Reports оЁ the Soviet state security agencies as а source on the history of the Church in the occupied territory of the Leningrad region (1941-1944)

Abstract

In the second half of 1944, after the liberation of the western regions of the Leningrad region from the Nazis and their allies, the NKGB Directorate prepared a “Collection of materials on German devastation and atrocities, the activities of enemy intelligence and counterintelligence agencies in the occupied areas of the region”. A separate section was called “The Church in the Service of the Germans”. It discussed the destruction of monuments of Russian ecclesiastical architecture by the Nazis. Particular attention was paid to various forms of cooperation between Russian priests and the German occupation administration. The collected materials could then be used to initiate criminal cases