Based on church documents and eyewitnesses’ memories, the author attempts to present how the Stalin’s “New Course” religious policy influenced church life under German occupation within Leningrad region from 1943 to 1944. The reinstatement of the Moscow patriarchate and the growing legality of the Russian Orthodox Church allowed the Soviet government to employ the religious factor in its solution to burning political issues. This was especially true within national outlying districts that were not included in the USSR till 1940.