Upon his enthronement as Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, Sergii (Starogorodskii) informed the heads of the other autocephalous Orthodox churches of his new office.90 The official greetings of the Orthodox patriarchs of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, received in February 1944, Served as proof that they considered the decisions of the Moscow sobor canoni-caL.91 Patriarch Sergii also received indirect approval from the Serbian and Bulgarian Orthodox churches, whose countries were still under German control. Their greetings were sent by Bishop Dionisii of Serbia, who was in charge of America and Canada, and the Bulgarian Bishop for America, Andrey Velichki, who temporarily lived in Istanbul.92
According to one of the first Western analyses of the Moscow sobor, the liberal attitude of the Soviet leadership toward the Russian Orthodox Church simultaneously pursued two aims: “to consolidate the national front and to improve its positions in the Balkans.”03 According to them, after the skillful use of PanSlavism, reminding the Slav peoples under Nazi occupation that Russia was their mother, now the Kremlin was going “to increase its influence on them by the means of the Byzantine church,” whose center had become Moscow since the fall of Constantinople. Still, in the autumn of 1943, the Soviet leaders seem to have paid less attention to the Balkan churches than to the Middle East. Most probably, they relied on the Red Army in the first case, whereas in the second they gave priority to specific mechanisms capable of developing respect for the authority of the Moscow Patriarchate on purely religious grounds.
The promotion of Soviet interests in the Middle East patriarchates was facilitated by the support of Princess Irina of Greece, who had Russian origins. On September 9, 1943, she sent a telegram of greeting to Patriarch Sergii fTom JerusaleM.94 The princess seemed to be Moscow’s most active partner in the Middle East until the end of 1944. During his tenure Patriarch Sergii received three letters fTom her. Irina entered into relations with Soviet representatives during her trip to Iran in the spring of 1943. Led by a wish to help the fight for her motherland, she started fund-raising among the Orthodox population in the Middle East.95 HEr initiative was also supported by French authorities in Lebanon and Syria. In a similar way, Irina’S correspondence with Moscow was facilitated by the French Committee of National Liberation and its branches in the Middle East and Moscow.96
In her letters, the princess asked Patriarch Sergii whether the rumors about his visit to the Middle East were true. In March 1944, he answered that there was no sense in rejecting such rumors officially because his statement would not stop theM.97 IRina also asked permission to visit Sergii in Moscow, but his death in May changed the situation. Still, until the autumn of 1944, Princess Irina acted as a kind of ambassador for the Moscow Patriarchate to the Orthodox churches in the Middle East. She had several conversations with their heads, especially with the Patriarch of Antioch, who was an ethnic Arab and a graduate of a Russian theological academy. The latter had good memories of the time before the Bolshevik revolution, when the Russian Empire subsidized not only the patriarchates in the Middle East but also Orthodox schools and charity institutions. His strong anti-Catholicism attracted the interest of Moscow. During conversations with the princess, the Patriarch of Antioch complained that the Catholic Church had used the poverty of the Orthodox population in Syria and Lebanon to proselytize. The network of Catholic schools, established in the interwar period, offered many opportunities for Orthodox children who had converted to Catholicism. In this regard, in one of her letters Princess Irina mentioned that in 1944 the Vatican lost the material and political support of influential Catholic states. Likewise, America and England were unable to assist the Roman Pope without provoking sharp protests from their own Protestant populations. Thus, the Moscow Patriarchate had a chance to restore its positions in the Middle East. According to the princess, the Patriarchate of Antioch needed a subsidy of 2,000 British pounds per yeaR.98 She also wrote to Sergii:
Your elevation to the Patriarchal See of All Russia opened unlimited opportunities for Orthodoxy. Our Church has looked for such opportunities in the course of its difficult history since the Byzantine times but has never received them. God blessed Your Holiness to realize the great historical task of reviving our Church and the whole Orthodox world holds its breath and hope, watching you and waiting for Your Holiness to console and help it. Don’t deprive your children of hope, gracious Archpastor of ours! Let the reviving
Russian Church stand up for the defense of native Orthodoxy and assist in the fulfillment of its great aims.99
According to the princess, the latest events had destroyed the claims of the Catholic Church and the enemies of Russia that the Moscow Patriarchate was a hostage of the Soviet government. On the contrary, it was separated fTom the state and had “full freedom to work for the ends of Orthodoxy all over the world.” According to her, it was a holy duty of the Patriarch of Moscow to take care of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad. She pointed to the Russian monasTeries in Jerusalem, where about 200 nuns desperately needed financial support. Irina had talked to them, and they had asked her to transmit their request to Sergii.100
At the beginning of September 1944, the Soviet ambassador to Egypt, Nikolay Novikov, replaced Princess Irina in the negotiations between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Orthodox churches in the Middle East. According to Progres Egyptien, the Soviet ambassador restored the great traditions of the past and “Soviet Russia took the place that Imperial Russia had left vacant in the Holy Places after 1917.”' 01 Novikov’s trip included Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. He collected information about Russian missions, temples, and other property as Well as about the state of their members. He expressed a wish to restore “the spiritual links that connected the Moscow Church and the Soviet State with the Holy Places.”102
Novikov’s trip, however, provoked anti-Soviet reactions in the Middle East, and the Soviet government continued to use information submitted by Princess Irina. According to this information, some Orthodox Greeks attempted to inhibit Soviet influence by establishing a union between the Orthodox churches in the Middle East and the Anglican Church. They had the consent of the king of Greece and the British government. Meanwhile, the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem began to complain that their negotiations with Moscow were having no effect. Therefore, the princess repeated her request to travel to Russia. Even though the Commissariat of Foreign Affairs believed that her visit would contribute to the progress of the communication between the Moscow Patriarchate And the Orthodox churches in the Middle East, the Soviet government did not agree.103 An article on the situation of the Russian communities in the Middle East that Irina sent for publication to the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate was rejected as welL.104 At the same time, the Kremlin took seriously the idea of material subsidies for the Eastern patriarchates and an exchange of visits between the Russian and Eastern churches.
In December 1944, Irina informed the Soviet embassy in Egypt that Greek dynastic circles in London exerted great pressure over Patriarch Christophoros of Alexandria to cancel his visit to Moscow. There was certainly a change in his behavior. On December 22, he wrote to the Moscow locum tenens, Alexii (Simanskii), that he did not wish to come to Russia only as an honored guest for the election of the new Patriarch of Moscow. He insisted on using his stay for discussing relations between Moscow and the other Orthodox churches as well as some other issues. He wanted to know in advance the unofficial schedule of the visit. In the end, he went to Moscow. Meanwhile, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Timotheos, who had promised to attend the Moscow sobor if his health allowed, did noT.105
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