About the book: 2011 / This is a novel about the war - but shown from an unusual side. It is little known that according to the population census conducted before the war, half of the rural population and a quarter of the urban population were believers. During the war, under the threat of imminent death, a large number of Red Army soldiers turned to faith. It is documented that Stalin received letters from commanders at the front asking for permission to hold Orthodox services in the troops. Truly, our Army, as always, fought for the faith, the Tsar and the Fatherland, only the Tsar was called Stalin at that time. The chapters are about the main character, Red Army soldier (later lieutenant) Vasily Odinokov, who during the battles made a spiritual path from a convinced Komsomol to Orthodoxy, interspersed with chapters about events at the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command. There are literary inserts on behalf of the supposed “author of the novel,” front-line correspondent Miron Semyonov, and documentary inserts (orders, Stalin’s correspondence with Churchill and Roosevelt, articles from wartime newspapers). The novel ends with the events of September 1943, when Stalin is the only one in history head of state with a seminary education - returned relations between secular authorities and the Church to normal, helped in holding a church council, which, after a long break, elected the Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'.