Contacts of the Moscow Patriarchate with the Albanian and Chinese Churches in the 1960s — Early 1970s

Abstract

The article presented to the reader explores the nature of the Moscow Patriarchate’s contacts with the Albanian Orthodox Church and the Chinese Autonomous Orthodox Church during the tenure of Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov), who led the Russian Church’s diplomatic efforts. The study is based on documents and materials from the Archive of the Department for External Church Relations, which shed light on the difficult situation of the Albanian and Chinese Churches within communist states whose governments severely restricted external ecclesiastical contacts. As a result, inter-church relations were extremely limited and sporadic. The atheist policies of both the Albanian and Chinese authorities ultimately led to the near destruction of church institutions in those countries. The author concludes that neither the leadership of the Russian Church nor the Soviet government had the capacity to influence the political leadership of Albania and the People’s Republic of China. The Soviet authorities had no incentive to promote inter-church ties, as such relations could not fulfill their expected role as a support mechanism for bilateral state relations - which were, at the time, practically nonexistent. Nevertheless, even under such unfavorable conditions, the Moscow Patriarchate sought ways to maintain contact with and provide support to the Albanian and Chinese Churches. According to the researcher, the leadership of the Department for External Church Relations intensified the Church’s international activities and expanded the scope of its foreign contacts in order to protect the Russian Church from annihilation within the Soviet Union and to avoid the fate suffered by church institutions in Albania and China. These efforts ultimately enhanced the influence and authority of the Moscow Patriarchate on the global stage.