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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NRW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • KALLAS 
 ATLANTA . SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 
 
 LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE CHURCH AND 
 THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION 
 
 BY 
 
 MATTHEW SPINKA, Ph.D. 
 
 THE CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMIHABY 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE LIBRARY 
 CHESTNUT HILL, MASS. 
 
 iUtto got* 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1927 
 
 i V ' 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 . U,.' < ^ 
 
Copyright, 1927, 
 
 By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 Set up and printed. 
 Published October, 1927. 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATE* OP AMERICA 
 BY THE CORNWALL PRESS 
 
 66813 
 
DEDICATED TO 
 
 President Ozora Stearns Davis 
 
 OF THE CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY 
 
 IN APPRECIATION OF HIS UNFAILING FRIENDSHIP 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 The epochal changes which revolutionized the very 
 foundations of Russian life had a rousing effect upon 
 the rest of the world. Where changes of such magni¬ 
 tude and far-reaching consequences are concerned, it is 
 inevitable that the movement causing them be both 
 extolled and condemned by doctrinaires of opposite 
 tempers, without either much critical regard for the 
 exact course of events, or much historical discrimina¬ 
 tion of them. Hence, before any judgment worthy of 
 respect may be passed upon such a cataclysmic event, 
 it is imperative for a careful investigator to make sure 
 of the exact facts upon which to base his opinions and 
 conclusions. 
 
 The fierce antagonism to the Soviet regime, char¬ 
 acteristic of many works dealing with the Russian 
 Revolution, found ample expression in the hitherto 
 published scanty and fragmentary treatment of the 
 Russian church during the revolutionary era. The 
 present work is animated by the sole desire to gather 
 the primary historical source material which would be 
 fairly representative of both the governmental as well 
 as the ecclesiastical sides, and to present the course of 
 events in the light of this evidence. The aim sought 
 is a sympathetic understanding and appreciation of 
 the conflicting interests which inevitably produced the 
 deplorable strife into which the parties to the conflict 
 were hurled, for a study of the actual situation is vastly 
 
 more profitable than any amount of debate regarding 
 
 • • 
 
 Vll 
 
viii Foreword 
 
 the merits or demerits of the respective philosophies 
 involved. The book does not aim to justify or con¬ 
 demn the opposing principles, but to present them in 
 the light of their historical development, which pro¬ 
 duced the situation where conflict between them was 
 inevitable. It is sincerely hoped that this mode of 
 presentation may contribute toward a more critical, 
 and therefore more equitable, appraisal of the present 
 Russian ecclesiastical realities. 
 
 Certain problems peculiar to this particular type of 
 investigation were encountered in the process: in the 
 matter of dating, it should be borne in mind that the 
 dates appearing in this book were left as given in their 
 respective sources, for the author found it impossible 
 to determine in every instance which calendar had 
 been used. The Soviet government adopted the 
 Gregorian calendar in 1918; the second Local Sobor of 
 the Russian Orthodox Church, representative of the 
 reformist groups, likewise adopted, in 1923, the 
 calendar in use in the West; but the patriarchal party, 
 representative of some two-thirds of the Russian 
 church, still adheres to the old calendar, which is 
 thirteen days behind the Gregorian. 
 
 Another problem concerned the transliteration of the 
 Russian alphabet. The system used in this work is, in 
 the main, the one adopted by the British Conference of 
 University Teachers of Russian and Slavonic Lan¬ 
 guages, for this mode is much less cumbersome than 
 the so-called Library of Congress scheme. 
 
 The author takes this opportunity to thank Dr. 
 Sherwood Eddy, of New York, for his friendly aid in 
 securing the Russian vise; also the splendid staff of 
 the Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Coun¬ 
 tries, in Moscow, for arranging interviews with impor- 
 
Foreword 
 
 IX 
 
 tant state officials. Invaluable help was likewise 
 given, both by opening the archives to the author 
 and by private conferences, by many high digni¬ 
 taries of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox 
 Church and the patriarchal party of the Russian 
 Orthodox Church in Russia as well as in this country. 
 
 Grateful acknowledgment is also made to the editors 
 of The Journal of Religion and of The Religious Edu¬ 
 cation for the permission to use some sections of the 
 text which had previously appeared in these magazines. 
 Sincere thanks are likewise rendered to Dr. Carl S. 
 Patton of the Chicago Theological Seminary, who 
 read and corrected the text in proof. 
 
 The Author. 
 
 The Chicago Theological Seminary 
 May 9, 1927 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 IT I T ; 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 *• 
 
 
 
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 It is hard to discuss impartially policies with which 
 one differs. Particularly is this true in the case of 
 religion, and most difficult of all where a complete 
 social philosophy is involved. This is very likely the 
 reason why we have been given such varying pictures 
 of the religious condition of Russia. It is hard for 
 an observer to detach himself from his own sympa¬ 
 thies and shape his opinions by facts alone. Inabil¬ 
 ity to use the Russian language compels most English 
 and American observers to rely upon second-hand 
 information and, at best, translations of various dis¬ 
 cussions and official documents. This places the 
 observer very much at the mercy of other people’s 
 prejudices and interests. 
 
 Dr. Spinka has written a work which, in my opinion, 
 is an exception to these generalities. A master of the 
 Russian language, he has been able to examine mate¬ 
 rial inaccessible in translation. In a recent visit to 
 Russia he was able to gain information from many 
 persons at first hand, and an historical training has 
 guided him in the use of material. Naturally he has 
 his own convictions as an American Protestant, but he 
 has sincerely attempted to look at the Russian situa¬ 
 tion as an historian rather than as a critic or as a 
 champion of either Bolshevism or Russian Christian¬ 
 ity. As a result his work is a well-balanced introduc¬ 
 tion to a study of a very complicated and delicate 
 
 xi 
 
Introduction 
 
 • • 
 
 Xll 
 
 situation. It cannot fail to give the American reader 
 much needed information and a point of view from 
 which to interpret the facts Dr. Spinka gives so 
 generously. 
 
 Shailer Mathews. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Foreword .vii 
 
 Introduction .xi 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. The Roots of the Matter. 1 
 
 II. Between the Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 44 
 
 III. The March Revolution (1917) .... 64 
 
 IV. The First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 79 
 
 V. The First Years of the Soviet Regime . 102 
 
 VI. The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation . . 147 
 
 VII. 'The Famine and Its Consequences . . 162 
 
 VIII. The Origin of the Schism.190 
 
 IX. The Second All-Russian Local Sobor . . 232 
 
 X. A House Divided Against Itself .... 261 
 
 XI. The Present Situation.292 
 
 XII. Conclusion.323 
 
 Biblrdgraphy.327 
 
THE CHURCH AND THE RUSSIAN 
 
 REVOLUTION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ROOTS OF THE MATTER 
 
 The Great War, so staggeringly costly in human life 
 and treasure, was likewise profligate of spiritual values. 
 The ghastly beastliness which it revealed served to 
 manifest to the startled world that the dominating ele¬ 
 mental passions of the so-called Christian nations, 
 which nevertheless were not nations of Christians, were 
 utterly pagan, and that the “Christian” civilization of 
 which they all boasted was but skin-deep, and failed to 
 penetrate into and affect the soul of the European peo¬ 
 ples. The frank and brutal disregard of Christian ideals 
 and practice, and worst of all, the general hearty and 
 even enthusiastic moral support which the national 
 churches loyally manifested in a multitude of unmis¬ 
 takable ways, glaringly illuminated the fact that the 
 dominant passions which actuated the imperialistic 
 states were shared by the Christian church as well. For 
 ever and ever, the fact that the church was permeated 
 with the shamelessly pagan spirit of greed for power 
 which dominated the Western imperialistic policies 
 must be acknowledged by the followers of the Great 
 Teacher as one of the most serious cases of disloyalty 
 and unfaithfulness to his gospel. 
 
2 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The fearful price which in consequence the church 
 was called upon to pay for its subservience to the 
 imperialistic and militaristic state policies was nowhere 
 revealed with greater clarity than in Russia, where the 
 tsarist caesaropapism was likewise at its worst. The 
 whole Christian world was startled and shocked with 
 the fateful consequences of that situation, for the swift 
 and terrible vengeance which overtook the tsarist 
 church along with the tsarist state was wreaked indis¬ 
 criminately upon the guilty and the innocent. Ulti¬ 
 mately, the fiery scourge which purged the Russian 
 church and burned away so much, may prove, and 
 indeed is quite likely to prove, to have been a blessing 
 in disguise. But such catastrophic upheavals are costly 
 in human suffering, and the fire of destruction rages 
 indiscriminately, reducing to ashes the rotten as well 
 as that which was well worth preserving. It is utterly 
 futile to raise the question whether the urgently needed 
 reform of that communion could not come in a less 
 destructive way: historical forces, like natural laws, 
 are pitiless in their unrestrainable onward rush, and 
 where wind has been sown for so many centuries so 
 generously, who can wonder that a whirlwind should 
 finally arise? 
 
 To many Westerners, so little and imperfectly 
 informed about the conditions which prevailed under 
 the former Russian tsarist autocracy, it appeared that 
 the Russian church was overtaken by a swift and inex¬ 
 plicable doom, as when a hurricane suddenly swoops 
 upon the coast of Florida, wrecking its cities and scat¬ 
 tering the ruins all along the shore. But in reality, 
 there was actually nothing sudden about the Russian 
 hurricane. The storm had been brewing for many 
 decades, and the rumble of the revolutionary thunders 
 
3 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 was heard long before the storm broke out into fury. 
 To understand the situation in which the church found 
 itself after the October Revolution of 1917, it is neces¬ 
 sary to trace the causes of the revolt against the 
 church in the history of the nineteenth century. 
 Hence, a brief review of these movements must be 
 presented. 
 
 First of all, it must be understood that Russia, 
 religiously speaking, is a world by itself. It is Chris¬ 
 tian, but its Christianity is Byzantine to begin with, 
 and besides remained untouched by the influences both 
 of the Renaissance and the Reformation movements. 
 It was largely free of the legalisms of Latin Chris¬ 
 tianity, but its petrified Byzantinism, redolent with 
 mystical piety and superstitious ceremonialism, was 
 essentially medieval, other-worldly, ascetic, and myth¬ 
 ological. It may be said to be much nearer to the 
 Christianity of the early centuries, in the sense that it 
 retained the atmosphere of supernaturalism and magic 
 as its native air. Thus its uneducated masses are only 
 half Christian, the larger half of their religious attitude 
 being of a pre-Christian quality. The same judgment 
 is expressed by no less a historian of the Russian cul¬ 
 tural life than Paul N. Milyukov in his classical Essays 
 upon the History oj the Russian Culture , 1 
 
 The official orthodoxy prided itself upon the preser¬ 
 vation of the Greek theological system, as worked 
 out by John of Damascus in the eighth cen¬ 
 tury, essentially unchanged, unprogressive and reac¬ 
 tionary. Fundamentally, it differed but little, as far 
 as the temper of its doctrine was concerned, from West¬ 
 ern Catholicism; it regarded the dogmas of the church 
 as “revealed truth,” and as such they were held to be 
 
 1 Prague, 1903; part II, Chapter V. 
 
4 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 absolutely without error, unsusceptible of either addi¬ 
 tion, subtraction, development, or reinterpretation. 
 The belief in these dogmas was necessary to salvation; 
 the sacraments were regarded as mediating objective 
 grace in a truly magical manner and were defined essen¬ 
 tially in the Roman Catholic sense. This authoritarian 
 system was imposed upon the clergy and the believers, 
 and on the whole has been accepted, by the great 
 majority, unquestioningly and implicitly, with even 
 less desire for a rational apprehension of the articles of 
 belief than has been the case in the Western com¬ 
 munions. The mentality of the official church had 
 been well represented by the opinions of the notorious 
 ober-procuror of the Holy Synod at the end of the nine¬ 
 teenth century (1880-1905), Constantine P. Pobedo- 
 nostsev. He rejected all rationalism as the fatal disease 
 of Western Europe, and proudly offered the Byzantine 
 mysticism and mystagogism in its stead. The absolute 
 truth cannot be clearly, logically formulated or rea¬ 
 soned out; it must be intuitively apprehended. The 
 Christian truth is thus mystically mediated through 
 the Orthodox cult, and in consequence the believer is 
 in possession of the absolute truth. Logic is the work 
 of the devil. “The spread of popular education is posi¬ 
 tively harmful.” 2 
 
 Another representative of this official Byzantinism 
 was a monk, Constantine N. Leontev (1831-91). The 
 true Christianity for Leontev was the ascetic other¬ 
 worldliness of the monks and the nuns. The world— 
 as well as man—is utterly corrupt. Since man is cor¬ 
 rupt, he cannot be expected freely to believe in God; 
 therefore, “we must force ourselves to believe in 
 
 * T A G - Massaryk: The Spirit of Russia , Vol. II, Part II, p 286 
 
 (In Czech.) * < 
 
5 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 God.” 3 Others, of course, must likewise be forced. 
 God cannot be known through reason or the moral 
 sense, but only by mystical intuition; science and phil¬ 
 osophy can give us no true knowledge of God, and are 
 in reality enemies of all true religion. Therefore, illit¬ 
 eracy is Russia’s great good fortune. Russians must be 
 preserved from the sins of European civilization, for 
 thus alone can they retain purity of faith; Russia must 
 therefore be permitted “to freeze.” 
 
 But along with this obscurantist dogmatism of 
 Orthodoxy, the Russian church was expected to serve 
 as the spiritual police of the autocratic state. This 
 probably was the greatest spiritual wrong which it had 
 suffered. It had always been in subjection to the tsars, 
 with just a few exceptions which only served to accen¬ 
 tuate the rule, but since the days of Peter the Great, 
 who could not tolerate even a possibility of the revival 
 of the pretensions of some Patriarch Nikon, the church 
 was effectually subjugated by the creation of the Holy 
 Governing Synod (1721). By this device, the tsar 
 became, in matters civil, the autocratic governor of the 
 church as well as of the state. It is often said that the 
 tsar was not the head of the Russian church. The exact 
 scope of his office may be seen from the Fundamental 
 Laws of the state, revised on May 6, 1906. Paragraph 
 4 states that the tsar of all the Russias wields an auto¬ 
 cratic power. To obey his supreme rule not only out of 
 fear, but because of duty dictated to us by conscience, 
 is advised by God himself. Paragraph 64 defines that 
 the Russian tsar, being a Christian ruler, is the supreme 
 protector and guardian of the dogmas of the Greek- 
 Russian faith, and supervises orthodoxy and good order 
 in the holy church. It is in the sense of a “bishop of 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 295. 
 
6 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 exterior affairs” that he is called the head of the church. 
 Katkov, the outstanding journalist of the reactionary 
 theocracy of the nineteenth century, described the 
 tsar’s theocratical standing in these glowing terms: 
 
 All power has its derivation from God; the Russian 
 tsar, however, was endowed with a special significance, 
 distinguishing him from the rest of the world s rulers. 
 He is not only the tsar of his land and the leader of his 
 people but has been designated by God to be the 
 guardian and custodian of the Orthodox church. The 
 Russian tsar is more than an heir to his ancestors, he is 
 a successor to the Caesars of the Eastern Empire, the 
 builders of the church and its conclaves, the founders 
 of the very creed of the Faith of Christ. With the fall 
 of Byzantium, Moscow arose and the grandeur of 
 Russia began. Herein lies the mystery of the deep dis¬ 
 tinction between Russia and all the nations of the 
 world.* 
 
 The appointment to the Holy Synod was ultimately 
 in the hands of the tsar. The original Regulations pro¬ 
 vided for a council of twelve, consisting of both clerical 
 and lay members. But soon by custom the lay mem¬ 
 bers were excluded, with the exception of the ober- 
 procuror, who was the tsar’s direct representative. This 
 official, in the course of time, became a practical dic¬ 
 tator. The decrees of the Synod became valid only 
 upon the signature of the tsar, but were presented to 
 the tsar only by the ober-procuror, who could veto the 
 synodical decree, or could merely refrain from present¬ 
 ing it to his imperial master, whereupon it automat¬ 
 ically lapsed. Down to 1905, the members of the Holy 
 Synod could not even communicate with the emperor 
 
 * In Moskovskya Vedomosti, Nov. 8, 1882; quoted in Olgin: The 
 Soul of the Russian Revolution, New York, 1917, p. 58. 
 
7 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 save through the ober-procuror. Needless to say that 
 the ober-procurors were carefully selected men, of 
 trusted loyalty and proven pliability, through whom 
 the entire Holy Synod became but a state department 
 for ecclesiastical affairs, on a par with the other depart¬ 
 ments of the governmental machinery. The ober-pro¬ 
 curor virtually had the power of choosing the members 
 of the body, for the emperor made his appointments 
 from the list nominated by the procuror. Four 
 members of the Synod held their office not by reason of 
 appointment, but because they occupied the chief 
 metropolitanates in Russia, those of Moscow, Peters¬ 
 burg, and Kiev, together with the exarchate of Georgia. 
 But since these exalted cathedras were filled by im¬ 
 perial appointment, and always carried with them a 
 seat in the Holy Synod, it was merely a more indirect 
 way of appointing to the governing body. It was in 
 this fashion that the ober-procuror, who was really the 
 tsar’s minister for ecclesiastical affairs, and was re¬ 
 sponsible to him alone, possessed the power to choose 
 the members of the body, and wielded control over 
 them which willy-nilly made them but mere puppets 
 in his hands. 
 
 The primary qualification of this chief executive and 
 judicial official of the Russian church was, of course, 
 his devotion to the tsar and subservience to the policy 
 of making the church the mainstay of the state. For 
 example, Constantine P. Pobedonostsev, who held the 
 office from 1880 to 1905, was a reactionary of the deep¬ 
 est dye. But especially enlightening is the case of the 
 associate ober-procuror, Prince N. D. Zhevakhov, who 
 served during the World War to the end of the tsarist 
 monarchy, for his type goes far to explain the violent 
 reaction of the revolutionaries against the church. He 
 
8 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 reveals himself to us in his Reminiscences B as a per¬ 
 sonality naively mystical and superstitious, as well as 
 bigotedly monarchical. He actually believed, and per¬ 
 suaded the empress to share his “faith,” that the Great 
 War continued to rage because an icon of St. Joasaph 
 had not been paraded along the army front, as this 
 saint had ordered in a dream! Only upon the condition 
 that the icon be exhibited would God have mercy upon 
 Russia and the world and stop the war! 
 
 His monarchism may be seen from a few examples 
 of his own expressions. In an audience with the tsarina 
 he reports himself as having said to her: 
 
 One of the greatest errors of the present time is the 
 idea of parliamentarism, hostile to the idea of the 
 imperial rule, proclaiming the principle of the collec¬ 
 tive mind. Collective mind does not exist at all. There 
 is a leader, and there is the mob blindly entrusting 
 itself to that leader and following him. Such a leader 
 is to be found in the tsar, the Anointed of God, as he 
 leads the people in the paths of God’s law and brings 
 down upon his people the blessing of God. The under¬ 
 mining of the sacred bases of Autocracy began long 
 ago, but it never originated among the masses of the 
 people, but always in the mind of some evil-intentioned 
 person. . . . The manifesto of October 17, 1905, 
 
 proclaiming the founding of the governmental Duma 
 was forced from the tsar by a small group of such evil- 
 intentioned individuals, who intimidated the govern¬ 
 ment by the threat of a revolution. 7 
 
 Describing an occasion upon which he saw the tsar 
 attending a church service, Prince Zhevakhov waxed 
 
 6 N. D. Zhevakhov: Reminiscences, Vol. I, Munich, 1923. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 6 Ibid., pp. 33 , 50 . 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 83 . 
 
9 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 melodramatic: “With what a love I looked upon the 
 tsar, with what a pain I read in the sad expression of 
 his wonderful eyes the torment and suffering which the 
 tsar carries on his shoulders on account of the sins of 
 Russia. ...” 8 It may be presumed that the world at 
 present knows fairly well whose sins it was that the tsar 
 had carried on his shoulders! And it was such a man 
 as Zhevakhov that headed the Russian church during 
 the fearful period of the Great War! 
 
 Appointment to the episcopal sees throughout Russia 
 was in the hands of the Holy Synod, which, of course, 
 was guided in its choice by the ober-procuror. It was 
 this very completely centralized church government 
 which made the tsar well-nigh all-powerful in the 
 church, as he was in the state, and made the church so 
 abjectly subservient to his autocratic dictates. The 
 bishops were elevated to their high office, and could 
 hope for further promotion only as they made them¬ 
 selves pleasing to the government. It was for this rea¬ 
 son that transferring of bishops from one see to another 
 was of frequent occurrence. Thus, for instance, Bishop 
 Yakovlev of Yaroslavl was transferred no less than five 
 different times within thirteen years (1892-1904). 0 No 
 wonder the bishops did not know the problems of their 
 immense dioceses! They did not have time even to 
 become acquainted with them. 
 
 With the dominance of this frankly autocratic eccle¬ 
 siastical polity, in which no suggestion of a democratic, 
 representative system was discernible, it is not difficult 
 to understand that the church organization has been 
 systematically exploited in the interests of political 
 autocracy and absolutism. The religious training of 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 40. 
 
 8 F. Haase: Die Religiose Psyche des Russisches Volkes, p. 54. 
 
10 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Russians of all classes was consciously and persistently 
 directed toward instilling in them ideas of the divine 
 prerogatives of the imperial autocrat, through whom 
 God carries out His will for Russia, as well as of the 
 obligation of passive obedience to his commands on the 
 part of the people. It would be difficult to exaggerate 
 the importance of this ideological basis of the tsarist 
 power, and the government was keenly alive to its 
 value. The church was the surest and stoutest prop of 
 the theocratic absolutism; it was the spiritual police 
 of the state. 
 
 The spiritual condition of the vast masses of the Rus¬ 
 sian peasants and workers was deplorable. They were 
 kept in dense ignorance (which in the opinion of Leon- 
 tev was so beneficial for them), and their religious con¬ 
 cepts were hardly above superstition and magic. The 
 very heart of the Russian peasant’s religion was his 
 worship of the images—the icons—and the relics from 
 which he expected relief from his many ills; and next 
 to this was his belief in the magical powers of the sac¬ 
 raments, with which his concept of “salvation” was 
 identified. There were no less than 241 officially 
 recorded “miracle-working” sacred icons, among which 
 the various representations of the Mother of God pre¬ 
 dominate. But aside from these, there are innumerable 
 shrines with various sacred paraphernalia, which are 
 all objects of veneration. Let anyone who wishes to 
 observe this practice but go to Moscow to the most cele¬ 
 brated shrine of the Iverian Virgin, standing under the 
 very walls of the Kremlin, and see the type of devotion 
 exhibited there. Secure in his naive beliefs in the 
 mythological and mystagogic Byzantinism, the mu¬ 
 zhik was “safe” both for the tsarist autocracy and the 
 Orthodox church. 
 
11 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 Even though the Russian masses were thus secured 
 in the thraldom of autocracy and superstition, the edu¬ 
 cated classes could not be kept segregated within the 
 limits of the official system, and could not be rendered 
 immune from the cultural influences of Western 
 Europe. The educated nineteenth-century Russia 
 was obliged to face the problems which the philosophy 
 and the science of the day had raised. Having no 
 native, ripe culture of their own, Russians were ill pre¬ 
 pared to assimilate the conclusions which elsewhere 
 were the fruit of an indigenous, slow-maturing cultural 
 process. Therefore the results of attempting to do so 
 were often startlingly violent and violently startling. 
 Toward the end of the eighteenth century, educated 
 Russia became thoroughly imbued with the spirit and 
 opinions of Voltaire, Diderot, and Rousseau, and later 
 with the German idealistic philosophy, especially that 
 of Sehelling, Hegel, and Feuerbach, as well as with the 
 materialism of Vogt, the positivism of Comte, and the 
 evolutionary agnosticism of Spencer. 
 
 The reaction of the intelligentsia to the Western 
 world-view produced various movements sharply dif¬ 
 ferentiated from one another. In general, they may 
 be divided into two classes: those which saw the salva¬ 
 tion of Russia in the acceptance of the Western culture 
 —the Westerners; and those which regarded the Euro¬ 
 pean culture as thoroughly decadent, and insisted that 
 Russia must create her own culture, quite unlike that 
 of the West, out of her own native elements. These 
 latter were known as the Slavophils. 
 
 The Slavophil party comprised educated Russians of 
 rather narrowly nationalistic tendencies. The nine¬ 
 teenth century witnessed an awakening of nationalistic 
 consciousness among many previously somnolent peo- 
 
12 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 pies, or such as were rendered comatose by the wily 
 drugging carried on by others, and in most cases their 
 awakening was accompanied with an abnormal nation¬ 
 alistic emphasis, often amounting to chauvinism, which 
 manifested itself among them. Similarly in Russia: 
 Slavophilism united an ardent, emotional patriotism or 
 nationalism with an equally zealous, somewhat uncrit¬ 
 ical valuation of the Russian Orthodox Church, even 
 though tempered by a certain amount of cautious crit¬ 
 icism of the excesses of official eeclesiasticism. To them 
 a hundred-percent Russianism wasi indissolubly con¬ 
 nected with a zealous profession of the Orthodox tenets 
 and an ecstatic admiration of the Old-Slavonic cultus. 
 In his philosophical discussion of The Meaning of His¬ 
 tory, Nicholas Berdyaev describes the movement in 
 these apt words: 
 
 The whole Slavophil movement was imbued with 
 hatred not so much of the European culture as of the 
 European civilization. The thesis “the West is decay¬ 
 ing” signified that the great European culture was 
 dying, and that the soulless, godless European civiliza¬ 
 tion had become victorious. . . . The struggle of 
 
 Russia with Europe, of the East with the West, repre¬ 
 sented a struggle of the spirit with unspirituality, or 
 religious culture with irreligious civilization. They 
 (the Slavophils) wished to believe that Russia would 
 not go the way of civilization, but would follow her own 
 path, her own destiny, that in Russia alone a culture on 
 religious bases was possible—a genuine spiritual cul¬ 
 ture. 10 
 
 The Slavophil party was, therefore, religiously very 
 important, for in spite of its blind devotion to the 
 
 10 Nicholas Berdyaev: The Meaning of History, Berlin, 1923, p. 
 250. (In Russian.) 
 
13 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 national church, it produced or influenced the leading 
 religious thinkers of modern Russia. Hence it would 
 be fitting and proper, in the interests of a just evalua¬ 
 tion of the Russian religious situation as a whole, to 
 present a brief resume of this school of thought as well 
 as the related mystical schools, for they were all rather 
 closely connected in principle, if not always in method. 
 
 The founder of the Slavophil party was Ivan V. 
 Kireyevsky (1806-1855), who taught that Russia was 
 essentially different from Europe, . in as much as the 
 foundations of Russian culture were to be sought in the 
 mystical faith of the Russian Christianity, while those 
 of European culture manifested themselves in her 
 rationalistic sciences and her positivistic philosophy. 
 The Russian church, untouched by these corrosive 
 influences, had alone preserved Christianity in its mys¬ 
 tical, intuitive apprehension of the absolute truth as 
 revealed in the Orthodox dogmas as well as in the cul- 
 tus; as such, Russian Christianity had the exalted task 
 of restoring to the original purity of the teaching and 
 spirit of Christ the churches of Western Europe, both 
 the Roman Catholic and the Protestant. 
 
 Another exponent of the Slavophil dogma of Russian 
 messianism was found in A. S. Khomyakov (1804- 
 1860), who proved to be a remarkable theological sys- 
 tematizer and exponent of the movement, as well as a 
 keen polemicist against both Roman Catholicism and 
 Protestantism. His program likewise comprised the 
 familiar thesis: Europe is decaying; we must save it! 
 The political economist of the party was found in Con¬ 
 stantine Aksakov (1817-1860), who advocated a sys¬ 
 tem of theocracy. Politically, the creed of Slavophil¬ 
 ism, as expressed by Danilevsky in that Bible of later 
 Slavophilism, Russia and Europe, defined the task of 
 
14 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Russia as consisting of the unification of all Slavic 
 nations in a pan-Slavic federation, and at the head of 
 the united Slavic world as rescuing Constantinople 
 from the hands of the Turk. The ancient capital of 
 the Byzantine Empire was then to be restored to the 
 headship of Eastern Orthodoxy under the aegis of Rus¬ 
 sia. Even a most elementary knowledge of the policies 
 of the Russian government during the World War suf¬ 
 fices to reveal the startling similarities between the 
 official and the Slavophil policies; but it ought to be 
 added that official Russia was a great deal more inter¬ 
 ested in securing a free outlet from the Black Sea than 
 in making Constantinople the ecclesiastical head of the 
 East! Incidentally, it helps to reveal the close connec¬ 
 tion between the slogans and policies of the movement 
 so deeply religious as was Slavophilism, and the official 
 imperialistic expansionist politics of the state. 
 
 Slavophilism affected the best religious minds of Rus¬ 
 sia from that time on, and thus was religiously much 
 more fruitful and important than its opponent, the 
 Westernist party. Even though held with many impor¬ 
 tant modifications by the later thinkers, yet the influ¬ 
 ence which these ideas exerted was great. Among 
 those deeply affected by Slavophilism is to be counted 
 the most genuinely Russian of the great modern writ¬ 
 ers of that nation, Theodore M. Dostoevsky (1821- 
 1881), whose thought gave an impulse and direction to 
 the best minds in the Russian church; and they, in 
 turn, afford at least a moderate promise of intellectual 
 and spiritual reorientation within that vast com¬ 
 munion. 
 
 Dostoevsky has been called the “father of modern 
 Russian religious thought,” and the “Russian Dante.” 
 The problems with which he was eternally occupied 
 
15 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 were at bottom religious problems. In everything he 
 wrote, he was wrestling with the questions raised by 
 nihilism: a denial of faith in God and the godman, 
 and the Western humanistic affirmation of man, or the 
 superman, the mangod. He was constantly asking 
 himself the question: What becomes of the man who 
 had lost all sense of objective responsibility and duty, 
 and who wishes to be a law unto himself, affirming for 
 himself moral solipsism? One may read his Crime and 
 Punishment , or The Possessed , or his masterpiece, The 
 Brothers Karamazov, and everywhere find the thinker 
 wrestling with this central problem. His answer rings 
 out clearly that man either finds his salvation by 
 becoming a godman, or destroys himself in an attempt 
 to become a mangod. Either Christ or Smerdyakov; 
 for if there be no God, then all things are permitted. 
 That is the lesson of his Brothers Karamazov. The 
 theme of theanthropy, i.e. of God incarnating himself 
 in man, runs like a dominant note through most of the 
 modern Russian progressive thought—the theme of the 
 deification of the human, of salvation by incarnation, 
 in opposition to the anthropocentric emphasis of the 
 West. 
 
 In the next place, Dostoevsky emphasizes the moral 
 nature of man, his moral freedom, which to him meant 
 primarily the consciousness of moral responsibility. His 
 “dark” heroes show how an abuse of this most essential 
 characteristic of man as a moral being leads to self- 
 destruction, because of its perversion into license. But 
 the possibility of evil is necessary in order that man 
 may freely and of his own choice prefer good to evil. 
 Thus this is a universe the chief object of which is the 
 production of moral beings who would freely and out of 
 intelligent conviction choose good, persistently and con- 
 
16 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 sistently, because they know the power of evil which 
 leads to self-destruction. This, then, is the process of 
 salvation, or in other words, the process of develop¬ 
 ment of moral personalities. The way to character is 
 only through suffering, through overcoming evil, 
 through a voluntary choice of good. The great fact of 
 free will is the greatest human tragedy, because of the 
 possibility of its abuse, but it is likewise the absolutely 
 necessary means toward the greatest good. 
 
 As for Western Christianity or culture, Dostoevsky 
 regarded both as uncongenial to the growth and devel¬ 
 opment of such a free personality as he portrayed in his 
 idealized Christian character, and on that score 
 opposed Westernism bitterly. In his overvaluation of 
 the task and destiny of Russian Christianity, he often 
 exposed himself to the charge of chauvinism, for he 
 expected the regeneration of all Western Europe to 
 proceed solely from his “God-incarnating” nation. 
 
 But it was only with Vladimir S. Solov’ev (1853- 
 1900) that Russia produced her outstanding religious 
 philosopher of modern times, the founder of her school 
 of speculative mysticism. He had affinities both with 
 the Slavophils and Dostoevsky, but he was too thor¬ 
 oughly religious to identify himself with a movement 
 which was primarily nationalistic in character; more¬ 
 over, in distinction from Dostoevsky, although Solov’ev 
 combated the same Western foe as the great novelist 
 did, he was much more clearly conscious of the inade¬ 
 quacy of the official theology than the former. He 
 developed a speculative system of his own, wherein in 
 many features he departed from the traditional doc¬ 
 trines. It is essentially mystical, but he believed that 
 reason may be an aid to a fuller understanding of the 
 mysteries of the divine economy; in this respect he dif- 
 
17 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 fers from the school of alogical mysticism, which 
 despairs of any aid the reason may give in the search for 
 truth, and consequently rests its case entirely with the 
 intuitive, immediate, practical approach to God. 
 
 Solov’ev conceived the task of religion to consist in 
 joining the human life with the divine, or to turn the 
 phrase about, in the incarnation of the divine in the 
 human. This would result in the formation of a the- 
 anthropic personality, or a process of deification, but 
 without any implication that the human would cease 
 to be human or become exclusively divine, but rather 
 that the combination of the two would form a divine- 
 human entity. This transformatory process, although 
 God-initiated, cannot be accomplished without volun¬ 
 tary, intelligent human cooperation. “Thus religion 
 is a divine-human affair.” 11 
 
 Incarnation was regarded by him as the proper mode 
 of redemption and salvation for all men, and this fea¬ 
 ture forms the chief difference in the theological formu¬ 
 lation of this particular doctrine between the East and 
 the West, for Solov’ev followed the best and the most 
 ancient traditions of the East in the matter. The incar¬ 
 nation is not an isolated phenomenon, but the uniform 
 method of salvation of all men. The Western dogmas 
 of juridical justification of the Anselmic satisfaction 
 theory, or the substitutionary atonement of the older 
 Protestant theology, were rejected as “opposed both 
 to a philosophical apprehension as well as all truly 
 Christian feeling.” 12 
 
 But equally important in Solov’ev’s system was his 
 insistence upon the human free will, upon a free and 
 
 11 Collected Works of V. S. Solov’ev, Vol. Ill, The Spiritual Bases 
 of Life, St. Petersburg, p. 270. (In Russian.) 
 
 12 Solov’ev, op., cit, Vol. Ill, Discourses about Theanthropy, p. 152. 
 
18 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 voluntary as well as intelligent acceptance of the thean- 
 thropic process, and an unconstrained cooperation 
 with it on the part of the human agent. This saving 
 process, resulting in a theanthropic personality, is the 
 method of individual salvation. The church is com¬ 
 posed of such theanthropic individuals, and is destined 
 to become coextensive with mankind. The goal of 
 cosmic history is “the incarnation of the divine idea in 
 the world.” 
 
 Passing then to a discussion of the historic Christian 
 communions, Solov’ev manifested the characteristic 
 Slavophil aversion to the Western forms of Christian¬ 
 ity, although with most significant and important mod¬ 
 ifications. Indeed, far from rejecting them, he only 
 pointed out what he considered to be their erroneous 
 overemphasis upon rightful, and in fact necessary, prin¬ 
 ciples; and far from exalting his own above the rest, 
 he held that a perfect, full-orbed, all-harmonious Chris¬ 
 tianity can be obtained only by a synthesis, or a union, 
 of all the ideal elements of the various communions of 
 Christendom. In this respect, then, Solov’ev repre¬ 
 sented a synthesis between the concepts of the Slavo¬ 
 phils and those of the religious Westerners. 
 
 His chief criticism of Roman Catholicism rested 
 upon its attempt to establish the divine economy in the 
 world by force. This he regarded as an essential denial 
 of the very heart of Christ’s gospel, that love and truth 
 are stronger than evil and error. The kingdom of God 
 could not be imposed upon an unwilling humanity by 
 force; it must be intelligently understood and voluntar¬ 
 ily accepted. 18 
 
 The historical justification of Protestantism was to 
 be found in its opposition to just this rule of force in 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 181. 
 
19 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 spiritual matters, this program of enforced salvation. 
 Protestantism demanded full rights for a free spiritual 
 personality. But the only criterion it set up was the 
 Bible, and the consequent need of interpretation of it 
 called forth the activity of the individual reason, which 
 in the end became the standard of religious truth. Thus 
 Protestantism naturally tended toward subjectivism 
 and rationalism, which found its purest expression in 
 Hegelianism. Consequently, it set itself against many 
 tenets of the revealed truth as held by Catholic Chris- 
 tionity. Hence both the Roman Catholic and the 
 Protestant communions erred in part, one in the direc¬ 
 tion of denying freedom to the individual conscience, 
 and the other in the opposite direction of denying 
 rightful authority. 
 
 The Eastern churches, on the contrary, avoided both 
 these faults, and thus have preserved the Christian 
 truth intact, although they have never realized it in a 
 true Christian culture. Nevertheless, the ideal church 
 must comprise not only the orthodox Catholic tenets, 
 but also a single, corporate, unified ecclesiastical 
 organization and rule; in other words, it must be a 
 synthesis of the various fundamental principles of all 
 historic Christian communions. This conviction made 
 Solov’ev the chief exponent of the idea of church union. 
 
 It was this aspect of Solov’ev’s program which 
 aroused against him the greatest amount of opposition 
 on the part of the ecclesiastical officialdom. He stated 
 the case for union of Christendom in his book entitled 
 The Great Controversy and Christian Politics ' 4 in 
 which he defined the goal of Christian politics as that 
 of bringing about a free union of humanity in the 
 church of Christ. He freely acknowledged as valid and 
 
 14 Solov’ev: op. tit., V ol. IV. 
 
20 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 indispensable the great idea of Roman Catholicism— 
 centralized authority, order, and discipline. This cen¬ 
 tralization of authority is needful for the whole church, 
 and since it is already established within the Roman 
 communion, it should be freely and voluntarily 
 acknowledged and accepted for themselves by the 
 remaining communions as necessary for the highest 
 efficiency, but must not be imposed or enforced upon 
 any unwilling branch of the church. The Eastern 
 church, on the other hand, has always placed emphasis 
 upon preservation of the purity of the dogmatic system 
 —orthodoxy—and in so far has done right. This special 
 contribution of the Eastern churches should likewise 
 be freely accepted by the rest of Christendom. 
 
 We, Easterners, are right in defending the sanctity of 
 ecclesiastical tradition; the Catholics are right in 
 defending the unity and independence of ecclesiastical 
 rule. Both we and they are more or less guilty of 
 unwillingness to acknowledge the inseparableness of 
 these elements in the plenum of ecclesiastical life, the 
 equal necessity of both for the perfection of the 
 church. 16 
 
 In spite of the fundamentally mystical character of 
 Solov’ev’s concept of Christianity—for he did not 
 derive his conclusions from reason alone, nor from the 
 moral or religious sense, but defined it in essentially 
 mystical terms as a process of theanthropy—he believed 
 that it could be stated and apprehended in logical 
 terms. In this respect he was followed by Prince 
 Eugene N. Trubetskoy (1865-1919), who was his chief 
 modern disciple. Prince Trubetskoy developed his 
 concept of Christianity in his work on The Meaning of 
 
 lu The Great Controversy and Christian Politics, p. 103. 
 
21 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 Life. 19 In this book we find the familiar outlines of a 
 theological system very similar to that of Solov’ev’s, 
 although it is presented in a more philosophical termi¬ 
 nology. The godman, the theanthropic personality, is 
 to him the goal of all evolution, as it was to Solov’ev. 
 It is interesting to notice in this connection the con¬ 
 clusion that he drew from the doctrine of incarnation: 
 he attempted to justify the use of sacred pictures, the 
 icons, against the aspersions of Protestants, by advanc¬ 
 ing the argument that they were concrete affirmations 
 of the truth of incarnation, i.e. of the possibility of 
 depicting the divine in human form. There is, of 
 course, nothing distinctly original in this argument, for 
 it was used by Theodore of Studion during the icono¬ 
 clastic controversies. 
 
 Trubetskoy likewise stressed that second cardinal 
 doctrine of the Russian progressive school, namely, the 
 moral freedom of the individual, which is his greatest 
 potentiality, but likewise the cause of sin. “Divine 
 love does not desire an automaton in man, but a friend. 
 Therein is the justification of freedom: without free¬ 
 dom there is no friendship, and without friendship no 
 love.” 17 Eternal opposition to God’s purpose results in 
 eternal death. Many passages seem to indicate that 
 this concept contemplates annihilation. “All power of 
 evil is only in time and for a time.” “In eternity evil 
 will cease to be real.” 18 Involuntarily one is reminded 
 of the great mystic of the Middle Ages, Meister Eck- 
 hart, to whom also evil was only privation, and pos¬ 
 sessed no real positive character. But Trubetskoy was 
 too indefinite in his statements to warrant a categorical 
 
 18 Berlin, 1922. (In Russian.) 
 
 17 Ibid., p. 104. 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 135. 
 
22 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 definition. He likewise rejected all ideas of salvation 
 by someone else’s merit, and made that a moral con¬ 
 cept: a free, voluntary acceptance of the divine and 
 union with it, resultant in a theanthropic personality. 
 But he decidedly spoiled this idea by identifying the 
 union with the partaking of the Eucharist, 19 which, of 
 course, is to be understood as a case of capitulation to 
 the official theology. Such instances, by the way, are 
 by no means rare. 
 
 But his fundamental position, defended against the 
 protagonists of the school of alogical mysticism, is his 
 affirmation of a logical apperception of the eternal veri¬ 
 ties against the assertion that these truths cannot be 
 known but are only intuitively, mystically, mediated. 
 
 The school of alogical mysticism comprises many 
 of the present-day Russian religious thinkers, such as 
 P. A. Florensky, N. A. Berdyaev, and S. N. Bulgakov, 
 to name only the most important. But no attempt can 
 be made to present their teaching in detail. 20 In gen¬ 
 eral, they all oppose rationalism on the ground that it 
 leads to self-assertion and self-affirmation, which is the 
 very essence of separation from God. 21 The mysteries 
 of religion are by their own concept contradictory to 
 reason. The chief spokesman for the party is P. A. 
 Florensky, to whom the very attempt to work out a 
 reasonable religious theory is “the element of diabolic 
 pride, a desire not to receive God into oneself, but to 
 pass oneself for God—a presumption and self-will.” 22 
 Reason has no part in the act of faith; it may only sub- 
 
 19 Ibid., p. 206. 
 
 80 Cf. Nicholas Lossky: “The Successors of Vladimir Solovyef,” 
 in The Slavonic Review, June, 1924. 
 
 21 Cf. N. A. Berdyaev: The Meaning of History, Berlin, 1923, 
 pp. 153ff. (In Russian.) 
 
 22 P. A. Florensky: The PiUar and Affirmation of Truth, Moscow, 
 1914, p. 65. (In Russian.) 
 
23 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 mit itself in dutiful silence. Truth cannot be known; 
 it must be accepted. Florensky expresses this thought 
 in his frank avowal: 
 
 I do not even know whether Truth exists or not. But 
 I feel with all my heart that I cannot live without it. 
 And I know that if it exists, it is my all: my reason, my 
 good, my strength, my life, and my happiness. It is 
 possible that it does not exist; but I love it more than 
 anything else which does exist. I relate myself to it 
 as if it were existent, and love it—even though it per¬ 
 haps does not exist—with all my soul and all my intel¬ 
 lect. For its sake I reject all else, even my questionings 
 and my doubts.” 23 
 
 Thus there is no bridge between reason and faith. 
 God saves men, but they do not even know how, and 
 cannot know it. This mystical rhetoric really spells the 
 utter despair of reason, and brings the entire progres¬ 
 sive movement dangerously near to bankruptcy, for it 
 is akin to a capitulation to the official system. But the 
 saving difference is that of principle: the official sys¬ 
 tem requires acquiescence in the dictates of external 
 authority, while this mystical approach fundamentally 
 rests upon an individual experience of God. 
 
 As has already been mentioned, the introduction of 
 the Western culture and spirit produced, aside from 
 the Slavophils and their successors, another group, 
 which believed that Russia’s only hope of development 
 and greatness lay in the acceptance of Western culture, 
 and wished to transform Russia into a thoroughly 
 Europeanized country. The line of the Westerners, as 
 far as religious thought was concerned, was headed by 
 Peter J. Chaadaev (1794-1856); he was not a profes- 
 
 28 Ibid,., pp. 67-68. 
 
24 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 sional theologian, but a retired army officer. He pub¬ 
 lished, in 1836, a Philosophical Letter, in which he 
 rejected in a rather indiscriminate and undifferentiat¬ 
 ing manner all things Russian, and enthusiastically 
 accepted and extolled all things European. With him, 
 the rejection of official Russian Orthodoxy begins, but 
 in its place he would have Russia accept Roman 
 Catholicism, which he mistook for the efficient cause of 
 European—particularly French—culture. In a sense, 
 therefore, the Westerners were cultural exponents of 
 the policy of Peter the Great, while to the Slavophils 
 the ruthless tsar was anathema, and they idealized 
 the pre-Petrine Russia. The lead of Chaadaev, as far 
 as the trend toward Westernism was concerned, was 
 followed by a very large number of educated Russians. 
 Many of the outstanding writers like Belinsky, Tur¬ 
 genev, and Herzen, as well as others, were Westerners, 
 and their influence was enormous. The party largely 
 followed the philosophical leadership of Hegel, later 
 of the Hegelian left, thus differentiating itself from the 
 Slavophils, who were predominantly followers of 
 Schelling. Religiously, most of them scornfully 
 rejected the official theological system as hopelessly 
 mythological and irrational, but rested satisfied with 
 their philosophical negations; hence, contrary to the 
 Slavophils, the Westerners were religiously sterile, 
 or followed Comtian positivism and fetishism, or 
 Feuerbach’s anthropism. Their morality was utili¬ 
 tarian, in opposition to the ascetic other-worldliness of 
 Byzantinism. Politically, they were ardent liberals 
 and determined opponents of the tsarist absolutism, 
 even thus manifesting a sharp contrast with the con¬ 
 servative and chauvinistic Slavophils. Thus, on the 
 whole, the Westerners became hopelessly alienated 
 
25 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 from the church, regarding Russian Christendom as a 
 compound of mystagogy, magic, superstition, and a 
 powerful obscurantist force which fanatically resisted 
 all progress, enlightenment, and the highest good of 
 humanity. 
 
 A few characterizations of the leaders of this group 
 will suffice. Thus, for instance, V. G. Belinsky (1811- 
 1848), the brilliant literary critic and the acknowledged 
 leader of the progressive group of the first half of the 
 nineteenth century, passed from Schelling, through 
 Hegel, to Feuerbach, and to positivism, materialism, 
 and atheism; politically he was a believer in democracy 
 and socialism. During his Hegelian period, he was 
 inclined to tolerate the oppressive realities of the Rus¬ 
 sian autocracy, because of the dictum that whatever is 
 real is ipso facto rational. But later, Feuerbach and 
 Strauss supplanted Hegel, with the result that the 
 earthly god of Russia, the tsar, suffered the same fate 
 in the estimation of Belinsky as the heavenly monarch. 
 When his old friend, Gogol, the famous author of 
 Dead Souls , was converted to the tenets of the Ortho¬ 
 dox church, and in his Selected Passages from Letters 
 to Friends 24 enthusiastically espoused the official cause 
 of the church, Belinsky unhesitatingly broke all con¬ 
 nections with him and wrote against him an open letter 
 which became the acknowledged program of the pro¬ 
 gressive party. It was for the crime of having read this 
 letter of Belinsky’s in a meeting of kindred spirits that 
 Dostoevsky and others were sentenced to death, but 
 later this horrible verdict was commuted to a term in a 
 Siberian prison and exile. What Russia needs, cried 
 Belinsky, is law and order, justice and enlightenment, 
 
 24 Complete Collection of the Works of N. V. Gogol, Berlin, 1921, 
 Vol. IX. (In Russian.) 
 
26 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 rational education, and no mystical Orthodoxy with its 
 passive submission to the existing wrongs. The strug¬ 
 gle was directed against the superstition and obscur¬ 
 antism of the Russian church. But that did not mean 
 that Belinsky was irreligious. As T. G. Masaryk so 
 well expressed it, the opposition of Belinsky, just as of 
 Voltaire, was directed against the ecclesiasticized, cler- 
 icalized religiosity of the church, and not against reli¬ 
 gion as such. “We have not yet solved the problem of 
 the existence of God, and you want to eat!” Belinsky 
 once vehemently rebuked Turgenev, who grew tired of 
 a discussion about the topic. 26 
 
 Alexander I. Herzen (1812-1870), who had emigrated 
 from Russia and from 1847 to his death lived in 
 Europe, mostly in England, left his native land in order 
 to gain freedom of expression for his radical liberalism. 
 He was one of the most important figures in the entire 
 literary history of Russia, as well as the leader of the 
 progressive youth of “the sixties,” and his Kolokol 
 (The Bell), published in London and regularly smug¬ 
 gled into Russia in thousands of copies, led the pro¬ 
 gressive liberalism of the younger set; even Tsar Alex¬ 
 ander read it regularly, “to keep himself informed.” 
 To Herzen, the old political regime of absolutism 
 rested upon theological prepossessions and ideology; 
 hence the first step in the direction of overthrowing the 
 theocratic absolutism consisted in gaining freedom 
 from the thraldom of theological doctrinairism. The 
 church and the state stand or fall together. The gen¬ 
 uine revolution, therefore, must be socialistic and athe¬ 
 ist-materialistic. He, however, differed from such men 
 as Bakunin in holding that a revolution, i.e. a trans¬ 
 formation of an absolutistic state into a truly demo- 
 
 28 Masaryk: The Spirit of Russia, Vol. I, p. 449. 
 
27 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 cratic one, could not be accomplished by a coup d’etat. 
 It could only be brought about by education; not 
 by an external compulsion and force, but by an inner, 
 spiritual liberation and development. Hence he was 
 against nihilistic terrorism. 
 
 Although quite different from the two preceding rep¬ 
 resentatives of Westernism, and hardly a Westemist 
 himself, yet by his rejection of the official Christian 
 systems, Count Lev N. Tolstoy may properly be men¬ 
 tioned in this connection. As he himself told us in his 
 Confession , 26 he, like the great majority of men of his 
 class, had early “discarded all belief in anything that 
 he was taught” religiously. He had lived the life of a 
 typical representative of the Russian intelligentsia 
 until at the age of fifty he passed through a religious 
 crisis. At first he sought to force himself to believe 
 indiscriminately everything that the church taught 
 him, hoping that in some mysterious fashion he might 
 find the meaning of the riddle of existence. But after 
 several years of such conscientious spiritual drudgery 
 he became convinced of the uselessness of his experi¬ 
 ment, and rejected all Christian systems, Orthodox, 
 Roman Catholic, and Protestant alike, adopting for his 
 religious creed “the five laws of Jesus”: be not angry; 
 do not commit adultery; take no oaths; resist not evil; 
 and do not make war. 27 From that time on he often 
 denounced in the most scathing terms the historic 
 Christian communions, especially the Russian Ortho¬ 
 dox, and was in turn excommunicated by that church in 
 1901. But in spite of the seemingly ruthless rational¬ 
 ism of Tolstoy, his attitude toward what he regarded as 
 the real gospel of Jesus was quite uncritical and dog- 
 
 28 Count Lev N. Tolstoy: My Confession , New York, 1887. 
 
 27 Idem., My Religion, New York, 1885, p. 242. 
 
 {BOSTON COLLEGE L1BRAR 
 CHESTNU1 HILL. MASS. 
 
28 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 matic. Tolstoy, contrary to common Western opinion, 
 is not to be regarded as a leading Russian religious 
 thinker, and it is improbable that his compatriots will 
 be extensively influenced by his religious radicalism. 
 His following forms a small sectarian body at the 
 present time, and is not likely to grow. 
 
 The Westernist progressive party, under radical 
 influences emanating from countries like Germany and 
 France, differentiated itself into the nihilist, and later 
 into the terrorist, organizations. This radical wing was 
 frankly atheistic, socialistic, communistic, or anarchis¬ 
 tic, having passed largely under the influence of the 
 Western socialism of Marx and Engels. Michael A. 
 Bakunin (1814-1876) was the father of Russian an¬ 
 archism. Bakunin was neither a thinker nor a great 
 leader; his contribution to the revolutionary ideology 
 is to be understood in terms of a human being so exas¬ 
 perated by the stupid and unjust social organization 
 that he, the victim of the system, in an unreasoning 
 rage, resolves to destroy and annihilate it. His entire 
 life was an expression of this crude impulse. It would 
 be difficult to understand the comparative success of 
 Bakunin’s gospel of pan-destruction, were it not for the 
 circumstance that so many ardent young spirits, burn¬ 
 ing with moral indignation at the sight of the oppres¬ 
 sion and appalling injustice which they observed about 
 them, and of which they, too, were victims, were 
 directly provoked into a similar mood of impotent rage, 
 and into this same desire utterly to destroy the iniqui¬ 
 tous thing. 
 
 As far as the official theology of the church was con¬ 
 cerned, Bakunin, like other men of his kind, regarded 
 it as superstition. To him, atheism was a liberalizing 
 force, freeing man from all external authority. The 
 
29 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 church was likened by him to “a heavenly dramshop” 
 where men were drugged to forget their temporal mis¬ 
 eries. One is involuntarily reminded of the analogous 
 Marxian dictum that “religion is the opium of the 
 people,” so effectively inscribed by the Soviet authori¬ 
 ties on the building opposite the famous shrine of the 
 Iverian Virgin in Moscow. Religion, to Bakunin, was 
 a temporary theological stage of human development, 
 just about to be supplanted by the last and highest 
 stage, positivistic science. The goal of all history and 
 development is the absolute equality of humankind, 
 where no external compulsory authority would con¬ 
 strain the individual will: this would be the period of 
 anarchy—absence of rule. Therefore Bakunin recog¬ 
 nized no authority; for with the fall of divine sanctions 
 every other basis of authority had disappeared. 
 
 This Russian gospel of pan-destruction took on the 
 peculiar form of nihilism, so well depicted in the person 
 of Bazarov in Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons. 
 Bazarov insisted that he believed in nothing but 
 “frogs,” as he capriciously expressed it, meaning 
 thereby his belief in natural sciences, and that only by 
 exact scientific knowledge, to be obtained from the 
 study of nature—for instance, dissecting frogs—could 
 Russia be saved. This faith was shared by all nihilistic 
 rejecters of “faith,” as that concept was identified with 
 the superstitious credulity demanded by the official 
 ecclesiastical dogmatism; but in so far as they them¬ 
 selves were Russians, too, they believed with equally 
 ardent and uncritical enthusiasm in their atheistic 
 materialism and in their dogmatic panaceas for the 
 perfecting of society. The leading figures among them 
 were Chernyshevsky, Dobrolyubov, and Pisarev. 
 
 Nicholas G. Chernyshevsky (1828-1889) was an 
 
30 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 influential publicist who popularized the conclusions 
 of positivistic materialism. He was chiefly a disciple 
 of Feuerbach, whose writings he knew almost by heart. 
 His influence upon the younger intelligentsia of the 
 sixties was so marked that the nihilists, as the group 
 was called, largely reproduced his point of view. 
 
 Chernyshevsky’s enormous influence was exercised 
 through a magazine which he edited; but the govern¬ 
 ment considered his very fecund literary activity so 
 dangerous that he was arrested in 1862 and sentenced 
 to hard labor in the Siberian mines for the term of 
 fourteen years. While he was in a Petersburg prison, 
 he wrote his very widely read novel What is to be 
 donef (1863), which became the working program 
 of the younger radical generation. Chernyshevsky 
 advanced in this work to uncompromising commu¬ 
 nism : the hero of the novel, Rakhmetov, did not flinch 
 before the conclusion: “My shirt—your shirt; my pipe 
 —your pipe; my wife—your wife.” Masaryk char¬ 
 acterizes the book as “the gospel of nihilism.” 28 
 
 Another ardent apostle of nihilism, Dobrolyubov, 
 was originally educated for the priesthood, but became 
 a disciple and friend of Chernyshevsky, and as such a 
 determined opponent of “the kingdom of darkness.” He 
 was a colaborer with his teacher in the latter’s literary 
 review, and became a redoubtable literary critic. Pisa¬ 
 rev also was a critic, and as such continued the work of 
 Dobrolyubov, who died young. He, too, doggedly 
 fought against theocracy, tsarism, and the church, 
 drawing his inspiration not only from Feuerbach, but 
 even from later materialistic scientists like Vogt and 
 Moleschott. 
 
 Under these conditions, the various Western influ- 
 
 28 Loc. cit., Vol. II, Part I, p. 64. 
 
31 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 ences conspired to make of educated Russians most 
 determined opponents of the existing tyrannous regime 
 as well as of the prevailing social conditions. The nat¬ 
 ural sciences, especially Darwinism, the philosophy of 
 Comte and Feuerbach, the historical views of Buckley 
 as well as the socialistic literature, all became known 
 and largely accepted by Russia. Almost every member 
 of the intelligentsia of the sixties was a democrat or a 
 socialist, a Darwinian in science, a materialistic atheist, 
 a positivist, a believer in woman suffrage, and a con¬ 
 vinced opponent of the status quo. The whole tone of 
 the educated society was negative, revolutionary, and 
 it could not be otherwise, because of the oppression 
 with which the state persecuted every suggestion of the 
 liberals in the political, the economic, or the religious 
 fields. Literature of the period is full of this spirit, in 
 spite of the strict censorship. The foci of this seething 
 discontent were the universities and schools of higher 
 education, and the revolutionary spirit was shared by 
 both men and women. Indeed, it is remarkable what a 
 large role women played in the struggle. They were 
 found among the active terrorists, and their numbers 
 reached one fifth of the whole number. 
 
 From theory, so cruelly persecuted, the nihilist 
 movement passed over to practice. Since no legitimate 
 public opposition through literary channels was pos¬ 
 sible, for the organs like Chernyshevsky’s Contempo¬ 
 rary and The Russian Word were suspended by the 
 government, and their editors imprisoned, the ardent 
 liberals, hopeless of any other means of amelioration, 
 and with their souls in revolt at the sight of the injus¬ 
 tice and tyranny to which they and all Russia were 
 subjected, resorted to secret plottings of violent meas¬ 
 ures. They began publishing in a secret printing-office 
 
32 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 a periodical entitled The Great Russia, which furthered 
 the idea of appealing to the tsar to call a constituent 
 assembly and grant a constitution. Aside from this 
 demand for the transformation of Russia into a consti¬ 
 tutional monarchy, there also appeared many more 
 radically tempered appeals demanding organization of 
 Russia upon socialistic bases. 
 
 Early in 1862, a radical proclamation known as The 
 Young Russia pronounced a bloody uprising against 
 the existing regime, and its final overthrow, as the only 
 possible means of liberating Russia from the thraldom 
 of the tsarist autocracy. With their youthful confi¬ 
 dence “in ourselves, in our own strength, in the favor 
 of the people, and in an honorable future of Russia 
 which is destined by fate to be the first to realize the 
 socialistic program,” they proposed to appeal to the 
 tsar for cooperation, which, however, they confidently 
 expected to be refused. Thereupon they proposed to 
 issue the summons: 
 
 Snatch your axes . . . and then . . . hack the 
 tsarist party without mercy as it now knows no mercy 
 toward us, hack it in the city-squares, if its degraded 
 hirelings should dare to show themselves there, hack it 
 in the houses, hack it in the narrow city alleys, hack it 
 in the wide streets of the large cities, hack it in the 
 villages and in the solitary dwellings. 
 
 And do not forget to shout with each new victory, 
 with each new struggle: Long live the socialistic and 
 democratic republic of Russia! 88 
 
 Shortly after the publication of this manifesto, St. 
 Petersburg and other cities were terrified by a large 
 number of fires started by incendiaries, and it was com- 
 
 29 Masaryk: op. cit., Vol. II, Part I, p. 147. 
 
33 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 monly supposed that these criminal acts were but a 
 part of the revolutionary program. The government 
 now became aroused and took stringent measures for 
 the suppression of the whole widely ramified revolu¬ 
 tionary movement. 
 
 The movement, thus driven underground, organized 
 itself (in 1862) into the first secret revolutionary soci¬ 
 ety, The Land and Liberty, taking its name from a pub¬ 
 lication bearing that title. But this one, as well as 
 practically all other similar secret societies, was broken 
 up by the secret police in 1863, so that it could then be 
 reported by the police that the whole revolutionary 
 movement had been suppressed. But this was a mis¬ 
 take. The secret activity and propagation of radical 
 opinions continued and soon bore fruit: in 1866 a stu¬ 
 dent-nobleman, Karakozov, attempted to assassinate 
 Tsar Alexander II by firing a pistol at him. Court 
 investigation established the fact of his membership in 
 a secret society called Hell, consisting predominantly 
 of nonregular students of the Petersburg and the Mos¬ 
 cow universities. This discovery and implication of 
 many students in the affair led to the flight of large 
 numbers of them from Russia, and thus made of these 
 emigres confirmed and professional revolutionaries. 
 
 The terrorist activity of the revolutionary organiza¬ 
 tions of the Left cost the movement the sympathy and 
 support of the more moderate liberal groups which 
 aimed at constitutionalism rather than socialism, and 
 this in turn helped the government in its attempts to 
 suppress the whole movement. From 1866, the gov¬ 
 ernment adopted a reactionary, consciously anti-liberal 
 policy, especially manifested in the naming of Count 
 Dmitri Tolstoy, as minister of public education. Count 
 Tolstoy was a known reactionary, who directed his 
 
34 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 attention to the “purification” of the fountains of edu¬ 
 cation, the schools and universities. His reform con¬ 
 sisted of stopping “the movements and sophisms which 
 brazenly defy everything which has been sacred to 
 Russia for ages, the religious faith, the foundations 
 of family life, the right of property, the obedience to 
 law and honor of the superior authority,” as it was 
 phrased in the rescript of the tsar to the president of 
 the ministerial committee. 30 The so-called “classi¬ 
 cism” was introduced into secondary schools, whereby 
 the ancient languages and in general studies as far as 
 possible removed from actual present-day life and 
 thinking were introduced, in order to protect the stu¬ 
 dents from contracting modern liberalism. This pro¬ 
 gram lasted from 1871-93. Moreover, the number of 
 the university students was arbitrarily reduced to 
 about five percent of those of the gymnasia, by gradu¬ 
 ating only that percentage from the secondary schools. 
 Besides, the Zemstva were deprived of their control of 
 elementary local schools, which was assumed by the 
 Ministry of Education; the latter was then free to dis¬ 
 miss all teachers who were “politically unreliable.” 
 
 This period of reactionary policies on the part of the 
 government called forth, as a matter of course, a 
 renewed and desperately determined opposition from 
 the radical groups. The exiled leaders, like Herzen in 
 London and Bakunin in Geneva, published and smug¬ 
 gled into Russia tons of periodical and other revolu¬ 
 tionary literature. The student youth was again 
 organized into secret societies, as was revealed in the 
 murder of one of the members, Ivanov, who was sus¬ 
 pected of wavering loyalty to a revolutionary group 
 and sentenced by it to death. 
 
 80 June 4, 1866. 
 
35 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 This conspiracy led in turn to a sharpening of the 
 laws against political agitation, and a considerable 
 extension of the powers of the police in such cases. The 
 police had the right to arrest individuals suspected of 
 political revolutionary activity; mere attendance upon 
 a political street manifestation was punishable by exile 
 to Siberia. 
 
 In 1869 a student, Nicholas Chaikovsky, founded a 
 student club which studied socialism. Similar societies 
 were founded with various other objectives, such as 
 circles for self-education, for reading, etc.; they also 
 represented many different types of opinion. These 
 organizations were greatly strengthened when, in 1873, 
 the government withdrew its permission to study at 
 foreign universities and recalled those students who at 
 the time were studying abroad. The returned students 
 were very generally imbued with the ideas of Bakunin 
 and Lavrov, who came in personal touch with them in 
 Zurich, where they were editing a periodical. The rev¬ 
 olutionary agitation, which hitherto had affected pri¬ 
 marily the educated classes, especially students, now 
 entered upon a new phase of development. The lead¬ 
 ers determined to carry the propaganda directly to the 
 masses of the Russian people, and to imbue them with 
 the revolutionary spirit in preparation for an uprising 
 against the existing government. Prince Peter Kro¬ 
 potkin, the greatest of the theoretical anarchists of 
 Russia, disguised himself as a workingman, and held 
 secret meetings with the Petersburg working masses, 
 at which he strove to awaken in them class-conscious¬ 
 ness by informing them about the Western socialistic 
 movements. This program of “going among the peo¬ 
 ple’’ was enthusiastically accepted by a large number 
 of idealistic young people of both sexes, mostly stu- 
 
36 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 dents, who abandoned their intended careers and went 
 into the country districts as country teachers, mid- 
 wives, physicians, tradesmen, artisans, or even hired 
 themselves out as ordinary agricultural laborers, in 
 order to gain access to the peasants and to imbue them 
 with their socialistic ideals and distribute revolution¬ 
 ary literature among them. Some of this work was 
 done under clever disguise, as, for instance, when some 
 socialistic pamphlets were published as sermons of the 
 bishop of Voronezh. The number of agitators among 
 the people was estimated in 1875 at more than two 
 thousand. The reason they were able to undertake 
 this work at all was that they enjoyed the sympathy 
 of the local Zemstva and even of some governmental 
 officials, who shielded them and even protected them 
 against arrest. One such justice of the peace, for 
 instance, contributed forty thousand rubles to cover 
 the expenses of the propaganda. 
 
 But, on the whole, the program of these idealists, 
 who had the characteristically exaggerated Slavophil 
 notions regarding the “unspoiled soul” of the muzhiks, 
 was bound to result in a dismal failure. The peasant 
 was not ready for a socialistic revolution; in his crass 
 ignorance and superstition, and his stolid fatalistic 
 indifference and resignation to his sufferings, he was 
 incapable of being molded into consciously revolu¬ 
 tionary material. Moreover, the peasants generally 
 believed that the tsar, their batushka , was good, and 
 that all the misery to which they were subjected was 
 the work of the landlords and the officials. In 1876, 
 two agitators hit upon the plan of utilizing this confi¬ 
 dence of the peasants in the tsar by passing themselves 
 off as his representatives. They showed the muzhiks 
 a document, the Golden Manifesto, which they said 
 
37 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 bore the tsar’s signature, and which urged the peas¬ 
 ants to organize themselves into secret societies to pre¬ 
 pare for the expropriation of the landlords, on the 
 ground that the tsar had given all land to the peasants. 
 In this faith the peasants followed the directions of the 
 agitators, and built up a considerable organization. But 
 the plot was discovered by the police and frustrated. 
 Consequent investigation revealed, however, that the 
 peasantry continued to believe that it was the tsar’s 
 purpose to give them all the land, but that he was con¬ 
 tinually being thwarted by the landlords and the offi¬ 
 cials. Therefore, to loot a landlord or oppose an official 
 was not wrong in the peasants’ code of ethics. 
 
 It became quite evident, therefore, that a revolution 
 emanating from the peasant masses or supported by 
 them was unthinkable. In most instances they 
 betrayed stolidity or a complete absence of comprehen¬ 
 sion of the revolutionary objectives; in other instances 
 they manifested lack of confidence in the leaders and 
 even readiness to betray them to the authorities. More¬ 
 over, since the movement lacked organization, the gov¬ 
 ernment found it possible gradually to gain control of 
 the situation, and to arrest and imprison the ardent 
 apostles of revolt. The strengthening of the laws 
 against the illegal societies resulted in still heavier per¬ 
 secution of the social revolutionaries; and yet, in 1876, 
 the remnants of the former groups combined to form a 
 new society, which resumed the name of the first revo¬ 
 lutionary organization, The Land and Liberty. The 
 soul of this new group was Alexander Mikhailov, an 
 excellent organizer and leader, so that his society was 
 the strongest and most important focus of the revolu¬ 
 tionary activity. The outbreak of the Russo-Turkish 
 War (1877) also helped to consolidate the opposition 
 
38 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 forces, as the incapacity and corruption of the govern¬ 
 ing class were then plainly manifested, and the ener¬ 
 gies of the government were directed to the prosecution 
 of the war. And yet the authorities did not relax their 
 vigilance; during this period, the great trials of the 
 revolutionary suspects were staged, when about four 
 thousand were arrested and some of them were sen¬ 
 tenced to long prison terms. Out of this number, two 
 trials—of the fifty, and of the one-hundred and ninety- 
 three—aroused an enormous amount of public senti¬ 
 ment, because the accused in their speeches fearlessly 
 indicted the government, and their sentiments readily 
 found an echo among the liberals everywhere. The 
 government did not dare to suppress these pronounce¬ 
 ments, for the humiliating terms imposed upon Russia 
 by the Congress of Berlin aroused against it general 
 indignation, shared even by the loyal, conservative 
 Slavophils. 
 
 In 1878 Vera Zasulich shot and wounded the Peters¬ 
 burg head of police, General Trepov, because he had 
 illegally ordered the infliction of corporal punishment 
 upon a student, a total stranger to her. Count Pahlen, 
 then the minister of justice, demanded that she be tried 
 by jury, for he began to resent the capriciousness of the 
 police in reference to his department. To the amaze¬ 
 ment of the public, Zasulich was acquitted, although 
 the jury consisted mostly of state officials. This inci¬ 
 dent was an eloquent commentary on the state of pub¬ 
 lic opinion at the time when even moderate liberals 
 were willing to cooperate with the nihilists. 
 
 During the year, a whole series of attacks upon the 
 lives of highly placed officials, and even upon the tsar 
 himself, finally produced a differentiation within The 
 Land and Liberty society itself. In 1879 the organiza- 
 
39 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 tion suffered a division into two groups, of which the 
 one committed to the program of terror received the 
 name The People’s Will, and the more moderate one, 
 which made politico-socialistic propaganda among the 
 peasants and the workers its program, came to be 
 known as The Black Redistribution (meaning the 
 reallotment of the black soil). 
 
 The terrorists proclaimed as their objective a social 
 uprising for the purpose of gaining political freedom 
 and the establishment of a socialist state. The means 
 toward the attainment of this goal included political 
 murder, regarded as judicial execution, and appropria¬ 
 tion of public money, viewed in the light of confisca¬ 
 tion. The leaders hoped that murdering some dozens 
 of the highest officials would bring about the desired 
 uprising. Their attention was especially centered upon 
 the murder of the tsar. In 1879 an attempt was made 
 to entrap him when he was returning from Crimea, by 
 mining the railroad track in three places; but the tsar 
 fortunately escaped, for his train followed the baggage 
 train, which was overtaken by the disaster prepared for 
 the tsar’s entourage. Next spring the dining-room of 
 the Winter Palace was blown up at dinner time, but 
 again the tsar escaped death due to having been 
 detained by a visit of Alexander of Bulgaria. 
 
 The tsar now changed his policy radically: he called 
 to the position of minister of the interior a man known 
 for his liberal opinions, Count Loris-Melikov, and 
 granted him almost unlimited powers, which made him 
 practically a dictator. The new minister introduced 
 some really ameliorating features into the government’s 
 dealing with the question of the revolutionaries, abol¬ 
 ishing the infamous Third Department ( i.e . the secret 
 police), freeing some six thousand political suspects, 
 
40 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 giving greater liberty of action to the Zemstva, com¬ 
 posed mostly of liberal landowners and nobles, and 
 obtaining the recall of Count D. Tolstoy from the 
 position of minister of national education. The liberal 
 circles of the moderate constitutional stamp felt really 
 encouraged to hope for the long-desired reforms, which 
 Loris-Melikov was not backward in promising them. 
 But the radical revolutionists would not believe in what 
 they regarded as a feint for the purpose of beguiling the 
 unwary. The concessions came too late. The revolu¬ 
 tionaries even made an attempt upon the life of the 
 dictator. That same year, three different methods of 
 carrying out the tsar’s assassination were adopted. 
 When a call for volunteers to throw the bomb was 
 issued, forty-seven St. Petersburg workingmen were 
 ready to undertake the perilous task. Out of these, six 
 persons were selected. Finally, on March 13, 1881, 
 when the tsar was returning from a review of troops, a 
 bomb was thrown under his carriage; it shattered the 
 carriage and wounded some members of the entourage, 
 but the tsar escaped. When he stepped forward to ask 
 the assailant who he was, another assailant threw his 
 bomb directly under the tsar’s feet, and this time the 
 tsar was mortally wounded, and the assailant, Grin- 
 evitsky, killed. An hour later, the tsar died in the Win¬ 
 ter Palace. 
 
 Four days before his death, Alexander II, “the tsar- 
 liberator,” approved the so-called “Constitution” of 
 Count Loris-Melikov; three hours before his death, he 
 ordered this “Constitution” to be published in the gov¬ 
 ernmental bulletin. This document really contem¬ 
 plated calling together only a representative consulta¬ 
 tive body, aside from organization of commissions for 
 various reforms. The suggestions and projects of the 
 
41 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 general commission were to come for approval or rejec¬ 
 tion of the government. That, of course, was no consti¬ 
 tution in the proper sense of the word; yet it repre¬ 
 sented certain concessions on the part of the tsar. 
 
 Alexander III (1881-1894), educated by Pobedo- 
 nostsev in the spirit of the strictest Slavophil conserva¬ 
 tism, at first ordered that nothing be changed in the 
 ordinances of his father, not even excepting Loris-Meli- 
 kov’s “Constitution.” Soon, however, he changed his 
 mind, and inaugurated a period of the strictest repres¬ 
 sion and absolutism. He avenged the death of Alex¬ 
 ander II by inaugurating a period of a veritable “white 
 terror.” 
 
 In the first place, he terminated the vacillating policy 
 of the previous reign between constitutionalism and 
 absolutism: he definitely chose the latter, and acted 
 consistently in accordance with that decision. Katkov 
 went into ecstasies over this “return of an absolutistic 
 tsar, who received his power from God, to whom alone 
 he is responsible.” 31 Moreover, the chief adviser of 
 the tsar, Pobedonostsev, with a group of his friends, 
 organized a secret anti-revolutionary society, The Holy 
 Fellowship, which used the methods of the revolution¬ 
 aries—including murder—to defeat its opponents. 
 
 On the tenth day after the death of Alexander II, the 
 revolutionists issued a manifesto addressed to the new 
 tsar, in which they offered him cessation of the strug¬ 
 gle, should he call representatives of the people and 
 grant a constitution. But the tsar’s only answer was 
 adoption of general and thoroughly reactionary meas¬ 
 ures in all departments of the governmental system. 
 Election of justices of the peace was abolished, trial by 
 jury was limited, the hitherto liberal-minded Zemstva 
 
 31 Masaryk, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 188. 
 
42 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 were now filled with aristocratic loyalists and put 
 under the surveillance of the officials of the govern¬ 
 ment; the municipal officers fared similarly. 
 
 The police absolutism was likewise strengthened and 
 extended. A special regulation gave the police excep¬ 
 tional powers of control which actually suspended ordi¬ 
 nary jurisdiction and introduced a period of what was 
 practically martial law, resulting in many arbitrary 
 acts of the utmost harshness and cruelty. 
 
 In accordance with the express order of the tsar, edu¬ 
 cation was reduced to such limits as would render it 
 innocuous. Pobedonostsev, the guiding spirit of this 
 “reform,” fathered the project of establishing (in 1884) 
 parochial schools, where the teaching staff consisted of 
 the parish priests, who, quite generally, possessed a 
 very low standard of education. These schools were 
 then to rival the secular schools, which were under 
 the control of the local Zemstva, and which were 
 regarded as exerting “a pernicious, liberalizing influ¬ 
 ence.” As for the higher schools and universities, a 
 new statute was issued for their control, whereby they 
 were deprived of the small degree of academic freedom 
 which they had enjoyed hitherto. The rectors and 
 deans, previously elected, were now appointed by the 
 government. Moreover, the state appointed inspec¬ 
 tors, independent of the university authorities, who 
 possessed very extensive disciplinary powers. Profes¬ 
 sors were appointed by the government, and their 
 activity was spied upon and reported; the same was 
 true of the life of the students, whose number was low¬ 
 ered, the stipend formerly granted to poor students 
 being taken away, in order to prevent the proletariat 
 elements from entering the governmental service and 
 the learned professions. The curriculum was also thor- 
 
43 
 
 The Roots of the Matter 
 
 oughly “expurgated”: all scientific and especially philo¬ 
 sophical and political studies were reduced to a mini¬ 
 mum, if not altogether excluded. Thus, for instance, 
 in philosophy only lectures on Plato and Aristotle were 
 permitted. As could be expected, all professors and 
 students of even moderate progressive tendencies were 
 promptly dismissed. Schools for the education of 
 women suffered the same restrictions and suppression, 
 for Count Pahlen well knew what a considerable role 
 women had played in the revolutionary struggle. 
 
 The active revolutionaries were hunted down with 
 the greatest perseverance and determination, and most 
 inhumanly and cruelly treated. Authentic descriptions 
 of the horrors of the Siberian prison system filled 
 Europe with a moral indignation such as only the 
 Turkish atrocities evoked. Such was the regime of 
 Alexander III, which lasted till 1894, the date of his 
 death. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 BETWEEN THE TWO REVOLUTIONS (1905-1917) 
 
 Nicholas II (1894-1918), destined to be the last of 
 the Russian tsars, was educated under the direction of 
 his father, Alexander III, and imbued with his views, 
 although he was utterly devoid of his father’s decisive 
 qualities of character, being of a weak and yielding dis¬ 
 position ; hence the actual direction of policy was often 
 dictated by other minds. During the first part of his 
 reign, Pobedonostsev, the ober-procuror of the Holy 
 Synod, was the tsar’s evil genius; after this powerful 
 man’s retirement, Nicholas fell increasingly under the 
 influence of his well-meaning but hysterically consti¬ 
 tuted wife, Alexandra, daughter of the grand duke of 
 Hesse Darmstadt. The emperor began by declaring 
 his intention to “follow his father in everything.” In 
 reply to a loyal address, having been instigated to it by 
 Pobedonostsev, he returned a haughty challenge to 
 “those who indulged in senseless dreams with regard 
 to the participation of the Zemstva in the direction of 
 the internal affairs of the Empire,” 1 informing them 
 that they would find that “while he would devote his 
 energy to the service of the people, he would also main¬ 
 tain the principle of autocracy as firmly as it had been 
 maintained by his lamented father.” 
 
 This tactless challenge angered and alienated still 
 further the parties which were striving for constitu- 
 
 1 Hugh Y. Reyburn: The Story of the Russian Church, London, 
 1924, p. 270. 
 
 44 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 45 
 
 tional reforms, and their resentment manifested itself 
 in a letter which was sent to the tsar in January, 1895. 
 The writers of this letter plainly indicated that they 
 were ready to accept the challenge so haughtily flung 
 at them. 
 
 Under the reign of von Plehve, who was appointed 
 minister of the interior in 1902, the political and social 
 atmosphere became stifling. He persecuted the 
 Zemstva, imposed most rigorous restrictions upon stu¬ 
 dents and schools, so that “a group of students were not 
 allowed to walk down the street together,” 2 and domi¬ 
 nated all schools and universities by espionage; even 
 private citizens were compelled to procure a written 
 police permission to hold a party in their own homes. 
 Von Plehve, a minister of the state, was directly impli¬ 
 cated in the pogroms which earned for Russia such 
 unenviable notoriety, and by official regulations aggra¬ 
 vated the already inhuman treatment of the Jews. He 
 directly promoted, in 1903, a pogrom in Kishinev, 
 which was so revolting that the governor of the 
 gubernia, Prince Urusov, resigned his post in protest. 
 Finally, in 1904, the life of this reactionary, whose pol¬ 
 icy had aggravated the already tense situation, was ter¬ 
 minated by a bomb thrown by a revolutionary. Russia, 
 like Turkey, was ruled by “autocracy tempered by 
 assassination.” 
 
 To the dissatisfaction with the autocratic form of 
 government was added a cause which most effectually 
 spread misery and consequent disaffection among the 
 peasants, namely, famine. Large areas of the country 
 were affected by this catastrophe, which began in 1891 
 and subsequently came at intervals. The second came 
 in 1898-99, and not only spread misery but ruined 
 
 a Bernard Pares: A History of Russia, New York, 1926, p. 408. 
 
46 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 many a farmer’s family for the future. During the 
 fearful catastrophe the fields remained untilled, for 
 even the seed was consumed and there was nothing to 
 sow; horsed and cows were either sold or killed for 
 food; the number of sick was very large, those ill with 
 scurvy amounting to one hundred thousand in the 
 provinces of Samara, Kazan, and Simbirsk alone.” 3 
 The proverbially patient, phlegmatic peasant millions 
 became desperate, for they had nothing to lose by 
 revolting against the conditions under which they were 
 forced to live, and possibly something to gain by any 
 kind of change. 
 
 The workers also became exceedingly restless, due to 
 the steady progress of Socialism among them. The 
 first Social Democratic Party—known as The Party for 
 the Emancipation of Labor —was founded in 1883 by 
 Gregory V. Plekhanov, “the father of Russian Marx¬ 
 ism,” outside of Russia. A similar organization was 
 founded in St. Petersburg in 1885. In 1894 this party 
 was suppressed, but continued its agitation under¬ 
 ground. The beginning of the labor movement on a 
 large scale may be seen in the large St. Petersburg tex¬ 
 tile workers’ strike in 1896, which was participated in 
 by thirty thousand workers. Even the Jewish workers 
 organized themselves, in 1897, into the Bund , which 
 attained a very far-reaching importance, because Jews 
 were deprived of so many legal rights that this organi¬ 
 zation served as an outlet for their revolutionary 
 inclinations. 
 
 Under these circumstances it would be futile to 
 expect any abatement of the agitation for political lib¬ 
 erty, or at least for amelioration of the existing condi- 
 
 3 Olgin: The Soul of the Russian Revolution. New York, 1917, 
 p. 43. 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 47 
 
 tions, and it could be foreseen that the extreme radical 
 organizations had a better chance of success than the 
 more moderate ones. Therefore the efforts of the 
 earlier revolutionary and other political organizations 
 continued with furious energy. The revolutionary tra¬ 
 dition was inherited, by the beginning of the twentieth 
 century, by the Social Revolutionary Party, which 
 was composed of some five groups, and which added to 
 the political demands the dicta of the Marxian teach¬ 
 ing. But they not only aimed at the establishment of 
 a socially juster organization and distribution of 
 wealth, but included within their program a demand 
 for political as well as industrial democracy. The chief 
 exponent of the Socialistic creed in Russia was Gregory 
 V. Plekhanov, who held strictly to the doctrines of 
 Marx, according to which the capitalistic stage of social 
 evolution is necessary for the development of con¬ 
 ditions under which the majority of workers are turned 
 into wage-earning proletarians, and in consequence 
 become fully class-conscious. The war against capital¬ 
 ism could never be successfully waged unless such con¬ 
 ditions prevail; for that reason, Plekhanov gave his 
 attention to the industrial workers rather than to the 
 peasants, as the previous revolutionary organizations 
 had done. But Plekhanov did not regard the Russian 
 situation as sufficiently ripe for the revolutionary strug¬ 
 gle against the bourgeoisie, and adopted a program of 
 amelioration of the existing living and working condi¬ 
 tions, to be realized only in cooperation with the more 
 social-minded political leaders of the middle and edu¬ 
 cated classes, as the only feasible mode of procedure 
 until such a time as Russia should become sufficiently 
 industrialized to develop a strong, class-conscious pro¬ 
 letariat. In 1898, the scattered groups, including the 
 
48 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Jewish Bund, organized themselves into the Russian 
 Social Democratic Workmen’s Party. The German 
 “Revisionist” movement, which came to look upon the 
 state as a means for the removal of grievances of the 
 industrial order rather than as one of the chief evils to 
 be removed, found Russian exponents in Peter Struve, 
 Sergei Bulgakov, and Prokopovich. 
 
 However, these tendencies, as was almost inevitable, 
 produced a corresponding reaction in favor of the for¬ 
 mer orthodox revolutionary methods of dealing with 
 the situation, and events conspired to further these 
 more radical endeavors. The leaders of this tendency, 
 like Lenin and Martov, came to advocate, in such writ¬ 
 ings as Lenin’s What Is to Be Donef and Letter to a 
 Comrade, a centralized direction of or dictatorship over 
 the rank and file of the party, whose activity would be 
 limited to a prompt execution of the orders of the lead¬ 
 ing oligarchy, without sharing either in the direction or 
 in the responsibility of the leaders. In other words, he 
 rejected the trend toward democracy which manifested 
 itself strongly in Socialism, and insisted that the vic¬ 
 tory of Socialism could not be won by such methods, 
 but only by an efficiently centralized, militaristically 
 organized and directed party action. At the Congress 
 held in London, in 1903, the Russian Socialist Party 
 divided over this issue into the Bolshevik (majority) 
 and Menshevik (minority) factions, with a small 
 majority in favor of the former. In 1905, the Bolshevik 
 faction was able to capture the Central Council, from, 
 which it promptly excluded all the adherents of the 
 democratic-minded minority. The issue between them 
 was just this insistence upon the oligarchical rule 
 by the leaders of the Bolsheviks, and the democratic 
 orientation of the Mensheviks; in the struggle which 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 49 
 
 ensued, as later events proved, the victory was to rest 
 with the Bolsheviks, who under the leadership of Lenin 
 were to seize the reins of government from Kerensky in 
 October, 1917, and to plant the red flag over the grim 
 symbol of the tsarist autocracy, the Kremlin, thus sig¬ 
 nifying that the long struggle of the revolutionary par¬ 
 ties with the ancient autocracy of the tsars was victori¬ 
 ously ended. 
 
 The story of the First Revolution—that of 1905—is 
 sufficiently well known not to require any extended 
 repetition here. The colossal defeats sustained by the 
 Russian army during the Russo-Japanese War revealed 
 —in spite of all the attempts to keep it secret—such a 
 depth of governmental mismanagement and corruption 
 that the loud cry for reforms became quite general, and 
 terrified even the previously impervious statesmen. 
 The tsar felt forced to make concessions to the popular 
 demands for a constitutional form of government, and 
 thus compelled by the sense of the stern necessity of 
 such a quieting action, rather than from conviction, he 
 finally granted the poor makeshift of a Constitution 
 under which the first Imperial Duma was elected. 
 
 The liberalization of the religious policy, which this 
 involved, was first promised in 1904. Late in that year, 
 the Zemstva held secret conferences in St. Petersburg 
 and Moscow, and under the leadership of Prince Sergei 
 Trubetskoy of the Moscow University issued a Petition 
 of Rights, which demanded, among other things, also 
 freedom of conscience. The government tried to stem 
 the tide by issuing an ukaz, on December 12, 1904, in 
 which it pledged itself to a certain tentative program 
 of amelioration of the hitherto prevailing policy of 
 religious intolerance. 
 
 The piteously blundering policy of the government 
 
50 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 which resulted in the horrible massacre of the “Bloody 
 Sunday/' when on January 22 the working masses 
 marched peacefully, carrying icons and singing religious 
 and patriotic songs, under the leadership of Priest 
 George Gapon, to petition the tsar for a redress of their 
 wrongs, embroiled the seething discontent still more. 
 Finally, on April 17, 1905, the tsar gave the Russian 
 religious bodies his “Easter gift” in the form of an 
 ukaz, Regarding the Increase of Toleration , which 
 established a certain degree of freedom of conscience 
 not hitherto enjoyed, although this was neither full nor 
 did it include all religious communions. 
 
 In spite of the fact that the ukaz had expressly stated 
 that the Orthodox church should retain its privileged 
 position as “the primary and governing in the Russian 
 Empire,” the galling disabilities which had afflicted the 
 Old-Ritualists, the Roman Catholics, and the various 
 communions of the sectarians were now swept away. 
 The chapels of the Old-Ritualists were opened; the 
 secret, disguised Roman Catholic monasteries, which 
 existed in the Kingdom of Poland, were legitimatized; 
 and transfer of membership from one to another reli¬ 
 gious communion was permitted. 
 
 On the other hand, the new law did not recognize 
 non-confessionalism as legal, so that every citizen was 
 supposed to belong to some one of the existing religious 
 bodies; the marriage rite remained a monopoly of the 
 church. The six millions of Jews living within the con¬ 
 fines of Russia under notoriously harsh and oppressive 
 conditions received no relief. 
 
 The Easter ukaz was further validated by the grant¬ 
 ing of the Manifesto of October 30, 1905, which granted 
 Russia a limited monarchical form of government. 
 
 The liberalizing tendency found exponents even 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 51 
 
 within the church itself, and among these even men of 
 high station, such as the metropolitan of St. Petersburg, 
 Antony. A more radical movement was organized in 
 St. Petersburg by “the thirty-two priests,” who under 
 the leadership of Priest Peter Kremlevsky became pio¬ 
 neers of the later church-revolutionary forces. 4 A 
 member of the group, Eugene Kh. Belkov, edited an 
 organ of the party, which, however, was suspended sev¬ 
 eral times, until finally its editor was subjected to a 
 trial. 
 
 The objectives aimed at by these liberal movements 
 were, in short, an attempt to overthrow the bureau¬ 
 cratic caesaropapism of the Holy Governing Synod and 
 to substitute for it some more democratic form of syn¬ 
 odical, i.e. truly representative ecclesiastical govern¬ 
 ment. The chief mover in the matter was Antony, 
 metropolitan of St. Petersburg, who as early as Decem¬ 
 ber, 1904, appointed a committee of liberal professors 
 of the Metropolitan Theological Academy to work out 
 suggestions regarding the needed reforms in the gov¬ 
 ernment of the Orthodox church. Their memoran¬ 
 dum stressed the necessity of freeing the church from 
 the existing dependence upon the state, and making it 
 autonomous within its own sphere. In order to work 
 out the policy, it was demanded that a Russian local 
 Sobor be convened. 
 
 As long as Pobedonostsev held the reins of the Holy 
 Synod in his firm grasp, endeavors of this kind were 
 frustrated by his opposition. But after the October 
 Manijesto, the erstwhile omnipotent minister, in whom 
 the incarnated autocratic principles could not tolerate 
 the new regime, retired from office, and Prince A. D. 
 
 4 Cf. Vvedensky: The Church and the Government, Moscow, 
 1923, p. 24. (In Russian.) 
 
52 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Obolensky was made his successor. The situation was 
 now propitious for the representatives of the liberal 
 tendency, and their demand for the calling of a Sobor 
 was actually granted. The tsar summoned the synodi¬ 
 cal metropolitans and expressed his wish to have the 
 Sobor called soon, exhorting them to hurry with the 
 necessary preparatory labors. Their preparatory ses¬ 
 sion was begun in January, 1906, and lasted till the 
 end of the year. 
 
 However, the general situation soon changed. Four 
 months had not passed since the granting of the Octo¬ 
 ber Manifesto when the tsar with his reactionary 
 bureaucracy began to plot how the “liberties” granted 
 so recently could be revoked, or at least limited. The 
 church proved itself an able ally in this work of restora¬ 
 tion of the old autocratic rule. In 1906, The League 
 of the Russian People, popularly known as The Black 
 Hundred, was organized; this notoriously reactionary 
 body soon became inextricably bound with the church, 
 and counted among its members a large proportion of 
 the hierarchs as well as of the clergy and the laity. It 
 became notoriously prominent in the brutally inhuman 
 anti-Semitic riots, the pogroms, and in political mur¬ 
 ders; the government, secretly in collusion with the 
 organization, not only did not punish its lawless activ¬ 
 ity, but on the contrary often actively supported the 
 perpetrators in their nefarious projects. 
 
 The preparatory sessions of the Sobor committee 
 were held under such conditions. No wonder that the 
 liberal forces, in the minority from the beginning, soon 
 lost their lead, which passed to the leaders of the con¬ 
 servative and monarchical hierarchs, such as Metropol¬ 
 itan Vladimir of Moscow, and the able young bishop 
 of Volhynia, Antony Khrapovitsky, who later became 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 53 
 
 the leader of the emigre clergy. These conservatives 
 also wanted freedom of the church,” but in the sense 
 of concentrating the power in the hands of the hier¬ 
 archy, headed by a patriarch, who would, as formerly, 
 represent the inner autonomy of the church as against 
 the encroachments and overwhelming preponderance 
 of the power of the state. In the struggle between the 
 democratically representative policy of the liberal fac¬ 
 tion and the conservative demands for an oligarchical 
 rule of the hierarchy, the latter quickly gained a pre¬ 
 ponderating majority. 
 
 The program worked out by this committee was cor¬ 
 respondingly conservative: the emperor was accorded 
 the right of sanction of all the more important deci¬ 
 sions of the hierarchy, and among other matters he was 
 to call the Sobor, if he thought necessary, and to 
 approve the election of a patriarch. Hence, funda¬ 
 mentally the new scheme differed but little from the 
 old autocracy of the Holy Synod, through which the 
 will of the tsar was decisive in all matters upon which 
 he wished to speak. 
 
 In the meantime, the first Duma was dissolved with¬ 
 out any preliminary notice to its president, and the 
 tsarist reaction against the forced concessions of the 
 previous year further manifested itself in dissolving 
 the pre-Sobor session even before it had fully com¬ 
 pleted its labors. As for the recommendations of the 
 session that a national Sobor be called, these, as poten¬ 
 tially disturbing to the old order, were quietly but reso¬ 
 lutely ignored. Thus ended the first attempt to reform 
 the Russian church; nothing was done in the matter 
 until after the fall of the tsar in the spring of 1917. 
 
 The ruling hierarchy also took a pronouncedly hos¬ 
 tile attitude toward the parties of the Left in the 
 
54 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Duma. The first Duma counted fourteen priests among 
 its delegates, and among these priests Gregory S. 
 Petrov, a fiery orator and an able publicist, was an out¬ 
 standing liberal leader. The second Duma, elected 
 after the most determined efforts of the government 
 and the ultra-conservative parties to gain a comfort¬ 
 able majority for themselves, for which purpose the 
 electoral law was most arbitrarily interpreted, was, 
 naturally enough, more conservative. But, in spite 
 of this, the priestly delegates were found mostly in the 
 Center, and even on the Left, rather than predomi¬ 
 nantly on the Right, as was expected. Five of them 
 even joined the Labor Party, which had the largest 
 representation (201), and the Peasant Group. The 
 Synod now openly adopted forcible measures to compel 
 these deputies of the people, whose right to a free 
 expression of their political views was guaranteed by 
 the constitution, to change their political creed. The 
 Holy Synod, after a few ineffectual attempts to win 
 them freely, issued a categorical demand stipulating 
 that they either join one of the parties of the Right 
 (from the Party of the 30th of October to the Right), 
 or renounce the priesthood. After the second Duma was 
 dissolved, the priests-delegates of the Left who did not 
 change their political credo were promptly arraigned 
 before the ecclesiastical tribunal and deprived of their 
 orders. Others who were not of the Left, but who did 
 not show themselves sufficiently conservative were dis¬ 
 criminated against and made to suffer from the dis¬ 
 pleasure of their superiors. As an example of this anti¬ 
 liberal political animus of the Holy Synod may be 
 cited the case of Bishop Antonin, at that time vicar 
 of the Petersburg metropolitanate, and later one of 
 the chief leaders of the reformist movement, who was 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 55 
 
 retired to a monastery because after the Manifesto of 
 October 80 he refused, when reading the liturgy, to 
 employ the title “autocrat” in connection, with the 
 tsar’s name. 
 
 After the dissolving of the second Duma, the elec¬ 
 toral law was changed by the tsar, even though this 
 change was contrary to the express stipulation of the 
 Constitution; the new electoral law, which most 
 drastically restricted the franchise in favor of the coun¬ 
 try gentry and other “reliable” elements, was worked 
 out with the view of returning to the Duma an 
 “obedient,” i.e. monarchist, delegation. The church 
 exerted itself to the utmost to recommend “suitable” 
 candidates. The result of the terrorism instituted by 
 the government was considerably gratifying to it: the 
 Right had a clear majority, and among the delegates 
 were some fifty priests and two bishops. The Left 
 saw no priestly robes on its benches, which, moreover, 
 presented a somewhat deserted aspect. During the 
 period of the third Duma, the Holy Synod openly 
 joined hands with the illiberal policy of the govern¬ 
 ment of Stolypin in limiting all liberties granted by . 
 the Constitution. The hierarchy adopted repressive 
 measures of its own: in the first place, it turned its 
 attention to the regulation of the training schools for 
 the priesthood, both the seminaries and academies. 
 (It should be borne in mind that the seminary, roughly 
 speaking, corresponds to our high school, and the 
 academy to our theological seminary.) Both the sem¬ 
 inaries and academies, during the revolutionary years 
 of 1905-1906, showed themselves largely on the side 
 of the liberal aspirations. Both professors and stu¬ 
 dents made public commitments of their political 
 liberalism. This the Holy Synod proposed to change. 
 
56 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 In 1908, a committee for the revision of all theologi¬ 
 cal training schools was appointed, and its personnel 
 plainly indicated the direction of the contemplated 
 revision: among its members were the chief leaders of 
 the reactionary policy of the church—Bishop Antony 
 of Volhynia, Dmitry of Kherson, and Metropolitan 
 Arseny of Novgorod. Liberal professors were dis¬ 
 missed and new rules were imposed which were calcu¬ 
 lated to banish all liberalism from the schools. 
 
 Furthermore, the hierarchy, which chafed at the 
 sight of the very restricted “liberties” granted to the 
 non-Orthodox, exerted itself most powerfully to 
 restrict, as much as possible, the enjoyment of this free¬ 
 dom. In December, 1907, the church leaders presented 
 the Duma with their project of reconstructing the laws 
 relative to the matter, but the Duma did not show itself 
 ready to cooperate. When, in the fall of 1910, 
 the Holy Synod, disregarding the legitimate channels, 
 instituted new regulations for the theological acad¬ 
 emies, even the very conservative personnel of the 
 third Duma was moved to oppose sharply the auto¬ 
 cratic methods pursued by the hierarchy, and their 
 protest took the tangible form of refusing to vote 
 credits for the educational institutions under the 
 control of the Synod. 6 The more liberal parties of the 
 Duma went even further and broached the project 
 of demanding the surrender of the control of such 
 ecclesiastically controlled schools to the ministry of 
 education. 
 
 But the most pronouncedly reactionary period of the 
 pre-war era was that of the ober-procurorship of V. K. 
 
 8 B. V. Titlinov: The Church during the Revolution, Petrograd, 
 1924, p. 28. (In Russian.) 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 57 
 
 Sabler, who took office in May, 1911. A man of 
 intensely reactionary and intolerant tendencies, he 
 gathered about him hierarchs of his own stamp, so that 
 during his regime the liberal tendencies had no oppor¬ 
 tunity even to express themselves. Regarding the 
 schools, even the very illiberal regulations of 1910 were 
 not sufficiently stringent, and were superseded by the 
 new Changes in the Constitution of Theological 
 Academies, which placed the control of these institu¬ 
 tions exclusively in the hands of their monastic 
 superiors, who were charged with the duty of plucking 
 out of them all liberal tendencies. Professors in these 
 schools were again instructed not to belong to any 
 political parties but those approved by the ecclesias¬ 
 tical authorities, or, in plain language, to the extreme 
 monarchical groups. Furthermore, the parishes were 
 now robbed of even the slight autonomic rights which 
 they had preserved hitherto, and the fullness of power 
 was given to the bishops. The clergy, under the pre¬ 
 tense of economic security, were to receive their salaries 
 exclusively from the state, so that they would no 
 longer be dependent upon their parishes. The real 
 intent of this last measure was obvious: to bind the 
 clergy still more closely to the state by making them 
 economically entirely dependent upon it, or, in other 
 words, to fashion the clergy into an obedient and pli¬ 
 able spiritual tool. By making the priest a state 
 official of the twentieth category, the process of the 
 age-long caesaropapist policy was completed. Regard¬ 
 ing the national Sobor, Sabler pledged himself to its 
 calling, and early in 1912 actually appointed a new 
 pre-Sobor commission which was to prepare the proj¬ 
 ects with which the Sobor was to deal. But Sabler 
 
58 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 and his associates pursued a far different policy from 
 that of the protagonists of the Sobor in 1906; for him, 
 the Sobor was to free the hierarchy of the few remain¬ 
 ing impediments in the way of a completely unimpeded 
 oligarchical sway, and to set at the head of this 
 centralized oligarchical government a patriarch, who 
 would be the exponent and protagonist of such a 
 policy. 
 
 The third Duma, as already indicated, slowly real¬ 
 ized that with such a leadership in the church there 
 could be no cooperation. Gradually it was drawn 
 toward a policy of opposition to the various projects 
 of the Holy Synod, until finally in 1912 it broke out 
 into a determined and even violent denunciation of the 
 ecclesiastical leadership. The action was known as 
 “the attack on the church.” The clerical members of 
 the Duma felt compelled to publish a declaration in 
 which they pronounced all the parties in the Duma, 
 with the exception of the Right, the “enemies of the 
 church.” 6 However, the days of the third Duma were 
 numbered, and under the shadow of the disagreement 
 between the church and the third Duma the elections 
 for the fourth Duma were carried forward. 
 
 The church took a zealous, indeed dominating, 
 interest in these elections. A vast network of local 
 centers under the control of the church—the local 
 parishes—was drawn in an effort to manage the right 
 kind of catch. The Synod, together with the minister 
 of the interior, organized a special department for the 
 purpose of directing the maneuvers, and the result 
 of their feverish activity was truly astounding: the 
 preliminary elections showed that the number of pos¬ 
 sible clerical delegates for the Duma was upward to 
 
 6 Titlinov: op. cit., p. 32. 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 59 
 
 one hundred and fifty, 7 so that even the government, 
 which, as was well known, wished for an “obedient” 
 Duma above all other things, was dismayed at the pros¬ 
 pect of facing the rest of Europe with this “priests’ 
 Duma,” as it was dubbed By a facetious newspaper 
 reporter. Therefore confidential instructions were dis¬ 
 patched through the Holy Synod to the clerical dele¬ 
 gates, the purpose of which was either to persuade or 
 intimidate them into voting for some equally reliable 
 lay candidate. In consequence, the fourth Duma 
 mustered about the same number of clerical delegates 
 as the third Duma had done. Nevertheless, the Right 
 parties failed to obtain an absolute majority in the 
 Duma, and consequently the struggle between this 
 political organ and Sabler’s policies regarding the 
 church was of necessity continued. His new regula¬ 
 tion for the clerico-educational institutions was 
 rejected by the Duma; the same treatment awaited 
 Sabler’s project regarding the organization of the 
 parishes, as well as his other projects. It was like¬ 
 wise generally understood that the long-promised Sobor 
 was to be held on the occasion of the celebration of 
 the three-hundredth anniversary of the reign of the 
 Romanov house, and that the patriarchate would then 
 be reestablished. But the year of the celebration 
 passed and nothing of the expected kind happened. 
 
 Probably the most potent factor in the extreme 
 unpopularity of Sabler’s administration, as well as in 
 the distaste for religion on the part of the educated 
 classes, is to be sought in the weird influence exercised 
 over the imperial court, and especially over the tsarina, 
 by the illiterate and immoral muzhik, Gregory E. 
 
 7 Titlinov: Orthodoxy in the Service of Autocracy , Leningrad, 1924, 
 p. 201. (In Russian.) 
 
60 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Rasputin. This designing, shrewd charlatan gained 
 access to the court by reason of his fame as a “saint,” 
 which he had gained in the circle of a truly saintly 
 monastic ascetic, Theophan, through whom the “elder” 
 Rasputin also gained admission to the court circles. 
 His personal worthlessness of character was exposed 
 in a sensational book, entitled The Holy Devil, written 
 by a monk, Iliodor, who knew him well from Theo- 
 phan’s circle. Both this monk and Bishop Her- 
 mogen, who also opposed Rasputin, were clapped into 
 monastic prisons. This peasant Tartuffe soon pos¬ 
 sessed himself of a surprising ascendancy over the 
 tsarina, and through her became the mightiest “power 
 behind the throne.” He began to play the role of a 
 dictator, and most of the important ecclesiastical 
 appointments were influenced, or directly effected, by 
 him; some of them, indeed, were solely his own work. 
 Beginning with Sabler, a whole line of ober-procurors 
 was appointed at his bidding; the chief metropolitan¬ 
 ates were filled by obscure hierarchs—as for instance, 
 the cathedra of Moscow by the unknown Siberian 
 bishop, Macarius—merely because they were Ras¬ 
 putin’s proteges, and his word was all-powerful with 
 the ruling circles. One of his creatures, Archbishop 
 Varvara, even took it upon himself to canonize a new 
 saint, and when he was disciplined by Ober-procuror 
 Samarin for this arbitrary usurpation of ecclesiastical 
 prerogatives, the emperor was persuaded to decide in 
 favor of the archbishop, and even went to the length 
 of dismissing Samarin. 
 
 In the meantime, the World War had broken out, 
 and within a year the Russian forces began to suffer 
 defeats, partly because the minister of war, Sukho- 
 mlinov, was criminally apathetic in the matter of car- 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 61 
 
 ing for the equipment of the army. Public opinion was 
 again aroused, as it had been in 1905, by the scandalous 
 inefficiency, unpreparedness, and general corruption of 
 the military bureaucracy, and loudly demanded 
 reforms. Rasputin’s influence became paramount even 
 in the policies of the state: many a minister, as for 
 instance, Protopopov, the minister of the interior dur¬ 
 ing the most critical period of the War, was appointed 
 to his post because of the favor bestowed upon him 
 by this evil genius of the Russian court. The domi¬ 
 nance of this ignorant and immoral muzhik in the 
 supreme authority became almost absolute when Tsar 
 Nicholas took the ill-advised step of retiring the pop¬ 
 ular Grand Duke Nicholas from the post of com¬ 
 mander-in-chief, and himself assumed the supreme 
 command of the army. Thereupon the emperor 
 removed to the army headquarters, while the tsarina 
 became the real ruler of the country. Of a psycho¬ 
 pathic religiosity, the empress was completely under 
 the sway of Rasputin, so that the chief qualification of 
 all who courted her favor was a word from the all- 
 powerful religious humbug. Stunner, the prime 
 minister, was a mere puppet in Rasputin’s hands. The 
 latter held parties at which he received all kinds of 
 supplications, which he then sent, if he approved of 
 them, to the minister concerned with a scribbled order 
 for their execution. He raised a colossal governmental 
 loan, interfered with food supply and transport, issued 
 military orders, and even forced the emperor to send 
 a certain telegram to the Serbian king. 8 
 
 Things had reached the pass when almost all the 
 leading personalities in public life, with the exception 
 of the very narrow circle of \e tsarina’s immediate 
 
 • B. Pares: op. cit., p. 464. 
 
62 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 supporters, were united in a rigorous condemnation of 
 the ruinous and sinister influence wielded by Rasputin. 
 Finally, one of the plots to assassinate him succeeded, 
 when he was lured into the house of Prince Yusupov, 
 husband of the emperor’s niece, and there murdered 
 by the host, with the assistance of V. M. Purishkevich, 
 leader of the conservatives in the Duma; the deed was 
 perpetrated in the presence of the grand duke Dmitry 
 Pavlovich. The emperor left the front to attend Ras¬ 
 putin’s funeral, and then for a number of weeks shut 
 himself up in his own apartments, completely apa¬ 
 thetic to the events which occurred in the meantime. 
 
 The church, during this period, was headed by men 
 who contributed toward the discrediting of this insti¬ 
 tution, so that the progressive elements were more 
 and more alienated from it. Sabler, who was Ras¬ 
 putin’s creature, was among those who were sacri¬ 
 ficed, in 1915, to appease the public wrath; he was suc¬ 
 ceeded by A. D. Samarin, who, however, was removed 
 some three months later for having defied Rasputin. 
 The office of ober-procuror was then filled by Volzhin, 
 and finally by N. P. Raev, the last of the tsarist ober- 
 procurors. The quality of the men at the head of the 
 church may be gauged by the personality of the 
 associate ober-procuror, Prince N. D. Zhevakhov, whose 
 naive and primitive credulity, passing almost all 
 bounds of credence, has already been described. To 
 him the tsar’s prerogatives had a divine basis, for he 
 was “the anointed of the Lord,” and any opposition 
 to his will was sinful. Such were the personalities 
 in whose hands the supreme direction of the Russian 
 church was placed during those fearful years of testing 
 between 1914 and 1917! Is it any wonder that an 
 organization so reactionary, so thoroughly subservient 
 
Between Two Revolutions (1905-1917) 63 
 
 to the tsarist absolutism, should come to be regarded 
 in the same light with the governmental autocracy, and 
 that all who desired the rightful and necessary modifi¬ 
 cations in the system of rule came to think of the 
 church as the second chief obstacle in the path of 
 progress? 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MARCH REVOLUTION (1917) 
 
 The disastrous defeats of the Russian armies at the 
 Front were matched by an equally desperate internal 
 situation. The reactionary forces were increasingly 
 strengthened by new accessions of power. When in 
 1916 the reactionary Protopopov was appointed 
 minister of the interior, his method of dealing with 
 the extreme discontent of the nation, aroused by the 
 disorganization and culpable inefficiency as well as 
 corruption in the government, was that of equipping 
 his police force with machine guns and of quartering 
 Cossacks upon the cities, so that the slightest outward 
 manifestation of discontent was drowned in blood. 
 
 The Duma, which met in November, 1916, reached in 
 its protests the point of almost open denunciation of 
 the government, but without much effect in the 
 proper quarters. The very speeches of the delegates 
 were so mutilated by censorship that often nothing 
 but incoherent and unintelligible bits remained. 
 Premier Sturmer, whose Germanophile policies pro¬ 
 voked such a storm of protests throughout the coun¬ 
 try, was just then removed from office; but this was 
 in no way a concession to the liberal demands, for he 
 was succeeded by the state secretary Trepov, under 
 whose administration conditions grew even worse than 
 before. The stormy scenes in the Duma increased in 
 number and violence, and the popular discontent 
 
 64 
 
65 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 caused by shortage of food throughout Russia mani¬ 
 fested itself in bloody uprisings. The demands of the 
 Duma for a ministry responsible to itself became so 
 loud and persistent that finally, on December 30, 1916, 
 the Duma was prorogued. The agitation was so vio¬ 
 lent that the ukaz of prorogation was not even read to 
 the end. By various maneuvers, the reassembling of 
 the Duma was postponed, and when it was finally 
 assembled in February, the masses were already in 
 revolt and were joined by an increasing number of 
 soldiers. The general situation in Russia now became 
 so boldly anti-governmental that even the Duma 
 refused to obey an order bidding it to postpone its 
 meeting, and organized its own provisional executive 
 committee, headed by its president, Rodzyanko. But 
 the Social Democrats refused to cooperate, and organ¬ 
 ized, in the evening of that same day, the first Soviet, 
 chosen from delegates hastily elected from the indus¬ 
 trial plants and the military barracks. Thus Russia had 
 to figure with two potential supreme organs of 
 authority, and therein lay the tragedy of the situa¬ 
 tion as it developed later. The emperor continued 
 apathetic to all appeals and entreaties, until it was too 
 late. When he finally decided to return to the capital, 
 he found the way blocked, and turned aside to Pskov, 
 to the headquarters of General Ruzsky; there he 
 learned that not only the Duma and the Soviet, but 
 practically all the generals of the army as well, de¬ 
 manded his abdication. He finally consented to meet 
 the representatives of the Duma’s Provisional Govern¬ 
 ment, and abdicated in favor of his brother, Grand 
 Duke Michael. But when the Soviet refused to ac¬ 
 cept another Romanov, Michael prudently refused the 
 throne till he should be called to it by a Constituent 
 
66 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Assembly. Neither he nor anyone else was ever called 
 to the throne; Michael's decision proved to be the fall 
 of the Romanov dynasty, which had ruled Russia for 
 the past three hundred years. This momentous event 
 was not the work of the Duma, or of the Bolsheviki, 
 whose leaders, like Lenin and Trotsky, were not even 
 in Russia at the time, and whose faction in the Soviet 
 was still too weak to ascribe to it any dominant part. 
 The dynasty fell of its own inherent weakness, because 
 the system which it created and fostered alienated the 
 nation and in the fearful hour of testing could not with¬ 
 stand the popular condemnation. The iniquitous tsarist 
 regime had fallen because “its sins had found it out." 
 
 After the March revolution had found itself in pos¬ 
 session of the field, it could be logically expected that 
 the church would come in for its share as having been 
 the chief prop of the former theocratic absolutism. 
 But the revolution proved surprisingly tolerant toward 
 the tsarist church; to be sure, such leaders as the ober- 
 procuror, Raev, with his associate, Prince Zhevakhov, 
 as well as the reactionary metropolitan of Petrograd, 
 Piterim, were deprived of their posts. The last-named 
 was tried by his own colleagues in the Holy Synod 
 and sent into Caucasia; this undoubtedly was meant 
 as a peace offering to the new regime on the part of the 
 Synod. But it was unthinkable that the old members 
 of the highest ecclesiastical office, who had been 
 appointed with the protection of influences so diamet¬ 
 rically opposed to the revolutionary regime now pre¬ 
 vailing, would change overnight their rooted conviction 
 and work in the spirit of the new order; therefore it 
 was impossible that they should permanently retain 
 their posts under the new regime. After a short attempt 
 to work with the old body under the new revolu- 
 
67 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 tionary ober-procuror, V. N. L’vov, who found it 
 intractable, it was dissolved, and in April the new 
 members were appointed. The personnel of the Synod 
 was now composed of men more or less in sympathy 
 with the needs of the day. 
 
 Thus no fundamental change in the structure of 
 the government of the church was even attempted; 
 the Provisional Government, true to its guiding 
 principle, deliberately postponed the final solution of 
 these weighty matters of making radical changes in the 
 existing system till the meeting of the properly elected 
 constituent bodies: in the church, the projected Sobor, 
 and in the state, the Constituent Assembly. Even 
 the office of ober-procuror was retained essentially 
 unchanged till the end of June, when the Ministry of 
 Confessions was substituted for it. The only legal 
 difference between the tsarist ober-procurorship and 
 the revolutionary one was that the incumbent was now 
 appointed by the Provisional Government, while 
 formerly this had been the prerogative of the tsar; but 
 otherwise the duties and responsibilities of the office 
 remained essentially unchanged. Of course, such 
 minor and inextensive changes as the introduction of 
 prayers for the new regime into the liturgical service, 
 in place of those which had been recited for the 
 imperial family, were made as a matter of course. 
 
 The new Holy Synod actually gained a greater 
 degree of freedom than it had possessed formerly: its 
 acts and decisions were now valid without requiring the 
 approval of the government. Moreover, even though 
 it was evident to all that the entire structure of the 
 church must be rebuilt to suit the new conditions, and 
 the projected Sobor was in the forefront of the thought 
 of the church, yet no one could foresee how extensive 
 
68 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 and momentous the changes were to be, and therefore 
 even those few changes which the Provisional Govern¬ 
 ment felt necessary to introduce found the church 
 unprepared. Hence they became the source of recrim¬ 
 ination, friction, and finally of a feeling of alienation 
 between the two bodies. The church was not ready to 
 realize that it could never again be what it was before 
 the catastrophic days of the Revolution, and would not 
 willingly surrender any of the unfair privileges or 
 power derived from its unholy alliance with the tsarist 
 autocracy. Struggle, therefore, was inevitable. For 
 the time being, however, since all this was not clearly 
 envisioned, the hierarchy acquiesced in the fact of the 
 Revolution and outwardly adapted itself to the new 
 order; thus, in spite of some protests, the new regime, 
 on the whole, was accepted. 
 
 The majority of the parish clergy, however, greeted 
 the overthrow of the tsarist system, generally speaking, 
 with genuine enthusiasm. Their various local conven¬ 
 tions adopted resolutions expressive of their strong 
 sympathies with the new order. The Moscow Con¬ 
 vention of Clergy and Laymen, numbering fifteen hun¬ 
 dred delegates, adopted a resolution in which they 
 have gone on record as saying: . . we profess our 
 
 unswerving faithfulness and loyalty to the Provisional 
 Government, not because of fear, but for conscience’s 
 sake.” 1 
 
 The former liberal parties within the church, sup¬ 
 pressed during the reaction subsequent to the year 
 1906, were again revived; thus The Group of the 
 Thirty-Two was reorganized, and besides, in March, 
 1917, a more radical liberal party appeared under th6 
 title The All-Russian Society of the Democratic Ortho- 
 
 1 Titlinov: The Church during the Revolution, p. 57. 
 
69 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 dox Clergy and Laymen, at the head of which stood the 
 former member of the Duma and ex-priest, D. Y. 
 Popov, as president, and Priest A. T. Vvedensky, as 
 secretary. This organization professed a thorough¬ 
 going opposition to the monarchic principle of govern¬ 
 ment and strove for general democratization and 
 socialization of the entire structure of Russian life: 
 abolition of noble ranks; equal rights for women; 
 absolute liberty of thought, word, and conscience; 
 general state-supported grade and high-school educa¬ 
 tion; struggle against capitalism; surrender of the land 
 to the peasants and the factories to the workers; and a 
 reform of the church. 2 But the new organization was 
 not strong in numbers on account of its definitely 
 socialistic character. Vvedensky, for instance, was 
 actively engaged, on the public platform and through 
 the press, in propagating a species of Christian social¬ 
 ism; it was this feature which caused the majority 
 within the church to look askance upon the whole 
 movement, for socialism was generally identified with 
 irreligion. Petrograd became the center of the liberal 
 movement, although this city was likewise the citadel 
 of the conservative hierarchy, being the seat of the 
 Holy Synod. 
 
 The Provisional Government was surprisingly slow 
 in introducing changes into the religious sphere, even 
 such changes as those to which the dominant political 
 parties had long before committed themselves. Thus, 
 for instance, the law granting full religious liberty was 
 not published until July 17, 1917, when the Provisional 
 Government had been in office some four months. By 
 the provisions of this legislation, all civil limitations 
 
 6 Cf. A. Vvedensky: The Church and the Government, Moscow, 
 1923, p. 32. (In Russian.) 
 
70 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 based upon religious grounds were abolished, and the 
 right to pass from one religious communion to another, 
 as well as to sever one’s connection with all, was 
 granted. This last provision was of great importance, 
 for hitherto non-confessionalism, or atheism, was not 
 legally recognized. Nevertheless, the government 
 allowed the ecclesiastical organs to retain some func¬ 
 tions of a civil nature, such as the registration of 
 births, the solemnization of marriages, and the grant¬ 
 ing of divorces, and all were compelled to resort to 
 the church for a legal performance of such acts. 3 
 
 Among the more progressive measures adopted by 
 the government was the abolition of the office of ober- 
 procuror, and the substitution for it of the Ministry 
 of Confessions. This happened toward the end of June, 
 when V. N. L’vov lost his office and was succeeded, in 
 the new capacity, by the well-known historian, A. V. 
 Kartashev. The project as originally worked out by 
 the minister of the interior was of a much wider 
 scope; in the beginning of July, he had projected a 
 plan of mutual relation between the church and the 
 state, which comprised the following provisions: 
 
 1. All state-recognized religious communions were 
 to be, in their internal administration, entirely free. 
 
 2. Their administrative officials were subject to the 
 oversight of the government only in so far as they per¬ 
 formed acts of a civil or legal nature, such as the 
 registry of births, the solemnization of marriages, the 
 granting of divorces, etc. 
 
 3. The nature of the oversight was exclusively that 
 of controlling the legality of such functions. 
 
 4. This oversight was to be exercised by the Minis¬ 
 try of Confessions. 
 
 3 Cf. Titlinov: op. cit., p. 79. 
 
71 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 5. The government undertook the support of the 
 churches and their officials and institutions. This sup¬ 
 port was to be granted to the church directly. 4 
 
 The project, however, did not receive the approval of 
 the legislative body of the government, and the only 
 item which was realized was the organization of the 
 Ministry of Confessions, which was passed early in 
 August. The functions of the new ministry were de¬ 
 fined as follows: 
 
 1. The Ministry of Confessions is constituted for 
 dealing with all confessional matters. 
 
 2. The jurisdiction of this ministry comprises: (a) 
 all matters relative to the Orthodox communion, tem¬ 
 porarily in the same manner as they now belong, in ac¬ 
 cordance with the existing laws, within the competence 
 of the ober-procuror of the Holy Synod; (b) of other 
 Christian and non-Christian communions, which are 
 subject, according to law, to the control of the depart¬ 
 ment of non-Orthodox confessions of the Ministry 
 of the Interior. 
 
 3. The posts of ober-procuror of the Holy Synod, 
 and of his associate, are abolished. 
 
 4. The scope of the ministry is enlarged to include 
 the minister of confessions, and two of his associates. 
 
 5. The minister of confessions, in the discharge of 
 duties enumerated in article 2, unites in himself tem¬ 
 porarily the entire jurisdiction of the ober-procuror and 
 the respective jurisdiction of the minister of the in¬ 
 terior, until the time of ratification, in a legal manner, 
 of the reforms of ecclesiastical administration by the 
 All-Russian Local Sobor, and a radical revision of the 
 relations of the Russian government to the newly 
 constituted confessions. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 83. 
 
72 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 6. To the ministry of confessions are transferred: 
 (a) the office of ober-procuror of the Holy Synod with 
 its juridical department, which is renamed the office 
 of the Ministry of Confessions for the Affairs of the 
 Orthodox Church, and the juridical department of the 
 ober-procuror is renamed the juridical department of 
 the Ministry of Confessions; (b) the department of 
 Spiritual Affairs, renamed the Administration of the 
 Ministry of Confessions for Affairs of the non-Orthodox 
 and non-Christian Confessions. 
 
 7. For the support of the institutions named in 
 article 5, until further changes, all grants hitherto made 
 them, as well as other grants, are secured for that pur¬ 
 pose, and are to be paid from the treasury as well as 
 from special means. 0 
 
 From this lengthy official document it is apparent 
 that fundamentally nothing was changed in the old 
 system of the ober-procural rule but the name, 
 although professedly the arrangement was to be of 
 only a temporary duration, until the church Sobor 
 should work out a permanent system of supreme 
 administration. 
 
 The church, in a fairly definite and clear manner, 
 expressed its mind on the subject at the Convention of 
 the Clergy and Laymen, held in Moscow, in June, 1917. 
 This Convention was a very important one, for it 
 served to forecast the character of the national Sobor 
 which was shortly to be convened. It began with 
 seven hundred delegates, but grew, as the sessions 
 progressed, to twelve hundred members. On the 
 whole, it was quite friendly to the government, 
 which, considering that the delegates regarded them¬ 
 selves as representing the one hundred and fourteen 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 84. 
 
73 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 millions of Orthodox Russians, was an important cir¬ 
 cumstance. During the ten days of its activity, the 
 Convention worked out and passed upon all the more 
 important reforms which were deemed essential for 
 the reorganized church of Russia, and also expressed 
 its judgment upon the ecclesiastical measures either 
 adopted or contemplated by the government. Among 
 these the Convention was apprehensive of the drift 
 toward positions which would estrange the government 
 from the church, or ultimately bring about a separation 
 of the church from the state. This was greatly feared 
 by the ecclesiastical representatives. They demanded 
 that their communion should retain the primacy among 
 the religious bodies of Russia and also should continue 
 to enjoy certain legal privileges which were not granted 
 to the rest. This general demand was also formulated 
 by the pre-Sobor committee, which was organized in 
 June, and which published its pronouncement on July 
 13, 1917. Its provisions were as follows: 
 
 The Orthodox church should occupy in the Russian 
 government the primary, most favored publico-jurid¬ 
 ical position among the communions, due her as the 
 greatest national sanctuary, by reason of her exclusive 
 historical and cultural value, as well as by her being 
 the confession of the majority of the population. In 
 accordance with the principle of liberty of conscience 
 and of religious confession, granted by the new regime 
 in Russia, the Orthodox church should wield such lib¬ 
 erty in its utmost fullness. These fundamental prin¬ 
 ciples comprise the following points: 
 
 1. The Orthodox church in Russia, as regards her 
 constitution, legislation, administration, judiciary, 
 doctrine and moral precepts, ritual, inner ecclesiastical 
 discipline and outward relation with other confessions, 
 is independent of the government. (Autonomy.) 
 
74 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 2. The decisions, passed for her own direction by 
 the Orthodox church in a manner specified by herself, 
 are acknowledged by the government as legal norms, 
 possessing, from the time of their publication by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities, obligatory authority for all 
 individuals and institutions belonging to the Orthodox 
 Russian Church within as well as beyond the borders. 
 
 3. The acts of the officials of the Orthodox church 
 are subject to the oversight of the government ex¬ 
 clusively in the matter of their correspondence with 
 the governmental laws; aside from this, these officials 
 are responsible to the government only in accordance 
 with the due process of law. 
 
 4. The government shall recognize the ecclesiastical 
 hierarchy and ecclesiastical institutions ordained by 
 ecclesiastical decisions. The government shall recog¬ 
 nize the same validity of the administrative and 
 judicial acts of such ecclesiastical institutions and 
 proper church authorities as is ascribed to them by the 
 ecclesiastical decrees, as long as such acts do not con¬ 
 flict with the governmental laws. The verdict as to 
 the legality of the acts of church authorities shall be 
 according to law. 
 
 5. The clergy, monks, and psalm-singers, who have 
 completed their course of study in theological institu¬ 
 tions or other professional schools, and likewise the 
 psalm-singers of the Edinovertsi who have completed 
 their special training, shall be free from the military, 
 as well as other natural civil duties. 
 
 6. Whenever at least one of the parties to a marriage 
 belongs to the Orthodox church, the marriage cere¬ 
 mony according to the Orthodox rite shall be acknowl¬ 
 edged as the legal solemnization of marriage. 
 
 7. Ecclesiastically juridical pronouncements con¬ 
 cerning divorce, or illegality or non-actuality of a mar¬ 
 riage, shall be acknowledged as valid juridical decisions. 
 
75 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 8. Registry of births by the church shall possess 
 civil validity, provided it is kept in accordance with 
 the governmental laws. 
 
 9. Liberty of profession and preaching of the Ortho¬ 
 dox faith, and the right openly to conduct the divine 
 services, shall be acknowledged and defended by the 
 governmental authorities. 
 
 10. The twelve high holidays, Sundays, and the 
 days especially observed by the Orthodox church, shall 
 be acknowledged by the governmental authorities as 
 the days of rest. 
 
 11. The head of the Russian government, as well 
 as the minister of confessions, must be members of the 
 Orthodox church. 
 
 12. On all state occasions when the government 
 requires religious functions, the Orthodox church shall 
 be given preference. 
 
 13. The Orthodox church shall be free to establish 
 grade, middle, and high schools, not only the profes¬ 
 sionally theological, but all general educational insti¬ 
 tutions as well. The government shall grant these 
 schools all rights of state institutions of learning. 
 
 14. In all secular governmental schools, as well as 
 in private institutions attended by children of Ortho¬ 
 dox parents, teaching of the catechism shall be com¬ 
 pulsory. The support of the catechetical instructors 
 in governmental schools shall be provided for from 
 the state treasury. 
 
 15. All administrative offices of the Orthodox church 
 possess the right of property of juridical persons. 
 The existing administrative offices of the Ortho¬ 
 dox church shall retain the property which they 
 possess at the present time; moreover, they may 
 not be abolished, and their property may not be 
 confiscated, without the consent of the ecclesiastical 
 authorities. 
 
76 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 16. Church properties not yielding a net income 
 shall be free from taxation. 
 
 17. The Orthodox church shall receive out of the 
 state treasury annual appropriation to the limit of its 
 actual needs, for which it shall be responsible in 
 accordance with general principles.* 
 
 It is abundantly clear from this interesting docu¬ 
 ment what kind of modus vivendi the church desired, 
 and that such demands could not be granted even by 
 the Provisional Government. When this government 
 was superseded by the Soviet power, manifestly a 
 collision was unavoidable and inevitable. The church 
 was unwilling to surrender the unfair advantages it 
 had formerly derived from its union with the state, 
 and the new regime, professedly striving to eradicate 
 the causes and consequences of the injustice to which 
 the nations of Russia were subjected under the tsars, 
 out of principle could not grant the full measure of the 
 demands of the church. 
 
 The inevitableness of the collision of the two forces 
 became apparent even during the last months of the 
 Provisional Government, when on June 20 a law was 
 passed whereby all schools supported from public funds 
 passed into the control of the Ministry of Education; 
 this affected primarily the parochial and other ecclesias¬ 
 tically controlled educational institutions. It must be 
 remembered that the number of ecclesiastically con¬ 
 trolled schools “amounted to thirty-seven thousand, i.e. 
 one-third of all the schools in Russia.” 7 Although 
 they were supported by the government, they served 
 the interests of the church, and under the new condi¬ 
 tions it was unthinkable that such an anomalous con- 
 
 8 Titlinov: op. cit., pp. 80-82. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 65. 
 
77 
 
 The March Revolution (1917) 
 
 dition could persist; therefore the law of June 20 was 
 natural enough. It is, moreover, of special interest 
 to notice that even the teaching staff of these schools 
 demanded that action, and approved that all schools 
 be unified under the common direction of the Ministry 
 of Education. But the church at large felt this blow 
 heavily and regarded the transfer of parochial schools 
 to the control of the state as a calamity as well as an 
 injustice. The Moscow Convention of Clergy and Lay¬ 
 men, which met in June, protested against it, and the 
 formulation of the demands of the church, as pub¬ 
 lished by the pre-Sobor committee in July, boldly 
 demanded the restitution of these schools, and even the 
 compulsory, state-supported, teaching of the catechism. 
 The church clearly realized what it had at stake: the 
 control of the parochial schools, and the compulsory 
 teaching of the catechism of all Orthodox children, 
 were of immense importance for the training of the 
 younger generation in the official theological system. 
 Their loss meant a gradual loss of the influence wielded 
 so despotically by the church, and it likewise meant 
 a corresponding gain of influence of the non-confes¬ 
 sional—or as the church interpreted it, “godless”— 
 secular education. But in spite of these vigorous pro¬ 
 tests, the governmental policy remained in force and 
 the law of June 20 went into effect. 
 
 The Ministry of Education, moreover, planned to 
 remove from the list of required subjects the teaching 
 of the Orthodox Catechism—“the law of God/’ as it 
 was officially termed—which was to be made optional. 
 Formerly, it was a required subject of study in all 
 schools, not only the grammar, but also the high, the 
 technical, and the classical schools, as well as in the 
 military academies and the army. It is not an over- 
 
78 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 statement to say that the chief strength of the tsarist 
 theocracy lay in this assiduous use of the schools for 
 the widest dissemination of the religious— i.e. theo¬ 
 cratic—sanctions of the tsarist power. The church 
 fought against the threatened danger with might and 
 main, and when its opposition remained ineffectual, 
 for the government was justifying its stand by point¬ 
 ing out that to give one ecclesiastical organization an 
 unfair advantage over the rest would amount to nulli¬ 
 fying the provisions of liberty of conscience and free¬ 
 dom of religious profession, the church quite definitely 
 began to regard the state in the light of its enemy. 
 The hierarchy began to talk of opposing the ‘Anti¬ 
 christian” government, with its Ministry of Confes¬ 
 sions, by a “strong” ecclesiastical authority, a strong 
 and energetic patriarch. He was to be for the church 
 what formerly the tsar was for the state: a representa¬ 
 tive of the might and will-to-power of the ecclesiastical 
 monarchy. It was with this feeling widespread, and 
 under the conviction of the increasingly unfriendly 
 relations with the state, that the election of the dele¬ 
 gates to the All-Russian Sobor (Council) was carried 
 on, and in consequence of it the selection of the person¬ 
 nel was largely influenced thereby. The Sobor, as it 
 turned out, was predominantly of a conservative char¬ 
 acter, with the reactionary faction strongly entrenched 
 and wielding an overwhelming influence. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE FIRST ALL-RUSSIAN LOCAL SOBOR OF 1917 
 
 The Synodical proclamation of its intention to call 
 the long-desired and long-deferred Sobor was published 
 on April 29, 1917. In this document the reason for 
 calling the Sobor was stated as that “the governmental 
 overthrow which has taken place has radically changed 
 our social and political life, securing even for the church 
 the possibility and right of free organization. The 
 secret dream of the Russian Orthodox people has 
 become realizable, and the calling of the local Sobor in 
 the nearest possible future now becomes necessary.” 1 
 The proclamation was signed, among others, even by 
 such conservative leaders as was Archbishop Agath- 
 angel, a known member of The Black Hundred, Bishop 
 Andrei (who was by family Prince Ukhtomsky), and 
 the former court chaplain, Lyubimov. The same day, 
 the Synod decided to appoint a pre-Sobor committee, 
 which was to prepare the necessary agenda for the 
 Sobor. This committee, from time to time enlarged, 
 had a goodly proportion of conservative leaders among 
 its members, for nothing else could really be expected. 
 
 By a second proclamation of the Holy Synod, issued 
 on July 5 of the same year, the Sobor itself was called 
 for the 15th of August, to meet in “the God-fearing, 
 
 1 Vvedensky: The Church and the Government, p. 59; cf. for the 
 text of the entire document. 
 
 79 
 
80 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 ancient city of Moscow/ 5 as the document styled it. 
 Three days before the Sobor opened its sessions, the 
 pre-Sobor commission published its reports, embody¬ 
 ing a formidable mass of matters needing the atten¬ 
 tion of the Sobor, such as the legal status of the Ortho¬ 
 dox church in relation to the state and a new form 
 of the supreme church government; and it is interest¬ 
 ing to note that this law-project contemplated the 
 periodic calling of the national Sobor, which would be 
 the supreme judiciary, having for administrative pur¬ 
 poses two organs, the Holy Synod and the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council. 2 Furthermore, the projects 
 included reorganization of the constitution of the par¬ 
 ish, of the schools, and a mass of other items too 
 numerous to mention. The government, by its pro¬ 
 nouncement of August 11, granted the Sobor the right 
 to work out the new form of church government 
 unhindered, but requested that the finished product be 
 submitted to the Ministry of Confessions for approval; 
 until such legal changes, adopted by the Sobor and 
 approved by the government, were effected, the old 
 church authorities and the old order of things were to 
 remain undisturbed. Moreover, the Provisional Gov¬ 
 ernment willingly granted one million rubles for the 
 expenses of the church assembly. 
 
 When the elections for the Sobor were completed, 
 it was found that the number of the delegates amounted 
 to five hundred and sixty-four, from which number 
 ten were metropolitans, seventeen archbishops, fifty- 
 two bishops, two protopresbyters, fifteen archiman¬ 
 drites, two hegumens, three hieromonks, four mitered 
 archpriests, sixty-four archpriests, fifty-four priests, 
 two archdeacons, eight deacons, twenty-six psalm-sing- 
 
 2 See Ibid., p. 68, where the whole document is printed in full. 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 81 
 
 ers, and two hundred and seventy-eight laymen. 8 It 
 will be noticed that the above enumeration does not 
 account for twenty-seven delegates; if these are to be 
 counted with the clerical members, then the clerical 
 party exceeded the lay representatives by eight per¬ 
 sons. In that case, the relative strength of the clergy 
 and laymen was almost equally distributed. Among 
 the lay delegates was a large number of professors 
 (41), of whom the two princes Trubetski were the 
 most prominent; among other prominent lay members 
 were men like Rodzyanko, the president of the Duma, 
 General Artamonov, Count Apraksin, etc. The repre¬ 
 sentatives were democratically elected and represented 
 all the sixty-six dioceses of Russia: each diocese 
 sent its bishop, two other members of the clergy, 
 and three laymen. Aside from this, the four great 
 theological academies contributed sixteen delegates, 
 equally distributed among them; each univer¬ 
 sity was represented by one delegate, and the mon¬ 
 asteries of Russia had their spokesmen in a group of 
 about ten delegates. The diocesan delegates had been 
 elected by a diocesan council in a fairly democratic 
 fashion. 
 
 At last, the memorable Sobor, the first after the two 
 centuries of the oppressive reign of the Holy Synod, 
 was opened. As the official report of the Sobor, The 
 Acts of the Holy Sobor of the Orthodox Russian 
 Church, describes it: 
 
 In the year one thousand nine hundred and seven¬ 
 teen since the birth of Christ, on August 15, on the day 
 of the revered Assumption of the Most Holy Mother 
 of God, in the God-saved city of Moscow, in the Great 
 Cathedral of the Assumption, the Holy Sobor of the 
 
 * Ibid., p. 73. 
 
82 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Orthodox Russian Church was opened, in accordance 
 with the rites specially prepared for the occasion by 
 the Holy Synod. The liturgy was sung by Vladimir of 
 Kiev, Platon of Tiflis, and Benjamin of Petrograd. 
 Occupying the seats of honor among the worshipers 
 were the premier minister, A. T. Kerensky, the minister 
 of the interior, N. D. Avksentev, and the minister of 
 confessions, A. V. Kartashev, with his associate, C. A. 
 Kotlyarovsky. 4 
 
 At the second session, which was presided over by 
 Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, the minister of confes¬ 
 sions, Kartashev, addressed the Sobor in behalf of 
 the Provisional Government. He laid stress in his 
 speech upon the importance of the Sobor, which, he 
 said, the Provisional Government recognized as the 
 plenary legislative organ of the Russian church; he 
 explained that the government was awaiting the action 
 of the Sobor regarding the new organization of the 
 entire administrative structure of the church, and was 
 ready to withdraw from the jurisdiction of its minister 
 of confessions the hitherto performed ober-procurorial 
 duties, in order to make room for the system devised 
 by the Sobor, as soon as such a scheme should receive 
 the government’s approval; thereafter, the Ministry 
 of Confessions would confine its activities to a general 
 oversight of the legal aspects of the working of the 
 new system, leaving the church otherwise autonomous. 6 
 
 This address was followed by a considerable number 
 of other congratulatory speeches, among which it may 
 be worth while to mention speakers like V. N. L’vov, 
 representing the Orthodox church committee of the 
 Duma, and M. V. Rodzyanko, president of the Duma. 
 
 4 Ibid,., p. 73. 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 77ff. 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 83 
 
 As far as the organization of the Sobor was con¬ 
 cerned, the conservative party had gained a victory 
 in the pre-Sobor committee which greatly affected the 
 relative powers of the episcopal as against the clerical 
 and lay delegates. The conservatives had gained the 
 concession whereby the Sobor was divided into two 
 ‘‘houses” or “curiae”: an episcopal one, with special 
 prerogatives to rule and the power to veto any decision 
 of the Sobor, and consequently possessing a substantial 
 balance of power; and the clerical-lay curia, whose 
 position was rendered less influential by reason of the 
 prerogatives of the hierarchy. The liberal party, within 
 the pre-Sobor committee as well as within the Sobor, 
 fought against the measure tooth and nail, but with 
 no result; the struggle, however, was ominously pro¬ 
 phetic of the combats to be waged in the future 
 which ultimately were to culminate in an open schism 
 rending the church in twain. 
 
 As for the parties within the Sobor, it could not be 
 pronounced entirely conservative, even though it had 
 a comfortable conservative majority. This party, led 
 by the talented and able Metropolitan Antony Khrapo- 
 vitsky, adopted for its slogan the restoration of the 
 patriarchate, and could not imagine that the white 
 patriarchal cowl could grace any other head than that 
 of their leader. In the second place, the Sobor had a 
 moderate center of a considerable size, largely com¬ 
 posed of the lay intelligentsia, and led by such prom¬ 
 inent religious personalities as Prince Eugene N. 
 Trubetskoy and Father Sergei N. Bulgakov. On the 
 whole, this group supported the aspirations and the 
 demands of the party of the right, and thus gave that 
 group its dominant influence. Lastly, the radical 
 party of the left was likewise represented, although by 
 
84 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 a minority, which was not able to influence greatly the 
 policies of the Sobor. 
 
 Among the first items of business taken up by the 
 Sobor was the matter of transferring the parochial 
 and teachers’ schools, controlled by the church but 
 supported out of the funds of the state, to the Ministry 
 of Education, together with the proposed radical 
 limitation of the teaching of the catechism. After a 
 vigorous debate regarding these questions, the Sobor 
 decided to protest against the measures, drawing up a 
 resolution roundly denouncing the action of the gov¬ 
 ernment. The Sobor demanded from the authorities 
 a change of the law of June 20, which ordered the 
 transfer of the schools and pronounced the stand of 
 the ministry regarding the limitation of the teaching 
 of the catechism hostile to the church. The resolution 
 was delivered by a special delegation, headed by a 
 pronounced conservative hierarch, Bishop Cyrill. In 
 spite of the protestations of the Sobor, the government 
 remained firm in its stand regarding the transfer of 
 the schools, for that had to do with legislation which 
 had already been promulgated; but the delegation 
 gained some concessions regarding the second half 
 of its protest, for the authorities were willing to take 
 it into consideration. The reason for this milder atti¬ 
 tude was that the matter of limiting the teaching 
 of the catechism by making the subject elective rather 
 than compulsory was in a preliminary stage of a law- 
 project, and had not yet been promulgated. 
 
 The Sobor also gave a great deal of attention to the 
 approaching elections to the Constituent Assembly, 
 which was to give Russia its definite and permanent 
 form of government. Its growing uneasiness in regard 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 85 
 
 to the policies of the Provisional Government, or rather 
 its increasingly hostile attitude toward that regime, 
 may be easily gathered from an interesting episode 
 occurring at the time of Kornilov’s defection. This 
 supreme commander of the Russian armies, disgusted 
 with the inefficiency of the government, started a 
 mutinous march upon Petrograd, at the same time 
 appealing to the Sobor for recognition. His message 
 threw the Sobor into confusion as to the right course 
 of action: it would have gladly seen the Provisional 
 Government crumble, but was not sure of the ulti¬ 
 mate success of Kornilov’s venture. In a strictly secret 
 meeting (the protocol of which, naturally, does not 
 appear in the official Acts of the Sobor) it pondered 
 and deliberated the question. Fortunately, the swift 
 debacle of the supreme commander’s revolt relieved 
 the Sobor of the necessity of deciding the delicate 
 question. 
 
 Discussion regarding the restoration of the patri¬ 
 archate became prominent during the first half of the 
 month of September. It was discussed in the section 
 on the supreme church administration, under the 
 chairmanship of Bishop Methodius, where the majority 
 of the members favored it. When the section voted 
 upon the question, it was adopted by fifty-six yeas 
 against thirty-two nays; although this was against the 
 rules, the decision of the section was reported to the 
 Sobor. On September 11, Bishop Methodius made 
 his report before the whole council, recommending the 
 reestablishment of the patriarchate. The discussion 
 regarding this matter brought to light the most funda¬ 
 mental issues dividing the parties and clearly defined 
 the divergent policies of the two main types of think- 
 
86 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 ing among the delegates of the Sobor. The majority 
 of the arguments in favor of the restoration of the 
 patriarchate were based upon the necessity of a strong 
 leader who would be able not only to defend the church 
 against any inimical attempts on the part of the gov¬ 
 ernment, but who would at the same time assume an 
 energetic, aggressive policy in the direction of strength¬ 
 ening the interests of the church. It was quite evident 
 that the recent acts of the Provisional Government, 
 such as the creation of the Ministry of Confessions, 
 whereby the Orthodox church was threatened with the 
 loss of its unfair advantages over other Christian 
 communions, and the transfer of the church schools 
 to the control of the Ministry of Education, deeply 
 prejudiced the members of the Sobor against the 
 government. They were in an apprehensive mood, 
 and therefore they desired to organize the supreme 
 office in such a manner as to enable the church to repel 
 the attacks of the non-confessional, ( i.e . irreligious, as 
 the Sobor interpreted the term) government. This 
 discussion lasted throughout October and might have 
 been continued indefinitely, and with but doubtful 
 results, were it not for the outbreak of the October 
 Revolution, which radically changed the whole aspect 
 of the situation. 
 
 On October 25, 1917, the Provisional Government, 
 headed by Kerensky, fell, and the supreme power was 
 seized by the Soviets, i.e . that left wing of the social¬ 
 ists, whose attitude toward the church was the most 
 radical. Moscow, where the forces of the overthrown 
 government held the grim ancient tsarist citadel and 
 palace, Kremlin—where, by the way, the Sobor was 
 meeting—resisted the besieging “red” forces for some 
 time longer. It was, therefore, under the thunder 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 87 
 
 of the guns and roar of battle that the constituent 
 church assembly deliberated about the regeneration 
 of the Russian church. 
 
 On October 28, the meeting of the Sobor, under the 
 presidency of the metropolitan of Moscow, Tikhon, 
 was opened by him with a short speech suggesting that 
 the further discussion of the restoration of the patri¬ 
 archate be dispensed with, and the addresses of the 
 speakers already scheduled be entered into the protocol 
 undelivered. This was seconded by a member of the 
 Sobor, Archpriest Lakhostsky, who stressed the neces¬ 
 sity of the restoration of the patriarchate, especially 
 in the difficult period the church was facing; he 
 referred to the imprisonment of the minister of confes¬ 
 sions in the Peter and Paul fortress, and stressed that 
 only the patriarch’s voice would “sound authoritatively 
 in the political spheres.” Tikhon wished to submit this 
 motion to voting without the formality of a discussion, 
 but on account of loud protests against such breach 
 of rules, he permitted Professor Kudryavtsev, one of 
 the radical delegates, to speak; this speaker demanded 
 that the Sobor should first define what the functions 
 and prerogatives, as well as the authority and juris¬ 
 diction, of the national Sobors were to be, before the 
 election of the patriarch should take place. Although 
 his voice went unheeded, and the majority wished the 
 discussion dispensed with and an immediate election 
 undertaken, the hierarch who presented the report of 
 the section of the supreme ecclesiastical administration 
 himself urged that the decisive step be postponed till a 
 more opportune time. 
 
 The historic day upon which the decision to rein¬ 
 state the patriarchate was rendered fell on October 30. 
 The meeting was attended by a very small number of 
 
88 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 delegates, because the firing in the streets kept many 
 members away on account of the obvious danger of 
 showing themselves in the streets; moreover, some did 
 not expect that the momentous question would be 
 adjudged so precipitously and therefore had absented 
 themselves. Nevertheless, the group in attendance 
 took it upon itself to proceed without delay. The 
 motion to proceed with the adoption of the project 
 of restoration of the patriarchate, without any further 
 discussion, prevailed. When some demanded a count to 
 ascertain whether a quorum was present, the presi¬ 
 dent, Metropolitan Tikhon, answered the question in 
 the affirmative, announcing 317 delegates to be present, 
 thus giving the meeting the required one-half. As it 
 turned out later, during the actual voting, the sum 
 total of all the votes cast amounted to 265, and since 
 the official number of delegates to the Sobor was 564, 
 it follows that a quorum was not present when the most 
 momentous question in the modern history of the 
 Russian church was decided. 6 
 
 But before the actual voting was undertaken, 
 because of many protests, the president permitted some 
 discussion of the question. Those who insisted upon 
 immediate action, on the ground that the meeting had 
 a legal right to proceed by reason of possessing a 
 quorum, urged that it was very doubtful whether the 
 Sobor would be permitted by the new regime ever to 
 meet again, and insisted that in all probability the 
 present was its last meeting; these arguments finally 
 prevailed. The voting itself revealed the fact that the 
 total number of delegates present was only 265, of 
 
 8 Cf. Metropolitan Seraphim’s “About the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration,” in Messenger of the Holy Synod of the Russian 
 Orthodox Church, 1926, No. 6, p. 22. (In Russian.) 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 89 
 
 whom 141 voted for the restoration of the patriarchate, 
 112 against it, and 12 abstained from voting. From 
 this surprising result it is evident that, among the 
 less than one-half of the total number of members of 
 the Sobor who were present at the historic meeting, 
 only a little more than one-half voted for the patri¬ 
 archate, and that these 141 delegates amounted to 
 just one-quarter of the total number. The enormously 
 important question of the restoration of the patri¬ 
 archate was thus really carried by only one-fourth of 
 the delegates of the church. 7 
 
 Thereupon the Sobor proceeded with the election of 
 candidates for the patriarchal dignity. It was generally 
 expected that Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), 
 of Kharkov, for a long time the outstanding leader of 
 the patriarchal party and of the conservative hierarchy 
 in general, would undoubtedly be elected patriarch. 
 But the result was different, thanks to the method of 
 procedure adopted for this occasion; the Sobor fol¬ 
 lowed the method which had first been used in 1634 for 
 the election of patriarch Joasaph I, and had been since 
 used in all patriarchal elections. A secret ballot, in 
 which all delegates participated, was held for the pur¬ 
 pose of selecting three candidates; the persons receiv¬ 
 ing the highest number of votes were declared to 
 be the candidates. The first and second vote gave the 
 required majority to Antony, metropolitan of Khar¬ 
 kov, who had been leader of the reactionary Black 
 Hundred as well as of the patriarchal party in the 
 Sobor, and who later left Russia in the wake of the 
 defeated Wrangel White Guards; and to Arsenius, 
 archbishop of Novgorod. It was not till the third vote 
 that Tikhon, metropolitan of Moscow, was nominated. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 23. 
 
I 
 
 90 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Although this is the order most commonly stated, even 
 by such eye-witnesses as Professor B. V. Titlinov, 8 yet 
 Metropolitan Seraphim in his description 9 reverses 
 the order: he states that Archbishop Arsenius received 
 199 votes, Metropolitan Tikhon, 162, and Archbishop 
 Antony, 159. The election proper occurred on Novem¬ 
 ber 5. The names of the three candidates, care¬ 
 fully sealed in wax rolls of equal size and weight, had 
 been deposited the night before in an urn, placed 
 before the famous icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, 
 which was brought for that purpose from the ancient 
 Cathedral of the Assumption in the Kremlin to the 
 beautiful, comparatively modern Church of the Savior, 
 where the election was in progress. The drawing of 
 lots, whereby the selection of one of the three candi¬ 
 dates was left to “the will of God,” was described by an 
 eye-witness, Prince Gregory Trubetskoy, in these mov¬ 
 ing terms: 
 
 I shall never forget the moment when the elder 
 of the recluse-monks, Father Alexius, drew from 
 the urn, which had stood all the previous night before 
 the icon of the Vladimir Mother of God, the slip with 
 the name of the metropolitan of Moscow, Tikhon. The 
 cry of “God’s chosen one!” arose throughout the 
 church. And the people from the beginning regarded 
 the prelate as such, seeing in him their father, whom 
 it was possible and necessary to love. 10 
 
 Nevertheless, the method adopted certainly was not 
 adapted to express the real desires of the Sobor, for 
 Metropolitan Tikhon was not the person likely to have 
 
 8 The Church during the Revolution, p. 97; also in Vvedensky’s 
 The Church and the Government, p. 106. 
 
 9 Op. cit., p. 23. 
 
 10 “Reminiscences of Patriarch Tikhon,” in The Way (Put), Sept., 
 1925, p. 117. (In Russian.) 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 91 
 
 been selected had the procedure been that of a direct 
 choice by the Sobor from among the three candidates. 
 
 The newly chosen head of the Russian church and 
 its eleventh patriarch was a man of great personal 
 humility; he received the deputation which brought 
 him the official announcement of the supreme dignity 
 in the convent enclosure of the Trinity-Sergei Mon¬ 
 astery with a becoming graciousness of manner, and 
 in a convincing mien took the oath of office—to 
 defend the Orthodox church even by the sacrifice of 
 his life. 
 
 The committee of the Sobor then hurriedly worked 
 out the long-disused order of services of enthronement 
 of patriarchs. Since the Bolsheviki had not yet taken 
 full charge of the Kremlin, it was, possible to hold 
 the service in the ancient patriarchal Cathedral of 
 the Assumption, where the patriarchal throne was still 
 preserved. From the patriarchal treasure-chests the 
 ancient robes were again taken out—the scepter of 
 Metropolitan Peter, the, miter, the white cowl and 
 mantle of Patriarch Nikon. 
 
 The impressive ceremony of enthronement took 
 place on November 21, 1917. The immense mass of 
 people which gathered to witness the historic occa¬ 
 sion crowded within the walls of the Kremlin as well as 
 within the Red Square outside. After the liturgy, 
 two chief metropolitans led the patriarch-elect to the 
 patriarchal throne, while chanting Axios! Axios! 
 Axios! and robed him in the vestments of his office. 
 Then the new patriarch led a procession around the 
 Kremlin, sprinkling its walls with the holy water. 
 Even the Red Army soldiers who stood guard there 
 are said to have paid respect to the new hierarch. 
 
 A short account of the life of the man who was 
 
92 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 placed at the head of the Russian church at the most 
 trying period of its history would be in place here. 
 According to the account of Archpriest A. Rozhdest¬ 
 vensky, 11 Patriarch Tikhon, whose secular name was 
 Basil Ivanovich Belavin, was born in 1866, in Toropets, 
 in the government of Pskov. His father held the 
 post of local priest. Destined for the priesthood, 
 he entered the seminary at Pskov in 1878, and 
 remained there for the next five years. He was of 
 a deeply religious nature, so that his schoolmates used 
 to call him “archpriest” in jest. He then passed on to 
 the Petersburg Theological Academy, where his fellow- 
 students raised his title to that of “patriarch.” When 
 Tikhon really became patriarch, these men often 
 recalled^ their prophetic tomfoolery. His popularity 
 among the fellow-students was deservedly great. 
 
 Since all the higher ecclesiastical offices were reserved 
 for the monastic clergy, it was customary for the stu¬ 
 dents of the Academy who aspired after such a career 
 to take upon themselves the monastic vow in the fourth 
 year of their theological studies. But Belavin evidently 
 had no such aspirations, for he graduated from the 
 Academy as a secular, and was called back to the Pskov 
 Seminary as a teacher of theology, serving in that 
 capacity for three years. There his students bore testi¬ 
 mony to his gentle ways and manners. It was here, in 
 1891, that he accepted the monastic vows and received 
 the name of Tikhon. Soon after the young hieromonk 
 was summoned to serve as inspector, and later as rector, 
 of the seminary at Lublin, in the government of Kholm, 
 later being raised to the dignity of bishop of Lublin, 
 and vicar of the Kholm eparchy. From this position he 
 was called to become the head of the Russian church of 
 
 11 The Most Holy Tikhon, Sophia. (In Russian.) 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 93 
 
 the North American continent. His stay of nine years 
 in a country where the conditions of life were 
 unfamiliar and widely divergent from those to which he 
 was accustomed, as well as the really formidable task of 
 superintending the scattered Russian communities dis¬ 
 tributed not only over the length and breadth of the 
 United States, but over Canada, Alaska, and the Aleu¬ 
 tian Islands as well, according to his own testimony 
 greatly broadened his outlook upon life and served him 
 in good stead later. It was during his administration 
 that the episcopal see was removed from San Francisco 
 to New York; and the recollections of Tikhon are quite 
 vivid among his parishioners of the latter city. Tikhon 
 returned to Russia only once during his American term 
 of office, and was on that occasion elevated to the arch- 
 episcopal dignity. In 1907 he was called to administer 
 one of the ancient and important eparchies, Yaroslavl, 
 but six years later was transferred by the Holy Synod 
 to the see of Vilna, in Russian Poland, where he was 
 faced with the delicate task of dealing with the 
 numerous Uniates as well as Roman Catholics, and not 
 the least with the Orthodox Russians who were filled 
 with hatred for the Poles. This difficult task required 
 uncommon skill and tact on the part of the head of the 
 church there, but he acquitted himself of it remark¬ 
 ably well. When the World War broke out, Tikhon’s 
 eparchy became a center of battle. He was obliged to 
 leave the city and took refuge in Moscow, later return¬ 
 ing to his see and living on its eastern boundary line in 
 the town of Disna. When the Moscow metropolitan of 
 Rasputin fame, Macarius, was removed by the Provi¬ 
 sional Government in 1917, Tikhon was selected to fill 
 the vacant throne of this chief of the Russian eparchies, 
 and it was from this position that he was elevated, in 
 
94 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 the same year, to the highest dignity within the gift of 
 the Russian church, that of the patriarch of Moscow 
 and of all Russia. 
 
 When the Sobor addressed itself to the definition of 
 the respective spheres of jurisdiction of the patriarch¬ 
 ate and the Sobor, two possibilities presented them¬ 
 selves: either to endow the restored patriarchate with 
 powers similar to those possessed by the patriarchs 
 prior to the time of Peter the Great, or to make the 
 synodical, i.e. collegiate form of government, dominant 
 in the church. The former proposal could be charac¬ 
 terized as the more aristocratic and hierarchical, but it 
 had the sanction of tradition and of historical precedent 
 on its side; the latter was much more democratic, since 
 the Synod was to have a goodly proportion of laymen 
 among its membership, but it looked too much like 
 an innovation. 
 
 The final decision of the Sobor regarding this 
 momentous question was rendered early in November, 
 and resulted in a skillful compromise between the two 
 competing propositions. It was ruled on November 4, 
 that “in the Russian Orthodox Church the supreme 
 authority, legislative, administrative, judicial, and 
 supervisory, belongs to the local Sobor, assembled peri¬ 
 odically at fixed intervals, and consisting of bishops, 
 clergy, and laymen.” 12 
 
 This, then, was a signal victory for the supporters of 
 the second proposition. Nevertheless, the hierarchical 
 party also won a substantial concession in the second 
 article, which ruled that “the patriarchate is restored, 
 and the ecclesiastical administration is headed by a 
 
 12 Decisions Regarding the Supreme and Eparchial Administration 
 of the Orthodox Church by the Sobor of 1917-1918, Warsaw, 1922. 
 p. 3. (In Russian.) 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 95 
 
 patriarch. 3. The patriarch holds the first place among 
 bishops of equal rank. 4. The patriarch, together with 
 the organs of church administration, is subject to the 
 Sobor.” 13 
 
 It is evident, therefore, that the patriarch, by the 
 provision of the Constitution, was rendered amenable 
 to the Sobor, and could by no means play an autocratic 
 role, such as Russia had experienced during the pre¬ 
 vious period of the patriarchate. He was really not 
 much more than the chief executive, entrusted with 
 “the care of the internal and external welfare of the 
 Russian church.” 14 He convoked the Sobors and by 
 virtue of his office presided at their sessions. But dur¬ 
 ing the interim between the meetings of the Sobor, two 
 elective bodies were associated with him in governing 
 the church: the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesi¬ 
 astical Council. The patriarch served as president of 
 these bodies, and had a veto power over all their actions 
 and decisions. His veto suspended all propositions 
 which he opposed till the decision of the next Sobor. 
 Indeed, the patriarch even had the right of acting inde¬ 
 pendently of these bodies, if in his judgment the well¬ 
 being of the church demanded such a course, but his 
 actions were then subject to the approval or disap¬ 
 proval of the next Sobor. He was likewise charged 
 with the dangerous duty of “making protests to the 
 government” against encroachments or other inimical 
 actions. He supervised the appointment of bishops to 
 vacant eparchial cathedras, in order that they might 
 be filled within a reasonable time; although he did not 
 appoint the bishops, he had the right to advise them 
 regarding their personal life as well as the fulfillment 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 3. 
 
 14 Ibid., p. 4. , 
 
96 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 of their episcopal duties. In case his advice was dis¬ 
 regarded, he referred the case to the Holy Synod; he 
 could arbitrate in cases of personal controversies 
 between bishops, if his jurisdiction was voluntarily 
 sought, but he received all complaints against bishops, 
 and instituted proceedings against them. The patri¬ 
 arch’s name was recited at all liturgical services of the 
 church. Besides these general duties inherent in his 
 office as patriarch, he also served as the diocesan bishop 
 of the patriarchal province, which comprised the dio¬ 
 cese of Moscow and the Stavrapigial monasteries of the 
 Russian church (i.e. such monasteries as were directly 
 subject to the jurisdiction of the supreme church 
 administration); but his duties as diocesan bishop were 
 delegated to the patriarch’s locum tenens, who had the 
 title of archbishop of Kolomna and Mozhaisk. The 
 supreme authority of the Sobor was likewise preserved 
 by the provision that the patriarch, who was elected for 
 life, might be impeached by the Sobor for policies or 
 acts regarded as detrimental or destructive of the vital 
 interests of the church, and in conjunction with other 
 Eastern patriarchs he might in such a case be tried and 
 deprived of his office. Since these provisions came to 
 have enormous importance, because of their direct 
 bearing upon later events, it is best to give them in full: 
 
 8. In case the patriarch should fail in his duties, 
 then, in accordance with the nature of the failure, the 
 three eldest members of the Holy Synod, or members 
 of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council of archiepiscopal 
 rank should make a brotherly representation to the 
 patriarch; should that representation fail of result, 
 they should make a second representation, and in case 
 this also is fruitless, they should adopt further meas¬ 
 ures in accordance with article 10. 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 97 
 
 9. Complaints against the patriarch shall be 
 directed to the Holy Synod through the eldest hierarch 
 from the membership of the Synod. 
 
 10. In case the patriarch should infringe the rights 
 or duties of his office, the question whether his acts 
 involve culpability should be decided by a joint meet¬ 
 ing of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council. His indictment and trial devolve upon the 
 All-Russian Sobor of bishops, to which, as far as 
 possible, the other patriarchs and representatives of 
 autocephalous churches should be invited; in such a 
 case, the indictment, as well as the condemnatory 
 verdict, requires no less than two-thirds of effective 
 votes. 
 
 The two elective legislative bodies which were asso¬ 
 ciated with the patriarch in the management of the 
 government, the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesi¬ 
 astical Council, divided between themselves the vari¬ 
 ous functions appertaining to the administration. The 
 Holy Synod, which was hierarchical in the character 
 of its personnel, consisted of the president-patriarch 
 and twelve bishops: six were chosen by the Sobor for 
 the term of three years, five others represented the five 
 ecclesiastical administrative divisions into which Rus¬ 
 sia was divided (the Northwest, the Southwest, the 
 Central, the Eastern, and the Siberian, which included 
 North America, and the Japanese, Chinese, and Per¬ 
 sian missions) and were invited in succession for the 
 term of one year, and the number was brought up to 
 twelve by the inclusion in the group by the metro¬ 
 politan of Kiev, who was granted this privilege in def¬ 
 erence to the historic claims of his city, which is “the 
 mother of the Russian cities" and the original home of 
 the Russian hierarchy. Eligibility for election by the 
 Sobor was contingent upon the length of actual service 
 
98 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 in his particular episcopal see, which must be not less 
 than two years. The functions of the Holy Synod 
 related mostly to the inner life of the church. Its 
 jurisdiction extended over the matters of administra¬ 
 tion, doctrine, liturgy, priestly as well as parochial 
 education, discipline, supervision of the missionary 
 enterprises, and censorship of religious books. 
 
 The Supreme Ecclesiastical Council was more demo¬ 
 cratic in its character, and besides the president- 
 patriarch consisted of fifteen members: three bishops 
 from the Holy Synod, selected by the patriarch or the 
 Sobor, the rest being selected by the Sobor and drawn 
 from the following ranks: five were selected from 
 among the lower clergy (either presbyters, deacons, or 
 singers), six were laymen, and one was a monk repre¬ 
 senting the monastic order. The Council was elected 
 “for the period between the two Sobors (three years).” 
 This, by the way, is the only definite mention of the 
 length of the intervening period between the Sobors. 
 Its sphere of activity concerned mainly the external 
 relations of the church, such as the administration, 
 economics, and finances; business concerns such as the 
 synodical press; direction of the academies; the legal 
 aspects of the life of the church, and similar matters. 
 
 But there were many matters which required the 
 joint deliberations of the two bodies. In such in¬ 
 stances, both organizations met conjointly. Besides, 
 members of both bodies had the right of initiation 
 of any subject, by presenting it to the patriarch, who 
 then allocated it to the proper body for deliberation. 
 All members were required to vote and to sign the 
 decisions of their respective group. Decisions were 
 passed by a mere majority vote. The patriarch had 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 99 
 
 the right of a veto and held the customary right to 
 vote in case of a tie. 
 
 The diocesan government was likewise modeled after 
 this combination of the hierarchical with the demo¬ 
 cratic principles. The legislative body, known as the 
 diocesan assembly, was democratically constituted of 
 clerical and lay members, equal in number. This was a 
 deliberative, legislative organization. The bishop, 
 assisted by a diocesan council of five, three of whom 
 were priests, was the executive head of the diocese, but 
 administered his territory in cooperation with the dio¬ 
 cesan assembly. In case of a disagreement, the bishop 
 could carry out his policy in spite of the opposition of 
 the legislative organ, but was responsible for his action 
 to the Sobor. 
 
 Very remarkable, likewise, was the legislation con¬ 
 cerning the election of bishops. The number of bishops 
 was greatly increased, so that every large city had a 
 bishop of its own. When an episcopal vacancy 
 occurred, the bishops of the district, or if there were no 
 district organizations, the Holy Synod, prepared a list 
 of candidates, including those nominated by the dio¬ 
 cese. After the publication of this list of candidates in 
 the diocese, all the bishops of the district, as well as 
 such as had been appointed by the Holy Synod to take 
 part in the election, together with the clergy and the 
 laymen of the diocese, jointly voted for the nominee 
 of their choice. In order to be elected, he must receive 
 no less than two-thirds of the votes cast. The bishop- 
 elect was then confirmed by the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council. 
 
 Qualifications for the episcopal office comprised the 
 following requirements: the candidate must be at 
 least thirty-five years of age; he must be a monk, or 
 
100 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 an unmarried clergyman, or might even be a layman. 
 In the case of clergymen or laymen, if the candidate 
 did not assume the monastic vow, he must at least 
 wear monastic garb. The candidate must likewise 
 possess a fitting education, as well as the necessary 
 moral qualities. He was then elected for life. 16 
 
 Further democratization of the administration of 
 the church is noticeable in the division of every dio¬ 
 cese into parochial districts, locally governed by paro¬ 
 chial assemblies, consisting of all the clergy of the 
 district, together with an equal number of lay repre¬ 
 sentatives of the parishes. Each local parish was like¬ 
 wise governed by a local assembly, and the members 
 of the parish were definitely registered as belonging to 
 that one unit and no other; this, too, was an innova¬ 
 tion of considerable importance, and indicated the new 
 spirit which was introduced into the ecclesiastical 
 administration. It might be mentioned that this blend 
 of the episcopal with the presbyterian polities was not 
 original with the Russian church, as far as the Eastern 
 communions were concerned, for an essentially similar 
 scheme had been in operation in the Rumanian church 
 in Transylvania since 1868. ie 
 
 Besides this really remarkable reconstruction of the 
 administrative system of the church, the Sobor declared 
 the independence of the church from the state in all 
 religious and ecclesiastical matters, the monastic life 
 was newly regulated, and the Edinovertsi were per¬ 
 mitted to maintain their own bishops. The Sobor like¬ 
 wise encouraged preaching in the congregations, a thing 
 
 16 All the foregoing description of the duties and obligations of 
 the patriarchate and the other organs of the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration is based upon the official Decisions already cited. 
 
 16 See Seton-Watson: “Transylvania since 1867,” in The Slavonic 
 Review, June, 1925. 
 
First All-Russian Local Sobor of 1917 101 
 
 which was formerly almost entirely neglected; 
 addressed itself to the reorganization of clerical educa¬ 
 tion; and provided measures for the support of the 
 work of the church. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE FIRST YEARS OF THE SOVIET REGIME 
 
 The fears so freely expressed before the election of 
 the patriarch that the Sobor might be dispersed by the 
 Soviet authorities, or at least that its freedom of action 
 might be restricted, proved unfounded. Nobody inter¬ 
 fered with the election of the patriarch, and the author¬ 
 ities even permitted the transfer of the meeting of the 
 Sobor for the election of the patriarch to the Church of 
 the Savior, which is outside the walls of the Kremlin. 
 In the political field, the Soviet of National Commis¬ 
 sars at first permitted the completion of the elections 
 for the Constituent Assembly, so that there was no 
 ostensible reason for disturbing the work which was 
 carried on by the ecclesiastical constituent assembly. 
 At any rate, no interference was experienced by that 
 body. 
 
 But in December, 1917, a number of decrees appeared 
 which could be regarded as the beginning of the new 
 legal modus vivendi for the church and the state: on 
 December 4, in accordance with the program so assidu¬ 
 ously propagated before the new masters had seized 
 the supreme power, a decree was issued by which all 
 land was declared a national landed fund, to be con¬ 
 trolled by land committees. It was explicitly stated 
 that the lands owned by ecclesiastical or monastic 
 institutions were likewise included within the scope of 
 
 102 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 103 
 
 the law. Thus the church lost a great part of its 
 income overnight, so to speak, and was soon to face an 
 even greater loss. 
 
 On December 11, the law regarding the nationaliza¬ 
 tion of the land was succeeded by a decree issued by 
 the Commissariat of National Education, ordering all 
 schools whatsoever to be turned over to that depart¬ 
 ment. This law was a great deal more drastic than 
 the one of June 20, passed by the Provisional Govern¬ 
 ment: the latter had reference only to parochial schools 
 and ecclesiastical institutions for teachers which were 
 supported from state funds. The December law made 
 no such distinctions, and confiscated even the tech¬ 
 nically professional schools, such as the seminaries and 
 theological academies, irrespective of how they were 
 supported, although many of them, as a matter of fact, 
 were actually supported by state funds. Thus the 
 church was deprived of all means of educating the 
 young, even for the priesthood. Moreover, in the last 
 paragraph of the decree a passing mention was made to 
 the effect that the “question of churches would be 
 defined in connection with the decree of separation of 
 the church from the state.” Thus the church was like¬ 
 wise given a warning as to what was in store for it. 
 
 Within a week, another decree appeared which 
 betrayed the radical, uncompromising attitude assumed 
 by the new regime toward matters traditionally under 
 the control of the church: this was the decree concern¬ 
 ing civil marriage and civil birth registration, which 
 was published on December 18. In accordance with 
 this legislation, the Russian republic acknowledged 
 only civil marriages; for the registration of births and 
 deaths governmental bureaus were established, and 
 ecclesiastical authorities were instructed to turn over 
 
104 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 to the government the recording books and regis¬ 
 ters which they had hitherto kept. Marriage solem¬ 
 nized only ecclesiastically lost its civil acknowledg¬ 
 ment, although it was optional whether or not such 
 ceremony might supplement the civil registry. The 
 civil divorce completed this process, for the jurisdic¬ 
 tion in this field, formerly chiefly in the hands of 
 ecclesiastical authorities, was now put wholly in the 
 competence of the civil administration. 
 
 Finally, in January, 1918, shortly before the publica¬ 
 tion of the decree concerning the separation of the 
 church from the state, a decree was issued which 
 stopped all financial aid for the purposes of religious 
 worship, but the salaries of priests and catechists were 
 continued till March 1. 
 
 On January 23, 1918, the most important piece of 
 legislation was published in the decree of separation of 
 the church from the state, and the school from the 
 church, which radically changed the mutual relations 
 between these institutions, and caused such a thorough¬ 
 going reorganization of the entire inner as well as the 
 outer life of the church of Russia that it is difficult to 
 exaggerate its magnitude or importance. This momen¬ 
 tous historic document was at first published in the 
 papers under the title of Freedom of Conscience and of 
 Religious Societies; 1 but later it was incorporated into 
 the Collected Laws 2 under the caption of Separation of 
 the Church from the State, and the School from the 
 Church, and since then it has retained that title. The 
 text in full reads as follows: 
 
 1 R. V. Gidulyano v: Separation of the Church from the State, 3d 
 ed., Moscow, 1926, prints the official text of the document. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 fl 1918, No. 18, p. 203. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 105 
 
 1. The church is separated from the state. 
 
 2. Within the confines of the Republic it is prohib¬ 
 ited to issue any local laws or regulations restricting or 
 limiting freedom of conscience, or establishing priv¬ 
 ileges or preferential rights of any kind based upon the 
 religious confession of the citizens. 
 
 3. Every citizen may profess any religion or none. 
 All restrictions of rights connected with the profession 
 of any belief whatsoever, or with the non-profession of 
 any belief, are annulled. 
 
 Note: All reference to citizens’ membership in reli¬ 
 gious groups, or their non-membership, shall be 
 removed from all official documents. 
 
 4. The governmental functions, or those of other 
 publico-juridical institutions, shall not be accompanied 
 by religious rites or ceremonies. 
 
 5. A free performance of religious rites is guaranteed 
 as long as it does not interfere with public order, and 
 is not accompanied by interference with the rights of 
 citizens of the Soviet Republic. Local authorities pos¬ 
 sess the right in such cases to adopt all necessary meas¬ 
 ures to preserve public order and safety. 
 
 6. No one may refuse to perform his civil duties on 
 account of his religious views. 
 
 Exception to this rule, on condition that one civil 
 duty be exchanged for another, may be granted in each 
 individual case by decision of the People’s Court. 
 
 7. Religious vows and oaths are abrogated. 
 
 8. Acts of civil nature are registered solely by the 
 civil authorities: the departments for the registration 
 of marriages and births. 
 
 9. The school is separated from the church. 
 
 Instruction in religious doctrines is not permitted in 
 
 any governmental and common schools, nor in private 
 teaching institutions where general subjects are taught. 
 
106 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Citizens may give or receive religious instruction in a 
 private manner. 
 
 10. All ecclesiastical or religious associations are 
 subject to the general regulations regarding private 
 associations and unions, and shall enjoy no privileges 
 or subsidies, whether from the government, or from 
 local autonomous or self-governing institutions. 
 
 11. Compulsory demand of collections or dues for 
 the support of ecclesiastical or religious associations, as 
 well as measures of compulsion or punishment adopted 
 by such associations in respect to their members, are 
 not permitted. 
 
 12. No ecclesiastical or religious association has the 
 right to possess property. 
 
 13. All properties of the existing ecclesiastical and 
 religious associations in Russia are declared to form 
 national wealth. Buildings and objects specifically 
 appointed for purposes of worship shall be delivered, 
 in accordance with the regulations of the local or the 
 central governmental authorities, to responsible reli¬ 
 gious associations for their use, free of charge. 
 
 It is difficult to visualize quickly and completely the 
 tremendous change which the laconic first article of the 
 decree implied. The Russian state, since the days of 
 St. Vladimir, for well-nigh one thousand years, down 
 to the March Revolution, was a religiously confessional 
 state; its innermost policy has been admirably charac¬ 
 terized in the famous formula of Count Uvarov: Ortho¬ 
 doxy, autocracy, and nationalism. The Orthodox 
 church has always been the chief national religious 
 institution, and as such has been fostered by the gov¬ 
 ernment by special privileges, state financial support, 
 a prerogative to educate the rising generations of Rus¬ 
 sia in the principles of Orthodoxy as well as autocracy, 
 and by the closest administrative ties, for the head of 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 107 
 
 the Russian state was also the divinely appointed head 
 of the church on its temporal side. It has already been 
 mentioned how resolutely the church protested against 
 any schemes or intentions of the Provisional Govern¬ 
 ment to deprive it of any part of these ancient prerog¬ 
 atives, or to disestablish it. 
 
 With the publication of the January decree, the worst 
 fears of the church were realized: the government of 
 the formerly “holy Russia” organized itself on a strictly 
 secular basis, and severing all connections with any 
 type of ecclesiastical or religious communion, leveled 
 them all to the same niveau of private associations, 
 possessing no official standing whatever and shorn of 
 all former privileges. The actual situation, as a mat¬ 
 ter of fact, was even worse, for there existed between 
 the two bodies a tacit understanding of irreconcilable 
 opposition amounting to open hostility. The new 
 government had every reason to fear the church, for 
 that institution represented the only functioning 
 organization within Russia which was able to offer 
 resistance to the pretensions of the new masters of the 
 country; moreover, this potential enemy was imbued 
 with the spirit which had animated the former tsarist 
 regime, for the church survived the overthrow of that 
 government as the sole incarnation of the theocratic 
 principle. The Bolsheviki, still uncertain of success in 
 their stupendous venture of attempting to seize the 
 reins of government, and of fomenting a world revolu¬ 
 tion, necessarily were obliged to feel apprehensive 
 regarding the potential strength of their ecclesiastical 
 foe. In these psychological conditions governing 
 the situation as it developed late in 1917, lay, as in 
 a nutshell, the entire future policies of the two rival 
 powers. 
 
108 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 In spite of the danger of antagonizing the church to 
 the point of irreconcilable opposition, the Soviet 
 authorities boldly stated their determination to secu¬ 
 larize the government in every sense of that word. The 
 second article of the decree was construed to deprive 
 the formerly dominant Russian Orthodox Church of its 
 unfair privileges and advantages, and make all reli¬ 
 gious organizations equal as far as the attitude of the 
 state toward them was concerned. Although it did not 
 say it in so many words, yet the clear implication of the 
 legislation was to make religion a purely private, per¬ 
 sonal affair, in no way affecting the civil or legal stand¬ 
 ing of the individual. Under the Kerensky govern¬ 
 ment, a half-hearted attempt looking ultimately 
 toward the same goal had been made, but it took the 
 determined, uncompromising attitude of the Soviet 
 authorities to put it into practice outright. 
 
 Nevertheless, it would be a fundamental mistake to 
 regard the Soviet government as atheistic in the sense 
 of imposing atheism upon the whole country. Article 
 3 unequivocally granted liberty of conscience and a free 
 profession of any creed or none at all. It may be 
 remarked here that the Communist Party is officially 
 atheistic, and every member of it is obliged to confess 
 that creed; but the Russian government, in distinction 
 from the Communist Party, proclaims itself to be 
 entirely extraconfessional, secular, i.e. it grants freedom 
 of both religious and anti-religious confession and 
 propaganda. This paragraph of the January decree 
 became the Magna Charta of all those religious com¬ 
 munions which hitherto had not possessed full religious 
 liberty. It must be borne in mind that in spite of the 
 gradual alleviation of the lot of the non-Orthodox 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 109 
 
 communions in Russia, there had still existed a great 
 deal of discrimination against them. It was not till 
 now that the various “sectarians,” of whom there are, 
 according to their own estimate, some fifteen millions, 
 as well as other Christian and non-Christian com¬ 
 munions, became fully free. It is well to remember 
 that formerly religious affiliation had a great practical 
 influence and bearing upon the career of the citizen; 
 the sweeping away of this unjust discrimination would 
 have been even a greater boon had it not been sup¬ 
 planted by discrimination based upon party politics. 
 As for a free confession of the doctrines and dogmas of 
 atheism, the supplanted tsarist regime had made that 
 a subject for the criminal law. The gain in liberty in 
 this respect amounted to a full one hundred percent, 
 although the Provisional Government had likewise 
 granted freedom to non-confessionals. 
 
 The former “holy Russia” loudly proclaimed the 
 close alliance of its church and state by connecting all 
 public functions with religious symbolism or cere¬ 
 monial, and by accompanying them by religious rites. 
 The new secular government, logically enough, must 
 disassociate itself from all such connections. Religion 
 being a private affair, all public buildings and places 
 must be free from its symbolism. Hence the fourth 
 article, in consequence of which all religious symbols 
 and icons were taken out of all governmental buildings, 
 schools, railroad stations, and other public institutions, 
 and their places for the greater part taken by pictures 
 of Lenin and other Bolshevik worthies, whose cult 
 bears a close resemblance to that of the icons. 
 Public religious processions could not be held without 
 their previous authorization by the local soviets. Vio- 
 
110 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 lation of these provisions was punishable by forced 
 labor up to three months, or a fine up to three hundred 
 gold rubles. It is remarkable, however, to notice that 
 the old, black, two-headed imperial eagles have retained 
 their proud position on the top of the Kremlin towers, 
 so that it is somewhat incongruous to see the red flag 
 floating over the administration buildings in the Krem¬ 
 lin within easy sight of the gate-towers topped with 
 the black tsarist eagles. The church was free to carry 
 on its own proper work undisturbed, provided it con¬ 
 fined it to the buildings intended for worship. Thus 
 public religious services might be freely performed in 
 all churches, their freedom having been guaranteed by 
 the January decree. 
 
 With the separation of the church from the state, the 
 former institution necessarily lost certain privileges 
 which were highly prized by its members, and their loss 
 was consequently keenly felt. Thus, for instance, the 
 clergy lost their legal exemption from military service 
 as well as other privileges which formerly they pos¬ 
 sessed by reason of their clerical calling. This was the 
 sense of the sixth article, although at the same time it 
 clearly specified that the military duty might be 
 exchanged for another, and thus the clergy were not 
 directly forced into the military service. Moreover, 
 there are in Russia many pacifist sects which reject war 
 and military service on the grounds of religious convic¬ 
 tion; these, too, were envisaged in the provision. Oaths 
 required by courts to substantiate depositions, or 
 required upon taking office or entering the army, were 
 likewise dispensed with, as implying religious presup¬ 
 position, i.e. calling upon God. Later, when the ques¬ 
 tion regarding the character of the solemn promise 
 required upon entering the Red army was raised, the 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 111 
 
 ceremony was officially pronounced to be of a purely 
 civil character . 4 
 
 Further deprivation of the clergy of their former 
 semi-official public standing concerned the recording 
 of births and registry of marriages, for the ecclesi¬ 
 astical records were the sole official records of such 
 events, and consequently were of great importance. 
 These functions, by the provisions of the eighth article, 
 were now taken over by the state. 
 
 The keenly felt reduction of the importance of the 
 church may be realized if one recalls that in the old 
 Russia the life of the people was inextricably inter¬ 
 woven with the functions and ministrations of the 
 church, because all the major events of an individual’s 
 life were closely bound with the sacraments and rites 
 of the church. This applied not only to births, mar¬ 
 riages, and deaths, but to innumerable other ministra¬ 
 tions both of private and corporate character, so that 
 life normally expressed itself through religious services 
 and rites. All of this was greatly diminished now, even 
 though not forbidden. At any rate, all religious minis¬ 
 tration now lost its official character. As formerly the 
 matriculation of births, kept by every parish priest, 
 was regarded as the legal governmental registry, so now 
 the Soviet government by taking over these functions 
 and secularizing them made itself to that degree more 
 vital to the life of an ordinary citizen. All registration 
 books of the various religious communities were 
 required to be turned over to the authorities, even 
 though commonly this was not done. The birth of a 
 child must henceforth be reported to the local Soviet 
 officials and witnessed by the testimony of two persons 
 
 4 “Decision of the People’s Com. of Justice,” April 22, 1922, in 
 Revolution and the Church, 1-3, 1923. 
 
112 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 (parents, if so desired). Then the child may be bap¬ 
 tized, if the parents so wish. If this is the case, the 
 fact forms no part of the official record and has no civil 
 significance or importance. The mother may, within 
 three months after the birth of the child, inform the 
 officials of the name of the true father; this information 
 is then made known to the designated person, and if 
 within two weeks he makes no protest, his name is 
 entered as that of the father of the child, and he is 
 liable for its support up to one-third of his income. In 
 case the identity of the father is not known, and sev¬ 
 eral men are under suspicion, they may all be held 
 responsible for the maintenance of the child. 
 
 According to the marriage law published on Decem¬ 
 ber 20, 1917/ only the civil marriage, registered before 
 the proper governmental authorities, was regarded as 
 binding upon the parties to it and conferred legal pro¬ 
 tection guaranteed by the laws. A marriage solemnized 
 with ecclesiastical rites conferred no legal rights and 
 entailed no legal obligations upon those who contracted 
 it. Of course, those who chose to cohabit without either 
 of these methods of announcing their marriage were 
 free to do so, and were subject to no penalties. But 
 without the prescribed registration before the authori¬ 
 ties, no such or any other marriage entitled the parties 
 to any legal rights guaranteed to those who complied 
 with the regulations of the law. A new code of laws is 
 in effect since January, 1927, which makes provision for 
 legalization of marriage even without the initial regis¬ 
 tration.* 
 
 Similarly, all cemeteries, crematoria, and morgues 
 
 8 Cf. Marriage Law , p. 52, Part I. 
 
 0 Cf. A. Meyendorff: “Soviet Family Law,” in The Slavonic 
 Review, March, 1927. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 113 
 
 passed into the sole administration of the local soviets. 
 No distinction was made between the different stations 
 of the citizens as far as the funeral was concerned, and 
 the prescribed procedure was in all cases identical. 
 Religious services were permitted, but were paid for 
 separately by the relatives, although the fees were stip¬ 
 ulated by regulations. The rest of the expenses were 
 borne by the local soviets. 7 
 
 Of enormous importance was article 9, which sepa¬ 
 rated the school from the church. Again, this was a 
 logical deduction from the fundamental principle of 
 secularizing the government, and it is easy for an 
 American to understand why the separation of the 
 church from the state necessarily implied a like sepa¬ 
 ration of the school from the church. A thoroughly 
 secularized, non-confessional government could not 
 teach religion in its schools, for some one type of con¬ 
 fessional instruction would have to be selected, which 
 would unjustly ignore other types, and thus nullify the 
 provision of liberty of conscience. It would be equally 
 out of the question to attempt to teach all shades of 
 religious interpretation. The only logical solution of 
 the problem was to proceed in essentially the same 
 manner in which the Soviet decree did. But when one 
 recalls the stormy and violent opposition of the church 
 to the milder program of the Provisional Government, 
 it then becomes clear what a depth of resentment the 
 radical action of the Soviet authorities must have 
 stirred. For now all school buildings, the parochial 
 common schools, the teachers’ institutes, as well as the 
 technically professional seminaries and theological 
 academies, were confiscated, and the church was 
 deprived of all means of even training its own priest- 
 
 7 Cf. Krasikov: op. cit., pp. 64-65. 
 
114 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 hood, not to speak of the lost influence over the masses 
 of the common people. 
 
 Articles 10 to 13 were highly effective blows aimed 
 at the disorganization of the church by taking away its 
 corporate juridical character and destroying its assured 
 economic basis. Religion being reduced to a private 
 affair, religious organizations were pronounced merely 
 private organizations, such as any club for any kind of 
 purpose would be. Moreover, these associations lost 
 the right to own property, and such property as they 
 possessed hitherto was declared to belong to the nation, 
 i.e. the government. All subsidies, which in the good 
 old tsarist days amounted to a matter of sixty million 
 rubles, were stopped, and in accordance with the law 
 of January 20, within a month all payments to the 
 clergy would cease. How could the church effect the 
 tremendous change of shifting its economic basis from 
 a state-supported institution to one voluntarily sup¬ 
 ported by its members without being given several 
 years necessarily required for such a task? Theoret¬ 
 ically, the measure could not be objected to as 
 inherently unjust, for a definitely secularized state, 
 sundered from the church so completely as the Soviet 
 government was, could not be expected to support the 
 whole ecclesiastical establishment of the vast country. 
 But the precipitate action of the government in disen¬ 
 dowing the church on a month’s notice could be viewed 
 in no other light than that of a willful disregard of the 
 tremendously difficult position into which the church 
 was so suddenly hurled, if not of a downright secret 
 design to disorganize the ecclesiastical machinery. It 
 was indeed in just such a light that the action was 
 viewed by the vast majority of the Russian people 
 themselves. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 115 
 
 It may be remarked that in itself the loss of the 
 thirty-three millions allotted to the church by the 
 Provisional Government (for the remaining odd thirty 
 millions were refused the church when the government 
 took over the parochial schools supported from the 
 state treasury) could readily be made up by voluntary 
 support, had there been time to institute such a system. 
 Counting one hundred millions of Orthodox member¬ 
 ship—for the church always claimed to possess that 
 number—it would amount to thirty-three kopeks 
 (about sixteen cents) a year per capita to make good 
 the loss of the state subsidy. But the matter was 
 rendered difficult by the precipitous action of the gov¬ 
 ernment in not affording the necessary time to institute 
 any other scheme. 
 
 The church, thus completely stripped of its former 
 privileges and its assured financial support, was thrown 
 entirely upon its own resources; it ceased to be a gov¬ 
 ernmental organization, it lost even its juridical rights 
 as well as all its property, and was reduced to the rank 
 of private “associations for worship.” As in every coun¬ 
 try where the church is supported solely by the volun¬ 
 tary contributions of its members, the process of train¬ 
 ing the constituency in the sense of responsibility for 
 its maintenance is of long duration, and the period of 
 educating the membership in this sense inevitably 
 entails upon the church a considerable amount of hard¬ 
 ship, if not actual suffering. It must furthermore be 
 realized that the country was absolutely drained of its 
 resources and to all intents and purposes was bankrupt. 
 The outlook for the church, under these conditions, was 
 appalling, and quite rightly so. Nothing but a real 
 service meeting the definite needs of the Russian people 
 could ultimately save it. 
 
116 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 It must be remembered, further, that the church was 
 not permitted to levy any compulsory payments or 
 church tax upon its members, and that it could employ 
 no compulsory means to enforce support from them. 
 It must gain its support solely by voluntary offerings 
 given freely by the worshipers. To be sure, the church 
 buildings, declared to be property of the nation, were 
 given back to the congregations upon their complying 
 with certain regulations regarding the procedure, and 
 both the buildings and the equipment were to be used 
 by the congregation free of charge. Nevertheless, the 
 burden of providing for the salary of the priest and the 
 running expenses were weighing heavily upon the 
 shoulders of a congregation hitherto unaccustomed to 
 any such impositions. 
 
 Taken separately and abstractly, the decree of Jan¬ 
 uary 23, 1918, was not essentially unjust, and could not 
 be said to constitute a deliberate attempt to destroy the 
 church. But because of the violent and abrupt man¬ 
 ner in which the old, accustomed order of things was 
 terminated, it was certainly—and it could not be other¬ 
 wise than consciously—calculated to throw the church 
 into such internal disorders and overwhelming difficul¬ 
 ties that it could be said to be in the highest degree 
 devastating. The enmity between the two 1 factors 
 which had been in evidence since the seizure of power 
 on the part of the Soviet government now had a defi¬ 
 nite basis of recognized and clearly enunciated griev¬ 
 ances, and a death struggle between the foes was inev¬ 
 itable. 
 
 It may be remarked, lastly, that the decree dealt with 
 the various provisions in too generalizing a way, so 
 that many of the articles were not clear and needed 
 further legislative elucidation. The church ceased to 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 117 
 
 be a juridical entity; but what, by a new legal defini¬ 
 tion, constituted a parish, or a local congregation? 
 What was the precise mode in which the use of 
 church buildings and equipment might be obtained by 
 them? The children could not receive religious instruc¬ 
 tion in school; where and how could they receive it? 
 All schools, including the professional training schools 
 for clergy—seminaries and theological academies— 
 were taken over by the state: where was the church to 
 train its future priesthood? How was it to support 
 these schools, and how could it even possess them, since 
 it was forbidden to possess property? Would the state 
 then provide such schools? That certainly would not 
 be a likely thing to expect. All these, and many other 
 problems were, for the time being, left undefined, and 
 in the meantime caused indignation and intense heart¬ 
 burning in the bosom of the church people. It could 
 not be otherwise: causes necessarily implying mutual 
 conflict, and a desperate one at that, were too numer¬ 
 ous and too deep-seated not to motivate both parties 
 to open action. The proud old institution of the 
 church, so highly privileged formerly, could not accept 
 the humble station without a stiff fight to retain at 
 least something of its old standing; the fanatical, doc¬ 
 trinaire zeal of the believers in the communistic pan¬ 
 acea, like all ardent religious zealots, could not trim 
 their policy so that the winds would become somewhat 
 tempered to the very closely shorn ecclesiastical lamb. 
 Hence, the necessary result: war. 
 
 What, then, were the concrete measures adopted by 
 the church to defend itself against the execution of the 
 radical legislation of the Soviet government? The 
 church replied by open resistance to the measures, and 
 
118 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 its opposition broke out even before the January 
 decree was issued. It will be recalled that the decree 
 nationalizing all property in Russia was issued in 
 December, 1917; this order, of course, included ecclesi¬ 
 astical property of all kinds. The first attempt to take 
 over ecclesiastical property occurred when the govern¬ 
 ment sent an official to take over the Alexandro- 
 Nevsky Monastery in Petrograd. The official in 
 charge demanded the surrender of all the cash money 
 and all other assets whatsoever to be taken over by the 
 Ministry of Welfare; but the head of the monastery 
 refused to surrender the property. His stand was 
 approved by the entire monastic community, which 
 voted at their meeting not to surrender any part of the 
 property and to oppose any attempt on the part of the 
 government to disperse them. 8 As a result of this, and 
 other attempts, to confiscate ecclesiastical property, 
 Patriarch Tikhon, acting alone because the Sobor at 
 the time was not in session on account of the Christmas 
 holiday recess, issued a most important proclamation 
 in which he roundly anathematized the authors of such 
 an attempt upon the property of the church, as well 
 as any who would obey it. This document is a veritable 
 declaration of war on the part of the church, and 
 because of its importance it is deemed wise to cite it 
 in full: 
 
 The humble Tikhon, 
 
 by God’s grace patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia, 
 to the beloved in the Lord hierarchs, clergy, and all 
 faithful members of the Russian Orthodox church. 
 
 The Lord will deliver us from this present evil world. 
 (Gal. i. 4.) 
 
 The Holy Orthodox church of Christ is at present 
 
 8 Cf. Vvedensky: op. cit., pp. 120-124. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 119 
 
 passing through difficult times in the Russian land; the 
 open and secret foes of the truth of Christ began perse¬ 
 cuting that truth, and are striving to destroy the work 
 of Christ by sowing everywhere in place of Christian 
 love the seeds of malice, hatred, and fratricidal war¬ 
 fare. 
 
 The commands of Christ regarding the love of neigh¬ 
 bor are forgotten or trampled upon; reports reach us 
 daily concerning the astounding and beastly murders 
 of wholly innocent people, and even of the sick upon 
 their sick-beds, who are guilty perhaps only of having 
 fulfilled their duty to the Fatherland, and of having 
 spent all their strength in the service of the national 
 welfare. This happens not only under cover of the noc¬ 
 turnal darkness, but openly in daylight, with hitherto 
 unheard of audacity and merciless cruelty, without any 
 sort of trial and despite all right and lawfulness, and it 
 happens in our days almost in all the cities and villages 
 of our country, as well as in our capital, and outlying- 
 regions (Petrograd, Moscow, Irkutsk, Sevastopol, and 
 others). 
 
 All this fills our heart with a deep and bitter sorrow 
 and obliges us to turn to such outcasts of the human 
 race with stern words of accusation and warning, in 
 accordance with the command of the holy apostle: 
 “them that sin reprove in the sight of all, that the rest 
 also may be in fear.” (I Tim. v. 20.) 
 
 Recall yourselves, ye senseless, and cease your bloody 
 deeds. For what you are doing is not only a cruel deed; 
 it is in truth a satanic act, for which you shall suffer 
 the fire of Gehenna in the life to come, beyond the 
 grave, and the terrible curses of posterity in this pres¬ 
 ent, earthly life. 
 
 By the authority given us by God, we forbid you to 
 present yourselves for the sacraments of Christ, and 
 anathematize you, if you still bear the name of Chris- 
 
120 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 tians, even if merely on account of your baptism you 
 still belong to the Orthodox church. 
 
 I adjure all of you who are faithful children of the 
 Orthodox church of Christ, not to commune with such 
 outcasts of the human race in any matter whatsoever: 
 “cast out the wicked from among you.” (I Cor. v. 13.) 
 
 The most cruel persecution has likewise arisen 
 against the holy church of Christ: the blessed sacra¬ 
 ments, sanctifying the birth of man into the world, or 
 blessing the marital union of the Christian family, have 
 been pronounced unnecessary and superfluous; the 
 holy churches are subjected either to destruction by 
 reason of the gunfire directed against them ( e.g . the 
 holy cathedrals of the Moscow Kremlin), or to plunder 
 and sacrilegious injury {e.g. the Chapel of the Savior in 
 Petrograd). The saintly monasteries revered by the 
 people (as the Alexandro-Nevsky and Pochaevsky 
 monasteries) are seized by the atheistic masters of the 
 darkness of this world and are declared to be in some 
 manner national property; schools, supported from 
 the resources of the Orthodox church to train the min¬ 
 isters of churches and teachers of the faith, are declared 
 superfluous, and are turned either into training insti¬ 
 tutes of infidelity or even directly into nurseries of 
 immorality. 
 
 Property of monasteries and Orthodox churches is 
 alienated from them under the guise of being national 
 property, but without any right and even without any 
 desire to act in accordance with the lawful will of the 
 nation. . . . Finally, the government which is 
 
 pledged to uphold right and truth in Russia, and to 
 guarantee liberty and order everywhere, manifests only 
 the most unbridled caprice and crassest violence over 
 all and especially in dealing with the holy Orthodox 
 church. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 121 
 
 Where are the limits to such mockery of the church 
 of Christ? How and wherein may the attacks upon it 
 by its raging enemies be stopped? 
 
 We appeal to all of you, believing and faithful chil¬ 
 dren of the church: rise up in defense of our injured 
 and oppressed holy Mother! 
 
 The enemies of the church seize rule over her and 
 her property by force of death-dealing weapons; but 
 you rise to oppose them with the strength of your faith, 
 with your own nation-wide outcry which would stop 
 those senseless people and would show them that they 
 have no right to call themselves protagonists of the 
 people’s welfare, initiators of a new life in accordance 
 with the national ideal, for they are directly against the 
 conscience of the people. 
 
 And if it should become necessary to suffer in behalf 
 of the cause of Christ, we invite you, beloved children 
 of the church, to suffer along with us in accordance with 
 the words of the holy apostle: “Who shall separate us 
 from the love of God? Shall tribulation, or anguish, 
 or persecution or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or 
 sword?” (Romans viii. 35.) 
 
 And you, brethren hierarchs and clergy, do not lose 
 even an hour in your spiritual task, and with fiery zeal 
 call upon your members to defend the impugned rights 
 of the Orthodox church; convene religious gatherings; 
 appeal not because of necessity, but take your place in 
 the ranks of spiritual warriors of your own free choice, 
 and oppose to the external violence the force of your 
 genuine spirituality; we then positively affirm that the 
 enemies of the church of Christ shall be shamed and 
 shall be dispersed by the might of the cross of Christ, 
 for the promise of the divine Cross-bearer is immut¬ 
 able: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell 
 shall not prevail against it.” (Matt. xvi. 18.) 
 
122 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and of All Russia 
 January 19,1918. 9 
 
 This proclamation was then read at the first meeting 
 of the Sobor held after the Christmas recess, and 
 received full, and even enthusiastic, reception and 
 approval there. Many were the speeches in which vio¬ 
 lent language was addressed to the new authorities, and 
 the representatives of the church pledged themselves 
 to the coming struggle: “We shall die for the Russian 
 Orthodox Church.” 10 The Sobor, therefore, adopted 
 the following resolution, strongly confirming the proc¬ 
 lamation of Patriarch Tikhon: 
 
 The holy Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church lov¬ 
 ingly welcomes the proclamation of the holy patriarch 
 Tikhon, punishing the malicious evil-doers and con¬ 
 victing the enemies of the church of Christ. From the 
 elevation of the patriarchal throne a word of warn¬ 
 ing has thundered and the spiritual sword is raised 
 against those who are constantly scoffing at the sancti¬ 
 ties of the national faith and conscience. The holy 
 Sobor bears testimony that it remains in the fullest 
 unanimity with the father and intercessor of the Rus¬ 
 sian church, responds to his challenge, and is ready to 
 suffer in confessing the faith of Christ, its despisers not¬ 
 withstanding. The holy Sobor calls upon the whole 
 Russian church with its hierarchs and clergy at the 
 head to rally around the patriarch, that our holy faith 
 may not be reviled. 11 
 
 The Sobor likewise adopted the report of its previ¬ 
 ously appointed committee on drawing up instructions 
 
 0 Vvedensky: op. cit., pp. 114-116, where the official protocol of 
 the meeting of the Sobor is given in full. 
 
 10 Ibid., p. 129. 
 
 11 Ibid., p. 147. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 123 
 
 regarding the mode of procedure in case the govern¬ 
 ment authorities should attempt to put into execution 
 the decree nationalizing the ecclesiastical property. 
 These instructions were very definite, and admirably 
 manifested the spirit of determined opposition and 
 resistance to the new laws which actuated the church. 
 The main points were as follows: 
 
 n 
 
 1. Not to surrender anything whatsoever voluntar¬ 
 ily to the plunderers of the sacred possessions of the 
 church, but to guard it according to the example of 
 our pious ancestors. 
 
 2. In case of a forcible demand by anyone whatso¬ 
 ever of any part of the ecclesiastical or monastic prop¬ 
 erty, the superior of the church or the monastery 
 should refuse, turning upon the violators with appro¬ 
 priate words of exhortation. 
 
 3. The plunderers and robbers of ecclesiastical and 
 monastic property whose names are known should be 
 reported to the eparchial superior, in order that in 
 cases especially revolting they may be excommuni¬ 
 cated from ecclesiastical fellowship. (The Neo-canon 
 of St. Gregory, rule 3.) 
 
 4. In case a whole village proves to be guilty of sac¬ 
 rilege and acts of scoffing at sacred things, the eparchial 
 superior shall order all divine ministrations stopped 
 (with the exception of the sacrament of baptism and of 
 the administration to the sick of the body and blood 
 of Christ), and the churches closed, until the guilty 
 shall manifest signs of a true penitence which must 
 be accompanied by the restitution to the church or 
 monastery of everything that has been seized. 
 
 5. In case of violence done to priests, the same 
 measures as those described in the previous article 
 shall be adopted. 
 
 6. Orthodox brotherhoods should be organized with- 
 
124 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 out delay in parish churches and monasteries for the 
 protection of ecclesiastical and monastic property. 
 
 7. It shall become the duty of the parochial and 
 monastic clergy to exhort the people, in their sermons 
 in the church, to penitence and prayer, giving the 
 explanation of the current events from the Christian 
 point of view. 12 
 
 Aside from adopting these official instructions 
 regarding the treatment of the governmental decree, 
 various members of the Sobor delivered strong con¬ 
 demnatory speeches against the new regime in general, 
 in which bolshevism was dubbed “satanic” and “anti- 
 christian,” and the officials “the servants of anti¬ 
 christ,” etc. One orator sorrowfully lamented: “We 
 overthrew the tsar and subjected ourselves to Jews!” 
 And another went a step further, exclaiming: “The 
 sole means of salvation for the Russian nation is a wise 
 Orthodox Russian tsar!” 13 
 
 That these various instructions regarding the treat¬ 
 ment to be meted to the governmental officials who 
 came to take over the property of the church in accord¬ 
 ance with the decree were not merely theoretical, but 
 were quite generally followed, is witnessed by the vari¬ 
 ous uprisings and riots of the people who mobbed the 
 officials and soldiers detailed for such duty. The Acts 
 of the Sobor contain detailed reports of such occur¬ 
 rences, which give evidence that the disturbance some¬ 
 times attained formidable proportions, as when several 
 hundred thousand marched through the streets of 
 Petrograd in a procession—forbidden by the authorities 
 —remonstrating against the measures of the govern¬ 
 ment. Such open defiance of the authorities on the 
 
 12 Ibid., p. 149; from the official Acts of the Sobor. 
 
 13 Ibid., p. 159. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 125 
 
 part of the people heartened and encouraged the church 
 to believe that it might rely upon the common peo¬ 
 ple for support in its policy of opposition, and led it to 
 persevere. The government, on the other hand, just 
 for that very reason came to realize the dangerous 
 potentialities of the situation, and resolved to break the 
 power of its ecclesiastical foe by every possible means. 
 
 It is easy to imagine in what a mood the Sobor was 
 likely to receive the publication of the decree of Janu¬ 
 ary 23. The particular section whose duty it was to 
 bring in a report concerning the matter presented its 
 recommendations, which were read by Prince Eugene 
 Trubetskoy. The report, in part, reads as follows: 
 
 The individuals wielding the governmental author¬ 
 ity audaciously attempt to destroy the very existence 
 of the Orthodox church. In order to realize this 
 satanic design, the Soviet of People’s Commissioners 
 published the decree concerning the separation of the 
 church from the state, which legalized an open persecu¬ 
 tion not only of the Orthodox church, but of all other 
 religious communions, Christian or non-Christian. Not 
 despising deceit, the enemies of Christ fraudulently 
 put on the appearance of granting by it religious 
 liberty. 
 
 Welcoming all real extension of liberty of conscience, 
 the Sobor at the same time points out that by the pro¬ 
 visions of the said decree freedom of the Orthodox 
 church, as well as of all other religious organizations 
 and communions in general, is rendered void. Under 
 the pretense of “the separation of the church from the 
 state,” the Soviet of People’s Commissioners attempts 
 to render impossible the very existence of the churches, 
 the ecclesiastical institutions, and the clergy. 
 
 Under the guise of taking over the ecclesiastical 
 property, the said decree aims to destroy the very 
 
126 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 possibility of divine worship and ministration. It 
 declares that “no ecclesiastical or religious association 
 has the right to possess property/’ and “all property of 
 the existing ecclesiastical and religious associations in 
 Russia is declared to be national wealth.” Thereby the 
 Orthodox churches and monasteries, those resting- 
 places of the relics of the saints revered by all Orthodox 
 people, become the common property of all citizens 
 irrespective of their creedal differences—of Christians, 
 Jews, Mohammedans, and pagans, and the holy objects 
 designated for the divine service, i.e. the holy cross, 
 the holy gospel, the sacred vessels, the holy miracle- 
 working icons, are at the disposal of the governmental 
 authorities, which may either permit or not (as they 
 wish) their use by the parishes. 
 
 Let the Russian people understand that they (the 
 authorities) wish to deprive them of God’s churches 
 with their sacred objects! As soon as all property of 
 the church is taken away, it is not possible to offer any 
 aid to it, for in accordance with the intention of the 
 decree everything donated shall be taken away. The 
 support of monasteries, churches, and the clergy alike 
 becomes impossible. 
 
 But that is not all: in consequence of the confiscation 
 of the printing establishments, it is impossible for the 
 church independently to publish the holy gospel as well 
 as all other sacred and liturgical books in their wonted 
 purity and authenticity. 
 
 In the same manner, the decree affects the pastors of 
 the church. Declaring that “no one may refuse to per¬ 
 form his civil duties on account of his religious views,” 
 it thereby constrains them to fulfill military obliga¬ 
 tions, forbidden them by the 83d rule of the holy 
 Apostles. At the same time, ministers of the altar are 
 removed from educating the people. The very teach¬ 
 ing of the law of God, not only in governmental, but 
 even in private schools, is not permitted; likewise all 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 127 
 
 theological institutions are doomed to be closed. The 
 church is thus excluded from the possibility of educat¬ 
 ing its own pastors. 
 
 Declaring that “the governmental functions or those 
 of other publico-juridical institutions shall not be 
 accompanied by any religious rites or ceremonies,” the 
 decree thereby sacrilegiously sunders all connections of 
 the government with the sanctities of faith. 
 
 On the basis of all the above-mentioned considera¬ 
 tions, the holy Sobor declares: 
 
 1. The decree published by the Soviet of People’s 
 Commissioners regarding the separation of the church 
 from the state represents in itself, under the guise 
 of a law declaring liberty of conscience, an inimical 
 attempt upon the life of the Orthodox church, and is 
 an act of open persecution. 
 
 2. All participation, either in the publication of the 
 law so injurious to the church, or in attempts to put it 
 into practice, is not reconcilable with membership in 
 the Orthodox church, and subjects all transgressors 
 belonging to the Orthodox communion to the heaviest 
 penalties, to the extent of excommunicating them from 
 the church (in accordance with 73d rule of the holy 
 Apostles, and the 13th rule of the Seventh Ecumenical 
 Council). 14 
 
 This recommendation was then adopted by the 
 Sobor and became the official answer of the Russian 
 church to the January decree. The church was deter¬ 
 mined to oppose the decree, or at least to disregard it 
 whenever possible. For the church, the law was not 
 valid; its provisions were regarded as persecution, and 
 the church pronounced its anathema upon all who 
 should attempt to put them into practice. The die 
 w r as cast: again the situation clearly spelled warfare 
 
 14 Ibid., pp. 177-179. 
 
128 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 between the two forces. Would the government be 
 forced to go to Canossa? Or would the church be 
 cowed into submission? To settle questions like these 
 all too often blood needs be spilled. 
 
 After adopting the resolution, the Sobor on the same 
 day appointed a committee to draw up a more popular 
 appeal to the rank and file of the church masses; this 
 document in stirring terms called upon the masses 
 to defend the endangered church against the attacks 
 of the government: 
 
 Orthodox Christians! Things unheard of for ages 
 are happening in our holy Russia! 
 
 Persons now wielding authority and calling them¬ 
 selves People’s Commissioners, themselves strangers 
 to the Christian faith, and some of them to every other 
 faith, have published a decree (law), which they 
 entitled Regarding the Freedom of Conscience, but 
 which in fact represents a complete violation of the 
 conscience of the believers. 
 
 In accordance with that law, if it should be enforced, 
 as in places it is actually being put into practice, all 
 God’s churches with their sacred objects and posses¬ 
 sions may be taken away from us, the trimmings from 
 the miracle-working icons shall be wrenched off, the 
 sacred vessels shall be minted into money or otherwise 
 disposed of asi it pleases the authorities, the church 
 bells shall grow mute. The holy sacraments shall no 
 longer be administered, the dead shall be buried with¬ 
 out the rites of church chanting, as was actually done 
 in Moscow and Petrograd, and they shall bury in 
 Orthodox cemeteries whomever they please. Was 
 there ever a time, since the conversion of Russia, like 
 this? Never! Even the Tartars had more reverence 
 for our holy faith than our present lawgivers! Until 
 now Russia was called holy, but now they want to 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 129 
 
 make it pagan. Who has ever heard that church affairs 
 should be decided by atheists who are not even Rus¬ 
 sians or Orthodox? By an order, signed by a non- 
 Orthodox woman, the holy Alexandro-Nevsky Mon¬ 
 astery in Petrograd was attacked, like an enemy 
 camp, by an armed band, which conducted itself 
 in an unheard of manner, and even murdered a priest 
 (Father Peter Skipetrov) who wished to bring to 
 reason the raving people. And they would have alto¬ 
 gether succeeded in seizing the sanctuary, had not the 
 common people protected it (although they were 
 unarmed) merely with their breasts, their outcries, 
 and their laments. 
 
 Rally, Orthodox people, round your churches and 
 pastors; unite yourselves, men and women, old and 
 young, and form associations for the defense of our 
 inherited sanctuaries! Those sanctuaries are your pos¬ 
 sessions. Your pious ancestors, as well as yourselves, 
 have built and beautified God's churches, and have 
 dedicated these possessions to God. The priests in the 
 churches are only their spiritual guardians, to whom 
 these sanctuaries were entrusted for safekeeping. But 
 the time has come when even you, Orthodox people, 
 must become their indefatigable guardians and 
 defenders, for the governmental authorities desire to 
 take away from you this God's property without even 
 consulting you as to your views regarding it. Guard 
 and defend God's churches, heirlooms of many cen¬ 
 turies, the most beautiful ornaments of the Russian 
 land; do not permit them to pass into the insolent 
 and unclean hands of the unbelievers; do not permit 
 such a horrible sacrilege and desecration to come to 
 pass! 
 
 If that were to happen, then indeed Russia, the holy 
 and Orthodox, would be turned into the land of the 
 antichrist; a spiritual desert, wherein death would be 
 preferable to life. Loudly declare to all who have for- 
 
130 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 gotten God and conscience, and manifest in deeds as 
 well, that you have heeded the voice of your spiritual 
 Father and leader, the most holy patriarch Tikhon! 
 
 In a special proclamation he exhorts you to follow 
 him, to brave sufferings in the defense of the sanctu¬ 
 aries, obeying the voice of the apostle: “It is granted 
 you even to suffer on behalf of Christ, not only to 
 believe in Him.” (Phil. i. 29.) It is better to shed 
 one’s blood to become worthy of the martyr’s wreath, 
 than to permit the Orthodox faith to be insulted by 
 its enemies! 15 
 
 -The warlike, defiant, and at the same time appre¬ 
 hensive mood of the Sobor may be judged from the 
 fact that in the same session the motion was made 
 that the patriarch should forestall all possible emergen¬ 
 cies by appointing a substitute in his place, in case he 
 himself should be arrested or otherwise incapacitated 
 foi" the discharge of his office. The suggestion was 
 approved, and the Sobor carried this recommendation 
 to Tikhon, in spite of the patriarch’s unreadiness to 
 act on the suggestion when it had been previously pre¬ 
 sented to him privately. Later, the central organiza¬ 
 tion of the Moscow parochial brotherhoods appointed 
 twenty-four of their members to serve as the patriarch’s 
 bodyguard. They served in two shifts, each consist¬ 
 ing of twelve men, and were instructed to accompany 
 the patriarch on all his journeys, and to be ever present 
 with him; if any danger were to threaten him, they 
 were to arouse the masses instantly. 
 
 Moreover, when the newly decreed laws concerning 
 civil marriage and divorce came to be discussed, the 
 debate resulted in another clean-cut defiance of the 
 
 16 Published in Church News, Nos. 3-4, 1918; quoted in full in 
 Vvedensky, op. cit., pp. 192-93. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 131 
 
 government on the issue of obedience to the laws. The 
 Sobor finally defined its position by declaring that 
 marriage solemnized by the rites of the church could 
 not be annulled by means of a divorce granted by the 
 civil courts; that such divorces were not recognized by 
 the church as actual, and the whole procedure, from the 
 church's point of view, impugned the sacrament of 
 marriage; individuals thus divorced, who would marry 
 again, were regarded by the church as having com¬ 
 mitted adultery, a major sin punishable by deprivation 
 of the sacraments; mere registry of marriages by the 
 governmental authorities could not be a substitute for 
 the church's solemnization of marriage, which is a sac¬ 
 rament. Thus, for the Orthodox, the ecclesiastical 
 marriage ceremony was indispensable. As for the 
 surrender of the recording books and registers of mar¬ 
 riages, the patriarch gave permission that the authori¬ 
 ties be allowed to make copies of single entries or the 
 entire contents, but forbade the surrender of the books 
 proper. Thus they remained in the keeping of the 
 church, despite the January decree. 
 
 From mere declarations, the church passed over to 
 deeds and to active mobilization of its forces in defense 
 of its annulled prerogatives. The methods pursued 
 were those of 1 organizing parochial brotherhoods, in 
 which, in the course of time, many of the former mon¬ 
 archist and conservative leaders soon found ample 
 scope for their energies, so that the church became the 
 place of refuge for such individuals. Thus, for instance, 
 the Moscow Council of Parochial Brotherhoods elected 
 for its president the former ober-procuror of the Holy 
 Synod, A. D. Samarin. According to the Instructions 
 of February 28, sent out conjointly by the patriarch 
 
132 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 and the Sobor, these organizations need not call them¬ 
 selves ecclesiastical, in order to avoid the provisions 
 of the January decree against such societies, for by non¬ 
 profession of their essentially ecclesiastical character 
 they sought to retain their juridical rights. In cases 
 of necessity, they were instructed to take over the 
 property of the local church, thus preventing its being 
 seized by the authorities. 16 
 
 The paragraphs of the Instructions of February 28, 
 giving directions concerning cases of confiscation of 
 church property, are especially revealing, and may, 
 therefore, well be given in full: 
 
 The sacred vessels and other requisites for divine 
 service must be guarded in all possible ways against 
 degradation and alienation, and therefore should not 
 be unnecessarily taken out of their lockers in churches, 
 and should be protected in such a manner that they 
 may not easily be found. 
 
 In case an attempt should be made to seize the 
 sacred vessels or other requisites for divine worship, the 
 church recording books and other property of the 
 church, they are not to be surrendered voluntarily, 
 because (a) the sacred vessels and requisites for 
 divine worship are sanctified for ecclesiastical use and 
 no layman may even touch them; (b) the record¬ 
 ing books are indispensable for purely ecclesiastical 
 purposes; if the secular authorities need them, they 
 must themselves take the trouble to establish them; 
 (c) ecclesiastical property belongs to the holy church, 
 and the clergy and the entire Orthodox population are 
 merely its guardians. 
 
 In cases of attack of plunderers and robbers upon 
 ecclesiastical possessions, the Orthodox people should 
 be aroused for the defense of the church by the ring- 
 
 16 Cf. the official document, given in full in Vvedensky, op. cit., 
 p. 203. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 133 
 
 ing of bells, or sending out of messengers, or by other 
 such means. 17 
 
 Punishment for acts such as were forbidden by the 
 ecclesiastical authorities did not stop short of excom¬ 
 munication of those guilty of disregard of the ecclesias¬ 
 tical regulations. 
 
 Besides these means, the church authorities sought 
 to organize opposition to the state authorities by dem¬ 
 onstrations manifested in numerous processions, which 
 amounted to public protest meetings. Parents and 
 parochial school authorities were also organized into 
 parent-teachers’ associations, in order to exert then- 
 united pressure upon the state officials in the matter 
 of retaining catechetical instruction in schools and 
 keeping the parochial schools themselves in the hands 
 of the church. In fact, these associations even ante¬ 
 dated the January decree. The central committee of 
 these organizations issued a resolution on the very day 
 of the publication of the January decree, by which they 
 declared the prohibition to teach religion in schools 
 “an open violation of the principle of autonomy of the 
 Russian school . . . and a negation of any real free¬ 
 dom of conscience,” for such a freedom would give 
 parents the right to decide whether or not their children 
 should receive religious instruction. Furthermore, on 
 February 11, the Sobor’s section on religious instruc¬ 
 tion, together with the parent-teachers’ organizations, 
 held a meeting at which a resolution was passed assert¬ 
 ing that the parties to the contract should under no 
 circumstances permit the exclusion of the catechism 
 from the curriculum of the schools. 
 
 It was by such forms of activity, as well as by ha¬ 
 ranguing public meetings, publication of pamphlets and 
 
 17 The full document in Vvedensky, op. cit., pp. 204-5. 
 
134 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 booklets, and similar means that the church attempted 
 to arouse public opinion against the anti-ecclesiastical 
 measures of the government, and thus sought to compel 
 a modification or abrogation of these measures. 
 
 From the capitals, the organized opposition to the 
 measures adopted by the government spread through¬ 
 out the provinces, and led to many, in some instances 
 serious, conflicts with the armed forces of the govern¬ 
 ment. In Samara, the local soviet brought the clergy 
 before the revolutionary tribunal for obstructing the 
 January decree; in Yaroslavl the parochial council 
 passed a resolution not to permit any “outsiders” to 
 alienate the church property, and refused to surrender 
 the church registers. Attempts on the part of the 
 authorities to put the January decree into execution 
 led to riots, which in turn called forth the proclama¬ 
 tion of martial law by the authorities. In Voronezh, 
 the mob attacked the commissioner detailed to take 
 over the local monastery, and the riot ended in his 
 murder. In Orla, Kharkov, and Tula, the demonstrat¬ 
 ing group was fired upon, and in the last-named place 
 thirteen persons were killed and many others wounded. 
 In Penza, the uprising of the people became so threat¬ 
 ening that the local soviets found it necessary to barri¬ 
 cade themselves within their headquarters. 
 
 Similar demonstrations, protests, riots, meetings, 
 and processions were held in almost every city in Rus¬ 
 sia, and the number of the victims of the repressive 
 measures adopted by the authorities soon mounted 
 up to hundreds. Thus in the Poshekhon county, 
 the gubernia of Yaroslavl, upward to one hundred peo¬ 
 ple were arrested, and several of them shot, while others 
 were sentenced to other punishments. The church, 
 in reply, proclaimed such sufferers “martyrs of the 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 135 
 
 faith” and held solemn memorial services for them, 
 and kept their names constantly before the people as 
 examples of spiritual heroism. In turn, these per¬ 
 sistent outbreaks were energetically repressed by the 
 authorities, but the situation was favorable to the 
 committing of excesses on the part of irresponsible 
 mobs of rowdies and other loose elements who found 
 in it their opportunity for looting and murder. It was 
 in such manner that the metropolitan of Kiev, Vladi¬ 
 mir, was murdered on the night of January 25. There 
 were, of course, arrests of hierarchs, some of whom 
 were cruelly treated, but later were released for lack 
 of evidence against them. There existed also, in some 
 instances, misunderstandings in the minds of the 
 officials regarding the proper interpretation of the Jan¬ 
 uary decree; some actually took it to mean an over¬ 
 throw of the entire church ministration and destruction 
 of its organization. Such misguided officials proceeded 
 with fury to carry out their mistaken ideas, and in 
 consequence spread havoc and destruction about them 
 before they could be stopped by superior orders. 
 Hence it may be freely conceded that many hideous 
 excesses were committed, even though both sides were 
 parties to the struggle: the church assumed a deter¬ 
 mined attitude of opposition to the new authorities and 
 did not stop with mere words; on the other hand, the 
 small group of revolutionary doctrinaires who had 
 seized the supreme power in Russia were desperately 
 in earnest to retain it, and were not loath to follow a 
 policy of blood and iron, if such a course bade fair to 
 further their interests. 
 
 The note issued by the patriarch on March 5, strenu¬ 
 ously protesting against the disastrous Brest-Litovsky 
 treaty, whereby the new masters of Russia bought 
 
136 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 themselves a respite from the German victorious 
 onward rush at such a fearful price, certainly was not 
 calculated to allay the feelings which had been running 
 so high. In his proclamation, the patriarch rejected in 
 a categorical fashion the newly concluded treaty, stat¬ 
 ing that “the church cannot bless the concluded peace, 
 so dangerous for Russia”; in this pronouncement Tik¬ 
 hon again took it upon himself to speak for Russia, a 
 gesture which the new government, still insecure in its 
 own hold upon the country, could not tolerate or for¬ 
 give. Proclamations of this sort, dealing with 
 matters which the authorities regarded to be of a 
 purely political nature, tended to aggravate the situa¬ 
 tion which was already tense, and to confirm the gov¬ 
 ernmental authorities in their belief that the church 
 represented the chief counter-revolutionary force in 
 Russia. 
 
 Besides the active measures of obstruction, or at 
 least of passive resistance, to the January decree, the 
 church attempted to remonstrate with the new rulers 
 in a peaceable way against what it regarded as persecu¬ 
 tion. On March 14, a committee representing the Mos¬ 
 cow Association of Parish Councils presented itself in 
 the office of the Council of People’s Commissioners, 
 and in forceful language presented the grievances of 
 the church: the decree separating the church from the 
 state was regarded as a violation of freedom of con¬ 
 science, and hence as persecution. On that account, 
 the violent dissatisfaction of the one hundred million 
 of Orthodox Russians was affirmed to be increasing, 
 and nothing less than a change of the decree would 
 appease them. A later petition sent to the People’s 
 Commissioners stated that in the view of the church 
 the Russian government must be Orthodox, and the 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 137 
 
 petition demanded a change in at least these points: 
 teaching of religion in schools should be permitted at 
 least as an elective subject; the unjust deprivation of 
 religious organizations of juridical rights must be 
 rescinded; the nationalization of church property, and 
 forbidding of subsidy even on the part of local autono¬ 
 mous groups, must likewise be changed as being an 
 overt denial of the liberty of worship granted by the 
 January decree. Therefore religious organizations 
 must be given the right to retain and use all the 
 property of which they were possessed before the 
 decree was issued, on the ground that such property 
 was in reality the property of the Orthodox portion of 
 the nation, in whose interests it was used. 
 
 Could the government make any concessions? It 
 seems quite evident that, so long as it remained faith¬ 
 ful to its revolutionary program, the government could 
 not alter the fundamental principles underlying the 
 decree, namely, freedom of conscience for all, and 
 a complete separation of the church from the state, and 
 the school from the church. These were essentials 
 upon which there could be no compromise. Some con¬ 
 cession, however, could be granted regarding the 
 method by which these principles were to be realized. 
 But the items demanded by the church either con¬ 
 cerned the principles—for instance, the demand that 
 the government be Orthodox—or such items as the 
 right to retain and use its property, which could not 
 possibly be granted unless the entire legislation con¬ 
 cerning the nationalization of all the rest of the private 
 property were likewise revoked, which was unthink¬ 
 able, for the peasant adherence to the Soviet’s cause 
 rested chiefly on that measure. It must be remembered 
 that the church was not the only body which lost its 
 
138 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 property; the entire property-owning class was dis¬ 
 possessed in order to carry out the Communist theories 
 of the new masters of Russia, and to gain the support 
 of the peasant masses. As for religious instruction in 
 schools, the demand could not be granted, because a 
 non-confessional government was bound to be con¬ 
 sistent in the matter and was logically constrained to 
 keep all religious instruction out. The only point the 
 government could yield was that of recognizing the 
 church as a body possessing juridical rights. But as 
 long as the church was regarded as the most potent 
 enemy of the new government, it was thought neces¬ 
 sary to use all measures of precaution to cripple its 
 potentialities for evil; and in view of the determined 
 active obstructionist policy of the church, the state 
 authorities were not in the mood to make concessions. 
 
 The Sobor closed the second period of its activity 
 on April 20, when it adjourned to meet again, as was 
 generally supposed, in the fall. But it resumed its 
 sessions again on June 15, and this third period proved 
 to be the last. Among the first items of business, the 
 Sobor published a declaration “regarding the measures 
 called forth by the persecution now fallen upon the 
 Orthodox church.” In this document, the member¬ 
 ship was exhorted to emulate the example of the 
 “martyrs” who had suffered for the faith, and a day 
 was appointed (January 25) upon which a nation-wide 
 memorial service in remembrance of the heroism and 
 devotion of these confessors of the faith would be 
 held; the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council was charged 
 with the duty of collecting all extant information 
 regarding the cases of persecution or martyrdom, and 
 with keeping the church at large well informed about 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 139 
 
 such instances. The Sobor again reiterated its rejec¬ 
 tion of the provisions of the January decree, and 
 ordered that “steps be taken to regain all alienated 
 property belonging to churches, monasteries, and 
 ecclesiastical institutions and organizations, including 
 the buildings of theological schools and consistories.” 
 Finally, the Sobor ended by deciding 
 
 to make known by a special declaration that the most 
 holy Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church, headed 
 by the most holy patriarch, with the most reverend 
 hierarchs, and consisting of delegates chosen by the 
 whole Orthodox population, including in that number 
 peasants also, is the sole, lawful, supreme authority 
 in all ecclesiastical matters, and the guardian of God’s 
 churches, of the sacred monasteries, and of all ecclesias¬ 
 tical property. No one, except the most holy Sobor 
 and authorities appointed by it, has any right to 
 assume ecclesiastical authority or to make disposition 
 of ecclesiastical property; so much the less does this 
 right belong to people who profess no Christian faith 
 whatsoever or who openly acknowledge themselves 
 to be disbelievers in God. 18 
 
 The Sobor, in consequence of this attitude, went on 
 as if it had never heard of the January decree: it dis¬ 
 cussed matters relative to theological training schools, 
 parochial schools, landed property, church printing 
 establishments, and candle factories as if the church 
 still possessed the full direction of such affairs. It 
 seemed as if, so far as the church was concerned, the 
 new government had ceased to exist. Plainly, even he 
 who runs may read the meaning of the church’s atti¬ 
 tude: we expect to fight on! 
 
 18 Titlinov, op. cit., p. 137. 
 
140 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The first six months after the publication of the 
 January decree, many provisions of the law remained 
 dead letter ones. To be sure, there were some items 
 which were put into practice almost automatically, 
 or had already been practically realized. Thus from 
 the beginning the government never thought of per¬ 
 mitting its official functions to be accompanied by 
 religious rites, for such an incongruous mockery would 
 be quite unthinkable; furthermore, to dispose of the 
 religious symbolism and icons still remaining in public 
 buildings was a matter requiring but a short time for 
 accomplishment. Similar procedure was adopted 
 regarding the annulling of the governmental subsidy 
 to the ecclesiastical establishments, accomplished by 
 the simple, effective expedient of striking out from the 
 state budget the sum of thirty-three odd millions of 
 rubles, which the Provisional Government still carried, 
 although about an equal sum formerly provided for the 
 support of parochial schools had already been liqui¬ 
 dated by its Ministry of Education. This did not 
 instantly take away all the sources of revenue at the 
 disposal of the church, even though the subsidy formed 
 a considerable portion of the total; but the rest of the 
 ecclesiastical capital was likewise quickly dissipated: 
 such sums as were deposited in banks were “nation¬ 
 alized,” and the capital invested in bonds and stocks 
 was liquidated by the decree invalidating such forms 
 of capital. The church and monastic landed property 
 was to a large extent taken from its legal owners by 
 local soviet authorities, and the same was becoming 
 increasingly the case in regard to such buildings, fac¬ 
 tories, institutions, and other immovable property of 
 which the ecclesiastical authorities were possessed. 
 Nevertheless, by the middle of 1918, the greater part 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 141 
 
 of all this type of property was still in the hands of 
 the church. 
 
 The provisions regarding the transfer to the Soviet 
 authorities of the registry functions of births and mar¬ 
 riages, which were hitherto performed by the church, 
 were more difficult of fulfillment. For one thing, the 
 government was not prompt in establishing such 
 bureaus of registry, and the church refused to sur¬ 
 render its own records. Hence for a long time the old 
 practice continued in vogue. 
 
 It was easier to realize the provision regarding the 
 stopping of religious instruction in public schools, 
 because the requisite action was of a negative, rather 
 than a positive nature. Nothing more was necessary 
 beyond issuing an order removing this subject from 
 the curriculum and stopping payments to the cate¬ 
 chists. These simple expedients almost automatically 
 accomplished the desired result. Nevertheless, in some 
 isolated instances where the community was largely 
 homogeneous in its composition, and unified in its 
 demand, or in cases where parochial schools had not 
 yet been taken over by the government, the cate¬ 
 chetical instruction persisted. 
 
 This state of affairs, however, was terminated soon 
 after the Fifth Convention of the Soviets, held in 
 July, 1918, which became the Constituent Assembly 
 of the October Revolution. This convention adopted 
 the Constitution of the Russian Soviet Republic, the 
 thirteenth article of which reiterated the fundamental 
 provision of the January decree, stating: “In order to 
 guarantee to the workers an actual freedom of con¬ 
 science, the church is separated from the government, 
 and the school from the church, and the liberty of 
 religious as well as anti-religious propaganda is 
 
142 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 granted to all citizens.” 19 Following this important 
 constitutional declaration, the People’s Commissariat 
 of Justice, on August 24, issued Instructions, which 
 form the most important interpretation of, as well as 
 supplement to, the January decree. In the first place, 
 the Instructions specified that the January decree com¬ 
 prises all religious communions or confessions: the 
 Orthodox, the Old Ritualists, the Catholic of all rites, 
 the Armenian-Gregorian, the Protestant, as well as the 
 Mohammedan, Buddhist, and Lamaic confessions. 
 Moreover, all other religious associations organized for 
 any type of worship, as well as such organizations 
 as are composed of members of one particular con¬ 
 fession for the purpose of carrying on any benevolent 
 or educational work or similar objects, are all com¬ 
 prised in the decree separating the church from the 
 government, and are not eligible for aid or subsidy, 
 and lose their juridical rights. 20 It will be noticed that 
 the latter provision was directed against the brother¬ 
 hoods organized in connection with parishes and 
 monasteries mainly for the purpose of holding the 
 church property in case attempts for its confiscation 
 were made. Sometimes these organizations bore other 
 names than such as would legally make them church 
 societies; hence the provision of the Instructions. 
 
 The provisions of the January decree regarding the 
 transfer of the churches to the governmental authori¬ 
 ties were elaborated in the Instructions by further 
 detailed pronouncements. The property held by the 
 church at the time when the decree was issued was to 
 be taken over by the local Soviets of Workers and 
 
 19 Gidulyanov: Separation of the Church from the Government, 
 p. 29. 
 
 20 Ibid., p. 73. 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 143 
 
 Peasants; the local authorities were then directed to 
 make an inventor^ of such property, comprising all 
 articles used in worship or ritual, and with this inven¬ 
 tory they were to turn the entire establishment over to 
 the representatives of the group of believers which 
 had applied for the use of it, from which time the 
 congregation had a free possession of the premises. 
 The number of local inhabitants required to obtain 
 the use of church buildings and equipment was fixed at 
 not less than twenty. 
 
 After the formalities of transfer of this property into 
 the custody of the group were complied with, the 
 group then obligated itself to protect it as a trust of 
 national property, to keep everything in good repair, 
 and restore, at its own expense, anything lost or worn 
 out; to pay the operating and running expenses, such 
 as heating, insurance, and local taxes, to use the 
 equipment solely for the purposes of worship; to keep 
 an inventory of all newly acquired property (by 
 bequest or transfer from another church) such as 
 did not belong to any individual, and to permit an 
 official inspection of the establishment during hours 
 when the services were not in progress. In case these 
 conditions were not strictly observed, the property im¬ 
 mediately reverted to the local soviets. 
 
 In the sample contract published along with the 
 Instructions, it was furthermore specified that groups 
 taking over church property for purposes of worship 
 obligated themselves not to permit political meetings 
 hostile to the government to be held in it, or 
 speeches by any individual of such tendencies, or 
 the delivery of sermons directed against the estab¬ 
 lished regime, the selling of anti-governmental litera¬ 
 ture, or ringing of alarm bells for the purpose of 
 
144 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 arousing the population and inciting it against the gov¬ 
 ernment. “In the event of failure to adopt all measures 
 in our power to fulfill all our obligations under this 
 Agreement, we shall be criminally liable and shall be 
 treated with all the severity of the revolutionary law: 
 and in such contingencies the Soviet of Workmen- 
 Peasant Deputies shall have the right to cancel this 
 Agreement.” Of course, any member of the group 
 had the right to withdraw at will, provided he gave 
 proper notice of his intention. But likewise anyone 
 who wished to join the group had the right to sign 
 the contract. 
 
 In case there should not be found the required 
 minimum number of believers to apply for a church 
 building, the fact must be published in the news¬ 
 papers, and a week after the appearance of the third 
 such notice, it must be reported to the People’s Com¬ 
 missariat of Education, which would then make a 
 disposition of the case. The equipment of the church 
 would either be transferred to another church, or 
 would be stored in a special storage provided for that 
 purpose. 
 
 All other property whatever, from which the church 
 drew revenue, such as houses not used for worship, 
 land, factories, candle manufactories, industrial plants, 
 cash capital, and all other property which had not been 
 sequestrated hitherto, was ordered immediately to be 
 seized. For non-delivery of any such capital, the 
 guilty individuals were subject to the provisions of 
 the criminal law. The term set for the surrender of 
 all property was two months from the day of publi¬ 
 cation of the Instructions. 
 
 Regarding the surrender of the registry books, the 
 Instructions ruled that all such records kept by any 
 
First Years of the Soviet Regime 145 
 
 communion or church must be surrendered to the 
 governmental authorities without delay. The clergy 
 were granted the right to copy anything needed out of 
 the books, but only after the originals had been 
 surrendered. 
 
 Religious processions, or performances of any reli¬ 
 gious ceremony in public, were permitted only after the 
 application for the holding of such public meetings had 
 been approved by the local authorities. It was further¬ 
 more specified that all monuments or tablets found in 
 churches, commemorating the glories of the former 
 tsarist regime, must be removed as “insulting the revo¬ 
 lutionary sensibilities of the working masses.” 
 
 Finally, the Instructions amplified the provisions of 
 the January decree regarding the teaching of the 
 catechism by further details as follows: 
 
 In view of the separation of the school from the 
 church, instruction in any religious creed must in no 
 case be admitted in any state, public, or private educa¬ 
 tional institution, with the exception of purely theo¬ 
 logical establishments. 
 
 All credits voted for religious instruction in schools 
 shall be immediately stopped, and teachers of religion 
 shall be deprived of maintenance. 
 
 No state or other publico-juridical institution shall 
 have the right to issue any money to instructors of 
 religion either for the present time or due them since 
 the month of January, 1918. 
 
 The buildings of theological educational establish¬ 
 ments of all confessions, as well as of the parochial 
 schools, shall be turned over, as national property, to 
 the local Soviet of Workmen-Peasant Deputies, or the 
 People’s Commissariat of Education. 
 
 Note: The Soviets of Workmen-Peasant Deputies 
 imy lease or grant such buildings for the purpose of 
 
146 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 establishing in them special training establishments of 
 any religious creed, on the general conditions appli¬ 
 cable to all citizens, and with the knowledge of the 
 People’s Commissariat of Education. 21 
 
 Shortly after the publication of this supplementary 
 legislation regarding the concrete methods of realiza¬ 
 tion of the January decree, the Sobor of the Russian 
 Orthodox Church, which had been in session since 
 August 15, 1917, was dissolved “on account of lack of 
 funds,” without completing its work. It was implied in 
 some of the legislation that the next Sobor was to be 
 held within three years, i.e. in 1921, but this was not 
 specifically and formally decreed. In the meantime, 
 the patriarch with his two auxiliary governing bodies 
 was left to face the increasingly difficult situation 
 alone. 
 
 21 This important document was published in the Izvestiya of Aug. 
 30, and is dated Aug. 24, 1918; cf. the full text in Gidulyanov, op. 
 cit. } pp. 622-23. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE SOVIET ECCLESIASTICAL LEGISLATION 
 
 The initial fundamental legislation was followed, in 
 the course of time, by a mass of supplementary and 
 additional edicts and amendments which adjusted the 
 Soviet legislation to the needs of the emerging prob¬ 
 lems. The details of this mass are of a complicated 
 nature, and no attempt can be made in a work of this 
 character to present them fully. But an acquaintance 
 with the general outline of the subject is absolutely 
 necessary for a proper understanding of the situation 
 with which the church was dealing, and with the 
 temper which animated the government. Disregarding 
 the fact that chronologically some of this matter is 
 ahead of the period reached by the rest of the story, 
 an attempt will be made to present a review of the 
 legislation up to date. 
 
 Both the January decree and the Constitution 
 definitely and explicitly granted freedom of conscience, 
 worship, and propaganda of religious as well as 
 atheistic creeds. Later pronouncements amplified this 
 provision in points which needed further elucidation. 
 Church services, as well as sermons, could be freely 
 held in stated places of worship without any previous 
 censorship, provided they were of an exclusively 
 religious character. 1 The same applied to prayer 
 
 1 Instruction of the S. C. E. C., June 13, 1921. 
 
 147 
 
148 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 meetings, as well as other meetings of a religious char¬ 
 acter held in private homes. 
 
 Like the French Law of Separation of 1905, which 
 ordered the creation of associationes cultuelles to which 
 alone the state was willing to entrust the free use of 
 church buildings, the Soviet authorities, possibly in 
 conscious imitation of the French model, also refused 
 to deal with the hierarchy of the Russian church, for 
 the latter had been deprived of its juridical character, 
 and stipulated that the only legal trustees it would 
 acknowledge were lay representatives of the local 
 groups of believers. Their number was fixed at twenty. 
 In localities where there were less than twenty to apply 
 for the use of the church, and even where there were 
 twenty or more but where no church building existed, 
 the groups which existed, whatever their number, 
 could meet for religious services in private homes, but 
 were obliged to report the place and time of every such 
 meeting to the local authorities. In case at least 
 twenty applied for the use of the church in any given 
 locality where one existed, after complying with the 
 requisite regulations, the congregation could use such 
 a church for its religious services at any time without 
 previously reporting them to the authorities. When 
 any of the original signatories died or moved away, 
 the full quota was maintained by recruiting the neces¬ 
 sary quorum of members from among the rest of the 
 congregation. The above-named conditions regarding 
 the different kinds of religious organizations were fin¬ 
 ally defined by assigning a different legal terminology 
 to them: a “group of believers” denoted an organiza¬ 
 tion comprising at least twenty trustees and any 
 number of other members, which by complying with 
 the terms of the governmental contract for a free use 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 149 
 
 of church buildings, conducted its services in a church 
 of their locality thus assigned them; a “religious 
 society” was defined in 1924 to consist of no less than 
 fifty members, and must possess a constitution 
 approved by the government; it need not, in such case, 
 meet in a stated church building, but might hold its 
 services in private homes, without being obliged to 
 report each separate meeting to the authorities. 2 
 
 The conditions of the contract into which each con¬ 
 gregation had to enter before the government would 
 entrust it the church building and its equipment were 
 specified by the People’s Commissariat of Justice. 
 These have already been described in the previous 
 chapter, and hence need not be repeated here. 
 
 This legislation, which threw the power into the 
 hands of laymen, had important consequences in the 
 democratization of the parish organizations. The trus¬ 
 tees called and dismissed the priest, who was elected by 
 the congregation, while the episcopate was restricted to 
 a mere approval and installation of the priest-elect in 
 the parish which called him. Practically, the episco¬ 
 pate found it advisable to comply with the wish of the 
 congregation in the majority of instances. But the 
 system was attended with the besetting evils of all 
 “democratic” organizations, in so far that the priest 
 held his post at the will of the congregation, and was 
 therefore reduced to the necessity of gaining the favor 
 of his people; and a zealous discharge of official duties 
 is not always the chief means to that end, as many 
 an American minister well knows. He was likewise to 
 a considerable extent dependent upon the congrega¬ 
 tion for the general policy of the conduct of church 
 
 3 Decision of the fifth section of the People’s Commissariat of 
 Justice, July 28, 1924. 
 
150 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 affairs. Thus, for instance, during the period of the 
 rise of the Living Church, many priests found them¬ 
 selves ousted by their parochial councils for sympathiz¬ 
 ing with the movement, for it lay predominantly in the 
 hands of the lay trustees to determine whether the 
 congregation should throw its lot with the new 
 “reforming” movement, or remain loyal to the patri¬ 
 archal party. 
 
 But, on the same ground, the trustees of the con¬ 
 gregation alone were responsible to the governmental 
 authorities for the conduct of church affairs, while 
 the priest serving the charge was not required to be 
 registered, for the government would hold the group 
 rather than the priest responsible for any occurrence 
 regarded by it as of a hostile or detrimental character.* 
 
 It should further be added in treating the subject 
 that churches of historical, artistic, or archeological 
 value were transferred to the care of the Museum sec¬ 
 tion of the Commissariat of Education, and turned into 
 public museums. In case no one cared to apply for 
 the use of a local church (as actually happened in 
 cases where the church at the time was in serious dis¬ 
 repair, and the congregation knew it would be expected 
 to put it in order at its own expense), or the required 
 quota of trustees could not be reached, the Commis¬ 
 sariat of Education was free to secularize such build¬ 
 ings for any other purpose deemed needful. Further¬ 
 more, any new churches that might be erected since 
 the promulgation of the decree were likewise subject 
 to the provisions here described, and were not 
 acknowledged as the property of the congregation 
 which built them, i.e . it was specified that such 
 
 8 Fifth section of the People’s Commissariat of Justice, No. 21973, 
 Aug. 16, 1924. 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 151 
 
 churches were let out for use only, while the title 
 was vested in the government. The prohibition 
 against the use of churches without governmental per¬ 
 mission extended even to domestic chapels, such as 
 jail, hospital, and almshouse chapels. 
 
 As far as the working of these laws regarding the use 
 of church edifices is concerned, an idea of it may be 
 gained from the situation at present obtaining in 
 Moscow. Out of more than four hundred and sixty 
 large Orthodox churches (not counting the chapels 
 attached to private houses or benevolent institutions) 
 a great majority are used for purposes of worship. 
 A small number, for which the requisite number of 
 petitioners had not applied, and all house chapels, were 
 closed. Some of these abandoned buildings were taken 
 over by the municipality to serve other purposes, such 
 as clubs, moving-picture theaters, etc. Some of the 
 most famous cathedrals, as for instance those ancient 
 sanctuaries found within the enclosure of the Kremlin, 
 the official seat of the Soviet government, such as the 
 Uspensky and Arkhangelsky cathedrals, were turned 
 into national museums, although on occasion special 
 services may be held in them. It may be of interest to 
 remark that the government undertook a very thorough 
 and extensive restoration of the interior of these his¬ 
 torically famous shrines, the burial places of the Rus¬ 
 sian tsars, and by wiping off the surface layer of mural 
 paintings, original frescoes of remarkable workman¬ 
 ship were restored. Hence these historically important 
 memorials of former Russian culture were thus pre¬ 
 served for future generations by the care of the Soviet 
 government. That weirdly grotesque edifice on the 
 Red Square, “the dream of a diseased imagination,” as 
 it was called, the Cathedral of Basil the Blessed, is like- 
 
152 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 wise undergoing very extensive exterior and interior 
 repairs, and has been turned exclusively into a national 
 historical museum. The most beautiful cathedral in 
 Moscow, the Church of Christ the Savior, is used 
 for regular church services, although on week-days it 
 is open to the general public upon payment of a small 
 admission fee. 
 
 The second important legislative enactment of the 
 January decree separated the school from the church, 
 but did not specify, at that time, the exact conditions 
 under which religious instruction of children or adults 
 could be legally imparted. The amplification of this 
 provision was issued in 1922/ and specified: 
 
 Instruction in matters of faith of persons who have 
 not reached their eighteenth year of age is not per¬ 
 mitted. Persons above eighteen years of age may be 
 instructed in special theological courses with the aim 
 of preparing them for the priesthood, but on the con¬ 
 dition that the curriculum of such courses be limited 
 to specifically theological subjects. It is likewise per¬ 
 mitted to hold separate lectures, discussions, or read¬ 
 ing courses dealing with confessional matters for per¬ 
 sons above eighteen years of age, provided that such 
 meetings do not acquire the character of a systematic 
 scholastic method of instruction. 
 
 The growing generation must be kept from receiving 
 a systematic religious training. The intent of this 
 legislation seems fairly clear; the younger generation 
 must grow up without a definite, organized, religious 
 instruction, and as far as possible shall receive a 
 secular training which, if it is not formally anti- 
 religious, in the sense that specific courses in atheism 
 are not offered, yet is in a large number of cases and 
 
 4 Ruling of the A. C. E. C., June 13, 1922. 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 153 
 
 to a large extent motivated by anti-religious purposes, 
 and is at all events non-religious. Besides, the Com¬ 
 munist Party, as well as other definitely atheistic 
 organizations, are free to instruct the youth in 
 definitely and systematically organized manner in the 
 tenets and dogmas of atheism. There can be no doubt 
 that this provision is the most unfair! enactment of 
 the entire range of religious regulations of the Soviet 
 legislation, and is enormously harmful in its results and 
 working. This single provision, considered apart from 
 all other measures calculated to multiply the ranks of 
 the atheistic organizations, and correspondingly to 
 nullify and obviate the influence of the church, must 
 be regarded as the most pernicious, as well as the most 
 efficient and effective, means of gradually substituting 
 the anti-religious point of view among the great masses 
 of the Russian people for the religious one now pre¬ 
 vailing. Without doubt, there are elements of super¬ 
 stition and magic in the religious concepts of the Rus¬ 
 sian masses, and those elements ought to be swept 
 away; if the provisions of the governmental educa¬ 
 tional system accomplish an improvement along this 
 line, they will do a praiseworthy piece of work. But 
 the provisions forbid all specifically religious instruc¬ 
 tion under conditions of regularly organized class- 
 work, and to that extent they nullify the loudly pro¬ 
 claimed principle of freedom of religious belief and 
 propaganda. 
 
 It should not be omitted, however, that the prohibi¬ 
 tion of religious instruction of children and youth 
 under eighteen years of age is not absolute. Later 
 legislation specified that children in groups of three or 
 less, whether they belong to the same family or not, 
 may receive religious instruction either by their parents 
 
154 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 or by another person, and this instruction may be given 
 either in the home of the children or of the teacher. 
 It cannot, however, be given in schools or in church 
 buildings. The teachers need not be registered with 
 the governmental authorities, for the instruction is 
 unofficial, and is treated as a part of the activity of the 
 congregation. 6 
 
 There seems to be a strict uniformity in the applica¬ 
 tion of this principle to all religious communities, and 
 its strict observance forms probably the harshest and 
 the most galling enactment laid upon them. It is 
 rumored rather widely that the sectarians, in many 
 instances, do not suffer any great curtailment of their 
 work of religious education of the young, in spite of 
 the law. In other words, the law is being “admin¬ 
 istered.” That may very well be true, for much of 
 the ecclesiastical legislation was expressly designed 
 to break the power of the dominant Orthodox church, 
 while the attitude of the government toward the 
 formerly oppressed sectarian communions, especially 
 toward those which profess the tenets of Communism, 
 may be regarded as distinctly less hostile, and in the 
 latter case even to a certain extent friendly; the 
 administration of the law, of course, is in the hands of 
 the local authorities, and as everywhere else, there is 
 always room for a certain amount of favoritism. But 
 against this may be urged the positive official pro¬ 
 nouncement in the case of catechetical instruction 
 required (by custom) in the Lutheran churches, of all 
 young people in preparation for joining the church by 
 confirmation; when a certain particular case of this 
 type was appealed for official adjudication, it was 
 
 6 Instruction of the fifth section of the Commissariat of Justice, 
 Sept. 14, 1924. 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 155 
 
 decided that Lutherans have the right to catechize their 
 children privately, in groups of three or less, but not 
 under auspices which would resemble organized school 
 instruction. 6 It may furthermore be mentioned in 
 this connection that the age limit of eighteen years has 
 been lowered, in the case of the Mohammedans, to 
 sixteen years; this provision is officially defended on 
 the ground that the Mohammedans, comprising pre¬ 
 dominantly Asiatic peoples, regard manhood to have 
 been reached at the age of sixteen, rather than at 
 eighteen, as is the case with the slower-maturing white 
 race. It is thus claimed that in principle no injustice 
 has been done to the Russian youth by lowering the 
 age limit of the Mohammedans. 
 
 In an interview with Smidovich, in charge of the 
 department of ecclesiastical affairs, I raised the ques¬ 
 tion of the apparent injustice of granting the anti- 
 religious organizations freedom of systematic instruc¬ 
 tion and propaganda of their dogmas, but denying the 
 same right to the religious bodies. His answer was 
 interesting: he denied that to be the case, and pointed 
 out that each religious service held in churches on 
 Sunday and other holy days is to be regarded as 
 possessing the value of religious instruction, and since 
 children and youth under eighteen have a free access 
 to these services, they were to be considered as receiv¬ 
 ing religious instruction. This is, to be sure, a palpable 
 evasion of the real problem; nevertheless, there is a 
 certain amount of truth in it, which, as far as it appears, 
 has been hitherto almost totally neglected by the 
 churches. The ordinary liturgical service cannot be 
 said to contain much in the nature of religious in- 
 
 8 Fifth section of the People’s Commissariat of Justice, Sept. 29, 
 1924; quoted in Gidulyanov, op. cit., p. 374. 
 
156 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 struction, in the narrower sense of that word, and it 
 is greatly to be desired that the services be made con¬ 
 tributory toward that end; but this devout desire and 
 well-meant advice has but little chance of succeeding in 
 the face of the intense conservatism of the church and 
 the rigidity of form so tenaciously upheld; on the 
 whole, it would be inexcusably optimistic to expect any 
 extensive changes to be introduced into the services. 
 Smidovich, of course, may well be presumed to be as 
 conversant with the fact of a rather doubtful value of 
 an ordinary church service in the matter of actual 
 “religious instruction” of the young as any one else. 
 
 Regarding the problem of educating the candidates 
 for priesthood, it must be recalled that all schools, 
 even the specifically and professionally theological, had 
 been “nationalized” as early as December, 1917, so 
 that the church was deprived of the very possibility of 
 carrying on the work. Furthermore, the religious 
 presses of the country were likewise “nationalized,” so 
 that the church very soon felt an acute lack of litera¬ 
 ture of all kinds. It is difficult to imagine the dis¬ 
 organization necessarily brought about by this circum¬ 
 stance. At first, nothing could be done to remedy the 
 situation, although the church soon experienced a great 
 lack of young priests. The government finally settled 
 the problem in the following manner: 
 
 As to the question of opening theological courses, the 
 fifth section of the People’s Commissariat of Justice 
 deems it necessary, in order to prevent all possible mis¬ 
 use of it, to allow organization of theological courses 
 only in large cities, and only with the permission of the 
 Gubernial Executive Committee and the consent of the 
 People’s Commissariat of Education, and the depart- 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 157 
 
 ment of cults of the People’s Commissariat of Justice. 
 Only persons who have reached their eighteenth year 
 of age may be admitted to these courses. As the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, the eparchial 
 ecclesiastical administrations, and the groups of believ¬ 
 ers and religious societies are deprived of their 
 juridical rights, the establishment of theological 
 courses may be undertaken only by private citizens of 
 good legal standing, or a group of them; but these 
 persons must, when applying for the permission to 
 inaugurate the courses, present a program or plan of 
 instruction, and the conditions under which the 
 courses shall be given, as well as the list of instructors. 
 
 The rules about organizing theological or religious 
 courses govern all cults and religious societies existing 
 in the R. S. F. S. R. T 
 
 This is another example of unjust Soviet legislation, 
 which on the one hand had proclaimed religion to be a 
 private affair, and had severed all connection of the 
 church with the state, and on the other passes such 
 irksome, restraining limitations under which these sup¬ 
 posedly free private opinions may be propagated. As 
 the result of this action, the vast Russian Orthodox 
 communion possesses at the present time only two com¬ 
 paratively weak theological academies, and both of 
 them are controlled by the synodical party, while the 
 patriarchal party, comprising some two-thirds of the 
 entire communion (some sixty millions), has no theo¬ 
 logical training school at all! And this is the ninth 
 year of such a state of affairs! 
 
 The limitations of the civil status of the clergy and 
 the monks are likewise considerable, and often of a 
 
 7 Fifth section of the People’s Commissariat of Justice, May 2, 
 1923, No. 280. 
 
158 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 serious nature. In the first place, the Constitution of 
 the R. S. F. S. R. specifies that: “among those who do 
 not elect and cannot be elected are: . . . monks 
 and spiritual ministers of religious cults of all confes¬ 
 sions and denominations, for whom that employment 
 is a profession.” 8 In accordance with a later defini¬ 
 tion, 9 a minister of a religious cult is a person who is a 
 member of the parish clergy and| performs religious 
 rites, as for instance, bishops, priests, deacons, rabbis, 
 mullahs, etc. Those individuals who receive their 
 income from some ecclesiastical employment, but do 
 not perform religious rites, such as psalm-singers, can¬ 
 tors, kosher butchers, and members of the choir, are not 
 included in this category. Wives of professional 
 ministers of religion are not deprived of their political 
 rights. 
 
 The reason for this discrimination is explained to 
 rest upon the view held by the Communists regarding 
 the very nature of citizenship: in bourgeois countries, 
 it may be contingent upon financial or educational 
 qualifications; in Russia, it rests upon the character of 
 the work in which the particular individual is engaged. 
 He is classified as engaged either in “productive” or 
 “non-productive” work; the latter category, as para¬ 
 sitic, includes “the servitors of cults,” and they are 
 consequently deprived of the franchise. 
 
 Persons engaged in part-time work of some ecclesias¬ 
 tical nature may be employed in certain governmental 
 departments, exclusive of the People’s Commissariats 
 of Education, Justice, Agriculture, Commerce, and 
 
 8 Izyestiya, May 26, 1925; quoted in Gidulyanov, op. cit., p. 282. 
 
 9 Circular, People’s Commissariat of Finance, No. 686, art. 6, Feb. 
 26, 1924; quoted in Gidulyanov, op. cit., p. 288. 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 159 
 
 some departments of the Commissariat of the Interior, 
 the Workers-Peasant Inspection, although they may 
 not be appointed to categories of work higher than the 
 sixteenth (seventeenth is the highest). Of course, their 
 duties connected with the church service must be per¬ 
 formed exclusively outside of the working hours. 10 
 
 Besides this, in accordance with the order of the 
 People’s Commissariat of Education, 11 clergy of all 
 ranks and confessions are excluded from holding any 
 positions in schools. Persons who formerly belonged to 
 the clerical profession, but have given up their orders, 
 are permitted to fill such positions after securing a 
 special permission from the Commissariat for that 
 purpose. 
 
 Clergy of all ranks are excluded from all cooperative 
 societies, but are granted land on the same general 
 basis upon which it is distributed to others. But in 
 case the same piece of land is petitioned for by a 
 clergyman and a workingman, preference is given to 
 the latter. Widows and orphans of priests are not dis¬ 
 criminated against in regard to receiving pensions. 
 
 As for “the days of rest/’ the Soviet government pro¬ 
 claimed as legal May first, the New Year, the Day of 
 the First Revolution (January 9, 1905), the Day of 
 the Paris Commune, the Day of the Overthrow of the 
 Tsarist Monarchy, and the Day of the October Revolu¬ 
 tion, as well as a few others; beyond that, the days of 
 rest were left for the decision of local authorities and 
 unions, but it was specified that a period of rest must 
 occur once a week, and may fall either on Sunday or 
 
 10 Instruction of the Commissariats of Justice and of the Interior, 
 June 19, 1923, section 14. 
 
 11 Revolution and the Church, No. 2, p. 40. 
 
160 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 any other day of the week, in accordance with the 
 nationalist or religious predilections of the particular 
 community for which the regulation was made. 12 Be¬ 
 sides, the great Orthodox holidays were also permitted 
 to be celebrated, and their dates were officially specified. 
 
 The treatment of the pacifists was considerate, to 
 say the least. An individual who from religious 
 principle and conviction could not serve in the army 
 in the usual capacity of trained man-killer was per¬ 
 mitted, after his case was adjudicated by the People’s 
 Court, to exchange that type of service for sanitary 
 or hospital duty, or any other kind of service chosen 
 by the person concerned. But he must prove the 
 sincerity of his conviction by. producing a record of 
 his membership in a religious body of known pacifist 
 profession, and must submit other proofs of his asser¬ 
 tions as desired by the court. 13 
 
 Finally, it must be mentioned that the legislation 
 which has been so meagerly presented here was drawn 
 exclusively from the code operative in the Russian 
 Socialistic Federated Soviet Republic, but that each 
 of the separate units which form the Union of Soviet 
 Socialistic Republics has passed legislation of its own 
 governing all these various subjects. No attention has 
 been paid to these other units in the present review, 
 for each subject would have to be treated under the 
 heading of the Union, of the Russian Republic, as well 
 as that of the Ukrainian, White Russian, Transcau¬ 
 casian, and other units. But since the legislation is 
 essentially identical, it was not deemed expedient to go 
 into the amount of detail necessary to point out the 
 
 13 Gidulyanov: op. cit., p. 58; Code of Work, 1922, No. 70. 
 
 13 Decree of the C. P. S., Dec. 14, 1920; quoted in Gidulyanov, 
 p. 378. 
 
The Soviet Ecclesiastical Legislation 161 
 
 rest. It is well, however, to bear in mind that the legis¬ 
 lation presented is, from the legal point of view, actu¬ 
 ally operative only in one unit of the Union, and 
 although the rest of them are governed by similar 
 provisions, an exhaustive treatment would have to take 
 account of the differences wherever they exist. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE FAMINE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES 
 
 The state of civil warfare to which the mutual rela¬ 
 tions of the church and the state were comparable 
 reached a stage of desperate crisis when, to the devasta¬ 
 tions caused by the civil wars, was added the terrible 
 natural calamity of famine which afflicted that 
 unhappy land in 1921. In the summer of that year, 
 the Volga region, and to a lesser degree other regions, 
 were affected by a terrible and widespread drought, 
 which brought famine in its wake. The calamity was 
 also brought partly by artificial causes connected with 
 the peasants’ resentment of the communistic methods 
 applied by the government to the rural population, 
 i.e. the confiscation of all their crops with the excep¬ 
 tion of the amount needed for their families, which 
 naturally resulted in the peasants’ retaliating by not 
 sowing any more than was strictly needed for them¬ 
 selves. But in addition to this, in 1921, a terrible 
 drought, such as had not been experienced for many 
 decades, afflicted the region and destroyed even the 
 little that was sown. Ultimately, the famine affected 
 twenty-three gubernias , with a population of over 
 thirty-seven million, of whom almost five million died; 
 this staggering disaster for the time being required all 
 the energies of the government, as well as of the various 
 professional and private societies, and stirred the sym¬ 
 pathies of the entire civilized world. America sent its 
 Relief Expedition and its Y. M. C. A.; the Quakers 
 
 162 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 163 
 
 helped a great deal; and many European organizations, 
 like that of Dr. Nansen, the Swedish and the German 
 Red Cross, the Amsterdam Professional Unions, etc., 
 took part in the work. This aid ameliorated the hor¬ 
 rible suffering of the people of the stricken regions, but 
 did not entirely relieve it, for all this combined effort 
 proved to be insufficient. The relief organizations 
 finally frankly restricted themselves to the feeding of 
 children, for their supplies were insufficient to include 
 the grown people. These were left to die, the total 
 number of people who died of starvation having 
 reached almost five million. The extent of the calam¬ 
 ity was so overwhelming that for the time being the 
 need of aid to the starving was uppermost in the minds 
 of all. 
 
 The church was likewise roused to act the good 
 Samaritan. As early as the month of August, 1921, 
 the patriarch issued an appeal for help for the starv¬ 
 ing, addressed to the Eastern Orthodox patriarchs and 
 autocephalous churches, to the pope of Rome, to the 
 archbishop of Canterbury, and the bishop of New 
 York. As for the Russian church itself, an all-Russian 
 church committee was organized for the purpose of 
 aiding the starving, and collections of money and pro¬ 
 visions were gathered in churches and by the parochial 
 brotherhoods. The money thus collected was to be 
 expended through the administrative channels of the 
 church for the relief of the starving masses. How far 
 the church authorities might have gone in this work 
 of saving the lives of the starving in the affected areas 
 would be hazardous to estimate; whether they would 
 have come to the point of voluntarily sacrificing the 
 profuse and gorgeous church ornaments with which 
 the Ortho iox churches fairly glittered, or whether they 
 
164 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 would even under such circumstances stop short of 
 that sacrifice, is impossible to tell. But it would be 
 unbelievable that the church would remain deliberately 
 indifferent to the intense suffering of the masses and 
 the enormous resultant death rate which was daily 
 increasing. 
 
 But the situation became complicated by the atti¬ 
 tude which the government took in the matter: it 
 insisted that the relief administration must be central¬ 
 ized in the hands of the governmental committee on 
 relief, and pronounced the separate church committee 
 as superfluous. Had normal conditions prevailed 
 between the church and the state, this action of the 
 government must necessarily be pronounced extremely 
 unwise and indefensible; but conditions were anything 
 but normal, and in relation to the church were, as a 
 matter of fact, highly strained, and in that light one 
 can understand the mistrust with which the authori¬ 
 ties would look upon the separately administered relief 
 carried on by the church. It is likewise evident that 
 the authorities were unwilling to permit the church to 
 gain the prestige or credit which such an independent 
 action would necessarily imply. Hence all sums which 
 had already been collected by the church committee 
 on relief were ordered to be turned over to the state 
 committee, and the demand was complied with. 1 
 
 1 There are some who affirm that the church authorities were not 
 baffled even now: they are said to have approached, unofficially, the 
 American Relief Administration, with the proposal of surrendering 
 the unconsecrated church treasures to the American organization as 
 a security for a foreign loan to be negotiated in behalf of the church. 
 The reasons actuating the church to approach the American group 
 were that they trusted it not to subject the church valuables to dis¬ 
 respectful handling; furthermore, the negotiators had hopes of recov¬ 
 ering these objects again when better times should return. But 
 unfortunately, the American Relief Administration, having bound 
 itself by the Riga agreement with the Soviet authoriti es to refrain 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 165 
 
 The meager results which followed this disposition 
 of the matter evidently impressed the Soviet authori¬ 
 ties that much more could be done if the church were 
 given greater freedom in handling the funds. What¬ 
 ever the motives were which actuated the government, 
 it issued an appeal which in some way modified the 
 existing regulations: 
 
 Decision of the Presidium of the All-Russian Central 
 Executive Committee: 
 
 Taking into consideration the long list of solicita¬ 
 tions from various religious societies asking for 
 permission to make collections for the relief of the 
 starving, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central 
 Executive Committee decided: 
 
 1. To permit the ecclesiastical authorities and the 
 various religious societies to make the collections; 
 
 2. To direct the Centropomgol (the Central Com¬ 
 mittee for Aid of the Starving) to enter into an agree¬ 
 ment with the religious societies about the method of 
 collection of contributions, having in view the wishes 
 of the donors. 
 
 M. Kalinin, President A. C. E. C. 
 
 A. Enukidze, Secretary A. C. E. C. 
 Moscow, Kremlin, December 9, 1921. 2 
 
 But in spite of all efforts of the government to stimu¬ 
 late the church to a larger giving, the results were not 
 gratifying; whether rightly or wrongly, the conviction 
 
 from any acts which could be construed as interference with the 
 internal administration, felt obliged to decline the proposal of the 
 church as contrary to the Riga agreement. Upon inquiry at the 
 offices of the American Relief Administration, an answer was returned 
 stating that the office had no information or record of any such offer, 
 and that the Administration could not have even considered the 
 proposition except through the proper officials of the Soviet govern¬ 
 ment. That disposes of this particular rumor as unfounded. 
 
 2 N. N. Fioletov: The Church and the Government in accordance 
 with the Soviet Law, 1923, pp. 21-22. (In Russian.) Also, The 
 Black Book, p. 158. (In Russian.) 
 
166 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 was growing in the minds of the authorities that the 
 church was deliberately withholding its full measure 
 of aid in the hope that it might thus contribute to the 
 paralyzing of the government, and that the resultant 
 failure of the authorities to grapple adequately with 
 the staggering need might in turn result in its over¬ 
 throw. This, as has been stated, need not necessarily 
 have been the actual intention of the church, but the 
 fact that the government was in the mood to believe 
 it to be a fact produced the same result. And most 
 unfortunately, for nothing really worse could have 
 happened at the time than what did happen: the 
 emigre clergy, most of whom had left in the wake of 
 the White Guard armies, held, in December, 1921, a 
 Sobor in Karlovtsi, in the Kingdom of the Serbs, 
 Croats, and Slovenes, and their irresponsible decrees 
 rendered the situation in Russia decidedly worse. The 
 Sobor was attended by nine archbishops, an archiman¬ 
 drite, and other high-placed ecclesiastics, most of whom 
 had left Russia with the retreating armies of the 
 would-be restorers of the ancient regime, such as Deni¬ 
 kin, Wrangel, and others. Aside from the ecclesiastics, 
 the Sobor was attended by a goodly number of former 
 tsarist officials and officers of the tsarist and White 
 Guard armies, as well as members of the Black 
 Hundred party: the former ober-procuror of the Holy 
 Synod, Count Volzhin; secretary of the tsar, Count 
 Apraksin; the head of the general staff of the Wrangel 
 army, General Arkh angel'sky; a former member of 
 the governmental Council, Prince Putyatin; a minister 
 in the Kolchak government, Lokot’, and many others. 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 167 
 
 The total number in attendance at the Sobor reached 
 almost one hundred. 3 
 
 The Sobor elected as its president the most outstand¬ 
 ing opponent of the Soviet regime and leader of the 
 conservative party within the Russian church, Metro¬ 
 politan Antony (Khrapovitsky), formerly of Kiev and 
 Galicia, who, as will be remembered, was probably the 
 chief candidate for the patriarchal cowl at the Sobor of 
 1917. His election to the presidency of the Karlovtsi 
 Sobor was characteristic of the spirit dominating this 
 assembly. What wonder that this group should adopt 
 the extremely unwise political measure, resulting in 
 untold injury to the interests of the church in Russia, in 
 the Message of the Church Sobor, demanding the resto¬ 
 ration of the monarchical government in Russia. At 
 first, two-thirds of the members demanded an explicit 
 statement that the throne be occupied by “a lawful, 
 Orthodox tsar of the house of Romanov”; but this 
 measure was opposed by the remaining one-third as 
 unwise, and as tending to jeopardize, by tying it too 
 closely with the fortunes of the commonly hated former 
 imperial dynasty, the very goal desired—the restora¬ 
 tion of the monarchy. The resolution was adopted, 
 nevertheless, in accordance with the desires of the 
 majority, i.e. in favor of the inclusion of a specific ref¬ 
 erence to the house of Romanov. 
 
 The Sobor also appealed to the army of Baron Wran¬ 
 gel to hold itself in readiness for the execution of its 
 program. Besides, the president of the Sobor, Metro¬ 
 politan Antony, issued a proclamation in January, 
 
 8 Cf. Krasikov: On the Church Front, p. 187; also pp. 221-22. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
168 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 1922, appealing in the name of the Sobor to the Genoa 
 Conference which was just then in session, and through 
 it to the world: 
 
 ... If during this conference, or afterwards, the 
 Bolshevik regime in Russia should receive recognition 
 as the legitimate one, there will result Bolshevik upris¬ 
 ings in one country after another. Their success or 
 prevention depends upon the following measures: 
 (1) upon non-recognition of Bolsheviks on the part of 
 all governments; (2) upon the terrible havoc wrought 
 by the famine, cold, and epidemic at present devastat¬ 
 ing Russia, which has been caused by the Bolshevik 
 mismanagement. Peoples of Europe, and of the world, 
 have pity upon this nation, and equip its sons with 
 arms; then they, together with their dear comrades— 
 officers, generals, and soldiers—will be ready to spring 
 up and march into Russia, to rescue it from its enslave¬ 
 ment by the robbers! 
 
 Antony, Bishop of Galicia and Kiev, 
 President of the Russian Ecclesiastical Administration 
 
 Abroad. 4, 
 
 This unhappy and highly compromising incident was 
 used to excellent advantage by the authorities, who 
 stressed the Sobor’s reference to the famine as a proof 
 that the church deliberately exploited the calamity by 
 using it for the overthrow of the government. It has 
 never been proven, I think, that Patriarch Tikhon had 
 ever been in collusion with the Karlovtsi Sobor; but 
 superficially viewed, the fact that a group of the Rus¬ 
 sian clergy, with such important leaders among them as 
 was Antony, could pass such pronouncements as were 
 passed at Karlovtsi, was supremely damaging to the 
 
 4 Quoted from a speech of Krasikov at the trial of Metropolitan 
 Benjamin in Revolution and the Church, 1-3, 1923, p. 83. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 169 
 
 church at home, and the charge of collusion has been 
 repeatedly made. Even such a highly placed official 
 of the Commissariat of Justice as was Krasikov directly 
 indicted, in his book On the Church Front * Patriarch 
 Tikhon with having had full knowledge of the proceed¬ 
 ings at Karlovtsi, and having secretly collaborated with 
 the leaders there; he peremptorily demanded that the 
 patriarch either acknowledge his direct connection with 
 his subordinates who had met at the Karlovtsi Sobor, 
 or “excommunicate them for conspiracy and treason.” 
 Patriarch Tikhon protested that he could not excom¬ 
 municate anyone who was not living within his terri¬ 
 torial jurisdiction; this may have been canonically cor¬ 
 rect, but it did not help to allay the very real suspicion 
 which lurked in the minds of the authorities. The 
 Karlovtsi incident was a most powerful factor in bring¬ 
 ing on the crisis which culminated in the spring of 1922. 
 
 The action of the Karlovtsi Sobor was severely crit¬ 
 icized even by some emigres themselves, for to the more 
 moderate elements among them it was obvious what a 
 disastrous effect the pronouncement must necessarily 
 produce in Russia. The former minister of confessions 
 under the Kerensky government, A. Kartashev, con¬ 
 demned the political activity of the Sobor as both 
 unwise and in the extreme injurious. 8 Prince Gregory 
 Trubetskoy, who had fought in the White Guard 
 Armies, publicly declared that, in all his dealings with 
 the patriarch, the latter always resolutely refused to 
 commit himself in any way to the White Guard posi¬ 
 tion, and that he opposed the Karlovtsi Sobor. 7 
 
 B Ibid., p. 191. 
 
 0 “Politics and the Church,” in Russian Thought, Jan.-Feb., 1922. 
 (In Russian.) 
 
 7 The Black Book, pp. 161-62. 
 
170 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The famine, far from being put under control, grew 
 to ever greater proportions, and was quickly attended 
 by other dreaded scourges consequent upon it; typhus 
 and a host of other diseases exacted enormous tolls. 
 The extreme suffering of the people was indescribable. 
 All help hitherto rendered proved utterly insufficient, 
 and thousands, even hundreds of thousands, were 
 doomed to death. The help coming from the church 
 was not great, or possibly the church’s wealth was 
 grossly overestimated. Nevertheless, the result was 
 the same: the church was suspected of unwillingness 
 to help and of secretly hoping that the calamity would 
 prove the political undoing of the Soviet government. 
 It is no wonder that finally, early in 1922, the eyes of 
 the government, as well as of many private individuals, 
 began to turn toward the church treasures as a possible 
 source of help. Newspapers began to point out that 
 these treasures might prove the veritable and absolute 
 victory over the famine: one writer estimated that if 
 all church treasures were appropriated and turned into 
 silver the total would amount to some five hundred and 
 twenty-five thousand pounds of silver, which would be 
 equivalent in value to the purchasing power of five 
 hundred and twenty-five million pounds of bread, 
 which in turn would suffice to feed the starving popula¬ 
 tion. 8 To such alluring computations must be added 
 the constant appeals addressed to the harassed govern¬ 
 ment which the desperate population showered upon 
 it in an effort to save itself or to save others. A sample 
 of such a cry for help may be presented: 
 
 We, peasants and workers, wish to direct the atten¬ 
 tion of the central authorities to our difficult situation. 
 People are unable to hold out. They are dying of 
 8 Izvestiya, March 15, 1922. 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 171 
 
 starvation daily. The available aid is insufficient. 
 Scarcely one-tenth of the starving are fed. The popula¬ 
 tion seeks an escape from such a disaster. 
 
 The population is conscious that our government is 
 poverty-stricken, that it has no means with which to 
 feed all the starving. We are sincerely grateful to the 
 government that it made the sowing of the fall wheat 
 possible, and that now it has secured the seed for the 
 spring sowing. But we would direct the attention of 
 the authorities to the fact that there exists in our coun¬ 
 try great wealth deposited in churches and monasteries. 
 We presume that this wealth is the property of the 
 nation. We think that our Christian duty consists in 
 using the goods to save the perishing brethren. 
 
 We beg our government to take measures to use the 
 superfluous church property for the feeding of the fam¬ 
 ine-stricken. We present this petition in the conviction 
 that the starving and everybody else who knows how 
 the people suffer would support us in it. 9 
 
 Although there is no doubt whatever that the need 
 was overwhelmingly great, and the government really 
 hard-pressed for means to save the famishing, and the 
 church ornaments of gold, silver, and precious stones 
 lay at hand offering ready means of at least partially 
 relieving the emergency, let it not be forgotten that at 
 the same time the Soviet authorities had the disposi¬ 
 tion of the former imperial jewels, the aggregate value 
 of which was estimated, when I saw them in Moscow 
 in the summer of 1926, at five hundred million rubles. 
 It would be interesting to know how the retention of 
 these treasures would be justified in the face of the sup¬ 
 posed irresistible urgency and necessity for confiscating 
 the church treasures. 
 
 9 Quoted in Iona Brikhnichev: Patriarch Tikhon and his Church, 
 Moscow, 1923, p. 12. (In Russian.) 
 
172 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The patriarch probably thoroughly sensed the grav¬ 
 ity of the situation, and to forestall the worst issued, 
 on February 19, 1922, a special proclamation by 
 which he gave his permission and encouragement to 
 all parochial councils and brotherhoods to sacrifice, 
 for the needs of the starving, all unconsecrated orna¬ 
 ments and other objects of value which were found 
 in churches except those used for worship purposes 
 officially consecrated for church use. Such objects, of 
 course, were comparatively few in number and of no 
 great value; the patriarch, furthermore, specified dis¬ 
 tinctly that all articles which had been consecrated, 
 whether used directly for worship purposes or not, 
 could not be surrendered, for such action would con¬ 
 stitute a breach of the canonical rules. This procla¬ 
 mation was permitted by the government to be printed 
 and distributed among the people. 
 
 Thereupon the patriarch and the church were 
 assailed in a series of violent attacks, in which Tikhon’s 
 position was represented as a refusal to save the lives 
 of the starving by selfishly urging canonical impedi¬ 
 ments, and which alleged that his flimsy excuses were 
 mere attempts to camouflage the callous, grasping 
 greed of the church and its determination to impede the 
 government by increasing its difficulties as much as 
 possible. The state, on its part, was not loath to use 
 the occasion to the fullest extent to humble and break 
 its formidable opponent, the church, which it regarded, 
 doubtlessly sincerely, as a dangerous anti-revolutionary 
 organization, and which it was glad to damage or ruin 
 as a part of the price to be paid for its own security 
 and stability. 
 
 Hence the government now decided to act: on Febru¬ 
 ary 23, 1922, President Kalinin, in behalf of the 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 173 
 
 A.C.E.C., issued a decree directing the proper authori¬ 
 ties to “remove” the church treasures not used for the 
 purpose of worship from their repositories. The 
 importance of this document again compels quoting: 
 
 In view of the necessity for quick mobilization of all 
 the resources of the country to serve as means of strug¬ 
 gle with the famine in the Volga region, and for the 
 sowing of the fields there, the All-Russian Central 
 Executive Committee, supplementing the decree 
 regarding the removal of property for museums, has 
 decreed: 
 
 1. To instruct local soviets to remove from the 
 ecclesiastical property, which was delivered for the 
 use of groups of believers of all religions upon inventory 
 and contract, within a month from the day of publica¬ 
 tion of this decree, all valuable objects of gold, silver, 
 and precious stones, the removal of which cannot actu¬ 
 ally interfere with the interests of the cult itself, and 
 to transfer them to the offices of the People’s Commis¬ 
 sariat of Finance, with the special designation for the 
 Fund of the Central Commission for Aid of the 
 Starving. 
 
 2. In order that this measure may be properly exe¬ 
 cuted, each gubernium must organize a commission of 
 responsible representatives of the gubernial executive 
 committee, of the gubernial commission of aid for the 
 starving, and the gubernial financial department, under 
 the presidency of one of the members of the All-Rus¬ 
 sian Central Executive Committee, for the purpose of 
 giving an exact account of the above-mentioned valu¬ 
 ables as well as for their transfer to the organs of the 
 People’s Commissariat of Finance, and for the purpose 
 of rendering a special account to the Central Commis¬ 
 sion of Aid for the Starving. 
 
 3. Revision of the contracts as* well as the actual 
 removal of the valuables after their inventory must be 
 
174 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 done in the required presence of the representatives of 
 the group of believers to whose use the property was 
 transferred. 
 
 4. The removed property shall constitute a special 
 fund and be accounted for separately, and must be used 
 exclusively for the needs of the starving, in a manner 
 specified in a special instruction prepared by the Cen¬ 
 tral Committee for Aid of the Starving, with the con¬ 
 sent of the People’s Commissariat of Finance and the 
 Commission for the accounting, removing, and collect¬ 
 ing of the valuables. 
 
 5. A report of all the valuables taken from ecclesias¬ 
 tical property, and of their disposition, shall be made 
 periodically in the newspapers by the Central Com¬ 
 mission for Aid of the Starving, and at the same time 
 the local papers must give a detailed description of the 
 valuables taken from the local churches, places of 
 prayer, synagogues, etc., with the specification of the 
 name of those churches. 
 
 Signed: M. Kalinin, President A. C. E. C. 
 
 A. Enukidze, Secretary A. C. E. C. 10 
 
 Let it be particularly noticed that the decree specifies 
 that articles necessary for religious services, such as the 
 chalice, paten, star, spoon, and dish, were to be left 
 in the churches, as well as any other object the removal 
 of which “would actually interfere with the interests 
 of the cult itself.” But the decree ignored the distinc¬ 
 tion made by Patriarch Tikhon in his earlier proclama¬ 
 tion between the consecrated and the unconsecrated 
 objects and ornaments. 
 
 Within two days, 11 the official instructions, issued by 
 the Commission for the removal of ecclesiastical valu¬ 
 ables, appeared, and in general proved to be amplifica- 
 
 10 Published first in Izvestiya, No. 46, Feb. 26, 1922; quoted in 
 N. N. Fioletov: op. cit., pp. 42-43. 
 
 11 Izvestiya, Feb. 28, 1922. 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 175 
 
 tions of the decree itself. But the same day these 
 instructions were published, Patriarch Tikhon issued 
 his famous answer to the decree, which, as it proved, 
 was the beginning of the end of the long-drawn-out 
 struggle between the church and the state. The docu¬ 
 ment is of very great intrinsic value for a proper under¬ 
 standing of the intricate web of events which had such 
 epoch-making consequences for the Russian church, 
 and hence it is important to be acquainted with its 
 exact text: 
 
 Proclamation of the Most Holy Patriarch 
 Tikhon Regarding the Aid for the Starving 
 By the grace of God, humble Tikhon, patriarch of 
 Moscow and of all Russia, to all faithful children of the 
 Russian Orthodox Church. 
 
 May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. 
 Among the heavy calamities and trials which befell the 
 world on account of our lawlessness, the greatest and 
 the most terrible is the famine which affected wide 
 regions inhabited by many millions of people. As early 
 as August, 1921, when rumors about the terrible 
 calamity began to reach our ears, we, regarding it our 
 duty to come to the aid of our suffering spiritual 
 children, addressed a message to the heads of the 
 several Christian communions (to the Orthodox patri¬ 
 archs, the Roman pope, the archbishop of Canterbury, 
 and the bishop of New York), appealing to them, for 
 the sake of Christian love, to make collections of money 
 and provisions for the starving Volga region people. 
 
 At the same time, an All-Russian Committee of Aid 
 for the Starving was organized, and money was being 
 collected in all churches as well as among the various 
 groups, to be devoted to the aid of the famine-stricken. 
 But such a church committee was declared superfluous 
 by the Soviet government, and all sums already col- 
 
176 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 lected by it were ordered to be turned over (and were 
 turned over) to the governmental committee. 
 
 However, in December, we were requested to collect, 
 through the instrumentality of the administrative 
 organs of the Holy Synod, the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council, the eparchial councils, and the diocesan and 
 parochial councils, money and provisions to aid the 
 starving. 
 
 Desiring to cooperate with every possible effort to 
 aid the starving people of the Volga region, we found 
 it possible to permit the parochial councils and societies 
 to sacrifice, for the needs of the starving, the valuable 
 ecclesiastical ornaments and objects which were not 
 used for the divine services, and we announced this to 
 the Orthodox population on February 6/19 of this 
 year by a special proclamation which the authorities 
 permitted to be printed and, distributed among the 
 people. 
 
 But there followed violent attacks upon the spiritual 
 leaders of the church by the governmental newspapers, 
 and then the All-Russian Executive Committee, in a 
 rescript dated February 13/26, regarding aid to the 
 starving, ordered all valuable ecclesiastical objects, 
 including even the consecrated vessels and similar 
 objects used in celebration of the divine services, to be 
 removed from the churches. 
 
 From the point of view of the church, such an act 
 is sacrilegious, and we esteem it our sacred duty to 
 make known the view of the church regarding the act 
 and to inform our faithful children about it. 
 
 In view of the extraordinarily disastrous circum¬ 
 stances, we permitted the possibility of sacrificing 
 church objects which were not consecrated and were 
 not used in the divine services. We exhort all faithful 
 children of the church even now to make such sacri¬ 
 fices, desiring only that they be the response of a loving 
 heart to the needs of their neighbor, so that they may 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 177 
 
 actually manifest genuine help to our suffering 
 brethren. But we cannot approve the removal of the 
 consecrated objects from our churches even though 
 it were by way of a voluntary surrender, for their use 
 for any other purpose than the divine service is pro¬ 
 hibited by the canons of the Ecumenical church, and is 
 punishable as sacrilege: in case of laymen, by excom¬ 
 munication; clergy, by degradation from their sacer¬ 
 dotal rank. 
 
 Given in Moscow, February 15, 1922. 
 
 (The Apostolic Canons, rule 73; the “Double” Council, 
 rule 10.) 
 
 The humble Tikhon, 
 Patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia. 12 
 
 But what was it that Patriarch Tikhon really per¬ 
 mitted to be taken out, and how much did it amount 
 to? According to his own statement 13 these “unconse¬ 
 crated objects of value not used in the divine services” 
 comprised such small articles of ornamentation as 
 chains, rings, bracelets, and old silver, which were pre¬ 
 sented for the adornment of various icons. The patri¬ 
 arch himself estimated that their value probably would 
 not be great. The cause of dissatisfaction on the part of 
 the government is therefore easily understandable. 
 
 On the other hand, the government justified its 
 act, in the first place, by an appeal to the legal status 
 of the question, in accordance with which the title 
 to all property whatsoever, the ecclesiastical among 
 the rest, was vested solely in the government, which 
 permitted, in the case of groups of believers, the use 
 of the church buildings with their full equipment, not 
 as a matter of necessity but as a voluntary, uncon¬ 
 strained concession. Hitherto, the government had no 
 
 12 Quoted from The Black Book, Appendix I, pp. 253-54. 
 
 13 Reported in Izvestiya, March 15, 1922. 
 
178 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 compelling need for the valuables stored in the church 
 buildings; but the disastrous famine forced the hands 
 of the authorities, and they, in seeking to use the valu¬ 
 ables to save the lives of citizens, used but what 
 belonged to the nation in the first place. The patri¬ 
 arch had no right to act as if he had a legal title to 
 dispose of the property, for it did not belong to the 
 church but was merely used by the church. His willful 
 ignoring of this patent state of affairs was simply 
 another instance of failure on the part of the church 
 to acknowledge the existing government and its 
 laws, and as such was an act of opposition or rebellion 
 against it. 
 
 That this view was shared by some parties even 
 within the church, later events amply proved; as an 
 illustration of the perplexity into which some believ¬ 
 ing workmen were thrown by the action of the patri¬ 
 arch, a petition, sent by a group of workmen from the 
 Moscow firm Dynamo, in which they confront the 
 patriarch with the following appeal, may be quoted: 
 
 The only escape from our suffering is to buy bread 
 for the starving with the church gold and silver. That 
 gold and silver was collected through the ages, and 
 is national property. Is it not possible now to turn, 
 even though only a portion of that wealth, into bread? 
 Does that contradict divine or human laws? 
 
 Most holy patriarch, remember that millions of 
 people who are now about to perish will die of hunger 
 with a curse upon their lips against God and the church 
 which was unwilling to exchange golden goblets for 
 wooden ones; remember that thousands of people who 
 shall escape death by starvation will reject the church 
 and our Orthodox faith, saying: Faith without works is 
 dead. 
 
 We, Orthodox believers, beg you to listen to the 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 179 
 
 voice of those shepherds who are ready to give up 
 everything for the starving brethren, to give heed to 
 the groans of the millions of famished people, to the 
 sound of their unspeakable sufferings and their death- 
 groans, which are filling the Russian land. Come to 
 their aid! Convert the gold, silver, and precious stones 
 into bread, and save from death those who are starving! 
 
 Group of Believing Workers in the Establishment 
 Dynamo. 
 
 March 23, 1922. 14 
 
 To all such appeals and cries, as well as to all the 
 criticism and denouncements heaped upon the church, 
 the patriarch remained deaf. Could he or could not 
 he do otherwise? Yes and no. That depends upon the 
 disposition, the point of view, the inclination, the the¬ 
 ology, the will of him who is to answer the question. 
 There is no doubt that the church in its past history 
 repeatedly brought its treasures to be used in relieving 
 some extraordinary national calamity, or passively per¬ 
 mitted itself to be despoiled of its hoard when a tsarist 
 autocrat came and took it. The patriarch could have 
 permitted the measure on the same ground, and with 
 far greater justification, but he did not do it. The 
 measure implied a certain degree of cooperation with 
 the hated government, and even involved a certain 
 amount of positive help toward the stabilization of it, 
 by enabling it to overcome the fearful crisis into which 
 the famine had plunged it. But by its uniformly anti- 
 governmental policy, the church was already com¬ 
 mitted against any such action. Hence the patriarch 
 sought refuge in professing obedience to the ancient 
 canons, which, as a matter of undoubted fact, could 
 be interpreted to support his stand. The Apostolical 
 
 1 * Izvestiya, March 23. 
 
180 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Canons, cited by Tikhon, specifically ruled: 16 “Let no 
 one convert to his own use any vessel of gold or silver, 
 or any veil which has been sanctified, for it is contrary 
 to law; and if anyone be detected doing so, let him be 
 excommunicated.” This provision is amplified and 
 explained at great length in rule 10, of the local Con¬ 
 st an tinopoli tan Sobor of 862, known as “double,” 
 because it met twice, convoked for the purpose of ter¬ 
 minating the iconoclastic struggle. 16 The gist of this 
 quite intricate definition is that 
 
 whoever seizes for himself, or turns to another use than 
 that of the divine service, either the sacred chalice, 
 or the paten, or the spoon, or the revered altar cover, 
 or the cover for the chalice, or any other consecrated 
 and sacred vessels or robes found on the altar, falls 
 under the sentence of deprivation of his rank . . . and 
 whoever takes for himself or for others vessels or robes 
 found within the altar, to be used for purposes other 
 than that for which they w r ere consecrated, is accord¬ 
 ing to the rule excommunicated, and we likewise excom¬ 
 municate him. 17 
 
 It is plain from the context of these canons that 
 they contemplated primarily the case of stealing of the 
 sacred vessels or robes for private use, and that the 
 eventuality of confiscation of such consecrated valu¬ 
 ables by a government for purposes of saving a starv¬ 
 ing population from hunger was not even remotely 
 envisaged, much less specified. But if one wishes to 
 extend the letter of the law to cover even such cases, it 
 
 16 The Apostolical Canons, rule LXXIII; quoted in Nicene and 
 Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, New York, 1900, Vol. XIV, p. 
 598. 
 
 10 Cf. A. P. Lopukhin: The Theological Encyclopaedia, St. Peters¬ 
 burg, 1907, Vol. VIII. 
 
 17 The Book of Rules, Moscow, 1911, p. 263. (In Church-Sla- 
 vonic.) 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 181 
 
 may be done with a certain degree of justification. The 
 patriarch professed to feel obliged to interpret the rules 
 in such a manner, and to obey them even if the conse¬ 
 quences were as terrible as they were likely to be under 
 the circumstances. From the patriarch’s point of view, 
 he was obeying the canons, which were held to be the 
 supreme law in the church; hence he could not approve 
 the removal of the church treasures, although he did 
 not specifically forbid it: he merely stated that who¬ 
 ever should act contrary to the canons of the Ecu¬ 
 menical church should be punished in accordance with 
 the provisions of those canons. To those who regarded 
 every possible rule and enactment of the ancient Sobors 
 as absolutely binding and immutable, and to be 
 observed under all conditions whatever, the patriarch’s 
 course was not only justified, but even necessary, pro¬ 
 vided that his interpretation of the canons was correct. 
 This is really the logical attitude of all conservative- 
 minded legalists who acknowledge the absolute and 
 immutable authority of all ancient pronouncements or 
 creeds whatsoever, and it is the price they have to pay 
 for it. But the person who holds that the church of 
 to-day has the same right to regulate its life in accord¬ 
 ance with the demands and ideals of the times as the 
 ancient church which formulated the canons had, 
 would probably differ from the patriarch’s judgment 
 in the matter under consideration, and would hold that 
 the patriarch should have followed the merciful and 
 humane course demanded by the overwhelming dis¬ 
 aster into which the famine had plunged Russia, even 
 though by doing so he had infringed the ancient rules. 
 But that would be tantamount to expecting that Tik¬ 
 hon be not Tikhon: he was a conservative, legalistic- 
 minded Orthodox hierarch, and as such could not do 
 
182 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 otherwise than he had done. Moreover, he had the 
 majority of the church with him in his way of think¬ 
 ing. Nevertheless, the fatal stand was destined to 
 revenge itself fearfully upon Tikhon and the entire 
 church. 
 
 The state authorities’ case was tolerably clear: they 
 had the law on their side, and the object of their 
 measures was in the highest degree praiseworthy. They 
 must have felt almost virtuous in adopting these 
 coercive and destructive measures against the church. 
 In addition to the legality of their position, it must be 
 presumed that they were likewise actuated by a certain 
 amount of desire to damage the church as much as 
 possible, and to fish in the muddy waters. It must 
 never be forgotten that there existed a tacitly 
 acknowledged state of warfare between the two powers, 
 and that the government was afflicted with no over¬ 
 whelming scruples against making the most of its 
 opportunity. The great chance which offered itself in 
 the act of Tikhon was so excellent that it would have 
 been an inexcusable blunder from the government’s 
 point of view had it been neglected. The Soviet 
 authorities need scarcely ever be charged with the 
 fault of neglecting their opportunities. Hence they 
 went to work with a zeal and zest which ruthlessly 
 carried out the mandate ordering the removal of 
 ecclesiastical valuables from the churches. But as 
 might be expected, the patriarch’s proclamation was 
 effective in restraining many priests and bishops from 
 cooperating, and a number of them actively opposed 
 the measures. Hence conflicts between the govern¬ 
 mental authorities seeking to discharge their duty, and 
 the masses of people gathered to protect the ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal valuables, were of daily occurrence throughout the 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 183 
 
 length and breadth of Russia, and in many instances 
 resulted in bloodshed. The infuriated populace killed 
 a number of officials, or again the authorities 
 would use force against the people. According to the 
 official register, there occurred 1,414 such bloody 
 encounters, 18 among which the most serious were 
 those which took place in the localities of Shuya, 
 Ivanovo-Vosnesensk, Smolensk, Moscow, and especi¬ 
 ally in Petrograd. Resistance to the execution of the 
 decree of February 23 was offered by the Orthodox 
 as well as the Roman Catholic authorities, and was 
 both active and passive. The situation resulted in 
 wholesale arrests of the offenders, and a great number 
 of trials terminated in death penalties. 
 
 As for the total amount in quantity and in value of 
 the objects taken from the churches throughout Russia, 
 it is impossible to gain any exact information on either 
 one of these items. As always in Russia, the published 
 official registers are confessedly incomplete, and there¬ 
 fore incorrect, and in many instances make no attempt 
 to be clear or exact. The official estimates of the total 
 value of the hoard are also self-contradictory, so that 
 it is impossible to speak of the matter with any reason¬ 
 able amount of certainty. 19 The total amount of the 
 treasures must have been considerable, for any one who 
 had seen the Russian cathedrals and monasteries before 
 the war knows the magnificence and brilliance of the 
 ornaments and treasures with which these places were 
 decked by the munificence of the preceding centuries; 
 of course, articles which were regarded as necessary for 
 the conduct of worship, such as the chalice, paten, star, 
 
 18 The Black Book, p. 288. 
 
 19 Cf. the statistical tables of the itemized reports of confiscations 
 in The Black Book, pp. 269-288. 
 
184 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 spear, spoon, and the dish were left in every case in the 
 church, so that it could not be said that the church 
 was deprived of the very means of worship. Only 
 duplicates of such articles, presumably, were taken out, 
 for mention of them is made in the official register, and 
 even the gospels, bound in silver covers, are mentioned 
 in one instance. Nevertheless, no serious claim was 
 ever made by the church authorities accusing the gov¬ 
 ernment of a systematic attempt to deprive the 
 churches of the necessary instruments for the celebra¬ 
 tion of religious services. 
 
 Later, members of some local churches attempted 
 to redeem articles which had been taken from churches, 
 and thereafter to claim them as their personal property. 
 But by the decree of the Commissariat of Justice, even 
 such articles were declared as not belonging to the 
 particular individual who redeemed them, or the con¬ 
 gregation from which they were taken, but were pro¬ 
 nounced the property of the state as they originally 
 were, and hence were ordered to be registered as state 
 property loaned for the use of the particular local con¬ 
 gregation concerned. 20 
 
 The trials of clergy and lay churchmen implicated 
 in the obstruction of the execution of the decree regard¬ 
 ing the ecclesiastical valuables agitated the country 
 for months after the confiscation. The most outstand¬ 
 ing of these trials were those of Petrograd and Mos¬ 
 cow. The trial in Petrograd brought to the bench 
 of the accused some eighty persons, among whom were 
 such prominent individuals! as the metropolitan of 
 Petrograd, Benjamin; the president of the Administra¬ 
 tion of the Parochial Councils, Professor Novitsky; 
 
 20 Decree of June 17, 1922, No. 359; quoted in The Revolution and 
 the Church, 1-3, 1923, p. 39. (In Russian.) 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 185 
 
 two former members of the Duma, and other notable 
 representatives of the church; but twenty-five of 
 the eighty w^ere released, upon examination, as not 
 guilty. The group was charged with opposition to the 
 governmental decree concerning the removal of 
 ecclesiastical valuables, and with an unlawful and 
 direct agitation among the people for the purpose of 
 fomenting active opposition of the fanaticized masses 
 to the authorities. The plan of the church authorities, 
 as the prosecuting attorney construed it, was to incite 
 the fanaticism of the masses by affirming that the 
 action of the government was against the canons of 
 the church, and constituted sacrilege. The plan was 
 instigated by patriarch Tikhon, and its objective w r as 
 said to be “to arouse unrest among the masses for the 
 purpose of effecting a united front with the inter¬ 
 national bourgeoisie against the Soviet government.” 21 
 
 The charge leveled against Metropolitan Benjamin 
 was that he, after receiving the patriarchal proclama¬ 
 tion of February 28, presented the civil authorities 
 with an “ultimatum” in which he demanded a proof 
 that the government had exhausted all other sources of 
 possible revenue; a guarantee that the ecclesiastical 
 valuables would be used exclusively to aid the famine- 
 stricken ; and finally reserved a proviso that Patriarch 
 Tikhon’s consent to the proceedings must be secured 
 (this after the latter’s proclamation of February 28). 
 Receiving no answer from the Pomgol, the metro¬ 
 politan ordered the patriarchal proclamation to be read 
 in the parishes, thus making himself equally respons¬ 
 ible for branding the action of the government as 
 sacrilegious. 
 
 Thereupon the Petrograd soviet invited the metro- 
 
 21 The Revolution and the Church, 1-3, 1923, p. 97. 
 
186 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 politan for an interview, and induced him to abandon 
 the first and the third point, while they granted the 
 second, which permitted three church representatives 
 to oversee the work of the Commission to Aid the 
 Starving. But later (March 12) the metropolitan 
 recalled his representatives, making much more strict 
 demands upon the authorities. Thereupon they 
 dropped the parleys. Benjamin then issued a second 
 proclamation to the people, which resulted in numerous 
 and bloody disorders. 22 Aside from this, the prosecu¬ 
 tion charged him with a number of specific acts, as 
 calling together councils of his clergy and of the par¬ 
 ishes to impart to them instructions respecting oppo¬ 
 sition to the decree, making inciting speeches, etc. 
 
 Among those who were called to testify in the trial 
 were members of the Petrograd clergy, Krasnitsky and 
 Vvedensky, both of whom later became ringleaders of 
 a revolutionary movement within the church, resulting 
 in a schism. Both bore testimony essentially unfavor¬ 
 able to the accused, especially to Metropolitan Ben¬ 
 jamin, and this act of theirs constitutes, in the estima¬ 
 tion of the conservative party which came to be known 
 under the designation of “patriarchal,” the greatest 
 blot on the character of these leaders of the opposing 
 faction. They had been deprived of their office by the 
 metropolitan, and therefore the patriarchal party 
 claimed that subsequently they had no right to partici¬ 
 pate in any ecclesiastical action. It may be confidently 
 affirmed that much of the fierce hatred between the 
 parties is traceable to this action of the two priests 
 who testified against their own ecclesiastical superior 
 
 38 For details of the trial, see The Revolution and the Church, 
 1-3, 1923. 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 187 
 
 in a trial which resulted in the imposition of the death 
 sentence upon him and others, as well as to the metro¬ 
 politan’s action against them. 
 
 The trial finally resulted, on July 6, 1922, in a verdict 
 which imposed the death penalty upon ten of the 
 accused, and confiscation of their property. The rest 
 of the accused were sentenced to hard labor or a prison 
 term extending from seven days to three years. But 
 the All-Russian Central Executive Committee found 
 it possible to change the sentence of the Petrograd 
 revolutionary tribunal in a number of cases, and six 
 of the ten death sentences were changed to impris¬ 
 onment; the remaining four, however comprising 
 Metropolitan Benjamin, Professor Novitsky, a former 
 member of the Duma, Schein, and Kovsharov, were 
 duly executed. They are now regarded by the patri¬ 
 archal party as martyrs. 
 
 It is interesting to observe that the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration, a revolutionary clerical 
 organization which had succeeded in seizing the 
 supreme power in the church, added to the sentence 
 passed by the civil tribunal an ecclesiastical sentence 
 of their own: they deprived Metropolitan Benjamin of 
 his priestly and monastic rank; excommunicated the 
 laymen Novitsky, Kovsharov, and two others from the 
 church; deprived five other high ecclesiastical digni¬ 
 taries of their priestly rank and office, and eight 
 priests of their office, and passed milder ecclesiastical 
 sentences upon the rest. 2 " 
 
 The Moscow trial of the Roman Catholic dignitaries, 
 Archbishop Tseplyak and Vicar-General Budkevich, 
 had probably been a great deal more widely advertised 
 
 88 The Revolution and the Church, 1-3, 1923, pp. 101-102. 
 
188 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 in Western Europe and America than the trials of the 
 Orthodox hierarchs. But the charges against them 
 were of essentially similar character, and likewise 
 resulted in death penalties: both Tseplyak and Bud¬ 
 kevich were to be shot, five others were sentenced to 
 ten years’ imprisonment, and eight others to a prison 
 term of three years. Archbishop Tseplyak and Vicar- 
 General Budkevich appealed to the All-Russian 
 Central Executive Committee, which, it would seem, 
 under the pressure of the deluge of protests which came 
 from the western parts of Europe and from America, 
 mitigated Archbishop Tseplyak’s sentence to imprison¬ 
 ment for ten years. The death sentence passed upon 
 Vicar-General Budkevich, however, was confirmed and 
 carried out. It may be remarked that Archbishop 
 Tseplyak was released from prison within two years. 
 
 A similar trial of the Orthodox clerical leaders and 
 laymen was held in Smolensk and resulted in four 
 death sentences, 24 besides lesser punishments inflicted 
 upon a number of others. In Moscow, Archbishops 
 Arsenius and Seraphim, and Bishop Ilarion, and almost 
 all the members of the Supreme Church Administra¬ 
 tion and the Moscow Eparchial Council were brought 
 to trial. As in the previous processes, death sentences 
 were passed on eleven of the accused, while the rest 
 suffered from one to five years’ imprisonment. 25 Dur¬ 
 ing the trial, so much incriminating evidence against 
 Patriarch Tikhon and Archbishop Nicander, his inti¬ 
 mate colaborer, was gathered, that finally, on May 9, 2 5 
 the Moscow tribunal directed that Patriarch Tikhon 
 (Citizen Belavin) and Archbishop Nicander (Citizen 
 
 24 The Revolution and the Church, 1-2, 1924, pp. 39-86. 
 
 26 Izvestiya, No. 101, May 10, 1922. 
 
 2B Izvestiya, No. 100 
 
The Famine and Its Consequences 189 
 
 Fanomenov) be brought to trial, and sent the collected 
 evidence against them to the People’s Commissariat of 
 Justice. 
 
 The patriarch was charged with being in direct com¬ 
 munication with monarchist organizations abroad, and 
 with counter-revolutionary activity directed toward 
 the overthrow of the existing regime at home; besides, 
 he was indicted with the crime of inciting the masses 
 to revolt. Thus the net result of the stand taken by the 
 patriarch in his proclamation of February 28, if we 
 may believe a source which otherwise is none too 
 accurate in detail, was that fifty-five courts held two 
 hundred and thirty-one trials, in which seven hundred 
 and thirty-eight accused were tried; out of this total 
 forty-four were sentenced to death. 27 
 
 27 Iona Brikhnichev: op. cit., p. 19. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE SCHISM 
 
 The beginnings of the movement which finally 
 resulted in the abolition of the patriarchate and the 
 outbreak of schism within the Russian church go back 
 many decades, but its latter phase begins with the 
 election of Patriarch Tikhon by the Sobor of 1917. As 
 will be remembered, there was a determined minority 
 in that assembly which opposed the restoration of the 
 patriarchate on the ground that it was to be used as a 
 means for the “strong policy” of those who wished 
 to retain for the church all the unfair advantages 
 which its connection with tsarism had afforded, and 
 this minority regarded the election of the patriarch 
 as a defeat of their program of democratization, and 
 indeed of socialization, of the church. Immediately 
 upon Tikhon’s election, the official organ of this recal¬ 
 citrant group published its manifesto condemning the 
 action of the Sobor and declaring that the sole reason 
 for the group’s continued stay within the church was its 
 determination to overthrow the patriarchate. 1 The 
 initiator of the movement was Archpriest Shavelsky, 
 but among the original members was found a man who 
 was later to attain the greatest preeminence in the 
 movement—Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky, who 
 
 1 Cf. the testimony of one of these men, Vvedensky, The Church 
 and the Government, p. 110. 
 
 190 
 
191 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 later became Metropolitan Krutitsky (vicar of Mos¬ 
 cow). The group instantly set about organizing oppo¬ 
 sition forces in various cities, but its efforts met with 
 but scanty success. 
 
 The group saw its chance for a determined action 
 when, in retaliation for the publication of the decree 
 ordering the removal of church treasures, the patriarch 
 issued his famous pronouncement threatening with 
 degradation and excommunication any one who should 
 obey the governmental decree. A number of high- 
 placed hierarchs had, indeed, protested against the 
 patriarchal stand from the beginning. For instance, 
 Bishop Polycarp of Lukyanov wrote: “It is sinful to 
 hold in our sanctuaries treasures for which we have 
 no use, while in the meantime people are suffering 
 agonies of hunger.” 2 A similar proclamation was 
 issued by Tikhon, the archbishop of Voronezh. The 
 archbishop of Novgorod, Evdokim, wrote several 
 letters to the patriarch and his associates, protesting 
 against their mistaken policy. 8 This was the oppor¬ 
 tunity for which the Petrograd group of the progressive 
 clergy had been waiting so long. They had also pro¬ 
 tested against Tikhon’s attitude as early as the fall 
 of 1921, but their expostulations were treated as a 
 gesture which brought no appreciable results. They 
 had now decided upon an energetic action, and on 
 March 25 published the famous Letter of Twelve 
 Priests, which may be said to be the beginning of the 
 schism which was to rend the Russian church in twain. 
 This document, so important in spite of the rambling 
 style, is here given in full as it was printed in the 
 official governmental paper, the Izvestiya : 
 
 2 Izvestiya, March 23, 1922. 
 
 8 Titlinov: The New Church, Petrograd, 1923, p. 7. (In Russian.) 
 
192 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Proclamation of a Group of Priests 
 
 The events of the last few weeks have settled beyond 
 all doubt the actuality of two divergent views in 
 church circles regarding the aid to the starving. On 
 the one hand, there are churchmen, who, out of 
 principle (on account of one or another theological or 
 non-theological consideration) do not desire to sacrifice 
 any treasures for the purpose of aiding the starving. 
 On the other hand, there is a multitude of other church 
 people who are ready, in order to save the dying, to 
 make every kind of sacrifice, including the conversion 
 of the church treasures into bread to feed the hunger¬ 
 ing Christ (for hungering Christ cf. Matt, xxv: 31-46). 
 
 Some members of the hierarchy of the Russian 
 church have already authoritatively spoken about the 
 necessity of coming to the aid of the starving, with 
 all the apostolic zeal, even with the church treasures: 
 for instance, Archbishop Evdokim, Archbishop Sera¬ 
 phim, Archbishop Mitrophan, and a number of other 
 hierarchs, as well as many archpriests and priests. 
 
 Such wicked and provocative talk 4 convicts the indi¬ 
 viduals of the clerical order who think in such manner 
 of being traitors and masked enemies of the church. 
 God and the public conscience will be their judges. 
 
 However, that openly unchristian feeling which 
 animates many church people, the feeling of malice, 
 heartlessness, and slander, the confusing of the church 
 with politics, and so forth, obliges us to make the fol¬ 
 lowing declaration: 
 
 It is no secret for those acquainted with the situa¬ 
 tion that a certain element in the church belongs to it 
 not with their heart or soul, but with their body only. 
 
 The faith of Christ does not permeate their whole 
 being, does not constrain them to act and to live in 
 accordance with itself. 
 
 4 l.e. against aiding the starving (note of the translator). 
 
193 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 That is thought to be the case especially among that 
 number of ecclesiastics among whom the feeling of 
 malice exists, and hence plainly witnesses to the 
 absence of Christ. (John xviii. 35.) 
 
 One’s heart is pained by it, and the soul weeps. 
 
 Brethren and sisters in the Lord! 
 
 People are dying! Old men are dying, children 
 are dying. Millions are doomed to perish. Have not 
 our hearts been moved yet? 
 
 If Christ be with us, where then is his love toward 
 all—the near and the distant, the friends and the 
 enemies? Where is the love which, according to God’s 
 word, is higher than the law? Where is the love which 
 is ready to overcome all obstacles in order to render 
 aid? For indeed it was such a love which the Lord 
 taught us. Is it impossible to be comprehended? 
 
 The heartlessness, the human calculation; of some 
 which was manifested so sadly in connection with the 
 famine, constrain us to speak plainly; we, Christians, 
 must conform our lives to the commands of Christ. 
 
 In particular, regarding the question of church 
 treasures and the possibility of their use for famine 
 relief, we assume that it is our moral and Christian 
 duty to make the sacrifice. Indeed, theoretically, that 
 is what even Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Ben¬ 
 jamin and other hierarchs permitted us to do. 
 
 The believers will willingly come to the aid of the 
 government if no violence be used (regarding which 
 official authorities assure us). The believers are willing 
 to surrender, if need be, even the sacred vessels, if the 
 government will permit the church itself to feed the 
 starving, even though it be done under a strict govern¬ 
 mental supervision; the authorities have expressed 
 themselves to the effect that such an arrangement 
 would be possible. 
 
 Thus we shall be ready for sacrifices, and resolutely 
 separate ourselves from those who, calling themselves 
 
194 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Christians, in the matter under consideration look upon 
 it differently and in such wise follow and invite others 
 to the path of indifference toward those who are dying 
 of starvation, and even to the culpable, Christ-for¬ 
 bidden path of violence in defense of the church 
 treasures. 
 
 Churchmen! An unfortunate misunderstanding of 
 that question has separated us! We must, with mutual 
 love, with mutual respect, and burning with love for 
 those of our brethren who are perishing of starvation, 
 help them all even to the surrender of our lives. That 
 is what Christ expects of us! 
 
 ARCHPRIEST PRIEST 
 
 John Al’binsky 
 Alexander Boyarsky 
 Alexander Vvedensky 
 Vladimir Voskresensky 
 Eugene Zapol’sky 
 Michael Popov 
 Paul Raevsky 
 
 Eugene Belkov 
 Michael Gremyachevsky 
 Vladimir Krasnitsky 
 Nicholas Syren sky 
 DEACON 
 
 Timothy Skobelev b 
 
 The same issue of the Izvestiya (March 29) pub¬ 
 lished items announcing the protests of the bishop of 
 Volsk, Job, and of Kursk, Nikon, against the patri¬ 
 arch’s policy, and demanding the sale of the church 
 treasures in aid of the famishing. The next day f the 
 Izvestiya 8 printed a letter from Bishop Antonin, dated 
 the day earlier and addressed to Patriarch Tikhon, in 
 which the latter was informed that President Kalinin 
 had requested the writer to become a member of the 
 governmental Board of Aid for the Starving. The 
 bishop goes on to say that according to Kalinin’s 
 statement, “the main reason why I was chosen for 
 the Kompomgol was the desire of the government to 
 give to the church people through me a possibility of 
 
 6 First published in Krasnaya Gazeta, March 25; reprinted in 
 Izvestiya, No. 71, March 29. 
 
 8 No. 72, March 30. 
 
195 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 supervision of the disposition of the treasures, their 
 exchange for currency, and the purchasing of bread 
 for the starving with the money thus realized.” 
 
 The government, as was already seen, brought to 
 trial many representatives of the church, the hier¬ 
 archs, priests, and laymen, for the many riots and 
 bloody encounters with the officials attempting to carry 
 out the provisions of the decree of February 23. 
 According to the testimony of Krasnitsky and Boyar¬ 
 sky given at the trial of Metropolitan Benjamin of 
 Petrograd, the message which the metropolitan sent 
 to the parishes, ordering the observance of Tikhon’s 
 instructions in the matter of the surrender of church 
 treasures, was one of the direct causes of the reorgani¬ 
 zation of the group of the Twelve for the purpose of 
 opposing Benjamin’s activity, because the group was 
 afraid that it might fanaticize the “dark” masses and 
 hurl them into pogroms and bloody riots, as it actually 
 did. 7 The trial of the Moscow clergy revealed so 
 much of what was regarded as incriminating evidence 
 against Metropolitan Tikhon that finally the Moscow 
 tribunal ordered that Patriarch Tikhon and his chief 
 adviser, Archbishop Nicander, be brought to trial. 8 
 Thereupon the patriarch was placed under home arrest 
 in the patriarchal headquarters in the Troitskoe pod- 
 vor’e, and was thus prevented from carrying on the 
 work of his chancery. The Petrograd group of reform¬ 
 ists now decided to act. In the first place, it issued, 
 on May 13, a proclamation to “the believing sons of 
 the Orthodox Church of Russia.” It is of importance, 
 especially for the problem of the origin of the schism 
 within the church of Russia, to know exactly what 
 
 7 Cf. The Revolution and the Church, 1923, 1-3, p. 78. 
 
 8 Izvestiya, No. 100, May 9, 1922. 
 
196 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 the successive steps leading to that disaster were. For 
 that reason, even at the risk of encumbering the story 
 with lengthy quotations from official sources, it is 
 thought wise to give the proclamation in full: 
 
 Brethren and sisters in Christ! 
 
 In the course of the last few years, in accordance 
 with the will of God, without which nothing in the 
 world comes to pass, the Workers-Peasants’ govern¬ 
 ment came into power in Russia. 
 
 It took upon itself the task of liquidating the heavy 
 consequences of the World War, a struggle with the 
 famine, epidemics, and the remaining disorders of the 
 governmental life. 
 
 The church, in the meantime, remained aloof from 
 this great struggle for truth and the well-being of 
 humanity. 
 
 The heads of the church were on the side of the 
 enemies of the people. 
 
 This became manifest, in so far as every current 
 incident was accompanied by a counter-revolutionary 
 uprising within the church. Such things happened 
 more than once. At the present time, similar sad 
 occurrences have taken place before our own eyes, in 
 the matter of converting the church treasures into 
 bread for the starving. Such an act should have been 
 an occasion for a joyous manifestation of love for the 
 perishing brother, but it was converted into a con¬ 
 spiracy against the government. 
 
 It resulted in bloodshed. Blood was shed that the 
 hungering Christ might not be aided. 
 
 By the refusal to help the starving, churchmen were 
 attempting to bring about the overthrow of the govern¬ 
 ment. The proclamation of Patriarch Tikhon became 
 the standard around which rallied the counter-revolu¬ 
 tionists, outwardly disguised in ecclesiastical garb. 
 
 But the wider masses of the people and the majority 
 
197 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 of the rank and file of the clergy did not heed their 
 call. The popular conscience condemned those guilty 
 of shedding blood, and the death of those who suc¬ 
 cumbed to the famine falls with a heavy reproach upon 
 those who wished to exploit the national calamity for 
 their own political ends. 
 
 We, the undersigned clergy of the Orthodox church, 
 representing the opinions of wide ecclesiastical circles, 
 condemn the actions of those hierarchs and those pas¬ 
 tors who are guilty of organizing opposition to the gov¬ 
 ernmental authorities in the matter of aiding the 
 starving and in other undertakings for the good of the 
 workers. 
 
 The church by its very essence should represent 
 a society of love and truth, and not a political organi¬ 
 zation, or a counter-revolutionary party. 
 
 We consider it necessary that a local Sobor be called 
 without delay for a trial of those who are guilty of the 
 ruin of the church, as well as to order the ecclesiastical 
 government, and to establish normal relations with 
 the Soviet authorities. The civil war which is carried 
 on by the supreme administration against the govern¬ 
 ment must be stopped. 
 
 Every faithful and loving son of the church will 
 doubtless approve our petition with which we appealed 
 to the government authorities, asking to grant us 
 the permission to call a local Sobor speedily for the 
 purpose of ordering the church and pacifying the 
 national life. 
 
 Bishop Antonin 
 
 Representatives of the 
 progressive clergy 
 
 ofPetrograd: Priest Vladimir Krasnitsky 
 
 Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky 
 Priest Eugene Belkov 
 Psalm-singer Stephen Stadnik 
 
198 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 of Moscow: Priest Ivan Borisov 
 
 Priest Vladimir Bylkov 
 
 of Sarotov: Archpriest Rusanov 
 
 Archpriest Ledovsky 
 
 May 13, 1922.* 
 
 This was a most important step which the group 
 had taken, for it defined essentially the program of the 
 party, as it was later, step by step, realized. But the 
 group did not rest content with mere proclamations; 
 it sent a delegation, consisting of the archpriest 
 Vvedensky, the priest Belkov, and the psalm-singer 
 Stadnik, to interview the patriarch in Moscow. Upon 
 their arrival in Moscow, they were joined by Priest 
 Krasnitsky, who was there on private business, and by 
 Priest Kalinovsky, and together they sought audience 
 with the patriarch; they were received by him on May 
 12. Using as their basis the unhappy outcome of the 
 Moscow trial, which had just been concluded (May 9), 
 and which pronounced eleven death sentences upon 
 those found guilty of opposing the decree regarding the 
 removal of church treasures, they held the patriarch 
 morally responsible for the disaster. It was the opinion 
 of the group that the patriarchal proclamation of Feb¬ 
 ruary 28 provoked renewed outbreaks of hostility 
 against the government. 
 
 Priest Krasnitsky, who seems to have been the chief 
 spokesman of the party, then confronted the patriarch 
 with a resume of what he regarded as Tikhon’s counter¬ 
 revolutionary measures, among which he enumerated 
 (1) the anathema pronounced against the government 
 on January 19, 1918, upon the occasion of the first 
 attempt to put into practice the decree nationalizing 
 
 0 Izvestiya , No. 106, May 14, 1922. 
 
199 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 all property in Russia; (2) the patriarchal instructions 
 of February 15, 1918, advising the priests to secrete the 
 church property so that it could not be found by the 
 commissioners, and also advising the organization of 
 brotherhoods for the defense of church property; (3) 
 according to Krasnitsky’s account, these instructions 
 resulted in 1,414 bloody encounters of the people with 
 the governmental authorities; (4) furthermore, the 
 spokesman of the progressive group affirmed that one 
 of the patriarch’s deeds of counter-revolutionary 
 import was his sending to the former tsar, Nicholas 
 Romanov, who was at the time imprisoned in Ekater¬ 
 inburg, the patriarchal blessing along with consecrated 
 wafers, which commission was performed by Bishop 
 Hermogen; (5) moreover, the patriarch was charged 
 with the guilt of ordaining and placing in high, influ¬ 
 ential positions a large number of individuals generally 
 known to be strong partisans and protagonists of the 
 old monarchist regime; (6) and finally, the patriarch 
 was accused of having converted the church into a 
 political organization, in which the most determined 
 monarchist elements, under cover of their spiritual 
 concerns, were attempting to overthrow the Soviet 
 regime. 
 
 On the basis of these charges, and stressing the 
 present anarchy prevailing in the church as a result 
 of the patriarch’s policies, the group demanded the 
 immediate issue of a call for a national Sobor, for the 
 purpose of deciding upon and inaugurating new 
 policies for the church, and the patriarch’s complete 
 retirement from the exercise of his authority until the 
 final settlement of the question by the Sobor. 10 
 
 According to the version of Vvedensky, who later 
 
 10 Vvedensky, an eye-witness, in op. cit., pp. 248-49. 
 
200 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 described further details of the interview, the patri¬ 
 arch, after some hesitation, consented to the demands 
 of the group, with these words: “I have not sought 
 the patriarchal office, and it weighs me down like a 
 cross. I shall be glad if the future Sobor should 
 release me from the patriarchate, and at present I shall 
 retire from the administration of the church, and shall 
 transfer my authority to the eldest of the hierarchs.” 11 
 Thereupon, he wrote two letters: one to Kalinin, presi¬ 
 dent of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, 
 acquainting him with his intention to transfer the 
 patriarchate to another hierarch; and the other to 
 Metropolitan Agathangel of Yaroslavl, in which he 
 appointed him his substitute, and asked him to come to 
 Moscow to take charge of his new duties. 12 But before 
 the designated hierarch could come, the administration 
 of the church ceased to function; thus for a time the 
 patriarchal chancery was closed. It was this circum¬ 
 stance which prompted a few members of the delega¬ 
 tion to have another interview with the patriarch, 
 which they obtained on May 18, when they presented 
 him with a written statement of an astoundingly dar¬ 
 ing request—considering what strained relationships 
 existed between themselves and the patriarch—that 
 they themselves be appointed to care for the adminis¬ 
 tration of the chancery until Agathangel should arrive. 
 This curious document is of the greatest importance, 
 for it really represents the basis of the assumption of 
 the supreme authority in the church of Russia on the 
 part of the Living Church group, and consequently of 
 
 11 Quoted in The Messenger of the Synod, No. 3, 1925; p. 7. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 12 The Living Church, the official organ of the Living Church 
 group, May 23, 1922; also No. 3, 1925; also Izvestiya, No. 108, May 
 17, 1922. 
 
The Origin of the Schism 201 
 
 the schism. It is, therefore, well worth while to have 
 it presented in full: 
 
 To his Holiness, 
 
 the Most Holy Patriarch Tikhon: 
 
 In view of the abdication of your holiness from the 
 administration of the church until the time of the 
 calling of the Sobor, and of your transfer of authority 
 to one of the elder hierarchs, the church remains at 
 present, as a matter of fact, without any kind of 
 administration. 
 
 That circumstance show itself extraordinarily detri¬ 
 mental to the course of general church life, and 
 especially in Moscow, exciting thereby a great disturb¬ 
 ance of minds. 
 
 We, the undersigned, have petitioned the govern¬ 
 mental authorities for permission to open the chancery 
 of your holiness and start its functioning. 
 
 By the present letter we filially ask for your holiness , 
 blessing upon it, in order that the harmful cessation 
 in the administration of church affairs be terminated. 
 
 Your substitute, then, upon his arrival, will immedi¬ 
 ately enter upon the discharge of his duties. 
 
 For these labors in the chancery, until such time 
 as the final formation of the administration under the 
 headship of your substitute be accomplished, we tem¬ 
 porarily engage bishops now at liberty in Moscow. 
 
 The unworthy servants of your holiness. 
 
 Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky 
 Priest Eugene Belkov 
 Priest Sergei Kalinovsky 1 * 
 
 This memorable conference took place in the patri¬ 
 archal headquarters in the Troitskoe podvor’e; the 
 room in which the scene was enacted is a large, mid- 
 
 14 Quoted from the official organ of the Holy Synod, The Messen¬ 
 ger, No. 2, 1925, p. 18. 
 
202 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Victorian chamber, rather shabbily furnished, with 
 ancient carved and upholstered sofa and chairs, and 
 two tables covered with old-fashioned table-covers. 
 The walls are adorned with a few oil paintings repre¬ 
 senting ancient patriarchs. From the windows one 
 may look into a garden, at present used for amusement 
 purposes by a communistic organization. It is very 
 difficult to realize that this utterly ordinary-looking 
 room was the scene of some of the most important 
 episodes in modern Russian church history. 
 
 Upon being presented with the above-quoted docu¬ 
 ment, the patriarch continued in earnest conference 
 with the group for an hour and a half, but finally 
 yielded to the request, seeing the advisability and use¬ 
 fulness of the action. Had he foreseen what use would 
 be made of his consent! But at the time “it was hid 
 from his eyes”; it is difficult to attach any blame to 
 him for not foreseeing the future, as the prophetic gift 
 is not one generally vouchsafed to human beings. 
 
 Deciding to grant the petition, the patriarch wrote 
 at the top of the same document upon which the 
 petition was presented to him his own resolution 
 regarding the matter: 
 
 May 5/18, 1922. The persons named below are 
 ordered to take over and transmit to the Most Rev¬ 
 erend Metropolitan Agathangel, upon his arrival in 
 Moscow, and with the assistance of Secretary Nume- 
 rov, the synodical business; (administration of) 16 the 
 Moscow eparchy (to be entrusted) 15 to the Most 
 Reverend Innocent, bishop of Klinsk, and before his 
 arrival to the Most Reverend Leonid, bishop of Ver- 
 nensk, with the assistance of the departmental chief 
 Nevsky. 
 
 16 Added by the translator. 
 
203 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 For the hastening of my departure and the lodging 
 in the patriarchal residence of the Most Reverend 
 Agath angel, I beg that Archimandrite Anempo- 
 dist (Alekseev) be given leave. 
 
 P. Tikhon 16 
 
 This presentation of the essential events of the 
 memorable transaction, so frought with meaning for 
 the immediate future of the church, is fully confirmed 
 by the patriarch’s own version of the story, which he 
 published immediately upon his release from prison. 
 He described the events as follows: 
 
 On May 18 of the previous year, during our imprison¬ 
 ment in the Troitskoe podvor’e, the priests Vvedensky, 
 Belkov, and Kalinovsky (who but a short time pre¬ 
 viously had renounced the holy orders) visited us, 
 and under the pretext of caring for the welfare of 
 the church, presented us with a written statement, 
 wherein they complained that in consequence of the 
 existing circumstances, church business remained unat¬ 
 tended to. They begged us to intrust our chancery to 
 them, in order that they might properly classify the 
 correspondence received. Considering it a useful 
 measure, we yielded to their solicitation and inscribed 
 their petition with the following resolution: [Then 
 follows the resolution given above, but omitting the 
 last unimportant paragraph.] 17 
 
 From the foregoing reports, this much, at least, is 
 clear: the interview of the delegation of the progres¬ 
 sive clergy succeeded in inducing the patriarch tempo¬ 
 rary to surrender his authority in favor of one of the 
 elder hierarchs, until the Sobor which the acting 
 
 18 Quoted from The Messenger, No. 2, 1925, p. 18. 
 
 17 The Public Proclamation, July 15, 1923. 
 
204 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 patriarch was to convene should deliberate upon the 
 new situation and in the light of the facts as then dis¬ 
 covered should order the administration and policy of 
 the church anew. Having induced the patriarch to 
 take that momentous step, the group then applied to 
 the government for permission to reopen the patri¬ 
 archal chancery, which by reason of Tikhon’s voluntary 
 surrender of active direction of affairs, as well as by 
 reason of his arrest, was not functioning at the time; 
 at the same time, the group asked the patriarch’s 
 approval of this step, urging upon him the enormity 
 of confusion which would ensue should the adminis¬ 
 tration of the chancery not function for a long time. 
 They expressly stated that this arrangement should 
 be only temporary, and clearly specified that, upon the 
 arrival of the locum tenens, they themselves would 
 retire from the duties thus entrusted to them. Finally, 
 they proposed to seek the aid of, and augment their 
 own forces by adding to their numbers, the bishops 
 “now at liberty in Moscow,” without naming any par¬ 
 ticular individual; but as it turned out, they secured 
 the cooperation of Bishop Antonin, the old stormy 
 petrel of the Russian church, who had long before 
 been retired because he became a persona non grata 
 with the old bureaucratic Holy Synod, when after the 
 tsarist grant of the “representative” government 
 Antonin refused to designate the tsar in the liturgy any 
 longer as “autocrat.” To all this the patriarch con¬ 
 sented, giving at the same time general instructions 
 regarding the procedure, from which it is abundantly 
 clear that the contemplated interim arrangement was 
 regarded by him as of but short duration. Of course, it 
 had never occurred to him what might happen if the 
 arrangements decided upon for some reason miscarried; 
 
205 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 certainly he had not anticipated the use to which his 
 permission was to be put. 
 
 Events now succeeded each other with swiftness; the 
 next day after the interview with the progressive 
 group, Patriarch Tikhon left the Troitskoe podvor’e 
 and removed to the Donskoy Monastery, on the out¬ 
 skirts of Moscow, which was to become his head¬ 
 quarters till the time of his death. On May 20, the 
 Izvestiya reported that the progressive group, acting 
 on the basis of the patriarchal permission to take over 
 the chancery, moved into the former patriarchal resi¬ 
 dence. But they did more than that: without any 
 patriarchal permission, they organized themselves into 
 the Provisional Supreme Ecclesiastical Administra¬ 
 tion, consisting of Bishop Antonin, the old-time leader 
 of the progressives, and Bishop Leonid, the only one 
 of the number mentioned by Patriarch Tikhon in his 
 instructions, whom he had appointed as temporary 
 administrator of the Moscow eparchy; besides these, 
 the new Administration comprised the already well- 
 known leaders of opposition to the patriarchal policies, 
 Vvedensky, Krasnitsky, Kalinovsky, and Belkov, to 
 whom were added Deacon Skobelev, and a layman, 
 Khlebnikov. 18 The following day, the Izvestiya again 
 reported the affair, adding to the names already men¬ 
 tioned those of Archpriest Al’binsky and Priest Vosk¬ 
 resensky. The new Supreme Ecclesiastical Administra¬ 
 tion then, with Bishop Antonin at its head, entered the 
 former patriarchal headquarters as new master of the 
 situation, to inaugurate an era in the Russian church 
 even stormier and more fruitful of inner conflicts than 
 the immediate past had been. 
 
 The new Administration appointed Bishop Leonid 
 
 *• Izvestiya, No. Ill, May 20, 1922. 
 
206 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 temporary metropolitan of Moscow, and drew the 
 former court chaplain, Protopresbyter Lyubimov, into 
 its service, detailing him for the organization of rela¬ 
 tions with the monasteries. It likewise announced its 
 assumption of the supreme office in the church till the 
 final settlement of the new ecclesiastical policy by the 
 Sobor, intimating at the same time that this body 
 was to be called as early as the month of August of 
 the current year. It is apparent, therefore, that 
 originally the group did not expect to stay long in the 
 office thus procured by them, and were not so hostile 
 to Tikhon as they became later, for they continued to 
 recite the name of the patriarch in the liturgical serv¬ 
 ices for two months longer. 19 
 
 But why did Metropolitan Agathangel delay his 
 coming? A pretty story regarding this question was 
 told by Protopresbyter Krasotin to the delegates of 
 the third Sobor (1925), namely, that about a month 
 after Agathangel was commissioned to the office of 
 acting patriarch, he, Krasotin, was sent to Yaroslavl 
 as a delegate. He visited the metropolitan, and upon 
 finding him rather unconcerned about the task 
 entrusted to him by Tikhon, Krasotin expressed his 
 surprise at the fact; thereupon the metropolitan gave 
 him a strict lecture, the burden of which was that it 
 was none of the priest's business what he, a metropoli¬ 
 tan, was doing or not doing. 20 But the patriarchal 
 party tells quite a different story, which certainly 
 appears much more credible: Metropolitan Agathangel 
 could not assume the office to which he was called by 
 the patriarch, because the government refused him the 
 necessary permission to leave Yaroslavl and come to 
 
 19 Article by Rostovtsev: “Conference of the Group Living 
 Church,” in The Living Church, No. 10, Oct. 1, 1922, p. 7. 
 
 20 The Messenger, 1925, p. 14. 
 
207 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 Moscow. It is furthermore suggested, although with¬ 
 out any proof, that the Supreme Ecclesiastical Admin¬ 
 istration was actively concerned in the action of the 
 government. At any rate, Agath angel could not come 
 to Moscow, and shortly afterwards was arrested on 
 charges of counter-revolutionary activity, and exiled 
 to the Narymsky territory. Under those circumstances, 
 he published a proclamation in which he stated that 
 he was prevented from exercising the duties of the 
 office laid upon him by Patriarch Tikhon, and in virtue 
 of his authority as patriarchal substitute, he empow¬ 
 ered each bishop, archbishop, and metropolitan inde¬ 
 pendently to rule his diocese in accordance with the 
 canonical rules until such a time as either he or 
 Patriarch Tikhon should be free to resume the exercise 
 of the supreme authority. 
 
 Bishop Innocent was likewise detained from assum¬ 
 ing the duties to which the patriarchal resolution had 
 called him. Thus out of all the persons selected 
 by Tikhon to assume the supreme administration of 
 the church in his stead, only one actually served, and 
 that was Bishop Leonid, who administered the Moscow 
 eparchy. That the development of affairs which actu¬ 
 ally took place was not foreseen by Tikhon need not be 
 stressed; and that had he had the least inkling as to 
 the group of people who were to assume power in the 
 church by reason of his innocent and harmless per¬ 
 mission “to open the chancery and carry on its 
 work/’ it is certain that he would not have assented 
 to the request. There is no doubt whatever that 
 he regarded the entire assumption of administra¬ 
 tive power on the part of the Living Church group as 
 a deceit of himself and an usurpation of his authority. 
 
 About the first thing which the new Supreme 
 
208 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Ecclesisatical Administration did—let it be said to its 
 credit—was to issue an appeal to the Soviet authorities 
 for a merciful dealing with those members of the Mos¬ 
 cow clergy and hierarchs who had been recently sen¬ 
 tenced to the death penalty for obstructing the execu¬ 
 tion of the decree concerning the church treasures. 
 “Coming forward,” the appeal reads, “sincerely to serve 
 the Russian people in the matter of pacifying those 
 who are hostile, and unifying all honorable citizens for 
 the regeneration of our native land, we, the under¬ 
 signed, present you with a fervent appeal for mercy 
 upon those of the Moscow clergy who were sentenced 
 to death. 21 This was a noble thing to do, provided 
 that it was not a mere ad hominem trick; but, alas, in 
 the partisan passions which animate the two chief 
 parties within the Russian church such incidents are 
 all too often forgotten. A similar appeal was addressed 
 through the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration to 
 the governmental authorities on July 9, when Nicholas 
 Sobolev was created archbishop of Petrograd; this 
 appeal petitioned for mercy in dealing with the Petro¬ 
 grad group, among whom was Metropolitan Benjamin, 
 who were pronounced guilty of inciting the masses to 
 resistance in connection with the decree regarding 
 the church treasures, and were in consequence sen¬ 
 tenced to death. Some of these sentences were actu¬ 
 ally changed to milder ones, but undoubtedly there 
 were other and more powerful reasons for doing so. 
 
 Nevertheless, the group soon came to the point where 
 it could successfully ignore all finer shades of the trans¬ 
 action with the patriarch by virtue of which it was 
 given the initial opportunity to move into the patri- 
 
 21 Dated May 17, and reprinted in The Living Church, No. 2, May 
 23, 1922. 
 
209 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 archal chancery. It would be extremely difficult to 
 hold that these men were totally ignorant of the real 
 intentions of the patriarch as to the scope of activity 
 which Tikhon had in mind when he entered into the 
 above-described arrangement with them. But they do 
 not seem to have suffered from overscrupulousness, 
 and soon began to affirm stoutly that they were the 
 rightful and canonical possessors of the supreme 
 administrative office by reason of their appointment to 
 the position by the patriarch himself. They loudly 
 claimed, in print as well as in their public speeches, 
 that they were Tikhon’s successors. Bishop Antonin 
 is reported to have declared on one occasion, when it 
 was suggested that the program of the group should 
 receive Tikhon’s approval: “He would not approve any 
 of our reforms. Besides, since Patriarch Tikhon trans¬ 
 mitted his authority to the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration without any reservation, we have no 
 necessity now to run after him to receive from him 
 what he no longer possesses. We must definitely 
 separate ourselves from the old ecclesiastical anti¬ 
 social policy .” 22 
 
 It is this very thing which became the bone of 
 contention between the two parties within the 
 church, and ultimately led to a schism. On the one 
 hand, certain leaders, together with the masses, 
 held that the patriarchal authority was usurped by a 
 designing group of ecclesiastical revolutionaries, who, 
 by wrenching the meaning and stretching the letter of 
 Tikhon’s resolution, uncanonically seized the supreme 
 power; on the other hand, the Living Church group 
 retorted that they were carrying out, practically to the 
 letter, the instructions given them by the patriarch: 
 
 22 Izvestiya, No. 132, June 16, 1922. 
 
210 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 he had appointed them temporarily in charge of the 
 chancery, till such a time when his substitute should 
 arrive in Moscow, and the substitute was to hold office 
 till the final adjudication and settlement of the whole 
 matter by the Sobor. Through no fault of their own, 
 the progressives claimed, both Metropolitan Agath- 
 angel and Bishop Innocent found it impossible to 
 come to assume their offices, and until they came, the 
 group was right in holding the supreme power; they 
 professed the intention of calling the Sobor speedily, 
 and then of surrendering their power to that body. It 
 must be owned that there are certain elements of 
 truth in both these claims which give strength to both 
 parties. But it would appear, on the basis of the data 
 presented, that the only solid basis of the new Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration’s claim is the revolu¬ 
 tionary right of overthrowing by force any organiza¬ 
 tion which refuses to reform itself in accordance with 
 the demands of the times, and by its persistent oppo¬ 
 sition and obstinate hostility threatens to bring 
 destruction upon the body which it purports to govern. 
 But to rest its case upon the legalistic canonicity of 
 the particular process whereby the group acquired its 
 power would appear like a deliberate courting of defeat 
 and a rejection of its claims as a whole. The legal 
 basis is quite obviously insecure and dubious for such 
 an organization as the Living Church to resort to, for 
 the process whereby their power was attained was not, 
 and cannot be argued into being, a canonical one. This 
 does not mean that it was not at all valid; that need 
 not necessarily be true. A merely canonical basis may 
 in itself be weaker and of less real consequence than 
 a sound revolutionary one, provided that the revolu¬ 
 tion is really inevitable for saving the organization con- 
 
211 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 cerned from utter destruction. But even if the revolt 
 against the policies of Patriarch Tikhon be justified 
 on revolutionary grounds, on their ethical side the 
 measures adopted in the attempt to justify the process 
 left much to be desired. Had they claimed nothing but 
 the right to revolution under conditions which threat¬ 
 ened to overthrow the organization which the exist¬ 
 ing authorities were sworn to preserve, they would 
 have been entitled to the same kind of justification 
 which all similar revolutions are accorded. 
 
 As a matter of fact, a certain amount of recognition 
 was accorded the new administration even by the 
 representatives of the hierarchy: thus in a meeting of 
 the Moscow diocese, held on May 26, the establish¬ 
 ment of the new authorities was approved “as having 
 been called forth by a canonical necessity.” More¬ 
 over, Sergei, metropolitan of Vladimir, Evdokim, arch¬ 
 bishop of Nizhni Novgorod, and Seraphim, archbishop 
 of Kostroma, likewise accorded it the sanction of their 
 acknowledgment. 
 
 The reformist group which had seized, in such an 
 essentially revolutionary manner, the supreme power 
 in the church of Russia, soon organized itself. But 
 even before its definite organization and adoption of a 
 statement of its aims, the loosely coherent group began 
 to voice its demands. As early as May 5, in the very 
 first number of the official organ of the group, called 
 The Living Church, Krasnitsky expressed the elemen¬ 
 tary demands of his fellow-reformists by insisting upon 
 a change of personnel in the highest offices, and upon 
 the calling of a new national Sobor which would bring 
 about pacification of the almost intolerable relations 
 existing between the church and the state, which 
 without exaggeration could be termed a state of civil 
 
212 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 war. 23 In the next number of this same publication, 
 it was furthermore specified that the principle of 
 separation of the church from the state must be 
 acknowledged as the sine qua non of the new ecclesiasti¬ 
 cal policy, and as a matter settled once for all. One 
 is considerably surprised to read what the next Sobor 
 was expected to accomplish: it was confidently affirmed 
 by these reformists that the traditional immobility 
 and the frigid, static conservatism of the Orthodox 
 church must give way to a new psychology—to that of 
 a “dynamic, vital, moving, creative progress from one 
 attainment to another.” 24 Secondly, the article 
 declared that capitalism, from the Christian point of 
 view, must be acknowledged as “the great lie.” The 
 divine worship must cease to be the soulless cere¬ 
 monialism which it so long had been; the episcopal 
 office must no longer stand for ecclesiastical des¬ 
 potism, and must transform itself wholly into a source 
 of the mystical, spiritual power and divine grace 
 vouchsafed to the church through the episcopal succes¬ 
 sion. Finally, the very decrease in the ranks of the 
 monks, occasioned by the confiscation of monastic 
 property, should force upon the church the necessity of 
 admitting the “white,” i.e. married, clergy to the epis¬ 
 copal office, and thus acknowledging and reinstituting 
 the early-Christian married episcopate. This article is 
 probably the earliest public declaration of the general 
 principles of the reformists, and it admittedly presents 
 a bold program. The man courageous enough to out¬ 
 line such an objective was no other than Alexander 
 Vvedensky. 26 
 
 28 Cf. The Living Church, No. 1, May 1922, p. 3. 
 
 24 Ibid., No. 2, May 23, 1922, p. 4. 
 
 26 Ibid., No. 2, May 23, 1922. 
 
213 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 These ideals were soon to be written into the official 
 platform of the whole party, organized shortly after 
 the publication of this article. The constituent con¬ 
 ference of the organization was held in Moscow, on 
 May 29, 1922, and was attended by 146 delegates, of 
 whom, however, only 36, i.e. just about one-fourth, 
 adopted the platform of the Living Church, as the 
 organization came to be called, and thus became the 
 founding members of it. Their definition of the aims 
 of the group, which closely follows the ideas expressed 
 by Vvedensky in the above-mentioned article, is so 
 intrinsically valuable for a proper estimate of the move¬ 
 ment that an extended statement of it must be risked. 
 
 The first section dealt with dogmatic reforms, which 
 comprised a return to the primitive Christian teaching, 
 with an emphatic development of the doctrine of the 
 humanity of Christ, and a struggle against the scho¬ 
 lastic interpretation of Christianity. God was to be 
 conceived as a God of love, rather than a wrathful 
 judge. The universe was affirmed to have been 
 evolved by the might of God, but by means of natural 
 processes. Salvation was to be conceived as the 
 reawakening of the filial sense in men through God’s 
 love of them. The church of Christ is a human-divine 
 society established for the purpose of realizing the 
 divine truth upon earth. The last judgment, heaven, 
 and hell are concepts to be interpreted ethically. 
 
 Among the ethical reforms demanded by the group 
 were: rejection of the monastic (ascetic) teaching that 
 salvation was to be gained only by renunciation of the 
 world and by suppression of the natural human desires; 
 in contradiction to this, salvation was to be sought 
 under the conditions of faithful performance of the 
 ordinary duties and labors imposed by life. The family 
 
214 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 is the foundation of ethical and moral life; women 
 therefore must have equal rights with men. The equal¬ 
 ity of all workers in the enjoyment of the fruits of their 
 labor is to be affirmed as the primary concern of the 
 government. The moral and material support of the 
 efforts of the government to care for invalids, widows, 
 and orphans is a duty incumbent upon all Christians. 
 An acknowledgment of the justice of the social revolu¬ 
 tion and the righteousness of the effort to unify the 
 workers of the world for the purpose of defending the 
 rights of the working and exploited man, was likewise 
 to be counted essential. 
 
 In the third place, a reform of the liturgical forms 
 of church life should comprise a survey of all liturgical 
 literature of the church with the view of determining 
 and eliminating such parts as were incorporated into 
 it during the reign of the ober-procurors and of the 
 tsarist monarchy; furthermore, liberty of liturgical 
 creativity in the field of worship must be assured and 
 encouraged. Elimination of rites which were clearly 
 a survival of the former pagan concepts was likewise 
 included. A struggle with superstitions which grew up 
 among the ignorant masses, or were deliberately 
 fostered by monkish exploitation of their credulity, 
 was another item of the program. Cooperation of the 
 laity in the service of worship concluded the list of 
 liturgical reforms. 
 
 The canonical reforms proposed by the group were 
 directed to rescinding such rules and canons as had 
 either outgrown their usefulness by reason of the 
 altered conditions, or which had been superimposed 
 by the dictates of the former tsarist authorities. The 
 final section of the program dealt with the parochial 
 reform, which included these points: the pastor of each 
 
215 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 individual congregation was to be elected by the con¬ 
 gregation; the lay membership was to have a part in 
 the disposition of the church collections, along with 
 the clergy; the lay people were to have equal responsi¬ 
 bility for the nurture of the young in Christian princi¬ 
 ples of living along with the clergy. The program also 
 advocated a reinstitution of the office of deaconess, 
 and made an especially important and revolutionary 
 demand for the eligibility of married presbyters for 
 the episcopal office, which must cease to bear the 
 character of despotic absolutism, as it had developed 
 in Russia under the influence of the autocratic tsarist 
 regime. The supreme, as well as the eparchial, admin¬ 
 istrative offices must be constituted in a representative 
 manner, having members from the episcopate, the 
 lower clergy, and the laymen; all these three groups 
 should enjoy equal rights. Finally, the program 
 demanded the liberation of the parochial clergy from 
 the humiliating dependence upon the richer peasantry, 
 by developing the sense of responsibility for the clergy 
 on the part of the entire congregation. 28 
 
 As for the methods and means by which the program 
 was to be carried out, the conference urged that every 
 member should attempt to spread these ideals in 
 sermons, lectures, discussions, disputations, as well as 
 by literary activity in papers, periodicals, and books. 
 They also proposed the holding of local and national 
 conferences and congresses, by means of which they 
 wished to influence public opinion as well as the 
 government. 
 
 As already stated in the program, the group decided 
 to free the church from the hierarchial control of 
 
 2 8 The full program published in the official organ, The Living 
 Church, No. 10, Oct. 1, 1922, pp. 17-18. 
 
216 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 the monastic episcopate, in which it saw the chief prop 
 of the ancient regime in the ecclesiastical as well 
 as the political spheres. The new episcopate was to 
 be chosen equally from the white, married clergy and 
 the monastic; but the reformed episcopate would play 
 the chief role no longer: the supreme authority in the 
 reconstituted church should be synodical, or collegiate, 
 in form, and all three grades, the episcopate, clergy, and 
 laymen, should share equally in the exercise of power. 
 But since the white clergy would of necessity predom¬ 
 inate in any such combination, that group should wield 
 the preponderating influence. 
 
 In the relations of the church with the state, the 
 Living Church group proposed to reverse the policy 
 of Tikhon, and to reinstate peaceful, and even ami¬ 
 cable, relations with the authorities by a hearty 
 acknowledgment of the October Revolution, and “the 
 truth” of the socialistic ideal as essentially Christian. 
 Therefore, willingly accepting the fundamental 
 principle of separation of the church from the state, 
 and secularization of the state, with the consequent 
 non-interference of the church in politics, the Living 
 Church group declared that the sphere of action of the 
 church was solely that of purely spiritual functions, as 
 well as the elimination of exploitation, inequality, 
 social injustice, and other social evils. In as far as 
 these common objectives were shared by both the 
 church and the Soviet state, the Living Church group 
 acknowledged its sympathy with the attempt of the 
 government to remove such evils and to bring about a 
 betterment of the living conditions of the poor; but 
 beyond this, even the Living Church recognized cer¬ 
 tain limits in approving the policy of the government. 
 Nevertheless, even this measure of solidarity and 
 
217 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 acknowledgment earned the Living Church the oppro¬ 
 brious epithet of the “Soviet” or the “Red” church. 27 
 
 The various items of the growing list of reforms were 
 not merely enunciated as a theoretical ideal, but were 
 acted upon. Thus, for instance, the pet project of 
 the group to affirm the equal right of the white, married 
 clergy with the monastic to eligibility for the episcopal 
 post was carried into practice when the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration, without waiting for the 
 Sobor to pass upon this really important question, con¬ 
 ferred the episcopal ordination upon a married priest, 
 Al’binsky, without requiring him to assume the mon¬ 
 astic vows. 28 
 
 In spite of the fact that the Living Church group 
 had a clearly defined platform, it did not formally 
 organize itself as a church party till the end of June, 
 when it held its third public meeting. The gather¬ 
 ing threatened to end in a riot, for when Bishop 
 Antonin announced to the masses the reformist pro¬ 
 gram, the lay audience, especially the women, broke 
 out into open threats and protests. After the public 
 meeting, the clerical delegates adopted a constitution 
 embodying all the essential points of the May pro¬ 
 gram. 20 Moreover, the party organized itself formally 
 by electing a central administrative and executive 
 committee, with a presidium, of which Archpriest 
 Vladimir D. Krasnitsky was the head. 
 
 But the most important event since the abdication 
 of Patriarch Tikhon was the holding of the All-Russian 
 Conference of the Living Church group, which met in 
 the beautiful cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, 
 
 27 Titlinov, The New Church, Moscow, 1923, pp. 10-12. 
 
 28 Izvestiya, No. 132, June 16, 1922. 
 
 28 Ibid., No. 141, June 28, 1922. 
 
218 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 from August 6 to 16. The number of eparchies repre¬ 
 sented amounted to twenty-four, and the meeting com¬ 
 prised one hundred and ninety delegates, of whom 
 one hundred and fifty had the right to vote. Krasnit- 
 sky was elected chairman. But instead of unifying 
 the reformist forces, as was confidently expected of the 
 conference, so many divergent views came into evi¬ 
 dence that finally the discord resulted in splitting the 
 movement into several smaller units. One tendency 
 saw the goal of the reformist endeavors in a moderate 
 program of extricating the church from the difficult 
 position into which the policies of Patriarch Tikhon 
 had plunged it, and sought to accomplish this without 
 provoking a crisis or disruption within the church; 
 another tendency, more revolutionary and radical, pro¬ 
 nounced a struggle of the white clergy for the episcopal 
 control, by overthrowing the unique privileges of the 
 monastic order in this regard, to be the chief task of 
 the reformist movement. Most of the discussion of the 
 conference centered about this latter point, and 
 resulted in the adoption of a resolution according to 
 which the city monasteries and convents were to be 
 closed and turned into parochial churches, on the score 
 that monks by their very profession have no place 
 in the turmoil of life; as for the country monasteries, 
 they were to be transformed into brotherhood centers 
 engaged in some useful humanitarian work, such as 
 clinics, homes for invalids or retired clergymen, and 
 other such useful social service. 80 
 
 Discussing the functions of the so-called “learned 
 monks,” the conference concluded that most of the 
 seminarists who take the vows were motivated by 
 
 80 Report of the conference, in The Living Church, No. 8-9, Sept. 
 1-15, 1922, pp. 7-8. 
 
219 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 vulgar career-making, and pronounced the entire insti¬ 
 tution “an evil.” In this same connection, the con¬ 
 ference adopted these tremendously weighty 
 conclusions: 
 
 1. That the Living Church group should demand at 
 the next Sobor that Patriarch Tikhon be deprived of 
 his clerical orders, because he bears the chief guilt 
 for the present disorganization of the church. 
 
 2. That the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration 
 be petitioned to order an immediate cessation of the 
 mention of his name in the liturgical services in all par¬ 
 ishes of the Russian Orthodox church, as of one who no 
 longer holds office. 31 
 
 Moreover, all ecclesiastical superiors found guilty of 
 exerting their hierarchial authority in a manner detri¬ 
 mental to the Living Church policies, as well as those 
 opposing the progressivist movement by passive non- 
 cooperation, should be deposed and banished from 
 their former eparchies; in case that opposition to the 
 progressivist priest should come from his local church 
 council, the eparchial administration should be 
 instructed by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administra¬ 
 tion to depose such a council, and the local parish 
 thereupon should “send a list of the new candidates for 
 the parochial council composed of persons who have 
 preserved canonical obedience (rule 56) to their priest. 
 Persons manifesting opposition shall be handed over 
 to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction and sentenced to 
 ecclesiastical punishments to the extent of excommuni¬ 
 cation from the church.” 32 What apt pupils of the 
 Bolshevist methods these priestly revolutionaries 
 were! 
 
 81 The Living Church, No. 8-9, 1922, p. 8. 
 
 "Ibid., p. 8. 
 
220 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Since the whole Living Church movement repre¬ 
 sented a revolt of the white parochial clergy against 
 the age-long preemption of the hierarchical offices 
 by the monks, with the consequent autocratic control 
 of the white clergy by the black—or the regular clergy, 
 as we would say in the West—it is no wonder that this 
 problem of snatching the control from their hands 
 greatly exercised the ingenuity of the “whites.” They 
 felt, in the first place, that long-established usage and 
 tradition was against them. Many Protestants fail to 
 understand and appreciate the state of mind, border¬ 
 ing upon holy horror, with which most Russians would 
 contemplate the possibility of married bishops. At no 
 point is the conservative traditionalism of the average 
 Russian more apparent than at this. All these diffi¬ 
 culties were duly appreciated by the conference, which, 
 therefore, was particularly concerned to prove its case: 
 in long; and learned disquisitions, the speakers pre¬ 
 sented voluble and tedious arguments, the burden of 
 which was that the ancient apostolic church possessed 
 a married episcopate, and the same practice was long 
 preserved in the Eastern church. The conference 
 finally voted that: 
 
 1. On the basis of the fifth and fifty-first rules, the 
 holy Apostles permit married presbyters to assume 
 the episcopal office. 
 
 2. On the basis of the practice of the ancient church, 
 of the third rule of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, and 
 of the tenth rule of the Council of Ancyra, widowed 
 priests are permitted to contract a second marriage and 
 to retain their office. 
 
 3. On the basis of the same rules, monastic clergy 
 are permitted, upon abjuring their vows, to marry, still 
 retaining their office. 83 
 
 8 8 Ibid., No. 8-9, Sept. 1-15, 1922. 
 
221 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 When the conference was presented with the report 
 of the episcopal commission, it was found that, out of 
 the ninety-seven bishops who were serving at the time 
 of the conference, thirty-seven were counted partisans 
 of the Living Church, thirty-six were opposed to it, and 
 twenty-four adopted the wary policy of watchful wait¬ 
 ing. The conference voted that bishops antagonistic 
 to the group must be retired, and the prudent middle 
 class must be confronted with a definite choice of 
 alternatives: either acknowledge the program of the 
 Living Church, or pronounce themselves partisans of 
 the patriarch. Thereupon they would be dealt with 
 accordingly. The commission likewise nominated, out 
 of the married archpriests, six candidates for vacancies 
 in episcopal sees. It is interesting to note that five of 
 the bishops present signified their willingness to ordain 
 these married clerics. 84 
 
 Finally, the conference proceeded with elections to 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, for which 
 twenty members were chosen: five bishops, twelve 
 priests, one deacon, and two laymen. The Central 
 Executive Committee of the Living Church was com¬ 
 posed of twenty-five members. Thereupon, on 
 August 16, this important gathering was adjourned. 
 
 Before its adjournment, the conference adopted an 
 address to the people, which recounted the charges 
 against the patriarch and described the policies of the 
 new administration. As such, it is worth quoting: 
 
 You all well know in what a difficult position our 
 Orthodox Russian church finds itself. From the time 
 of establishment of the autocracy in Russia, the church 
 was its chief mainstay, and gradually losing its purely 
 spiritual character, in the end served not so much 
 
 34 Ibid., No. 8-9, Sept. 1-15, 1922, p. 10. 
 
222 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 religious as political objectives, transforming itself, 
 especially in its supreme monastic administration, into 
 a servitor and slave of the government. The white 
 clergy, both city and country, lower clergy and the 
 lay membership, suffered threefold oppression: of the 
 tsarist government, of the supreme ecclesiastical gov¬ 
 ernment, which was in collusion with the capitalists, 
 and entirely dominated the Orthodox churches and 
 managed them, as well as the pastors and the lower 
 clergy, according to their own base pleasure; the 
 churches, were magnificently decked out, but became, 
 so to speak, soulless, and while satisfying the vanity 
 of the rich, afforded less and less spiritual comfort 
 and peace to the sorrowful and heavy-laden. 
 
 The October Revolution freed the church from 
 the heavy yoke of the government of property-owners, 
 separating it from the state, and by that action, grant¬ 
 ing it the freedom of spiritual development and per¬ 
 fection ; but our hierarchs, those “princes of the 
 church,” closely bound by their comfortable and easy¬ 
 going lives to the tsarist government, did not, in reality, 
 desire such a liberation, since it was not for their 
 advancement, but only in the interest of the white, 
 parochial clergy, lower orders, and the lay member¬ 
 ship. Hence it is fully intelligible why they unani¬ 
 mously opposed the separation of the church from the 
 state, and represented this necessary and salutary 
 action of the civil government to the white clergy, 
 lower orders, and all the faithful of Russia as persecu¬ 
 tions of the church and of the faith in Christ. 
 Regardless of the fact that many of them long before 
 the Russian socialistic revolution foresaw its inevit¬ 
 ableness and its full justice, as well as the inevitable 
 union of the workers of the world in defense of the 
 worker’s and of the exploited man’s rights against 
 capitalism, that worst kind of atheism, they, those 
 hierarchs of ours, when it in the meanwhile( was 
 
223 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 realized in Russia, instead of recognizing the accom¬ 
 plished fact as a fully natural happening, caused by 
 an age-long arbitrariness of the absolute rule of the 
 propertied classes, not only refused to do so, but, on 
 the contrary, suppressed the truth and joined the ene¬ 
 mies of the Russian nation in obstructing in all kinds 
 of ways the establishment of the new order in our 
 native land. Five years of civil war, heavy sacrifices 
 borne by our families, enormous economic upheaval, 
 millions of the sons of Russia killed and wounded 
 in that war—all these are the fruits of the criminal 
 treason against the Russian working people which our 
 Orthodox hierarchs committed by siding with the 
 national enemies. In the armies of Kolchak, Denikin, 
 Wrangel, Rodzyanko, Yudenin, and the other robbers 
 who were cruelly plundering the Russian land and 
 who one after another escaped abroad with the 
 plundered property of the Russian people, they, our 
 hierarchs, occupied honorary places, violently took part 
 injjie plundering, all the while excusing and blessing 
 the atrocious lawlessness. To crown it all, last winter 
 they gathered themselves at Karlovtsi, together with 
 the runaway owners and prominent officials of the 
 former tsarist regime, and engaged in instigating 
 popular uprising and a new civil war under the guise 
 of guarding church treasures which were consigned 
 to aid those who were dying of starvation. Our 
 supreme pastors, with Patriarch Tikhon at their head, 
 in order to preserve in our Orthodox churches gold, 
 silver, and precious objects, falsely expounded the 
 canons, caused disturbance among the faithful, and 
 instigated commotion, local revolts, and bloodshed. 
 
 These sad manifestations caused the cup of patience 
 of the true sons of the Russian Orthodox Church to 
 overflow, and forced them to adopt revolutionary meas¬ 
 ures for renewing the church on the basis of gospel 
 principles and apostolic traditions. This great 
 
224 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 task is to be carried out by the impending All-Russian 
 Local Sobor, the difficult task of preparing for which 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration has taken 
 upon itself. 
 
 A large number of our best hierarchs, such as Metro¬ 
 politan Sergei of Vladimir, Archbishop Evdokim of 
 Nizhni Novgorod, Serafim of Kostroma, Tikhon of 
 Voronezh, and many other hierarchs of our church, 
 hastened to confirm by their acknowledgment the 
 complete canonicity and legality of the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration, and now in every way 
 cooperate in its difficult task with the party of the 
 white Orthodox clergy, the Living Church! 35 
 
 The conference was intrinsically of great importance 
 for the furthering of the policies of the group opposed 
 to Tikhon’s reign; but as a means of unification of the 
 divergent methods of reform, it proved to be a signal 
 failure. In fact, the ruthless imposition of the program 
 of Krasnitsky’s faction upon the entire conference, 
 and the unwillingness to modify it essentially by the 
 suggestions and programs of the other tendencies, 
 resulted in a split of the reformist forces. The more 
 moderate party within the conference found itself 
 unable to stem the high-handed policy of the ecclesias¬ 
 tical revolutionaries, for it did not approve of the 
 undemocratic and dictatorial method of procedure 
 adopted by the majority. The minority decided, 
 therefore, after the conclusion of the conference, to 
 organize itself separately. At the head of the seceding 
 faction was the same Bishop Antonin who had such a 
 long revolutionary record and who had headed the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration. On August 
 
 s6 Titlinov: The New Church, pp. 17-20. 
 
225 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 20, this party organized itself into a reformist group 
 which assumed the name of the Churchly Regenera¬ 
 tion , and adopted a platform which in brief outline 
 included these items: 
 
 The group defined its aim as that of a return to 
 the early apostolic democratic conception of life, and 
 of equalization of it in accordance with the principles 
 of brotherhood and liberty, by eliminating and purging 
 away every vestige of clericalism and sacerdotalism 
 introduced during the ages of ignorance and darkness 
 and of the autocratic hierarchical administrative 
 tyranny which was but a reflex of the tsarist despotism. 
 
 In pursuance of these fundamentally democratic 
 objectives, the group proposed to work for the enlight¬ 
 enment of the dense masses of the Russian church- 
 membership by means of religious education and dif¬ 
 fusion of spiritual culture, by spiritualization of wor¬ 
 ship, simplification of the ritual, elimination of much 
 of the outward ceremonial show which was deemed 
 detrimental to the inward meaning of Christianity, 
 and by removal of the many pagan elements of magic 
 from the cult, as well as by opposing the unscrupulous 
 religious exploitation of the ignorant masses carried 
 on by fostering their superstitious fears or their lean¬ 
 ings upon the miraculous. 
 
 The group professed its loyalty to and solidarity 
 with the true Christian ideals of all times (catholicity), 
 but where these ideals were corrupted by the cor¬ 
 rosive influence of the tsarist despotism or ignorance 
 of the times, they must be restored to their pristine 
 purity. In regard to the eligibility of the white clergy 
 to episcopacy, the group shared the attitude of the 
 Living Church in so far as it conceded equal rights 
 
226 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 of both the white and the black clergy; but it sharply 
 differed from the Living Church in insisting that the 
 bishop must be unmarried. 
 
 The group likewise acknowledged the principle of 
 a free election of the priests by their congregations, 
 and professed its rejection of the opposite principle 
 of appointments by ecclesiastical hierarchy. As for 
 monasticism, it was acknowledged as a system of 
 spiritual heroism, a voluntary retirement from the tur¬ 
 moil of life for the purpose of concentrating upon 
 the cultivation of the inner life of the heart and of 
 perfection of the spiritual life; but its use for purposes 
 of attainment of hierarchial power and a life of ease 
 was severely denounced. The group likewise acknowl¬ 
 edged the right of the monk to abandon the monastery 
 and the concomitant vow, but held, in distinction from 
 the Living Church, that every regular cleric who 
 abandons his monastery ipso facto ceases to be a priest 
 as well as a monk. 
 
 The chief difference between the Living Church and 
 the Churchly Regeneration lay in the fact that the 
 former was predominantly a professional, clerical 
 organization, struggling almost exclusively for a pro¬ 
 gram of betterment of the position of the white clergy, 
 especially at the/ corresponding curtailment of the 
 unjust privileges of the monastic hierarchy. But being 
 a clerical organization, and especially because of the 
 autocratic spirit which characterized the group, it did 
 not enjoy the support of the masses of the people. On 
 the other hand, the Churchly Regeneration group was 
 consciously bidding for the peasant support by its pro¬ 
 gram of democratization, but at the same time it was 
 less radical in the treatment of the age-long traditional 
 concepts of religious life and churchly government. 
 
227 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 It is not surprising, therefore, that at first the group 
 had a remarkable success; many Moscow priests and 
 thousands of laymen joined its ranks, and the Petro- 
 grad contingent of the Living Church joined the new 
 movement en masse. Other cities likewise contributed 
 their share; thus, at first, the prospects of the new 
 organization were bright. 36 
 
 The other chief defection from the ranks of the 
 Living Church was led by another great leader of 
 the original secession movement in opposition to 
 Tikhon, Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky. This fiery 
 orator, one of the most outstanding men in the entire 
 movement, became dissatisfied with many things that 
 were included in the program of the Living Church, 
 but much more with the omission of certain other 
 reforms. These were largely of dogmatic character. 
 The name which this group assumed was that of 
 the Ancient Apostolic Church. 
 
 It will be remembered that, originally, the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration, almost immediately 
 upon assuming office, made public declarations that 
 the second local Sobor would be called in the near 
 future, naming August as the probable time. However, 
 as time went on, the leaders began to realize that it 
 would be very risky and hence inadvisable to convene 
 the Sobor so soon, for it was very probable, and in 
 fact certain, that the majority of the hierarchy then 
 holding eparchial appointments were not friendly to 
 the Living Church, and hence this group was in 
 imminent danger of losing its power. The only pos¬ 
 sible way to insure victory to the program which they 
 professed, and incidentally to retain the power in their 
 own hands, was by displacing all who were known 
 80 Titlinov, The New Church, pp. 21ff. 
 
228 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 openly to oppose the Supreme Ecclesiastical Admin¬ 
 istration, and to force the cautious, non-committal 
 center to the choice of an open stand; thereupon to 
 fill the vacancies thus occasioned with stanch sup¬ 
 porters of the new ecclesiastical regime. As was 
 observed, that was exactly the program adopted at 
 the August conference of the Living Church, and the 
 ruthless measures devised for the execution of the 
 policy astounded and repelled even some of the party 
 members themselves. 
 
 The best and most candid avowal of this policy of 
 “purgation of the church” was that expressed by 
 Vladimir N. LVov, the former revolutionary ober- 
 procuror of the Holy Synod under the Provisional 
 Government, who had been elected, shortly before the 
 August conference, to membership in the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration. In a long interview 
 reported in the Izvestiya , 37 LVov pointed out the dis¬ 
 astrous outcome of the Sobor of 1917, from which 
 such great and far-reaching reforms had been expected, 
 and traced the cause of the disappointment to the 
 conservative and in part even reactionary character 
 of the majority of the then ruling hierarchy. Hence, 
 before any reforms could be seriously considered at 
 present, the church must be first of all purged of all 
 its reactionary elements, for thus alone would it be 
 possible to introduce a reformatory spirit into it. It 
 would be useless, therefore, to contemplate the conven¬ 
 ing of the second Sobor until this preliminary work 
 is done. First, it is necessary to purge the ranks 
 of the ecclesiastical office-holders; the Sobor which 
 would then be convened would be sure to take the 
 desired reforms in hand. 
 
 37 No. 171, Aug. 2, 1922. 
 
229 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 The government, LVov continued, is duty-bound to 
 interest itself in church affairs, in spite of the decree 
 separating the church from the state, because the 
 church represents the last front against the new gov¬ 
 ernmental regime. As the government was able, step 
 by step, to crumble all other fronts, the reaction- ^ 
 ary political leaders had taken refuge in the church, 
 which now is the last front to be overcome. For that 
 reason it is incumbent upon the government to purge 
 the church, especially the parochial councils, of these 
 reactionary elements; “the principle of the separation 
 of the church from the state, if at present put into 
 practice in its entirety, would mean a surrender to 
 the church front. That principle can be realized only 
 in case the church does not interfere in the realm of 
 politics, but in revolutionary times the realization of 
 such a principle to the fullest degree is not possible.” 
 
 The purgation of the church of its reactionary 
 elements can be accomplished only in one way: by the 
 expulsion of such individuals from their official posts. 
 First of all, it would involve retirement of hierarchs 
 opposed to the reform, and the vacancies thus occa¬ 
 sioned would be filled from the ranks of the adherents 
 of the new tendency; secondly, the parochial councils 
 must likewise be constituted from men who represent 
 the believing Russian nation, and not merely from 
 the Black Hundred elements. 
 
 It is not necessary to fear, LVov is further quoted 
 to have said, that this change of personnel would lead 
 to a new schism; the reforms involve neither the 
 dogmas of the church nor its rites. The only measure 
 necessitating a change of the former accustomed order 
 is the eligibility of the white clergy to the episcopal 
 posts; but this is absolutely necessary. 
 
230 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 After the reactionary elements are removed from 
 the hierarchal cathedras and the parochial councils are 
 purged, then is the time to call the Sobor. Otherwise, 
 the new Sobor is certain to fail of accomplishing what 
 is expected of it, just as the former Sobor had done. 
 
 And now follows a very interesting paragraph, which 
 it is, therefore, better to quote verbatim: 
 
 You are interested to know in what particular the 
 government is to cooperate in ecclesiastical matters. 
 That cooperation must show itself in the support of 
 the reformist movement. The reactionary elements 
 must feel that the governmental authorities will not 
 be indifferent to abandoning to them their positions. 
 It would be strange if the authorities remained indif¬ 
 ferent when reactionary elements wish to make the 
 church a weapon against the government. Not a 
 single European government would permit an ecclesias¬ 
 tical organization to be converted into agitation-units 
 against itself. 
 
 We are sincerely grateful to Mr. LVov for such 
 plain speaking. His statements make it perfectly clear, 
 if it were not already clearly manifest from the 
 pronouncements of the August conference, that the 
 Living Church meant to undertake a forcible “purga¬ 
 tion” of the church, and that it meant to remove all 
 who did not agree with its party slogans; in this under¬ 
 taking, such official representatives of the Supreme 
 Administration as LVov did not scruple to admit pub¬ 
 licly that the aid of the government would be desired. 
 The outcome of such measures could be nothing else 
 than a schism, and it is amazing that LVov did not see 
 it. The forcible ejection of so large and power¬ 
 ful majority opposing the new movement would neces¬ 
 sarily put these elements on the defensive, and their 
 
231 
 
 The Origin of the Schism 
 
 ranks would be swollen by those who were constrained 
 to choose between the two camps by the importunate 
 insistence of the revolutionary leaders. 
 
 As an illuminating commentary upon this kind of 
 despoiling program, one reads in the official organ of 
 the Living Church of one case after another of “retire¬ 
 ment” of this or that bishop or other high ecclesiastical 
 functionary. The least that any one of the undesirable 
 bishops experienced was to be transferred to some 
 other eparchy, where his chances for causing mischief 
 would be correspondingly lessened. It was possibly 
 with such a motive that even Bishop Leonid, the only 
 person to be found among the personnel of the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration whom Patriarch Tikhon 
 had appointed and even him only temporarily, was 
 transferred to far-away Penza, in order to make 
 room for the head of the Supreme Administration, 
 Bishop Antonin, who was promoted to the metro¬ 
 politanate of Moscow. 38 As for all the cases of “retire¬ 
 ment” of various bishops and other ecclesiastical digni¬ 
 taries, they are too numerous to mention; but almost 
 every issue of the official organ carried such ominous 
 lists. 
 
 88 Izvestiya, No. 152, July 11, 1922. 
 
t 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE SECOND ALL-RUSSIAN LOCAL SOBOR 
 
 The second local Sobor of the Russian Orthodox 
 church, which was preceded by such assiduous “purga¬ 
 tion” of the episcopal cathedras and the parochial 
 councils, was finally called, “by the canonically legal 
 ecclesiastical authority,” for February 1, 1923; but 
 then it was again postponed till April 29. This most 
 important church gathering since the adjournment of 
 the first Sobor in 1918 was attended by four hundred 
 and thirty delegates, which was a greater number 
 than the first Sobor mustered; they were distributed, 
 according to group allegiance, as follows: the Living 
 Church had the largest contingent, in fact an absolute 
 majority in the Sobor, by claiming two hundred and 
 fifty delegates; next came the group of Alexander 
 Vvedensky, the Ancient Apostolic Church, with one 
 hundred and ten delegates; then followed the group 
 of Metropolitan Antonin, the Churchly Regeneration, 
 with twenty-five delegates to the Sobor. Thus all in 
 all, the three groups of the reformist movement could 
 muster three hundred and eighty-five delegates out of 
 the total of four hundred and thirty. 1 The remaining 
 forty-five delegates comprised adherents of the patri¬ 
 archal contingent, but their minority action could 
 impede no action which the reformist groups wished 
 to pass. The Eastern patriarchs were also represented. 
 
 1 Izvestiya, No. 117, May 30, 1923. 
 
 232 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 233 
 
 An earlier report regarding the personnel of the Sobor 
 specified that there were ten delegates from the Free 
 Labor Church, 2 but these were denied the right to 
 vote, and attended only as guests. 
 
 A word of explanation is in order regarding the 
 astounding fact that the reformist groups were so 
 securely in power when the second Sobor was con¬ 
 vened. It will be remembered, however, that the 
 “purgations” of the church had now been going on 
 for more than six months, and that would partly 
 account for the really remarkable phenomenon; 
 furthermore, many leaders of the patriarchal party, 
 as that portion which opposed the activity of the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration may be called 
 from now on, insisted that the calling of the Sobor 
 itself was illegal, uncanonical, because the Sobor of 
 1917-18 provided that the next Sobor should be called 
 and presided over by the patriarch, and since that was 
 not the case in this instance, they refused to take part 
 in it, and counseled others to abstain from voting for 
 it. Finally, a very considerable number of the hier¬ 
 archs of the patriarchal party were in prison, or in exile, 
 or had left the country, while the great majority of the 
 rest were disqualified by the conditions governing the 
 eligibility of the candidates. These three were the 
 chief causes accounting for the smallness of the dele¬ 
 gation from the patriarchal party. It would, how¬ 
 ever, appear from an examination of the questionable 
 sent to the delegates chosen to the Sobor that there 
 was no unfairness in the treatment of the delegates, or 
 forcible expulsion of any delegates, no matter what 
 their ecclesiastical or political allegiance was. 
 
 The official instructions of February 1, 1923, issued 
 
 3 Cf. Izvestiya, No. 93, May 5, 1923. 
 
234 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration and pre¬ 
 scribing the rules of order in the selection of candidates 
 for the Sobor, give a fair idea of the mode of procedure 
 adopted for this purpose. In the first place, the instruc¬ 
 tions defined the aim for which the national Sobor 
 was convened as that of “transforming the Russian 
 Orthodox Church into conformity with the new con¬ 
 ditions.’ J All members of the Sobor, whether clergy 
 or laymen, and whether elected or holding a seat by 
 reason of their office, possessed equal rights; the only 
 individuals not eligible for election as delegates were 
 those who during the period in which the reformist 
 movement was in power were sentenced either by the 
 ecclesiastical or the civil courts. Of course, this dis¬ 
 posed of practically all the outstanding personalities 
 of the patriarchal party. But otherwise, all members 
 of the Orthodox church possessed the right of forming 
 groups for the purpose of electing delegates who would 
 represent the particular interests of their groups. In 
 electing delegates, regular (monastic) clergy were 
 counted on an equality with the white, parochial 
 clergy, while monks who did not possess clerical ordina¬ 
 tion were regarded as on an equality with laymen. 
 
 The selection of delegates was made from three dif¬ 
 ferent electorates: the parish, the diocese, the eparchy, 
 and by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration. 
 In the parishes, all members eighteen years of age, 
 including both men and women, possessed the fran¬ 
 chise. Each parish elected as many lay delegates, 
 either men or women, as there were parochial clerics, 
 but in no case less than three. The election was by a 
 mere majority, and the instructions specified that it 
 would take place on March 25. 
 
 The diocesan electoral constituency consisted of all 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 235 
 
 the diocesan clergy and the delegates who had been 
 elected by the parishes, and elected five delegates: three 
 priests and two laymen. The same applied to the 
 eparchial elections, which were constituted from those 
 who had been elected by the lower ecclesiastical bodies, 
 such as diocesan electorates, and other such bodies, and 
 this body elected directly for the Sobor; it sent its 
 bishop and four delegates, consisting of two clerics and 
 two laymen. The latter election was carried on in the 
 presence of a member of the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration, who had the right to protest against 
 the program of any group or against any individual, 
 but the final judgment in the case belonged to the 
 eparchial body. The voting proper was really not for 
 individual candidates, but for party programs; the dele¬ 
 gates then were assigned in proportion to the number 
 of votes cast for each party program. 
 
 In addition to the elective mode of choosing the 
 delegates, the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration 
 possessed the right to seats in the Sobor by virtue of 
 its office, and this provision comprised the entire 
 plenum; the same was true of the Ecclesiastical Admin¬ 
 istrations of Siberia and the Ukraine. The Supreme 
 Administration, moreover, had the privilege of appoint¬ 
 ing twenty-five other members at its discretion, and 
 a substitute for any elected delegate who for any 
 reason found it impossible to attend the Sobor. It also 
 invited the representatives of other Eastern Ortho¬ 
 dox churches, and granted them the right to vote; 
 besides, the central committees of the reformist groups 
 were permitted to hold a place in the Sobor on the 
 same basis. The Russian church outside of Russia was 
 permitted six representatives; non-Orthodox Christian 
 communions, Old Ritualists, and sectarians could also 
 
236 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 be invited to attend, but had no vote. The conformist 
 eparchies had the right to send two representatives 
 from each eparchy. 3 Such, then, were the instruc¬ 
 tions and general regulations for the selection of dele¬ 
 gates for the Sobor; it would seem that the privileges 
 of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration were 
 rather generous than otherwise, for the proportion of 
 delegates holding seats by reason of office or by appoint¬ 
 ment of the Supreme Administration, to the delegates 
 regularly elected, must have been considerable. 
 
 The sessions of this most important ecclesiastical 
 gathering were held in that heart of the reformist move¬ 
 ment, the church of Christ the Savior, in Moscow, and 
 opened on April 29, 1923. On the platform sat the 
 president of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, 
 metropolitan of Moscow, Antonin; next to him were 
 Metropolitan Peter of Siberia and Metropolitan Tik¬ 
 hon of Kiev. The service was begun by a solemn 
 liturgy, followed by prayer, whereupon the Sobor was 
 pronounced officially opened by Metropolitan Antonin, 
 who greeted it with a short address. Following this, an 
 address to the government embodying a profession of 
 loyalty and a whole-hearted acceptance of the decree 
 separating the church from the state was voted. 
 
 The second session, held on May 2, in the former 
 Third Seminary building, was likewise presided over by 
 Metropolitan Antonin, who, however, soon turned it 
 over to Metropolitan Peter. The first action of the 
 Sobor consisted of the election of the presidium, which 
 comprised practically all the leaders of the three 
 reformist groups. Then the presiding metropolitan, 
 now Peter, presented the Sobor with the rules of pro- 
 
 3 The instructions copied from the official archives of the Holy 
 Synod. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 237 
 
 cedure, and after these formalities were disposed of, 
 greetings which were sent by mail or wire were read, 
 and oral greetings brought by representatives of the 
 groups were delivered. Vvedensky, in behalf of the 
 Ancient Apostolic Church, offered a resolution for 
 adoption by the Sobor which was highly complimentary 
 to the government and its head, Lenin. The resolu¬ 
 tion read as follows: 
 
 The second Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church, 
 having begun its labors, expresses its gratitude to the 
 All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the per¬ 
 mission granted to the elected sons of the church to 
 meet in order to deliberate upon the current problems. 
 At the same time with these expressions of gratitude 
 the Sobor presents its respects to the supreme execu¬ 
 tive of the Workers-Peasants’ government and the 
 world-leader, V. I. Lenin. 
 
 The great October Revolution has carried into life 
 the great principles of equality in labor which are 
 found in Christian teaching. All the world over the 
 strong strangle the weak. Only in Soviet Russia war 
 has begun against that social lie. 
 
 The Sobor affirms that every honorable Christian 
 should take his place among these warriors for humani¬ 
 tarian truth, and use all means to realize in life the 
 grand principles of the October Revolution. 
 
 To Vladimir Il’ich (Lenin) the Sobor wishes a speedy 
 recovery, so that he may again become the leader of 
 the warriors for the great social truth. 4 
 
 This resolution was adopted unanimously. One is 
 somewhat curious to know what those forty-five dele¬ 
 gates of the patriarchal party were thinking about 
 
 4 This, as well as all following quotations relative to the Sobor, are 
 taken from the official Acts of the Second All-Russian Local Sobor 
 of the Orthodox Church, published May 2, 1923. 
 
238 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 when they voted for this resolution. Or might 
 it be suggested that perhaps the official minutes 
 recording the unanimous vote might be called in 
 question? 
 
 Among other greetings, it is of interest to note that 
 one came from the American Methodist Episcopal 
 Church, North, which body was represented by its 
 Parisian bishop, Dr. Edgar Blake, and the editor of 
 Zion's Herald , Dr. L. 0. Hartman. Dr. Blake pointed 
 out in his speech that to his mind the reformist move¬ 
 ment attested the birth of a new life in the church 
 of Russia. Russia was the first to make it its task 
 to serve the downtrodden classes. The role of the 
 church in this great service may be significant, and 
 the church “should go hand in hand with those who 
 protect the interests of the downtrodden masses.” 6 
 Bishop Blake was chosen by the Sobor an honorary 
 member of that body. It may be remarked here, 
 although it is out of its chronological place, that he 
 and Dr. Hartman were so deeply impressed with the 
 needs of the Russian church, especially in the matter 
 of educating its future ministry, that together they 
 underwrote the educational program of the church for 
 fifty thousand dollars, to be raised in America during 
 the next three years. This fund was to enable the 
 church to open a theological academy in Moscow for 
 the training of priests, for it was estimated that 
 three thousand five hundred priests were needed annu¬ 
 ally to fill up the vacancies. As no such school had 
 existed hitherto (since the October Revolution in 
 1917), this was to be the beginning of a renewed 
 educational program in the Russian church. In order 
 
 6 Acts, p. 4. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 239 
 
 to defend himself against his many critics, Bishop 
 Blake explicitly stated that “none of our denomina¬ 
 tional Boards are involved. Not even the Methodist 
 Church is responsible for this gift. Only Dr. Hart¬ 
 man and myself, who made the pledge, and Bishop 
 Nuelson, who approved it, are responsible for it. The 
 obligation and the burden are ours alone, and having 
 gone forward, we shall not turn back.” 6 
 
 The most dramatic as well as important of the ses¬ 
 sions of the Sobor was held on May 3, when the case 
 of Patriarch Tikhon came up for action. The official 
 Acts give a long series of “theses” which presumably 
 were the points in the speeches reviewing the activity 
 of the patriarch and presenting the arguments for his 
 deposition. One cannot but wish that the secretary had 
 rather given us the actual proceedings, to enable us to 
 form a clear idea of the progress of the important 
 session step by step. Such a description of the trial 
 does not appear in the minutes. In fact, there really 
 was no trial in the proper sense of that word. In the 
 first place, Patriarch Tikhon was not present, for he 
 was at the time still in prison; he was not even repre¬ 
 sented by counsel, and doubtless, had he been cited 
 before the tribunal of the Sobor, he would have refused 
 to appear. Such trials have usually been regarded as 
 uncanonical by the church, and there is not the slight¬ 
 est occasion for surprise when we find that to have been 
 exactly the attitude of a considerable numerical 
 majority of the church after the patriarch’s release 
 from prison. 
 
 The official minutes, then, after stating the “theses” 
 against Tikhon, go on to inform us that the hierarchical 
 
 0 The Christian Work, Aug. 4, 1923. 
 
240 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 council at the Sobor passed the following resolution 
 regarding the patriarch: 
 
 After adjudicating the activity of Patriarch Tikhon, 
 the episcopal council came to the unanimous decision 
 that Patriarch Tikhon is subject, before the conscience 
 of the believers, to the heaviest penalty: to the punish¬ 
 ment of deprivation of his clerical orders and of his 
 patriarchal office, because he has directed all his powers 
 of moral and ecclesiastical authority toward the over¬ 
 throwing of the existing civil and social order of our 
 life, and thus brought into jeopardy the very existence 
 of the church. 7 
 
 This resolution was signed by four metropolitans, 
 Antonin, Nicholas of Kharkov, Peter of Siberia, and 
 Tikhon of Kiev; twenty-six archbishops, and twenty- 
 four bishops—fifty-four hierarchs altogether. But 
 since the official report itself lists sixty-six bishops 
 (leaving out Archbishop Alexander Vvedensky, who 
 was elevated to the episcopacy a day later), it is evi¬ 
 dent that twelve bishops must have refused to sign 
 the decision; but this is not definitely specified. 
 
 Thereupon, after an impassioned speech delivered 
 by Vvedensky, which according to one report lasted 
 two and one-half hours, the presiding metropolitan 
 offered the following resolution: 
 
 Having heard the report of Archpriest A. Vvedensky, 
 the All-Russian Local Sobor of the Orthodox Church 
 witnesses before the church and before all mankind that 
 at present the world has become divided into two 
 classes: capitalists-exploiters, and the proletariat, by 
 whose toil and blood the capitalistic world builds its 
 prosperity. No one in the world but the Soviet govern¬ 
 ment of Russia has undertaken a struggle against this 
 
 7 Acte, p. 6. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 241 
 
 social evil. Christians cannot remain indifferent 
 spectators of that struggle. The Sobor declares 
 capitalism to be a mortal sin, and the fight against it to 
 be sacred for Christians. The Sobor sees in the Soviet 
 government the world leader toward fraternity, 
 equality, and international peace. The Sobor 
 denounces the international and domestic counter¬ 
 revolution, and condemns it with all its religious and 
 moral authority. 
 
 The Sobor calls upon every honest Christian citizen 
 of Russia to go forth to battle, in united front, under 
 the guidance of the Soviet government, against the 
 world-evil of social wrong. 
 
 The Holy Sobor of 1923 of the Orthodox Church, 
 having deliberated on the condition of the church dur¬ 
 ing the time of the revolution, has resolved: 
 
 1. Beginning with the summer of 1917, responsible 
 leaders of the church assumed a definitely counter- 
 revolutionary point of view. The church must reestab¬ 
 lish the unity of the tsarist Russia—such was the slogan 
 which the church chose to follow (having been so 
 closely bound with tsarism prior to the revolution). 
 The Sobor of 1917, composed largely of representa¬ 
 tives of the reactionary clergy as well as of the high 
 nobility, property owners, and members of reaction¬ 
 ary political parties, became at the very outset a 
 definitely political counter-revolutionary gathering 
 which merely covered all these actions with the name 
 of Christ the Savior. The Sobor fought against the 
 revolution. It did not recognize even the Provisional 
 Government, and after October this struggle assumed 
 perfectly incredible proportions. 
 
 After the meeting of the Sobor, Patriarch Tikhon 
 continued this counter-revolutionary activity. He 
 became the leader and standard-bearer of all opponents 
 of the Soviet government. He drove the church into 
 the counter-revolutionary struggle. 
 
242 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The Holy Sobor of 1923 of the Orthodox Church 
 condemns the counter-revolutionary struggle and its 
 methods, which are the methods of man-hatred. 
 Especially does the Sobor of 1923 deplore the anathe¬ 
 matization of the Soviet government and of all who 
 recognize it. The Sobor declares this anathematiza¬ 
 tion TO HAVE NO FORCE. 
 
 2. The Sobor of 1923 condemns all those who have 
 followed this path and persuaded others to follow 
 them. And this applies, first of all, to the responsible 
 leader of our church life, Patriarch Tikhon. Whereas 
 Patriarch Tikhon served the counter-revolution 
 instead of sincerely serving Christ, and, since he is the 
 person who was supposed to direct properly all ecclesi¬ 
 astical life, but as on the contrary he led astray the 
 broad masses of the church, the Sobor regards Tikhon 
 as an apostate from the original commands of Christ 
 and a traitor to the church. On the basis of the canons 
 of the church, it hereby declares him to be 
 
 DEPRIVED OF HIS CLERICAL ORDERS AND MONKHOOD, 
 AND RELEGATED TO HIS ORIGINAL LAY CONDITION. 
 
 Hereafter Patriarch Tikhon is layman Basil 
 Belavin. 
 
 3. The representatives of the reformist church 
 movement have severed all connection with the 
 counter-revolution, and have thereby earned for them¬ 
 selves the disapprobation of all reactionary church¬ 
 men. The Holy Sobor of 1923 declares that all such 
 interdictory measures have no force whatever. On the 
 contrary, the Sobor approves the courage of these men 
 and their devotion to the church, which they have 
 rescued from the hands of the counter-revolution and 
 are restoring to Christ the Savior. 
 
 4. The Holy Sobor urges all churchmen to abandon 
 all attempts to use the church for temporal political 
 schemes, for the church belongs to God and must 
 serve Him only. There must be no place in the church 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 243 
 
 for counter-revolution. The Soviet government is not 
 a persecutor of the church. In accordance with the 
 constitution of the Soviet government, all citizens are 
 granted genuine religious freedom of conscience. The 
 decree regarding the separation of the church from 
 the state guarantees such freedom. The freedom of 
 religious equally with anti-religious propaganda 
 affords the believers an opportunity to defend by argu¬ 
 ment the merits of their purely religious convictions. 
 Hence churchmen must not see in the Soviet authority 
 the antichrist; on the contrary, the Sobor calls atten¬ 
 tion to the fact that the Soviet authority is the only 
 one throughout the world which will realize, by gov¬ 
 ernmental methods, the ideals of the Kingdom of God. 
 Therefore every faithful churchman must not only be 
 an honorable citizen, but also fight with all his might, 
 together with the Soviet authority, for the realization 
 of the Kingdom of God upon earth. 
 
 5. Condemning the former patriarch Tikhon as a 1 
 leader of counter-revolution and not of the church, the 
 Sobor holds that the very restoration of the patri¬ 
 archate was a definitely political counter-revolutionary 
 act. The ancient church knew no patriarch and was 
 governed conciliarly; hence the Holy Sobor hereby 
 abolishes the restored patriarchate: hereafter the 
 church shall be governed by the Sobor. 
 
 6. Condemning counter-revolution within the 
 church, punishing its leaders, abolishing the institu¬ 
 tion of the patriarchate itself, and recognizing the 
 existing governmental authority, the Sobor creates 
 normal conditions of peaceful progress of ecclesiastical 
 life. Henceforth all church life should be based upon 
 two principles: (1) with respect to God, upon a 
 genuine devotion of church people to the original com¬ 
 mands of Christ the Savior; (2) with respect to the 
 government, upon the principle of separation of the 
 church from the state. 
 
244 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Building upon these foundations, the church will 
 become what it ought to be: a loving, laboring com¬ 
 pany of those who believe in God, his Christ, and 
 his truth. 8 
 
 This was a decision of tremendous, far-reaching 
 importance, and its consequences were disastrous: it 
 meant an irrevocable split within the church. Were 
 there protests against these extreme charges of 
 “apostate” and “traitor” applied to the patriarch? 
 Was it pointed out that the fact the patriarch was being 
 sentenced in his absence, and without the possibility 
 of defending himself, was a serious, possibly invalidat¬ 
 ing, circumstance which told heavily against the action 
 of the Sobor? How did the members of the patriarchal 
 party vote? How was the vote carried, anyway? All 
 these are questions to which the official Acts of the 
 Sobor supply no answer. Incredible though it may 
 seem, there is no record in the Acts whether or not the 
 resolution deposing Tikhon and abolishing the patri¬ 
 archate was carried. Presumably it must have been, 
 because the group which was committed to such an 
 action since August of the preceding year—the Living 
 Church —had an absolute majority on its side. Yet, 
 it would have been of importance to know how the 
 rest voted. No matter what we say regarding Secre¬ 
 tary Novikov’s qualities as an ecclesiastical politician, 
 as a historian, he fails woefully: to record immediately 
 after the resolution above given nothing beyond the 
 laconic, “the session was closed at five o’clock in the 
 evening with the chanting of prayer,” is nothing less 
 than failing of one’s duty as a secretary. Yet that is 
 all the information the published official Acts yield. 
 
 The same evening, another measure, no less revolu- 
 
 8 Acts, pp. 6-8. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 245 
 
 tionary for the church of Russia, was adopted; this 
 was a measure regarding the eligibility of the white 
 priesthood for the episcopal order. After a period of 
 discussion of the subject (during which the only per¬ 
 son who opposed the measure, Bishop Leonty of Vol- 
 hynia, was deprived of the right to speak “because he 
 had not held to his subject”), the measure was finally 
 voted upon in the same order as the previous one, the 
 episcopal council first expressing its judgment upon the 
 matter, after which it was submitted to the entire 
 Sobor for decision. It was quite obvious from the dis¬ 
 cussions as well as from the decisions themselves that 
 the measure was not dictated by mere theoretical 
 desire “to restore the early practice,” but that its 
 mainspring was to be found in the urgent need of the 
 reformist groups to have a like-minded episcopate, a 
 need which the monastic candidates, as a rule, failed 
 to meet. It was, therefore, the practical necessity of 
 having an episcopate which would share the reformist 
 ideals, and thus put them into practical operation in the 
 conduct of church affairs (control of which, of course, 
 was largely in the hands of the hierarchy), that obliged 
 the Sobor to adopt this measure, which in itself could 
 be foreseen as likely to cause a great deal of trouble 
 in the future. The episcopal decision read as follows: 
 
 The practice of the Russian church hitherto followed 
 the rule of having an unmarried, and specifically a 
 monastic, episcopacy. During the present revolu¬ 
 tionary times a married episcopacy was admitted. The 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration approved of 
 married bishops in Voronezh, and the Episcopal 
 Advisory Council of the Sobor, in its session of May 1, 
 1923, admitted into canonical fellowship the married 
 episcopate of Siberia. At present, under the urgent 
 
246 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 demands of life, the Episcopal Advisory Council of 
 the Sobor rules: not to regard the married state as a 
 bar to the episcopal office, and beginning with May 3, 
 1923, to admit to it the single, unmarried, as well as 
 the married candidates. 
 
 The resolution adopted by the Sobor was supported 
 by more specious references to the canonicity of the 
 action, and exhibited the legal basis upon which it 
 rested: 
 
 « 
 
 Following the plain and immutable witness of the 
 Holy Writ (I Timothy iii. 2-4; Titus i. 6-9,) which is 
 the fundamental source of the Christian faith and piety, 
 and in pursuance of the findings of the most ancient 
 memorials of Christian literature, the canons of the 
 holy Apostles (rules 5, 40, 51) and the decisions of 
 the ecumenical and local Sobor (First Ecumenical 
 Council, 17: Carthaginian Council, 4, rules 3, 25, 71; 
 Fourth Ecumenical Council, rule 4); also taking into 
 consideration the practice of the Eastern churches and 
 the Greek church, in which as late as the twelfth 
 century, the married episcopacy was of common occur¬ 
 rence, and finally, taking heed of the contemporary 
 situation in the Russian church, which the monastic 
 episcopate, with a few exceptions, showed itself 
 unsuited to cope with, the Second All-Russian Local 
 Sobor deems it absolutely necessary to admit to the 
 episcopal office the white, married clergy equally with 
 unmarried persons. 0 
 
 The concomitant project of permitting the clergy to 
 marry a second time, which the August conference of 
 the Living Church had inserted into its platform, was 
 acted upon the next day, when it was voted to permit 
 a second marriage to priests, but not to bishops; 
 
 * Acts, p. 8. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 247 
 
 furthermore, to permit priests to marry widows and 
 divorcees; and finally, to reinstate into priesthood 
 such as were unfrocked on account of having con¬ 
 tracted a second marriage. In addition, the Sobor 
 adopted other resolutions of greater or less revolution¬ 
 ary nature and interest, such as the one regarding the 
 relics of the saints, which the government had found, 
 upon official investigation, to have been grossly falsi¬ 
 fied in many cases and with which astounding frauds 
 were being perpetrated. All such falsifications were 
 severely condemned by the Sobor, which likewise issued 
 instructions as to the method of procedure regarding 
 the matter in the future. The enmity toward the 
 monasteries and monkhood in general, which was the 
 chief characteristic of the Living Church group, was 
 very much in evidence when that subject came to be 
 discussed by the Sobor. The legislation finally passed 
 by that body regarding the monastic establishments 
 was correspondingly harsh; it was passed by a majority 
 vote that monasteries should be closed as having aban¬ 
 doned the pure monastic ideal; but their place should 
 be taken by communistic brotherhoods who would 
 work for the uplift of the people. Funrthermore, in 
 accordance with the motion of Metropolitan Antonin, 
 the Sobor unanimously adopted the Gregorian calendar 
 and ruled to put it into execution on June 12, 1923. 
 It will be remembered that the old Russian calendar 
 was thirteen days behind the one in use in the Western 
 countries, and this caused a great deal of inconvenience. 
 This reform was inaugurated simultaneously with the 
 same measure having been adopted by other Eastern 
 Orthodox churches: the Sobor of Athos had adopted 
 it on March 1, 1923, and the patriarch of Constanti¬ 
 nople and his Synod had confirmed it on June 15. By 
 
248 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 another radical measure, urged by Vvedensky and 
 Krasnitsky, and adopted by the Sobor, it was ruled that 
 on account of the known counter-revolutionary activ¬ 
 ity of the Russian priesthood and hierarchs outside 
 of Russia, all these members of the Russian clergy were 
 cut off from the church. The members of the Kar- 
 lovtsi Sobor of 1921 wer© explicitly named in this 
 resolution. 
 
 In the last session of the Sobor, the presidium of 
 the Sobor, in recognition of his great services in behalf 
 of the reformist movement, voted to confer upon Arch¬ 
 priest V. D. Krasnitsky, the head of the Living Church 
 group, the great honor of the archbishopric of Petro- 
 grad, but for reasons which were not even hinted at in 
 the official Acts, that leader energetically refused the 
 tempting offer. Thereupon the Sobor at least conferred 
 upon him the rank of a protopresbyter, which he 
 accepted. The other dominant figure of the reformist 
 movement, Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky, had been 
 elevated, some days before, to the dignity of Metro¬ 
 politan Krutitsky, which post represents the vicariate 
 of Moscow. 
 
 The plenum of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Adminis¬ 
 tration was likewise organized with the legalizing 
 approval of the Sobor, and comprised eighteen 
 members, of which ten were chosen from the Living 
 Church group, with Krasnitsky as their leader; six 
 from the Ancient Apostolic Church, with Vvedensky 
 as their head, and two from the Churchly Regenera¬ 
 tion, the smallest of the groups, of which Metropolitan 
 Antonin, the president of the plenum, retained his 
 leadership. This proportion of representation on the 
 plenum was determined by the relative size of the 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 249 
 
 groups, and is therefore a good index to the member¬ 
 ship of the reformist parties. 
 
 The Second Sobor of the Russian Orthodox Church 
 closed its sessions on May 9 with solemn services held 
 in the church of Christ the Savior, having accom¬ 
 plished everything that the August conference of the 
 Living Church had planned for it. There was no deny¬ 
 ing the fact that the work accomplished was of a revo¬ 
 lutionary character; the dubious canonicity of some of 
 the most outstanding acts of this Sobor, especially the 
 harsh and unjustifiably ruthless condemnation of 
 Tikhon, was sure to be attacked, as the immediate 
 future was to manifest only too amply. On the other 
 hand, it could not be denied that the profuse and 
 ardent professions of loyalty to the government, and 
 the determined and loud condemnation of the former 
 “counter-revolutionary activity” of the church, could 
 not fail to restore in a measure normal relations 
 between the government and the church, which must 
 be appraised as a great gain. The many really good 
 reforms fathered by these groups, considering them 
 apart from the unwise methods of execution, would 
 have been greatly beneficial to the church had they 
 been adopted with the consent of the entire church, 
 instead of being forced by a minority upon an unwilling 
 majority. 
 
 But alas, for the plans of mice and men! The 
 utterly unexpected had happened! When everybody 
 expected that Patriarch Tikhon, who had now been 
 imprisoned for about a year, would be brought to 
 trial, the outcome of which could hardly be in question; 
 when the action of the Sobor in deposing him and 
 abolishing the patriarchate rested upon the assumption 
 
250 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 that Tikhon needed no longer to be reckoned with; 
 when, in short, Tikhon was looked upon as being as 
 good as dead, the most unexpected thing happened. In 
 the first place, the trial which had been in preparation 
 for a year, and which was announced in the papers as 
 haying been set for a certain date for which even 
 admission tickets had been distributed, was then 
 almost at the last moment called off. The reason for 
 this which appeared an inexplicable enigma was not 
 divulged till later, when the papers brought the 
 astounding news that the day before the trial Patriarch 
 Tikhon appealed to the Supreme Court with the fol¬ 
 lowing declaration, which has since received the name 
 of Tikhon’s “Confession”: 
 
 Appealing with the present declaration to the 
 Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federation of 
 Socialistic Republics, I regard it as my duty, dictated 
 by my pastoral conscience, to declare the following: 
 
 Having been nurtured in a monarchist society, and 
 until my arrest having been under the influence of 
 anti-Soviet individuals, I was filled with hos¬ 
 tility against the Soviet authorities, and at times my 
 hostility passed from passivity to active measures, 
 as in the instance of the proclamation on the occasion 
 of the Brest-Litovsky peace in 1918, the anathematiz¬ 
 ing of the authorities in that same year, and finally, 
 the appeal against the decree regarding the removal of 
 church treasures in 1922. All my anti-Soviet acts, 
 with the exception of a few inexactitudes, were stated 
 in the act of accusation drawn up by the Supreme 
 Court. Acknowledging the correctness of the accusa¬ 
 tions of the Supreme Court and its sentence as con¬ 
 forming to the clauses of the criminal code, I repent 
 of all my actions directed against the government and 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 251 
 
 petition the Supreme Court to change its sentence and 
 to set me free. 
 
 I declare hereby to the Soviet authorities that 
 henceforth I am no more an enemy to the Soviet gov¬ 
 ernment, and that I have completely and resolutely 
 severed all connections with the foreign and domestic 
 monarchists and the counter-revolutionary activity of 
 the White Guards. 10 
 
 The publication of this startling declaration, as well 
 as the release of the patriarch from prison consequent 
 upon it, caused, as may well be imagined, an immense 
 amount of stir and diverse comment. The patriarchal 
 party was grievously shocked with the patriarch’s 
 declaration, so frankly conceding his share in the anti- 
 governmental activity; adherents of the reformist 
 group were equally perturbed over the possibilities of 
 complications which the release of the patriarch 
 implied. On the part of the former, various attempts 
 were made to explain the patriarch’s “confession” as 
 a forgery, or at least as a composition which he was 
 constrained by threats or blandishments to write, or 
 that it was written for him, and he, an old man weak¬ 
 ened in health by the rigors of his imprisonment, was 
 inveigled to sign it. But all such hypotheses broke 
 down before the simple, unequivocal acknowledgment 
 of it by the patriarch himself, made several times 
 subsequently. Dr. Julius F. Hecker of Moscow, who 
 had been appointed by the Sobor of 1923 secretary 
 of the educational committee, told the writer person¬ 
 ally that he and Bishop Nuelson of the American 
 M. E. Church, North, visited the patriarch some time 
 after his release and questioned him concerning the 
 
 10 Izvestiya, No. 141, June 27, 1923. 
 
252 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 rumored unauthenticity of his “Confession.” Patriarch 
 Tikhon replied to them in clear, unambiguous language 
 that the document was written by himself, and that 
 he was neither forced to write it nor threatened; it 
 was suggested to him by the authorities that he might 
 gain his freedom if he should make some such con¬ 
 fession, and he freely complied with that suggestion. 
 Dr. Hecker’s own theory was that the evidence against 
 Tikhon was so complete and overwhelming that he 
 knew he could not escape condemnation, and hence 
 availed himself of the offer of the government. 
 
 But what could be the reason actuating the govern¬ 
 ment to release the patriarch? What did the govern¬ 
 ment gain? Although never officially stated, the 
 motives need not be regarded as mysterious or unfath¬ 
 omable. On the contrary, it is fairly easy to recon¬ 
 struct them with a certain degree of confidence. In 
 the first place, the confession of Patriarch Tikhon, in 
 which he voluntarily acknowledged his former counter¬ 
 revolutionary activity, and sued for mercy, on the 
 basis of his promise to cease his self-confessed hostile 
 activity, was far more valuable for the purposes of the 
 government than a theoretical satisfaction of justice 
 by infliction of the death penalty upon him, even 
 though the government possessed no matter how much 
 of conclusive evidence of the patriarch’s guilt. Sec¬ 
 ondly, the infliction of the death penalty upon the 
 patriarch would have stirred up the outside world to a 
 still more violent prejudice against Russia, as the trial 
 and execution of the Roman Catholic Budkevich had 
 done. The outside pressure, especially such as was 
 exerted by the archbishop of Canterbury through the 
 English government, must have had some weight with 
 the Russian authorities also. Finally, as there was 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sob or 
 
 nothing for the government to gain from the death 
 of Tikhon, they were astute enough to perceive that 
 there were considerable chances of gain in releasing 
 him. A cartoon which appeared about that time in 
 the Workman's Moscow 11 may be presumed to inter¬ 
 pret correctly the expectations which the authorities 
 cherished: the patriarch is there seen in a violent hand- 
 to-hand struggle with another priest (presumably 
 Krasnitsky, or Antonin), while a grinning workman 
 stands by, his hands in his pockets. The cartoon bears 
 the title: “When two are engaged in a scuffle, the 
 hands of the third are free.” The Soviet govern¬ 
 ment, always unfriendly to the church, may be pre¬ 
 sumed to have foreseen the latent possibilities of con¬ 
 flict which was certain to break out upon the patriarch’s 
 release, and there is little reason to suppose that it 
 would have been unwilling to avoid it. Thus the 
 government was certain to gain more than it lost by 
 the release of the patriarch. 
 
 Tikhon, of course, ascribed his release to a different, 
 though utterly improbable and even palpably self- 
 contradictory reason. In an interview with a repre¬ 
 sentative of The Manchester Guardian, the patriarch 
 was reported to have made the following comment: 
 
 I have never sought to overthrow the government. 
 In 1918, I stood openly against some of its decrees. I 
 am not a counter-revolutionary, in spite of the fact 
 that some of my appeals had an anti-Soviet character. 
 The power of the Soviet government has greatly 
 increased in Russia; and it has undergone various 
 developments. We, the members of the old clergy, 
 are not now struggling against the Soviets, but against 
 the Livina Church. 
 
 11 July 15 4 1923. 
 
254 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 What were the causes of your liberation and the 
 change in the attitude of the Soviet government 
 toward you? 
 
 I am persuaded that, having studied my case, the 
 government became convinced that I was no counter¬ 
 revolutionary. It was suggested that I should make 
 a public declaration of the fact, and I wrote a letter 
 to say so. 
 
 Unfortunately, this theory of the patriarch con¬ 
 flicts with his own admissions in the “Confession.” 
 The first part of the interview, where Tikhon claims 
 to be no counter-revolutionary, may be understood in 
 the sense that at the time he was speaking he no 
 longer was one; but the latter part where he suggests 
 that the authorities became convinced of his non¬ 
 counter-revolutionary course flatly contradicts such 
 phrases as: “I was filled with hostility against 
 the Soviet authorities”; “Acknowledging the correct¬ 
 ness of the accusations of the Supreme Court ... I 
 repent of all my actions directed against the govern¬ 
 ment,” etc. If the latter were not true, why did he 
 freely make those declarations at the time of his 
 release? 
 
 His acknowledgment cost the patriarch the loss of the 
 extreme monarchical faction, mostly outside of Russia, 
 which wished to use the church for its political restora- 
 tionist ends. This emigre clergy had caused him an 
 immense amount of mischievous harm, in discrediting 
 him and the church in the eyes of the government by 
 their unwise pronouncements and propaganda, espe¬ 
 cially those associated with the Karlovtsi Sobor. Within 
 Russia, the church, as far as the bulk of the people and 
 the clergy were concerned, rallied round him loyally 
 and with enthusiasm. 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 255 
 
 Almost as soon as he regained liberty, Patriarch 
 Tikhon set about his conflict with the usurping 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, which had been 
 set up the previous year. Taking up his residence 
 again in the Donskoy Monastery, he issued, on July 
 15, 1923, a public proclamation wherein he stigmatized 
 the entire work of the leaders of the Living Church and 
 the other factions as a barefaced usurpation and fraud. 
 This curious document is so valuable as giving 
 Tikhon’s version of the events since his imprisonment, 
 that in accordance with the original design of the book 
 it is deemed best to incorporate it in its entirety: 
 
 -f 
 
 By the Lord’s mercy, we, humble Tikhon, patriarch 
 of Moscow and of all Russia, to the most holy episco¬ 
 pate, priests, and honored monks, and to all faithful 
 children of the Russian Orthodox Church: God’s peace 
 and blessing. 
 
 More than a year ago, in consequence of circum¬ 
 stances well known to all, we had been set aside from 
 our pastoral ministry, and have since not been able to 
 stand personally at the helm of the administration to 
 guard the age-hallowed traditions of the church. 
 
 Therefore, as soon as circumstances demanded it, we, 
 strictly conforming to the regulations of the Sobor 
 which instituted the rules of patriarchal administration 
 of the Russian church, and in compliance with the 
 resolution of the Holy Synod associated with us, passed 
 on November 7, 1920, considered it advantageous 
 to transfer the fullness of spiritual power, during the 
 time of our retirement from office, to a substitute 
 appointed by ourselves, the metropolitan of Yaroslavl, 
 Agathangel. He was to convoke a second local Sobor 
 of the Russian church for the purpose of ordering the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration and other needs 
 of the church. We had been informed that the civil 
 
256 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 authorities were not opposed to it, and Metropolitan 
 Agathangel accepted the task we had charged him with. 
 But for reasons over which he had no control, he could 
 not enter upon the fulfillment of his obligations. 
 Ambitious and self-willed individuals made use of it, 
 and not “entering by the door, but climbing up another 
 way” (John x. 1), they usurped the supreme authority 
 over the Russian Orthodox Church, which did not 
 belong to them. 
 
 On May 18 of the previous year, during our impris¬ 
 onment in the Troitskoe podvor’e, the priests Vveden¬ 
 sky, Belkov, and Kalinovsky (who but a short time 
 before had renounced the holy orders) visited us, and 
 under the pretext of caring for the welfare of the 
 church, presented us with a written statement, wherein 
 they complained that in consequence of the existing 
 circumstances, church business remained unattended 
 to. They begged us to entrust our chancery to them in 
 order that they might properly classify the correspond¬ 
 ence received. Considering it a useful measure, we 
 yielded to their solicitation and inscribed their petition 
 with the following resolution: 
 
 “The undersigned persons (i.e. the priests who had 
 signed the petition) are ordered to take over and 
 transmit to the most holy Agathangel, upon his arrival 
 in Moscow, all the Synodical business, with the assist¬ 
 ance of secretary Numerov.” On the strength of this 
 resolution they were ordered merely to take over the 
 business and to transmit it to Metropolitan Agathangel 
 as soon as he should arrive in Moscow. We gave them 
 no instructions as to how to deal with the entrusted 
 affairs in case Metropolitan Agathangel should not 
 come to Moscow at all, as we could not at that time 
 foresee that eventuality; moreover, there could be no 
 approval in the resolution of their replacing, in such 
 eventuality, the metropolitan and of placing them¬ 
 selves at the head of the ecclesiastical administration, 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 257 
 
 because the fullness of power inherent in the episcopal 
 office cannot be transferred to priests. Nevertheless, 
 they pronounced our resolution an act transmitting to 
 them the church government, and, having come to an 
 agreement with Bishops Antonin and Leonid, organized 
 themselves into the so-called Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration. In order to justify their self-willed 
 behavior, they repeatedly insisted, both in print and at 
 public meetings, that they had entered upon the 
 administration of the church by an agreement with the 
 patriarch ( Pravda, May 21, 1922), and that they were 
 members of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration 
 “in conformity with the resolution of the holy patriarch 
 Tikhon” (Vvedensky: Revolution and the Church, p. 
 28), and that they “have received from the hands of 
 the patriarch himself the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration” (The Living Church, 4-5, p. 9). At 
 the meeting held on June 12, 1922, in response to the 
 motion of one of the priests to abstain from any new 
 church reforms without the patriarch's approval, the 
 chairman of the meeting, Bishop Antonin, declared: 
 “As Patriarch Tikhon has transmitted his authority to 
 the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration, without 
 reservations, we have no need to run after him to 
 receive from him what he no longer possesses” 
 ( Izvestiya, April 16, 1922; No. 132). 
 
 Today we solemnly and within the hearing of all 
 testify from the sacred cathedra that all these positive 
 statements as to an agreement with us, and as to the 
 transmission of the rights and obligations of the patri¬ 
 arch of the Russian church to the Supreme Ecclesias¬ 
 tical Administration formed by Bishops Antonin and 
 Leonid, and Priests Vvedensky, Krasnitsky, Kalinov¬ 
 sky, and Belkov, are nothing else but lies and fraud, 
 and that the above-named persons have usurped the 
 ecclesiastical government by seizure and arbitrarily, 
 without any legal authorization established by the 
 
258 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 rules of our church. Upon all such persons the holy 
 church pronounces a severe judgment. According to 
 article 16 of the Council of Antioch, a bishop who 
 digresses from the lawful order, and arbitrarily invades 
 another bishop’s diocese, even though requested by all 
 the people to do so, is degraded from his sacerdotal rank 
 for the sin of infringing the church laws. 
 
 Those persons who have organized the self-styled 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration in Moscow, and 
 are on that account guilty in the eyes of the church, 
 have further aggravated their position by ordaining 
 bishops to the unlawfully usurped dioceses, and have 
 incurred thereby censure according to the 35th rule of 
 the holy Apostles, which threatens to deprive any per¬ 
 son of the holy orders who ordained, or was himself 
 ordained, in a diocese other than his own. And 
 how have they used the unlawfully usurped ecclesi¬ 
 astical authority? They have used it not for the build¬ 
 ing up of the church, but in sowing seeds of a destruc¬ 
 tive schism: in depriving orthodox bishops of their 
 sees for having remained faithful to their duty and for 
 refusing to submit to them; in persecuting the reverend 
 priests, who in accordance with the canons of the 
 church have not submitted themselves to them; they 
 have founded everywhere the so-called “Living 
 Church,” which despises the authority of the Ecumeni¬ 
 cal church and strives to impair the necessary church 
 discipline, in order to secure victory to its own party 
 and to carry out by force its objectives without heeding 
 the voice of the Sobor, representing all the believers. 
 By all these actions they have separated themselves 
 from the body of the Ecumenical church and deprived 
 themselves of God’s favor, which resides only in the 
 church of Christ. Consequently, all arrangements 
 made during our absence by those ruling the church, 
 since they had neither legal right nor canonical author¬ 
 ity, are non-valid and void, and all actions and sacra- 
 
The Second All-Russian Local Sobor 259 
 
 merits performed by bishops and clergymen who have 
 forsaken the church are devoid of God’s grace and 
 power; the faithful taking part in such prayers and 
 sacraments shall receive no sanctification thereby, and 
 are subject to condemnation for participating in their 
 sin. 
 
 Our heart has suffered acutely when the sad news 
 about the church disorders which have arisen after our 
 retirement has reached us, as we have heard of the 
 violence exercised by the unauthorized, self-imposed 
 church government; of the rise of party strife; of the 
 spirit of animosity and division reigning where the 
 spirit of love and brotherly unity should have ruled. 
 But as long as we had not regained our liberty, we 
 could do nothing to assist in pacifying the church and 
 allaying the ruinous strife save to pray in the secrecy 
 of our cell. Now since we have been released from 
 prison and have become fully acquainted with the state 
 of church affairs, we again assume the primate’s 
 authority which we had temporarily transferred to our 
 substitute, Metropolitan Agathangel, who, however, 
 for reasons over which he had no control, had not been 
 able to exercise it. Resuming the exercise of our pas¬ 
 toral duties, we fervently pray the Master of the 
 church, our Lord Jesus Christ, to grant us strength and 
 wisdom to govern His church and to instill into it the 
 spirit of peace, love, and concord. At the same time 
 we call upon all bishops, priests, and faithful sons of 
 the church, who remained true to their duty, and have 
 bravely defended the divinely ordained order of the 
 life of the church, begging them to help us in the task 
 of pacifying the church by their advice, their labors, 
 and especially their prayers to the Creator of all and 
 Sustainer, God. We beseech those that, consciously or 
 unconsciously, knowingly or ignorantly, have been 
 seduced by the wiles of the present age, and having 
 acknowledged the unlawful authority, have fallen away 
 from the unity of the church and the grace of God, to 
 
260 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 confess their sin, to cleanse themselves by repentance, 
 and to return to the saving bosom of the One Uni¬ 
 versal church. 
 
 May God’s blessing and the prayers of His holy 
 mother, the Virgin Mary, and of our fathers, Peter, 
 Alexis, Jonah, Philip, Hermogen, the primates of Mos¬ 
 cow and miracle-workers, and all the saints of the Rus¬ 
 sian land who for ages have been pleasing to God, be 
 with you. Amen. 
 
 Humble Tikhon, 
 
 Patriarch of Moscow and of All Russia. 
 
 Moscow, Donskoy Monastery, 
 
 July 15, 1923. 12 
 
 12 Reprinted in the American Orthodox Messenger, No. 13, July 
 30, 1923. (In Russian.) 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF 
 
 The schism within the Russian church was now an 
 accomplished fact. That which LVov had contemptu¬ 
 ously rejected as an improbability had become a fact. 
 There were two well-defined, mutually hostile camps, 
 each striving for supremacy, each hurling excommuni¬ 
 cations against the other, each secure in the sense of 
 the righteousness of its own cause. Masses of church 
 people, with the majority of the clergy, rallied round 
 the patriarch almost as soon as he was liberated, and 
 were ready once more to follow his bidding. This sur¬ 
 prising turn of events, occasioned largely by a feeling 
 of sympathy for the suffering of the patriarch, who 
 came to be looked upon as a martyr for the cause of 
 the church, confronted the reformist leaders with a 
 problem of the utmost gravity. Reliable witnesses 
 report that their churches soon became deserted, and 
 that the common masses flocked into the churches 
 which hoisted the patriarchal flag. The Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration retained the outward 
 trappings of power, and continued to assert, now a bit 
 too strenuously—as is usually the case with a man con¬ 
 scious of a flaw in his claim—that it was the only legal 
 supreme authority in the church of Russia. 
 
 Who, then, was right? Did the patriarch and his 
 party possess superior claims to the supreme office, or 
 was the reformist group in the right? These are ques- 
 
 261 
 
262 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 tions of extraordinary difficulty, because so much of the 
 contention of each party is undeniably true, but neither 
 party is wholly right. That the patriarch was guilty of 
 an anti-Soviet policy is beyond all reasonable doubt, for 
 it is abundantly attested to by his own official pro¬ 
 nouncements as well as acts, and finally by his own 
 confession; there is no question, either, that the effect 
 upon the church of this policy was most disastrous, 
 and that the appalling toll of arrests and deaths might 
 be largely accounted for as its natural and logical 
 result. Moreover, his own legal position, honestly on 
 the part of some, unfairly on the part of others, has 
 been regarded as questionable, for the Sobor of 1917-18 
 had ruled, by implication, that the next meeting of the 
 Sobor should be called by the patriarch within the next 
 three-year period, 1 and he as well as the two auxiliary 
 bodies associated with him in governing the church 
 were to give account to this Sobor, and the two associ¬ 
 ated groups were then, at least partly, to be reap- 
 ' pointed. When 1921 came, the patriarch failed to call 
 the Sobor: it is true that conditions were unfavorable, 
 but the patriarch did not even propose to call it, and 
 since then showed no greater interest or zeal in calling 
 it, until he was forced by his own arrest to bestir him¬ 
 self in the matter. There were some individuals 
 
 1 Decision of Dec. 7, 1917, articles 4 and 8, Regulations about the 
 Supreme and Eparchial Administration of the Orthodox Church, 
 Warsaw, 1922, pp. 7-8. These articles really refer to the length of 
 the tenn for which the two bodies associated with the patriarch in 
 administering the church were eleoted. Article 4 specifies that six 
 out of the twelve of the hierarchial members of the body are elected 
 for three years; article 8 refers to the membership of the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council, which “are elected by the All-Russian Sobor 
 for the inter-Sobor period (three years).” The implication of the 
 latter provision, that the Sobors are to be called every three years, 
 is undoubtedly and clearly to that effect; but it is not specifically 
 stated. 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 263 
 
 in the reformist group who apparently honestly 
 believed that the patriarch’s legal tenure of office since 
 1921 was seriously impaired, and who had precipitously 
 jumped to the conclusion that he no longer possessed 
 the necessary lawful authority to govern the church. 
 
 It may be that others felt in their heart of hearts that 
 this was but a flimsy and pettifogging pretense, and yet 
 urged it to deceive others into doubting the patriarch’s 
 right to the supreme power. However that may have 
 been, the result was the same: these individuals refused 
 to recognize the patriarch’s title to his office. But, of 
 course, Ithe strongest and most obvious of reasons 
 against the continuation of the policy hitherto pursued 
 by the patriarch was the ruinous, desperate condition 
 to which the church had been brought under the patri¬ 
 arch’s direction: a practical state of civil war existed 
 between the state and the church, in whichjbhe latter 
 sustained crushing. defeata;_±he_hierarchs and priests 
 were arrested and thrown into prison, suffered in exile, 
 and were being put to death in appalling numbers. The! 
 authorities were ruthless in the execution of the laws, 
 and unless the church abandoned its attitude of stub¬ 
 born, obstinate opposition, it seemed as if utter anni¬ 
 hilation were staring it in the face. So it at least , 
 appeared to those who disagreed with the patriarch’s 
 policy. Could he and his associates, confirmed and 
 convinced opponents of the Soviet regime as they were, 
 be expected to effect any radical change in their policy? j 
 Hardly. There was nothing left but to adopt the revo¬ 
 lutionary method, and in the interests of preservation 
 of the church—and self-preservation is the first law of 
 nature—to overthrow the existing church government 
 and set up one better fitted to cope with the prevailing 
 situation. This, indeed, was the surest ground on which 
 
264 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 the reformist movement could seek justification, and 
 it is difficult, in face of the undoubtedly perilous, in 
 fact almost hopeless, situation into which the patri¬ 
 arch’s policy had plunged the church, not to concede 
 its right to revolt. The methods used to overthrow 
 the patriarchal power and to seize supreme direction of 
 affairs were frankly uncanonical, revolutionary: to 
 claim patriarchal sanction for the usurpation of power 
 on the part of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administra¬ 
 tion is to resort to trickery and palpable falsehood, and 
 to jeopardize the acknowledgment of its real rights on 
 a purely revolutionary basis. The patriarch, of course, 
 never dreamed of making the group which came to 
 visit him on May 18 his successors in the supreme 
 office, and to claim it could hardly be understood other¬ 
 wise than as a conscious deceit and a lie. It is incon¬ 
 ceivable that those leaders who made the claim could 
 honestly have believed it. But mere affirmation 
 of the uncanonicity of the movement cannot in the 
 nature of the case be regarded as conclusively con¬ 
 demnatory, for there were obviously much graver issues 
 involved than a mere adherence to ancient canons: the 
 very existence of the church was at stake. To save it, 
 the movement affirmed its moral right to commit an 
 uncanonical action as long as the canonical authorities 
 were hurrying the church to destruction. 
 
 The arguments of the patriarchal party that the 
 Sobor of 1923 was uncanonical because it was not called 
 and presided over by the patriarch were answered by a 
 similar insistence on the legal and rightful transmission 
 of the supreme authority by the patriarch to the 
 Ecclesiastical Administration, which as an heir to the 
 patriarchal prerogatives possessed the right to call and 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 265 
 
 preside at the Sobor. The further objection that the 
 patriarch was not judged by his equals—the Eastern 
 patriarchs—but by those who really were his subordi¬ 
 nates, the Russian hierarchs and the rank and file of 
 the clergy and the lay delegation of the Sobor, was 
 answered by pointing to the provisions of the first 
 Sobor, which, in defining “the rights and duties of the 
 patriarch,” had decreed in article 10: “In case the 
 patriarch should infringe the rights or duties of his 
 office ... he shall be tried by an All-Russian Sobor of 
 bishops, to which, as far as possible, the other patriarchs 
 and representatives of autocephalous churches shall 
 be invited; in such a case the indictment as well as the 
 condemnatory verdict requires not less than two-thirds 
 of effective votes.” Thus Tikhon’s sentence was 
 affirmed to have been passed in a canonical manner. 
 Moreover, if he felt that the decision of the Sobor was 
 unjust, he could have appealed his case to the next 
 Sobor, but it was uncanonical for him to resume his 
 office in spite of the decision of the Sobor. This state¬ 
 ment of the case gains its point by a judicious sup¬ 
 pression of certain details of the legislation in question: 
 article 8 of the above-mentioned enactment specifies 
 that 
 
 should the patriarch fail in his duties, then in accord¬ 
 ance with the nature of the failure, the three eldest 
 members of the Holy Synod or members of the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Council of archiepiscopal rank shall make 
 a brotherly representation to the patriarch; in case 
 this should have no result, they shall make a second 
 representation, and in case this also is fruitless, 
 they shall adopt further measures in accordance with 
 article 10. 
 
266 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 10. In case the patriarch should infringe the rights 
 or duties of his office, the question whether his acts 
 involve culpability shall be decided by a joint meeting 
 of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Council. His indictment and trial devolve upon the 
 All-Russian Sobor of bishops, to which, as far as pos¬ 
 sible, the other patriarchs and representatives of auto¬ 
 cephalous churches shall be invited; in such a case, the 
 indictment, as well as the condemnatory verdict, 
 requires no less than two thirds of effective votes.* 
 
 From this complete statement it appears that the patri¬ 
 arch’s trial and condemnation as actually effected by 
 the Sobor of 1923 did not conform in many particulars 
 to the prescribed procedure. 
 
 As for the charges on the basis of which Tikhon was 
 degraded, these, too, were affirmed to have been of 
 canonical validity: in accordance with rule 81 of the 
 Apostolic Canons , “it is not proper for a bishop or 
 priest to meddle with the national government, for 
 otherwise he is not to be permitted in the ecclesiastical 
 office. He must either consent not to do so, or other¬ 
 wise he must be degraded.” Since his policy involved 
 Tikhon in constant political activity, which resulted in 
 the death of many members of the church, the patriarch 
 was sentenced to the canonical punishment prescribed 
 in the Apostolic Canons . This is another excellent 
 illustration of the loose use of and juggling with 
 canonical provisions, whereby either party may 
 “prove” whatever it pleases: the canon cited really 
 reads as follows: 
 
 We have said that a bishop or presbyter must not 
 give himself to the management of public affairs, but 
 devote himself to ecclesiastical business. Let him then 
 
 2 Regulations, p. 5. 
 
267 
 
 A House Divided Against Itself 
 
 be persuaded to do so, or let him be deposed, for no 
 man can serve two masters, according to the Lord’s 
 declaration. 8 
 
 This rendering makes it perfectly clear that what was 
 prohibited here was the practice so common in the 
 Byzantine Empire of using a bishop as an official of the 
 government, and has no bearing upon Tikhon’s case. 
 But in the clash of rival claims between the patriarchal 
 and the synodical party, the contestants do not seem 
 to have been loath to descend to such perversion of 
 the text of the canons, as long as they hoped to score 
 a point thereby. 
 
 The patriarchal party, of course, had a comparatively 
 easy task of stating or proving its case. They claimed 
 that the patriarch was not obliged to convene the Sobor 
 within the period of three years, for the provisions of 
 the Sobor of 1917-18 merely implied its convocation 
 withi i that period, but did not specifically state it as a 
 positi e requirement. The patriarch did not surrender 
 his authority to the reformist group, for he could not 
 have done so even if he had wanted to; any definite 
 transmission of authority could be effected only by the 
 Sobor. The party rightfully pressed the point that the 
 action of the reformist group was a plain usurpation, 
 later aggravated by mendacity and deceit. If 
 Agathangel could not come to assume the office, by 
 virtue of the authority committed to him he ruled that 
 each bishop should administer his diocese independ¬ 
 ently in accordance with the canons until the Sobor 
 could be called to provide lawful central authority. The 
 Sobor of 1923 was uncanonical, and its actions were 
 
 3 The Seven Ecumenical Councils, edited by H. R. Percival, in 
 the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. XIV; The Apostolic 
 Canons, LXXXI, New York, 1900, p. 599. 
 
268 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 null and void, because it was not called and presided 
 over by the patriarch as the provisions adopted by the 
 Sobor of 1917-18 specified. It was a partisan group, 
 nonrepresentative of the entire church, and certainly 
 not representative of the patriarchal party, for all who 
 had been sentenced either by civil or ecclesiastical 
 courts were disqualified as candidates for election as 
 delegates to the Sobor, and that provision excluded a 
 great majority of the leading representatives of the 
 patriarchal party, most of whom were thus sentenced, 
 and many of whom were in prison at the time when the 
 Sobor was in session. The trial of the patriarch was 
 a farce, for he neither was apprised of the charges 
 against him, nor was he present to offer a defense; 
 moreover, his trial was not conducted in accordance 
 with the provisions of the Sobor of 1917-18, nor was 
 his case represented by a counsel for defense. The 
 same group which made the charges likewise passed 
 the verdict. Other actions passed by the Sobor were 
 not within the competence of a local, i.e. a national 
 body, such as the Sobor was: thus, for instance, it was 
 claimed that only an ecumenical council could change 
 the requirement that the bishop be unmarried, or per¬ 
 mit a priest to marry a second time. These actions, 
 therefore, had no validity in the canonical law of the 
 Eastern Orthodox churches, which no single national 
 church was competent to change. Until a lawfully 
 called Sobor, representative of the entire church, shall 
 settle the problems which have arisen in the Russian 
 church, the patriarch remains the only lawful head of 
 the church administration. 
 
 Such were the rival claims: since there was a con¬ 
 siderable measure of truth in both of them, no wonder 
 that honest men, bent upon doing right, arrived at dif- 
 
269 
 
 A House Divided Against Itself 
 
 ferent interpretations and conclusions about them, and 
 consequently could be found on both sides. But let 
 it not be forgotten that the actual reasons motivating 
 the actions went deeper: they were psychological, one 
 party being conservative and tenacious of the ancient 
 doctrines ancTTisages, the other being progressive- 
 minded, desiring change in polity as well as in 
 doctrine of the church: they were political, the patri¬ 
 archal party being still largely opposed to the new 
 regime, and even though not solidly monarchical, yet 
 desiring an overthrow of the existing government in 
 favor of one nearer to the Right, while the progres- 
 sivist groups were all supporters of the new govern¬ 
 ment* and some among them even enthusiastic parti¬ 
 sans of its social program, even though all of them 
 made an exception of the anti-religious animus with 
 which the governmental personnel was imbued. The « 
 underlying motives undoubtedly also lay in the region 1 
 of personal ambitions of some of the leaders, who/ 
 desired power more than they desired the peace of the f 
 church.^ 
 
 It may be interesting to cast a hasty glance at the 
 leading personalities of the revolting movement, to 
 get an idea of the motives dominating them. Kras- 
 nitsky, as later events proved, was not a man disinter¬ 
 estedly given to the promotion of a great idea which 
 captivated him, and may be presumed to have been 
 actuated by personal ambition; Vvedensky was an 
 impulsive idealist, with tremendous oratorical powers 
 which captivated his audiences; Bishop Antonin was 
 retired shortly after the events of the First Revolution 
 in 1905 for his known liberal tendencies and outspoken 
 advocacy of them, and chafed under this restraint. He 
 had petitioned Patriarch Tikhon to be returned to 
 
270 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 active service, but his request was denied; it is only 
 natural to suppose that he joined the revolting move¬ 
 ment because it gave him a chance to reassert himself, 
 although this was not his only reason. He, of course, 
 was thoroughly in sympathy with the objectives of the 
 anti-patriarchal program, and saw in it his chance to 
 make his opinions count. 
 
 All of these factors contributed mightily to produce 
 the situation which inevitably hurled the church into 
 two hostile camps. And who can say that one party 
 was wholly right and the other wholly wrong? 
 
 For the time being, however, the crowd psychology, 
 manifesting itself in a wave of sympathy for the patri¬ 
 arch, who was popularly acclaimed as a confessor suf¬ 
 fering for his Christian faith, carried him to a trium¬ 
 phant reassertion of his former influence and power, 
 even though not to the full extent of his former author¬ 
 ity. He had the masses with him; the Supreme 
 Ecclesiastical Administration might have lodged its 
 adherents in the important cathedras of the church, but 
 they wielded authority without possessing power. They 
 reigned, but did not govern. Their churches, according 
 to reliable witnesses, were sadly deserted, while the 
 patriarchal churches were filled to overflowing. The 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration found itself in 
 an increasingly difficult position: the three groups 
 which represented the bulk of the reformist movement 
 were prone to all kinds of excesses, and were not har¬ 
 monious in their relations with each other. But their 
 chief fault lay in their inability to recognize the para¬ 
 mount necessity of a unified program, and their ideolog¬ 
 ical diversity tended to split up their forces, so that 
 their impact was not even as effective as it otherwise 
 could have been. Moreover, the leading personalities 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 271 
 
 of the groups were too strongly inclined to the besetting 
 sin of all reformers: the assertion of their individual 
 views to the extent of attempting to impose their will 
 upon others, without proper regard for the convictions 
 of others. In the case under consideration, this pro¬ 
 duced personal friction, which under the circumstances 
 was very unfortunate. Men like Krasnitsky and 
 Metropolitan Antonin carried their personal differ¬ 
 ences to a point where the movement they represented 
 was brought into disrepute. 
 
 The increasing pressure of these circumstances pro¬ 
 duced a crisis so acute that finally it forced upon the 
 reformist forces the conviction that unification was 
 the only possible method of counteracting the disrup¬ 
 tive tendencies inherent in the situation. Hence, in 
 August, 1923, at a conference of bishops and other 
 leaders of the three groups, it was decided to abandon 
 the former group form of organization, where the 
 diversity of group platforms tended to produce strife 
 and rivalry, and to organize one single party, which 
 would rest on the principles of democratic, synodical 
 government of the church, as opposed to what was 
 regarded as the autocratic, patriarchal form of hier¬ 
 archical control. The party acknowledged the Sobor 
 as the supreme legislative organ of the church and, in 
 contradiction to the patriarchal party, professed 
 allegiance to both Sobors, while the latter rejected the 
 second of these. The new organization was joined by 
 the entire group of the Ancient Apostolic Church, 
 headed by their leader, Archbishop Vvedensky, and 
 the bulk of the other two groups, the Living Church 
 and the Churchly Regeneration, although the two 
 leaders, Krasnitsky and Metropolitan Antonin, together 
 with a rather insignificant fraction of their former fol- 
 
272 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 lowing, remained outside the new, centralized reformist 
 party, and continued the disruptive policies of their 
 platforms with even greater vehemence than before. 
 Thereupon the title of the governing body was changed 
 from Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration to Holy 
 Synod of the Orthodox Russian Church, and in place of 
 Metropolitan Antonin, the headship of the new 
 supreme government passed to Archbishop Evdokim 
 of Nizhni Novgorod. This important radical reorgani- 
 , zation of the entire reformist movement was then 
 approved by the conference held in Moscow from June 
 10 to 18, 1924, for the purpose of preparing the agenda 
 of the next, the third Sobor, which was to be convened 
 j in 1925; this conference was attended by 466 delegates, 
 among whom were counted 83 bishops. 4 
 
 The reorganization of the reformist groups into the 
 synodical party, as the new organization can best be 
 termed (although it is also often spoken of as the new- 
 church party) is but imperfectly understood outside of 
 * Russia. One constantly hears references to the Living 
 Church as if that organization still represented the 
 chief group opposing the patriarchate, or comprised all 
 the anti-patriarchal forces. This is a total misappre¬ 
 hension of the situation, largely due to imperfect 
 acquaintance with the real state of affairs in Russia. 
 The Living Church group henceforth ceased to play 
 any important role whatsoever, and continued to 
 dwindle, until at the present time it forms quite an 
 insignificant as well as infinitesimal party, still headed 
 by Krasnitsky. For all practical purposes, the organi¬ 
 zation is quite negligible. Metropolitan Antonin’s 
 group, as well as he, also lost almost all its practical 
 significance, and if one might be permitted to anticipate 
 
 4 Cf. The Messenger of the Holy Synod, No. 3, 1925, p. 9. 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 273 
 
 the story for the sake of forming a more complete 
 understanding of the present situation, it may be 
 remarked that in August, 1926, he and the die-hards of 
 his group were received, at his request, into the mem¬ 
 bership of the synodical party. It would also be unfair 
 to charge the new centralized organization, the synod¬ 
 ical party, with the responsibility for the excesses, or 
 questionable actions, committed by the former groups. 
 It is true that the majority of the original membership 
 of the new party came from the three main reformist 
 groups; but the basis of the new organization was dif¬ 
 ferent in its emphasis. I tjaicL stress upon the synod¬ 
 ical, or representative, principle in church government, 
 and especially upon the provision of the first Sobor 
 which pronounced the supreme authority in the church 
 of Russia to be vested in itself, as well as in future 
 Sobors. The new party professed obedience to the deci¬ 
 sions of both Sobors: the first reestablished the patri¬ 
 archate; but the second Sobor abolished it. Since the 
 Sobor is supreme, what right did the patriarch have not 
 to submit to it? It was the patriarch who rejected the 
 principle of conciliar supremacy, and therefore respon¬ 
 sibility for the schism rested with him. The synodical 
 party freely acknowledged that the reformist groups 
 were guilty of many excesses in the seizure and conduct 
 of church affairs, but it claimed that such actions in no 
 way impaired the canonicity of the Sobor of 1923, and 
 that, in accordance with the ruling of the first Sobor, 
 the conciliar authority, not the patriarchal, was 
 supreme in the church of Russia; hence all members 
 of the Russian church, irrespective of whether or not 
 they agreed with the programs of the reformist groups, 
 were duty-bound to obey the decisions of the Sobors 
 as representing the supreme legislative authority. 
 
274 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The position of the Holy Synod was very consider¬ 
 ably strengthened when, in response to its appeal to 
 the patriarch of Constantinople for a judgment regard¬ 
 ing the legality of the rival claims of the two parties to 
 the supreme authority within the church of Russia, 
 and with the solemn promise to submit unconditionally 
 to his judgment, that dignitary pronounced in its favor. 
 It must be remembered that “the ecumenical patri¬ 
 arch/' as the head of the Constantinopolitan patri¬ 
 archate is called, in spite of the diminutive authority 
 which he actually wields, is nevertheless held in the 
 highest esteem in the Eastern communions because his 
 see possesses the primacy of honor among them, and 
 exercises the right of appellate jurisdiction, thus being 
 able to act as an umpire in the disputes arising in the 
 autocephalous churches. His judgment, therefore, is 
 really of very great importance. 
 
 The history of his decision of the Russian rival 
 claims, however, is typical of the Eastern way of doing 
 things. One ecumenical patriarch first decided in favor 
 of Patriarch Tikhon, but later this decision was 
 reversed by his successor, in favor of the synodical 
 party, thus enabling both rivals to appeal to the deci¬ 
 sion of the ecumenical patriarch as favoring their con¬ 
 tention. This may be Solomonic or may not, but it 
 certainly is not conducive to settling the controversy 
 under consideration. In a statement issued on July 4, 
 1923, by Patriarch Meletius IV of Constantinople 
 addressed to Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky), 
 the former hierarch of Kiev and Galicia was informed 
 of the stand which the All-Orthodox Congress had 
 taken toward the deposition of Tikhon. The Con¬ 
 gress expressed its sorrow at the action taken by the 
 Russian Local Sobor in deposing and degrading Patri- 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 275 
 
 arch Tikhon while “the confessor-patriarch” was in 
 prison, but likewise adopted a resolution “to ask the 
 ecumenical patriarch, along with other Orthodox 
 churches, to investigate the question of the status of 
 the Russian church, in order to afford exact direction 
 to the confused religious conscience of the devout Rus¬ 
 sian nation, which is suffering from a terrible confusion 
 in matters of faith.” 5 Similar pronouncements, some 
 of them very strongly condemning the deposition of 
 Patriarch Tikhon by the second Sobor, were issued by 
 the patriarch of Antioch, Gregory, 0 and Demetrius, 
 patriarch of Serbia, 6 7 and leave no doubt about the posi¬ 
 tion of these important dignitaries of the Eastern 
 Orthodox churches. 
 
 Nevertheless, the position of the Constantinopolitan 
 patriarch was reversed by the successor of Meletius, 
 Gregory VII, and his example was then followed by 
 other patriarchs. When Gregory ascended the patri¬ 
 archal throne, and the Russian Holy Synod appealed 
 to him for a decision of the mooted question which 
 caused schism in the Russian church, he appointed a 
 commission to investigate the real state of affairs in 
 Russia. In his suggestions made to the Constantino¬ 
 politan Holy Synod, he advocated that the contem¬ 
 plated commission be given instructions to proceed in 
 compliance with the following principles: that the com¬ 
 mission should acknowledge the party which is loyal 
 to the government, and that the group or individuals 
 who meddle in politics and oppose the de jacto govern¬ 
 ment should not be countenanced by them. In the 
 
 6 The American Orthodox Messenger, No. 8-9, Aug.-Sept., 1926, 
 p. 99. (In Russian.) 
 
 0 Dated Oct. 19-Nov. 1, 1923; ibid., pp. 97-98. 
 
 7 Dated Sept. 27-Oct. 9, 1924; ibid., p. 97. 
 
276 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 third place, Patriarch Gregory expressed his judgment 
 regarding Tikhon’s case as follows: 
 
 In view of the difference of opinion which has arisen 
 within the church, we regard it necessary that the most 
 holy patriarch Tikhon, for the sake of uniting the 
 divided church, and for the sake of his flock, should 
 sacrifice himself, and without delay surrender his 
 administration of the church, as is meet for a true and 
 loving shepherd who is anxious for the salvation of 
 his flock; and, at the same time, that the patriarchate 
 be abolished, even though temporarily, as having been 
 born under abnormal circumstances at the beginning 
 of the civil war, and as representing a serious hindrance 
 to the restitution of peace and unity. In place of the 
 abolished patriarchate, the Supreme Ecclesiastical 
 Administration shall call a free and canonically 
 elected Sobor, which shall work out the details of the 
 administration of the church in U. S. S. R. 8 
 
 The Constantinopolitan Holy Synod actually 
 acceded to these recommendations of the patriarch, 
 and adopted a set of resolutions very closely following 
 the patriarchal dictum. The second and third articles 
 of these instructions read as follows: 
 
 That the commission convey in an appropriate man¬ 
 ner the view of the most Holy Synod relative to the 
 necessity of removal of the most holy patriarch Tik¬ 
 hon, and the abolition, even if only temporary, of the 
 patriarchate in the U. S. S. R.; the commission shall 
 organize its work accordingly. 
 
 That it make known the view of the ecumenical 
 patriarch that the new regulation regarding the 
 supreme ecclesiastical administration must be based 
 
 8 From the Protocol of the Session of the Constantinopolitan 
 Holy Synod, May 6, 1924; copied from the Russian Holy Synod’s 
 Archives; there were three meetings previous to this, which like¬ 
 wise dealt with the question. 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 277 
 
 upon foundations of purely conciliar ecclesiastical 
 principles, and must have the form of a freely and 
 canonically elected Conciliar Synod. 0 
 
 This action, which was passed in May, 1924, was a 
 signal victory for the synodalist group. It did not, to 
 be sure, represent an out-and-out recognition of its 
 claim; but the unequivocal judgment regarding the 
 necessity of the patriarch’s retirement told heavily in 
 its favor. 
 
 Tikhon, on the other hand, in spite of his promise 
 to desist from all anti-governmental activity upon 
 his release, had very unwisely, if he meant the 
 promise seriously, surrounded himself anew with per¬ 
 sons known to be opposed to the government and of 
 definitely reactionary tendencies; these advisers, then, 
 as might be expected, exerted a great influence upon 
 him, to the detriment of the interests of the church. 
 Under such circumstances, and with the firm convic¬ 
 tion of the righteousness of his cause, it was quite nat¬ 
 ural that Patriarch Tikhon should indignantly refuse 
 to follow the advice of the patriarch of Constantinople 
 regarding his retirement from office, and branded the 
 ecumenical patriarch’s action in sending an investigat¬ 
 ing commission, after a few unsuccessful efforts to per¬ 
 suade Gregory VII to stay the mission, as an act of 
 unwarranted interference in the inner affairs of an 
 autocephalous national church. 
 
 But let us permit the patriarch to speak for himself, 
 and to justify, if he can, his rejection of the mediation 
 of the ecumenical patriarch. In answering Gregory 
 VII, Tikhon wrote: 
 
 Having perused the above-mentioned protocols, we 
 9 Ibid. 
 
278 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 were not a little saddened, as well as amazed, that the 
 representative of the ecumenical patriarchate, the head 
 of the Constantinopolitan church, without any pre¬ 
 paratory correspondence with us as the lawful repre¬ 
 sentative and head of the whole Russian church, should 
 intrude himself into the life and affairs of the auto¬ 
 cephalous Russian church. The holy Sobors (cf. the 
 2d and 3d rules of the II' Ecumenical Council, and 
 others) ever acknowledged in the past as well as now 
 that the Constantinopolitan bishop possesses a pre¬ 
 eminence of honor above other autocephalous churches, 
 but not of authority. We also recall that rule which 
 specifies that “when not invited, bishops must not go 
 outside the limits of their territory to consecrate 
 another, or for any other ecclesiastical function.” Hence 
 any attempt of any commission whatsoever without 
 reference to me, as the sole legal and orthodox pri¬ 
 mate of the Russian Orthodox Church, is illegal with¬ 
 out my authorization, and will not be received by the 
 Orthodox Russian people, and will result not in pacifi¬ 
 cation, but in a still greater disturbance and schism in 
 the life of the already heavily afflicted Russian Ortho¬ 
 dox Church. In the end, it will be beneficial only to 
 our schismatical new-churchmen, whose leaders now 
 at the head of the so-called (self-styled) Holy Synod, 
 as the former archbishop of Nizhni Novgorod, Evdo¬ 
 kim, and others, are deprived by me of their priestly 
 office, and “till further disposition,” on account of the 
 disturbance, schism, and illegal seizure of ecclesiastical 
 government which they effected, are pronounced to be 
 outside the fellowship of the Orthodox church. 10 
 
 This is an admirable statement of the point of view 
 of the patriarchal party, and it is difficult to find any 
 fundamental fault with it. 
 
 10 The Ecclesiastical Journal (of Karlovtsi), Serbia, Nos. 7 and 8, 
 1925. (In Russian.) 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 279 
 
 Needless to say, the Constantinopolitan commission 
 as well as the patriarch pronounced in favor of the 
 synodical party; furthermore, the patriarch sent to its 
 headquarters his accredited representative. This action, 
 of course, carried with it the recognition of the canon- 
 icity of the Sobor of 1923, .and as such was a great 
 moral victory for the synodical party, for it most effec¬ 
 tually disposed of the disputed question, at least tem¬ 
 porarily. The action of the universal patriarch was 
 followed, in the course of time, by his own successors, 
 Constantine VI and Basil III, as well as by a similar 
 recognition and sending of an accredited representative 
 on the part of the patriarchate of Alexandria. The 
 action of the patriarch of Jerusalem also followed the 
 vacillating policy of Constantinople, for at first patri¬ 
 arch Damian pronounced in favor of Tikhon, “who 
 was acknowledged by me, together with all Eastern 
 Orthodox patriarchs, the lawful canonical head of the 
 Orthodox Russian Church, whom we acknowledged to 
 the end of his earthly life.” 11 This document was 
 issued on August 25, 1925; but on July 9, 1926, this 
 same Patriarch Damian, in reply to an appeal of the 
 Russian Holy Synod, issued a pronouncement 
 “acknowledging as entirely rightful the course chosen 
 by the Holy Synod for securing peaceful life for the 
 Orthodox church within the boundaries of Soviet Rus¬ 
 sia.” In consequence of this acknowledgment, the 
 patriarch of Jerusalem renewed his brotherly inter¬ 
 course with the synodical party of the Russian church 
 by sending his representative to the headquarters of 
 the Holy Synod.” 12 
 
 11 The American Orthodox Messenger, No. 8-9, Aug.-Sept., 1926, 
 p. 97. 
 
 12 The document was published in The Messenger of the Holy 
 Synod, No. 11, 1926. 
 
280 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The only exception among the Eastern patriarchs 
 (not including the heads of autocephalous churches) in 
 granting acknowledgment to the Russian Holy Synod 
 is the patriarch of Antioch, who still persists in his 
 earlier inimical attitude. 
 
 ^ Moreover, the Holy Synod found it expedient to 
 adopt a policy of moderation in regard to the method of 
 execution of some of the reformatory legislation passed 
 by the second Sobor; for instance, in the matter of the 
 married episcopate which had caused so much opposi¬ 
 tion, and had resulted in serious losses to the move¬ 
 ment by reason of the charges of uncanonicity and 
 even of heresy, the new administration did not, indeed, 
 abandon the principle of the legislation, but adopted a 
 policy of procrastination in putting it into effect. 
 Wherever the innovation would cause offense to the 
 masses, the Synod desisted from forcing the matter. 
 The whole question was likewise referred to the next 
 (eighth) Ecumenical Council for a final settlement, 
 and the Synod professed to be entirely ready and will¬ 
 ing to accept the disposition of the question by the 
 Council. The same policy was adopted regarding the 
 second marriage of clerics and the introduction of the 
 Gregorian calendar: wherever signs of restiveness in 
 regard to the innovations appeared among the people, 
 the matter was dropped, and thus the parishes were 
 practically given a local option to accept or reject the 
 reforms. These opportunist, policies were productive of 
 greater stabilization of the position of the Holy Synod. 
 
 An interesting episode, characteristic of the kaleido¬ 
 scopic nature of Russian ecclesiastical politics, and at 
 the same time throwing considerable light upon the 
 psychology of the leading personalities of the various 
 parties, was the reception of the leader of the Living 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 281 
 
 Church, probably the most radical of the former 
 reformist personalities, back into the patriarchal fold, 
 and the positively astounding circumstance that from 
 the beginning he was granted a leading place on the 
 Supreme Ecclesiastical Council of Patriarch Tikhon. 
 On May 19, 1924, Tikhon sent a resolution to his 
 Synod, in which he informed them: 
 
 ' For the sake of peace and weal of the church, in man¬ 
 ifestation of my patriarchal clemency, I agree to receive 
 back into fellowship Protopresbyter V. Krasnitsky. I 
 submit to the Holy Synod the question of his admit¬ 
 tance into the membership of the Supreme Ecclesias¬ 
 tical Council. 
 
 \ Patriarch Tikhon. 13 
 
 This interesting document was passed upon by the 
 patriarchal Synod on May 21, and Krasnitsky found 
 himself a veritable member of the organization which 
 he, more than anybody else, perhaps, helped to under¬ 
 mine. However, he did not permanently remain a 
 member of it. There is not an iota of evidence that 
 Krasnitsky was required to profess any repentance for 
 his wrongdoing, nor was that suggested in the patri¬ 
 archal message to the Synod. What must have been 
 his feelings to find himself among the formerly so hated 
 ‘‘black episcopacy”? What w T as really back of the 
 astounding transaction? We do not know. But the 
 very fact that Krasnitsky would accept a high position 
 on the patriarchal governing Synod, and that Tikhon 
 was willing to grant it to a man who did not even 
 publicly repent of what must have been regarded as a 
 positive and grievous wrong-doing, throws an unfavor¬ 
 able light on both these important personages. 
 
 18 In The Messenger of the Holy Synod, No. 3, 1925, p. 9. 
 
282 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 In the meantime, the anti-patriarchal Holy Synod 
 went on with its labors and gradually was able to over¬ 
 come the inauspicious circumstances into which the 
 initial popular landslide of sympathy for the patriarch 
 had thrown the reforming groups. In February, 1925, 
 Metropolitan Benjamin of Leningrad—a man of great 
 personal charm and one of the eldest of the hierarchs of 
 the pre-revolutionary ordination—displaced Metropoli¬ 
 tan Evdokim as the head of the Holy Synod. The 
 party had been growing steadily and organized its work 
 on a plan which was certain to strengthen its influence, 
 that of organizing regional administrations, somewhat 
 on the plan which the Russian government had adopted 
 regarding the various nationalities within the confines 
 of the state. The administrations were granted inner 
 autonomy, although they were outwardly bound by 
 recognition of the decrees of the Sobor of 1923. Thus 
 arose the regional Ecclesiastical Administration of the 
 Ukraine, of Siberia, of the Far East, and of White Rus¬ 
 sia, as well as the foreign eparchies, as in North 
 America and in Western Europe. Gradually, the great 
 country comprising the Union of Soviet Socialistic 
 Republics was partitioned ecclesiastically, the bulk of 
 Tikhon’s following remaining in the North and the 
 Central part of Russia (with Moscow almost solidly in 
 their possession), while the synodical party claimed the 
 allegiance of White Russia, the Ukraine, the Volga 
 regions, Siberia, and the Far East. 
 
 The Holy Synod likewise organized a theological 
 academy with the means promised and partly paid by 
 Bishop Blake; this first and only theological academy 
 was housed in the headquarters of the Holy Synod, in 
 Troitskoe podvor’e in Moscow, and resumed, even 
 though under most discouraging and difficult condi- 
 
283 
 
 A House Divided Against Itself 
 
 tions, its work of educating the future priesthood of the 
 Russian church. The work suffered most acutely 
 because of lack of funds, the students were housed in 
 the basement, where they lived under wretched, 
 unhealthful conditions, and the professors were paid a 
 pittance, and not always regularly. Later, a second 
 theological academy was opened in Leningrad. 
 
 Thejpatriarchal party suffered a very serious loss in 
 the removal by death from the leadership of the party 
 of Patriarch Tikhon. As already pointed out, much of 
 the popular allegiance to the party was really personal 
 devotion to the patriarch, who was regarded as a mar¬ 
 tyr suffering for the faith. He died on April 7, 1925, at 
 eleven forty-five p.m., after an illness which necessi¬ 
 tated his removal to a hospital. He was apparently 
 recovered to the extent that on the day of his death he 
 had expected to return to the Donskoy Monastery, 
 when complications set in which terminated his life; 
 he seems to have died of heart failure. He was interred 
 in the Winter Chapel of the Donskoy Monastery, on 
 the outskirts of Moscow, which he had made his resi¬ 
 dence since his return from prison. At the time 
 appointed for the funeral, such enormous crowds gath¬ 
 ered to pay the departed primate their tribute that it 
 took the entire day to permit the people to pass the 
 casket in which the body lay. Eye-witnesses describe 
 the scene as most impressive, for throughout the long 
 day, as the enormous crowd passed by one by one, not 
 a sound was heard; all passed on, awed into solemn 
 silence. 
 
 The patriarch was buried under the stone pavement 
 of the unpretentious old Winter Chapel of this monas¬ 
 tery, which dates centuries back, and over the place 
 was erected a simple, altar-like structure, which is kept 
 
284 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 constantly decorated with green branches and flowers, 
 with a motley array of lamps suspended over it. At 
 present, there is exhibited within this enclosure under a 
 glass globe Tikhon’s white patriarchal cowl, reputed to 
 have belonged to the famous Patriarch Nikon. Back 
 of it are Tikhon’s cross and crozier. People come and 
 prostrate themselves before this structure as if before 
 a shrine of a saint, and it would not be surprising if 
 that proved to be the final outcome of the career of the 
 patriarch. 
 
 Those who knew Patriarch Tikhon’s life after his 
 release from prison bear testimony to the fact that he 
 honestly kept the promise made at that time no longer 
 to continue the anti-governmental policies of the earlier 
 period of his administration. This is the witness of no 
 less an authority than the vice-president of the U. S. 
 S. R., Peter G. Smidovich, in charge of the department 
 of ecclesiastical affairs, given in a personal interview 
 with the writer. He summed up his judgment of Tik¬ 
 hon by saying that he was an honorable man who kept 
 his promise, but his associates were not in sympathy 
 with that policy and often were able to circumvent the 
 patriarch’s intention. Smidovich said that at first he 
 had mistrusted the patriarch, but after he held a per¬ 
 sonal interview with him he became convinced of the 
 honesty of Tikhon’s personal intentions; but he also 
 perceived that the patriarch was too weak to make his 
 own will supreme, permitting himself to be thwarted 
 much of the time by his associates. The sincerity of 
 the patriarch is abundantly attested by the famous 
 document which was prepared by him shortly before 
 his death, although it was not published until after his 
 decease; it came to be known as the patriarch’s “Last 
 Will.” This most important historical evidence of the 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 285 
 
 attitude of the patriarch toward the state, and his 
 solicitude for the resumption of normal relations on the 
 part of the church and in view of the new conditions 
 surrounding it, is worthy of full quotation as it 
 appeared in the Izvestiya . 14 
 
 By the grace of God, humble Tikhon, the patriarch 
 of Moscow and of all Russia. 
 
 Grace and peace from our Lord and Savior, Jesus 
 Christ. 
 
 During the years of the great civil upheavel, in 
 accordance with the will of God without which noth¬ 
 ing happens in this world, the Soviet government 
 became the head of the Russian state, and took upon 
 itself a heavy responsibility—the removal of the bur¬ 
 densome consequences of the bloody war and of the 
 terrible famine. 
 
 Entering upon the administration of the Russian 
 state, the representatives of the Soviet authority issued, 
 in January, 1918, a decree concerning the full liberty 
 of the citizens to believe as they please and to live in 
 accordance with that faith. In such manner, the prin¬ 
 ciple of liberty of conscience, affirmed by the Consti¬ 
 tution of the U. S. S. R., guaranteed to every religious 
 society, and in that number to our Orthodox church, 
 the right as well as the possibility to live and to con¬ 
 duct its religious affairs in conformity with the 
 demands of its faith, so long as they did not infringe 
 upon public order and the rights of other citizens. 
 Therefore, we have acknowledged to the whole nation, 
 in its time, in our messages to the hierarchs, priests, 
 and their flocks, the new order of affairs as well as the 
 Workers-Peasants’ government as a government which 
 the nation sincerely welcomed. 
 
 It is time that the believers understand the Christian 
 point of view, that “the destiny of nations is directed 
 
 14 No. 86, April 15, 1925. 
 
286 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 by the Lord/ 7 and to accept all that has come to pass 
 as the expression of the will of God. Without sinning 
 against our faith or church, without surrenderihg any¬ 
 thing of them, in a word, without permitting any com¬ 
 promises or concessions in the realm of belief, in our 
 relation as citizens we must be sincere in our attitude 
 toward the Soviet government and the labors of the 
 U. S. S. R. for general welfare, conforming the outward 
 form of church life and activity to the new govern¬ 
 mental order, condemning all association with the 
 enemies of the Soviet government and all open or 
 secret agitation against it. 
 
 Offering our prayers for the outpouring of God’s 
 blessings on the labors of the nations which have united 
 their forces in the name of common good, we call upon 
 all beloved members of the God-protected Russian 
 church in these responsible times of upbuilding of the 
 common welfare of the nation, to unite with us in a 
 <$ fervent prayer to the Highest for granting aid to the 
 $ Workers-Peasants 7 government in its labors for the 
 * . good of the masses of common people. We call upon 
 the parochial societies, and especially upon their execu¬ 
 tive officials, not to admit any individuals^ anti-gov- 
 X ernmental inclinations, nor to nurture hopes for the 
 restoration of the monarchical system, but to become 
 convinced that the Soviet government is actually the 
 national Workers-Peasants 7 government, and hence 
 durable and stable. s We make an appeal that worthy 
 people, honorable and devoted to the Orthodox church, 
 not meddling“m politics and sincerely loyal to the 
 Soviet government, be chosen for parochial councils. 
 The activity of the parochial societies must not be 
 exhausted in the political game, which is utterly foreign 
 to the church of God, but in the strengthening of the 
 Orthodox faith, for the enemies of the holy Orthodoxy 
 are the sectarians, the Catholics, the Protestants, the 
 new-churchmen (the synodical party), the atheists; 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 287 
 
 and such like, who endeavor to use every opportunity 
 which offers itself in the life of the Orthodox church 
 for its injury. The enemies of the church adopt all 
 kinds of deceit, compulsion, as well as bribery, in their 
 efforts to reach their goal. It suffices to look upon the 
 events in Poland, where out of the three hundred and 
 fifty churches and monasteries existing there, only 
 fifty are left. The rest were either closed or turned into 
 (Catholic 16 ) churches, not to mention those persecu¬ 
 tions to which our Orthodox clergy was subjected. 
 
 Now we, by the grace of God, having regained 
 health, ''again entering upon the service of the church 
 of God, call upon you, beloved brethren-hierarchs and 
 priests, once more condemning all opposition to the 
 government, as well as all evil-intentioned projects, 
 sedition, and all hatred of the government, to devote 
 yourselves to the work of pacification of your flock and 
 of edification of the church of God. 
 
 In deference to fhe duty incumbent upon us to guard 
 the purity of church life, seeking first of all the salva¬ 
 tion of men and the realization in life of the eternal 
 divine principles, jve cannot but condemn those who, 
 in forgetfulness of the divine ends, misuse their ecclesi¬ 
 astical position by giving themselves beyond measure 
 to the human, and often degraded political game, some¬ 
 times even of a culpable character; therefore, in accord¬ 
 ance with the duty of our office as primate, we approve 
 of appointing a special commission to be charged with 
 the investigation, and if deemed proper, even removal 
 from office, in accordance with the canonical rules, of 
 those hierarchs and priests who persist in their per¬ 
 versity and refuse to manifest a repentance of it before 
 the Soviet government, and to bring such before the 
 tribunal of the Orthodox Sobor. 
 
 At the same time, we must mention with a deep sor¬ 
 row that certain sons of Russia, and even hierarchs and 
 
 1B Inserted by the translator. 
 
288 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 priests, have left the fatherland for various reasons, 
 and already have busied themselves in activities to 
 which they have not been called and which in any case 
 are injurious to our church. Making use of our name 
 and our ecclesiastical authority, they have carried on 
 harmful and counter-revolutionary activity. We posi¬ 
 tively declare that we have no connection with them, as 
 our enemies affirm; they are strangers to us, and we 
 condemn their harmful activity. They have freedom 
 of conviction, but they use our name and the name of 
 the holy church in an unauthorized fashion and against 
 the canons of our church, feigning to be solicitous about 
 its good. The so-called Sobor of Karlovtsi brought no 
 blessing to the church or the nation, and we again con¬ 
 firm its condemnation, and hold it necessary to proclaim 
 firmly and positively that any such further attempt 
 will call forth on our part extreme measures, even to 
 the forbidding of the ministry and trial by the tribunal 
 of the Sobor. In order to avoid such severe penalties, 
 we call upon all hierarchs and priests abroad to cease 
 their political activity in connection with the enemies 
 of our nation, and to have the manliness to return to 
 the fatherland and to speak the truth about themselves 
 and the church of God. 
 
 Their activity should be investigated. They should 
 give an account of themselves to the Orthodox ecclesi¬ 
 astical conscience. We order that a special commission 
 should investigate the activity of the hierarchs and 
 priests who have fled abroad, and especially of Metro¬ 
 politan Antony, formerly of Kiev; Platon, formerly of 
 Odessa, as well as others, and immediately to prepare 
 a statement concerning their activity. Their refusal 
 to submit to our demand will oblige us to judge them in 
 their absence. 
 
 Our enemies, endeavoring to separate us from our 
 beloved children, the priests entrusted us by God, are 
 spreading lying rumors that we are not at liberty in our 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 289 
 
 patriarchal office to speak freely, and even are not free 
 in conscience; that we are controlled by the presump¬ 
 tive enemies of the people and deprived of the possibil¬ 
 ity of having communication with the flock we lead. 
 We declare all such inventions regarding our lack of 
 freedom to be lies and seduction, for there is no gov¬ 
 ernment upon the earth which could bind our sacer¬ 
 dotal conscience or our patriarchal word. Fearlessly 
 and trustfully looking toward the future course of the 
 holy Orthodoxy, we humbly beseech you, our beloved 
 children, to guard the work of God, and the sons of 
 lawlessness will have no success. 
 
 Calling God's blessing upon the hierarchs, priests, 
 and children who are faithful to us, we beseech you 
 with a peaceful conscience, without fear of sinning 
 against the holy faith, submit yourselves to the Soviet 
 government not out of fear, but because of conscience, 
 remembering the words of the Apostle: “Let every soul 
 be obedient to those who rule over them; for there is 
 no government, but is ordained of God—and the 
 governments that be are of God." (Rom. xiii. 1.) 
 
 At the same time we express a firm belief that the 
 establishment of pure and sincere relations will 
 prompt our government to deal with us with full con¬ 
 fidence, and will give us the possibility to teach our 
 children the law of God, to open theological schools 
 for the training of priesthood, and to publish books 
 and journals in defense of the Orthodox faith. 
 
 May the Lord strengthen you all in devotion to 
 the Orthodox faith, church, and its hierarchy. 
 
 Patriarch Tikhon 
 
 Donskoy Monastery, 
 
 April 7, 1925. 10 
 
 Such was the astounding document which appeared 
 immediately after the patriarch's death and stirred 
 
 18 The Messenger, No. 3, 1925. 
 
290 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 more excited comment even than did his “Confession,” 
 published upon his release from prison. As might be 
 expected, those who did not choose to follow the patri¬ 
 arch’s changed policy regarding the recognition of the 
 Soviet government instantly came forward with the 
 theory of a forgery. They worked out a hypothesis 
 that, during Tikhon’s illness, and possibly very shortly 
 before his death, this document was drawn up and his 
 signature forged. They especially appealed, in support 
 of their claim, to the fact that the document pur¬ 
 ported to have been signed in the Donskoy Monastery, 
 to which the patriarch did not return from the hospital, 
 but to which only his dead body was carried. 
 
 All such allegations, however, are too weak to with¬ 
 stand the reasons for regarding the proclamation as 
 genuine. The strongest of these is that the document 
 was sent to the editors of the Izvestiya by the suc¬ 
 cessor to Tikhon’s office, Metropolitan Peter, and by 
 Metropolitan Tikhon of Ural. Their letter reads 
 as follows: 
 
 The Editorial Office of Izvestiya. 
 
 Citizen Editor: 
 
 We beg that you do not refuse space in your paper 
 Izvestiya to the enclosed proclamation of Patriarch 
 Tikhon, signed by him on April 7, 1925. 
 
 Peter, Metropolitan Krutitsky 
 Tikhon, Metropolitan Uralsky 
 
 April 14, 1925. 17 
 
 It certainly cannot be supposed that these two 
 strong leaders of the patriarchal party would in any 
 way be connected with a forgery, or that, had it taken 
 place, they would have no knowledge of it. Moreover, 
 
 17 Quoted from The Messenger of the Holy Synod, No. 3, 1925, 
 p. 5. 
 
A House Divided Against Itself 291 
 
 the document was in their possession, and was sent by 
 them to the newspapers rather than published by the 
 government directly. This in itself has considerable 
 weight in witnessing to the authenticity of the docu¬ 
 ment. Moreover, it would not be in the interest of the 
 government to promulgate such a document, for if the 
 government desired the destruction of the church it 
 would attempt to foment an anti-governmental 
 struggle, and would be but poorly served by an attempt 
 to allay it, as the published document does. 
 
 As for the dating of the document in the Donskoy 
 Monastery, it must be remembered that the patriarch 
 expected to return there the same day that death over¬ 
 took him. It is easily conceivable that, with such 
 expectations, he preferred to have the document dated 
 at the place of his official headquarters rather than at 
 the hospital. Moreover, had not his sudden death 
 intervened, this point certainly would not have been 
 raised. 
 
 This document, accepting its genuineness, once 
 more confirms the anti-governmental character of the 
 policies of the patriarchal party, even though now 
 the patriarch no longer shared them. There can be 
 no reasonable doubt, accepting the strictures passed 
 by the patriarch himself upon the various attempts of 
 some of the leaders of the hierarchy and clergy to 
 obstruct the working of the new regime, that the con¬ 
 dition described by him actually existed. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PRESENT SITUATION 
 
 The death of Tikhon deprived the patriarchal party 
 of its leader, but did not impair its determination to 
 fight for the cause represented by the departed pri¬ 
 mate. It may, of course, very well be that the death 
 of Patriarch Tikhon was not received with an alto¬ 
 gether genuine grief even in the ranks of the patriarchal 
 leaders, for if it really were true that the party was so 
 thickly honeycombed with persons of anti-Soviet ten¬ 
 dencies as the posthumous document of the patriarch 
 would imply, their regret must have been considerably 
 tempered by a feeling of relief, for they must have 
 found the patriarch’s policy increasingly irksome. 
 
 Within five days after the passing away of Tikhon, 
 his temporary successor, or rather locum tenens, was 
 selected in the person of Metropolitan Krutitsky, 
 Peter. The selection was made in accordance with the 
 j directions penned by the deceased patriarch on Decem¬ 
 ber 24, 1924 (o.s.; Jan. 7, 1925, n.s.), in which he ruled 
 that until such a time as a legal election of a new 
 ! patriarch could be held, the patriarchal prerogatives 
 and duties were to pass to Metropolitan Cyril, and 
 in case he should be prevented from assuming them, to 
 Metropolitan Agathangel; but if even the latter could 
 not assume the office, then the office should pass to 
 Peter, Metropolitan Krutitsky. Upon the death of 
 Tikhon, a group of fifty-nine bishops approved these 
 
 292 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 293 
 
 directions and ruled that since neither Cyril nor Agath- 
 angel “is at present in Moscow, and cannot assume the 
 duties laid upon them by the above-cited document” 
 (the reason why is not stated), they acknowledged 
 Metropolitan Peter as “the guardian of the patriarchal 
 office.” 1 Thus Peter became a temporary successor of 
 Tikhon, until such a time as conditions should 
 permit the calling of a canonically regular Sobor for 
 the election of a patriarch. 
 
 The canonical rules specified that the election of a 
 new patriarch must be postponed till forty days after 
 the death of the previous one. But even after the 
 canonical period had elapsed, no Sobor was held, either 
 because the government authorities would not allow 
 any such Sobor to be held, or because so many patri¬ 
 archal bishops were in prison or in exile that the Sobor 
 would be attended by a mere handful of them, or 
 because the party made no attempt to hold it. It 
 seems that the second of these is the most probable 
 reason. 2 At any rate, Peter was never formally elected 
 to the patriarchal office, and remained merely ..its 
 guardian, or a locum tenens. Although he exercised 
 many prerogatives of the patriarchal office, his legal 
 position, of course, gave him no such authority, for he 
 could claim no such legal prerogatives over the revolt¬ 
 ing Holy Synod as were claimed by Tikhon by reason 
 of his election by the first Sobor. Thus Peter really 
 became no more than the head of the patriarchal party. 
 The objection to Peter is, therefore, much more serious 
 
 1 The American Orthodox Messenger, No. 8, Aug., 1925. 
 
 2 In my interview with Smidovich, head of the department of 
 ecclesiastical affairs, I asked him which of these two alternatives was 
 correct. He replied that he knew of no petition sent to the govern¬ 
 ment, asking for permission to hold such a Sobor; he affirmed that 
 the party as far as he knew made no attempt to hold the Sobor. 
 
294 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 than it was to Tikhon: Peter’s claims rest solely on the 
 fact that Tikhon had assigned him the position of the 
 locum tenens, or practically speaking, had appointed 
 him to it, and that a group of bishops belonging to the 
 patriarchal party had acknowledged this appointment. 
 
 The death of Tikhon offered a fair occasion for 
 reunion of the two parties within the Russian Ortho¬ 
 dox Church: the split had been caused to some extent 
 by a feeling of personal loyalty to the former patriarch, 
 although also largely by the roughshod methods of the 
 Sobor in 1923 in handling its opponents, as well as by 
 some of its really questionable actions. One of these 
 causes—the personal loyalty to Tikhon—was now 
 removed by his death. The time was opportune to 
 make an attempt to reunite the church. 
 
 This opportunity was promptly seized by the synod¬ 
 ical party, by making an official tender to the patri¬ 
 archal party of parleys over the question of reunion. 
 The offer took the form of an invitation to the Third 
 Sobor, planned for the fall of 1925. 
 
 The Holy Synod presumes that it is time to forget 
 the very words of “Tikhonites” and “new-churchmen,” 
 [the proclamation goes on] and solely to remember 
 that we all are Orthodox children of one Mother 
 church. 
 
 The Holy Synod, in order to terminate the schism 
 within the church, calls in the autumn of the present 
 year an All-Russian Sobor to Moscow, which will be 
 attended by representatives of all Orthodox societies 
 of our land, irrespective of whether they acknowledge 
 w^the authority of the Holy Synod or not. 
 
 The Holy Synod does not regard itself as an 
 immutable organ of the government of the church. 
 
The Present Situation 295 
 
 The members of the Holy Synod, each separately 
 and all together, are ready to surrender their places to 
 other workers, who possibly may steer the ship of 
 church better and more faithfully. However, to 
 decide the question of pacification of the church and the 
 organization of a single church administration, it is 
 necessary to call a Sobor. 
 
 The significance of such a Sobor may be immense. 
 
 The Holy Synod, anxious for every possible needful 
 precaution for the success of the Holy Sobor, turns 
 herewith to all clergy of the Moscow eparchy with an 
 appeal to terminate now our division, and to forget, 
 in the name of Christ the Risen, all our mutual affronts 
 and misunderstandings, and to unite now for the pre- 
 Sobor labors. 
 
 This sincere effort to unite the divided church was 
 signed by the president of the Holy Synod, Metro¬ 
 politan Benjamin, as well as the members of the body, 
 and was published on April 30, 1925. 8 It cannot, how¬ 
 ever, be sufficiently regretted that this outstretched 
 hand was rejected and the offer spurned by the leaders 
 of the patriarchal group. The patriarchal party did 
 not accept the invitation to meet in a general All-Rus¬ 
 sian Sobor which would put a stop to the schism and 
 devise a common, unified form of church government. 
 The responsibility for the continuance of the schism, 
 accordingly, rests chiefly, if not exclusively, upon them, 
 or possibly upon their leader, Peter. 
 
 So the Holy Synod alone continued its preparations 
 for the third Sobor. By its circular of June 13, 4 it 
 again invited the patriarchal party to cooperation, by 
 declaring that 
 
 8 The Messenger of the Holy Synod, No. 2, 1925. 
 
 4 No. 2382; in Ibid., No. 4, 1925, p. 2. 
 
296 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Orthodox clerics and laymen who do not acknowl¬ 
 edge the Sobor of 1923 may take part in the organiz¬ 
 ing labors of the eparchial conventions, and in the 
 elections for the Sobor, on equal terms with the rest, 
 in accordance with the conditions which shall be 
 determined by the central authority and announced 
 later. 
 
 In case the separatist bishops should refuse to confer 
 with us and the attempts to make connections with 
 the rank and file of the clergy should fail, the eparchial 
 administration should turn directly to the masses of 
 the believers with the appeal to terminate, in the 
 Sobor, the disruption in the church kindled by the 
 “old-church” upper circles. 
 
 The first offer, published shortly after the death of 
 Tikhon, was passed over in silence, the leaders of the 
 patriarchal party not deigning to reply. The second 
 public offer, mentioned above, was answered, toward 
 the end of July, by Metropolitan Peter, through one 
 of his clerics, by asking for a private conference between 
 himself and the members of the Synod, in which the 
 matters could be talked over informally. The con¬ 
 ference was immediately granted, and the letter 
 informing him of it was personally delivered by a 
 member of the Synod, who had a short talk with the 
 metropolitan on that occasion. The gist of this con¬ 
 versation was that Metropolitan Peter pleaded lack of 
 authority on his part to give his consent even to the 
 principle of reunion, for he claimed to be only an 
 administrative official, without the fullness of patri¬ 
 archal prerogatives. To decide the question, it would 
 be necessary to call together, and to gain the consent 
 of, all bishops of his party, and since many were abroad 
 and others were in prison, he suggested that the Synod 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 297 
 
 employ its good offices to secure their release. The 
 representative of the Synod, Archdeacon Dobrov, 
 answered that the Synod had no part in the arrest 
 of these hierarchs, and could take no part in attempt¬ 
 ing to secure their release, for the charges against 
 them were political. Whether the metropolitan called 
 his hierarchs together or not does not appear; but 
 he sent no reply to the letter of the Synod. 6 
 
 To the general surprise, however, it was learned that 
 Peter, in spite of his alleged lack of authority in the 
 matter, had already made public a proclamation (dated 
 July 28; the conversation with Dobrov took place on 
 July 29) in which he assumed a very pronounced 
 attitude against the projected Sobor. After paying a 
 few “compliments” to the Roman Catholics and the 
 sectarians, he devoted the bulk of his proclamation to 
 the synodical party. In part, he said: 
 
 At the present time the so-called new-churchmen 
 more and more discuss the matter of reunion with us. 
 They call meetings in cities and villages, and invite 
 Orthodox clerics and laymen to a common adjudication 
 of the question of reunion with us, and to prepare for 
 their pseudo-Sobor which they are calling for the 
 autumn of this year. But it must be clearly recalled 
 that according to the canonical rules of the Ecumenical 
 church such arbitrarily gathered councils as were the 
 meetings of the Living Church in 1923, are illegal. 
 Hence the canonical rules forbid Orthodox Christians 
 to take part in them and much more to elect repre¬ 
 sentatives for such gatherings. In accordance with 
 the 20th rule of the Council of Antioch, “no one is 
 permitted to call a Council alone, without those bishops 
 who are in charge of the metropolitanates.” In the 
 holy church of God only that is lawful which is 
 
298 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 approved by the God-ordained ecclesiastical govern¬ 
 ment, preserved by succession since the time of the 
 apostles. All arbitrary acts, everything that was done 
 by the new-church party without the approval of the 
 most holy patriarch now at rest with God, everything 
 that is now done without our approval—of the guard¬ 
 ian of the patriarchal throne, acting in conjunction 
 with all lawful Orthodox hierarchy—all this has no 
 validity in accordance with the canons of the holy 
 church (An., rule 34; Antioch, rule 9), for the true 
 church is one, and the grace of the most holy Spirit 
 residing in it is one, for there can be no two churches 
 or two graces. “There is one body, and one Spirit, 
 even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one 
 Lord, one faith, one God and Father of all.” (Eph. iv. 
 4-6.) 
 
 The so-called new-churchmen should talk of no 
 reunion with the Orthodox church until they show a 
 sincere repentance of their errors. The chief of these 
 errors is that they had arbitrarily renounced the lawful 
 hierarchy and its head, the most holy patriarch, and 
 attempted to reform the church of Christ by self- 
 invented teaching ( The Living Church , No. 1-11); they 
 had transgressed the ecclesiastical rules which were 
 established by Ecumenical Councils (the pronounce¬ 
 ments of the pseudo-Sobor of May 4, 1923); they had 
 rejected the government of the patriarch, which was 
 established by the Sobor and acknowledged by all 
 Eastern Orthodox patriarchs, i.e. they had rejected 
 what all Orthodoxy accepted, and besides, they had 
 even condemned him at their pseudo-Sobor. Contrary 
 to the rules of the holy Apostles, Ecumenical Councils, 
 and the holy Fathers (Apostolic rule 17, 18; Sixth 
 Ecumenical Council, rule 3, 13, 48; St. Basil the Great, 
 rule 12), they permit the bishops to marry and the 
 clerics to contract a second marriage, i.e. they trans¬ 
 gress what the entire Ecumenical church acknowledges 
 
The Present Situation 299 
 
 to be a law, which can be changed solely by an 
 Ecumenical Council. 
 
 The reunion of the so-called new-churchmen with the 
 holy Orthodox church is possible only on the condition 
 that each of them recants his errors and submits to a 
 public repentance for his apostasy from the church. 
 We pray the Lord God without ceasing that He may 
 restore the erring into the bosom of the holy Ortho¬ 
 dox church.* 
 
 This is an excellent statement of the case of the 
 patriarchal party, and it may readily be granted that, 
 from the canonical point of view, it is not only most 
 formidable, but positively unanswerable. If canonical 
 considerations alone were to decide upon the merits 
 of the two parties, the patriarchal party would easily 
 secure the victory. 
 
 Replying to such a sharp rebuff, the Holy Synod 
 issued three separate proclamations, answering point by 
 point the charges made by Peter, and once more fer¬ 
 vently appealing to the masses of the patriarchal party 
 to take the direction of affairs into their own hands, in 
 view of the manifest refusal of their leaders to deal 
 with the question of the existing schism. As might be 
 foreseen, even these attempts were fruitless. There¬ 
 upon, the Synod adopted different tactics: in almost 
 all eparchies, similar efforts were made to gain the 
 eparchial authorities, but the results were likewise 
 totally disappointing. 7 
 
 Under such circumstances, the third All-Russian 
 Sobor of the Orthodox church opened its sessions on 
 October 1, 1925, in that cradle of the reformist move¬ 
 ment, the church of Christ the Savior. It was attended 
 
 8 The American Orthodox Messenger, No. 8, Aug., 1925, pp. 51-52. 
 
 7 Article, “What Was Done for Church Pacification,” in The Mes¬ 
 senger, No. 7, 1926, pp. 5ff. 
 
300 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 by one hundred and one bishops, archbishops, and 
 metropolitans, one hundred and twenty priests, and 
 one hundred and twenty-four laymen, all of whom were 
 official representatives, with the right to vote; but 
 aside from these there were twenty-five in attendance 
 who did not possess the right. 8 The presidium of the 
 Sobor consisted of the president, Metropolitan Ben¬ 
 jamin of Leningrad, and an honorary president, the 
 ecumenical patriarch, Basil III, of Constantinople (not 
 present); representatives of the Constantinopolitan 
 and Alexandrian patriarchs were honorary members of 
 the presidium; besides these, there were eleven aids 
 to the president, the secretary, Professor B. V. Titli- 
 nov, and his six aids. 
 
 In the first business meeting, held in the evening, 
 the Sobor adopted a loyal address to the government, 
 in which, in spite of the sincere and firm ring of the 
 declaration, the objectionably over-fervent, exagger¬ 
 ated phraseology of a similar declaration adopted by 
 the second Sobor was markedly omitted. The calm 
 tone of confident loyalty graces it throughout. There¬ 
 upon greetings were read from the Constantinopolitan 
 patriarch Basil III, as well as the autocephalous and 
 autonomous parts of the All-Russian Orthodox Church. 
 
 Among the first questions to which the Sobor turned 
 its attention was the existing position of the Russian 
 church, in particular the relation of the synodical to 
 the patriarchal party. After a long discussion of this 
 theme, a group of forty-two delegates made a motion 
 that the Sobor make a final attempt to secure reunion 
 by sending a special delegation to Peter to invite him 
 to take part in the work. It was then, however, that 
 
 8 For the names of all these delegates, see The Messenger, No. 6, 
 1925, which gives the official report of the acts of the Sobor. 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 301 
 
 it was found that an unofficial delegation (not of 
 members of the Sobor, but of laymen from the various 
 synodical congregations of Moscow) had already visited 
 Peter with the same request. The delegation was 
 received by him on October 1, but Peter definitely 
 refused to cooperate with the Sobor, giving the follow¬ 
 ing reasons for his action: the third Sobor was a 
 pseudo-Sobor; the synodalists had usurped the supreme 
 authority; Bishop Antonin, in his day, had no right 
 to organize the Supreme Administration, because he 
 was at the time retired from active service; the 
 Supreme Administration had uncanonically retired, 
 during 1922, a large number of loyal hierarchs; the 
 married episcopate is uncanonical; the Sobor of 1923 
 had no right to deprive Tikhon of his office and his 
 monastic orders, and had infringed other ecclesiastical 
 rules besides. The metropolitan demanded as a con¬ 
 dition of reunion that the synodical party prove itself 
 worthy of forgiveness by a public confession of its 
 guilt. 9 Thus, on the whole, nothing new was added to 
 Peter’s previous objections. 
 
 Thereupon the Sobor passed its decision upon the 
 matter, expressing, in the first place, its regret that 
 all its efforts to bring about a reunion with the patri¬ 
 archal party “have met with a stubborn resistance on 
 the part of the leaders of that group of the church 
 which is following the former patriarch Tikhon.” The 
 Sobor furthermore stated that in the majority of 
 cases where the patriarchal bishops were invited by the 
 synodical party to a conference, they not only refused 
 but even forbade their clergy and flocks to take any 
 part in the Sobor. Then it was again suggested that 
 the underlying reason for such an attitude on the part 
 
 0 The Messenger, No. 6, 1925, p. 13. 
 
302 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 of the patriarchal party was not the matter of the 
 alleged uncanonicity of certain acts of the second 
 Sobor, but their championship of the “monarchical 
 principle.” For its part, the Holy Sobor stated that 
 it regarded its means of persuasion as exhausted, and 
 came to the conclusion that all further appeals and 
 applications to the Tikhonite hierarchy were in vain 
 so long as they did not abandon their political activity 
 and did not return to the Christian understanding of 
 the ecclesiastical labors. 
 
 As long as a considerable group of the old-churchmen 
 is not initiated into the politics of their leaders, and 
 does not partake in it, so long the Holy Sobor with 
 peace and love calls that part of the believers as 
 before to peace and unity, and to a common conciliar 
 adjudication of all purely ecclesiastical differences, in 
 the spirit of the love of Christ. 10 
 
 As the second distinct affirmation of the Sobor of 
 1925, a general approval of the actions taken on the 
 part of the reformist groups in the matter of retire¬ 
 ment of Patriarch Tikhon in 1922 was voted, and the 
 organization of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administra¬ 
 tion was pronounced “legal,” and the Sobor of 1923 
 convoked by this Administration was affirmed likewise 
 “canonical and legal.” 11 But the next paragraph of this 
 same pronouncement speaks volumes regarding the 
 changes of orientation which had occurred in the lead¬ 
 ing personalities of the synodical party since the days 
 when the reformist groups were in the saddle; it was 
 specifically stated that 
 
 the holy Sobor regards it. as., necessary to declare that 
 the Orthodox church, headed by the Holy Synod, defi- 
 
 10 Ibid., No. 6, 1925, p. 14. 
 
 11 Ibid., p. 18. 
 
The Present Situation 303 
 
 nitely separates itself from such irresponsible eccle¬ 
 siastical groups and representatives as is Protopresby¬ 
 ter Krasnitsky, who a long time ago left the main 
 ecclesiastical channel, or Bishop Antonin, who likewise 
 for a long period had no relationship with the Holy 
 Synod; and the Holy Synod is responsible neither for 
 their representations or actions, nor for their dishonor¬ 
 ing of the dignity of the ecclesiastical orders. 12 
 
 Strong words, those, to be officially spoken about the 
 former leaders of the reformist movement! 
 
 Of very great importance were the decisions regard¬ 
 ing the canonicity of the married episcopate: the third 
 Sobor, in the first place, confirmed the decisions of 
 the second Sobor in placing the married episcopate 
 on an equality with the unmarried, and likewise per¬ 
 mitted the clerics to enter a second marriage; further¬ 
 more, it was affirmed that these matters were within 
 the jurisdiction of a local (national) Sobor, and thus 
 no illegality whatever had been committed by the 
 second Sobor in dealing with the matter; nevertheless, 
 “the Holy Sobor at the same time holds it its duty 
 to present the decisions regarding this subject of the 
 Sobors of 1923 and 1925 for the consideration of the , 
 coming Ecumenical Council, and expresses its readi- ! 
 ness to submit to the decision of that Council, in so 
 far as that decision shall be binding upon all Ortho¬ 
 dox churches.” 13 This was probably the most effec¬ 
 tive way of handling a matter which had occasioned 
 the party much loss and criticism, and removed one 
 of the serious obstacles which stood in the way of 
 reunion of the two parties within the church. A 
 similar action was taken regarding the adoption of the 
 
 12 Ibid., No. 6, p. 18. 
 
 18 Ibid., No. 6, 1925, p. 18. 
 
304 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Gregorian calendar: the matter was left to the option 
 of the local groups, and its final adjudication was 
 deferred to the decision of the Ecumenical Council. 
 It must be conceded that this wise moderation should 
 have carried conviction that the Holy Synod was actu¬ 
 ally bent upon a policy of conciliation and of reestab¬ 
 lishment of peaceful relations. 
 
 The Soviet government had early adopted the policy 
 of recognizing the principle of self-determination of 
 nations within the limits of a strict economic unity, 
 and freely permitted the formation of national units 
 into autonomous states or self-governing territories. 
 This was a wise policy, which yielded the government 
 added stability, because it satisfied the various self- 
 conscious national units which were long either in 
 revolt against, or restive under, the imperial policy 
 of russification of the non-Russian peoples within 
 the Empire. Ukrainians had strongly felt the injus¬ 
 tice of this russification policy, and the change adopted 
 by the Soviet authorities had gone far toward conciliat¬ 
 ing Ukraine to the new regime. 
 
 The same feeling rankled in the bosoms of the 
 Ukrainian patriots regarding the subjugation of the 
 metropolitanate of Kiev to the Moscow patriarch, 
 which occurred in 1686. It was, therefore, perfectly 
 natural that their autonomic aspirations should be 
 extended to the field of ecclesiastical administration, 
 and the synodical party gained greatly by acknowledg¬ 
 ing the justice of these aspirations. In May, 1925, the 
 Ukrainians held a local Sobor, at which they pro¬ 
 claimed their church autocephalous, although in com¬ 
 munion with the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox 
 Church. This action received official confirmation at 
 
The Present Situation 305 
 
 the third Sobor of the Russian church, thus completing 
 the transaction. 14 
 
 It would be interesting to cast a glance at the gen¬ 
 eral ecclesiastical situation in Russia as reflected in 
 the statistics published about the time of the meeting 
 of the Sobor, because in spite of their admitted incom¬ 
 pleteness, they yet afford some idea of the then exist¬ 
 ing conditions. According to the official governmental 
 statistics, 15 there were in October, 1925, in 48 gubernias 
 (out of the total of 87; the rest failed to report) of 
 Russia, 34,597 congregations all in all. Out of these, 
 28,381, or 82 per cent, belonged to the Russian Ortho¬ 
 dox Church; 1,647, or 4.8 per cent, to the Old-Ritu¬ 
 alists; 639, or 1.8 per cent to the Evangelicals; 141 or 
 0.4 per cent, to the Roman Catholic; 267, or 0.8 per 
 cent, to the Lutherans; 673, or 1.9 per cent, to the 
 Baptists; 418, or 1.2 per cent, to the Jews; 1,818, or 
 5.3 per cent, to the Mohammedans; and 613, or 1.8 
 per cent, to other unclassified religious bodies. 16 
 
 It is apparent from these figures that the Orthodox 
 congregations have an absolute majority of 82 per 
 cent, the rest comprising the remaining 18 per cent. As 
 for the relative density of the religious organizations, 
 41.6 per cent of the gubernaias have an average of 40-50 
 congregations to each 100,000 inhabitants; but in the 
 scantily settled Kirghiz gubernias there is the minimum 
 of 14 congregations to the same number of inhabi¬ 
 tants. In 5 gubernias, among 100,000 people there 
 exists the low number of congregations ranging from 
 21 to 30: these are the thinly populated regions of 
 
 14 Ibid., No. 6, 1925, p. 26. 
 
 16 The Statistical Review, published by the People’s Commissariat 
 of Domestic Affairs, July-Sept., 1925. 
 
 18 Ibid., pp. 22-23. 
 
306 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 Votskaya Oblast (23), Northern Caucasia (27), the 
 gubernias of Vyatka (30), Novonikolaevsk (29), and 
 Altai (29). On the other hand, the greatest number of 
 religious organizations in relation to the same number 
 of inhabitants is found in the gubernias of Yaroslavl 
 (65), Arkhangelsk (68), Orenburg (69), Vladimir (79), 
 and Murmansk (223). The last named, so markedly 
 out of proportion with the rest, is an enormous terri¬ 
 tory with a total of 17,918 inhabitants, and the pro¬ 
 portional number may be misleading, for in reality 
 there exist only 40 congregations; but when the index 
 is taken by using 100,000 inhabitants as a unit of 
 comparison, it yields the above-given figure. 
 
 The overwhelming majority of the religious organi¬ 
 zations (95.6 per cent) possess a regular place of wor¬ 
 ship. Of the Russian Orthodox, 99 per cent conduct 
 their worship in church-buildings; among the Moham¬ 
 medans, 97.7 per cent are thus provided for; among the 
 Catholics, 92 per cent; among the Lutherans, 90 per 
 cent; among the Jews, 81.2 per cent; of the Evangel¬ 
 icals, 40 per cent, for many of them meet in private 
 homes; the Baptists have the lowest number, 34.4 
 per cent. 17 
 
 Another interesting item, effectively dealing with 
 the many exaggerated reports current abroad concern¬ 
 ing the high percentage of former church buildings 
 converted to other—often unworthy—uses, is an item¬ 
 ized statement regarding the total number of church 
 buildings converted to other uses, and the purpose to 
 which they were devoted: there were 1,003 Orthodox 
 churches thus confiscated, of which 114 were converted 
 into schools, 195 into club rooms, 280 used for other 
 educational purposes, 79 for industrial and residential 
 
 17 Ibid., p. 24. 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 307 
 
 purposes, 298 were left unused, and 6 demolished 
 because they were condemned as unsafe, while 31 were 
 not reported upon. Of the Mohammedan places of 
 worship, 29 were confiscated, and of this number 2 
 were converted into club rooms and 27 remained 
 unused. Of the places of worship belonging to the 
 Old-Ritualists, 27 were appropriated, of which 5 were 
 converted into schools, 1 into another educational insti¬ 
 tution, 10 used for industrial or residential purposes, 
 and 11 remained vacant. Of all the rest of the com¬ 
 munions, 29 places of worship were confiscated, of 
 which number 3 were turned into club rooms, another 
 3 were devoted to other educational purposes, 14 to 
 industrial and residential purposes, and 9 remained 
 unoccupied. 18 It ought to be remarked, however, that 
 these reports cover only 29 gubernias, which is only 
 one-third of the total; so that the information thus 
 offered is seriously defective because of its incom¬ 
 pleteness, and the same, to a less degree, applies to the 
 entire report. Nevertheless, that is the only informa¬ 
 tion of the kind available, and in spite of its admitted 
 defects, affords a certain rough basis for estimating the 
 general conditions. 
 
 Although the patriarchal party published no statis¬ 
 tics regarding its strength, some notion of the relative 
 numbers of the tw T o factions of the Orthodox group may 
 be gathered from the official statistics of the synodical 
 party. The itemized figures published in The Mes¬ 
 senger 1 9 report that on October 1, 1925, that branch 
 of the Orthodox church was divided into four autono¬ 
 mous organizations: the Georgian Church, the Ukrain¬ 
 ian Church, the White Russian Church, and the Rus- 
 
 18 Ibid., p. 26. 
 
 19 No. 7, 1926. 
 
308 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 sian Church under the leadership of the Holy Synod. 
 The Georgian Church had pronounced its autonomy 
 in 1917, having ignored the existing authorities; since 
 then it is not in canonical relations with the Russian 
 Church. The Ukrainian Church had pronounced itself 
 autocephalous on May 8/21, 1925, and this status 
 had been confirmed by the third Local Sobor of the 
 Orthodox Churches in the U. S. S. R. in October, 1925. 
 The Ukrainian Church is governed by an Ukrainian 
 Sobor and its own Holy Synod. Members of the 
 Ukrainian Church have the right to attend, as dele¬ 
 gates, the Local Sobors of the Orthodox Churches in the 
 U. S. S. R., and three representatives of the Ukrainian 
 Holy Synod are members of the All-Russian Holy 
 Synod. The Ukrainian autocephalous church com¬ 
 prises 16 eparchies, with 33 bishops and 3,000 con¬ 
 gregations. 
 
 The White Russian Church has become autonomous 
 since May, 1924; it is governed by a White Russian 
 Sobor and its own Holy Synod; it likewise has the 
 right to send delegates to the All-Russian Sobors, and 
 its representatives have a seat in the All-Russian Holy 
 Synod. It comprises 4 eparchies, with 6 bishops and 
 500 parishes. 
 
 Under the direct supervision and control of the Holy 
 Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church are the 
 churches abroad, in America, in France, in Germany, 
 in Denmark, and in Athens, as well as 87 eparchies 
 within the territory of the U. S. S. R., which are organ¬ 
 ized into 7 district metropolitanates: the Siberian, the 
 Far-Eastern, the North Caucasian, the Crimean, the 
 Trans-Caucasian, the Ural, and the Northwestern. 
 The total number (even though based upon incomplete 
 statistics) comprising all the bodies above mentioned 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 309 
 
 is reported as: 108 eparchies; 12,593 parishes; 192 
 bishops; 16,540 priests. 20 Comparing these figures 
 with those furnished by the government for the entire 
 Orthodox church in Russia, the synodical party would 
 comprise about 43 per cent of the total number of 
 parishes; this conclusion, however, is likely to be incor¬ 
 rect, for the statistics of the synodical party are much 
 more complete, and therefore higher, than for the rest 
 of the church. Hence it would appear that to esti¬ 
 mate the synodical strength at one-third of the total 
 would likely be nearer the truth. Even at that the 
 figures, considering the conditions and circumstances, 
 are extremely favorable to that party. 
 
 Returning now to the course of events: shortly after 
 the close of the third Local Sobor, the ecclesiastical 
 circles were again agitated by a startling occurrence, 
 namely, the arrest of the patriarchal locum tenens, 
 Metropolitan Peter. At first newspapers published 
 sensational articles regarding the alleged disloyal con¬ 
 duct of the metropolitan; 21 thereupon a representative 
 group of perturbed bishops of the party, filled with 
 easily intelligible anxiety for the welfare of the church, 
 which was sure to suffer for the acts of Peter, visited 
 him and demanded that he instantly issue a public 
 denial of the charge, in order to avert a repetition of 
 reprisals; the spokesman of the group, Bishop Gregory 
 of Ekaterinburg, also suggested that a council of all 
 the patriarchal episcopacy then found in Moscow be 
 called to pass judgment upon the charges. Peter was 
 reported to have refused these suggestions, saying that 
 “in the last analysis, he alone is responsible for the 
 church, and the council of hierarchs not only would 
 
 80 The Messenger, No. 7, 1926, p. 2. 
 
 21 Izvestiya, Nov. 15, 1925. 
 
310 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 not help him, but would even be injurious.” 22 Against 
 this Gregory urged that responsibility for the church 
 rested with the entire episcopacy, whose united voice 
 was far more important than that of any one individual 
 member of it. 
 
 Since Peter refused to heed the suggestion of the 
 bishops, there was held, on December 22, in the Don¬ 
 skoy Monastery, a meeting of the episcopacy, which 
 adopted a resolution lo the laity and pronounced its 
 members independent of the control of the locum 
 tenens, Peter. They organized a new government by 
 electing a temporary Supreme Church Council (Soviet), 
 composed of six hierarchs, which instantly set about 
 preparing for a new Sobor, to be held not later than 
 1926. 
 
 In the meantime, Peter was imprisoned, and sub¬ 
 jected to a trial. Unable to exercise the authority 
 delegated to him by the deceased Patriarch Tikhon, 
 he in turn delegated it to Sergei, the metropolitan of 
 Nizhni Novgorod. The majority of the patriarchal 
 party, after a period of hesitation, rallied about Sergei, 
 leaving the Episcopal Soviet with scanty support. 
 Internecine war between the two rival ecclesiastical 
 authorities soon broke out, and ran its usual course: 
 after a great deal of fulmination, Sergei forbade the 
 Episcopal Soviet, as a usurping organization, to exer¬ 
 cize any ecclesiastical authority, and upon its refusal, 
 excommunicated its members. Sergei is still regarded 
 as the chief leader of the patriarchal party and is 
 obeyed by the great majority of its adherents. Unfor¬ 
 tunately, he cannot remove to Moscow to centralize 
 his authority as the acknowledged leader of the party, 
 for the government refuses him permission to leave 
 
 22 Ibid., No. 5, Jan. 1, 1926. 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 311 
 
 Nizhni Novgorod. 23 Thus, to a very large extent, each 
 bishop is left to himself to govern his own diocese in 
 accordance with the canons and to the best of his 
 knowledge and ability, without much direction from 
 any central supreme authority. 
 
 When a group of Americans visited Metropolitan 
 Sergei in August, 1926, to ask his judgment regarding 
 the Russian church situation, he laid stress on the 
 point that differences between the patriarchal and 
 synodical parties had arisen from the opposite interpre¬ 
 tation of the Sobor of 1923, which he pronounced irreg¬ 
 ular, uncanonically called, packed by forced elections, 
 and its delegates committed against Tikhon in 
 advance. “We regard the adherents of the synodical 
 party as rebels, 77 he affirmed, “although their offense 
 is not in the theological sphere, but in the canonical.” 
 Nevertheless, Sergei was rather hopeful that a reunion 
 might be effected. He also asserted that the church 
 was free to worship. 
 
 During the summer of 1926, Metropolitan Sergei, 
 in reply to a governmental demand for specification of| 
 the patriarchal party’s attitude, issued an official 
 declaration, in which he most solemnly declared that 
 the church he represented was non-political, and “injso 
 far as the recognition of the present government was 
 concerned, the Tikhonite church was absolutely loyal.” 
 He furthermore reminded the government of the guar¬ 
 antee of religious as well as anti-religious freedom of 
 propaganda, and asked that this particular provision of 
 the constitution be enforced, and the church given full 
 freedom to carry on its normal work. Finally, the 
 
 23 Metropolitan Sergei, since the time of the writing of this 
 chapter, was arrested; Metropolitan Joseph of Nizhni Novgorod, and 
 the Archbishops Cornelius of Ekaterinburg and Thaddeus of Astrak¬ 
 han, who in turn succeeded him, suffered a similar fate. 
 
312 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 metropolitan declared that the emigre clergy was not 
 considered a part of the Russian church, and therefore 
 he had no jurisdiction over it. With this kind of 
 spirit and attitude on the part of the present leaders 
 of the patriarchal party, a change in the treatment of 
 it by the government may ultimately be hoped for. 
 Nevertheless, it is likely to be a slow process. 
 
 In the meantime, Metropolitan Peter remained in 
 prison; his trial was slow, and the proceedings were 
 not published. In an interview with Smidovich 
 (on August 18, 1926), who is in charge of the depart¬ 
 ment of ecclesiastical affairs, I asked this high official 
 what the charges against Metropolitan Peter were, and 
 what the prosecution had proven. Smidovich replied 
 that the government agents had gathered their proofs 
 against Peter abroad even before he was arrested, and 
 that the case against him was so overwhelming that 
 he had already confessed to having been in communica¬ 
 tion with the monarchical organizations abroad, and 
 that he had sent his acknowledgment, together with 
 his blessings, to one of the rival candidates for the 
 Russian throne, the Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaie- 
 vich; moreover, Peter had signed his confession, and 
 appended to it a petition professing his repentance and 
 begging for mercy. My request for the court records 
 of the trial, or an official statement of it, was answered 
 by Smidovich to the effect that all documents relative 
 to the trial were to be published in the papers in the 
 near future. But hitherto I have not seen these con¬ 
 firmations, and therefore no judgment in the case can 
 be passed. If the statements should be proven true, 
 one could entertain but little sympathy with the leader¬ 
 ship of the patriarchal party; but on the other hand, 
 without impugning Smidovich’s veracity or good faith, 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 313 
 
 anyone who has to do with Russian affairs will soon 
 learn to investigate all the sources available before 
 accepting any oral statements, no matter what their 
 origin. 24 
 
 The patriarchal party is not wholly free: its 
 members do not possess the freedom of organization 
 which their opponents enjoy, for they do not have the 
 right to organize themselves into eparchial units as 
 the synodical church has; moreover, the hierarchs of 
 that party are often hampered in their movements and 
 are never wholly free from the danger of imprisonment. \ 
 Thus Metropolitan Sergei is not permitted to leave 
 Nizhni Novgorod, as Metropolitan Agathangel had 
 been prevented from coming to Moscow in 1922 when 
 he was summoned by Tikhon to assume the duties of 4 
 patriarchal substitute. In the summer of 1926, about 
 ten bishops belonging to the patriarchal party were 
 ordered out of Moscow, simply because the authorities 
 were suspicious of them. It is generally known that the 
 official representatives of the patriarchal party regard 
 it as perilous to speak freely with any foreigner for 
 fear that it may arouse the suspicions of the govern¬ 
 ment and lead to unpleasant consequences, and even 
 to forcible measures. I have been repeatedly refused 
 audience with members of this group, solely because 
 they feared to speak with a foreigner. In this respect, 
 the entire party is still resting under the heavy incubus 
 of mistrust and suspicion, and possibly even ill will, 
 which is a heritage from the days when the church 
 was in active opposition to the Soviet regime. Doubt¬ 
 less a long time must elapse and repeated proofs of 
 loyalty and sincerity on the part of the party must 
 be proffered before these conditions may be expected 
 
 24 Since then, Metropolitan Peter has been exiled to Siberia. 
 
314 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 to change much. It may be remarked, in this connec¬ 
 tion, that the patriarchal party shares in this respect 
 the sad fate of all the surviving members of the former 
 bourgeois or ruling classes, who cannot be said to be 
 treated with justice, or even fairness. The Soviet 
 government represents the proletarian dictatorship, 
 and the Marxian gospel preaches class hatred, thus 
 inducing class strife and injustice. The sorry surviv¬ 
 ing wrecks of the former middle and upper classes, 
 which did not succeed in passing for proletari¬ 
 ans, or which were refused such saving transformatory 
 process by the powers that be, suffer injustice in many 
 cases amounting to persecution. The best that can be 
 said about the whole matter is that they comprise the 
 ten per cent of the population which formerly 
 oppressed and exploited the remaining ninety per cent 
 of the downtrodden rural or industrial population, and 
 that they suffer the same treatment at the hands of 
 the victorious majority which formerly was meted out 
 to them. Conditions, of course, have improved, for it 
 is now only ten per cent of the population which is 
 oppressed by the ninety, whose lot has been correspond¬ 
 ingly improved; but there is no pretense of mercy about 
 the pitiless process, and the worst that can be said 
 against the Soviet system is that the oppression against 
 which its protagonists had revolted is now practiced 
 by them upon their former oppressors. Unfortunately, 
 two wrongs never make a right. 
 
 The synodical party, on the other hand, possesses 
 fhe confidence of the government, and therefore a 
 degree of freedom which disposes it to a loyal accept¬ 
 ance of the new conditions. The representatives of 
 high official rank with whom I have had personal con¬ 
 ferences earnestly urged that the new order is con- 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 315 
 
 ducive to a truer religious liberty than the former 
 order was, which heaped unjust prerogatives and 
 privileges on the church, but constrained it to do its 
 bidding in every nefarious purpose of its own. This 
 party affirms that there has been no overt persecution 
 of the church, the various penal measures carried out 
 against it having been called out by the disloyal atti¬ 
 tude and conduct of the latter. The leaders further 
 zealously affirm that the synodical party does not differ 
 from the patriarchal on questions of dogma or canons, 
 but only in the interpretations of the Sobor of 1923. 
 
 Another advantage which the synodical party pos¬ 
 sesses over the patriarchal * lies in the recognition 
 afforded it by the patriarchates of Constantinople, 
 Alexandria, and Jerusalem. The Holy Synod was 
 requested to send its representatives to the Eighth 
 Ecumenical Council, which after more than eleven 
 centuries’ silence is again to speak authoritatively upon 
 the important adjustments which the new age impera¬ 
 tively demands of the Eastern churches. Thus the 
 synodical party possesses at least the initial advantage 
 of representing officially the Russian Orthodox Church 
 at this enormously important gathering. 
 
 The synodical party shows a deeper understanding^ 
 of the necessity of adapting the ancient forms and 
 usages through which Russian Christianity expressed 
 its piety from time immemorial to the new conditions 
 and demands, and therefore possesses a greater sur¬ 
 vival power, or even life-energy, than the patriarchal 
 party, which is perforce wedded to the traditional 
 usages and dogmas. There is likewise a greater theo¬ 
 logical elasticity in the synodical group, even though 
 the party officially has not embraced any tenets at var¬ 
 iance with Orthodoxy; besides, there is a feeling of free- 
 
316 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 dom regarding the liturgical services, which in places 
 are performed without their former traditional rigidity, 
 but are experimented with in the direction of greater 
 freedom and what may be spoken of as Protestantiza- 
 tion, using the word in its best sense. As an illustra¬ 
 tion of this tendency, I may relate my own observations 
 of the work of one of the Moscow parish representa¬ 
 tives of the synodical party, a zealous priest, whose 
 church is situated on the Lyubyansky Square in the 
 very heart of the city. I visited him in his home, 
 and found him a deeply consecrated, spiritual- 
 minded Christian, who drew much of his inspiration 
 from such English religious literature as Drummond’s 
 Greatest Thing in the World. I was likewise sur¬ 
 prised at the emphasis he placed upon Biblical study 
 and preaching, for I was somewhat unaccustomed to 
 associate a Russian priest with such thoroughly “evan¬ 
 gelical” ideas. I have attended his church services 
 several times and, although I do not pretend to be 
 able to detect every variation in his service from the 
 traditional liturgical services, I observed at least some 
 of the more striking deviations. The holy doors of the 
 ikonostasis were open throughout the service, all 
 prayers were in Russian, instead of Church-Slavonic, 
 and some were not chanted. The chief difference, 
 and a very notable one, came at the time of the 
 sermon: an elderly layman went up to the holy doors 
 with his own Bible in hand, and read in Russian a 
 portion of Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, deal¬ 
 ing with the Apostle’s expostulations about their divi¬ 
 sions. The priest then came forward and delivered a 
 twenty-minute sermon—and a very effective exhorta¬ 
 tion it was—pointing out the unhappy effect of the 
 divisions within the Russian church, for there, too, 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 317 
 
 many say: “I am Peter’s” ( i.e . belong to the party of 
 Metropolitan Peter), and others: “I am of the 
 synodical party.” The preacher exhorted his hearers to 
 eschew all such divisive slogans, and to say: “I belong 
 to Christ!” Even this one sermon was somewhat of 
 an innovation in the Russian service; but this good 
 priest was not satisfied with stopping with one. After 
 the sermon based on the Apostle, the deacon stepped 
 to the lactern and read from the gospels, whereupon 
 the priest again came out and gave another sermon, 
 full of evangelical zeal and real religious fervor as 
 well as of spiritual insight. On the whole, these two 
 sermons were remarkable productions, and consider¬ 
 ing how comparatively rare homiletical exercises were 
 in the Orthodox service, this must be hailed as a dis¬ 
 tinct advance upon the previous practice. Attending 
 the evening services, I learned that they consisted 
 largely of expository Biblical preaching, with hardly 
 any liturgical accompaniment, and although it is a 
 mere detail of no particular consequence, yet it was of 
 interest to note that the Western customs were followed 
 even to the extent of carrying chairs and benches into 
 the church, and seating the congregation during the 
 preaching service. 
 
 This priest also organized the members of his 
 congregation into unions and cooperative societies, and 
 on the whole evinced a remarkable interest and zeal 
 in caring for the social and economic conditions affect¬ 
 ing his people. All of this is quite unusual in an old- 
 time parish, and augurs well for the future of the 
 new organization. His parish is a vital factor in the 
 lives of his people, and performs a real service for 
 them. As he told me, “We are poor as our people 
 are poor; but we have gained their love.” 
 
318 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 The former ecclesiastical exclusiveness has likewise 
 disappeared from the synodical party: I, a Protestant, 
 have been received with the utmost brotherly cor¬ 
 diality, by the rank and file, as well as by priests 
 and the metropolitans. In one of the sermons I heard 
 the matter discussed, and the preacher most positively 
 affirmed that no spiritual division exists between the 
 Orthodox and the sectarians, the Roman Catholics, or 
 the Protestants, provided that the inner bond of 
 spiritual unity is present. That is another hopeful 
 sign. Thus, on the whole, the church has found 
 its proper mission, and there is no cause to despair 
 over it. 
 
 Finally, a word ought to be said regarding the present 
 situation of the “sectarians” and their attitude toward 
 the new conditions brought about by the October 
 Revolution. It must be remembered that there are, 
 according to their own estimate, even though it does 
 not represent actual official statistics, some fifteen 
 million sectarians in Russia. Some of them have cen¬ 
 turies of tradition and history back of them; others 
 are of a comparatively recent origin. None of them 
 enjoyed full religious liberty under the tsar, while a 
 few of their communions were occasionally cruelly 
 persecuted. Thus, just like the workers and the peas¬ 
 ants, by the overthrow of the tsarist regime they had 
 “nothing to lose but their chains,” while the new con¬ 
 ditions actually brought them religious liberty for the 
 first time. Moreover, although nominally the same 
 laws which affected the Orthodox church had validity 
 for them, the government is credited as having been 
 much more lenient toward them in the execution of 
 those laws than it was toward the formerly dominant, 
 reigning church. Therefore, the sectarians are unani- 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 319 
 
 mous in their affirmation that their conditions were 
 greatly improved by the October Revolution. I have 
 been present at a conference with the leaders of the 
 chief sectarian communions of Moscow, and have per¬ 
 sonally heard them bear such testimony, some of the 
 speakers even waxing quite eulogistic. 
 
 The most numerous among these non-Orthodox 
 groups, who by a curious psychological twist still per¬ 
 sist in thinking and speaking of themselves as “sec¬ 
 tarians” in distinction from “the church,” although 
 legally the distinction no longer exists, are the Molo- 
 kane, or as they prefer to call themselves, the Spiritual 
 Christians. They have existed, in spite of all the 
 oppression and persecution, for the last hundred and 
 fifty years, and they differed most radically from the 
 Orthodox because they rejected all outward ceremonies 
 and all sacraments, worshiping God “in spirit and in 
 truth.” During the forties of the nineteenth century 
 they suffered most serious persecution, and were exiled 
 into Caucasus and Siberia; yet, in spite of that, they 
 increased their numbers to a million. Then, however, 
 a period of decline set in, during which their best ele¬ 
 ments were won over by the Baptists. But since the 
 opening of the new century, the Spiritual Christians 
 have experienced a revival, which was evidenced by a 
 steady growth. At present, they number about two 
 millions. 
 
 The next communion to rank with the Molokane is 
 the Baptist body, which totals about one and a half 
 millions. Russian Baptists differ markedly from the 
 American Baptists, because their historical origins were 
 native. The movement was originally organized by a 
 certain Pavlov, in Tiflis, Caucasus, among the 
 Molokane settled there, and drew its membership 
 
320 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 largely from the latter communion, which was then 
 temporarily in a state of decline; thus its antecedents 
 were native, and of a kind which has no parallel in the 
 history of the Western Baptists. The Stundist move¬ 
 ment, which became so prominent in the Ukraine and 
 Southern Russia, also merged with the Baptists, and 
 brought in its own spiritual heritage. A similar move¬ 
 ment, under the leadership of Lord Redstock, emerged 
 in St. Petersburg and the North, and assumed the name 
 of the Evangelical Christians. These three strains 
 unite now under the common designation of Baptists. 
 They reject the use of weapons, but are willing to 
 accept other forms of military service, such as hospital 
 duty or any other non-combatants’ service. They are 
 very energetic under the new conditions, publishing a 
 journal, and at present opening a theological school 
 for the training of their ministry. 
 
 Dukhobors, who number about three hundred thou¬ 
 sand, are absolute pacifists, and organize themselves 
 into religious committee. On account of the latter 
 feature, they receive special consideration by the gov¬ 
 ernment, which even went so far as to try to induce 
 the Dukhobors of Canada to return to Russia, in 
 order to help spread the communistic ideal. 
 
 Besides these, there are the Seventh Day Adventists, 
 Mennonites, Old Israelites, New Israelites, Malevantsi, 
 Tolstoyans, and even a rather new sect of Abstainers, 
 who reject the use of intoxicating liquors, not to men¬ 
 tion such sects as Skoptsy, Beguni, etc. 
 
 The rate at which the sectarians grow is alarming 
 to the Orthodox church, for their growth, as a matter 
 of fact, is quite remarkable. Some idea of the rate of 
 increase may be gained from the statistics for the 
 gubernia of Kiev, in the year 1923: the Baptists 
 
The Present Situation 
 
 321 
 
 increased from eleven congregations to fifteen, the 
 Spiritual Christians from fifty-nine to one hundred and 
 twenty-eight, the Adventists from one to twenty-four, 
 and the Malevantsi from three to twenty-six. 23 
 
 Hence it is rather easy to understand why the Com¬ 
 munist leaders look with a certain degree of favor 
 upon the sectarians, and why the sectarians, on the 
 other hand, are so solidly supporting the new regime. 
 The Thirteenth Congress of the Russian Communist 
 Party adopted the following resolution: 
 
 We must pay the greatest attention to the sectarians, 
 who were generally persecuted under the tsar, and 
 some of whom are very active. By approaching them 
 wisely, we must secure their most energetic and 
 cultured elements for our own task. In view of the 
 large number of the sectarians, this work is of great 
 importance. The problem must be solved in accord¬ 
 ance with local conditions. 
 
 The same favorable opinion was shared by Rikov, 
 Bukharin, Kalinin, and Smidovich, as well as by Lenin. 
 The fact that many sectarians share the communistic 
 ideal with the anti-religiously motivated Communist 
 Party brings them together in attempting to work for 
 that element of their aspirations which they possess 
 in common. No wonder that one of these sectarian 
 leaders wrote me enthusiastically: “I consider the 
 Soviet government the best regime, particularly 
 because it is striving to realize communism, which is 
 also the ideal of all sectarians-communists.” 
 
 Thus adding the forces of the synodical party of the 
 Orthodox church to the strength of the sectarians, 
 the total number of those who quite loyally accept 
 
 28 The Messenger of the Holy Synod, No. 2, 1925, p. 22. 
 
322 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 the new regime and regard it as having granted them 
 genuine religious freedom amounts to some forty-five 
 or fifty millions, even though it would be grossly unfair 
 to conclude that the remaining sixty-five millions— 
 more or less—are either disloyal or openly anti-govern¬ 
 mental: the simple truth is that too many causes con¬ 
 spire to imbue the authorities with suspicion and even 
 ill will against them. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 CONCLUSION 
 
 The question is often raised as to the future of the 
 Russian church; some timorous and fearful souls affect 
 anxiety regarding the very possibility of its survival, 
 or work themselves into a high state of excitement 
 about the “annihilating” measures of the atheistic 
 propaganda. This view of the speedy demise of Rus¬ 
 sian Christianity is likewise zealously upheld by those 
 who would find a personal pleasure in attending its 
 funeral; in a personal interview with the president 
 of the Atheist Society, Spitzberg of Moscow, this 
 zealous apostle of atheism gravely assured me that 
 within ten years Christianity will have disappeared 
 from Russia, not because of any governmental perse¬ 
 cution, but because the rising generation will have been 
 brought up in knowledge and enlightment, and many 
 of the older folks will have passed away. 
 
 Without assuming to play the role of a prophet, the 
 question of the survival of Christianity in Russia may 
 be answered by linking it with essentially the same 
 problem confronting Christianity in any other coun¬ 
 try; the Russian crisis is only an acuter stage of the 
 situation prevailing everywhere else. The forces which 
 confront each other there may be cruder than else¬ 
 where : the spirit of militant atheism finds greater sup¬ 
 port in Russia than in other countries, but the relig¬ 
 ious level of Russian Christianity is likewise lower 
 
 323 
 
324 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 than in some other lands. But essentially Christianity 
 is everywhere facing the same problem: it finds itself, 
 for the first time in its history, in a scientific-minded 
 world. This scientific spirit may assume the rather 
 crude form of militant materialistic monism, or some 
 more refined expression with which Western Europe 
 and America are acquainted: but fundamentally the 
 assumption of an ordered universe made by these 
 views in which law, and not a miraculous, supernatural 
 caprice, is dominant, more and more differentiates the 
 modern scientific attitude from the pre-scientific super¬ 
 naturalism which was current throughout the previous 
 epochs of Christian history. Official Christendom is 
 still largely steeped in this pre-scientific ideology, 
 through which it expresses its creed, and thereby puts 
 itself into increasingly disharmonious relation with the 
 modern world-view. Hence the deeper problem which 
 Christianity is facing is whether the pre-scientific type 
 which characterizes some nine-tenths of official Chris¬ 
 tendom shall be able to survive anywhere, not only 
 in Russia. It seems increasingly clear that it cannot. 
 Therefore, if the question whether Russian Christianity 
 shall be able to survive implies whether its present 
 ecclesiastical organization with its ancient doctrinal 
 formulation and cultus can preserve its exact identity 
 unchanged, the answer is not difficult: as long as the 
 general ignorance hitherto so characteristic of the Rus¬ 
 sian peasant prevails, no great modification in his 
 religious habits may be expected. If, however, the gov¬ 
 ernment succeeds in organizing its educational system 
 in a thoroughgoing manner, and if the younger 
 generation quite generally shares the educational privi¬ 
 leges thus provided, there is no doubt that this will 
 imply a considerable change in the religious thinking 
 
Conclusion 325 
 
 of the nation. The situation very likely will then be 
 similar to that in France. 
 
 On the other hand, no one need be any more unduly 
 alarmed about the survival value of essential religion, 
 the Jesus way of life, in Russia than in the rest of 
 the world. As a matter of fact, genuine Christianity 
 has never had a better chance to manifest its intrinsic 
 worth in the concrete, practical conditions of Russian 
 life than just now, when it has at last been freed from 
 its forced partnership with its former tsarist ally, by 
 whom it was kept in an unworthy spiritual bondage 
 at the price of material privileges. The new conditions 
 have made it possible for genuine religion to function 
 as a transforming force. If Russian Christianity con¬ 
 ceives its mission in terms of a character-building, 
 energizing spiritual force, which transforms human 
 lives from sordid self-seeking to altruistic service of 
 others—elements, which, by the way, are not uncom¬ 
 mon in the “atheistic” Russian communism, which 
 nevertheless thinks of itself as irreligious—and if with¬ 
 out any interference with the proper sphere of science, 
 it adds to the scientific attitude a passion for a nobler 
 character and a better social order, and a poetic inter¬ 
 pretation of the spiritual intuitions of the human race, 
 no one needs to be in anxiety about its survival. But 
 it is as frankly a matter of the “survival of the fittest” 
 in the realm of religion as it is in the realm of physical 
 organisms. Fortunately, this new spirit is stirring 
 within the Russian church as well as elsewhere, in 
 spite of the fact that the ancient good made uncouth 
 by time is still its very formidable enemy. The final 
 outcome of the struggle of the two forces within the 
 Christian church is by no means clear: to assume that 
 the new’ spirit must necessarily win would imply an 
 
326 Church and the Russian Revolution 
 
 undue and as yet unwarranted optimism, which does 
 not rest its case upon a demonstrable trend of events. 
 Any adequate knowledge of the prevailing situation 
 is certain to dissipate such undervaluation of the 
 strength of the traditional official Christian ideology. 
 Whatever the ultimate outcome may be, the Russian 
 situation is certain to exert its influence either for 
 good or for evil, for it is a part of the whole. It is for 
 the rest of Christendom to help it choose wisely. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
 
 General Political History: 
 
 Alexinski, G.: Modern Russia, London, 1913. 
 
 Kerenski, A. F.: The Prelude of Bolshevism, London, 1919. 
 
 Kornilov, A.: Modern Russian History, 2 vols., London, 1916. 
 
 Mavor, J.: An Economic History of Russia, 2 vols., London, 1914. 
 
 Milyukov, P. N.: Istoriya Vtoroy Revolyutsii (A History of the 
 Second Russian Revolution), Part I, Sofia, 1924. (In Russian.) 
 
 Olgin, I.: The Soul of the Russian Revolution, New York, 1917. 
 
 Pares, Bernard: A History of Russia, New York, 1926. 
 
 Pasvolski, L.: The Economics of Communism, New York, 1921. 
 
 Russia Today. Official Report of the British Trade Union Delega¬ 
 tion, New York, 1925. 
 
 Sack, A. J.: The Birth of the Russian Democracy, New York, 1918. 
 
 Srom, Josef: Sovetske Rusko (Soviet Russia), Praha, 1924. (In 
 Bohemian.) 
 
 Vassili, Count Paul: Behind the Veil at the Russian Court, London, 
 1914. 
 
 Za Pet Let; 1917-1922 (During Five Years; 1917-1922.) Moscow, 
 1922. (In Russian.) 
 
 Cultural and Social History of Russia: 
 
 Berdyaev, N.: Mirosozertsanie Dostoevskago (Dostoevsky’s World- 
 View), Prague, 1923. (In Russian.) 
 
 Berdyaev, N.: Smysl Istorii (The Meaning of History), Berlin, 1923. 
 (In Russian.) 
 
 Haase, F.: Die Religiose Psyche des Russisches Volkes, Leipzig, 1921. 
 
 Haase, F.: Russische Kirche und Socialismus, Leipzig, 1922. 
 
 Masaryk, T. G.: The Spirit of Russia, 2 vols., London, 1919. 
 
 Milyukov, P. N.: Essais sur l’histoire de la civilization russe, tr. du 
 Russe par P. Dramas et D. Soskice, Paris, 1901. 
 
 Miihlestein, Hans: Russland und die Psychomachie Europas, 
 Miinchen, 1925. 
 
 Notzel-Barwinskyj: Die Slawische Volkseele, Jena, 1916. 
 
 Notzel, Karl: Die Grundlagen des geistigen Russlands, Leipzig, 1923. 
 
 Russian Church History: 
 
 Bonwetsch, N.: Kirchengeschichte Russlands, Leipzig, 1923. 
 
 Book of Rules, The, Moscow, 1911. (In Church-Slavonic.) 
 
 327 
 
328 Bibliography 
 
 Brikhnichev, Iona: Patriarkh Tikhon i ego Tserkov (Patriarch 
 Tikhon and his Church). (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 Bubnoff-Ehrenberg: Ostliches Christentum: Dokumente, 2 Bande, 
 Miinchen. 
 
 Conybeare, Fred C.: Russian Dissenters, Cambridge, Mass., 1921. 
 
 Deyaniya Drugago Vserossiiskago Pomestnago Sobora 1923 goda 
 (Acts of the Second All-Russian Local Sobor, 1923), Moscow. 
 
 D’Herbigni, M.: Tserkovnaya Zhizn v Moskve (The Ecclesiastical 
 Life in Moscow), trans. from the French by I. F. Nazhivin, 
 Paris, 1926. 
 
 Fioletov, N. N.: Tserkov i Gosudarstvo po sovetskomu pravu (The 
 Church and the Government according to the Soviet Legisla¬ 
 tion), Moscow, 1924. (In Russian.) 
 
 Gidulyanov, P. V.: Otdelenie Tserkvi ot Gosudarstva (Separation of 
 the Church from the Government), Moscow, 1926. (In Russian.) 
 
 Kandidov, B. P.: Tserkov i 1905 god (The Church and the Year 
 1905), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Krasikov: Na Tserkovnom Fronte (1918-1923). (On the Church Front 
 [1918-1923]), Moscow, 1923. (In Russian.) 
 
 Lowrie, Donald A.: The Light of Russia, Prague, 1923. 
 
 Lukin, N.: Revolyutsiya i Tserkov (Revolution and the Church), 
 Moscow, 1923. (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 McCullagh, F.: The Bolshevist Persecution of Religion, London, 1924. 
 
 Otdelenie Tserkvi ot Gosudarstva i Shkoly ot Tserkvi (Separation of 
 the Church from the State and the School from the Church), 
 Kharkov, 1926. (In Russian.) 
 
 Pobedonostsev, K. P.: Reflections of a Russian Statesman, London, 
 1898. 
 
 Polozhenie o vysshem i eparkhial’nom upravlenie pravoslavnoy 
 tserkvi, utverzhdenago svyashchennym soborom pravoslavnoy 
 roesiiskoy tserkvi v 1917-1918 g. (Regulations concerning the 
 supreme and eparchial administration of the Orthodox Church 
 passed by the Sobor of 1917-18), Warsaw, 1922. (In Russian.) 
 
 Reyburn, H. Y.: The Story of the Russian Church, London, 1924. 
 
 Romanoff, H. C.: Rites and Customs of the Graeco-Russian Church, 
 London, 1920. 
 
 Rozhdestvensky, A.: Svyateishy Tikhon (The Most Holy Tikhon), 
 Sophia. (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 Solov’ev, V. S.: Collected Works, 7 vols., St. Petersburg. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Statistical Review of the People’s Commissariat of Domestic Affairs, 
 Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Titlinov, B. V.: Pravoslavie na sluzhbe samoderzhaviya v russkom 
 gosudarstve (Orthodoxy in the service of absolutism of the 
 Russian government), Leningrad, 1924. (In Russian.) 
 
Bibliography 329 
 
 Titlinov, B. V.: Novaya Tserkov (The New Church), Petrograd, 
 1923. (In Russian.) 
 
 Titlinov, B. V.: Tserkov vo vrema Revolyutsii (The Church during 
 the Revolution), Petrograd, 1924. (In Russian.) 
 
 Tolstoy, Lev N.: My Confession, New York, 1887. 
 
 Tolstoy, Lev N.: My Religion, New York, 1885. 
 
 Trubetskoy, E. N.: Smysl Zhizni (The Meaning of Life), Berlin, 
 1922. (In Russian.) 
 
 Valentinov, A. A.: Chernaya Kniga (The Black Book), Paris, 1925. 
 
 Vvedensky, Alexander: Tserkov i Gosudarstvo, 1918-1922 (The 
 Church and the Government), Moscow, 1923. 
 
 Zhevakhov, N. D.: Reminiscences, Vol. I, Munich, 1923. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Anti-Religious Literature: 
 
 Lenin, V. I.: Mysli V. I. Lenina o Religii (V. I. Lenin’s Ideas about 
 Religion), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Lukin, N.: Revolyutsiya i Tserkov (The Revolution and the 
 Church), Moscow. (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 Lunacharsky-Vvedensky: Khristianstvo ili Kommunizm (Christianity 
 or Communism? A Dispute between A. V. Lunacharsky and 
 Metropolitan Alexander Vvedensky), Leningrad, 1926. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Lunin, A.: Tserkov i Oktyabr’skaya Revolyutsiya (The Church and 
 the October Revolution), Moscow, 1925. (In Russian.) 
 
 Okunev, Yak.: “Smena Vekh” v tserkvi (The “Change of Sign- 
 Posts” in the Church), Kharkov, 1923. (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 Paozersky, M. F.: Russkie Svatye pered sudom Istorii (The Russian 
 Saints Before the Tribunal of History), Moscow, 1923. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Paozersky, M. F.: Chudotvornye Ikony (The Wonder-Working 
 Images), Moscow, 1923. (In Russian.) 
 
 Sarab’yanov, V.: Ob Antireligioznoy Propagande (About the Anti- 
 Religious Propaganda). Moscow, 1923. (Pamphlet, in Russian.) 
 
 Important Periodicals: 
 
 Amerikansky Pravoslavny Vestnik (The American Orthodox 
 Messenger), New York. (In Russian.) 
 
 Antireligioznik (The Anti-Religious Journal), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Ateist (The Atheist), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Izvestiya Vserossiyskago Tsentralnago Ispolnitel’nago Komiteta 
 (Bulletin of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee). (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Pravda. The Truth. 
 
330 Bibliography 
 
 Put’. Organ. Russkoy Religioznoy Mysli (The Way: Organ of 
 Russian Religious Thought), Paris. (In Russian.) 
 
 Revolyutsiya i Tserkov (Revolution and the Church), Moscow. 
 
 Russkaya Mysl (The Russian Thought). 
 
 Slavonic Review, The, London. 
 
 Slovansky Pfehled (The Slavic Review) Prague, (In Bohemian.) 
 
 Tserkovnyya Vedomosti (The Ecclesiastical Journal), Karlovtsi, 
 Serbia. (In Russian.) 
 
 Ukrainsky Pravoslavny Blagovestnik (The Ukrainian Orthodox 
 Messenger), Kiev. (In Ukrainian.) 
 
 Vestnik Dukhovnikh Khristian-Molokan (The Messenger of the 
 Spiritual Christians-Molokans), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Vestnik Pravoslaviya (The Orthodox Messenger), Berlin. (In 
 Russian.) 
 
 Vestnik Svyashchennogo Sinoda Pravoslavnoy Rossiiskoy Tserkvi 
 (Messenger of the Most Holy Synod of the Orthodox Russian 
 Church), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
 Zhivaya Tserkov (The Living Church), Moscow. (In Russian.) 
 
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