SERGII (1867–1944), born Ivan Nikolaevich Stragorodskii, was a Russian Orthodox theologian and patriarch of Moscow, was one of the leading advocates of church reform in tsarist Russia. Among his earlier writings are The Question of Personal Salvation (Moscow, 1895), Eternal Life as the Highest Good (Moscow, 1895), and contributions to Meetings of the Religious Philosophical Society (Saint Petersburg, 1901–1903) and to Responses of the Diocesan Bishops (Saint Petersburg, 1905–1906). In 1927 Sergii formally acknowledged the U. S. S. R. as the true motherland of the Orthodox people and was enthroned as patriarch in 1943 with the approval of Joseph Stalin.

Sergii's purpose in accommodating himself to the Soviet regime was to enable the church to achieve at least a minimal visibility during the time of the Soviet holocaust. In signing the controversial Declaration of Loyalty in 1927, he agreed to publish a clear and unambiguous statement of loyalty to the Soviet regime, to exclude from church...