Participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the activities of the Christian Peace Conference in 1960–1972

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The article aims to describe and analyse the experience of the active participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Christian peace movement, which had as its main task consolidation of Churches and Christian figures in the struggle for peaceful relations between peoples, against the arms race and the nuclear threat. In the context of the global confrontation between the USSR and the USA, the “Cold war”, the activities of the Christian Peace Conference (CPC) were the integral part of the international policy of socialist countries. The departments for church affairs of the socialist camp states monitored the work of the peacekeeping organization and the direction of their development. Attempts by Western Christian figures to distract the organization from practical efforts to fight for peace came into conflict with the interests of socialist states and gave rise to divisions within the organization and crises. The events of the Prague Spring and the entry of Warsaw Pact troops into Czechoslovakia brought the CPC to the brink of collapse. On the basis of the church and state archival sources, the author of the article outlines the sequence of actions of the Chairman of the Department of External Church Relations, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) of Leningrad and Novgorod, aimed to overcome internal discord in the Conference. The hierarch held senior positions in the СPС, including the post of president, which allowed him to have a significant influence on the course of peacekeeping work.