Orthodox world’s attitude to the election of metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) as patriarch of Moscow and all Rus’

The article examines the Orthodox world’s perception nature of the election of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’ at the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1943. This event played a decisive role in changing the position of the Russian Orthodox Church not only in the Soviet Union, but also beyond its borders. The Orthodox world started to reconsider its view of the USSR as a state of militant atheism. The German authorities tried to respond by organizing propaganda against the events that had taken place. However, the majority of Local Orthodox Churches refused to disavow the patriarchal elections in Moscow. Due to its dependent position, the Orthodox episcopate in the temporarily occupied territory of the USSR was forced to make concessions to German occupiers. However, even in this case, the Conference and the Council of Bishops held in 1944 in the Baltics and Belarus avoided harsh formulations. The episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia took a special position. The radical change in church-state relations in the autumn of 1943 was a decisive factor in the confrontation of the warring parties at the “religious front” of the Great Patriotic War.