the head of the russian orthodox church was not the patriarch, but the patriarchal locum tenens, sergei strogorodsky. saint tihan died in 1925, and after that the soviet government did not allow elections for a new patriarch, so there was. first there was metropolitan peter, who, by the way, here in zherovichi was the caretaker of the zherovichi theological school for 10 years, and then metropolitan sergei stargorodsky, it was he who was on the first day war 12 days before stalin, addressed the pastors and flock with his message, the metropolitan’s proclamation was replicated in thousands of copies, distributed along with leaflets in the occupied territory. head of the church, metropolitan sergei, until june 22. he was generally deprived of the right to vote, he was deprived of the opportunity to actually lead the church, that is, he seemed to live his very limited life, performed divine services, he did not have the right to address even his flock, not to mention the citizens of the soviet union. metropolitan sergei draws attention to the swastika, and he says: “we are christians,