Who was going to fight for Russia? Estonians? Poles? Ukrainians? Nazi Germany took 4 million prisoners in the first few week so its Operation Barbarossa invasion of the USSR. Many were non-Russians but many were Russians unwilling to fight for socialism. By opening the Churches, and changing the slogan to "Fight for Mother Russia" rather than the Communist International (COMINTERN), he managed to get the people of Russia to close ranks and face the enemy on a patriotic and not on an idoelogical basis.
Apostle Paul states that we are to respect any authority because all authority is from God. Christians respected the pagan authority of Rome and did not rebel against Rome even when Rome was persecuting them.
The seed for cooperation with authority is basic to Christian doctrine form the beginning and is base don apostolic teachings. The Church was state-run from the beginning, whether the state was extrinsic or intrinsic.
Eh? Maybe in the East it was, but in the West, that wasn't the case. There were Church-state entanglements, but the State didn't run the Church.
Regards