CHAPTER 2 Maintaining Conciliarity Over the Frontlines and Ideologies (1918-1922)1 Patriarch Tikhon’s Transition from an Anti-Soviet to an Apolitical Stage The All-Russian Council began its work in August 1917 and ended in September of 1918. The impact of the changes that the nation experienced during this brief period of time was unprecedent in Russian history: from the ninth century until March 1917, the Kyivan and Muscovite Rus, the Russian Empire, experienced various forms of monarchy. On March 2, 1917 Emperor Nicholas II abdicated for himself and for his son in favor of Nicholas’ brother, Great Duke Michael. The Tsar did not expect that the latter would decline this appointment.2 On October 25, 1917 the Provisional Government that expected to deliver the constitutional assembly was toppled in Petrograd by the Bolsheviks section of the Russian Social Democratic Party. During the night of January 18-19, 1918, the delegates of the constitutional assembly, which had begun its work a day before, were dispersed by the Bolsheviks. In February of 1918 armed conflict took place for the first time between the newly-formed White Army (Anti-Bolsheviks) and Red (Bolsheviks) troops, both in Siberia and in European Russia. On January 25, 1918 Patriarch Tikhon excommunicated (anathematized) all those baptized in the Russian Orthodox Church who persecuted the Church. The Russian Church did not welcome the uniliteral peace treaty signed by the Bolsheviks on behalf of Russia with Germany in Brest Litovsk on March 3, 1918. On March 18, 1918, in his appeal to the Russian Church, Patriarch Tikhon clearly expressed his anti-Bolshevik stance referring to the secession of Ukraine to Germany: The peace is concluded now, in which entire regions populated by the Orthodox people are being torn away from us, and surrendered to the will of an enemy alien by faith. And tens of millions of Orthodox people fall into the conditions of a great spiritual temptation for their faith, a peace treaty in which even Ukraine, primordially Orthodox, separated from fraternal Russia, and the capital city of Kyiv, the mother of Russian cities, the cradle of our baptism, the repository of sacred places and objects, ceases to be a city of the Russian power.3 Patriarch Tikhon continued his theme of the renunciation of class struggle and the antiChurch ethos of the new regime in another appeal of October 25, 1918 to the Russian Church, marking the first anniversary of the Bolsheviks coming to power. However, in the same document the Patriarch, following in the steps of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, refused to prescribe any political solutions for Russia: It is not our business to judge earthly power: any authority permitted by God would receive Our blessing, if it would in fact appear ‘as God’s servant’ for the benefit of subordinates and was ‘For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil’” (Rom. 13, 3).4 Although during his first year of tenure the Patriarch was adamantly anti-Bolshevik, nevertheless, he refused to bless the struggle of the White Army. Prince Grigorii N. Trubetskoi recalled that Patriarch Tikhon refused to deliver via him a blessing to the antiBolshevik White Army because, not only did he want to be spared from accusations of 1 meddling in politics, but also because he wanted to remain apolitical in his convictions. This attitude found expression in his epistle of July 21,1919, where Patriarch Tikhon appealed to the members of the Russian Church not to indulge themselves in vengeance: Passions ignite. Riots break out. More and more new [political] camps are being created. A scorching fire is spreading. Hostile actions turn into human hatred. Organized extermination into guerrilla warfare with all its horrors. All Russia is a battlefield! But that is not all. It is even worse further. News has been heard of Jewish pogroms, beating of the whole tribe with distinguishing age, guilt, gender, convictions. Embittered by the circumstances of life, a person is looking for the culprits of his failures and, in order to vent out his grievances, grief and suffering, he swings so that under the blow of his hand, blinded by the thirst for revenge, a mass of innocent victims falls (...) Orthodox Russia‚ may this shame pass you by... May this curse not befall you. May your hand not be stained with blood crying to Heaven... Remember: pogroms are the triumph of your enemies. Remember: pogroms are dishonor for you, dishonor for the Holy Church!5 This apolitical phase of Patriarch Tikhon’s philosophy received further development in his open letter to the Archpastors of the Russian Church of October 8, 1919: “We can decisively declare that it is not up to the Church to establish any particular form of government, but rather up to the people themselves. The Church is not tied to any specific mode of government, since this has but a relative, historical significance.”6 Patriarch Tikhon's encyclical was issued in the period when, more than at any other time, the White Armed Forces of the South of Russia were closing in on Moscow. On October 13, 1919, Orel was taken by Kornilov's 13th Shock Regiment, followed by Mtsensk on October 14. Would it not have made more sense to bide one's time if this “Christ-loving army” was only 400 kilometers away from Moscow? However, the Patriarch did not want the blood of those baptized Orthodox who were in the Bolshevik camp to be spilt in the event that the White Army were to emerge victorious. Thus, this epistle signified the new “apolitical” phase of the Patriarch’s attitude toward the new regime when he failed to denounce the Bolsheviks. This is an important moment marking the formation of two different experiences of the Russian Church on the territories controlled by the White and Red Armies respectively. The encyclical sought to rid the Church of the charge of counter-revolutionary activity and consequently enjoyed a positive reception among the Bolsheviks in comparison with previous statements.7 The fact that the Supreme Church Governance in the territories of South Russia (controlled by the Whites) considered the encyclical to be applicable only to the territory of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic signified the development of differing mythologies in the parts of the Russian Church divided by frontlines.8 I wonder to what extent the Bolsheviks campaign for the annihilation of the Church influenced Patriarch Tikhon’s decision to move from the anti-Soviet to the apolitical stage. For the Russian Church 1919 became the year of desecration of holy relics. The decree of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of February 16, 1919 prescribed inspection of the relics by clergy in the presence of state representatives and if necessary further confiscation of the relics by the State.9 Between the summer of 1918 and the fall of 1920 there were 58 desacralizations of holy relics throughout Russia.10 The episcopate was suffering losses. By November of 1920 from the thirteen members of the Synod elected on December 7, 1917 six were outside of the Soviet Russia and one was murdered. Fulfilling the decision of the All-Russian Council of April 15,1918 to reduce the size of 2 dioceses and to found new auxiliary units (vicariates), 20 new bishops were consecrated between April 1918 and November 1920. Temporary Ecclesiastical Authority in Siberia The necessity to administer ecclesiastical units cut off from the ecclesiastical center in Moscow generated the foundation of the Siberian Temporary Supreme Church Authority (STSCA), uniting territories under the rule of White Army. On November 17, 1918 the Russian imperial admiral, Alexander V. Kolchak (d. 1920), headed the new regime in Omsk, that had toppled “the leftist” anti-Bolshevik government. At the same time, from November 14 until December 3, 1918, the Siberian Church Assembly,11 consisting of members of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council among others, took place in Tomsk.12 The Council assembled of its own initiative, assuming that extraordinary circumstances would justify the absence of a blessing for this gathering from Patriarch Tikhon. As with the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, the Siberian Assembly was divided into committees and prescribed adoption of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council parish by-laws as a guiding document for ecclesiastical communities in Siberia. The Assembly looked at a new phenomenon that came into being in the diocese of Ekaterinburg, where, in realization of the decision of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, a theological institute, based on theological disciplines taught at the seminaries, was founded. The Committee for Parish Affairs was headed by Archbishop Andrei Ukhtomskii of Ufa (d. 1937).13 The STSCA consisted of three bishops, including the president, two presbyters and two lay members of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council. The Church administration was obliged to give an account to Patriarch Tikhon upon completion of its activity. Naturally, Bishop Innocent Figurovskii (d. 1931), the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical Mission in Peking (which had existed from the beginning of the eighteen century), could discuss the pressing practical instructions issued by the STSCA, but with Moscow.14 This STSCA ended its work in January 1920, following the defeat of Admiral Kolchak’s army. Archbishops Silvester of Omsk Ol’shevskii, (d.1920), Benjamin of Simbirsk Muratovskii, (d.1930), and Andrei of Ufa Ukhtomskii remained in Russia. Others moved to China and there later joined the Russian Church Abroad. 1919 Temporary Ecclesiastical Authority in South of Russia In February, 1919 the leader of the White Army in the South of Russia, Anton I. Denikin (d. 1947), supported the initiative of his senior military chaplain, Protopresbyter George Shchavel’skii (d. 1945), to organize a Supreme Ecclesiastical administration. From May 3 until May 17,1919 the regional church council met in Stavropol. The modern Russian expert on the Council, Yulia A. Biriukova, points to the importance of the Council in Stavropol as a continuation of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council.15 The Council was organized into five departments, along similar lines to the Council of two years previously: 1) Editorial 3 2) Supreme Church Authority 3) On parish organization 4) On Church discipline 5) On drafting appeals 6) Ecclesiastical schools In the same way as at the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, a bishops’ conference was supposed to approve all decisions. On May 22, 1919 the Council established the Temporary Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration in the South of Russia (TSEASR), uniting a number of dioceses there. In the spirit of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, besides four bishops, the Supreme Ecclesiastical Administration included two clergymen and two laymen. Among them were the above-mentioned Protopresbyter George Schavel’skii and Prince Eugene Trubetskoi. From 59 full-rights members, 30 had been members of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council. Such a regional council could not take a place within the dioceses under the Bolsheviks’ control. The Council in Stavropol implemented the notion of metropolitan districts discussed at the very end of the 19171918 All-Russian Council. Following in the steps of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council’s appeal to non-Orthodox Christians for prayers for Russia, the Council in Stavropol in 191916 and the Supreme Church Administration (SCA) in Siberia in the same year appealed for help to the Church of England. Archbishop Benjamin Muratovskii of Simbirsk ended the appeal with the following words: We hope that as the representative of the Christian Church in Great Britain you will, with your followers, turn to Him who holds life and death in His hands, with ardent prayers for those in Northern Europe, who for the love of Christ have in the twentieth century been martyred for their Faith.17 Such petitions for solidarity with Russian Christians were taken seriously by the Church of England. Archbishop of Canterbury Randall Davidson suggested that a special prayer for the persecuted Russian Church should be read throughout the dioceses of the Church of England. The Council in Stavropol was reasonably successful in steering away from political engagement, predating Patriarch Tikhon’s appeal issued five months later in October of 1919. Fr. Vladimir Vostokov (d. 1957), a leader of the radical monarchist Brotherhood of the Holy Cross, contributed to the Council’s appeal to the Red Army.18 This is an important testimony that helps to understand the First Pan-Diaspora Council in 1921 demonstrating that the restorationist goals, which could not be achieved in Stavropol, had been achieved by the radical monarchists at the Church Council in Sremski Karlovci: The South Russian Council in May 1919 In Stavropol, under the chairmanship of Archbishop Mitrophan [Simashkevich of Don and Novocherkask, d. 1933], with the exceptionally active participation of Protopresbyter Shchavelskii, who was then working in co-ordination with the chief of [General Deniken’s] staff, General Romanovskii, would take away the words of its members who were trying to express themselves definitively about “bloodless socialism” and internationalist executioners.19 The word "tsar" at this council was feared like fire. Only the South Russian Church administration, already in Crimea, openly condemned the murder of the Tsar and called on the 4 people to repent of this terrible sin, but to the most valuable repentance - to bear the fruit of repentance - in this case, the Crimean Church administration did not dare to summon the restoration of the Russian Orthodox legitimate Tsar.20 While continuing in the spirit of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council in calling the Bolsheviks to repentance, the Council, in the same appeal to the Red Army, explained that the Revolution is targeting exclusively the Orthodox faith, not Judaism nor Islam, and that the regular rank and file Bolsheviks have been manipulated by adventurist leaders.21 This exposition of conspiracy theory is an important indicator of the ideology developed in the part of the Russian Church separated from its center in Moscow, firstly on the territories controlled by the White Army, and later in diaspora. The future secretary of the ROCOR Synod in Serbia and the Chief of the Chancellery of the military department during the Stavropol Council, Evkustodion Makharablidze (d. 1960), expressed these sentiments very clearly in 1926: “One and all sincerely hate the apostate Jews, who are the principal authorities of Russian misery.”22 The thrust of this assessment is quite different from that of Patriarch Tikhon’s above cited 1919 epistle regarding antisemitism. A Decree Sanctioning Temporary Church Autonomies for the Entire Russian Church By March of 1920, all that was controlled by the White Army in the south was the Crimean Peninsula. From its foundation in Stavropol in May 1919, TEASR did not have a permanent location, instead following the headquarters of the White Army leaders, first General Anton I. Deniken and then, succeeding him, General Peter N. Wrangel. In the Crimea the newly reorganized Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority in the South of Russia (SEASR, replacing TSEAR) from September, 1920 onwards was led by Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii of Kyiv and Galich, who had to leave his Kyivan diocese with Denikin’s Volunteer Army, departing from there during the winter of 1919-1920. The fact that Metropolitan Antonii was active in Crimea and Fr. George Shchavelskii was replaced by Bishop Veniamin Fedchenkov, (d. 1961) may explain Fr. Vladimir Vostokov’s references above to the restoration of the monarchy as promoted by the SEASR in Crimea. It was not destined for Crimea to become the Russian Taiwan and on November 8-12, 1920 in overwhelming numbers, Red troops penetrated the Crimean peninsula’s lines of defense. On November 11, 1920 the vessel “Great Prince Aleksandr Mikhailovich” left Sebastopol23 for Constantinople, taking, among others, refugee members of the Crimean Church Authority. The ship carrying the refugee clergymen arrived in Constantinople at a time when the Triple Entente nations had occupied Constantinople and the Russian ship was quarantined by the Allied Forces. On November 19, 1920, the five members of SEASR, Metropolitan Antonii of Kyiv and Galich, Metropolitan Platon Rozhdestvenskii of Kherson and Odessa, Archbishop Theophan Bystrov of Poltava and Pereiaslavl’ (d.1940) and Bishop Veniamin Fedchenkov of Sebastopol held an official meeting in their capacity of being SEASR members. From the minutes of that first meeting on the vessel, it follows that the Russian refugee bishops, continuing to use the abbreviation SEASR, decided to extend its authority to minister to the ranks of the White Army and to all refugees who 5 could not be looked after by the Church in Soviet Russia, based on the recommendation of the leader of White Army, General Peter N. Wrangel.24 The abbreviation SEASR was used in the minutes until December 12, 1920. Then it became the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority. From February 3, 1921 it was referred to as the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority Abroad (SEAA).25 Prior to that meeting on November 19, 1920, in the first days after arrival in Constantinople, Metropolitan Antonii had believed that the Russian refugees should have joined the local Orthodox Churches. Patriarch Tikhon had issued his apolitical appeal in 1919, around the time when the White Army had reached the closest point of approaching to Moscow. However, the decree no. 362 of “His Holiness Patriarch, Sacred Synod and Supreme Ecclesiastical Council” of November 20, 1920 came into being (please see its text below) when the civil war in European Russia was over.26 Given the timing of this document, its reference to “frontlines” is puzzling. This ukase (decree no. 362) provided a foundation for temporary autonomy in the event of extreme circumstances. When, in the night from November 7 to November 8, 1920, a detachment of the 6th Red Army, together with the Revolutionary Insurrectional Army of the Ukraine, broke through the defense of the Crimean Peninsula mounted by General Petr Wrangel's White Russian Army, it was clear that the armed forces of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) had won. Therefore, one might consider the resolution of November 20, first and foremost, as setting in stone the Church's successful experience of autonomous organization in the territory controlled by the White Army27 and in Ukraine by Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskii. The situation with Russian ecclesiastical refugees who had been evacuated from the Crimea from November 11-16, 1920 comes close to the extraordinary circumstances outlined in the decree.28 I believe that this is another striking piece of evidence that the Patriarch wanted to preserve ties between the Russian Church and those who found themselves outside of Soviet Russia. Decree No 362, Adopted at the Joined Session of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, Holy Synod and Supreme Church Council, November 7/20, 1920 With the blessing of His Holiness the Patriarch [Tikhon—ed.], the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council united together, have deliberated concerning the necessity, supplementary to the instructions already given in the encyclical letter of His Holiness the Patriarch in case of the cessation of the activity of the diocesan councils, of giving to the Diocesan Bishops just such instructions in the event of the severance of relations between the diocese and the Supreme Church Administration, or the cessation of the activity of the latter and, on the basis of past decisions, we have resolved: By an encyclical letter in the name of His Holiness to give the following instructions to the Diocesan Bishops for their guidance in necessary cases: 1) In the event that the Holy Synod and the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council for any reason whatever terminate their ecclesiastical administrative activity, the Diocesan Bishop, for instructions in directing his ministry and for the resolution of cases in accordance with rules which go back to the Supreme Church Administration, turns directly to His Holiness the Patriarch or to that person or institution indicated by His Holiness the Patriarch. 6 2) In the event a diocese, in consequence of the movement of the war front, changes of state borders, etc., finds itself completely out of contact with the Supreme Church Administration, or if the Supreme Church Administration itself, headed by His Holiness the Patriarch, for any reason whatsoever ceases its activity, the Diocesan Bishop immediately enters into relations with the bishops of neighboring dioceses for the purpose of organizing a higher instance of ecclesiastical authority for several dioceses in similar conditions (in the form either of a temporary Supreme Church administration or a Metropolitan district, or other). 3) Responsibility for the organization of a Supreme Church Authority as the objective of an entire group of dioceses which find themselves in the position indicated in paragraph 2, is the mandatory obligation of the senior bishop of such a group. 4) In the case of the impossibility of establishing relations with bishops of neighboring dioceses, and until the organization of a higher instance of ecclesiastical authority, the Diocesan Bishop takes upon himself all the fullness of authority granted him by the canons of the Church, taking all measures for the ordering of Church life and, if it appear necessary, for the organization of the diocesan administration, in conformity with the conditions which have arisen, deciding all cases granted by the canons to episcopal authority, with the cooperation of existing organs of diocesan administration (the diocesan assembly, the diocesan council, et al, or those that are newly organized); in case of the impossibility of constituting the above indicated institutions, he is under his own recognizance. 5) In case the state of affairs indicated in paragraphs 2 and 4 takes on a protracted or even a permanent character, in particular with the impossibility for the bishop to benefit from the cooperation of the organs of the diocesan administration, by the most expedient means (in the sense of the establishment of ecclesiastical order) it is left to him to divide the diocese into several local dioceses, for which the Diocesan Bishop: a) grants his right reverend vicar bishops, who now, in accordance with the Instruction, enjoy the rights of semi-independent bishops, all the rights of Diocesan Bishops, with the organization by them of administration in conformity to local conditions and resources; b) institutes, by conciliar decision with the rest of the bishops of the diocese, as far as possible in all major cities of his own diocese, new episcopal Cathedras with the rights of semi-independent or independent bishops. 7 6) A diocese divided in the manner specified in paragraph 5 forms an ecclesiastical district headed by the bishop of the principle diocesan city, which commences the administration of local ecclesiastical affairs in accordance with the canons. 7) If, in the situation indicated in paragraphs 2 and 4, there is found a diocese lacking a bishop, then the Diocesan Council or, in its absence, the clergy and laity, turns to the Diocesan Bishop of the diocese nearest or most accessible to regards convenience or relations, and the aforesaid bishop either dispatches his vicar bishop to administer the widowed (i.e. vacant) diocese or undertakes its administration himself, acting in the cases indicated in paragraph 5 and in relation to that diocese in accordance with paragraphs 5 and 6, under which, given the corresponding facts, the widowed diocese can be organized into a special ecclesiastical district. 8) If for whatever reason an invitation from a widowed diocese is not forthcoming, the Diocesan Bishop indicated in paragraph 7 undertakes the care of its affairs on his own initiative. 9) In case of the extreme disorganization of ecclesiastical life, when certain persons and parishes cease to recognize the authority of the Diocesan Bishop, the latter, finding himself in the position indicated in paragraphs 2 and 6, does not relinquish his episcopal powers, but forms deaneries and a diocese; he permits, where necessary, that the divine services be celebrated even in private homes and other places suited, therefore, and severs ecclesiastical communion with the disobedient. 10) All measures taken in places in accordance with the present instruction, afterwards, in the event of the restoration of the central ecclesiastical authority, must be subject to the confirmation of the latter. Compendium of Regulations, Statutes and Laws of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, NY 2006, 11-12 The Serbian Orthodox Church Provides Safe Haven for Russian Church Exiles On December 2, 1920 the locum tenens of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, Metropolitan Dorotheos Mammelis of Prusa (d. 1921) issued permit no 9084 to the Russian refugee bishops to continue ministering to the Russian exiles in the camps around the Greater Constantinople area.29 8 Upon evacuation from Crimea, General Wrangel had communications with foreign embassies in Constantinople regarding resettling Russian refugees who had arrived from Crimea. In January of 1920, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes decided to accept eight thousand Russian refugees; another twenty thousand arrived in November of the same year. During World War One Serbia had lost ten percent of its population. As a result of World War One, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenes, based on the ideology of the one Yugoslavian nation, was founded in 1918. The Serbian King Peter (d. 1921) became the leader of this unitary state. The expertise of thousands of Russian specialists and scholars was much welcomed. It was also a gesture of gratitude to the Russian Empire, the great ally of Serbia in the Balkans. On February 16, 1921 Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii went from Constantinople to Serbia.30 At the meeting of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority Abroad in Constantinople on May 12, 1921, it was decided simply to inform the Ecumenical Patriarchate about the transfer of the SEAA to Serbia. No question of receiving a canonical release from Phanar was ever raised. On September 12, 1920 the previously independent Serbian ecclesiastical administrative units in the Serbian and the former Austro-Hungarian territories were united into a Patriarchate at the council of the Serbian Orthodox Church (SOC) held in Sremski Karlovci, Serbia. Metropolitan Dimitrije Pavlovich of Belgrade (d. 1930) became the Patriarch. At its council the bishops of the Serbian Orthodox approved the canonical status of the Russian refugee bishops within the SOC: The Holy Hierarchal Synod, having considered the proposals of V.M. [Visokopreosveshteni Mitropolit – The Very Most Reverend, Metropolitan] of Kyiv and Galitsia, Lord Antonii, and of the Russian Archimandrite Kirill, states his readiness to care for the exiled Russian people and their spiritual needs from now on, as it has been done until this time. The Holy Hierarchical Synod will from now on, as until now, go out of its way to help the exiled Hierarchs, Deacons and Priests, and according to need and its abilities, it will receive them into the service for the Serbian Church. The Holy Hierarchal Synod is willing to receive under its protection the Higher Russian Church Administration, under whose dominion the following things would belong: 1. Jurisdiction over Russian clergy outside of our country and the Russian clergy within our country which are not in parochial or state- educational service, as well as over military clergy of the Russian army which are not in the Serbian Church service; 2. Divorce proceedings of Russian refugees.31 In an open letter of March 3/16,1922, Patriarch Tikhon expressed his gratitude to Patriarch Dimitrii of Serbia for his aid “to the Russian exile bishops, clergy, and laypeople who, having ended up outside their homeland owing to circumstances, have found warm hospitality and refuge within the Patriarchate of Serbia”.32 The expansion of Russia abroad as a cultural, religious and a social space, free from Bolshevik authoritarianism, produced a new phenomenon: a Church autonomy existing on the territory of a common cultural and ethnic background, experience and political expectation regarding return to the homeland. The Byzantine corpus canonum, binding for the entire Orthodox Church, did not envision such an ecclesiastical entity. However, its foundation in Serbia was justified from an ethical perspective, which should not be 9 divorced from the canons, since no one else would be able to provide ministry to these refugees apart from their own bishops and priests. Despite the fact that canons33 allow bishops to leave their dioceses in the face of persecution, the ROCOR bishops were often viewed in Russia with contempt as leaving behind their flock. A Divisive Council in Diaspora During a meeting on April 19-21, 1921 the newly founded ecclesiastical administration in Constantinople decided to organize a council for “unification, normalization and reviving of ecclesiastical activity.”34 The man behind the organization of the council was Bishop Benjamin (Fedchenkov). On March 31, 1920 General Wrangel appointed him to be in charge of the army and navy chaplains of his army, replacing Fr. George Shchavelskii. In 1920 at that Crimean stage of his ecclesiastical career, Bishop Benjamin preached that in the struggle against Bolshevism the Russian Church could not be apolitical.35 There were many monarchists among the members of the Russian Church Abroad for whom, as for Fr. Vladimir Vostokov at the Stavropol Council, it was clear that the end of monarchy and the February Revolution of 1917 was a point of no return for the Russian Orthodox state. General Wrangel considered the evacuation across the Black Sea as a retreat necessary for continuation of the Civil War. There were high expectations of an imminent return to Russia. On May 29 – June 7, 1921 the Conference for the Economic Restoration of Russia took place in the Bavarian town of Bad Reichenhall. 106 representatives of 24 different political organizations came from four continents. They were former Russian high-rank imperial and civil officers. Most of them had belonged before the Revolution to the Russian ultra-nationalist unions.36 The Religious Committee was led by Archbishop Evlogii of Volynia, who in October 1920 had been appointed by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority in the South of Russia to oversee church life in Western Europe.37 The Congress established a new monarchist alliance, the Supreme Monarchical Council (SMC) with its base in Berlin. Nikolai Markov-II, a former leader of a faction of the Union of the Russian People, known for his actively antisemitic position before the Revolution, became the chairman of the SMC. Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii, who believed that monarchist convictions were an integral part of the Orthodox mindset, also participated in the Congress and was assigned a role as Honorary Chairman of the SMC. As a result of the work of the commission for preparation of a Pan-Diaspora Council, headed by Bishop Benjamin, 103 representatives of the Russian diaspora participated in the Council in Sremski Karlovci from November 21 till December 2, 1921: 13 bishops, 67 laymen and 23 clergymen. Metropolitan Antonii, since his arrival in Serbia earlier in 1921, had his living quarters in the Serbian patriarchal palace in this formerly Austro-Hungarian town. The army and monarchists were actively represented. General Peter Wrangel took part in the Council. A principle of representation, where members would participate on behalf of ecclesiastical communities as well as political bodies like the Supreme Monarchical Council, became a time-bomb under the Pan-Diaspora Council, both in the short term and in the entire ecclesiastical life in the diaspora in the long run. Already on 10 November 22, 1921, during the first day of the Council’s work, Michael V. Rodzianko had to leave the Council at the demand of Alexander F. Trepov of the SMC. Rodzianko, Chairman of the Russian Duma [parliament], had been actively opposed to Nicholas II. At the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council the political spectrum had been represented by variety of views. However, the different categories of monarchist conviction dominated the First Pan-Diaspora Council. For many participants the Council became a moment of turning the clock back to a time before the February Revolution. Their hopes materialized in the election of Fr. Vladimir Vostokov in the Supreme Church Council. This restoration monarchist attitude remains strong within the Russian Church Abroad until now. The department of the Pan-Diaspora Council dedicated to the spiritual renewal of Russia adopted a resolution “To All Children of the Russian Church Existing in Diaspora and Exile” that ended with the words And now may our prayer flame up unsleepingly and may the Lord show us the path of salvation and of the restoration of our native land. May He defend the faith and the Church and all Russia. May He protect the people’s hearts from evil and may He restore to the Russian throne the Lord’s Anointed, strong in the love of his people — the legitimate Orthodox Tsar of the House of Romanov.38 This paragraph carries the same message as had the resolution of the Bad Reichenhall Conference on the Economic Restoration of Russia, which had taken place immediately prior to the Monarchical Congress on May 16-24, 1921: 1. The Conference recognizes that the only path to the restoration of great, strong and free Russia is restoration of monarchy, headed by the legitimate Sovereign (Государем) from the House of the Romanovs, according to the Fundamental Laws of the Russian Empire.39 Nikolai Markov, Chairman of the SMC, defended the belief of the majority in the necessity of mentioning the Romanov’s dynasty in the resolution of the Pan-Diaspora council. He explained that there was a pledge of allegiance given to the Romanov dynasty by the representative assembly of Muscovy Rus in 1613 (Zemskii sobor). Speaking on behalf of the minority, Bishop Benjamin of Sebastopol explained that they did not oppose the monarchist principle, but considered the mention of the Romanovs to be of a political nature. Then he pointed out the temptation of the emigration to speak on behalf of the homeland: We are not an Ecclesiastical Council of the entire Russia, we are just an insignificant minority… Until now most of us thought that a state could not be built other than on a political foundation. The majority has subscribed here to this opinion. However, His Holiness Patriarch [Tikhon] said to bishops that they should be outside of politics and stand on spiritual ground. It is significant that the majority of clergy [here] support this position.40 In 1917 Metropolitan Antonii had called the flock to give a pledge of allegiance to the Provisional Government (see Chapter 1); and in 1918 in Kyiv to Hetman Pavlo Skoropadskii (see below). Now, responding to the minority group of 33 delegates at the Pan-Diaspora Council, he said that 11 the question of the dynasty is not political, but purely ecclesiastical, for rejecting this question means rejecting the fundamental laws that have not been abolished, to agree with the so-called conquests of the Revolution, that is, to approve the overthrow of the Tsar and the reigning dynasty, the destruction of the Russian people and at the same time subject Russian people to bloodshed and the horrors of Bonapartism and imposture. This question is moral, moral, and, therefore, purely ecclesiastical.41 This authoritative voice of the Chairman of the Council, as well as active lobbying for the restorationist “formula’ from the leaders of the Supreme Monarchical Council, who came to the Pan-Diaspora Council by invitation of Metropolitan Antonii, contributed to the incorporation of the words about the Romanov dynasty into the Council’s resolution. In connection with the brutal famine being experienced in Russia, the Council assigned the Presidium to issue an appeal to world governments to support the starving people of Russia. This appeal was addressed to the Economic and Financial Conference which took place in Genoa in April-May, 1922. Representatives of the Soviet government participated there. The attitude toward this new regime in Russia, expressed in the appeal to world governments, written by Metropolitan Antonii on behalf of the Council, had a profound influence within the Russian Church Abroad for the ensuing decades: Peoples of Europe! Peoples of the World! Have pity on our kind, open, noble-hearted Russian people, who have fallen into the hands of world villains! Do not support them, do not strengthen them against your children and grandchildren! Better to help honest Russian citizens. Give them arms, give them your volunteers and help expel Bolshevism – this, the cult of killing, looting, and blasphemy from Russia and the whole world. 42 Following the pattern of the 1917-1918 Council, on November 26, 1921 the Council in Sremski Karlovci appointed Metropolitan Antonii, the Sacred Synod and the Supreme Church Council (including clergy and laity) to represent the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority in diaspora. The Parish Bylaws adopted at the 1917-1918 Moscow Council were printed as a supplement to the acts of the Council and thus began their influence in the diaspora. On November 29, 1921, following the example of an appeal to the non-Orthodox from both the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council and from the 1919 South Russian Council, the Missionary Department of the Council in Sremski Karlovci explained the task of Orthodox Christian mission in diaspora: “To manifest before people of other faith in the diaspora the unfading light of Orthodoxy and the purity and magnificent beauty of her truth.”43 In order to fulfill this mission the Department proposed to send some of the ROCOR clergy to study the theology of various denominations at their theological institutions. Thus, on the one hand the 1921 First Pan-Diaspora Council bore a strong imprint of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, but, on the other hand, demonstrated strong factional differences with it. The Restorationist Movement in the Russian Far East 12 After the loss of Crimea in 1920, the Far East of Russia remained free from Bolshevik rule. General Michael Diterikhs (d. 1937), one of the White Army leaders, who already in 1919 had started to organize military units of the Cross and the Crescent, believed that Bolshevism could only be defeated in a religious war. On November 22, 1921, a year after Wrangel’s defeat in Crimea, the White Army took from the Bolsheviks the Russian city of Khabarovsk, the largest city of the Russian Far East. The émigrés hoped that the liberation of Russia could still begin from the Far East. Late in 1921 Metropolitan Antonii addressed the troops in the Russian Far East: You, beloved warriors and rulers of the Far East, have been called by God to fulfill the prediction of Dostoevsky, that late great patriot and Christian. He commands you to revive the old Russia, that real Russian Orthodox Russia, with a Tsar descended from Patriarch Philaret and Michael Fyodorovich Romanov. Forge ahead valiantly into this exploit, moving away from any sin, especially from disobedience and pride, from cruelty and anger. You will bring this new life to Moscow, which will again be filled with a spirit that is ancient but forgotten in these miserable days. This is a spirit that is of God, of purity, of Christ’s love, and true brotherhood in Christ Jesus, to Whom is due glory and majesty, with the Father and the Holy Spirit, unto ages of ages. Amen.44 From July 23 until August 10, 1922 the Zemskii Sobor45 (Assembly of the Land) conducted its work in Vladivostok, consisting of over 200 members including bishops and other clergy. Following that meeting, by the August 15 decision of General Michael Diterikhs, the parish was recognized as the basic administrative unit and atheists were to be subjected to deportation from the territory controlled by the Zemskii Sobor. In the spirit of the 1919 Stavropol Council and of Metropolitan Antonii, the Zemskii Sobor classified Bolsheviks as non-Russian oppressors. Its resolution resonated with that of the 1921 Monarchical Congress in Bad Reichenhall, and the 1921 Pan-Diaspora Council in Sremski Karlovci: “1. The Zemskii Sobor of Outer Manchuria (Priamur’e) recognizes that the rights to implement the Supreme authority in Russia belong to the dynasty of the House of Romanovs.”46 207 delegates voted for in favor of this resolution and 23 against it. The Far East episcopal conference that took place in September, 1922 in the city of Nikol’sk Usuriiskii to prepare for a Church Council provides another illustration of temporary Church autonomies, based on the principle of organization in similar circumstances.47 Russian hierarchs from China and Japan could communicate at this event organized in Russia, while it was almost impossible for them to have normal communication with the ecclesiastical authorities in Moscow.48 As with Crimea, the Russian Far East was not destined to become the Russian Taiwan. By October 25, 1922 the Far East was fully controlled again by the Bolsheviks. All of the bishops who had assembled in Nikol’sk Usuriiskii (see footnote 50) emigrated and, with the exception of Bishop Nestor, died abroad. There are striking similarities between Archpriest Vostokov’s views in the South of Russia and General Michael Diterikhs in its Far East, demonstrating how politically ultra-conservative convictions were widespread within the Russian Church in the wake of the Revolution. The Renovationist Movement 13 In Soviet Russia the Church remained the only ideological structure of the old regime. In order to expedite the Church’s disintegration, the Soviet political police (GPU49) decided to use those bishops and other clergy, who were enthusiastic about the Revolution and skeptical about Patriarch Tikhon, to foment divisions within the Russian Church.50 To achieve their goal, the OGPU used the famine that had devastated the Volga and Ural region as a result of the Civil War. Responding to the necessity of collecting funds for victims of the famine, Patriarch Tikhon on February 19, 1922 appealed to members of the Russian Church to donate to special commissions of the state all church valuables, with the exception of eucharistic vessels. Leo Trotsky supervised the campaign for confiscation of church valuables. A state order issued on February 23 insisted on confiscation of all church valuables, thus provoking a conflict between Church and State. Protesting on February 28, Patriarch Tikhon pointed out in an epistle to the flock that the decision of February 23 amounted to sacrilege and that liturgical vessels sanctified by the Holy Gifts could not be used for profane needs. 51 In the context of this situation, on March 24, 1922 a group of twelve Petrograd clergy, formerly members of the All-Russian Congress of Clergy and Laity (including Archpriests Alexander Vvedenskii and Alexander Boiarskii), published a letter in the major communist newspaper, Pravda, demanding unconditional transfer of all church valuables to the State. Thus, the inner Church conflict of attitudes was used by the State “to divide and conquer.” This movement received an umbrella name, “Renovationism,” which referred to modernization of Church life. This is described succinctly by a historian of the movement, Edward Roslof: Prior to 1917, renovationism encompassed a variety of programs – from mildly reformist to radically revolutionary – for political, religious, and cultural change in the Russian Church. Some advocates of reform simply wanted liturgical change, such as using vernacular Russian in Orthodox ritual or reading whispered portions of the liturgy aloud. Others pushed administrative restructuring to give the lower clergy and laity a greater voice in ecclesiastical decision-making. More revolutionary churchmen pushed for major canonical reforms that included embracing socialism, giving the laity a greater role in religious services, and lifting the age-old prohibitions against married bishops and remarriage of parish clergy. These disparate agendas for reform arose from various sources: clerical dissatisfaction with the status quo, lay desire for parish autonomy, and the perception that secular ideas had displaced religious ones within many parts of the church.52 The Renovationist movement was started in Petrograd by a group of non-monastic clergy who were concerned by what they perceived as Patriarch Tikhon’s inability to lead the Church in the new social and political circumstances. Trotsky believed that “progressivist” clergy were a valuable asset for the Bolsheviks. On May 5, 1922 Patriarch Tikhon was detained by house-arrest (see below) and on May 18, 1922 representatives of the Petrograd Renovationist clergy convinced the Patriarch to give them conditional authorization to supervise day-to-day Church activities until the Patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Agathangel Preobrazhenskii of Yaroslavl (d.1929), would arrive in Moscow. This was the starting point for the foundation of the Renovationist Supreme Church Administration and the subsequent schism from the Moscow Patriarchate. The members of the delegation were far from being sincere with the Patriarch. (At a meeting on May 15 with the leader of the Bolshevik government, Mikhail Kalinin, they were told that the government would not allow Metropolitan Agathangel to take office.) Thus, from the very beginning, the Renovationists became a tool in the government’s plan to destroy the 14 Church. At their meeting on May 29, 1922, the Renovationist movement’s “Living Church” declared widespread reforms aimed at purging Church teaching and liturgical life from those elements accommodated during the centuries of the symphonia between Church and state. On June 16, 1922 three functioning bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, Metropolitans Sergii Stragorodskii of Vladimir, Evdokim Meshcherskii, (d.1935) of Nizhnii Novgorod and Seraphim Meshcheriakov, (d. 1933) of Kostroma, recognized the Renovationist Temporary Supreme Church Administration as the only canonical authority in the Russian Church.53 Soon afterwards, Metropolitan Agathangel was arrested by the GPU on June 18, 1922; on that same day he pronounced the activity of the Renovationist Temporary Supreme Church Administration as non-canonical. The presence of Renovationists demonstrated that within the Russian Church there existed views at the opposite end of the scale from the monarchists. In the previous chapter, I mentioned a questionnaire sent to the bishops in 1905. This document generated discussion within the Russian Church covering a wide spectrum of themes, from the role of a parish to restoration of the patriarachate. At the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council those who were in favor of radical liturgical and canonical reforms were in the minority and in opposition to the restoration of the Patriarchate. Some of the issues touched upon in discussions leading to the Renovationist council in 1923 had not been completed at the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council due to the abrupt ending of the Council (For details see Chapter 3). The word “renovation” is positive and can relate to the activity of Holy Spirit within the Church. The negative legacy of the Renovationist movement lay in the fact that, having implemented the results of the previous discussions without conciliar consent, they thus compromised the word “renovation” and even a possibility of having conversations about reform within the Russian Church. The fact of its close connection with the OGPU has been influential in a rejection of anything connected with this movement. The Disbandment of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority Abroad Besides the famine, the ROCOR council in Sremski Karlovci provided the Bolsheviks with a good excuse to subjugate Patriarch Tikhon. This is explained by the modern scholar of early Soviet State-Church relations, Arto Luukkanen: The activities of the Karlovci Sobor confirmed the suspicions of hardline communist leaders. To make matters worse, this meeting sent an appeal to the Conference of Genoa asking the world not to recognize Bolshevik power. In addition, one eminent representative of the Sobor, Metropolitan Antonii of Kiev (…), blamed all the failures and catastrophes in Russia since the revolution on Soviet power. Moreover, the Sobor urged all nations to help in crushing “Bolshevism” or, as it described it, “the cult of killing, looting, and blasphemy.”54 From the point of view of the ROC [Russian Orthodox Church], this incident could not have happened at a worse moment, as the hardliners in the communist party could not have received a better provocation than this belligerent appeal.55 According to the historian, Irinarkh A. Stratonov (d.1942), Patriarch Tikhon, having received in March 1922 issues of the Belgrade émigré newspaper, Novoe vremia [New Times], with the appeal about the restoration of the Romanov monarchy and the appeal 15 addressed to the Genoa Conference, sent copies to a number of bishops. The responses from all of them arrived before the end of April and they were negative.56 On April 5, 1922 the Patriarch visited the GPU, where he was presented with the demand to clarify his position with respect to the Russian émigré bishops. In his note to the GPU of March 24/April 6, the Patriarch pointed out the abnormal nature of his position due to the authorities imposing limits on his visitors. On April 10, 1922, at the joint meeting of the Moscow Holy Synod and Supreme Church Council, the Patriarch stated: “I consider the Karlovtsy Synod of the Russian clergy and laity abroad not to have canonical significance.”57 However, these words did not become part of the Decree 348 (349)58 adopted by the Moscow Synod and Council on May 5, 1922. Only two encyclicals (on the restoration of the House of Romanov in Russia and the address to the World Conference) were considered as not reflecting the official voice of the Russian Orthodox Church and not having any ecclesiastical and canonical value in the light of their purely political nature.59 However, the Pan-Diaspora Council itself had not been condemned. The authors of the Moscow Decree did not agree with Metropolitan Antonii that the question of the dynasty was not political and it ruled: to dissolve the Supreme Russian Ecclesiastical Authority Abroad because it had issued political statements, and to entrust Metropolitan Evlogii to supervise Russian churches in the diaspora based on the previous assignment to this post by Patriarch Tikhon. (In fact, in 1920 Metropolitan Evlogii had been assigned by the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority in the South of Russia to supervise Russian churches in Western Europe only.) The Committee of Bolshevik leaders, including Menzhinskii, Krasikov, and Samsonov, deemed the Patriarch's stance with respect to the Russian Church Abroad to be insufficiently clear and definite, as was also the case in the matter of the surrender of the property of the churches abroad to the Moscow Patriarchate.60 They demanded that the Patriarch “distance himself categorically” from the clergy of the Church Abroad, and that he should summon Evlogii Georgievskii and Antonii Khrapovitskii to Moscow, and condemn the “reactionary clergy” “judicially” rather than “platonically.”61 On that very same day, May 5, when Decree 348 (349) was adopted, dissolving the Supreme Church Administration Abroad, the Moscow Revolutionary Tribunal ordered that Patriarch Tikhon be put on trial regarding confrontations during confiscation of church valuables. During questioning, the Patriarch spoke about the dissolution of the Church Administration Abroad, as well as, in general terms, about subjecting the responsible bishops from the Church Abroad to an ecclesiastical trial. In Paragraph Three of the decree 348 (349) itself, it is written that the proceedings concerning the activities of the bishops from abroad must take place “upon the resumption of the normal functioning of the [Moscow] Synod”. In other words, the verdict had been delivered with only a small number of members present in abnormal conditions.62 The question of compliance with Decree 348 (349) was examined at a meeting of the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad that took place in Sremsky Karlovci from August 31 to September 13, 1922. In his report to the Council on September 16 1, Secretary of the Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority Abroad, Eksakustodian I. Makharoblidze, suggested that the prolongation of the SEAA would defend the unity of the Russian Church in the homeland and in the diaspora. Makharoblidze disagreed with Patriarch Tikhon regarding responsibility of the SEAA for political epistles since they were adopted by a majority of the Council’s members. Having admitted the possibility that Patriarch Tikhon was guilty of going against the conciliarity of the Church by issuing his decree, Makharoblidze pointed to the different circumstances of the Church in the homeland and in the diaspora, and suggested that the SEAA should not obey the decree, especially in view of the Renovationist schism which had taken on itself “the functions of an All-Russian ecclesiastical authority.”63 Makharoblidze’s point of view did not prevail. Upon his arrival at the Council on September 2, 1922, Archbishop Anastasii (Gribanovskii) of Kishinev and Khotin, drew attention to the fact that the Decree allowed the matter to be studied further, “temporarily keeping the Russian parishes abroad under the governance of Metropolitan Evlogii, and to entrust him with the task of drawing up schemes [emphasis mine] for the governance of these Churches”. As a result, on September 2, 1922, the Council decreed as follows: 1. In executing Decree No. 348 of April 22/May 5 of the current year of His Holiness, the Most Holy Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia and the Holy Synod under him, to dissolve the extant Supreme Russian Church Governance Abroad; 2. In order to organize a new Supreme Church Authority, to call a Russian All-Diaspora Church Synod on November 21, 1922 (o.s.); 3. With the aim of retaining the lawful succession of Supreme Church Governance, to form a temporary Synod of Bishops Abroad with the mandatory participation of Metropolitan Evlogii, and to entrust this same Synod with all the rights and prerogatives of the Supreme Russian Church Governance Abroad; 4. To set the number of bishops in the Synod at five; 5. For the above-named Synod to take the necessary measures for the convocation of the Russian All-Diaspora Church Council.64 Thus decree 348 (349) provided Russian refugee bishops with an opportunity to close down the Supreme Ecclesiastical Council, abandoning its non-episcopal members: Archpriests Vladimir Vostokov and Pavel Krakhmalev (d.1949), General Nikolai S. Batiushin (d.1957) and Prince Peter N. Apraksin (d.1962). A Pan-Diaspora Council had elected these clergy and laity on December 1, 1921 and the fact the Episcopal Council considered itself in a position to abandon a decision of the Pan-Diaspora Council was a sign of strengthening within the Russian Church Abroad the hierarchical tendency rather than the conciliar approach. That “temporary” Synod of Bishops continues to exist until today and the ROCOR Bishops Council remains a forum where bishops can discuss and resolve pressing matters. The Pan-Diaspora Council became an organ of the Bishop’s Council which may organize a meeting of the Pan-Diaspora Council as and when it deems necessary. Ukrainian Conciliar Developments 17 Kyivan Rus’ received Christianity from the Eastern Roman empire in 988 or 989. In 1448 the Church of Muscovy declared independence from Constantinople, while the church in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth (where Kyiv was located) remained under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 1596 in Brest all of the bishops of the Kyivan metropolitan district ratified a union with the Roman Catholic Church. Simultaneously, an Orthodox council in the same town and at the same time rejected the act of union. Thus, schism in the Church was introduced. By the end of the 17th century most of Eastern Ukraine (including Kyiv) had joined Muscovy and in 1686 the Church there was transferred from the Ecumenical Patriarchate to the jurisdiction of the Church of Russia.65 This historical experience between Moscow and Warsaw defined the identity of many nationally minded Ukrainians at the time of the collapse of the Russian empire after 1917. On November 7/20, 1917, following the Bolshevik Revolution in Moscow and Petrograd, Ukraine became a people’s republic in federation with Soviet Russia. The strong tendency of organizing the newly independent Ukrainian state based on ethnical and cultural identity resonated with some Church people in Ukraine. In October 1917 the Ukrainian military held a congress where the question of an All-Ukrainian Church Council was discussed. As was mentioned in Chapter 1, on November 23, 1917, clergy and laypeople founded in Kyiv the All-Ukrainian Provisional Orthodox Church Assembly (known as the Church Rada). The Church Rada had the task of organizing the All-Ukrainian Church Council. This Rada was recognized by the new Ukrainian socialist government. Retired Archbishop Aleksei Dorodnitsyn (d.1919) agreed to lead the new Church Assembly. The Church Rada treated with utmost suspicion the restoration of the Russian Patriarchate, believing that its activity in Ukraine would result in an expansion of Russian imperialism. One of the leaders of this revolutionary movement within the Church, Archpriest Vasil’ Lipkov’skii, outlined the tasks of a Council to organize the new Ukrainian sobornoprvna Church thus: 1. 2. 3. It was to be free and autocephalous. Its administration was to belong to all its members (the Ukrainian term is sobornoprvna); It was to be living and creative, and its Church life, based on the Orthodox faith, was to have national traits, “replacing a dead conservatism with living creativity.”66 At the end of November 1917 Patriarch Tikhon met with Church Rada representatives in Moscow and learned that they were in favor of establishing an autocephalous Ukrainian Church (independent of subordination to Moscow). As a result, a commission of the AllRussian Council, led by Metropolitan Platon Rozhdestvenskii of Kherson and Odessa (d. 1934), was sent from Moscow to Kyiv. Metropolitan Platon suggested to organize a representative council of the would-be autonomous church (limited independence within the Russian Church) modelled on the Moscow All-Russian Council. However, in the reality of German occupation and civil war it was impossible to organize such elections in Ukraine in a time of continuing war. Metropolitan Vladimir Bogoiavlenskii of Kyiv was suspicious of the Rada. The Church Rada scheduled the Council's opening for December 28, 1917. However, the All-Ukrainian Council did not open until the Ukrainian bishops, who were attending the All-Russian Council in Moscow, returned to Ukraine during the 18 Christmas recess of 1917-18. Patriarch Tikhon appointed Metropolitan Platon Rozhdestvenskii of Kherson and Odessa as his representative at the Council. The first session of the All-Ukrainian Council, with 279 members, lasted from January 7 until January 19, 1918. Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii (then of Kharkiv) was elected as Chairman. The Council was organized along the lines of the All-Russian Church Council in committees of: 1) 2) 3) 4) 5) 6) Supreme Church Authority Dioceses and parishes Regarding Ukrainization of Church life Ecclesiastical education Church finances Personnel Commission (to check the credentials of the Council members) On January 11, 1918 the representative of the Ukrainian government, Alexander Karpin’skii, expressed the desire of the government to have an independent Church in an independent state. The issue of autocephaly demonstrated irreconcilable opinions between delegates – either to remain within the Russian Church or to disassociate from it. On January 19, 1918, 94 delegates voted to temporarily close the Council in view of the Bolshevik war against the Ukrainian People’s Republic (UPR). On January 22 the UPR proclaimed its independence from Russia. On January 25, one day before the Bolsheviks took over Kyiv, Metropolitan Vladimir Bogoiavlenskii of Kyiv was brutally killed by unidentified perpetrators. On April 29, 1918 the German army occupied Kyiv, supported the installation of Hetman Pavlo P. Skoropad’skii as head of state, and disbanded the UPR. On May 19, 1918, the diocesan assembly in Kyiv elected Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii of Kharkiv as Metropolitan of Kyiv and Galicia. Vasilii Zen’kovskii, Minister of Religious Confessions in Skoropad’skii’s government, opposed this decision, believing that an election of the First Hierarch should be done, not by vicar bishops, clergy and laity of the diocese of Kyiv, but by representatives of the Ukrainian Church at an All-Ukrainian Church Council. However, the views of Hetman Skoropadskii (a quasi-monarch, Russian nobleman and decorated imperial general) were closely allied to the views to Metropolitan Antonii, a Russian patriot and monarchist.67 On June 20, 1918, the All-Ukrainian Council resumed its second session with 251 delegates. At the Council, Vasilii Zen’kovskii, the Minister of Religious Confessions, expressed the desire of the government to have ecclesiastical autonomy within the Russian Orthodox Church. The direction of conciliar debate found expression in two main trends. The first trend was marked by the preservation of Church Slavonic as the liturgical language and connection with the Russian Church: for convenience, I call this position “conservationist”. The other trend may be called “liberationist”, represented by the members of Church Rada, in favor of autocephaly and the Ukrainization of Church life. The outcome of voting on July 7, 1918, was that the supporters of the Church Rada (about 102) were represented at the 19 All-Ukrainian Council by 3 delegates. 142 delegates voted to remain the full representation, 172 voted to represent Rada by 3 delegates and 13 abstained. In protest the members of Church Rada withdrew from the Council. On July 9, 1918 the All-Ukrainian Council voted for the autonomy of the Ukrainian Church. Going forward, the Patriarch of Moscow would retain the exclusive right to appoint the Metropolitan of Kyiv and all significant decisions of the All-Russian Council would be binding for the Church in Ukraine.68 The All-Ukrainian Church Council, comprising all the bishops, representative clergy and lay representatives, became the Supreme Church Authority for the Ukrainian Autonomous Church. The All-Ukrainian Council expected to meet every three years. Similar to the Russian Church, a Bishop’s Council and a Supreme Church Rada, with representatives of clergy and laity, became executive organs of the All-Ukrainian Church Council. Church Slavonic remained the liturgical language of the newly autonomous Church. However, sermons could be delivered in the Ukrainian language, which was a change from the imperial period. The second session of the Bishop’s Council ended on July 11, 1918 and on September 26, 1918 the All-Russian Council, approved the autonomous status of the Ukrainian Church. The third session of the All-Ukrainian Council lasted (not continuously) between October 28 and December 16, 1918 with the participation of 369 delegates. The struggle between the conservationists and the liberationists culminated during the third session of the Council when on November 14, 1918 the new Minister of Religious Confessions of the Hetman’s government, Oleksandr Lotot’skii, expressed the wish of the government to have an autocephalous Church. Also, as had happened in the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, the All-Ukrainian Council decided that women should have equal voting rights at parish assemblies. On November 19, 1918 the Council appealed to the Ukrainian people to support Hetman Pavlo Skoropad’skii’s regime. However, on December 14, 1918 Skoropadskii’s government was toppled as a result of a coup d'état, led by the Ukrainian socialist and nationalist politicians, Symon Petliura and Volodymyr Vynnychenko (the so-called Directorate Government). The Ukrainian People’s Republic was restored and the work of the All-Ukrainian Church Council was interrupted. The new government did not plan for a dialogue with the Ukrainian Autonomous Church of the Moscow Patriarchate. Metropolitan Antonii did not prohibit his clergy from greeting the troops of the Directorate entering Kyiv. However, on December 18, 1918 he was arrested by the representatives of the new government. Metropolitan Antonii, Archbishop Evlogii of Volynia, Bishop Nikodim Krotkov of Chigirin, Archimandrites Vitalii Maksimenko, Tikhon Sharapov and others were forcibly confined within a Greek-Catholic monastery in Buchach in Galicia.69 On January 1, 1919 the Directorate government adopted a law about the Supreme Authority in the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, pronouncing its independence and the end of subordination to the Moscow Patriarchate. The commemoration of the names of Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Antonii during liturgical services was prohibited. Soon afterward, Lotot’skii, in his capacity of Ukrainian ambassador to the Ottoman empire, petitioned the Ecumenical Patriarchate to grant autocephaly to the Ukrainian Church. Because the patriarchal throne had been vacant 20 since October 28, 1918, the locum tenens, Metropolitan Dorotheos of Brussa, could not respond positively to the petition. On February 8, 1919, the Bolsheviks took over Kyiv from the Directorate government. During Great Lent of 1919, the vicar bishop of Metropolitan Antonii, Nazarii Blinov of Cherkasy, turned down a number of petitions for having services in Ukrainian during Holy Week, referring to the All-Ukrainian Council's decision. Under the Bolshevik regime, the Church Rada was recreated as the Supreme Church Assembly on April 17, 1919. To demonstrate the democratic ethos of the new “autocephalous” Church, the layman Mikhail Moroz was appointed as its head. Archbishop Agapit Vishnevskii of Ekaterinoslavl’ became the head of the Synod along with Archpriest Vasil’ Lipkov’skii. The Church Rada ceased ecclesiastical subordination to the Russian Church. In May, 1919 the Church Rada was registered by the Soviet authorities in Kyiv. The first liturgical service (the All-night Vigil) in the Ukrainian language took place on May 9/22, 1919 in St. Nicholas Cathedral in Pechersk. Because neither Patriarch Tikhon nor Metropolitan Antonii were commemorated at the services, Bishop Nazarii Blinov suspended the participating clergy. In such circumstances, while the Metropolitan of Kyiv was still isolated, the South-Russian Council, which met in Stavropol from May 3 to 17 of 1919, decided to extend the authority of the Temporary Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority in the South-East of Russia to Ukraine. On July 4, 1919 Patriarch Tikhon permitted Ukrainian bishops to contact him directly regarding any questions and to persist with local autonomy.70 In August 1919 the White Voluntary Army of General Deniken took over Kyiv from the Bolsheviks. Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii returned to Kyiv. Churches taken by the autocephalist clergy were returned to him and the autocephalist clergy suspended.71 Metropolitan Antonii permitted services in Ukrainian, but only in the Little St. Sophia church in Kyiv, a private church at his residence.72 In December,1919 with the retreating White Army Metropolitan Antonii left Kyiv for the last time. When the Bolsheviks again took over the city, they returned to the adherents of autocephaly all churches taken from them by the Whites. Not one bishop of TSEA supported the autocephalist movement. The All-Ukrainian Church Rada was restored. On May 3 Bishop Nazarii suspended all priests involved with the Church Rada. On April 22, 1920 the Polish government made an agreement with the President of the Ukrainian People Republic, Symon Petliura, to become Chairman of the Directorate (i.e., President of Ukraine) and to take over the territories of Ukraine controlled by the Bolsheviks. On May 5, 1920 the Church Rada proclaimed itself the Supreme Church Authority in Ukraine, fighting for the rights of Ukrainian Orthodox against oppressing Muscovite bishops until the All-Ukrainian Church Council could be re-convened. On May 7, 1920 Kyiv was taken by Polish and Directorate troops, who remained there until June 12, 1920. The All-Ukrainian Council envisioned by the Church Rada assembled on October 14, 1921. The Council members considered themselves to be ecclesiastical orphans because of Russian and earlier Polish intervention (in the 16th and 17th centuries) in Church affairs and, in particular, because Kyiv's Metropolitan (Antonii Khrapovitskii) had left their Church. From August 1921 the Metropolitan of Grodno, Michael Ermakov, Exarch of Patriarch Tikhon in Ukraine, led the diocese of Kyiv. Because Metropolitan Michael refused to recognize the Church Rada’s parallel existence and refused to participate in 21 its Council or to consecrate an “extraterritorial”73 bishop exclusively for the Ukrainians, the All-Ukrainian Council of October, 1921 adopted the theology of Vladimir Chekhovskii, the first Prime-Minister of the Ukrainian People Republic (d.1937). This alumnus of Kyiv Theological Academy believed that the democratic will of the Church community was more important for the descent of the Holy Spirit than “a technical” aspect of apostolic succession associated with a monarchical episcopate.74 Although Metropolitan Michael demonstrated his willingness to establish communication with the All-Ukrainian Council, and even went to the Council to persuade its members not to create a schism, it was too late to change their minds. Thus, on October 23, 1921 the suspended Archpriest Vasil’ Lipkov’skii was consecrated in the cathedral of St. Sophia as Archbishop of Kyiv by the will of and through hands the entire Council, including suspended clergy (30 priests, 12 deacons) and both male and female members. Thus, Archbishop Vasil’ Lipkov’skii received his authority from the ecclesial community and not solely from the episcopacy. The All-Ukrainian Council justified this as a unique measure made necessary by the circumstances. The new Church proclaimed Ukrainian Christian socialism, permitted bishops to remain married, and to contract consequent marriages in reasonable cases. An Ecclesiastical Council became the supreme authority for this newly founded Church body. Hundreds of parishes came over to the supporters of autocephaly. After the first two consecrations of bishops by acclamation, the Council returned to the traditional Byzantine practice of having bishops consecrated by other bishops. No canonical Orthodox Church has ever recognized this populist movement. In the 1930s this Church disbanded itself. In 1937 Metropolitan Lipkov’skii was arrested and exterminated by the NKVD. The only surviving bishop, consecrated on October 26, 1921, was Ioann Theodorovich, sent in 1924 to North America. In 1949 the three canonical Orthodox bishops in New York performed a new consecration on him. There is a lot of sense in the following assessment of the attitude toward this schism made by Metropolitan of the Moscow Patriarchate Theodosius Protsiuk of Omsk and Tara (d. 2011) in his candidate of theology thesis: The Ukrainian episcopate, headed by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), could have followed the path of seeking reconciliation or at least brotherly understanding in Christ with the supporters of autocephaly. Nevertheless [their] intransigence and enmity [toward supporters of autocephaly] contributed to the schism, that is, the rejection of many thousands of people from the Orthodox Church.75 However, Metropolitan Theodosius does not explain how it would have been possible to synthetize two irreconcilable tendencies. Based on the numbers in the voting for the exclusion of the Church Rada members of the Council, the Rada followers would not have been able to defeat the decision to accept autonomy for the Ukrainian Church. However, exclusion of those who were differently minded undermined a representative aspect of this autonomy and created protesting opponents who, after their expulsion, did not care about conciliar representation. In addition to the monarchists and renovationists, a question of ethnic identity came across boldly in the Ukrainian conciliar developments, thus contributing to the wide range of ideologies. 22 Moldova As a result of the Russo-Ottoman war of 1806-1807 the territories of Moldavia and Budjak (also called Bessarabia) came over to the Russian empire. This territory had been under the jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarchate – the official Orthodox Church of the Ottoman empire. Its jurisdiction was replaced with the Russian one, just as in 1811 the local autocephaly of the Church in Georgia was simply canceled. However, in contrast to the situation in Ukraine, in Bessarabia by the beginning of the 20th century services in Romanian and in Gagauz (a Turkic language spoken by the Gagauz people of Moldova) were permitted and their texts were published by the diocesan printshop in Chisinau. At the same time Russian remained the main language of instruction in the seminaries. The diocesan assembly which met in March,1916 adopted the suggestion of the ruling bishop, Archbishop Anastasii Gribanovskii, to use Romanian as the major liturgical language and also to implement the representative principle for the diocesan administration. The April,1917 extraordinary assembly of clergy and laity, consisting of 140 clergymen and 60 laymen, expressed a desire to have autonomy for the church in Bessarabia. Archbishop Anastasii and the diocesan council approved the promotion of Moldavian clergymen to leading positions in the diocesan administration. On December 15, 1917 the newly founded Moldavian parliament, Sfatul Țării, proclaimed Bessarabia a democratic republic in federation with Russia. On December 28, 1917 the Sfatul Țării, by a majority of votes, approved an invitation to Romanian troops to enter Moldavia. On January 24/February 6, 1918 the Sfatul Țării pronounced the independence of the Moldavian republic. Archbishop Anastasii in a speech given in his cathedral on that day mentioned his patriotic feelings for this new sovereign state and spoke positively about the necessity of developing cooperation with Romania. The majority of the delegates of the extraordinary diocesan assembly, which had convened on January 28, 1918, welcomed further political cooperation with Romania. On February 18, 1918 the authorities of the Republic of Moldavia founded a committee for the organization of a council of the Church of Moldavia. On April 17, 1918 the Chairman of the Synod of the Romanian Church, Metropolitan Pimen Georgescu (d.1934), sent a telegram to Archbishop Anastasii which acknowledged that a majority of the Orthodox clergy and laity in the republic of Moldavia wanted to join the Romanian Church. Metropolitan Pimen invited Archbishop Anastasii to become a member of the Synod of the Romanian Church. The Archbishop responded that he was not in a position to make a decision without consulting the Russian Church. Later in April of the same year Metropolitan Pimen informed Patriarch Tikhon about the extension of the jurisdiction of the Romanian Church to the Orthodox Christian population of Moldavia. (At this time in Romania there was no separation between the Church and the state. The Romanian Church acted as an agent of the state.) Responding to this letter on June 5, 1918 Patriarch Tikhon refused to recognize this transfer of jurisdiction, pointing to the necessity of learning the will of Orthodox Christians of Moldavia regarding this matter: 23 It seems quite natural and even necessary, he writes, to ask the Bessarabian church clergy and people today how and in what form they would like to define the inner life of their Church and establish its relation to the Russian and Romanian Churches. Neither one nor the other, of course, can take responsibility for deciding the fate of the Bessarabian Church without first listening to the voices of the two million Orthodox population of the region... This voice of the population could best be expressed through the local Council or Diocesan Assembly, which should be deliberately convened for discussion of the future position and structure of the Bessarabian Church.76 On December 7, 1917 the All-Russian Council elected Archbishop Anastasii a member of the Synod of the Russian Church. He went to Moscow to participate in the work of the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council, but was not allowed back into Moldavia by the Romanian troops; instead, he went to Odessa. Archbishop Anastasii continued to consider himself the First Hierarch of the Church in Moldavia. His two vicar bishops, Gabriel Chepur of Akkerman (d.1933) and New Martyr Dionisii Sosnovskii of Ismail (1918), refused to join the Romanian Church and left Moldavia. In the same month the Romanian Synod sent Bishop Nicodemus Munteanu of Husi to temporarily administer the diocese of Chisinau and Hotin. He disbanded the elected organs of the elected diocesan administration. Responding to local demands for the autonomous status of the Church in Moldavia, on January 1, 1920 the Romanian Synod replaced Bishop Nicodemus with the Moldavianborn Bishop Gurie Grosu. With Bishop Gurie of Chisinau presiding, on February 21, 1920 an extraordinary diocesan assembly took place. This convocation elected Bishop Gurie as Archbishop of Chisinau and Hotin with Bishop Dionysius Erhan as his vicar. This important event demonstrated that for the Orthodox Christians of Moldavia their conciliar expression was more important than an official appointment from Bucharest. Canons recognized by the entire Orthodox Church are unambiguous in their prohibition on trespassing into territories of other bishops.77 The same Byzantine canonical regulations defend the Church against intrusion of civil authorities into ecclesiastical matters.78 It is understandable that appropriate application of canons depends on a particular (and often) unique context and circumstances. However, this assembly of February 1920 could have responded to the initiative of Patriarch Tikhon about the selfdetermination of the archdiocese, but this did not happen. Conclusion Orthodox Christianity was brought to Kyivan Rus by Grand Prince Vladimir and for over nine centuries the Kyivan Church was an integral part of the Russian state. Coming from this perspective, it is understandable that Patriarch Tikhon could not tolerate disbandment of the Russian empire (see above an excerpt from his Epistle against the Brest-Litovsk Treaty) or that Metropolitan Antonii at the Pan-Diaspora Council of 1921 supported the restoration of the Romanov monarchy. The conviction that monarchist views are an exclusive, intrinsic component of the Orthodox practitioner’s world view can be traced back to the famous definition of interaction between the Church and the empire in Novel Six of Emperor Justinian (d.565),79 subsequently developed in an epistle from the Byzantine Patriarch Antony to the Muscovite Great Prince Basil (d.1462), that for“Christians it is impossible to have a Church and not have an emperor, for the empire 24 and the church have a great unity and commonality, and it is impossible to separate them.”80 The core Christian kerygma is contained in the Beatitudes found in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3-10). The Beatitudes are based on self-renunciation and can be implemented by individual persons or by Christian communities, but neither a state nor any political organization could afford adherence to the Beatitudes as its political philosophy. Therefore, a state can only adopt Christianity to use as an ideology in the service of the state. The Russian case was not different. In practice, the symphony between the Church and the empire in Russia turned the Church in an extension of the state for at least two hundred years.81 As a result, many issues pertaining to various aspects of Church administration, discipline, liturgical and personal practices were left without attention. The legacy of ideological Christianity discussed in this chapter is another legacy of imperial Orthodoxy. That Byzantine political Orthodoxy had aligned itself with the figurehead of an imperial leader was important for Metropolitan Antonii. This is seen from his piety toward Emperor Nicholas II, Hetman Pavlo Skorobatskii, General Deniken and General Wrangel; the two generals expressed the desire to have a supreme ecclesiastical administration. Thus, through the person of this prominent Russian bishop, Metropolitan Antonii’s political Orthodoxy occupied an important place in the identity of the Russian Church Abroad for years to come. If at the Kyivan Council of 1918 the members of the socialist Rada were expelled, at the Pan-Diaspora Council of 1921 in Sremski Karlovci the vocal and influential professional monarchists of the Supreme Monarchist Council did not lose their pre-eminence. The only one who was expelled was the “liberal” Michael Rodzianko. Thus, the first council in diaspora demonstrated how difficult It would be for the Church of the Russian political émigrés to become a sacrosanct space, free from political preferences. The sentiments in the epistle to the International Conference in Genoa about “noblehearted Russian people, who have fallen into the hands of world villains” signaled an attitude of denial that has been shared by many in the Russian ecclesiastical community abroad. A combination of theology, conspiracy theories, and an idealization of the Russian empire was offered as an explanation of the Russian catastrophe instead of an analysis of profound social, political and economic reasons that catalyzed a volcanic eruption which ended the life of the Russian monarchy. . A demand to hear voices that previously had been silenced is seen in all the four councils that took place between 1918 and 1921. (After all, the professional monarchists had also been restrained by the Russian imperial government.) The multitude of inner Church problems, which were insufficiently addressed in imperial Russia, backfired after the collapse of imperial Russia and resulted in the factions of the Renovationists and the Autocephalists on the left and Restorationists on the right. The striving of the postrevolutionary Russian Church to remain apolitical brought the Church closer than at any other time in her 1,000-year history to the pre-Constantinian experience of Christianity. Charismatic Renovationists and Autocephalists can be compared with the low church faction in Anglicanism, while the mainstream canonical Church equates to the high church faction. Also, the role of the Bolsheviks in the first case and the Ukrainian nationalists in 25 the second cannot be dismissed. The issue of Ukrainization was seen at the All-Ukrainian council of 1918 as not too important. However, this was not simply the reaction of Russian chauvinism against Ukrainian nationalism, but also a product of the same conservative, protective attitude that was at the 1917-1918 All-Russian Council. The issues of the Ukrainian autocephalists and the Moldovan supporters of Church autonomy emphasized the necessity of respecting cultural and linguistic differences. The tendency, that remains quite alive today, of state interference in promoting an autocephaly that would suit the state’s interests in seen in the cases of both Ukraine and Moldova. State meddling in Church affairs with the intention to cause havoc for the Church is seen in the Bolsheviks’ support of the Renovationists. The examples of the Renovationists and of the Ukrainian Autocephalists demonstrate that, when proactive measures have not been applied by the hierarchs, their reactive measures will not prevent concerned Church members from causing a schism. It was surprising that the ecclesiastical assembly of the Russian anti-Bolsheviks in Stavropol in 1919 did not result in stalemate between its members. And in 1921 at the Council in Sremski Karlovci, when the monarchist agenda was promoted on behalf of the Church, not one of the delegates publicly opposed it. This Council demonstrated two main dangers of freedom: how to maintain unity abroad and how to find the right vocabulary when speaking about Bolshevik Russia. Following this Council, we already detect voices in the Russian diaspora, like that of Makharoblidze, revealing a patronizing attitude toward the Russian Church in the homeland. Both Churches, in the homeland and in diaspora, started to accumulate different experience and mythologies - their own version of historical events. Having found himself at the center of the new reality, Patriarch Tikhon could not agree that the Church could not exist without monarchy. The Church was seen by the new Russian authority as a pillar of the empire: “the governors disappeared, but diocesan bishops remained.”82 There is no reason to believe that Patriarch Tikhon, Synod and Supreme Church Council were not sincere in Decree 348 (349), writing that the restorationist mood of the First All-Diaspora Council, 1921 did not “reflect the official voice of the Russian Orthodox Church and, which, in light of their political character, do not have ecclesiastical or canonical significance.”83 An apolitical stance in the spirit of early church apologists84 is seen as a natural point of reference for this approach of Patriarch Tikhon: “The Church is not tied to any specific mode of government, but rather up to the people themselves.” The permission given to Churches in similar circumstances to unite in autonomous districts (Decree 362) can also be seen as a return to a pre-Constantinian Church structure. At the same time, Patriarch Tikhon demonstrated a keen intuition about the limits of church oikonomia: on the one hand he had condescended to the demands of his captors and on the other he served as a figurehead of the Russian Church, granting temporary ecclesiastical autonomies to its units existing in different circumstances such as Kolchak’s Siberia, Petliura’s Ukraine or Romanian controlled Moldova. This was keenly noted by Alexander I. Solzhenitsyn: “At that time the whole weight of those unexpected and somehow not-yet-understood years was laid upon his shoulders – yet not only this weight. 26 At the same time the burden of the sins of all previous Russian ecclesiastical history was becoming apparent.”85 This first five years since the February Revolution of 1917 showed the important reception of the work of All-Russian Council of 1917-1918. All the Councils mentioned above modelled themselves after the All-Russian Council. As it is observed by a modern Russian historian: “At the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918 there was an increase in the status of the parish to the basic unit of the municipal government, which acquired a large public potential. Whites saw in the parish an alternative to socialist ideas popular in peasant masses. (…)86” The Parish By-Laws were promoted further in Kyiv and in Sremski Karlovci. For Further reading Nicholas E. Denisenko, The Orthodox Church in Ukraine: A Century of Separation (DeKalb, IL 2018) Emil Dragnev, “The Orthodox Church in Moldova in the Twentieth Century,” The Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, (Peter Lang: Bern, 2011), 177-202. John Fennell, History of the Russian Church to 1448 (London-New York, 1995) Aleksandr V. Gavrilin, “Patriarch Tikhon and the Canonical Status of the Orthodox Church in Estonia and Latvia” Commented [MOU1]: Give the final biblio Nikolai A. Il’iashenko, “Sostav ierarkhii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v predverii bol'shogo terrora: Spisok arkhiereev iz arkhivno-sledstvennogo dela Mitropolita Serafima (Aleksandrova) 1937 g.,” Vestnik PSTGU 3 (2014): 114-146. Igor Kamennyi, “Patriarch Tikhon: His View Concerning the Issue of the Ukrainian Church” Michael Kellogg, The Russian Roots of Nazism: White Émigrés and the Making of National Socialism (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge: 2008), 145-149. Kishenevskaia eparkhiia,” PE 35, 182-213. Andrei A. Kostriukov, “The Stavropol Council of 1919 and the Origins of an Independent Church Body in the South of Russia,” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad” 27 Commented [MOU2]: Give the final biblio https://www.rocorstudies.org/2021/03/07/the-stavropol-council-of-1919-and-theorigins-of-an-independent-church-body-in-the-south-of-russia/ (April 19, 2021) Laurie Manchester, Holy Fathers, Secular Sons: Clergy, Intelligentsia, and the Modern Self in Revolutionary Russia = Studies of Harriman Institute (DeKalb, IL, 2008) Lidia B. Miliakova, “Arest petliurovskoi direktoriiei mitropolita Kievskogo Antoniia (Khrapovitskogo) I arkhiepiskoa Volynskogo Evlogiia (Georgievskogo) v dekabre 1918 goda,” Ezhegodnaia bogolslovskaia konferentsia PSTGU 2005 g. (Moscow, 2005), 348353. Radovan Pilipovic, “Tserkovnyie grupirovki russkoi emigratsii mezhdu Belgradom I Konstantinopolem,” Stoletie dvukh emiratsii 1919-2019 (Moscow-Belgrade, 2019), 193218. Andriy Starodub, “Vseukrains’ka pravoslavna tserkovna rada: personal’nyi sklad ta obstavini pripinennia uchasti v roboti vsukrains’kogo soboru 1918 roku,” Istoriia Religii v Ukraine (2012): 517-530. Andriy Starodub, “Rezoliutisii mitropolita Antoniia (Khrapovitskogo) za 1918 god kak istochnik po istorii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” Tserkovnyia vedomosti (2006). Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. https://www.rocorstudies.org/ru/2012/07/09/rezolyucii-mitropolita-antoniyaxrapovickogo-za-1918-god-kak-istochnik-po-istorii-russkoj-pravoslavnoj-cerkvi/ (April 18, 2021) 1 I am grateful to the Anglican and Eastern Churches Association for providing me a grant to write this chapter. 2 Great Duke Michael announced that his ascension to the throne would depend on the outcome of a constitutional assembly (referendum) where citizens would vote on the future form of governance. 3 Akty, 107-108. 4 Akty, 151. 5 Akty, 160-161. 6 Akty, 163-164. 7 Report of Military Cheka Agent Alexander Filippov. Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov' i kommunisticheskoe gosudarstvo [The Russian Orthodox Church and the Communist State] (Moscow, 1996), 48-49. 8 Andrei Kostriukov. Russkaia Zarubezhnaia Tserkov' v pervoi polovine 1920-kh godov: organizatsiia tserkovnogo upravleniia v emigratsii [The Russian Orthodox Church in the Early 1920s: The Organization of Church Governance in the Emigration] (Moscow, 2007),102. 9 As this follows from the decree of the same Commissariat of July 29, 1920. Cited from “Postanovlenie Sovnarkomv RSFSR (1920).” RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20150720/1132428873.html (Accessed on June 2, 2020). 10 “Postanovlenie Sovnarkomv RSFSR (1920).” RIA Novosti. https://ria.ru/20150720/1132428873.html (Accessed on June 2, 2020). 11 Sibirskoe tserkovnoe soveshchanie. 28 12 My information about church life on the territories controlled by the whites is borrowed from the monograph by Dmitrii Olihov, Vremennoe vyshee tserkovnoe upravlenis Sibiri 1918-1920 (Saint Petersburg, 2017). 13 According to the modern Russian scholar, Archpriest Dmitrii Olehov, the parish by-laws adopted by the Ufa diocese in 1917 promoted accountability of clergy to parish councils and stated that a clergyman could be removed from his position only by a decision of a church court Vremennoe vyshee tserkovnoe upravlenis Sibiri, 41. 14 As, for example, regarding lending funds to the mission or supplying Kolchak’s Army from China. State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF). Glavnoe Upravlenie po delam veroispovedanii Vserossiskogo pravitel'stva (A.V. Kolchaka). [General Kolchak’s Supreme Office for Confessions]. Perepiska s nachal’nikom Rossiskoi dukhovnoi missii v Kitae. File Correspondence with the head of the Russian Ecclesiastical mission in China. F. 140, op. 2, d. 15, l. 15 Did the South-Eastern Council of 1919 Implement the Directives of the Local Council of 1917-1918? An Interview with Iulia A. Biriukova. Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad https://www.rocorstudies.org/2019/05/17/did-the-south-eastern-council-of-1919-implement-the-directivesof-the-local-council-of-1917-1918/ (accessed on June 1, 2020). 16 The position of the Russian Church Abroad began to take shape at South-Russian Church Council, having meetings in Stavropol from May 3 to May 17, 1919. The draft of the Council’s appeal to Christians of all the world was rejected, based on the view of Count Pavel M. Grabbe, who believed that it was improper to address heretics on behalf of the Church. Iu. A. Biriukova, Iugo-Vostochnyi russkii tserkovnyi sobor 1919 (Moscow, 2018), 34-35, 160-162. The letter of Fr. George Grabbe to S. Ia. Krasovitskii. Feb. 15, 1979. Stanford University Library. Department of Special Collections. M0964. The Bishop Gregorii Papers. Box 9. Folder Stefan Iakovlevich Krasovitskii 1977-1990. 17 Rev. G.K.A. Bell, "War-Time Correspondence between the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Church of Russia," The Christian East 1.1 March (1920): 9. 18 Vostokov was one of the eight members of the committee for drafting appeals. Biriukova, IugoVostochnyi, 92. Already at the All-Russian Council Vostokov explained that the Russian empire collapsed as a result of a Judeo-Masonic conspiracy. January 22, 1918. Act 67. Deianiia Pomestnogo Sobora 19171918 gg. Dyshu Pravosalviem. http://dishupravoslaviem.ru/deyaniya-pomestnogo-sobora-1917-1918-ggdeyanie-shestdesyat-sedmoe/ (April 19, 2021). 19 A hint at the non-Russian ethos of the Bolshevik revolution. 20 Vostokov’s memorandum to Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii, December 19, 1922. GARF. F. 6343, Op. 1, d. 25, l. 86 verso. Cited from Andrei A. Kostriukov, “Deiatel’nost’ Tserkovnogo upravleniia na iugovostoke Rossii v gody Grazhdanskoi voiny,” Permskii-Gosudarstvenyi arkhiv Sotsial’no-Politicheskoi istorii. https://www.permgaspi.ru/publikatsii/konferentsii/grazhdanskaya-vojna-na-vostoke-rossii/a-a-kostryukovdeyatelnost-tserkovnogo-upravleniya-na-yugo-vostoke-rossii-v-gody-grazhdanskoj-vojny.html (Jan. 13, 2021). 21 Yuliia Biriukova, Iugo-Vostochnyi russkii tserkovnyi sobor 1919 (Moscow, 2018), 164. 22 “The Situation in Russia,” a lecture delivered at the Russian House, London, on November 27, 1926. Christian East (Dec. 1926): 177; Similar views regarding the causes of Russian hardships were heard at the Tomsk Church assembly in 1918. Olihov, Vremennoe vyshee tserkovnoe upravlenis Sibiri 1918-1920, 38. “The apostate Jew” refers to a Hebrew person who has ceased to practice Judaism and has become secular. 23 “Trasnportnoe sudno Velikii kniaz’ Aleksandr Mikhailovich,” “Tchernomorskii flot,” https://www.kchf.ru/ship/vspomog/vel_kn_alex_mikhailovich.htm (accessed on June 2, 2020). 24 “Protokol pervogo zasedaniia Vyshego Tserkovnogo Upravleniia na iuge Rossii, sostoiavshogosia v Konstantinopole 6/19 noiabria 1920.” [“Minutes of the first meeting of Supreme Ecclesiastical Authority of the South of Russia in Constantinople, November 6/19, 1920.”] Archive of the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. New York, NY. 25 I am grateful to Nikolai A. Ohotin from the Archive of the Synod of Bishops in New York for supplying me with scans of the minutes of the SEAA for 1920 and 1921. 26 In its earlier version the decree was adopted on May 18, 1920. Akty, 165. 27 Archpriest Nikolai Artemoff, “Postanovlenie №362 ot 7/20 noiabria 1920 g. i zakrytie zarubezhnogo VVTsU v mae 1922 g.,” Istoriia Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi v XX veke [Decree No. 362 of November 29 7/20, 1920, and the Dissolution of the Temporary Supreme Church Governance Abroad in May 1922, in History of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th Century (1917-1933)] (Munich, 2002), 146. 28 This is confirmed indirectly by the following fact. The guilty verdict in the Case against Patriarch Tikhon contains a reference to a statement the Patriarch made on January 30, 1923, to the effect that he “gave his blessing to the Supreme Church Governance organized by Antony [Khrapovitskii] in Constantinople” (dating from no later than April 17, 1923. Sledstvennoe Delo Patriarkha Tikhona. Moscow,2000, 998; Akty, 261). It remains unclear in what capacity the Patriarch could have given his blessing to ecclesiastical activities within another Local Church. Perhaps he supported Russian church organization within the Ecumenical Patriarchate. 29 “Decree of Ecumenical Patriarchate No 9084 (on Russian Refugees).” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. https://www.rocorstudies.org/2017/06/03/decree-from-ecumenical-patriarchate-9084/ (Accessed June 2, 2020); 30 A. Kostriukov, Russkaia zarubezhnia Tserkov’ v pervoi polovine 1920-x godov (Moscow, 2007), 41. 31 In the 1920’s the Russian Church Abroad was referred to in the Archives of the SOC at the Serbian Patriarchate in Belgrade as Руска Црква у изгнанству (The Russian Church in Exile), as well as Сремска Црква (The Church of Srem, i.e., Sremski Karlovci). Rev. Nikolaj L. Kostur, The Relationship of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the ROCOR: 1920-1941 (B.Th. Thesis, Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary, 2005). Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. https://www.rocorstudies.org/2019/07/15/therelationship-of-the-serbian-orthodox-church-to-the-rocor-1920-1941/ (Accessed March 17, 2021). The Act (№ 31). “Minutes from the 4th regular assembly of the Holy Hierarchal Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church, held on August 18/31, 1921, in Sremski Karlovci” (SOC Archive, ROCOR Box). Kostur, The Relationship of the Serbian Orthodox Church to the ROCOR: 1920-1941. 32 “Gramota Ego Sviateishestva, Sviateishego Tikhona, Patriarkha Moskovskogo i vseia Rossii Sviateishemu Dimitriiu Patriarkhu Serbskomu” [The Official Letter of His Holiness, Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow and All Russia, to His Holiness Dimitry, Patriarch of Serbia], Archbishop Nikon (Rklitskii), Zhizneopisanie blazheneishego Antoniia, mitropolita Kievskogo i Galitskogo [The Life of His Beatitude Antonii, Metropolitan of Kiev and Galich] vol. 6 (New York, 1960), 42-45. 33 Canon 17 of the Council of Serdika (c. 343-344). 34 A. Kostriukov, Russkaia zarubezhnia Tserkov’ v pervoi polovine 1920-x godov, 54. 35 Archpriest Theodore Buketov, “Put’ sovetskogo sviatitelia,” Russko-Amerikanskii pravoslavnyi vestnik 12 (December, 1937): 182. 36 For example, the Union of the Russian People and the Archangel Michael’s Russian People’s Union. 37 Metropolitan Evlogii was not happy with the mood at the congress about the necessity of controlling Church life by the imperial authority. Metropolitan Evlogii, Put’ moei zhizni, T. Manukhina ed. (Moscow, 1994), 352-353. 38 ???? Eastern Churches Review 7.1 (1975): 39 Vecherniaia gazeta. Vladivostok (August 17, 1921). Cited from Andrei Khvalin, Vosstanovlenie monarchii v Rossii (Moscow, 1993), 46. 40 Minutes of the Council No 7, November 17/30, 1921, Deiania russkogo vsezagranichnogo sobora, 4950. 41 Minutes of the Council No 7, November 17/30, 1921, Deiania russkogo vsezagranichnogo sobora, 51. 42 Deiania russkogo vsezagranichnogo sobora, 155. 43 A report of November, 16 /23, 1921 from the Council’s Missionary Department. Deiania russkago zagranichnago tserkovnago sobora sostoiavshagosia 8/21-XI -- 20/3 XII 1921 goda [Sremski Karlovci, 1922],76. 44 “Obrashchenie k armii Primorskogo pravitel’stva.” Translated from Vysshii monarkhicheskii sovet: ezhenedel’nik, March 6/19, 1922. ROCOR Studies. https://www.rocorstudies.org/2016/02/25/address-tothe-army-of-the-primorie-government/ (Accessed February 19, 2021). 45 Zemskii Sobor was a body representing Russian nobility and clergy in 17th century Russia. Such an assembly gave a pledge of allegiance to the Romanov dynasty in 1613. 46 Istoria Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi: Novyi Patriarshii peiod 1917-1970, M. Danilushkin, ed et al. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1997), 166. 47 The Council, which was supposed to open in Vladivostok on October 22, 1922, did not materialize because Vladivostok had been taken over by the Bolsheviks. 48 The following bishops participated: Bishop of Harbin and Manchuria, Methody Gerasimov (d. 1932); Bishop of Chita and Trans Baikai, Meletii Zaborovskii (d. 1946); Bishop of Vladivostok and Primor’e, Michael 30 Bogdanov (d. 1925); Bishop of Tokyo and Japan, Sergii Tikhomirov (d. 1945); Bishop of Kamchatka, Nestor Anisimov (d. 1962). 49 Gosudarstvennoe politicheskoe upravlenie. 50 See for example the note from April 6, 1921 by the chairman of Cheka (secret police) Felix S. Dzerzhinskii to his subordinate M. Ia. Latsis cited in Edward Roslof, Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905-1946 (Bloomington, IN, 2002), 33. 51 e.g., Canon 73 of Holy Apostles. 52 Edward Roslof, Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905-1946 (Bloomington, IN, 2002), 37. 53 On March 22. 1922 Metropolitan of Vladimir Sergii (Stragorodskii, d. 1944) met with Patriarch and pointed out that the three-year mandate of his Synod given by the All-Russian Council of 1917-1918 has expired. The Patriarch responded that, for the present, he was consulting with bishops residing in Moscow. 54 The Russian Revolution and Religion: A Collection of Documents Concerning the Suppression of Religion by the Communists 1917-1925. Boleslaw Szczesniak tr., ed. (Notre Dame, IN, 1962), 106; John Curtis, The Russian Church and the Soviet State 1917-1950 (Boston, 1953), 113-114. 55 Arto Luukkanen, The Party of Unbelief: the Religious Policy of the Bolshevik Party 1917-1929 in Studia Historica 48 (Helsinki, 1994), 106. 56 Russkaia Tserkovnaia Smuta 1921-1931 [Russian Church Turmoil 1921-1931. Originally published in Berlin in 1932] (Moscow, 1995), 52. 57 Akty, 193. 58 No. 348 was issued for Metropolitan Antonii and 349 for Evlogii. 59 “They do not reflect the official voice of the Russian Orthodox Church and, which, in light of their political character, do not have ecclesiastical or canonical significance.” Akty, 193. 60 Regarding the Russian imperial church properties abroad, see Andrei Psarev, “Ownership of PreRevolutionary Church Property by the Russian Church Abroad: A Historical and Moral Perspective.” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. https://www.rocorstudies.org/2019/10/22/ownership-ofpre-revolutionary-church-property-by-the-russian-church-abroad-a-historical-and-moral-perspective/ (Accessed July 30, 2020) 61 The character of the compromises the Patriarch made with respect to the Bolshevik demands is clear from the following quite general phrase in the Resolution: “for the purposes of ecclesiastical disciplinary proceedings against certain [emphasis mine] clerical persons from abroad on account of their political statements made in the name of the Church, to attend to the gathering of materials […].” The important point here is that no condemnation can be pronounced without having all necessary materials. Here Patriarchal collegial organs corrected the initial text of the Patriarch, where His Holiness suggested to take “charge against certain clerical persons from abroad.” Kostriukov, Russkaia Zarubezhnaia Tserkov’ v pervoi polovine 1920-kh godov, 95; M.I. Vostryshev, Patriarkh Tikhon [Patriarch Tikhon] (Moscow, 1997), 217219. 62 According to a Resolution of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of December 7/20, 1917, "A meeting of the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council – whether individually or in a joint session of both – is considered to constitute a quorum when not less than half of the members of each institution are present in addition to the president." Deianiia Sviashchennogo Soboro Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi Tserkvi [Acts of the Holy Council of the Orthodox Church of Russia] (Moscow, 1996), 5.537; The Soviet historian, Alexander A. Shishkin, wrote that on this occasion, “only three members of the Tikhonite Holy Synod and Supreme Church Council were in Moscow. Shishkin, Sushchnost' i kriticheskaia otsenka obnovlencheskogo raskola v Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi (Kazan’, 1970), 86, 89. Bishop Gregory Grabbe, Russkaia Tserkov' pered litsom gospodstvuiushchego zla [The Russian Church in the Face of Dominating Evil]. (Jordanville, New York, 1991), 33. 63 Kostriukov, Russkaia Zarubezhnaia Tserkov' v pervoi polovine 1920-kh godov, 91-106. 64 Minutes (No. 1) of the session of the Synod of Russian Orthodox Bishops Abroad in Sremski Karlovci, at which was discussed the Decree of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. Quoted in Kostriukov, Russkaia Zarubezhnaia Tserkov’ v pervoi polovine 1920-kh godov, 294-295. 65 For the discussion surrounding the controversy of the conditions for this transfer, see ????? 66 Sophia Senyk, “The Orthodox Church in Ukraine in the Twentieth Century,” The Orthodox Church in Eastern Europe in the Twentieth Century, 331. 67 In his memoirs (end of 1917- December 1918) the Hetman wrote that Metropolitan Antonii was a nonofficial leader of all Kyivan monarchists. Spogadi (Kyiv-Philadelphia, PA:1995); 197-199. Cited from Andriy 31 Starodub, “Rezoliutsii mitropolita Antoniia (Khrapovitskogo) za 1918-yi god, kak istochnik po istorii Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi,” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad, https://www.rocorstudies.org/ru/2012/07/09/rezolyucii-mitropolita-antoniya-xrapovickogo-za-1918-godkak-istochnik-po-istorii-russkoj-pravoslavnoj-cerkvi/ (Accessed March 18, 2021). 68 213 against 128 abstained from voting. 69 Metropolitan Platon Rozhdestvenskii of Odessa became a substitute to Metropolitan Antonii of Kyiv after his arrest. On December 30, 1918 he sent a telegram to Archbishop Randall of Canterbury, informing him about the arrest of his superior. At the time of sending this telegram Odessa was under the control of the French Brigadier General Philippe d'Anselme, chief of Entente troops in the South of Russia. In February, 1919, Henry Freydenberg, Chief of Staff to General d'Anselme, at the negotiations with the Minister of Trade and Industry of the Directorate government, S. Ostapenko, demanded release of the bishops from Buchach. In May, 1919 after Galicia was taken over by the Polish Army, the bishops were transferred to the Greek-Catholic monastery of St. George in L’viv, then further to the Camaldolese convent near Krakow and finally released through Serbia. 70 Andriy Starodub, Vseukrain’iskii pravoslavnyi tserkovnyi sobor 1918 godu (Kyiv, 2010), 64; Igor Kamennyi, “Patriarch Tikhon vzgliad na ukrainskii tserkovnyi vopros,” Trudy Kievskoi Dukhovnoi Akademii 24 (2016): 252. 71 On November 27, 1919 at the ecclesiastical trial in Novocherkassk by Metropolitan Antonii and twelve bishop members of TSEASR retied Archbishop Agapit to a monastery for ceasing liturgical commemoration of Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Antonii. 72 Senyk, “The Orthodox Church in Ukraine in the Twentieth Century,” 330. 73 Theodosius, Obosoblencheskie dvizheniia, 190. 74 A point of reference here is the ecclesiastical order of the first century when hierarchy consisted of both presbyters and laity. See Susan Wesel, “The Formation of Ecclesiastical Law in the Early Church,” History of Byzantine and Eastern Canon Law to 1500, W. Hartmann and K. Pennington eds (Washington, DC, 2021),1-23. Compare also with ordination of the archdeacon Stephen (Acts 6:5). 75 Obosoblencheskie dvizheniia v Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi na Ukraine (Moscow, 2004), 121. 76 Akty, 135. 77 e.g., Canon 8 of the Council of Ephesus (431). 78 e.g., Canon 3 of the Second Council of Nicaea (787). 79 In this definition of symphonia the empire was put on the same level with the Church: “The greatest gifts among men, made by supernal kindness, are the priesthood and sovereignty, of which the former is devoted to things divine, and of which the latter governs human things and has the care thereof. Both proceed from the same beginning and are ornaments of human life.” Annotated Justinian Code. Second Edition. http://www.uwyo.edu/lawlib/blume-justinian/ajc-edition-2/novels/1-40/novel%206_replacement.pdf) 80 Acta Patriarchatus Constantinopolitani, M. Mikloshich, I. Muller, eds. 2 (Vienna, 1975), 188-192. Cited from John Meyendorff, Byzantium and the Rise of Russia (Crestwood, NY: 1989), 255. 81 In 1721 Emperor Peter the Great replaced the Patriarchate with the Most Holy Governing Synod. 82 Theodosius Protsiuk, Obosoblencheskie dvizheniia, 19. 83 Akty, 193. 84 e.g., Athenagoras, who lived in the second century Athens and wrote A Plea for the Christian, where he argued against applying double standards for Christians in civic matters. 85 “Letter to the Third Council of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,” Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad, https://www.rocorstudies.org/2012/12/12/letter-to-the-third-council-of-the-russianorthodox-church-abroad/ (Accessed April 3, 2021) 86 Iulia A. Biriukova, “Sviashchennik Vladimir Vostokov – uchastnik belogo dvizheniia i osnovatel’ bratstva Zhivotvoriashchego kresta,” Vestnik SFI 34 (2020): 196. 32