Peris D. God is Now on Our Side: The Religious Revival on Unoccupied Soviet Territory during World War II

Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, Volume
1, Number 1, Winter 2000 (New Series), pp. 97-118 (Article)Together with the Orthodox renaissance on German-occupied
territory, the religious revival in unoccupied Soviet Russia during
World War II – epitomized by the late-night meeting of Stalin
and the Orthodox Church’s leaders on September 4, 1943 –
represented a stunning repudiation of the nearly quartercentury
effort to eradicate organized religion from the Soviet landscape.
While the events on German-occupied areas have received
substantial scholarly attention, the recent opening of Soviet
archives has raised the curtain on the domestic revival.