In the midst of the Great Patriotic War, on the personal instructions of Stalin, director Sergei Eisenstein was filming the film “Ivan the Terrible” in Alma-Ata. Despite the difficult wartime, he was provided with the most favorable conditions. For the first time, a church service is very accurately reproduced on the screen: Ivan is crowned king in compliance with all traditions, and also delivers an actual program speech: from now on, Moscow becomes the Third Rome, that is, the world Orthodox center. There will be no Fourth Rome.
Almost simultaneously with the filming of the film in the Kremlin, an unexpected meeting between Stalin and the bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church takes place. The leader is confident that the war will contribute to the redivision of the world, and makes it clear: the church will play an important role in this...
February 2, 1945. Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Sokolniki. At the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, His Eminence Alexy, Metropolitan of Leningrad and Novgorod, is elected Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'. Concern is noticeable on the face of the new patriarch. He knows that Stalin conceived a global political combination with the participation of the church and him personally, Bishop Alexy Simansky. A state decision has been made: the Russian Church should become the center of world Orthodoxy. The influential pro-Western Vatican must be opposed by the eastern Vatican - in Moscow. It would seem that we should rejoice: the humiliated and oppressed church will again gain weight in society. But why does a godless state need this? And what will you have to pay for such mercy?
Here is the text of a telegram from the Bulgarian Metropolitan Stefan from Sofia: “The time has come for the Russian Orthodox Church to put itself forward - to take the first, leading place among all Orthodox churches: ... the power, after unprecedented victories and various successes, has risen to extraordinary heights. It befits a great power to exalt its church. At the time of the most difficult trials and sufferings, which was its vigilant prayer book and most faithful collaborator, freed from the ailments and extremes of the pre-revolutionary past. In our understanding, the time has come to fulfill the prophecy of the monk Philotheus about Moscow - the third Rome." So once again the paths of the princes of the Church and the rulers of the earth crossed...
