Persecution of Christians. The truth about the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet period Persecution of the Church after the revolution
This year we will celebrate our centenary anniversary. Exactly one hundred years ago, terrible and fatal events took place in the history of our Motherland that changed the entire course of world history. We are talking about a coup d'etat - the February and October revolutions of 1917. During these revolutions, first the bourgeois Provisional Government and then the Bolshevik Communist Party came to power in the Russian Empire.
Consequences of the revolution
Until now, historians are “breaking their spears” in the debate about the role of the revolution in the development of civil society in Russia, but they are all unanimous in one thing - people who hated their people, their land and their culture came to power. By the will of God, Russia turned out to be a platform for an unprecedented political experiment called communism. And along with communist ideology, atheism was implanted in the minds of ordinary people - a complete denial of any religion.
And naturally, the first law of the new government was a decree on the separation of Church from state and, accordingly, church from school. This decree marked the beginning of almost seventy years of persecution of the Orthodox Church. The persecution of the church itself can be divided into several historical stages.
Immediately after the revolution, churches began to close and priests were subjected to repression. An internecine civil war began. Under these conditions, a Local Council is being held in Moscow, which elected St. Tikhon (Belavin) as Patriarch. This Council was of great importance for the Russian Orthodox Church. We will return to the issues raised at this Council later.
The newly arrived government tried to destroy the church physically, filling it with blood. But the Bolsheviks did not understand that the Church is, first of all, a mystical body, founded and standing on the blood of martyrs. Faced with fierce local resistance from the people, the government temporarily weakened the onslaught and directed all its efforts to solving military problems in the fight against the White Guards.
Hunger
After the end of the civil war in 1922, the country suffered a terrible famine. Under this pretext, the Bolshevik government organizes the confiscation of church valuables for the hungry. The communists' calculation was quite simple. Russian Orthodox people donated all their best to the temple; the splendor of temples was considered one of the highest virtues. Using this love for the temple, as well as the discontent of the hungry masses, the Bolsheviks decided to pit them against each other.
Using hunger as a cover, they set out to destroy and devastate the temples, and destroy the priests and active laity. IN AND. Lenin directly wrote in a secret note to members of the Politburo that “the more we destroy the clergy, the better”.
GULAG
The next wave of persecution occurred in 1929-1931. It was at this time that the Union of Militant Atheists was created, as well as the Gulag, in which most of the imprisoned bishops and priests died. On the bookshelves there is a wonderful book about the priest’s time in the dungeons of the camp. It is called "Father Arseny". Of course, it is advisable for every Christian to read it. And Alexander Solzhenitsyn even has a book with the same name "GULAG Archipelago".
Repression
In 1937-1938 the clergy were subjected to repression as part of trumped-up cases of espionage, anti-government conspiracy, and anti-Soviet agitation. This was the worst persecution of the church during the entire period of the existence of the Soviet Union. It was this period of history that gave our church a whole host of new martyrs.
By 1938, two-thirds of the total number of churches that existed in 1934 were closed. According to the research of the prominent modern church historian Abbot Damaskin (Orlovsky), of the more than 75,000 churches and chapels that existed in 1914, by the end of 1939 only 100 remained.
The Great Patriotic War
During the Great Patriotic War, the pressure on the church eased, seeing its influence on the spirit of the soldiers. With the donations of believers, an entire tank column was created under the name “Dmitry Donskoy.” In 1943, the Soviet government opened churches, brought back priests from exile, and even allowed the opening of Theological courses in Moscow at the Novodevichy Convent.
An interesting dialogue took place between Joseph Stalin and the Patriarch. When asked by Stalin why there is a shortage of clergy in the church, the Patriarch replied that we train clergy in seminaries, and they become General Secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee. By the way, Stalin graduated from the Tiflis Theological Seminary.
New persecution
After the death of I.V. Stalin, during the reign of N.S. Khrushchev's persecution of the Orthodox Church resumed. The Soviet Union became the winner in the Great Patriotic War, liberated Europe from fascism, launched the first man into space, and restored the economy in a short time. It has become one of the most advanced countries on the planet. Therefore, all foreign tourists were assured that the persecution in the USSR that existed before the war had stopped. But the persecution did not stop; it simply took on a different, more sophisticated form.
Now the efforts of the Soviet government began to be aimed at discrediting the priesthood and the highest hierarchs of the church. It tried in every possible way to place “loyal” people in significant church positions, who would not be able to zealously defend the interests of the church. The institutions of commissioners for religious affairs were introduced. Their responsibility was to approve all movements and appointments within the church.
One day my confessor told me an episode from that time. He was a dean and a policeman he knew called him. He asked to pick up a certain priest from a restaurant. He said that a certain drunken priest in a cassock and with a cross, surrounded by girls of dubious behavior, was rowdy in the restaurant. Having arrived at the place, we saw that this “priest” was clearly an impostor, the priest’s clothes and the cross looked so awkward on him. When they tried to talk to him, “people in civilian clothes” came up and politely asked him to leave the premises. “With such actions the KGB caused more harm to the church than all the institutions of atheism combined,” he concluded bitterly.
The authorities obtained from the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church the “voluntary” closure of entire dioceses “due to the lack of believers.” Clubs were organized at existing monasteries and Lavras. During services, dances were held with loud music, and a boarding school for the insane was located in the Pochaev Lavra, in the cells of the fraternal corps and in the monastery hospital.
You can give a lot of different examples, but one thing is obvious - an attempt to destroy the church as a social phenomenon. Decades passed, the tactics of destruction changed, but the goal remained the same - if not completely destroy, then force the church to be a servant of momentary political moments.
Indeed, it is difficult for a non-believer to understand with a rational mind how, after such repressions, executions, exiles, the church is still alive. It seems that Anthony of Sourozh wrote that “the church should be powerless like Christ.” Christ was also powerless. Powerlessness lay in that sacrificial love when He, hanging on the cross, prayed for those crucifying. And this is His strength.
This is how the church should be powerless, and only appeal to people like a mother. And wait, wait patiently and hope, not paying attention to the imaginary power and material benefits of the momentary political moment. The head of our Church is Christ. He invisibly controls the church, so we have nothing to fear. The church was founded on the blood of martyrs. And the new martyrs and confessors of Russia are a clear example of this.
We will talk about them and their feat in the next article.
If you want to understand more deeply the topic of persecution of the Orthodox Church, pay attention to the following books -
In the twentieth century at the Local Council of 1917–1918. the patriarchate in the Russian Church was restored. The first patriarch was the one elected by the Moscow Council Metropolitan Tikhon (Bellavin).
The Local Council of 1917–1918, held in Moscow, began its activities in conditions of obvious oppression of faith by the Provisional Government(ban on teaching the Law of God in educational institutions, transferring the premises of parochial schools to the Ministry of Education, etc.). The Council ended in conditions of civil war and war against the Orthodox Church, openly declared by the Bolshevik authorities
- separation of Church and state,
- nationalization of all church property,
- mass repressions against the clergy,
- closing of churches
The misfortune that befell the Church contributed to a special unanimity among the participants of the Local Council. The main thing that the Council managed to accomplish was restoration of the patriarchate. From the moment of his election, Saint Tikhon bore the heavy cross of patriarchal service in the conditions of the widespread departure of the people from the faith and the fierce struggle of the Soviet regime against the Church.
Persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church was carried out by the Soviet government
and the Provisional Government
Patriarch Tikhon in one of his first messages stated that P The Orthodox Church is not a participant in the political struggle; The saint ordered the clergy to refrain from any political actions. Guarding this position, His Holiness the patriarch refused to convey the blessing to one of the leaders of the White movement. But the Bolsheviks viewed the Church as one of the main opponents and declared the entire clergy counter-revolutionary.
The first victims of the ongoing struggle against the Church were those who were brutally murdered in Tsarskoye Selo in October 1917 Archpriest John Kochurov and shot in Kyiv in January 1918 Metropolitan of Kyiv Vladimir (Epiphany). Patriarch Tikhon in February 1918 issued a message with a sharp tone, in which he excommunicated all those who shed innocent blood from church communion and called on all the faithful children of the Church to stand up for its defense.
During the civil war, many clergy, monks and nuns were brutally tortured:
- they were crucified on the Royal Doors,
- cooked in cauldrons with boiling resin,
- scalped
- strangled with stoles,
- “communed” with straightened lead,
- drowned in ice holes,
- impaled
In the summer of 1918, the Royal Family was killed in Yekaterinburg: the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra Feodorovna and their five children - Tatyana, Olga, Maria, Anastasia, Alexei. They were killed as a symbol of Orthodox Russia and divine establishment of royal power. At the same time, the Empress's sister, Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna, died at the hands of assassins. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was not afraid to publicly condemn the execution of the Tsar and his family and blessed the clergy to pray for their repose.
The imperial family was shot as a symbol of Orthodox Russia
During the years of severe famine in the Volga region in 1921–1922, the authorities tried to crush the Church: while the Orthodox Church actively participated in the transfer of aid to the famine-stricken, by order of V.I. Lenin, the confiscation of all church valuables was announced due to the fact that the Church was hiding from suffering people their wealth. The new rulers of the country were not concerned about the suffering of the inhabitants of the starving areas. Them it was necessary to destroy the Church and take possession of its values to use the proceeds to start a world revolution.
The implementation of Lenin's instructions for the forced confiscation of church valuables met with resistance from believers. Many laymen and clergy died during the seizure campaign. Show trials were organized in different cities. Only 14 death sentences were imposed in Moscow and Petrograd. Among those executed in this case Metropolitan of Petrograd Benjamin (Kazan)). When asked by the tribunal about himself, he said: “What can I say about myself? I don’t know what you will tell me in your verdict: life or death. But no matter what you say, I will cross myself and say: glory to God for everything.” At this time, Patriarch Tikhon was also arrested, and a trial was being prepared against him with an inevitable death sentence. But under the influence of foreign policy requirements, the Bolsheviks were forced to release the Patriarch.
Over the course of several years of his reign, Saint Tikhon was able to create the basis for the development of church life in new conditions - without patronage and protection from the state; he was able to preserve the unity of the Russian Church, which the Bolsheviks tried to split with the hands of some liberal clergy who made a deal with conscience and power - so-called renovationists . By participating in divine services and publishing patriarchal messages, Saint Tikhon strengthened the believers and with his fearlessness left an example of the faithful confession of Christ. In 1989, Patriarch Tikhon was canonized.
The Bolsheviks tried to split the church with the hands of liberal clergy
During the persecution of the Church, the outskirts of the country were covered with numerous concentration camps. One of the most famous is Solovetsky Special Purpose Camp(abbreviated as SLON), created by the Bolsheviks in 1923. Former The Solovetsky Monastery became a place of exile and death of hundreds of people, among whom were the best representatives of the Russian clergy, intelligentsia, and peasantry.
Solovki was considered the most terrible place quarantine company on Anzer Island, located in the Golgotha-Crucifixion Skete. Sick prisoners died from cold, hunger, abuse and disease. The prophecy given two hundred years before the creation of the concentration camp came true, when the Mother of God appeared to Hieromonk Job on Mount Golgotha-Crucifixion and predicted: “This mountain will henceforth be called Golgotha, and a church and the Crucifixion monastery will be built on it, and it will be whitened with innumerable suffering.”
The mass extermination of the clergy and laity, organized by the Soviet government, continued until the “reign” of N. S. Khrushchev, when the nature of the persecution changed - from now on they were carried out primarily ideologically.
Physical persecution of the Soviet government against the Russian Church occurred before Khrushchev
In the anniversary year of 2000, the Russian Church glorified the feat of those who suffered for their faith from the Soviet regime. But since it is impossible to restore the names of all the victims and find out the details of their feat, they were canonized as Council of New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia.
In the first years after the Bolsheviks came to power in 1917, their religious policy changed its direction several times. The desire to put an end to the Russian Orthodox Church, as the dominant religious organization in the country at the time of the revolution, remained persistent. To achieve this goal, the Bolsheviks tried, among other things, to use other religious denominations.
However, in general, religious policy was consistently aimed at eradicating religion as incompatible with Marxist ideology. As historian Tatyana Nikolskaya noted, “there was virtually no equality of religions in the USSR, since atheism became a kind of state religion, endowed with many privileges, while other religions were subject to persecution and discrimination. In essence, the Soviet Union was never a secular state, although it declared this in its legal documents.”
1917-1920
The legislative acts adopted immediately after the revolution were of a dual nature. On the one hand, a number of legislative acts corresponded to the model of a secular European state. Thus, the “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia” provided for the abolition of “all and all national and national-religious privileges and restrictions.” This norm was later enshrined in the first Soviet Constitution of 1918. The institution of civil (non-church) marriage was also legalized, and the Russian Orthodox Church was separated from the school.
On the other hand, from the very beginning the Bolsheviks did not hide their hostile attitude towards religion in general and towards the Russian Orthodox Church in particular. So, in Art. 65 of the same Constitution of 1918, based on the principle of dividing society into “close” and “alien” classes, “monks and clergy of churches and cults” were deprived of voting rights.
Russian Orthodox Church
According to historian Dmitry Pospelovsky, initially Lenin, “being captive of Marxist ideas, according to which religion is nothing more than a superstructure over a certain material basis,” hoped to do away with the Russian Orthodox Church by simply taking away its property. Thus, the Decree “On Land” of 1917 nationalized monastery and church lands.
The Bolsheviks did not accept the definition of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of December 2, 1917, which established the privileges of the Russian Orthodox Church over other confessions (primary public legal position, the preservation of a number of government posts only for Orthodox Christians, exemption from duties of priests and monks, etc.), which is even more increased mutual antagonism. However, not all Orthodox Christians supported the idea of continuing the privileged position of the Russian Orthodox Church in the new state - there were those who hoped for a spiritual renewal of the church in conditions of equality.
Soon after the resolution of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church was issued (dated December 2, 1917), the Bolsheviks adopted the Decree on the separation of church from state and school from church (January 23 (February 5), 1918), which consolidated the secular nature of the state. At the same time, this Decree deprived religious organizations of legal personality and property rights. All buildings that previously belonged to religious organizations became the property of the state, and from that time the organizations themselves began to use them on a free lease basis. Thus, religious organizations lost their legal and economic independence, and the state received a powerful lever to put pressure on them. This model of economic relations between church and state existed until the fall of the Soviet system.
However, in the very first years of their power, taking into account the Civil War and the religiosity of the population, the Bolsheviks did not actively campaign to seize buildings from religious organizations.
Campaign to uncover the relics
The campaign to uncover the relics was of a propaganda nature and began in the fall of 1918 with the opening of the relics of St. Alexander Svirsky. The peak of the campaign occurred in 1919-1920, although individual episodes also took place in the 1930s.
On February 16, 1919, the board of the People's Commissariat of Justice adopted a resolution on organizing the opening of the relics of saints on the territory of Russia, and the “procedure for their inspection and confiscation by government agencies” was determined. The opening of the relics (removal of their covers and vestments) was to be carried out by clergy in the presence of representatives of local Soviet authorities, the Cheka and medical experts. Based on the results of the autopsy, it was prescribed to draw up a report.
The opening of the relics was accompanied by photography and filming; in a number of cases there was gross blasphemy on the part of the commission members (during the opening of the relics of St. Savva of Zvenigorod, one of the commission members spat on the saint’s skull several times). Some reliquaries and shrines, after examination with the participation of church representatives, ended up in state museums; nothing more was known about the fate of many made of precious metals (for example, on March 29, 1922, a multi-pound silver shrine of St. Alexy of Moscow was dismantled and confiscated from the Donskoy Monastery) . The relics, like artifacts, were then placed under glass cases in various museums, usually museums of atheism or local history museums.
Protestants
As for Russian Protestants, they were completely satisfied with equal rights with the Russian Orthodox Church, especially since the principle of separation of church and state is one of the key ones for Baptists and related evangelical Christians. They had little property suitable for Bolshevik expropriations. And the experience of survival and development in an atmosphere of persecution and discrimination, acquired before the overthrow of the monarchy, in the new conditions gave them certain advantages over the Russian Orthodox Church.
In addition, part of the Bolshevik leaders, led by V.I. Lenin and the main Bolshevik “expert on sectarians” V.D. Bonch-Bruevich, in the words of the Soviet-Russian religious scholar L.N. Mitrokhin, “flirted” with Protestants, trying to use them in for your purposes.
“In the first years, the main task was to retain power and achieve victory in the flared-up civil war. - noted Mitrokhin. - Therefore, the number one target remained the Russian Orthodox Church, which openly condemned the October Revolution and the cruelty of Soviet power.<…>Accordingly, official publications about Orthodoxy were permeated with irreconcilable hostility and class hatred. They placed special emphasis on the “counter-revolutionary” activities of the church - often in a very tendentious manner. This tone continued even after the church declared its loyalty. Articles about sectarians looked different. Although attempts to attract “indignant sectarians” to the side of Social Democracy did not produce serious results, in an atmosphere of a fierce struggle for survival, the Bolshevik leadership could not neglect “elements of democratic protest” and tried to use them, especially in cooperative construction.”
On this wave, the Decree “On exemption from military service for religious beliefs” of January 4, 1919 was adopted, according to which a pacifist believer, by a court decision, had the right to replace military service with an alternative “sanitary service, mainly in infectious hospitals, or other generally useful work at the choice of the conscript” (paragraph 1) True, in practice, not everyone was able to realize this opportunity - local authorities often did not know about this Decree or did not recognize it, punishing “deserters” up to and including execution.
At the same time, as historian Andrei Savin noted, “a loyal attitude to the Evangelical churches was never the only dominant line in Bolshevik politics. A significant part of the party members and the political police a priori uncompromisingly opposed “sects.” They viewed the activities of “sectarianism” as “an attempt to adapt religion to new conditions”, “another form of anti-Soviet movement of kulak elements in the village.”
Muslims
According to Dmitry Pospelovsky, in their fight against the Russian Orthodox Church, the Bolsheviks also sought support (or at least neutrality) from Muslims and Jews. For this purpose, in 1918, the Commissariat for Muslim Nations Affairs was created, headed by Mullah Nur Vakhitov.
Jews
A “Jewish section” was created for Jews in the CPSU(b). True, this section did not represent Judaism as a religion, but Jews as a nationality. Moreover, this section was supposed to fight Judaism and promote the secularization of Jews. However, if the authorities could decide on the closure of churches, mosques and houses of worship on their own, then the synagogue could be closed only with the approval of the Jewish section of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
1921-1928
In October 1922, the first meeting of the Commission for the Separation of Church and State under the Central Committee of the RCP(b), better known as the Anti-Religious Commission under the Central Committee of the RCP(b), took place. The commission was headed by security officer Evgeniy Tuchkov. Throughout the 1920s, this commission actually bore sole responsibility to the Politburo of the Central Committee for the development and implementation of “church” policy, for the effective fight against religious organizations and their “harmful” ideology, for coordinating the activities in this area of various party and Soviet bodies.
Campaign to confiscate church property
In 1921-1922, due to crop failure, damage suffered as a result of the Civil War, as well as the food policy of the Bolsheviks during the years of war communism, famine broke out in the country. From the very beginning, the Russian Orthodox Church tried to organize charitable assistance to the hungry. In July 1921, Patriarch Tikhon, together with the writer Maxim Gorky, addressed the American people with a request to help those in need. The appeal was published in the New York Times and other foreign newspapers, and was also distributed by Soviet diplomats through diplomatic channels. The Church took a number of other steps to mitigate the consequences of the famine.
Despite the position of the Church, under the pretext of fighting hunger, the Bolsheviks launched a large-scale campaign to confiscate church valuables. Later, Joseph Stalin openly admired the skillful confrontation between the Church and the hungry:
“We managed to contrast the religious aspirations of the priests with the needs of the working population. There are jewelry in the church, you need to take them away, sell them and buy bread. The feelings of hunger and the interests of hunger were opposed to the religious aspirations of the priests. It was a clever way of asking the question. This is not against the priests for theoretical reasons, but on the basis of hunger, food shortages, and crop failure in the country. Jewels in the church, give them, we will feed the people, and there is nothing to counter this, there is nothing to object to, even the most religious person - hunger.”
The persecution of the Orthodox Church in Russia began not in 1917, with the establishment of a godless government, which became a common opinion, but much earlier. Moreover, the revolution itself and the associated destruction of the Orthodox Kingdom were the result of these persecutions, which weakened not only the Church, but also the State. Only awareness of this fact can help us understand how Holy Rus' gave up its shrines - its churches, its monasteries and its Tsar, the Anointed of God, to desecration and destruction.We find the most visible signs of persecution of the Church and monasticism in the history of the Russian Church throughout almost the entire 18th century. Its beginning was overshadowed by the church reforms of Peter I, who in 1721 abolished the patriarchate and established practically secular government of the Church in the person of the Holy Synod. But these obvious persecutions would have been impossible if the position of the Church had not been weakened by less obvious, but no less disastrous attempts by the autocratic kings of the 16th-17th centuries. subjugate the priesthood, deprive the Church of judicial and economic independence.
The first attempt of this kind was made under John III. At the Church Council of 1503, the question of confiscating land holdings from the Church and monasteries was raised. From then until the church reform of Catherine II in 1764, when two-thirds of the monasteries were closed and land ownership was taken away from the Church, the anti-Orthodox, essentially anti-church actions of the government were invariably covered up with arguments about the harmfulness of land ownership for the Church itself and the monasteries, attacks and revelations of various shortcomings in its management, citing the need to limit its independence.
It is also interesting that chronologically, the most energetic attacks of the government on the Orthodox Church coincided with the spread of various heresies or the dominance of foreigners and people of other faiths, under the influence of which not only the supreme power, but also more or less numerous layers of the Orthodox population fell. In Church history courses, as a rule, they are considered as independent phenomena, unrelated to each other, and the reasons for their occurrence are each time found in particular circumstances. However, the almost complete coincidence of their ideological baggage over the centuries directly indicates, on the one hand, organizational continuity, and on the other hand, on the unity of the ideology that excited and nourished them. Let's try to substantiate this by providing here information about the circumstances of the emergence of the main heretical movements.
Strigolniki appeared in Pskov in 1370. At first they attacked the unrest among the clergy, then they began reject hierarchy itself, Sacraments, remembrance of the dead. They began to supply teachers themselves at the choice of the people, without any dedication, which is reminiscent of the Lutherans. The heresy spread for fifty years and was suppressed for some time by the punishment of the main instigators, Carp and Nikita the Deacon. It had no visible consequences, but appeared a second time a hundred years later in Novgorod under a new name.
Judaizers - this heresy was planted in the 1470s by a Karaite Jew, Skhariya, who arrived from Lithuania with four of his associates. Seduced into heresy:
1) rejected the incarnation of the Son of God;
2) they did not believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and in general in the resurrection of the dead (the latter is characteristic of the Sadducee sect);
3) they did not honor the Mother of God, the saints of God and holy relics;
4) did not recognize the Holy Eucharist and other Sacraments;
5) adhered to the Old Testament more than the New, celebrating Passover according to the Jewish calendar;
6) did not observe fasts, rejected monasticism and indulged in obvious debauchery.
This heresy initially infected the inhabitants of Novgorod, and after the Council of 1490, at which the heresy did not receive due condemnation, it spread in Moscow and struck the supreme power, penetrated the palace and found a supporter in the person of the head of the Church, Metropolitan Zosima. It was at this time that the first attack on the Orthodox Church in Russia began, and it would be imprudent to see this as a coincidence. If we take into account the above points of religion of the Judaizers, then, strictly speaking, this religious movement cannot in any way be called a heresy, that is, a deviation from any dogma of the Orthodox faith. Before us is a completely clear confession Judaism. And this is not surprising, because this heresy was planted by “natural Jews,” as church historian M.V. Tolstoy calls Skhariya and his assistants. Here we note that the teachings of the Judaizers have much in common with both previous heresies, especially with iconoclasm VIII-IX centuries in Byzantium, and subsequently (in the 16th century) Lutheranism in Germany .
It is known that iconoclasm also arose under the influence of the Jews and caused severe persecution of Orthodox Christians and monasticism. The basis for them was the definitions of the iconoclastic council of 754 in Constantinople. To make comparison possible, we present them here:
2) all those who worshiped icons were anathematized;
3) it was commanded to confess that not only the saints after their death cannot help us with their intercession, but also the Mother of God Herself;
4) it was forbidden to designate saints of the apostles, martyrs, confessors, saints and all saints of God.
After 761, open persecution of monastics began.
The clergy, monks and all Orthodox Christians were firmly convinced that the first iconoclast emperor Leo the Isaurian was seduced into this insane heresy by the Jews, confirmation of which we find in the circumstances of the life of the Venerable Martyr Stephen the New, who suffered from the Judaizing Byzantine iconoclasts. -In Russia, under John III, the Jews tried to seize power through a sect they organized with more overt Judaistic slogans and with the same hatred of the veneration of holy icons and relics, with the rejection of monasticism. Despite the fact that heresy penetrated the palace and the metropolitan see, this attempt failed, but over time, efforts in this direction continued until they were crowned with success in 1917.
An intermediate success can be considered provoked by the Kabbalists. Protestantism in Western Europe, which, like all anti-clerical movements, began with supposedly pious attacks on the shortcomings of the Catholic clergy, and ended with the same rejection of the authority of the church hierarchy, non-recognition of the Sacraments, iconoclasm and the abolition of monasticism. The beginning of Protestantism lags behind the Judaizer sect in Russia by at least 40-50 years, and unless we assume that they originated from the same source, it is completely impossible to explain the coincidences in the teachings of both. To understand this primary source, let us turn to the circumstances of the life of Luther, who was the initiator and executor of the work, the end result of which was the division of Christians in Western Europe into many “churches” and sects.
Martin Luther was the son of a simple miner. After graduating from the University of Erfurt in 1505, at the age of 22, he suddenly and against his father's will entered an Augustinian monastery. He immediately became a zealous monk and quickly attracted the attention of the Vicar General of the Order of Staupitz, a representative of the mystical-biblical movement in Germany. He attracted Luther to the newly founded university in Wittenberg and encouraged him to speak at the church pulpit. After 12 years, the zealous Augustinian monk, under the influence of the then Kabbalist mystics, turned into an equally zealous opponent of the authority of the Catholic Church and began to call for general protest. One of the teachers at the University of Wittenberg was Philipp Schwarzerd, better known by his Hellenized pseudonym Melanchthon. It was he who became not only Luther’s closest associate, but the inspirer and even the author of that very Augsburg Confession, which formed the basis Lutheranism .
Melanchthon was the great-nephew of the famous humanist Reuchlin, an expert in Jewish language and European philosophy. The humanist was keen on comparing the Neo-Pythagorean teachings with Kabbalah and believed that they sought to elevate the human spirit to God. Reuchlin's opponent was Pfefferkorn, who proposed burning all Jewish books, with the exception of the Old Testament, because they contained ridicule of the dogmas and rituals of the Christian religion. Kabbalist Reuchlin stood up for the Talmud, finding in it much useful for Christians, and advised the opening of two departments of the Jewish language in each German university.
The theological faculty in Cologne demanded that Reuchlin withdraw from sale all his pro-Jewish writings and publicly renounce the Talmud. He was accused of being bribed by Jews. Pope Leo X treated Reuchlin liberally and came to his senses only when the reform movement generated by lovers of the Talmud and Kabbalah began to threaten Rome.
At first, Luther acted with the most ardent support of the humanists Erasmus of Rotterdam and Reuchlin. Luther thought highly of Reuchlin and called him his father. Luther's brother can be considered the grandnephew of the Talmudist Reuchlin, the aforementioned Melanchthon. Such was the breeding ground from which the tares of the destructive preaching of Protestants of all stripes inevitably grew. The roots of this sermon go back to the hermetic teachings of the “mystics” of the 14th-15th centuries, infected with Judaism, and are reliably covered by the loud glory of the main executor Martin Luther. It is difficult to recognize the true inspirers behind this figure, but their influence is easy to trace from the fruits that this teaching has brought. Briefly it comes down to this:
1) Lutherans deny the church hierarchy and the Sacrament of the priesthood, insisting that man does not need intermediaries between himself and God;
2) of the seven Sacraments, only two are recognized: Baptism and the Eucharist; at the same time they deny the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ;
3) they reject the prayerful invocation of saints, the veneration of holy relics and icons on which saints are depicted, and do not recognize prayers for the dead;
4) sharply oppose asceticism (fasting) and, most importantly, monasticism. A telling fact: in 1525, the Augustinian monk Luther married the former nun Katharina von Bohr.
Like all similar anticlerical Judaizing movements, Lutheranism, along with iconoclasm and persecution of monasticism, acted as the most active advocate of the secularization of church and monastic estates. For the first time, he finally succeeded in realizing the long-cherished dream of all Judaizers - to destroy the church hierarchy and thereby deprive believers of the opportunity to receive the grace of God in the Church Sacraments.
It is quite natural that the Lutheran destroyers were not satisfied with their success in the bosom of the Roman church. Melanchthon began to work for recognition of the Augsburg Confession by the Orthodox Church. He sent a Greek translation of the Augsburg Confession to Patriarch Joasaph II of Constantinople in 1559. But even earlier, in 1552, this work came to Russia. It was sent by the Danish king Christian III to Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible through one of the book printers. These book printers introduced book printing in Rus', and Lutheranism penetrated with them. And although the book was not translated in Moscow, the Lutherans themselves made a Slavic translation in 1562.
The results were not long in coming. Already in 1552, heresy appeared in the Trans-Volga monasteries, the causative agent of which was Matvey Bashkin. Here is the essence of this heresy:
1) Bashkin blasphemed Jesus Christ, denying His equality with God the Father;
2) He called the Body and Blood of the Lord in the Sacrament of the Eucharist simple bread and wine;
3) did not recognize the Sacrament of Repentance according to the order of the Orthodox Church;
4) rejected the dignity of external church institutions, said: “These churches are nothing, icons are idols”;
5) he called patristic traditions and biographies of saints fables; falsely interpreted various passages of Holy Scripture.
“Bashkin’s heresy,” writes M.V. Tolstoy, “ obviously similar with the heresy of the Judaizers; but, according to the heresy teacher himself, his mentors were Lithuanian Protestants: the pharmacist Matvey and Andrei Khoteev.”
Heresies, similar with the Judaizers, with the direct participation of Protestants, arose more than once in Russia, and with the accession of Peter I, who was brought up in the German settlement, the ideas of Protestantism, one might say, received full support - first from the tsar himself, and then from the Protestant Feofan Prokopovich, who helped the tsar to put them into practice in the area of the church. But these events were preceded by a century and a half of the corrupting influence of Protestant ideas. It was this that was the underlying reason for the possibility of a schism in the middle of the 17th century. The basis of any schism is the unwillingness to submit to church authority, and everything else is just a cover, all the more deceptive because it appears under the guise of zealous adherence to the old rituals. The Russian schism was supposed to repeat what Luther and his minions did in Western Europe - to split off most of the believers from the Church, and then split them into a mass of small factions and sects. In fact, it was possible to do this, but only on a much smaller scale. In addition, Russian “Protestants” did not receive state support, which the Lutherans had in the person of German princes, electors and dukes.
However, despite the small number of those who went into schism, the very possibility of its occurrence and, most importantly, its corrupting influence in subsequent centuries had such negative consequences for the Church and the state that it is quite possible to speak of the middle of the 17th century as about the key, turning point moment in Russian history, as well as in pan-European history. In Europe, the first Great Revolution broke out in England in 1649, organized by the Calvinist Puritans, who expressed the interests of the new “third estate” (bourgeoisie). In Russia in the same year, the nascent bourgeoisie sought the establishment of new legislation (Code, 1649), which infringed on the rights of the Church, and a new body, the Monastic Prikaz. Thus, already then the foundations were laid necessary prerequisites for the coming Great Revolution in Russia are necessary, but not sufficient. Before it, the country experienced a long period of reforms, carried out, as throughout Europe, from above by “enlightened absolutists” and supported by sectarians, both Russian and foreigners.
In the middle of the 17th century, the autocratic government took a decisive step towards self-destruction. She dealt with the High Hierarch of the Orthodox Church she disliked, His Holiness Patriarch Nikon, and thereby marked the beginning of her own death and subsequent persecution of the Church. If the schism became possible under the influence of the Protestant spirit on Russian society, then the simultaneous reprisal against the High Hierarch was initiated by the tsar himself and the boyars around him, who wanted to get rid of the annoying tutelage of the clergy once and for all in matters not only of state, but also of church. At the same time, they will achieve a long-set goal - to deprive the Church and monasteries of their economic independence and put a barrier in the way of expanding their land holdings. Indeed, the lands were needed to house service people - our own and hired foreigners. Starting with Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, Russia slowly swam into the fold of Western Europe and under him began to develop “new thinking.” Catholic and Protestant Europe were not at all satisfied with the “symphony of powers” that existed for centuries in Rus' between the Priesthood and the Kingdom.
We must not forget that the first violation of this symphony occurred a hundred years before Patriarch Nikon, when the Orthodox Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible dealt with the objectionable High Hierarch of the Russian Church, the Hieromartyr Metropolitan Philip. The consequence of the bloody reign of this king was God's retribution - the dynasty was cut short, and many years of terrible Troubles began. A new dynasty, the Romanovs, was established only after popular repentance. The second tsar from this dynasty, Alexei Mikhailovich, on the advice of the then Metropolitan Nikon of Novgorod, publicly repented for the atrocity of Ivan the Terrible at the shrine containing the relics of St. Philip.
When Nikon was appointed patriarch, the same tsar swore an oath not to interfere in church government and to submit to the authority of the High Hierarch in matters of piety and church jurisdiction. Therefore, when the tsar went to persecute His Holiness Patriarch Nikon, he first of all appeared as an oathbreaker, and then, having dealt with him and imprisoned him in lifelong exile, he laid the foundation for another sin - the enslavement of the Church, which Peter I and his successors on the throne brought to the end . “The revolution of 1917 was an atonement for two centuries of this enslavement and self-will of the tsarist power. It appeared both as a satanic deed and at the same time as a providential remission for sins,” writes M.V. in his book about Patriarch Nikon. Zyzykin in 1932. He emphasizes that the reprisal against Patriarch Nikon is a key moment in the history of Russia, and cites the opinion of another historian on this matter, the Englishman V. Palmer: “The fall of Patriarch Nikon is that point, that turning point, around which further religious and the political development of many generations. Its ecclesiastical and political consequences have been visible to us for a long time, and no more than at its beginning.” Palmer saw the consequences as early as the 1860s; they were seen and interpreted by eyewitnesses of the 1917 revolution. So, M.V. Zyzykin wrote: “With his departure from evil, Patriarch Nikon resorted to a measure of archpastoral influence... we assessed his departure as feat of archpastorship
, who revealed the greatness of Nikon the Confessor... The sin committed against him by the wicked persecution of him has not been atoned for... Repentance has not been brought to him for what the state power has done to him —nothing has been done to remove the words spoken by Nikon that weigh heavily on the state power to the oathbreaker king: “My blood is on your head, king”..."
Since the ecclesiastical court was removed from the jurisdiction of the Church, the clergy and clergy were subjected to secular court. Moreover, all cases related to the defense of Orthodoxy and resistance to triumphant Protestantism were constantly transferred to the category of criminal and political. Therefore, most of the hierarchs, clerics and monks who suffered at that time were under the authority of the Secret Chancellery, subjected to torture, exile and civil executions. Peter I's first concern was to reduce the number of monasteries and monks, and the second was to reduce the number of churches and white clergy.
Church reforms under Peter I began in 1701 with the restoration of the Monastic Order, and ended in 1721 with the abolition of the patriarchate. At first, all these measures provoked resistance from Russian hierarchs and monastics. They were fully aware of the threat to Orthodoxy posed by the reforms initiated by the Protestants in power, anti-Christian in essence and merciless in methods. In the first years of these reforms, obvious disapproval was expressed by the last Patriarch Adrian (†1700), the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky, †1721) and the Rostov Metropolitan St. Demetrius (Tuptalo, †1709). They all died in freedom and by natural causes, but already under Peter, cruel persecution of the Orthodox clergy began, with imprisonment in prison, torture and violent deaths of clergy and the destruction of monasteries.
In 1715, Peter openly expressed his attitude towards the patriarchate and hierarchs in his clownish parodies of church ceremonies. His assistant, the Lutheran Metropolitan of Novgorod Feofan Prokopovich, wrote the “Spiritual Regulations,” where he theoretically substantiated the tsar’s right to rule the Church. The result of Peter's pro-Lutheran policy was a certain dominance in Russia of foreigners of various confessions. In 1714, a sect of the most frenzied Calvinists opened, led by the regimental doctor D. Tviritinov. Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky) exposed the Lutherans, anathematized the unrepentant, and thereby indirectly exposed the tsar himself, who condoned the Lutherans. He wrote an extensive essay against the Lutherans entitled “The Stone of Faith - for the confirmation and spiritual creation of the sons of the Holy Orthodox Church and for rebellion and correction - for those who stumble over the stone of stumbling and temptation.” But this book was not published. Even worse, Peter I tried to find reasons to accuse Metropolitan Stefan (Yavorsky) in connection with the case of Tsarevich Alexei that began at the same time. Many representatives of the clergy suffered in this case, of whom the most famous is Metropolitan Joasaph Krokowski. He was imprisoned in one of the Tver monasteries, where he died on June 1, 1718.
In 1721, in accordance with the “Spiritual Regulations,” a collegial body was created to govern the Church - the Holy Governing Synod. Consent to this non-canonical The measure was given by only one of the four ecumenical patriarchs - the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was most dependent on the Russian Tsar. In his letter, he called the Holy Synod his “brother in Christ.” This “brother” initially consisted of the president in the person of the former locum tenens of the patriarchal throne Stefan Yavorsky, Novgorod Archbishop Theodosius Yanovsky, three more bishops and one archimandrite. A government official, chief prosecutor, became the “sovereign eye.” Since then, for two hundred years, the Russian Church was governed by the Synod at the direction of the tsarist authorities. The results were immediate.
In 1726 as a result of the machinations of the almighty Feofan Prokopovich, a member of the Synod suffered Theodosius Yanovsky. After torture in the Secret Chancellery, he was exiled to the Nikolsky Korelsky Monastery (not far from Arkhangelsk), where he died as a simple monk.
In 1728 a member of the Synod was injured Theophylact Lopatinsky for publishing Stefan Jaworski’s book “The Stone of Faith.” The circulation of the book was “taken into the fortress,” and the Orthodox bishop was arrested, subjected to severe torture, trial, and deprived of his rank and monasticism. His legs were broken. Then he was tortured a second time.
In 1731 Bishop Feofan Prokopovich, a zealous opponent of Feofan, was exiled Ignatius Smola, former archimandrite of the Moscow Epiphany Monastery.
In the 1730s-1740s- the period of the reign of Empress Anna Ioannovna and the Bironovschina - the punishments of the persecuted Orthodox clergy and monastics were accompanied by merciless cruelty with the knowledge and connivance of the Holy Synod, which, in truth, was powerless to prevent them. They beat them with slaps, lashes, whips and used all kinds of torture until they impaled them. The government forced hundreds of “monks” (monks) to be cut off without any guilt, under the sole pretext that they were unnecessary, and staffed the army with them. The number of members of the Synod decreased from twelve to three; Often there were only two archimandrites present - they managed the affairs of the Russian Church, and the gentlemen cabinet ministers gave them instructions. Later, a contemporary of this complete humiliation of the Orthodox Church in the Orthodox state, Metropolitan of Rostov Arseniy (Matseevich) wrote: “If Osterman’s comrades wanted to seat pastors in the Synod along with the bishops, then who would stop them from doing this?”
Relief came with the accession to the throne of “Petrov’s daughter”—Empress Elizabeth, the last representative of the House of Romanov, and then through the female line. In the male line, the Romanov dynasty ended back in 1729 with the death of Peter II, the grandson of Peter I, in full accordance with the prophetic words of Patriarch Nikon. But even the pious Elizabeth, who was completely dependent on the Masonic entourage that placed her on the throne, was unable to restore the Patriarchate. Under her, however, the liberation of those innocently exiled during the last reign began. At the same time, many were missing, and of those who returned, many soon died, tormented by torture and severe exile. Obvious persecutions ceased, even the external restoration of the monasteries began, but at the same time it was during this reign that the occult cosmopolitan sect, known as Freemasons. It is not surprising, therefore, that this twenty-year respite not only did not improve the position of the state Orthodox Church, but even further strengthened the position of the freemasons “expecting the Reformation.” At the request of Elizabeth Petrovna, the Russian throne was inherited by Peter III, grandson of Peter I, son of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp and Anna Petrovna. This happened in 1761.
Following the Protestant model, Peter III decided in Russia, which he hated, to carry out the secularization of church estates that had long been carried out in Europe, that is, to take them away in favor of the state. During his short reign, this freemason emperor managed to issue all the necessary decrees, but in 1762 another Masonic party carried out a coup and installed his wife, the Anhalt-Zerbt princess Sophia-Dorothea, on the throne, who received the name of Ekaterina Alekseevna upon converting to Orthodoxy. She was brought up in the spirit of “enlightened absolutism”, which by this time was covered, like an epidemic, by almost all the monarchs of Europe, and therefore acted in accordance with the program of the free masons, with many of whom she maintained close ties through correspondence and personal communication, accepting them into service.
After the death of Peter III, the Russian Empress Catherine, who received the title Great, in 1764 completed the work begun by Peter I - she closed two-thirds of the monasteries, took away church and monastery lands for the treasury, and established “staffs” of monks in the monasteries.
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The Holy Synod, headed by Metropolitan Dmitry Sechenov of Novgorod, decided to deprive the “rebellious” metropolitan of his episcopal rank and hood and exile him to a remote monastery. By the will of Providence, it turned out to be the same Korelsky monastery, where the previously suffered bishops Theodosius Yanovsky and Ignatius Smola languished in exile. In 1767, Catherine launched a second, now secret, investigation against the exiled Metropolitan; Without the knowledge of the Synod, on the personal order of Catherine, the prisoner was stripped of his hair and imprisoned in the tower of the Revel fortress. There he died in the spring of 1772, a year after the third trial was brought against him.
Rostov Metropolitan Arseny Matseevich suffered exactly one hundred years after His Holiness Patriarch Nikon. According to the historian of the Russian Church M. Tolstoy, “before the eyes of Peter the ghost of the “powerful” great sovereign Patriarch Nikon always hovered.” His ghost, apparently, haunted all the descendants of Peter I, which is why archival documents about the case of Patriarch Nikon became available only in the second half of the 19th century. By that time, official historiography had created a distorted image of the Patriarch and managed to belittle the true significance of his departure from the pulpit, his feat as a confessor. But she could not consign his name to oblivion.
But this was almost successful in relation to the Rostov Metropolitan Arseny Matseevich, the documents on whose case were also unavailable for decades, and many of the circumstances of his death are still unknown.
Patriarch Nikon was restored to his rank a year after his death. Already at the beginning of the 19th century, the question of canonization of His Holiness Patriarch Nikon was raised among hierarchs. Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky wrote about this. At his insistence, members of the Local Council of 1917 went twice to the grave of the Patriarch in New Jerusalem and prayed there for the successful completion of the work they had begun - the restoration of canonically correct governance of the Orthodox Church in the person of the Patriarch.
As bitter as it is to admit, the restoration of the Patriarchate became possible only after the death of the Monarchy. In 1917, at the Local Council, Metropolitan was elected Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin), and during his enthronement he put on the mantle of His Holiness Patriarch Nikon. At the same Council, Metropolitan of Rostov Arseny (Matseevich) was acquitted and restored to his rank. To date, the Church has canonized two of these three confessors - Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Arseniy Matseevich, who suffered in the 20th and 18th centuries, but their predecessor, Patriarch Nikon, who suffered in the 17th century, still remains uncanonized.
The deposed and defrocked Patriarch Nikon, the fighter for the restoration of the Patriarchate, Metropolitan Arseny, the first Patriarchate after the restoration of the Patriarchate, Patriarch Tikhon, form one inextricable tradition - the tradition of protecting the Church and its interests from encroachments by state power. Their names, along with others destroyed during persecutions under the reign of the Romanov-Holstein dynasty, testify to how for two hundred years some representatives of the monarchy, contrary to the duty of the Anointed of God, consistently infringed on the rights of the state Orthodox Church and encouraged schismatics and sectarians, both homegrown and foreigners, persecuted monasticism, and encouraged the most alien confessions to Orthodoxy. Thus, they weakened the Church and the Christian faith, and in the end mass persecutions fell on Russia, forcing them to forget all the previous ones.-
The history of persecution of the Orthodox Church over the two thousand years of its existence is inextricably linked with politics (the struggle for power), and politics is determined by the degree of apostasy of the power elite, that is, purely spiritual reasons. That is why the study of heresies and schisms of the past is necessary not only for understanding the political history of the country, but also in order not to be seduced by modern heresies, which seem “new”, but in essence are no different from the old ones, or, more precisely, from one “Old Belief” - the worship of the devil. As always, at the heart of each of them is an anti-Christian principle - a reluctance to confess Jesus Christ as the Son of God and the Savior of the world. All of them traditionally act under the guise of piety - they begin by exposing the shortcomings of the Church and the clergy, then move on to denying the authority of the Church and Holy Tradition, to updating supposedly outdated canons, statutes and worship for modern people. However, let us remember that neither heresies nor persecutions will ever overcome the Church of God, according to the promise of its Head, our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
In the history of the Universal Church there have never been such large-scale and all-encompassing, long and continuous persecutions as in Russia in the 20th century. In the first three centuries of the existence of Christianity, persecution was local in nature and lasted no more than a few years. Even the most terrible persecution of Diocletian and his successors, which began in 303, lasted only 8 years.
Persecution in Russia spread throughout the vast country, which occupied 1/6 of the planet; covered all organizations: educational, economic, administrative, scientific; all layers of society and all ages: from children subjected to a godless upbringing and persecution for their faith in kindergartens and schools to the very old, let us remember the execution in 1918 of children - royal martyrs and the execution in 1937 of the 81st year old martyr. Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov), who could no longer walk due to illness. More than one hundred million Orthodox believers in Russia have been subjected, without exception, to various persecutions, oppression, and discrimination - from bullying and dismissal from work to execution. And this lasted for more than 70 years from 1917 until the “perestroika” of the late 1980s.
From the first days of its existence, the Soviet government set the task of the complete, with the most merciless cruelty, destruction of the Orthodox Church. This attitude of the Bolshevik leaders is clearly expressed in Lenin’s famous letter (“To Members of the Politburo. Strictly Secret”) dated March 19, 1922: “...the confiscation of valuables, especially the richest laurels, monasteries and churches, must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the reactionary clergy we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better.”.
After two decades of activity under this plan, the destruction of the visible structure of the Church was close to completion. By 1939, about 100 churches out of 60,000 operating in 1917 remained open throughout the country. Only 4 ruling bishops were free, and the NKVD also fabricated “testimonies” against them for arrest, which could have happened at any time.
The change in state church policy and the restoration of church life began only during the Patriotic War of 1941-1945. and was an obvious consequence of a nationwide tragedy. However, this refusal to eradicate religion as soon as possible did not mean an end to the persecution of the Church. Although on a smaller scale than before, arrests of bishops, priests and active laity continued in the post-war period. The mass release of repressed clergy and laity from camps and exile occurred only in 1955-1957.
A in 1959, a new terrible Khrushchev persecution began, during which more than half of the ten thousand churches operating in 1953 were closed.
Computer Database of Persecution
The systematic collection of materials and the development of a database about the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church began in 1990 in the information section of the Brotherhood in the Name of the All-Merciful Savior, which was subsequently transformed into the department of computer science at the Orthodox St. Tikhon’s Theological Institute.
Information about persecution is constantly collected, processed, systematized and entered into a database, where by January 2004 more than 22,000 biographical information and about 3,600 photographs had been accumulated.
Work on the database raised the question of selecting individuals who can be considered victims for the faith and the Church. The database included information about representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church convicted in so-called church cases (cases related to the opening of relics, the seizure of church valuables, cases about all kinds of mythical “counter-revolutionary organizations of churchmen”). Information about Orthodox clerics convicted in criminal cases was also taken into account, the fabrication of which was one of the ways to compromise people devoted to the Church. A significant number of people were executed without any trial or investigation at all (especially during the civil war). Their only “guilt” was their faith in God. Information was also included about persons who voluntarily went into exile following their spiritual fathers, relatives and friends. These are often the wives of priests or the spiritual children of arrested and exiled confessors.
Estimation of the total number of new martyrs and confessors of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century
It is difficult to estimate the total number of victims for Christ during the years of Soviet power. In pre-revolutionary Russia there were about 100,000 monastics and more than 110,000 white clergy. Taking into account their families, 630,000 people belonged to the clergy class at the turn of the century. The overwhelming majority of priests and monks were persecuted, both those who served in churches and monasteries in Russia on the eve of the revolution, and those ordained later, right up to the 1940-50s.
In 1937, Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks G.M. Malenkov wrote to Stalin about the existing religious associations as “a widely branched legal organization of 600,000 people hostile to the Soviet government of 600,000 people throughout the USSR.” And this is after 20 years of bloody terror against the Church! And although here Malenkov is talking about “church members and sectarians,” it is obvious that in the formerly predominantly Orthodox country, most of these 600,000 planned for the speedy destruction of people are not sectarians, but Orthodox Christians, mainly the surviving clergy and clergymen and members of the G20.
Thus it is clear that The number of victims numbered hundreds of thousands: according to various estimates, there were from 500,000 to 1 million Orthodox people who suffered for Christ. We have information that more than 400 bishops were subjected to repression. Of these, over 300 archpastors were executed or died in custody. But even these huge figures of losses among the Orthodox episcopate are far from exhaustive, and one can expect a noticeable increase in this list. It will be incomparably more difficult to obtain a relatively complete picture of persecution among priests, deacons and monks. And collecting information about the majority of the laity who suffered for the Church appears to be an almost impossible task.
There are currently about 22,000 names in the database. Thus, we can say that information has been collected about approximately 1/22 of the victims.
Construction of a graph of repressions (statistics of persecution)
On the repression graph (see Fig. 1), the years from 1917 to 1951 are plotted along one axis, and the number of repressions by year, fixed in the database, on the other, multiplied by a coefficient equal to the ratio of the total number of repressions to the number of repressions entered into the database . We get a graph assessing the total number of repressions by year. (The graph represents the number of repressions: arrests and executions, and not the number of those repressed. So, for example, in the camps in 1939 there were hundreds of thousands of people convicted for their faith, in particular, all those arrested and not executed in 1937 and 38. As a rule, everyone who The 20s and 30s were arrested on church matters and remained deprived of their rights until the 80s).
Periods of persecution and related state and church events
After the October Revolution of 1917 and the seizure of power, the Bolsheviks did not abandon the Church with their cruel attention for a single year. Below are the periods of persecution and the main state and church events occurring at this time.
1. The first wave of persecution (1917-1920). Seizure of power, mass robberies of churches, executions of clergy.
07.11.17 - October Revolution, seizure of power by the Bolsheviks.
01/20/18 - Decree of the Soviet government on the separation of the Church from the state - all capital, land, buildings (including churches) were confiscated.
08/15/17 - 09/20/18 - Local Council of the Orthodox Russian Church.
05.11.17 - election of St. Metropolitan Tikhon Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus'.
02/01/18 - Message from St. Patriarch Tikhon, anathematizing all who shed innocent blood.
02/07/18 - execution of the holy martyr Vladimir, Metropolitan. Kievsky.
07/16/18 - execution of Emperor Nicholas II and the royal family.
02/14/19 - Resolution of the People's Commissariat of Justice on the opening of the relics, which caused mass satanic mockery of the holy remains in 1919 and subsequent years.
The first wave of persecution claimed more than 15,000 lives in executions in 1918-1919 alone. (bottom line see Fig.). The total number of repressions is about 20,000 (top line). Almost all clashes, all arrests ended in executions.
2. The second wave of persecution (1921-1923). Confiscation of church valuables under the pretext of helping the starving people of the Volga region.
08/21/21 - education of St. Patriarch Tikhon of the All-Russian Committee for Famine Relief, which was closed by order of the authorities a week later (08/27/21).
02.23.22 - decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on the confiscation of C. valuables, 03.19.22 - secret letter from Lenin (“the more clergy we shoot, the better,” and instructions to Trotsky (Bronstein) to secretly lead the persecution).
05/09/22 - arrest of St. Patriarch Tikhon
June 1922 - “Trial” of Holy Martyr Veniamin, Metropolitan of Petrograd and his execution on 08/13/22.
2nd wave of persecution - about 20,000 repressions, about 1,000 people were shot. The Bolsheviks portray justice, in contrast to the lynchings of 1918, and organize show trials.
3. Persecution of 1923-28. Planting, with the support of the Cheka-GPU-OGPU, a renovationist schism to destroy the Church from within.
April 1923 - preparations for the trial and execution of St. Patriarch Tikhon (see the correspondence of the Politburo with the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs G.V. Chicherin “about the non-execution of the patriarch” and the Note to the Politburo of Dzerzhinsky dated 04/21/23 (... “it is necessary to postpone the Tikhon trial due to the height of agitation abroad (Butkevich case)”, Kremlin Archives (p.269-273)).
04/29/23-05/09/23 - 1st “cathedral” of renovationists.
06/16/23 - statement of St. Patriarch Tikhon ( “...from now on I am not an enemy of Soviet power”).
06/25/23 - release of St. Patriarch Tikhon.
04/07/25 - death of St. Patriarch Tikhon.
01.10.25 - 2nd “cathedral” of renovationists.
04/12/25 - svschmch. Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsky began to fulfill the duties of Patriarchal Locum Tenens
12/10/25 - arrest of the svshchmch. Petra
07/29/27 - Message (Declaration) of the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius - an attempt to find a compromise with the godless authorities ( “We want... to recognize the Soviet Union as our civil homeland, whose joys and successes are our joys and successes.”).
In 1923-1928, the number of repressions was equal to approximately a third of the repressions of 1922. The Bolsheviks do not dare to carry out the trial and execution of St. scheduled for April 11, 2023. Patriarch Tikhon. Many bishops are arrested and exiled, and there is a fight for every church. Renovationists are introducing a married episcopate. By 1925, with the support of the OGPU, there were almost as many Renovationist dioceses and churches as there were Orthodox churches, but all their churches were empty - people did not go to the churches where Renovationists served. The pressure of the OGPU on the successors of St. Patriarch Tikhon and all the clergy of the “Tikhonites”. In 1928, despite the Declaration, persecution intensified.
4. The third wave of persecution (1929-1931). "Dekulakization" and collectivization.
Beginning of 1929 - letter from Kaganovich: “The church is the only legal counter-revolutionary force.”
03/08/29 - Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on religious associations.
02.02.30 - Interview with Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan Sergius: “...there is no persecution of the Church.”
12/05/31 - The Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow is blown up.
The 3rd wave of persecutions was 3 times stronger than 1922 (about 60,000 arrests and 5,000 executions) in 1930 and 1931.
5. Persecution of 1932-36. The “Godless Five-Year Plan,” so called because of its stated goal: the destruction of all churches and believers.
05.12.36 - adoption of the Stalinist Constitution
12.22.36 - Act on the transfer of the rights and duties of the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne to the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan. Sergius, since the Soviet authorities announced the death in prison of the patriarchal locum tenens Metropolitan Peter, although he was alive.
Despite persecution comparable in strength to 1922, the failure of the “Godless Five-Year Plan” - in the 1937 population census, 1/3 of the urban population and 2/3 of the rural population identified themselves as Orthodox believers, that is, more than half of the population of the USSR.
6. The fourth wave - 1937-38. Terrible years of terror. The desire to destroy all believers (including renovationists).
03/05/37 - completion of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which authorized mass terror.
10.10.37 - execution after an eight-year stay in solitary confinement of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Holy Martyr. Petra.
In 1937, the chairman of the Union of Militant Atheists, Em. Yaroslavsky (Gubelman), stated that “the country is finished with monasteries” (Alekseev V.A. Illusions and Dogmas. M., 1991, p. 299).
The 4th wave of persecution is approximately 10 times higher in arrests than the persecution of 1922 (and 80 times in terms of executions). Every second person was shot (about 200,000 repressions and 100,000 executions in 1937-38).
7. Persecution of 1939 - 1952. The Second World War. Persecution of clergy in the annexed Baltic states and western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, as well as in liberated regions.
1939-1940 - Annexation of the Baltic states, western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, Northern Bukovina and Bessarabia to the USSR.
30.11.39 - Beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War.
06/22/41 - German attack on the USSR.
09/04/43 - Stalin’s meeting with the Patriarchal Locum Tenens Metropolitan. Sergius and Metropolitans Alexy and Nikolai.
09/08/43 - Council of Bishops and election of Patriarch Sergius. 05.15.43 - death of Patriarch Sergius.
01.31.45-02.02.45 - Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. Election of Patriarch Alexy I.
By 1939, all (there were more than 1000 of them in 1917) monasteries and more than 60,000 churches were closed - services were performed in only about 100 churches. But the victory of the atheists did not last long; in 1939, with the annexation of the Baltic states and the western regions of Ukraine and Belarus, there were again many Orthodox monasteries and churches in the USSR.
1939-1940 - persecutions are close to 1922 (1100 executions per year).
1941-1942 - in terms of executions, comparable to 1922 (2800 executions).
1943-1946 - the number of repressions is sharply reduced.
1947, 1949-1950 - again bursts of repression (according to Abakumov’s report “from 01/01/47 to 06/1/48 679 Orthodox priests were arrested for active subversive activities”, cm. ).
The graph ends in 1952 because in 1953 - 1989, repressions were of a different nature, there were few executions, hundreds of arrests a year. During this period, mass closures of churches were carried out, clergy were deprived of state registration and thus their means of livelihood, believers were fired from work, etc. These persecutions require special research methods.
Conclusion
Anyone (believer or non-believer) who becomes acquainted with the history of the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century cannot remain indifferent.
What a great opposition the Russian Orthodox Church put up against the totalitarian satanic regime when all the forces of hell fell upon it!
Thousands of simple rural priests, whom everyone made fun of in Russia, turned out to be great heroes. What amazingly beautiful and humble faces! With what faith and fidelity, with what self-sacrifice they walked their life’s path.
The Russian Orthodox Church revered 2,500 saints at the beginning of the 20th century, of which 450 were Russian saints. The information collected at the Institute is in many ways not yet complete materials for canonization. It is possible that in some cases its very possibility will turn out to be doubtful. However, what is certain is that quantity really The number of holy martyrs and confessors given by the Russian Church in the twentieth century is in the tens of thousands. By January 2004, 1,420 new martyrs were glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church as holy martyrs and confessors. Their number grows with each meeting of the Holy Synod.
Thus, the Russian Orthodox Church became basically the Church of the New Martyrs of Russia.
At the end of the 2nd century, the Christian apologist Tertullian said words that became popular: "The blood of martyrs is the seed of Christianity." The 20th century abundantly sowed the Russian land with this seed, our task is to bring it to human hearts, and it will bear its blessed fruit a hundredfold!
From the report of N.E. Emelyanov
