress" (Proletari, No. 1, May 27, 1905), in
ibid., VIII, 414.
28. "Decree of the RSFSR Council of People's Commissars on the Separa-
tion of Church and State, and Schools and Church," in Kryvelev, p. 142.
29. Ibid., p. 183.
30. See V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, Izbrannye sochineniya (Moscow, 1959-
1963), vol. I: O religi, religioznom sektantstve i tserkvi, p. 65 n. 2 and pp.
200-213.
31. Lenin, "Results of Reaction" (Proletari, No. 33, July 23, 1908), in
Sochineniya, XV, 166, 379.
32. Lenin, "On the Village Poor" (1903), in ibid., VI, 384.
33. Lenin, "Classes and Parties," in ibid., XV, 387.
34. Lenin, "On the Relations of the Workers Party to Religion" (Proletari,
no. 45, May 13, 1909), in ibid., XV, 379.
35. Ibid., p. 380.
36. Lenin, "Classes and Parties," in ibid., p. 387.
37. Lenin, "Socialism and Religion," in ibid., X, 65-66.
38. Lenin, "Letters from Afar" (Kommunisticheski international, No. 3-4,
1924), in ibid., XXIII, 327.
39. Lenin, "The Zubatov Men of Moscow in Petersburg," in ibid., VI, 272.
40. Lenin, "The State and the Revolution" (September 1917), in ibid.,
XXV, 392.
41. Lenin, "Socialism and Religion," in ibid., X, 67.
42. Lenin, "On the Relations," in ibid., XV, 372.
43. Bezbozhnik, no. 4, 1924, cited in Kryvelev, p. 18.
44. This has been noted by Nicholas S. Timasheff, in Religion in Soviet
Russia: 1917-1942 (London, 1944), and by David J. Dallin, in The Real
Soviet Russia (New Haven, 1944).
45. For a similar geometrical representation of Red China's cultural revo-
lution, see G. William Skinner's paper "China," presented at the September
1965 meeting of the American Political Science Association, Washington, D.C.
46. Kolarz, pp. 26-30.
 Notes to Pages 27-35 / 209

47. Matthew Spinka, The Church in Soviet Russia (New York, 1956), pp.
10-11.
48. John S. Curtiss, Church and State in Russia (New York, 1940), p. 409.
49. John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the Soviet State: 1917-1950
(Boston, 1953), p. 46.
50. Matthew Spinka, The Church and the Russian Revolution (New York,
1927), p. 120.
51. Timasheff, Religion in Soviet Russia, p. 23.
52. Curtiss, Russian Church, pp. 57, 63.
53. I. Stratonov, Russkaya tserkovnaya smuta, 1921-1931 (Berlin, 1932),
p. 13.
54. William C. Fletcher, A Study in Survival: The Church in Russia 1927-
1943 (New York, 1965), p. 16.
55. Wilhelm DeVries, Kirche und Staat in der Sowjetunion (Munich, 1959),
p. 12.
56. See Georgi P. Fedotoff, The Russian Church Since the Revolution
(London, 1928), p. 62.
57. Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, pp. 36-37; see also William C. Em-
hardt, Religion in Soviet Russia (Milwaukee, 1929), p. 66.
58. See Emhardt, p. 134.
59. See Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, p. 61, for reference to the secret
Department for Church affairs in the Council of People's Commissars.
60. See Stratonov, pp. 150-151.
61. For list of 66 jailed bishops including Sergius, see A. A. Valentinov,
comp., Chernaya kniga (Paris, 1925), p. 257.
62. See Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, p. 63 and Appendix I (for text of
announcement by Sergius).
63. See ibid., pp. 66-67 and Appendix II (for text of "Declaration"). On
the organization and aims of the Karlovtsi Synod, see also Stratonov, pp. 32-34.
64. Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, pp. 70, 73.
65. Robert V. Daniels, "Stalin's Rise to Dictatorship, 1922-29," in Alexan-
der Dallin and Alan F. Westin, eds., Politics in the Soviet Union: 7 Cases
(New York, 1966), p. 29.
66. Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, p. 73.
67. Fletcher, Study in Survival, p. 46.
68. DeVries, p. 14. For official protests of Sergius, see Paul B. Anderson,
People, Church and State in Modern Russia (New York, 1944), pp. 106-110.
69. See Alex Inkeles, "Family and Church in the Postwar USSR," in Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences, May 1949, p. 42;
also Julius F. Hecker, Religion Under the Soviets (New York, 1927).
70. Bernard Pares, A History of Russia (New York, 1949), p. 512.
71. Inkeles, "Family and Church," p. 43.
72. Pàres, p. 515.
73. Dallin, The Real Soviet Russia, p. 61.
74. See, for example, Boris P. Kandidov, Tserkov i shpionazh (Moscow,
1937).
210 / Notes to Pages 38-45

Chapter 2. Soviet Believers on the Eve of the War

1. William C. Fletcher, A Study in Survival: The Church in Russia 1927-

1943 (New York, 1965), pp. 46-48.
2. Ibid., pp. 84-96. See also Mikhail Polski, Novye mucheniki rossiiskie
(Jordanville, N.Y., 1949). For more fanciful versions of catacomb churchdom,
see Arfved Gustavson, Die Katakombenkirche (Stuttgart, 1954), and in even
less believable fashion, Gretta Palmer, Gods Underground by "Father George"
(New York, 1949).
3. Done under contract for the Air Force, this work, known as the Harvard
Project on the Soviet Social System, is summarized by Raymond A. Bauer,
Alex Inkeles, and Clyde Kluckhohn in How the Soviet System Works (Cam-
bridge, 1956), as well as by Inkeles and Bauer in The Soviet Citizen: Daily
Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, 1959). A critique by Daniel Bell
entitled "How the Harvard System Works" appeared in his The End of
Ideology, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), pp. 337-341.
4. For special effects on families of nonmanual workers, see Inkeles and
Bauer, pp. 216-217, 222-223.
5. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 131, pp. 40, 55.
For an example of generational conflict between grandmother and child, see
Anatoly Kuznetsov, Babi Yar (New York, 1967), pp. 24-25.
6. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 447, p. 25.
7. Alfred G. Meyer, The Soviet Political System (New York, 1965), pp.
439-440.
8. Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961), p. 4.
9. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 1664, p. 21.
10. Walter Birnbaum, Christenheit in Sowjetrussland (Tübingen, 1961),
pp. 187-188.
11. Kolarz, pp. 27-28.
12. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 139, p. 16.
13. Ibid., No. 241, p. 24.
14. Kolarz, pp. 3-33. See also John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the
Soviet State: 1917-1950 (Boston, 1953), pp. 279-288.
15. Kolarz, pp. 11-14. See also Curtiss, Russian Church, p. 279, for League's
growth from 1.9 million in 1938 to 2.9 million in 1940. For reports of stepped-
up atheist campaigns in 1940 and appointment of Molotov's wife to head the
League's women's division following Krupskaya's death in 1939, see Berthold
Spuler, "Die orthodoxen Kirchen," Internationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift ( Berne,
1940), 30: 155-157.
16. Curtiss, Russian Church, p. 289.
17. See Spuler, p. 155.
18. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 136, p. 51.
19. W. H. Chamberlin, Russia's Iron Age (Boston, 1934), pp. 323-324.
20. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 241, p. 11.
21. Cited by Curtiss, Russian Church, p. 288.
22. Wilhelm DeVries, Kirche und Staat in der Sowjetunion (Munich, 1959),
p. 16.
 Notes to Pages 45-51 / 211

23. Fletcher, Study in Survival, pp. 60-62.

24. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 318, p. 13.
25. O. Fjodorow, Die Religion in der UdSSR (Berlin, 1947), pp. 20-21.
26. Cited by Fletcher, Study in Survival, p. 86.
27. Ibid., p. 66.
28. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," Nos. 113, 191, cited
by Barrington Moore, Jr., Terror and Progress USSR (Cambridge, Mass.,
1954), p. 94.
29. Matthew Spinka, The Church in Soviet Russia (New York, 1956), p. 96.

Chapter 3. Nazi Ideology and Administrative Practice on Religion

1. T. L. Jarman, The Rise and Fall of Nazi Germany (New York, 1956),
p. 55.
2. Franz Neumann, Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National
Socialism (New York, 1942), pp. 127-129.
3. Hermann Rauschning, The Revolution of Nihilism (New York, 1939).
4. Walter Birnbaum, Christenheit in Sowjetrussland (Tübingen, 1961),
p. 1 8 0 .
5. Hitlers Table Talk, 1941-1944 (London, 1953), p. 322.
6. Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961), p. 20.
7. Reichsgesetzblatt, Part I, No. 20 (1937), p. 203.
8. For some outstanding examples, see "Sermon of Bishop Clemens August
von Galen at St. Lamberti Church, Münster, on Aug. 3, 1941," in Johann
Neuhäusler, Kreuz und Hakenkreuz (Munich, 1946), Part II, pp. 365-366;
"Final Basic Appeal of Bishop D. Wurm to Hitler and Members of the Cabinet
in the Case Against 'Privileged Non-Aryans,' July 16, 1943," in Heinrich
Hermelink, Kirche im Kampf (Tübingen, 1950), pp. 654-656; "Speech of the
Archbishop of Cologne at the Papal Coronation Mass in St. Martin's Cathedral,
Cologne, March 12, 1944," in Wilhelm Corsten, Kölner Aktenstücke zur Lage
der Katholischen Kirche in Deutschland 1933-1945 (Cologne, 1949), p. 310.
9. Hitlers Table Talk, p. 304; see also J. S. Conway, The Nazi Persecution
of the Churches 1933-45 (London, 1968), pp. 284-285.
10. See, for example, Barrington Moore, Jr., Soviet Politics: The Dilemma
of Power (Cambridge, Mass., 1951); R. N. Carew Hunt, The Theory and
Practice of Communism (London, 1957), chap, xviii; George Lichtheim,
Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study (New York, 1961).
11. Merle Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), p. 445.
12. Karl D. Bracher, Die Auflösung der Weimarer Republik (Villingen,
1960), pp. 407-414, 438-442.
13. See Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem (New York, 1963), p. 180.
14. For an evaluation of Mein Kampf, see Alan Bullock, Hitler: A Study in
Tyranny (New York, 1962), pp. 121-122; for Hitler's own low estimate of
Rosenberg's Mythus, see Hitler's Table Talk, p. 422.
15. Bullock, pp. 139-140.
16. Ibid., pp. 284-307.
212 I Notes to Pages 52-55

17. See Walther Hofer, Der Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente 1933-1945

(Frankfurt, 1957), pp. 124-125, for a summary of such measures. For indi-
vidual actions, see the following documents in International Military Tribunal,
Trial of the Major War Criminals, 42 vols. (Nuremberg, 1947-1949) (cited
hereafter as TMWC): 116-PS, Bormann's letter to Rosenberg enclosing copy
of letter, Jan. 24, 1949, to Minister of Education, requesting restriction or
elimination of theological academies; 122-PS, Bormann's letter to Rosenberg,
Apr. 17, 1939, enclosing copy of Minister of Education letter, Apr. 6, 1939,
on elimination of theological faculties in various universities; R-145, State
Police Order, May 28, 1934, at Düsseldorf, signed Schmid, concerning sanc-
tion of denominational youth and professional associations and distribution of
publications in churches. See also Neuhäusler, for order of Munich police head-
quarters banning Catholic Youth Organization, Apr. 23, 1934 (in Part I,
p. 170), Order of Interior Minister of Oldenburg prohibiting religious news-
paper supplements, June 1934 (Part II, p. 199), and Order of Munich Police
Presidium banning religious publications, Feb. 29, 1936 (Part I, p. 215). For
detailed documentation of the 1930-1935 period see also Hans Müller,
Katholische Kirche und Nationalsozialismus (Munich, 1963).
18. Joseph Goebbels, Diaries, 1942-1943 (Garden City, 1948), pp. 141-
142.
19. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. James Murphy (London, 1939),
p. 110.
20. Ibid., p. 95.
21. Bullock, pp. 128-129.
22. Alfred Rosenberg, Das Wesensfüge des Nationalsozialismus (Munich,
1933), p. 76.
All translations of German and Russian sources are mine unless otherwise
indicated.
23. Cited in Hofer, p. 121.
24. See Corsten, p. 63.
25. Cited in Neuhäusler, Part I, pp. 111-112.
26. Cited in Corsten, p. 63.
27. On negotiation of the Concordat, see Guenter Lewy, The Catholic
Church and Nazi Germany (New York, 1964), chap, iii; for a somewhat self-
serving account, see Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London, 1952), pp. 279-
282; for a more balanced picture, see Conway, pp. 23-30.
28. For restrictions on Caritas, see Hofer, p. 124. See also the following
documents in TMWC·. 1482-PS, Secret letter, July 20, 1933, to provincial
governments and the Prussian Gestapo from Frick concerning Confessional
Youth Organizations; 1481-PS, Gestapo order, Jan. 20, 1938, dissolving and
confiscating property of Catholic Youth Women's Organization in Bavaria.
For censorship and ban on Catholic youth movements, see also n. 17, above.
29. Henry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier,
1941-1942 (Stuttgart, 1965), p. 150.
30. See Minutes of Foreign Office Meeting, June 22, 1942, in U.S. National
Archives and Records Service, "Records of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied
Eastern Territories, 1941-45," microfilm (Washington, 1960), Roll 22, Frames
813-819.
 Notes to Pages 55-59 / 213

31. Letter of Lammers to Rosenberg, May 15, 1942, transmitting Ribben-

trop memorandum of May 10, in ibid., Frames 807-810.
32. For letter of Minister for Church Affairs to bishops of German dioceses,
Mar. 23, 1937, see Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918—1945, Series
D (1937-1945), vol. I (September 1937 to September 1938) (Baden-Baden,
1950), p. 761. For Gestapo order prohibiting circulation of papal message,
Mar. 27, 1937, see Neühausler, Part I, pp. 230-231.
33. Credo of the "German Christian Denomination," Nov. 13, 1933, in
Joachim Gauger, Chronik der Kirchenwirren (Elberfeld, 1934), Part I, p. 111.
For a detailed history of the movement, see Kurt Meier, Die Deutschen
Christen (Göttingen, 1964); see also the summary in Conway, chap. ii.
34. Gesetzblatt der Deutschen Evangelischen Kirche, August 10, 1934.
35. Gauger, p. 103.
36. "Theological Declaration on the Present Condition of the German
Evangelical Church, issued by the Reichs-Confessional Church at Barmen-
Gemarke, May 29-31, 1934," in Joachim Beckmann, Kirchliches Jahrbuch für
die Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland 1933-1944 (Gütersloh, 1948), pp.
64-65. For a comprehensive analysis of this document, see Arthur C. Coch-
rane, The Church's Confession under Hitler (Philadelphia, 1962).
37. See Franklin H. Littel, The German Phoenix (Garden City, 1960), p. 2.
38. Order to reform the administration of the German Evangelical Church,
Apr. 19, 1934, in Beckmann, pp. 57-58.
39. "Message of the Confessing Synod of the Evangelical Church in the
Old-Prussion Union to Its Congregations, Berlin-Dahlem, March 4-5, 1935,"
in Beckmann, pp. 85-86.
40. Quoted by Nathaniel Micklem, National Socialism and the Roman
Catholic Church (London, 1939), p. 55.
41. See citations of Duncan B. Forrester, "Martin Luther and John Calvin,"
in Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, History of Political Philosophy (Chicago,
1963), pp. 297-300.
42. Martin Luther, "Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should Be
Obeyed," in The Works of Martin Luther (Philadelphia, 1915-1932), III, 230.
43. See Reichsgesetzblatt.
44. Hermann Rauschning, Hitler Speaks (London, 1939), p. 62.
45. See Hofer, p. 124.
46. Chancellery announcement of the temporary administration of the
German Evangelical Church, Mar. 13, 1938, in Beckmann, p. 235; see also
Conway, pp. 209-213.
47. Entry for Jan. 19, 1940, in Hans-Günther Seraphim, ed., Das politische
Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs (Göttingen, 1956), p. 97.
48. Ibid., p. 98.
49. For biographical data, see B. Friedberg, "Alfred Rosenberg Named
Reichsminister for the Eastern Territories," (German ms.) in Yivo Institute
for Jewish Research (File Occ E 3-47-53); see also Eugene Davidson, The
Trial of the Germans (New York, 1966), pp. 127-129.
50. Alfred Rosenberg, Memoirs (Chicago, 1949), p. 28.
51. See Bullock, p. 122.
52. Rosenberg, Memoirs, pp. 72, 80.
214 / Notes to Pages 60-67

53. Hans-Günther Seraphim, pp. 4-5.

54. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 104.
55. Hans-Günther Seraphim, p. 10. See also Report to Führer regarding
confiscated art treasures, Mar. 20, 1941, in TMWC (014-PS).
56. Rosenberg, Memoirs, pp. 278-279.
57. Albert R. Chandler, Rosenbergs Nazi Myth (Ithaca, 1945), pp. 122-
123.
58. Robert H. Jackson, The Nürnberg Case (New York, 1947), p. 143.
59. Hitlers Table Talk, p. 422.
60. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 83.
61. Hans-Günther Seraphim, pp. 199ff.
62. Alfred Rosenberg, Der Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts (Munich, 1935),
pp. 598ÍF.
63. Hans-Günther Seraphim, p. 56.
64. Note of the Holy See to the German Government, Jan. 29, 1936, in
Neuhäusler, Part II, p. 199.
65. On Gestapo interventions, see ibid., Part I, pp. 230-233.
66. Secret directive of the SD, Feb. 15, 1938, in ibid, Part I, p. 123. On the
takeover of monasteries, see also SD reports of Apr. 9, 1940, and Sept. 12,
1940, in ibid., Part I, pp. 125-126 and 155 respectively.
67. Hans-Günther Seraphim, pp. 56-57, 61.
68. Rosenberg, Memoirs, pp. 101-102.
69. Hans-Günther Seraphim, p. 63.
70. Ibid., p. 204.
71. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 103.
72. Hans-Günther Seraphim, p. 87.
73. Ibid., pp. 87-88.
74. On the bishops' awareness of this threat, see their pastoral letter of
June 26, 1941, in Corsten, pp. 252ff.
75. Friedrich Heer, Die Deutschen, der Nationalsozialismus und die Gegen-
wart (Bielefeld, I960)—cited in Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy (New York,
1964), p. 305, though the source seems unavailable in U.S. libraries.
76. Hitler's Table Talk, p. 563.
77. Walter Hagen, Die geheime Front (Linz, 1950), pp. 34-35.
78. Dieter Schwarz, "The Big Lie of Political Catholicism," folios published
in Berlin, 1938, cited by Hofer, pp. 133-134.
79. Martin Bormann, "Circular Letter to All Gauleiter on the Relation of
National Socialism to Christianity," June 6, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 35, pp. 9-13
(075-D). See also Jackson, pp. 50, 130.
80. Hans-Günther Seraphim, pp. 42-44.
81. Ibid., pp. 57-58.
82. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 100.
83. Hans-Günther Seraphim, pp. 168—171.
84. Chandler, pp. 122-123.
85. Rosenberg, Memoirs, pp. 191-192.
86. Ibid., p. 100.
87. Cited in Micklem, p. 82.
 Notes to Pages 67-78 / 215

88. Hans Günther Seraphim, p. 86; see also p. 165 for Kerrl's opposition in
February 1940 to Rosenberg's new ideological assignment because it might
lead to an intrusion into church affairs.
89. Ibid., pp. 148-149.
90. Ibid., pp. 168-171.
91. See n. 79, above.
92. Translation in Jackson, p. 50.
93. Memorandum on discussion between Rosenberg and Hitler, May 8,
1942, in TMWC, vol. 27, p. 286 (1520-PS).

Chapter 4. German Policy Toward the Orthodox

Church: The Minister versus the Commissar

1. Hitler decree, Apr. 20, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 24, pp. 383-386 (865-PS).
2. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Munich, 1936), p. 742.
3. Henry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier, 1941-
1942 (Stuttgart, 1965), p. 271.
4. "Führers Decree on Administration," July 17, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 29,
pp. 235-237 (1997-PS).
5. Entry for Jan. 19, 1940, in Hans-Günther Seraphim, ed., Das politische
Tagebuch Alfred Rosenbergs (Göttingen, 1956), p. 97.
6. International Military Tribunal, The Trial of German Major War Crim-
inals: Proceedings of the International Military Tribunal Sitting at Nuremberg
(London, 1946-1950), VI, 221.
7. Alfred Rosenberg, Memoirs (Chicago, 1949), p. 277.
8. Wehrmacht Propaganda Branch, "Directives for Handling Propaganda
in Project 'Barbarossa,'" June 9, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 34, pp. 191-195
(026-C).
9. Rafael Lemkin, Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Washington, 1944), p. 9.
10. John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism (New York, 1963), p. 170.
11. Adapted from Alexander Dallin, "Summary Statement of B-Schedule
on Wartime Occupation" (Cambridge, Mass., n.d.), p. 4.
12. Stephen Graham, Summing-Up on Russia (London, 1951), pp. 51-52.
13. Fritz Lieb, Russland unterwegs (Berne, 1945), pp. 332-333.
14. Berthold Spuler, "Die orthodoxen Kirchen," Internationale Kirchliche
Zeitschrift (Berne), 33 (1943), 34.
15. Metropolitan Seraphim, "Appeal to All Russian Believers" (Russian
ms.), June 22, 1941, in Archive of Russian and East European History and
Culture, Columbia University.
16. For the canonical contretemps of Seraphim's action, see Spuler, 30
(1940), 159-160.
17. See Alexander Svitich, "The Orthodox Church in Poland and Its Auto-
cephaly" (Russian ms.), 1959, in Archive of Russian and East European
History and Culture, Columbia University.
18. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Interview with Professor Markert"
(Protocol G-10), n.d.
216 / Notes to Pages 78-83

19. For abortive attempts by two temporary bishoprics in Belorussia to

place themselves under Seraphim's jurisdiction, see Spuler, 32 (1942), 170;
for a similar affair in Grodno, see 33 (1943), 34.
20. Ibid., 34, (1944), 64-65.
21. Graham, p. 52.
22. Memorandum on discussion between Rosenberg and Hitler, May 8,
1942, in TMWC, vol. 27, p. 289 (1520-PS).
23. Vladimir D. Samarin, Civilian Life under the German Occupation,
1942-1944 (New York, 1954), p. 68 (in Russian).
24. Hermann Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction (New York, 1940),
p. 132.
25. See Hans-Günther Seraphim, p. 69.
26. Letter of Schickedanz to Lammers, June 15, 1939 (doc. 1365-PS),
cited in ibid., pp. 141-147.
27. See Rosenberg memorandum, Apr. 2, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 36, pp.
547-554 (1017-PS).
28. Rosenberg memorandum, Apr. 29, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 26, p. 561
(1024-PS).
29. General instructions of Rosenberg to all Reich commissars in the occu-
pied eastern territories, May 8, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 26, p. 579 (1030-PS);
see "note 7" for deletions.
30. For censorship of Russian religious news for evidently the same reason
by the Propaganda Ministry, see Zeitschriftendienst, Report No. 7060, June 26,
1942.
31. See Eugene Davidson, The Trial of the Germans (New York, 1966),
p. 125.
32. See Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, 1939-1945 (Bonn, 1950),
pp. 145, 149-150.
33. For the short itinerary of his first visit to Belorussia and the Baltic
states in May 1942, see Deutsche Post aus dem Osten, 14, no. 6 (June 1942);
for his June 1943 tour of the Ukraine, during which he had to put up with
Koch's insults, see Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (Lon-
don, 1957), pp. 162-163.
34. See ibid., pp. 84, 129, 136, 141, 160-161, 479; for an erroneous surmise
that only two such meetings took place, cf. Davidson, p. 140.
35. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 279.
36. Kleist, p. 151.
37. See Brandenburg memoranda of June 12 and 14, 1944, in TMWC,
vol. 25, pp. 88-92 (031-PS); see also Rosenberg letter to Lammers, July 20,
1944, in ibid., pp. 362-365 (345-PS).
38. Rosenberg letter to Hitler, Oct. 12, 1944, in TMWC, vol. 41, pp. 185-
194 (Rosenberg-14).
39. See U.S. National Archives and Records Service, "Records of the Reich
Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, 1941^15," microfilm (Washing-
ton, D.C., 1960), Roll 22, Frames 666-802.
40. Rosenberg testimony, TMWC, vol. 11, p. 462. But cf. Spuler, 32
(1942), 43, for an unsubstantiated report that the Deutsche-Ukraine Zeitung
 Notes to Pages 84-90 / 217

(Lutsk) of Jan. 24, 1942, carried an announcement by Rosenberg and Koch

that everyone could exercise his beliefs freely.
41. Ostministerium memorandum of Feb. 20, 1942, on conference of
Jan. 27, in U.S. National Archives, "Records of the Reich Ministry," Frame
694.
42. Ibid., Frames 666-668, 691-693, 695-696, 712, 732, 760-769.
43. Rosenberg instructions to a Reich commissar in the Ukraine, May 7,
1941, in TMWC, vol. 26, pp. 570-571 (1028-PS).
44. Rosenberg letter to Lohse and Koch, transmitting "Draft No. 16" of
"Order Regarding Religious Freedom in the Occupied Eastern Territories,"
May 1942, in U.S. National Archives, "Records of the Reich Ministry," Frames
702-708.
45. Ibid., Frame 707.
46. Alfred Rosenberg, "Speech at the Reception for Representatives of the
German Administration in the Eastern Territories and Representatives of
Latvian Economy, Science, and Art" (German ms.), May 15, 1942, in Yivo
Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 3-53).
47. Alfred Meyer, ed., Das Recht der besetzten Ostgebiete (Munich, 1943),
Section 0 i D4.
48. Kleist, pp. 159-160.
49. See Armstrong, p. 202.
50. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 185.
51. See Rosenberg memorandum, n.d., in TMWC, vol. 26, p. 595 (1056-
PS).
52. Rosenberg speech of June 20, 1941, to his closest coworkers on the
eastern problem, in TMWC, vol. 16, pp. 610-627 (1058-PS).
53. Rosenberg speech of August [?] 1942, to Reich commissars, in TMWC,
vol. 39, pp. 412-425 (USSR-170).
54. Rosenberg, Memoirs, p. 185.
55. Cited by Victor H. Bernstein, Final Judgment (New York, 1947), p.
214. For text of top-secret memorandum of Dr. Otto Bräutigam, Oct. 25, 1942,
see TMWC, vol. 16, pp. 332-342 (294-PS).
56. Sauckel speech at conference with Lohse (German ms.), Apr. 21, 1943,
in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 3 - 5 3 ) .
57. Rosenberg speech of August 1942.
58. See Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941-1945 (New York, 1964),
p. 703.
59. Letter of Rosenberg to Keitel, Feb. 28, 1942, in TMWC, vol. 25, pp.
156-161 (081-PS).
60. Document 031-PS, cited in Robert H. Jackson, The Nürnberg Case
(New York, 1947), p. 75; cf. TMWC, vol. 25, pp. 88-92.
61. Foreign Mail Censorship Office, Extract from current survey of opinion,
Sept. 11-Nov. 11, 1942, in TMWC, vol. 25, pp. 77-78 (018-PS).
62. Cited in Bernstein, p. 37.
63. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Hans Koch," Protocol of June 1,
1951, p. 8.
218 / Notes to Pages 90-96

64. "Minutes of the Conference of the Reich Minister for the Occupied
Eastern Territories and Commanders of Army-Occupied Areas—Top Secret,"
Berlin (German ms.), Jan. 4, 1943.
65. Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service, Ostland,
"Letter on Comments of Exarch Sergius in the Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland,
Mar. 4, 1943" (German ms.).
66. Nicholas P. Vakar, Belorussia (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), p. 278.
67. See Armstrong, p. 209.
68. Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Church Affairs
Section, report to Rosenberg, June 30, 1944, as cited by Dallin, German Rule,
p. 492.
69. Memorandum of July 16, 1941, on discussion by Hitler with Rosenberg,
Lammers, Keitel, and Göring ("Aktenvermerk" of Bormann), in TMWC, vol.
38, pp. 86-93 (221-L).
70. Note of Altenstadt to Bräutigam, Apr. 11, 1943, and enclosure of Koch's
speech in Kiev on Mar. 5, 1943, in TMWC, vol. 27, pp. 9 - 1 1 (1130-PS).
71. See Slawomir Orlowski, Erich Koch pered polskim sudom (Moscow,
1961), pp. 33-34.
72. See Kleist, pp. 180-181.
73. Orlowski, p. 203.
74. Hinrich Lohse, Speech at conference of Reichskommissariat Ostland,
Dept. III, Feb. 23, 1943 (German ms.), in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research
(File Occ E 3 - 5 3 ) .
75. Cited in Meyer, Das Recht, Sections U i D2; O i D4.
76. Dienststelle Rosenberg, Memorandum on the "Ostland" (German ms.),
November [?] 1942, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 20-23).
77. See Dallin, German Rule, p. 163.
78. See Kleist, pp. 181-182.
79. Hasso von Etzdorf, "Notes on Koch Speech at Rovno Conference, Au-
gust 26, 1942" (German ms.); see also excerpts in TMWC, vol. 25, pp. 317-
318 (264-PS).
80. Memorandum of July 16, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 38, p. 93, for Rosen-
berg's counter, see Memorandum of May 8, 1942, in TMWC, vol. 27, p. 286
(1520-PS).
81. Kleist, pp. 183-184.
82. Picker (1st ed., Bonn, 1951), p. 72.
83. Ibid. (2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1965), p. 150.
84. See Friedrich Heyer, Die orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis
1945 (Cologne, 1953), pp. 172-195.
85. See Dallin, German Rule, p. 482 n. 3; also Spuler, 32 (1942), 170-172.
For a field survey by the Einsatzgruppen, see U.S. National Archives and
Records Service, Reich Chief Security Office, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR,
microfilm (Washington, D.C. 1960), No. 117 (Oct. 18, 1941), Roll 234,
Frames 2722943-2722950.
86. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Hans Koch," pp. 8-9. For the
Gestapo version that finds Dr. Koch as well as Rosenberg "too accommodating
to Ukrainian wishes," see U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Reich
 Notes to Pages 96-102 / 219

Chief Security Office, Ereignismeldungen, No. 52 (Aug. 14, 1941), Roll 233,
Frame 2721903.
87. See Heyer, pp. 213, 217-218.
88. Ibid., p. 184; see also Armstrong, pp. 202-203.
89. Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Press Chief, mem-
orandum of March 1942, "Improvement of Enlightenment and Propaganda in
the Eastern Space" (German ms.), in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File
Occ E 15-16).
90. Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Ζentralhlatt des Reichskommissars für die
Ukraine (marked "Confidential"), Edition "A" Nos. 34-35 (Rovno), Feb. 19,
1942.
91. See Spuler, 32 (1942), 172.
92. See Armstrong, p. 201.
93. Reichskommissariat Ukraine, Zentralblatt, I, 202, 495, Dec. 8, 1941.
94. Memorandum of Dr. Bräutigam, in TMWC, vol. 26, pp. 336-341.
95. See Orlowski, p. 35.
96. Memorandum on personnel for the East, from Rosenberg files, July 9,
1941 (doc. 1040-PS), cited in Armstrong, p. 199.
97. Memorandum on discussion between Rosenberg and Hitler, May 8,
1942, in TMWC, vol. 27, p. 286 (1520-PS).
98. See Orlowski, pp. 24, 42, 45, 56-58.
99. See Kleist, p. 192.
100. See Orlowski, p. 67.
101. Decree of July 27, 1941, in International Military Tribunal Trials of
War Criminals Before the Nürnberg Military Tribunals (Washington, D.C.,
1949-1954), vol. 13, p. 849 (NI-3777).
102. Speech of Aug. 26,1942, in TMWC, vol. 25, p. 318 (264-PS).
103. Letter of Koch to Rosenberg, Mar. 6, 1943, in TMWC, vol. 25, pp.
255-288 (192-PS).
104. Koch's speech in Kiev, Mar. 5, 1943, in TMWC, vol. 27, pp. 9 - 1 1
(1130-PS).
105. Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, "Entry
No. 500/43g. in Diary of Press Section Chief—Secret: Report on the Trip of
Dr. Kausch to the Ukraine and Crimea from June 3 to 22, 1943" (German
ms.), Berlin, June 26, 1943, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E
4-11).
106. Cited in Bernstein, p. 117.
107. See Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Press Chief
memorandum of May 1942; see also his "Situation Report," April 1942, in
Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 15-16).

Chapter 5. German Policy Toward the

Orthodox Church: The Ancillary Agencies

1. Walther Hofer, Der Nationalsozialismus: Dokumente 1933-1945 (Frank-

furt, 1957), pp. 274-275. For a microfilm record of Einsatzgruppen reports
June 1941 to May 1943, see U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Reich
220 / Notes to Pages 102-107

Chief Security Office, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, Nos. 1-195; Meldungen

aus den besetzten Ostgebieten, Nos. 1-55 (Washington, 1960), Rolls 233-236.
2. U.S. Military Tribunals, Nuremberg, Documents and Staff Evidence
Analysis, No. 2650 (Nuremberg, 1947-1948).
3. Heinrich Himmler, "Aktennotiz 5329. Führerhauptquartier, November
15, 1941" (German ms.), International Military Tribunal, Document NO-5329.
4. Heinrich Himmler, "Security Questions," Oct. 14, 1943, in TMWC, vol.
37, pp. 498-523 (070-L). For jurisdictional dispute at a subordinate level, see
letter of Security Service, Ostland, to Reichskommissariat Ostland, Aug. 10,
1942, claiming that "work on sects and religious organizations" is its preroga-
tive, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E [Ch] 95).
5. See U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 4787, Dec. 5, 1941. See
also U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR,
No. 142 (Dec. 5, 1941), Roll 234, Frames 2723351-2723352.
6. See S. Raevski, Ukrainskaya Avtokefalnaya Tserkov (Jordanville, N.Y.,
1948), p. 15; see also John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism (New York,
1963), p. 206.
7. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 4532, July 5, 1941. See also
U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen, UdSSR, No.
13 (July 5, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721423.
8. See Armstrong, pp. 79-82. For biographies of Szepticky, see Stepan
Baran, Mitropolit Andrei Sheptitski (Munich, 1947), and Gregor Propotschuk,
Der Metropolit (Munich, 1955); for his abortive efforts to unify Ukrainian
Orthodox and Uniates, see Berthold Spuler, "Die orthodoxen Kirchen," Inter-
nationale Kirchliche Zeitschrift (Berne), 32 (1942), 45, 173.
9. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR,
No. 52 (Aug. 15, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721903.
10. Ibid., No. 60 (Aug. 22, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722046-2722047.
11. Ibid., No. 86 (Sept. 17, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722365-2722366.
12. SS-Obergruppenführer Berger to Himmler, July 26, 1943, cited in Arm-
strong, p. 173.
13. SS-Obergruppenführer Berger to Brandt, July 22, 1943, ibid.
14. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 36, July 28, 1941. See also
U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No.
36 (July 28, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2721692-2721694, and No. 43 (Aug. 5,
1941), Roll 233, Frames 2721778-2721781.
15. Ibid. No. 69 (Aug. 31, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722145, reporting on
the Baltic states.
16. Ibid., No. 73 (Sept. 4, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722179, reporting on
Belorussia.
17. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents No. 2954, July 26, 1941; see also
U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No.
34 (July 26, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721671.
18. Ibid., No. 89 (Sept. 20, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722461.
19. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 4485, Aug. 31, 1941.
20. Ibid., No. 2949, Aug. 5, 1941. See also U.S. National Archives and
Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No. 45 (Aug. 7, 1941), Roll 233,
Frame 2721821.
 Notes to Pages 107-114 / 221

21. Henry Picker, ed., Hitlers Tischgespräche im Führerhauptquartier,

1941-1942 (Stuttgart, 1965), p. 148.
22. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 2950, Aug. 1, 1941.
23. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 43 (Aug. 5, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721796.
24. Ibid., No. 52 (Aug. 14, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721914; see also U.S.
Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 4540, Aug. 14, 1941.
25. Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy (New York, 1964), p. 309.
26. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 73 (Sept. 4, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722179; No. 90 (Sept. 21,
1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722487-2722489; No. 122 (Oct. 23, 1941), Roll
234, Frame 2723019; No. 145 (Dec. 12, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723394.
27. For the later revision of Goebbels' views on Russia, see Curt Riess,
Joseph Goebbels (Garden City, 1948), p. 212.
28. For Goebbels' comments on Rosenberg's incompetence, see Louis P.
Lochner, ed., The Goebbels Diaries (Garden City, 1948), pp. 58, 84-85, 143,
331, 366, 516; for his dismay at Koch's rule by a "clout on the head," see
p. 185.
29. See Riess, p. 97.
30. Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, "Directives
and Guidelines for Propaganda Work in the Occupied Eastern Areas—Strictly
Confidential" (German ms.), 1st ed., April 1944, p. 26.
31. Zeitschriftendienst, Report No. 7060, June 26, 1942.
32. Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (London, 1957),
p. 181.
33. See draft of memorandum by Goebbels to Hitler, May 22, 1943, in Yivo
Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 18-19); for further evidence of
Rosenberg's attempts to clip Goebbels' wings, see letter of Naumann to Schaub,
June 5, 1943, ibid.
34. See memorandum of Lammers, Aug. 21, 1943, transmitting Führer
order of Aug. 15, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 12).
35. See letter of Rosenberg to Lammers, Aug. 31, 1943, ibid.
36. Lochner, pp. 546-547.
37. Ibid., p. 225.
38. Ibid., pp. 201-202.
39. Eugen Hadamowsky and Eberhard Taubert, "Report on the Propa-
ganda Situation in the East, September 17, 1942" (German ms.), in Yivo
Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 18-19).
40. Ibid., p. 40
41. See Dallin, German Rule, p. 330.
42. "To All Peoples of the East," n.d. (German ms.) in Yivo Institute for
Jewish Research (File Occ E 18-19).
43. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 89 (Sept. 20, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722458; No. 145 (Dec.
12, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723395.
44. Reichshauptamtsleiter Oberführer Scheidt, "Cultural-Political Tasks in
the Occupied Eastern Areas," in Probleme des Ostraumes (Berlin, 1942).
222 / Notes to Pages 115-120

45. Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, Press Chief,
memorandum of March 1942, "Improvement of Enlightenment and Propa-
ganda in the Eastern Space," (German ms.), in Yivo Institute for Jewish
Research (File Occ E 15-16).
46. Signal, "Special Issue on Troops on the East Front," December 1943,
pp. 33ÍT.
47. Zeitschriftendienst, Report No. 7060; Report No. 7113 (marked
"Strictly Confidential"), June 26, 1942.
48. For an ambiguous photograph of soldiers said to be dismantling a
wayside shrine (they could as well be assembling it), see Slawomir Orlowski,
Erich Koch pered polskim sudom (Moscow, 1961), p. 104. Likewise of doubt-
ful authenticity are the charges of desecration made by Nikolai, Metropolitan
of Kiev and Galicia, in The Russian Orthodox Church and the War against
Fascism (Moscow, 1943), pp. 26-27. See also O. Fjodorow, Die Religion in
der UdSSR (Berlin, 1947), pp. 30-34.
49. Seventh Army Interrogation Center (APO 758), "Facts and Opinions
as Reported by Field Marshal von Weichs" (October 12, 1945), No. SAIC/
F I R / 55.
50. Heinz Guderian, Panzer Leader (London, 1952), p. 228.
51. Heinz Guderian, Erinnerungen eines Soldaten (Heidelberg, 1951),
p. 40.
52. Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), 13 (September 1941), 11-12.
53. See Dallin, German Rule, p. 478.
54. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 43 (Aug. 5, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721781; No. 50 (Aug. 12,
1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721883; No. 73 (Sept. 4, 1941), Roll 233, Frames
2722179-2722180.
55. See, for example, ibid., No. 128 (Nov. 3, 1941), Roll 234, Frames
2723085-2723086.
56. Ibid., No. 90 (Sept. 21, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722487-2722489;
No. 122 (Oct. 23, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723019; No. 145 (Dec. 12, 1941),
Roll 234, Frames 2723394-2723395.
57. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 25 (Oct. 6, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2724966; No.
34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frames 2725266-2725267.
58. Friedrich Heyer, Die orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis
1945 (Cologne, 1953), pp. 170-171; see also Spuler, 31 (1941), 160.
59. Oleg Anisimov, The German Occupation in Northern Russia During
World War II: Political and Administrative Aspects (New York, 1954), pp.
24-25 (in Russian).
60. Vladimir D. Samarin, Civilian Life under the German Occupation,
1942-1944 (New York, 1954), p. 51 (in Russian).
61. See Heyer, p. 171.
62. Ibid., p. 216.
63. For an account of the two Galician regiments, see Armstrong, p. 75; for
a report on the Kiev and Kharkov governments, p. 104; for Gestapo counter-
measures, p. 106.
 Notes to Pages 121-127 / 223

64. See Orlowski, p. 206.

65. See Dallin, German Rule, pp. 518-519.
66. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 90 (Sept. 21, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722488.
67. Alfred Rosenberg, Memoirs (Chicago, 1949), p. 101.
68. August Haussleiter, An der mittleren Ostfront (Nuremberg, 1942),
pp. 216, 246.
69. See Armstrong, pp. 101-102.
70. Paul Werner, Ein schweizer Journalist sieht Russland (Ölten, 1942),
p. 98.
71. Major O. W. Müller (Ostministerium Representative with Heeres
Gruppe Mitte), "Report No. 21—Secret" (German ms.), Oct. 8, 1942, pp.
15-16.
72. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 73 (Sept. 4, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722178.
73. Minutes of the conference of Dec. 18, 1942 (Jan. 4, 1943) (doc.
NO-1481), as cited by Dallin, German Rule, pp. 152-154.
74. Memorandum of July 16, 1941, on discussion by Hitler with Rosen-
berg, Lammers, Keitel, and Göring ("Aktenvermerk" of Bormann), in TMWC,
vol. 38, p. 39.
75. See, for example, Samarin, p. 13.
76. See Armstrong, p. 120; also Dallin, German Rule, pp. 320-373.
77. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 190 (Apr. 8, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2724162.
78. Cited in TMWC, vol. 39, p. 371.
79. Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories (III Mi/i/), "In-
structions on Attitudes Toward Eastern Peoples Employed in Economic Enter-
prises of the Occupied Eastern Territories" ( German ms. ).
80. Memorandum of Dr. Otto Bräutigam (marked "Secret"), Oct. 25, 1942,
in TMWC, vol. 26, pp. 332-342 (294-PS).
81. Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London, 1952), pp. 179-182.
82. See Dallin, German Rule, pp. 40-42.
83. Memorandum of July 16, 1941, in TMWC, vol. 38, p. 93.
84. Dallin, German Rule, p. 475 n. 2.
85. Since 1939, by his own account, in Papen, p. 457.
86. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Zwischen London und Moskau (Leoni, 1954),
p. 255.
87. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2725268.
88. Rosenberg, "Aktennotiz für den Führer," Aug. 22, 1941 (doc. 1053-PS),
as cited by Dallin, German Rule, p. 478.
89. Ribbentrop, p. 130.
90. Reynolds and Eleanor Packard, Ralcony Empire (New York, 1942),
p. 230; see also Aldo Valori, Campagna di Russia (Rome, 1951), I, 244.
91. Lammers to Rosenberg, Oct. 18, 1942, in U.S. National Archives and
Records Service, "Records of the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern
Territories, 1941-45" (Washington, 1960), Roll 22, Frames 825-827.
224 / Notes to Pages 127-134

92. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 4540, Aug. 14, 1941; see also
U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No.
52 (Aug. 14, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721914.
93. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 32, July 26, 1941.
94. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 132 (Nov. 12, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2722951.
95. U.S. Military Tribunals, Documents, No. 50, Aug. 12, 1941.
96. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen,
UdSSR, No. 132 (Nov. 12, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723148; No. 154 (Jan.
12, 1942), Roll 234, Frame 2723573.
97. Reich Minister and Chief of the Reich Chancellery, "To the Reich
Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr. von Ribbentrop" (German ms.), RK 6233A,
May 3, 1942.
98. Ribbentrop to Lammers, May 10, 1942, in U.S. National Archives and
Records Service, "Records of the Reich Ministry," Roll 22, Frame 810. For
Rosenberg's peevish comment that this Foreign Office function was superfluous
and his staff was capable of taking exclusive charge in the area, see Rosenberg
to Lammers, May 27, 1942, ibid., Frames 811-812.
99. See Dallin, German Rule, pp. 135-136; see also "Memorandum on
Discussion Between Rosenberg and Hitler," May 8, 1942, in TMWC, vol. 27,
p. 289 (1520-PS).

Chapter 6. The Popular Reaction to German

Religious Policy in the East

1. For example, see O. Fjodorow, Die Religion in der UdSSR (Berlin,

1947), chap. iii.
2. David J. Dallin, The Real Soviet Russia (New Haven, 1944), p. 33.
3. See, for example, Vladimir D. Samarin, Civilian Life under the German
Occupation, 1942-1944 (New York, 1954), p. 11 (in Russian); see also Oleg
Anisimov, The German Occupation in Northern Russia During World War II:
Political and Administrative Aspects (New York, 1954), p. 4 (in Russian).
4. Samarin, p. 11.
5. Friedrich Heyer, Die orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945
(Cologne, 1953), p. 171. See also Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern
Territories, Press Chief, memorandum of March 1942, "Improvement of
Enlightenment and Propaganda in the Eastern Space," in Yivo Institute for
Jewish Research (File Occ E 15-16), p. 6.
6. Samarin, p. 11.
7. Alexander Dallin, "Popular Attitudes and Behavior under the German
Occupation, 1941-1944" (Cambridge, Mass., Mar. 31, 1952), p. 39.
8. John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism (New York, 1963), pp.
118-125.
9. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Reich Chief Security Office,
Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No. 19 (July 11, 1941), Roll 233, Frame
2721473.
 Notes to Pages 134-139 / 225

10. See Vasiii Alexeev, Russian Orthodox Bishops in the Soviet Union,
1941-1953 (New York, 1954), p. 88 (in Russian); see also Heyer, p. 166.
11. Alexeev, pp. 91-92.
12. See Metropolitan Nikolai, The Russian Orthodox Church and the War
against Fascism (Moscow, 1943), pp. 18-20; see also Russian Orthodox
Church, Patriarkh Sergi i ego dukhovnoe nasledstvo (Moscow, 1947), p. 89.
13. For Reichskommissariat Ostland memorandum of May 26, 1942, back-
ing Sergius as a means to avoid "Latvianization and Estonization" of the
churches, see Files Occ E (Ch) 7-8, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research;
for Christmas Message, 1942, in which Sergius thanks the Army High Com-
mand for approving his diocesan authority, see File Occ E (Ch) 11.
14. Nikita Struve, Christians in Contemporary Russia (New York, 1967),
pp. 69-72.
15. See U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 34 (July 26, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721671; No. 53 (Aug. 15,
1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721924; No. 162 (Jan. 30, 1942), Roll 234, Frame
2723742.
16. Ibid., No. 165 (Feb. 6, 1942), Roll 234, Frame 2723797; for report of
60 priests in the mission, see Heyer, p. 166.
17. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 96 (Sept. 27, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722662-2722663; No.
163 (Feb. 2, 1942), Roll 234, Frames 2723766-2723767.
18. Ibid., No. 173 (Mar. 2, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2723941; No. 182
(Mar. 18, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2724020.
19. Ibid., No. 195 (Apr. 24, 1942), Roll 235, Frames 2724311-2724312;
Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 28 (Nov. 6, 1942), Roll 236,
Frames 2725077-2725083.
20. Commander of the Security Police and the Security Service, Ostland,
"Letter on Comments by Exarch Sergius in the Deutsche Zeitung im Ostland,
March 4, 1943" (German ms.).
21. "Circular of 'Trustees' for the Russian Population in the General District
of Lithuania, April 7, 1943" (Russian ms.), in Archive of Russian and East
European History and Culture, Columbia University.
22. "Telegram from Lithuanian Metropolitan Sergius to Lithuanian Bishops,
April 7, 1943" (Russian ms.), in ibid.
23. See Alexander Dallin, German Rule in Russia, 1941-1945 (London,
1957), p. 490 n. 1.
24. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occupa-
tion," No. 67; for a version attributing the murder to Soviet agents, see
I. Kasyak, Ζ gistory Pravaslaunai Tsarkvi Belaruskaga Narodu (New York,
1956), p. 103; for an open-ended account, see Heyer, p. 167.
25. Reichkommissariat Ostland, Stimmen aus der Ostland Presse (Riga),
vol. III, No. 1 (1944).
26. Serge Bolshakoff, The Christian Church and the Soviet State (New
York, 1942), pp. 69-71.
27. Msgr. Α. M. [Bishop Athanasius], Materialy da history Pravaslaunae
Belaruskae Tsarkvy ( 1948, n.p. ).
226 I Notes to Pages 140-144

28. See Nicholas P. Vakar, Belorussia (Cambridge, Mass., 1956), pp. 189-
190.
29. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 36. (July 28, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721693; see also Kasyak,
p. 137.
30. Vakar, p. 278.
31. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 180 (Mar. 13, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2723995. See also
Kasyak, p. 138.
32. See Dienststelle Rosenberg, memorandum "Ostland," November [?],
1942, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E 20-23). For Gestapo
moves against Catholic influence via Lithuania, see U.S. National Archives and
Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No. 145 (Dec. 12, 1941), Roll
234, Frame 2723395; No. 154 (Jan. 12, 1942), Roll 234, Frames 2723573-
2723575; No. 191 (Apr. 10, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2724204.
33. Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961), pp.
226-227; cf. Vakar, p. 278, for an account that puts the execution of
Nemancevic 3 months earlier.
34. See Kasyak, pp. 42, 170-171.
35. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 36 (July 28, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721693; No. 73 (Sept. 4,
1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722178; No. 90 (Sept. 21, 1941), Roll 233,
Frames 2722488-2722489; No. 154 (Jan. 12, 1942), Roll 234, Frames
2723578-2723579.
36. See Dallin, German Rule, p. 486.
37. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 154 (Jan. 12, 1942), Roll 234, Frames 2723576-2723577.
38. For attempts of the Warsaw diocese to dominate Panteleimon's hier-
archy, see Berthold Spuler, "Die orthodoxen Kirchen," Internationale Kirch-
liche Zeitschrift (Berne), 32 (1942), 169.
39. See Kasyak, p. 84.
40. Ibid., pp. 86-87, 91.
41. For German support of Belorussian autocephaly, see RKO memo-
randum, May 26, 1942, in Yivo Institute for Jewish Research (File Occ E
[Ch] 7 - 8 ) .
42. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 180 (Mar. 13, 1942), Roll 235, Frames 2723995-2723996; No.
194 (Apr. 21, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2724293; see also Kasyak, p. 97.
43. Ibid., pp. 97-103.
44. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 6 (June 5, 1942), Roll 235, Frames 2724450-
2724451.
45. See Kasyak, p. 103.
46. Ibid., pp. 99-109.
47. See Vakar, p. 278. For text of church statute, see Kasyak, pp. 173-188.
48. See Kasyak, p. 126.
49. See Deutsche Post aus dem Osten (Berlin), 14 (June 1942), 6.
 Notes to Pages 144-151 / 227

50. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 384 (n.d.).

51. As cited in Dallin, German Rule, p. 487 n. 1; see also U.S. National
Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostgebieten, No.
6 (June 5, 1942), Roll 235, Frame 2724450; No. 11 (July 10, 1942), Roll 235,
Frames 2724568-2724569.
52. See Kasyak, pp. 92-93.
53. Reich Ministry for the Occupied Eastern Territories, "Memorandum of
June 1, 1944" (German ms.).
54. See Vakar, pp. 203-206.
55. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Α-Schedules," No. 141 (n.d.).
56. See Heyer, pp. 11-18.
57. See Merle Fainsod, How Russia Is Ruled (Cambridge, 1953), pp. 299-
300.
58. See Heyer, pp. 34-37, 45-46.
59. See Kolarz, p. 106.
60. Serge Bolshakoff, Russian Nonconformity (Philadelphia, 1950), pp.
168-170.
61. See Kolarz, pp. 107-108.
62. See Bolshakoff, Russian Nonconformity, p. 169; cf. Kolarz for an esti-
mate for only 2,000 parishes under the UAPTs.
63. See S. Raevski, Ukrainskaya Avtokefalnaya Tserkov (Jordanville, N.Y.,
1948), pp. 3-7; see also Heyer, pp. 77-78.
64. See Kolarz, p. 109.
65. See Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily
Life in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), p. 362.
66. Among the sources treating of this subject above, the most negative
rendering of the UAPTs is by Bolshakoff, fairly critical ones by Heyer and
Raevski, a more sympathetic one by Armstrong and Kolarz.
67. See Raevski, pp. 8-9.
68. On the initial welcome given by West Ukrainians to Red Army forces
as liberators from the Polish Catholic "yoke," see Spuler, 30 (1940) 95, 154;
31 (1941), 49; for an account of Nikolai's mission, see Heyer, pp. 166-167.
69. See Armstrong, pp. 193-196.
70. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 79 (Sept. 10, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2722274.
71. See Raevski, pp. 9-10; see also Heyer, p. 164.
72. See U. S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 30, (July 22, 1941), Roll 233, Frame 2721613; No. 164 (Feb. 4,
1942), Roll 234, Frame 2723786.
73. See Armstrong, p. 194.
74. See Spuler, 31 (1941), 47.
75 Ibid., pp. 47-48; see also Who's Who in Occupied Europe (London,
1944). For a report that the Kholm Cathedral had been a Catholic church
"given" the Orthodox by Governor Frank, see Heyer, p. 164.
76. See Raevski, p. 13.
77. For protests by Bishop Dimitry (Magan) and Protopriest Vladimir
Benevsky, see Heyer, p. 174.
228 / Notes to Pages 151-157

78. Ibid., p. 176; cf. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignis-
meldungen. UdSSR, No. 133 (Nov. 14, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723197.
79. Metropolitan Dionisius, "Memorandum, July 15, 1942" (Russian ms.),
in Archive of Russian and East European History and Culture, Columbia
University,
80. See Raevski, pp. 13-14. For estimates of strength of various Ukrainian
church factions, see Spuler, 32 (1942), 170.
81. Heyer, pp. 163, 174.
82. Letter of Koch to Rosenberg, March 6, 1943, in TMWC, vol. 25, pp.
255-288 (192-PS).
83. See Raevski, p. 14.
84. See Heyer, pp. 213-216.
85. See Spuler, 33 (1943), 31.
86. John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the Soviet State: 1917-1950
(Boston, 1953), p. 291.
87. Matthew Spinka, The Church in Soviet Russia (New York, 1956), p. 86.
For condemnation of Nikolai by the Acting Patriarch on Mar. 20, 1943, see
Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, p. 89.
88. See Heyer, pp. 178ff.
89. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Hans Koch," Protocol of June 1,
1951, p. 9.
90. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 155 (Jan. 14, 1942), Roll 234, Frames 2723627-2723629.
91. Harvard .Refugee Interview Project, "Hans Koch," pp. 8-9.
92. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 25 (Oct. 16, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2724966.
93. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 96.
94. Ibid., No. 314; see also Spuler, 32 (1942), 43.
95. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2725261; see
also Heyer, p. 220.
96. See Armstrong, pp. 213-214.
97. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Interview with Professor Markert"
(Protocol G-10).
98. See Raevski, pp. 14-15; see also Spuler, 33 (1943), 31; Heyer, p. 219.
99. See Armstrong, pp. 206-208; see also Spuler 33 (1943), 29.
100. See Raevski, p. 15.
101. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 120 (Oct. 21, 1941), Roll 234, Frame 2722995.
102. See Armstrong, pp. 202-205.
103. See Heyer, pp. 176-178.
104. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 191 (Apr. 10, 1942), Roll 235, Frames 2724228-2724229.
105. See Heyer, p. 206.
106. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2725265.
 Notes to Pages 157-163 / 229

107. Heyer, p. 218; see also Raevski, p. 14.

108. See Armstrong, p. 205.
109. See Heyer, pp. 217-218.
110. For estimates based on émigré surveys, finding twice as many adher-
ents of pro-Patriarchal than of Autocephalous churches, see Inkeles and Bauer,
p. 363.
111. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 441 (n.d.).
112. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Interview with Professor Mar-
kert" (Protocol G-10).
113. See Raevski, p. 14.
114. Document CXLVa 474 (Centre de Documentation Juive Contempo-
raine, Paris), cited in Armstrong, pp. 201-212.
115. Reich Ministry for Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, Depart-
ment East, "Politics of the Ukraine. Report by Professor Pavel Saitsev to
Taubert" (German ms.), Berlin, Mar. 29, 1943.
116. U.S. National Archives and Records Service: Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frames 2725260-
2725265.
117. See Heyer, p. 218.
118. Document CXLVa 66 (Centre de Documentation Juive Contempo-
raine, Paris), cited in Dallin, German Rule, p. 492.
119. See Armstrong, p. 209; see also Heyer, pp. 222-223.
120. See Alexander Svitich, "The Orthodox Church in Poland and Its
Autocephaly" (Russian ms.), in Archive of Russian and East European His-
tory and Culture, Columbia University.
121. Peter Kleist, Zwischen Hitler und Stalin, 1939-1945, (Bonn, 1950),
p. 130.
122. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 182.
123. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "Hans Koch," p. 10; for a Gestapo
report implying that the Lavra's destruction was connected with a partisan
plot against the visiting Slovakian president, Dr. Joseph Tiso, see U.S. National
Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen. UdSSR, No. 130 (Nov. 7,
1941), Roll 234, Frame 2723129.
124. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 141.
125. Vladimir Benevsky, "The Church Policy of Bolshevism. Report of
October 12, 1941" (German ms.), Riga, 1942, p. 29.
126. See Heyer, p. 171.
127. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 96.
128. Struve, Christians, pp. 76-77.
129. Kolarz, p. 72.
130. Dallin, "Popular Attitudes," p. 39.
131. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Ereignismeldungen.
UdSSR, No. 81 (Sept. 12, 1941), Roll 233, Frames 2722311-2722313.
230 / Notes to Pages 163-170

132. Pavel Slinsky, "Life in the Polotsk Area, 1941-44" (Russian ms.),
1952, n.p.
133. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 55 (May 21, 1943), Roll 236, Frames 2725957-
2725958.
134. Harvard Refugee Interview Project, "B-Schedules on Wartime Occu-
pation," No. 96. For a report that the first Reichskommissariat Ukraine orders
maintained Soviet proscriptions of religious instruction in schools and the
celebration of church holidays, see Heyer, p. 218.
135. See Samarin, p. 55.

Chapter 7. Soviet Response: The

"New Religious Policy" in Full Flower

1. Nikita Struve, Les Chretiens en U.R.S.S. (Paris, 1963), p. 341. For

slightly higher counts of priests and bishops, as given by the Soviet Press
Bureau, see Robert P. Casey, Religion in Russia (New York, 1946), p. 93,
although even these show a 10-percent drop in number of clergy from pre-
revolutionary days.
2. See Walter Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union (New York, 1961),
p. 49.
3. See Matthew Spinka, The Church in Soviet Russia (New York, 1956),
pp. 30-34.
4. See Wilhelm DeVries, Kirche und Staat in der Sowjetunion (Munich,
1959), pp. 32-33.
5. Antireligioznik, 1939, No. 4.
6. Bezbozhnik, 1938, No. 12.
7. Pravda, March 29, 1940; for a report that at the same time Stalin had
allocated 20,000,000 rubles for a giant atheist congress scheduled for 1942, see
Berthold Spuler, "Die orthodoxen Kirchen," Internationale Kirchliche Zeit-
schrift (Berne), 30 (1940), 95-96.
8. Antireligioznik, 1939, Nos. 1, 5.
9. Ν. S. Timasheff, Religion in Soviet Russia: 1917-1942 (London, 1944),
p. 123.
10. Buryato-Mongolskaya Pravda, April 18, 1939, cited in ibid.
11. Nikita Struve, Christians in Contemporary Russia (New York, 1967),
pp. 57-58.
12. See William C. Fletcher, A Study in Survival: The Church in Russia
1927-1943 (New York, 1965), pp. 98-99; for an estimate that 1,200 parishes
were added by the former Polish territories alone, see Spuler, 30 (1940), 94;
cf. Friedrich Heyer, Die orthodoxe Kirche in der Ukraine von 1917 bis 1945
(Cologne, 1953), p. 162.
13. See Vasiii Alexeev, Russian Orthodox Bishops in the Soviet Union,
1941-1953 (New York, 1954), p. 83
14. S. Raevski, Ukrainskaya Avtokefalnaya Tserkov (Jordanville, 1948),
p. 11.
 Notes to Pages 170-175 / 231

15. See John A. Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism (New York, 1963),

p. 67. For German acknowledgment that Volhynian and Podolian church life
had not been greatly disturbed, see U.S. National Archives and Records
Service, Reich Chief Security Office, Meldungen aus den besetzten Ostge-
bieten, No. 34 (Dec. 18, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2725260.
16. See John S. Curtiss, The Russian Church and the Soviet State: 1917—
1950 (Boston, 1953), pp. 274-275.
17. See Timasheff, pp. 124-125.
18. See, for example, Alfred G. Meyer, The Soviet Political System (New
York, 1965), p. 440, which further lists the failure of atheist campaigns as
reason for the reversal. This also does not seem to be a sufficient and necessary
cause, in light of (1) previous antireligious shortcomings that had not caused
a reversal, and (2) the evident successes of the atheist drive among the youth.
19. See Russian Orthodox Church, Pravda o religi ν Rossii (Moscow, 1942),
pp. 15-17; for charges that the NKVD helped draft this appeal, see Milwe-
Schröden, memorandum to Reichskommissariat Ostland, July 28, 1943, in Yivo
Institute for Jewish Research (File OccE [Ch] 12); for a more credible
account of the message composed by Sergius himself, see Heyer, p. 299.
20. See Struve, Christians, p. 61.
21. Russian Orthodox Church, Pravda o religi, pp. 83-94.
22. Metropolitan Nikolai, Slova, rechi, poslaniya: 1941-1946 gg. (Moscow,
1947), I, 178.
23. Russian Orthodox Church, Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov i velikaya
otechestvennaya voina (Moscow, 1943[?]), p. 6.
24. See Fletcher, Study in Survival, pp. 99-106.
25. See Timasheff, p. 138.
26. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi i ego dukhovnoe nasledstvo
(Moscow, 1947), pp. 85, 90.
27. The New York Times, Nov. 10, 1942.
28. Moscow Patriarchate, The Truth about Religion in Russia (London,
1942), p. 61.
29. Ibid., p. 66. For evidence that in February Polykarp claimed that
Sergius was impersonating the "real Sergius," who was in a Soviet jail, see
Spuler, 32 (1942), 45.
30. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, p. 89.
31. See Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, p. 86.
32. The New York Times, Oct. 1, 7, 1941.
33. See Leopold L. Braun, Religion in Russia, from Lenin to Khrushchev:
An Uncensored Account (Patterson, N.J., 1959), p. 56. For an interpretation
of this document as a response, at the instigation of U.S. Ambassador Joseph
Davies, to American church attacks on Soviet atheism, see Heyer, p. 232.
34. Russian Orthodox Church, Pravda o religi, p. 9.
35. See Spuler, 31 (1941), 159.
36. For evidence of flights in June 1942, see Metropolitan Nikolai, Slova,
pp. 243-244.
37. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, p. 90; cf. ROC, Russkaya,
pp. 77-79.
232 / Notes to Pages 175-180

38. "Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR," Nov. 2,
1941, in Soviet War Documents (Washington, 1943), p. 157.
39. For a surmise that Molotov's charges of Nazi religious atrocities, in a
note of Apr. 27, 1942, to President Roosevelt, were designed to overcome the
scruples of American Catholics in aiding the Soviets, see Milwe-Schröden.
40. M. U. Nikitin and P. I. Vagin, The Crimes of the German Fascists in the
Leningrad Region (London, n.d.), p. 63.
41. Soviet Government Statements on Nazi Atrocities (London, n.d.), p. 2.
42. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den besetz-
ten Ostgebieten, No. 48 (Apr. 2, 1943), Roll 236, Frame 2725779.
43. Metropolitan Nikolai, The Russian Orthodox Church and the War
against Fascism (Moscow, 1943), p. 27.
44. See, for example, Russian Orthodox Church, Pravda o religi, pp. 121-
122.
45. Victor Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom (New York, 1946), p. 425.
46. Sputnik Agitatora, No. 10 (1943), 8.
47. Zhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhi (hereafter Zh.M.P.), 10 (1944), 3.
48. See Russian Orthodox Church, Russkaya, p. 95.
49. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 46 (Mar. 19, 1942), Roll 236, Frame 2725689.
50. See Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, pp. 287-294.
51. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den besetz-
ten Ostgebieten, No. 50 (Apr. 16, 1943), Roll 236, Frame 2725822; No. 53
(May 7, 1943), Roll 236, Frames 2725904-2725905.
52. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, p. 44.
53. For the commencement of this in June 1944, see ibid., p. 383.
54. For Karpov's estimate of 16,000 churches operating at the time, see
The New York Times, June 7, 1945.
55. See Spinka, Church in Soviet Russia, p. 95.
56. For Karpov interview on this subject, see The New York Times, Aug. 18,
1944; also a second interview, Sept. 15, 1944.
57. See Simon Wolin and Robert M. Slusser, The Soviet Secret Police (New
York, 1957), p. 23; see also Kolarz, p. 54.
58. See Alexander Werth, Russia at War, 1941-1945 (New York, 1964),
p. 433.
59. See Robert Magidoff, The Kremlin vs. the People (Garden City, 1953),
p. 74.
60. The New York Times, Aug. 12, 1944.
61. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, pp. 45-46.
62. See Heyer, p. 233.
63. Zh.M.P., 1 (1943), 16.
64. See Struve, Christians, p. 67.
65. See Kolarz, p. 56.
66. See Curtiss, Russian Church, p. 295.
67. See Zh.M.P. 3 (1944), 8-9; 1 (1944), 7-8; 4 (1944), 9; 1 (1945),
7-8.
68. See Armstrong, p. 297; see also Heyer, pp. 242-243.
 Notes to Pages 180-184 / 233

69. On the defrocking of Vlasovites in September 1945, see Raymond A.

Bauer, Alex Inkeles, Clyde Kluckhohn, How the Soviet System Works (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 1956)¡ p. 71; for transfers of priests ordained during the occu-
pation, see Heyer, p. 239.
70. See Walter Birnbaum, Christenheit in Sowjetrussland (Tübingen,
1961), p. 189.
71. Russian Orthodox Church, The Russian Orthodox Church, Organization,
Situation, Activity (Moscow, 1959), p. 78.
72. Semyon N. Khudyakov, Vsegda li budet sushchestvovat religiya? ( Mos-
cow, 1958), p. 17; see also F. Oleshchuk, "For Concreteness of Scientific-
Atheistic Propaganda," in Kommunist, 5 (April 1958), 113; E. F. Muravev
and lu. V. Dmitriev, "On Concreteness in the Study and Overcoming of Reli-
gious Survivals," in Voprosy Filosofi, 3 (1961), 65-73; translated in Soviet
Review, 2 (1961), 64.
73. See Russian Orthodox Church, Pravda o religi, p. 216. For a surmise
that the curfew was lifted only to avert otherwise likely rioting, see William
C. Fletcher, Nikolai: Portrait of a Dilemma (New York, 1968), p. 45.
74. Orthodox Church Rulletin (London), May 1943, p. 16.
75. Werth, pp. 433-434.
76. U.S. National Archives and Records Service, Meldungen aus den
besetzten Ostgebieten, No. 53 (May 7, 1943), Roll 236, Frame 2725905; No.
55 (May 21, 1943), Roll 236, Frame 2725982.
77. Eve Curie, Journey Among Warriors (Garden City, 1943), pp. 145-
146. For comments of Sergius on the paucity of youthful believers, see Wallace
Carroll, We're in This with Russia (Boston, 1942), pp. 150-151.
78. The New York Times, Jan. 8,1944.
79. New York Herald-Tribune, Sept. 25, 1943.
80. See Efraim Briem, Kommunismus und Religion in der Sowjetunion, ein
Ideenkampf (Basel, 1948), p. 385.
81. Central Committee, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, "On the
Organization of Scientific-Educational Propaganda," in Propagandist, 18
(1944), 1-5.
82. Regarding the import this had on the progressive secularization of Soviet
society, see Alex Inkeles and Raymond A. Bauer, The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life
in a Totalitarian Society (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), pp. 372, 380-381; see
also Bauer, Inkeles, Kluckhohn, pp. 71-73.
83. See DeVries, Kirche und Staat, p. 20.
84. See Fletcher, A Study, p. 123.
85. Meyer, p. 440.
86. See Werth, p. 695.
87. See Fletcher, Nikolai, pp. 56-59, 67-69, 169.
88. Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh Sergi, pp. 135-136.
89. Izvestiya, Feb. 6, 1945, cited in Kolarz, p. 57.
90. ZhM.P., 3 (1945), 27-32.
91. "Document D," appendix of Struve, Chrétiens.
92. See Curtiss, Russian Church, pp. 308-309. For an account of the lag in
building the proposed seminaries, see Heyer, p. 239.
234 / Notes to Pages 184-189

93. See Strave, Christians, pp. 84-87.

94. Zh.M.P., 2 (1945), 10-11.
95. Ibid., 12 (1949), 7-11.
96. Ibid., 4 (1953), 5-13.
97. Izvestiya, Feb. 10, 1945, cited in Curtiss, Russian Church, p. 248.
98. See Michael Bourdeaux, Opium, of the People: The Christian Religion
in the U.S.S.R. (Indianapolis, 1966), pp. 66, 223-231.
99. Zh.M.P., 2 (1944), 28.
100. Ibid., 12 (1945), 25.
101. Ibid., 4 (1946), 35-37; see also Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarkh
Sergi, p. 372.
102. See Kolarz, p. 234.
103. Zh.M.P., 10 (1948); see also Heyer, pp. 243-245.
104. See Kolarz, p. 58.
105. Zh.M.P., 11 (1945), 14-17.
106. See Bourdeaux, p. 64; also Heyer, pp. 240-241.
107. Zh.M.P., 3 (1945), 4. For speculation that "Third Rome" ambitions
had already motivated Soviet contact with the Ecumenical Patriarch in Con-
stantinople by mid-1943, see Milwe-Schröden, p. 14. For a view that contact
with the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria was primarily meant to block
recognition of the UAPTs, see Heyer, p. 237.
108. See Kolarz, pp. 60-61.
109. Zh.M.P. (1948), special number; see also Paul B. Anderson, ed.,
Major Portions of the Proceedings of the Conference of Heads and Representa-
tives of Autocephalous Orthodox Churches in Connection with the Celebration
of 500 Years of Autocephalicity of the Russian Orthodox Church, 8-18 July
1948 (Paris, 1952).
110. Serge Bolshakoff, The Christian Church and the Soviet State (New
York, 1942), p. 69.
111. Miklos Nyarady, My Ringside Seat in Moscow (New York, 1952),
pp. 171-178.
112. John S. Curtiss, "Non-Orthodox Religions in the U.S.S.R.," in Amer-
ican Review on the Soviet Union, 8, No. 1 (November 1946), p. 13.
113. N. S. Timasheff in Waldemar Gurian, ed., The Soviet Union: Back-
ground, Ideology, Reality (Notre Dame, 1951), pp. 176, 184.
114. Zh.M.P., 8 (1944).
115. Stephen Graham, Summing up on Russia (London, 1951).
116. See Nyarady, p. 174.
117. Wilhelm DeVries, Christentum in der Sowjetunion (Heidelberg, 1950),
p. 58.
118. See Nyarady, p. 174.
119. Zh.M.P., 10 (1948), 39-48.
120. See Kolarz, pp. 92-93.
 Index

Abwehr (counter-intelligence), 117, Autonomous Ukrainian Church

120, 150, 153 (AUTs), 149, 151, 180; Erich Koch
Adlon Hotel conference, 129 and, 95-97, 99, 158-160; attacked
Agriculture under occupation, 75-76, by Autocephalists, 154-157
86, 111, 123-125; Erich Koch and,
93, 96, 99; popular reaction to, 122,
133, 151 Backe, Herbert, 123-124
Alexander, Archbishop (of Estonia), Balkans: Orthodox in, 126, 171, 177
135, 137 Balkarians, 160
Alexander, Archbishop ( of Pinsk ), 149- Baltic states: German church policy,
151 85-87, 93, 106, 146; Exarch Sergius
Alexandria, Patriarch of, 186 in, 90, 133-139, 160, 173-174; Ein-
Alexei, Archbishop, 103, 149, 151, 155- satzgruppen in, 102; Soviet annexa-
156, 158-159 tion of, 169, 179
Alexis, Patriarch, 169, 177; election of, Bandera, Stephen, 103-104, 155, 157,
183; Stalin and, 184, 188; at Moscow 159
church conference, 186; in Cold War, Baranovitse, 119
188 Barth, Karl, 57
Anastasius, Metropolitan, 78 Bavaria: Catholic Church in, 53
Antireligionznik, 45, 174 Believers ( Orthodox ) : career restric-
Anti-Semitism, 59, 104, 146. See also tions, 33, 39-40, 46-47, 187; number
Jews of, 35; morale of, 38, 45-46, 189;
Antonin, Bishop, 30 family ties of, 40-42; persecution of,
Antony, Bishop, 158 45-48, 180; German strictures on,
Army. See German Army; Red Army 83; reaction to Germans, 131-133,
Aryan racial laws, 55-56, 62 154-155; revival of, 135, 141, 146,
Athanasius, Bishop, 142 156, 160-165, 181-182, 190-192; na-
Atheism: of bourgeoisie, 21; of Com- tionalists and, 163; in Soviet war ef-
munist party, 25, 29, 48, 169-170, fort, 170, 172-173, 175-177, 188
182; as Soviet goal, 26, 37, 43, 50, Belorussia: nationalists in, 75, 84, 91;
167-169, 171, 187. See also League German occupation policy, 80; Ger-
of Militant Atheists; Society for Dis- man church policy, 85-87, 119, 138-
semination of Scientific and Political 146; Autocephalous Church in, 90-
Knowledge 91, 138-146, 160; Einsatzgruppen in,
Augustin, Metropolitan, 135 102, 105; Patriarchate and, 149;
Austria, 74; Catholic Church in, 53; Ukrainian churches and, 150-151;
Orthodox in, 78, 185 believers in, 161-162
Autocephalists. See Belorussia: Auto- Belorussian Independence party, 140
cephalous Church; Ukrainian Auto- Benedict, Bishop, 142-143
cephalous Church Benevsky, Vladimir, 161-162

235
236 / Index

Benjamin, Metropolitan ( of North Collaboration, clerical, 74, 76, 144, 154-

America), 186 155, 160-161, 167, 172-174, 185,
Benjamin, Metropolitan (of Petrograd), 192
30, 188 Collectivized agriculture, 8, 45; and
Berger, Gottlob, 82, 105 rural churches, 32-34, 38; under oc-
Bessarabia, 169-170, 179 cupation, 99, 123-125
Bezbozhnik, 174 Comintern, 137
Bible: Nazi plans to rewrite, 56, 6 0 - Communist Manifesto, 12
61, 68 Communist party: role compared to be-
Birnbaum, Walter, 41 lievers, 8-10, 38, 44; religious recruits
Bismarck, Otto von, 12-14, 18, 24 of, 17-18, 50; Congress (1903), 19;
Blanquists, 21-24 ideology, 34, 40, 49-51, 189, 191; re-
Bolshakoff, Serge, 139, 187 ligious ethics and, 41-42, 168; purges,
Bonch-Bruevich, V. D., 20 35-36, 38, 43, 47, 168; religious tol-
Bormann, Martin, 129; Rosenberg and, erance, 47-48, 168-170, 176, 187
60, 66, 68, 70, 83-84; on Nazi ide- Concordat (1933), 52, 54-55, 62, 64,
ology, 66-69; on Russian occupation, 125
76, 90, 100, 106, 108; influence of, Confessing Church, 56-57
82; Erich Koch and, 91-92, 95, 98; Constantinople, Patriarch of, 142, 148,
on "Tolerance Edict," 94 151, 186
Braiitigam, Otto, 124-125 Constitution of 1918 (RSFSR), 28-29
Constitution of 1936 (USSR), 35
Canaris, Wilhelm, 120 Conway, J. S., 53
"Catacomb church," 3, 38, 50, 108 Council for Affairs of Russian Orthodox
Catholic Center party, 54 Church, 178
Catholic Church (Austrian), 53 Cracow, 150
Catholic Church (Belorussian), 105, Crimea, 92, 160
119, 127-128, 139-140 Cultural Ministry, 78
Catholic Church (German), 52-53; Curie, Eve, 181
Hitler's handling of, 53-55, 57-58; Czechoslovakia: Orthodox in, 78, 175
Rosenberg and, 60-64, 66-67, 84-85;
Heydrich and, 64-65; Army chap- Dallin, Alexander, 133, 163-164
lains, 119; Papen and, 126 Dallin, David, 132
Catholic Church (Polish), 127 Denikin, A. I., 147
Catholic Church (Russian), 31 Denmark, 74
Catholic Church (Ukrainian), 84-85, DeVries, Wilhelm, 188
127-128 Dionisius, Metropolitan, 77-78, 141-
Caucasus, 80, 129 142, 186; and Ukrainian churches,
Census (1937), 35, 168 149-152, 156, 158, 160
Chechen-Ingush, 160 Directorate (Ukrainian), 147, 149
Chkheidze, N. S., 20 Dnepropetrovsk, 157
Christian socialists, 11-12; as recruits to Donbas, 153-154
Party, 15-16; in England, 17; Lenin's Donskoi, Dimitri, 177
views on, 19 Diihring, Eugen, 11; Engels' critique of,
Church Affairs Ministry, 65-67 13-15; Lenin on, 24
Church ceremonies, 7-8, 43, 136, 154; Duma: Church debates in, 17-18, 20
registration of, 28
Church holidays, 31, 43, 170, 188; re- East Prussia, 92, 98-99, 140, 142
stricted under occupation, 97, 161, Eastern Europe: Orthodox in, 167, 183,
164 188
Church property: nationalization of, Economic agencies (German), 76, 123,
28-30, 170; under occupation, 85, 97, 124; Four-Year Plan, 92, 99, 123,
120 125; church policy of, 124-125
Church Slavonic, 4, 95-96, 142, 155; Economic Directorate for the East, 123
replaced by vernacular, 147-150, Economics Ministry, 123
156, 174 Einsatzgruppen (SS-SD squads), 74,
Civil War, 5, 29, 37, 148 76, 120; on religion, 102-108, 113-
 Index / 237

114,119, 128,135-136,138,141, 143, 138; in Belorussia, 140-141, 143-145;

145, 154, 164; popular reaction to, in the Ukraine, 156, 185. See also
122; reaction to Catholics, 127-128 Einsatzgruppen
Engels, Frederick, 7, 10-11; Darwinist Gleichschaltung, 51-52
critique of religion, 13-16, 24 "Glossolalia," 180
Estonia, 134-138 Glukhov, 118
Goebbels, Joseph, 51, 53, 129, 175; and
Family: religion and, 34, 40-42, 46 occupied areas, 108-117
Faulhaber, Michael Cardinal, 61-62 Goring, Hermann, 129; Rosenberg and,
Feofil, Metropolitan, 153 60, 66; Erich Koch and, 92, 99; as
Feuerbach, Ludwig, 11 head of Four-Year Plan, 124-125
Fiedler, Alfred, 98 GPU, 32. See also NKVD
Filaret, Bishop, 141 Graham, Stephen, 187
Filaret, Metropolitan, 21 Grand Mufti, 127
Finkovski, Vladimir, 141 Great Britain, 31
Fletcher, William, 182-183 Greece: Orthodox in, 175, 186
Food and Agriculture Ministry, 123 Greek Catholics. See Uniates
Forced labor, 75-76, 78, 88-89, 112; Gregory, Bishop, 153
Erich Koch and, 93, 96, 100; Rosen- Grodno, 142-143
berg on, 97-98; popular reaction to, Grosskopf, Georg, 126
122, 133, 161-162, 165 Guderian, Heinz, 118
Foreign Office, 60, 76, 104; Russian Gypsies, 102
émigrés and, 76-78; on Church ques-
tion, 101-102, 125-129 Hadamowsky, Eugen, 112
Fotius, Bishop, 152-153 Hadleuski, Vincent, 140
Frank, Hans, 78, 104, 150 Hallstein, General, 121
Harbin, 78, 186
Galen, Clemens von, 63 Harvard interview project, 38-40, 42-
Galicia, 92, 104, 117, 120, 149-150; 43, 46, 90, 133, 138, 192
SS Division of, 104-105 Haussleiter, August, 121-122
Gapon, Father, 6, 11; Lenin on, 18 "Hay Action" (deportation plan), 82,
Gavrilo, Patriarch, 78 89
General Commissariats. See Baltic Hegel, G. W. F., 16
states; Belorussia Hess, Rudolf, 51, 66, 68
Gennady, Bishop, 157 Heusinger, Adolf, 121
German Army, 51; believers in, 62-63; Heydrich, Reinhard, 64-65, 88, 119
chaplains, 64; propaganda division, Heyer, Friedrich, 119-120, 157, 162
74, 122; occupation policies, 76, 90; Hilarión, Archbishop, 149-150, 155-
Rosenberg and, 89; Russian churches 156, 159. See also Ohienko
and, 102, 108, 117-123, 133, 153, Himmler, Heinrich, 129; Rosenberg
160-162, 166, 175-176; Propaganda and, 60, 82; Hitler and, 64; occupa-
Ministry and, 115; Armament Econ- tion policies of, 76, 82, 102, 108, 110;
omy office, 123; Vatican and, 127; Erich Koch and, 93; on Russian
priests and, 140, 175-176; Ukrain- churches, 103; and Galician Division,
ian churches and, 152-153 104-105; Papen and, 126
"German Christians," 54-55, 58 Hindenburg, Paul von, 60
German Evangelical Church, 56, 58, Hindus, Maurice, 181
69-70; Rosenberg and, 64-67; Erich Hitler, Adolf, 51, 77; rejects Christian-
Koch and, 98. See also Protestant ity, 49-50; handling of Catholic
churches Church, 53-55, 57-58, 125, 128;
Germany: Orthodox in, 77-78, 185 handling of Protestant churches, 55-
Gestapo, 57, 104, 165, 177, 181; attacks 58, 115; Rosenberg and, 58-65, 67,
Catholic Church, 62; liaison with 70, 79, 82-83, 87, 98, 128; on Rus-
Rosenberg, 82, 91; forced labor and, sian occupation, 72-74, 76, 100, 102,
98; Russian churches and, 102, 108, 113; Nazi leaders and, 76, 82; Rus-
132-133, 180; Army and, 117, 119- sian émigrés and, 78, 83, 129; Erich
121; in Baltic states, 133-135, 137- Koch and, 91-92, 95, 98-99, 121;
238 / Index

on "Tolerance Edict," 94-95; on Rus- Kulturkampf, 12, 18

sian religion, 107; Goebbels and, Kursk, 153
110-111; as propaganda object, 112,
115, 117, 129, 134, 150, 172, 174, Laba, Father, 104-105
176; Army and, 118-119, 123; Gor- Labor draft. See Forced labor
ing and, 123; Foreign Office and, Lammers, Hans-Heinrich, 80, 92, 127
126-129 Latvia, 86, 106, 135
Hitler Youth, 62, 65 League of Militant Atheists, 7; member-
Hohe Schule, 60 ship, 33, 43; history, 42-45, 168-169,
175-176, 187
Lebensraum, 73, 80, 133
Ioann, Bishop, 141
Lemkin, Rafael, 74
Lemko, 150
Jackson, Robert, 61 Lenin, V. I.: critique of religion, 10-11,
Jews, 51, 55-56, 96, 113; murders of, 17-25; atheism of, 16-17, 24-25;
102; baptism of, 143. See also Anti- church policy in Civil War, 28-30;
Semitism antireligious strategy, 41, 49-50, 148,
John, Father, 163 187-188
Leningrad, 134-135, 177, 179-180
Kadets (Constitutional Democrats), 20 Lewy, Guenter, 53
Kalinin, M. I., 176 Lipkovsky, Vasili, 147-148; followers
Kalmyks, 160 of, 149, 151, 156-157
Kaluga, 121 Lithuania, 135, 137-138, 140
Kapital, 13 "Living Church," 30-31, 135, 148; in
Karachai, 160 the Ukraine, 96; returns to Orthodox
Karlovtsi Synod, 32, 77-78; Archbish- Church, 180
op Seraphim and, 90; Exarch Ser- Local government, 140, 152, 154, 156-
gius and, 135 157, 160, 165
Karpov, Georgi, 178, 183, 186 Lohse, Hinrich, 81; Rosenberg and, 85,
Keitel, Wilhelm, 89, 92 87, 93
Kendzeryavy-Pastuchiv, Father, 152 Lucas, Archbishop, 185
Kerensky, Alexander, 27, 147 Lueger, Karl, 53
Kerrl, Hanns, 65-67 Luga, 135-136
Kharkov, 96 Lutheranism, 52, 59; political resistance
Kholm, 150, 156 and, 57
Khrushchev, N. S., 166 Lutsk, 149, 158
Kiev, 96, 103, 122, 146-148, 151, 156- Lvov, 104, 128, 156, 185
157, 164, 173
Koch, Erich: Rosenberg and, 60, 81-82, Macarius, Bishop, 186
85, 98-101, 129; occupation policies Manuil, Bishop, 155
of, 76, 82, 100, 106, 110; church Markert, E., 155, 157
policies of, 87, 93-98, 103, 120-121, Martov, L., 19
146, 149-159; as Ukrainian commis- Marx, Karl: early attack on religion,
sar, 91-93; propagandists and, 109, 10-12, 16, 23; later views, 13; on
111-112; economic policies of, 124- Russian revolution, 21-22; ethics of,
125. See also Ukrainian Reich Com- 34
missariat Mein Kampf, 51, 54, 60, 73
Koch, Hans, 90, 96, 153 Melchisedek, Bishop, 140-141
Kolarz, Walter, 41, 162 Melnyk, Andrew, 103, 122, 157, 159
Kolkhoz. See Collectivized agriculture Mensheviks, 20
Komsomol, 39, 187 Messianic movements, 164
Kostelnyk, Gabriel, 185 Meyer, Alfred, 39, 182
Koush, Alexander, 145 Middle East, 171, 183
Krause, Reinhold, 65 Mikhail, Bishop, 141
Kravchenko, Victor, 176 Minsk, 105, 119, 140-142, 144-145
Krupskaya, Nadezhda, 41-42 Moscow, 173, 175, 177, 179-181, 183
Kube, Wilhelm, 139, 142, 144-145 Moscow church conference (1948), 186
 Index / 239

Moslems, 127 Exarch Sergius and, 135, 137-138.

Mstyslav, Bishop, 152-153, 156, 158- See also Baltic states; Belorussia
159. See also Skrypnik, Stephen Ostministerium. See Reich Ministry for
Müller, Ludwig, 56, 65-68 Occupied Eastern Territories
Müller, O. W., 122 Ostraum, 59, 72-73, 80
Munich Agreement, 51 Ostrov, 135
Mussolini, Benito, 60
Mythus des 20. Jahrhunderts, 51, 61-62, Paléologue, Maurice, 4
66-67 Palladius, Bishop, 149-150
Paltzo, Joachim, 96, 111
Narodniki (Populists), 22 Panteleimon, Bishop (of Kiev), 156,
Nationalism, Russian, 168, 170-172, 158-159
183 Panteleimon, Metropolitan (of Belorus-
Nationalities, non-Russian, 76, 79-80, sia), 141-145
87, 91, 160, 165; in the Ukraine, 86, Papen, Franz von, 125-126
92, 104, 146-159, 163; Rosenberg on, Paris Commune, 19
92-94, 111; Propaganda Ministry Parochial schools: Russian, 27-28; Ger-
and, 114; Army and, 120; Foreign man, 52, 55. See also Religious in-
Office and, 129; in Baltic states, 135, struction
138-139; in Belorussia, 139-146 Partisans, 111, 122, 138, 155, 173, 177,
Nazi party: ideology, 49-51, 63, 65- 180, 192; in the Ukraine, 96, 103,
67; program (1920), 53-54; Rosen- 157, 161; Einsatzgruppen and, 106-
berg's career in, 58-60; Christianity 107. See also Bandera; Melnyk
and, 66-69, 126; Army and, 118 Pastors' Emergency League, 56
Nazi-Soviet pact (1939), 51, 169-170 Patriarchate: abolition of (1721), 4;
Nemancevic, Anton, 140 restoration of (1917), 18-19, 2 7 -
"Neo-orthodox" movement, 18 28; wartime activities of, 52-53, 167-
Neurath, Constantin von, 60 177, 181; Ukrainian churches and,
Nevsky, Alexander, 168 95-96, 147-149, 151, 155-156; Bal-
New Economic Policy (NEP), 29-30, tic churches and, 134; Belorussian
50, 148 churches and, 139-143; election to
New York Times, 181 (1943), 178-179; publications of,
Niemöller, Martin, 56-58, 115 179, 187; rejoined by other churches,
Nietzsche, Friedrich, 49 180, 183, 185-186; postwar activities
Nikanor, Bishop, 158 of, 183-186, 191; election to (1945),
Nikodim, Bishop, 147 183-184. See also Alexis; Sergius;
Nikolaev, 158 Tikhon
Nikolai, Bishop, 153 Pavel, Bishop, 137
Nikolai, Metropolitan: in the Ukraine, Pavlovski, Vassily, 78
149, 169; wartime appeals of, 172- Peasants: religiosity of, 6-7, 35, 45-46,
173, 175-176; meets Stalin, 177; 50, 106, 162, 165, 182; seize church
postwar missions of, 183 lands, 28; collectivization of, 32-33;
NKVD, 103, 136-137, 150, 165, 168, reaction to Germans, 106, 123-124
178, 180. See also GPU Pecherskaya Lavra, 146, 158, 161
Northern Military District, 134-137 "People's Front," 140
Nuremberg Trials, 58, 61, 83, 87-88, Peter the Great, 4
126, 185 Petlyura, Simon, 147, 150-151; fol-
Nyarady, Miklos, 187 lowers of, 157
Philotheus, Archbishop, 142-143, 146
Ohienko, Ivan, 147, 150. See also Hi- Pinsk, 143, 150-151
larión Pioneers, 39
"Old Believers," 96, 106, 140 Pius XI, Pope, 62
Ostarbeiter. See Forced labor Platon, Bishop, 155
Ostland, 81, 85-86; Belorussian Pobedonostsev, K., 5
churches and, 91, 134, 139, 142-145; Pochaev Lavra, 147, 158
Lohse's policy for, 93; "Tolerance Poland: German occupation of, 73-74;
Edict" in, 116; Catholics in, 128; Orthodox in, 77-78, 141-142, 146,
240 / Index

148-152, 170, 186; Uniates in, 104; lems of, 79-83, 91-93, 98; prepares
nationalists from, 105, 119, 127- "Tolerance Edict," 83-87; other
128, 142-143, 150-153; Soviet an- occupation agencies and, 87-91; edu-
nexations of, 169 cation plans of, 94; religious policy
Polessia, 150 of, 98-101, 114-115, 128-129, 140,
Polotsk, 142, 163 144-145, 150-152, 155, 158-160;
Poltava, 153, 161-162 propaganda by, 100; Propaganda
Polykarp, Bishop, 149-153, 155, 158- Ministry and, 110-111; political de-
160, 188; Patriarch Sergius and, 173- partment, 114, 124; Army and, 119,
174, 179 122; economic agencies and, 123-
Pomaznev, Father, 175 124. See also Ostland; Rosenberg;
"Positive Christianity," 54 Ukrainian Reich Commissariat
Priests: in villages, 3, 6, 34, 38; number Reichskirche, 50, 65-66, 69
of, 5, 156, 166, 184; Lenin on, 17-18; Religious instruction, 29, 31, 178, 187;
legal status of, 28-29, 35, 178; exe- family as source of, 40—41; under oc-
cutions of, 33, 103-104, 108, 133, cupation, 97, 135-137, 143
155, 173; residence restrictions on, "Renovators," 30, 106; in the Ukraine,
33; purges of, 35, 141, 149, 169, 180; 77, 96
under occupation, 75-76, 122, 133, Revolution of 1905, 6; Lenin's response
139, 145-146, 153-156, 164, 180, to, 18-19
192; in the Ukraine, 97, 152, 154; Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 60, 129; rela-
Einsatzgruppen and, 106-107, 113; tions with Vatican, 55, 126, 128-129;
propagandists and, 115; Army and, Hitler and, 126. See also Foreign
119; economic status of, 136-137, Office
154, 189; from new Soviet areas, Riga, 133, 135-136, 138-139, 143, 159
169; informers as, 188 Rosenberg, Alfred, 57; rejects Christian-
Prisoners of war, 78, 89, 133, 165, 183 ity, 49; as ideologist, 51, 58-60; Cath-
"Proclamation for the East," 113 olic Church and, 60-64, 128-129,
Propaganda Ministry, 76; on church 140; Protestant churches and, 64-67;
question, 99, 108-117, 133. See also and "Tolerance Edict," 70, 94; as
German Army: propaganda division; Ostminister, 72-76, 79-83; other oc-
Goebbels cupation agencies and, 87-91; Erich
Proskurov, 120 Koch and, 91-93, 98-101; on Ortho-
Protestant churches ( German ), 52; Hit- dox Church, 96-97, 114-115, 122,
ler's handling of, 55-58; Rosenberg's 159; on forced labor, 97-98; nation-
handling of, 64-67. See also Confes- ality policy of, 99-100, 144; Himm-
sing Church; German Evangelical ler and, 103; Goebbels and, 109;
Church Army and, 117, 121-123; Goring and,
Provisional Government, 28, 147 123-124. See also Reich Ministry for
Pskov, 134-137 Occupied Eastern Territories
Rostov-on-the-Don, 153
Rada (Ukrainian), 146-147, 150 Rovno, 152, 155
Raevski, S., 157 Rumania: Orthodox in, 175
Rasputin, 2 Rundstedt, Karl von, 120
Rassvet ( Dawn ), 20 Russia, Nazi plans to partition, 74, 81,
Rauschning, Hermann, 54 91-92, 99-100
Red Army, 147; believers in, 46, 176, Russian Orthodox Church: as tsarist in-
181; in World War II, 167, 171, 173; stitution, 2-5; accommodation with
Church contributions to, 176-177 Soviet regime, 2, 9-10, 24, 100, 166,
"Red weddings," 43 177-192; hierarchy, 3-4, 9, 178, 184,
Reich Chancellery, 80. See also Lam- 189-191; organizational strength, 5,
mers 45, 166; reforms, 18-19; attacks on,
Reich Commissariats. See Ostland; 26-36, 45-48; sobor (1917-1918),
Ukrainian Reich Commissariat 27, 29; juridical rights of, 28-29, 33,
Reich Ministry for Occupied Eastern 177; as target of purges, 35-36; in
Territories: Rosenberg as head of, occupied area, 70-72, 75, 81, 131-
59-60, 73-76; administrative prob- 133, 160-165, 180; in Germany, 7 7 -
 Index / 241

79; in the Ukraine, 86-87, 95-100, Slipy, Joseph, 180

146-162; Einsatzgruppen reports on, Smolensk, 119, 142
102-108; in Belorussia, 105, 139-146; Society for Dissemination of Scientific
as propaganda target, 109-110, 116- and Political Knowledge, 187
117; in Baltic states, 133-139; war- Soviet church decrees: (1918), 19, 177;
time contributions, 167-177, 179- (1917), 28; (1929), 33
180; in reconquered areas, 180-181; SS. See Einsatzgruppen; Gestapo
postwar activities, 183-190; as polit- Stakhanovites, 8
ical tool, 191-192. See also Believers; Stalin, J. V.: collectivization and indus-
Church ceremonies; Church holidays; trialization program, 8, 32-33, 42;
Church property; Parochial schools; mid-thirties social stabilization, 34,
Patriarchate; Priests; Religious in- 41; and Patriarch Sergius, 90, 137,
struction; Schismatics; Synod; Theo- 166, 177-178; as German propa-
logical academies ganda target, 112-113; and Eastern
Russland-Gremium, 126-127 Europe, 169; wartime use of Church,
170, 173, 191; as war leader, 172;
SA (storm troopers), 51 praised by Church, 173, 176, 180,
Saitz, Kyrill, 136 184, 188; postwar use of Church,
Samarin, Vladimir, 164 183; religious background of, 187-
Sauckel, Fritz, 88-89 188
Scheidt, Oberführer, 114 Stephen, Bishop, 142, 144-145
Schenkendorff, General von, 121 Stetsko, Iaroslav, 104
Schickedanz, Arno, 80 Strasser, Gregor and Otto, 51, 98
Schismatics, 4, 180, 188. See also "Old Struve, Nikita, 162
Believers" Surkov, P. I., 20, 23
Schönerer, Georg von, 53 Synod: as conservative force, 19, 23;
SD. See Einsatzgruppen; Gestapo reconstituted by Sergius, 32; made
Secret police. See Gestapo; GPU; permanent body, 179
NKVD Szepticky, Metropolitan, 104-105, 140
Sectarians, 4; as recruits to Party, 19-20
Separation of church and state: by So-
Taubert, Eberhard, 109, 112
viets, 19, 28, 177; by Provisional
Theological academies: Russian, 47, 78,
Government, 27, 147; in the Ukraine,
166, 178, 184; German, 52, 57; in
147
Baltic states, 136; in Belorussia, 143
Seraphim, Archbishop, 77-79, 135, 151, "Third force," Church as, 75, 163-165,
154, 158; at Vienna church confer-
180, 192
ence, 90
"Third Rome," Moscow as, 9, 186
Sergius, Patriarch: in succession to Tik- Tikhon, Patriarch: election of, 28; con-
hon, 31; accommodation to Soviets, fronts Soviets, 28-31; succession to,
32; denies religious persecution, 44; 31; Lipkovsky and, 148
meets Stalin, 90, 177-179; and Ser- Tikhvinski, Father, 18
gius the Younger, 134, 137, 173-174; Timasheff, Nicholas, 7, 36, 189, 191
and Belorussian Church, 140-141, Timofei, Bishop, 186
143; and new Soviet areas, 170; war- "Tolerance Edict," 70, 81, 93; evolution
time appeals of, 172-175, 177; elec- of, 83-87; in the Ukraine, 94-95,
tion of, 178-179; death of, 183 158; Propaganda Ministry and, 110-
Sergius the Younger, Exarch, 90, 159, 111, 116
173-174; in Baltic states, 133-139, Tossno, 104
160, 169; in Northern Military Dis- Trubino, 176
trict, 134-137; in Belorussia, 143; in
the Ukraine, 149 Truth About Religion in Russia, 175
Semov, M., 185 Tula, 179-180
Signal, 115-116 "Twelve Commandments," 124
Skoropadsky, Paul, 59, 147
Skrypnik, Ν. Α., 148 Ukraine: under Hetmanate, 59; German
Skrypnik, Stephen, 151. See also Msty- occupation policy, 74, 76, 80, 88, 9 2 -
slav 93, 162; nationalists in, 75, 95, 104,
242 / Index

111, 128; church feuds in, 78, 96, Church and, 184-186, 188; Uniates
154-157; Rosenberg's church policy and, 185
for, 84-87; Erich Koch's church pol- Vienna church conference (1943), 90
icy for, 87, 93-99, 146, 149-159; Vilna, 135-136, 138, 140, 143, 145
educational system, 94; forced labor Vinnitsa, 152
in, 97-98; economy, 99; Einsatzgrup- Vitebsk, 119, 142
pen in, 102-106; Orthodox in, 107- Vladimir, Metropolitan, 147
108, 160-161, 186; propagandists in, Vlasov, Andrei, 79
112; Army in, 118-120, 122; agricul- Vlasovsky, Ivan, 159
ture, 124-125; Catholics in, 127; Völkischer Beobachter, 59, 83
reaction to Germans, 133, 161; Soviet Volhynia, 103, 117, 134, 147, 149-151
appeals to, 173-174 Volksdeutsche, 59, 79
Ukrainian Autocephalous Church Volksreligion, 61, 65
( UAPTs ) : Rosenberg on, 86, 98; Volyn (Volhynia), 152
Erich Koch's response to, 87, 95-97, Voronezh, 153
99, 146, 149-159; Warsaw council,
90-91; Army and, 120; prewar exis- War crimes, Soviet commission on, 175.
tence, 146-149; hierarchy, 149-150; See also Nuremberg Trials
under occupation, 151-159, 163, 191; Wehrmacht. See German Army
in exile, 159-160; Patriarchate and, Weichs, Maximilian von, 118-119
173-174, 188 Werner, Paul, 122
Ukrainian Reich Commissariat, 140; Werth, Alexander, 181-182
policy on Autocephalous Church, 91, White Guard armies, 5, 26, 29, 38, 186;
96-97, 101, 146, 149-159; under Nazi party and, 59; in the Ukraine,
Erich Koch, 91-93; political section, 147
96; "Tolerance Edict" in, 116; popu- White Russia. See Belorussia
lar reaction to, 122. See also Koch, "Whitsuntide Congregations," 180
Erich World Council of Churches, 185-186
Ulyanov, Alexander, 16 World War I, 75, 147
Uniates, 139; in the Ukraine, 84, 96, World War II: German church reaction
104-105; in Germany, 104; in Belo- to, 50, 63-64; Soviet church reaction
russia, 139-140; rejoin Orthodox to, 167, 171-177, 179
Church, 180, 185
"Union of the Russian People," 21 Yaroslavsky, Emelian, 43
Unruh, Friedrich von, 121 Yezhov, N. I., 35-36, 168, 188
Untermenschen, 76, 79, 102, 191; Erich Youth: religiosity of, 39, 41-á2, 46-48,
Koch's concept of, 93-98, 121; Ein- 107-108, 115-116, 122, 136, 181
satzgruppen concept of, 106 Yugoslavia: Orthodox in, 175

Vatican: German Concordat with, 5 4 - Zhitomir, 107, 120, 152-153

55; intervention attempts by, 55, 85, Ζhurnal Moskovskoi Patriarkhi (Journal
128; Foreign Office and, 55, 101-102, of Moscow Patriarchate), 179, 185,
127-128; Rosenberg and, 60-67; 187-189
Gestapo and, 64, 128; Orthodox Zubatov, S. V., 23
Russian Research Center Studies

1. Public Opinion in Soviet Russia: A Study in Mass Persuasion, by Alex

Inkeles
2. Soviet Politics—The Dilemma of Power: The Role of Ideas in Social
Change, by Barrington Moore, Jr.*
3. Justice in the U.S.S.R.: An Interpretation of Soviet Law, by Harold J.
Berman. Revised edition, enlarged
4. Chinese Communism and the Rise of Mao, by Benjamin I. Schwartz
5. Titoism and the Cominform, by Adam B. UIam°
6. A Documentary History of Chinese Communism, by Conrad Brandt, Ben-
jamin Schwartz, and John K. Fairbank°
7. The New Man in Soviet Psychology, by Raymond A. Bauer
8. Soviet Opposition to Stalin: A Case Study in World War II, by George
Fischer 0
9. Minerals: A Key to Soviet Power, by Demitri Β. Shimkin"
10. Soviet Law in Action: The Recollected Cases of a Soviet Lawyer, by
Boris A. Konstantinovsky; edited by Harold J. Berman"
11. How Russia Is Ruled, by Merle Fainsod. Revised edition
12. Terror and Progress USSR: Some Sources of Change and Stability in the
Soviet Dictatorship, by Barrington Moore, Jr.
13. The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-
1923, by Richard Pipes. Revised edition
14. Marxism: The Unity of Theory and Practice—A Critical Essay, by Alfred
G. Meyer
15. Soviet Industrial Production, 1928-1951, by Donald R. Hodgman
16. Soviet Taxation: The Fiscal and Monetary Problems of a Planned Econ-
omy, by Franklyn D. Holzman
17. Soviet Military Law and Administration, by Harold J. Berman and Miro-
slav Kerner*
18. Documents on Soviet Military Law and Administration, edited and trans-
lated by Harold J. Berman and Miroslav Kerner
19. The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism, by Leopold H.
Haimson
20. The Permanent Purge: Politics in Soviet Totalitarianism, by Zbigniew K.
Brzezinski*
21. Belorussia: The Making of a Nation—A Case Study, by Nichols P. Vakar
22. A Bibliographical Guide to Belorussia, by Nicholas P. Vakar*
23. The Balkans in Our Time, by Robert Lee Wolff (also American Foreign
Policy Library)
24. How the Soviet System Works: Cultural, Psychological, and Social
Themes, by Raymond A. Bauer, Alex Inkeles, and Clyde Kluckhohnt
25. The Economics of Soviet Steel, by M. Gardner Clark"
26. Leninism, by Alfred G. Meyer*
27. Factory and Manager in the USSR, by Joseph S. Berlinert
28. Soviet Transportation Policy, by Holland Hunter
29. Doctor and Patient in Soviet Russia, by Mark G. Fieldf
30. Russian Liberalism: From Gentry to Intelligentsia, by George Fischer
31. Stalin's Failure in China, 1924—1927, by Conrad Brandt
32. The Communist Party of Poland: An Outline of History, by M. K. Dzie-
wanowski
33. Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and
Analysis, by Richard Pipes
34. A Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia, by Ν. M. Karamzin, the Rus-
sian text edited by Richard Pipes"
35. The Soviet Citizen: Daily Life in a Totalitarian Society, by Alex Inkeles
and Raymond A. Bauer f
36. Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia, by Serge A. Zenkovsky
37. The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, by Zbigniew K. Brzezinski. Revised
and enlarged edition!
38. National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia, by Hans Rogger
39. Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 1812-1855, by
Martin Malia
40. The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet
Russia, by Robert Vincent Daniels
41. The Soviet Industrialization Debate, 1924-1928, by Alexander Erlich
42. The Third Section: Police and Society in Russia under Nicholas I, by
Sidney Monas
43. Dilemmas of Progress in Tsarist Russia: Legal Marxism and Legal Pop-
ulism, by Arthur P. Mendel
44. Political Control of Literature in the USSR, 1946-1959, by Harold
Swayze
45. Accounting in Soviet Planning and Management, by Robert W. Campbell
46. Social Democracy and the St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885—1897,
by Richard Pipes
47. The New Face of Soviet Totalitarianism, by Adam B. Ulam
48. Stalin's Foreign Policy Reappraised, by Marshall D. Shulman
49. The Soviet Youth Program: Regimentation and Rebellion, by Allen Kassof
50. Soviet Criminal Law and Procedure: The RSFSR Codes, translated by
Harold J. Berman and James W. Spindler; introduction and analysis by
Harold J. Berman
51. Poland s Politics: Idealism vs. Realism, by Adam Bromke
52. Managerial Power and Soviet Politics, by Jeremy R. Azrael
53. Danilevsky: A Russian Totalitarian Philosopher, by Robert E. MacMaster
54. Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924,
by Seymour Becker
55. Revolutionary Russia, edited by Richard Pipes
56. The Family in Soviet Russia, by H. Kent Geiger
57. Social Change in Soviet Russia, by Alex Inkeles
58. The Soviet Prefects: The Local Party Organs in Industrial Decision-
making, by Jerry F. Hough
59. Soviet-Polish Relations, 1917-1921, by Piotr S. Wandycz
60. One Hundred Thousand Tractors: The MTS and the Development of
Controls in Soviet Agriculture, by Robert F. Miller
61. The Lysenko Affair, by David Joravsky
62. Icon and Swastika: The Russian Orthodox Church under Nazi and Soviet
Control, by Harvey Fireside

9 Out of print.
f Publications of the Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System.
J Published jointly with the Center for International Affairs, Harvard Univer-
sity.