Church-state relations during the Soviet period were much more complex and changeable than is generally assumed. From the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 until the 21st Party Congress in 1961, the Communist regime's attitude toward the Russian Orthodox Church zigzagged from indifference and opportunism to hostility and repression. Taking advantage of new access to previously closed archives, historian Tatiana Chumachenko has documented the political, social, and human dramas of church-state relations during these decades. The rich material covered here appears in no previously published church history. It also has contemporary relevance, providing essential background to the post-Soviet Russian government's controversial relationship to the Russian Orthodox Church today.