@branman65 @maija @Terry That's far more complicated than Westerners, including most dissidents, know about. Bishops were moved or replaced by lackeys. One could make an argument in defense of this because it allowed the churches to remain in existence rather than be decommissioned and looted, and the faithful still practiced even if in secret. Communists broke up the church communities in USSR territories just like they did to the ethnic churches in America via strategic "housing projects" (see: The Slaughter of Cities by Dr. E. Michael Jones). They would sometimes force people to move in scattered ways to deliberately kill an out of compliance church.