In the early days of the Soviet revolution, the Bolsheviks persecuted the Russian Orthodox Church. They shut down and destroyed churches, sent priests to gulags, and decreased the total number of operating churches from tens of thousands to a couple hundred. The remaining churches mainly continued to exist because they were remote and rural, thus difficult to keep closed.
In the early days of WW2, a strange thing took place. In the face of repeated defeats at the hands of the Germans, Stalin revived the Russian church. He allowed its leadership, schools, publications, and congregations to resu...