World religions. Рахимбергенова М.Х. - 34 стр.

riphery of the Russian empire, on Athos and in Moldavia. But his influence was       mately answerable to the council itself. Three candidates were elected. The new
to be felt in many Russian monasteries, especially Optina Pustyn’. Among Opt-        primate was then chosen by lot. This fell on Tikhon Belavin (1865–1925), only
ina’s renowned startsy were Leonid Nagolkin (1768–1841), Makarii Ivanov              recently elected as metropolitan of Moscow.
(1788–1860) and Amvrosii Grenkov (1812–1891). No less important was their                  A Bolshevik decree of 23 January 1918, which brought about the separa-
radiant contemporary at Sarov, SERAPHIM (1759–1833).                                 tion of church from state in no way guaranteed the freedom of the church to act
      Optina’s influence was spread also through its publications, including Rus-    as it deemed fit, or even to survive at all. It was subjected to all kinds of indig-
sian translations of Greek patristic texts. Together with the serial publications    nities and constraints and simultaneously deprived of the rights of a person-at-
initiated by the theological academies, translations such as these paved the way     law, as were all its clergy. With Tikhon began a remarkable line of martyrs and
for the work of theologians, something notably lacking in centuries gone by.         confessors. Confiscation and destruction of church property brought the secu-
There were also original writers, such as the Slavophile A.S. KHOMIAKOV              larization programme of Catherine II almost to completion. A distinct pro-
(1804–1860), who depended less on patristic sources than on early nineteenth-        gramme was organized for the confiscation of church valuables in 1921–1922,
century German and romantic though. In the process, Khomiakov helped to de-          allegedly to combat famine; its covert aim was to bring the church into disre-
velop an ecclesiology centred on communality and catholicity, sobornost. With        pute. In its aftermath, Patriarch Tikhon was arrested (1922) and the state spon-
Khomiakov began a school of Russian religious thinkers, which included               sored ambitious pro-communist reformers to supplant him. This they proceeded
P.A. FLORENSKY (1882–1943) and S.N. BULGAKOV (1871–1944). By con-                    to do at their own council of 1923. However, their schismatic and fragmented
trast, a return to patristic tradition was advocated by such theologians as          movement found increasingly less grassroots support. By the end of the Second
G.V. FLOROVSKY (1893–1979) and V.N. Lossky (1903–1958). The Russian                  World War it had vanished.
Revolution was to stifle the development of theological thought on Soviet soil,            When he emerged from prison in 1923, the patriarch was required to affirm
and Florensky ended his days in a Soviet forced labour camp. By contrast, the        that he was “no longer an enemy of the Soviet government”. He reiterated this
emigration to the West of outstanding theologians, among them Bulgakov,              statement on the eve of his death. But there was no quid pro quo. Tikhon’s dep-
Florovsky and Lossky, acted as a stimulus to Western thinkers, not least in the      uty Petr Polianskii was exiled and eventually shot (1936). The Soviet authori-
ecumenical movements.                                                                ties were to demand a more abject declaration of loyalty than Tikhon’s from
      Until the Revolution of 1917, the Russian state sponsored Orthodox mis-        Metropolitan Sergii Stragorodskii (1861–1944) when they released him from
sionary activities in a variety of non-Russian territories linked to the empire by   prison and recognized his church administration (1927), a declaration ill re-
conquest or trade. There were missions in ALASKA (from 1794) and Japan               ceived by the body of the church. In any case it brought only formal benefits, if
(from 1861), not to mention the Zyrian, Tatar, Chuvash and Votiak areas of the       any. Furthermore, it confirmed the suspicions of émigré churchmen, many of
empire’s landmass. Religious propaganda was at a discount after 1917, and in         whom, under the leadership of Metropolitan Antonii Khrapovitskii (1873–
1929 the right to any sort of religious propaganda was formally withdrawn.           1936), had already formed an independent church administration, the Episcopal
      In the early part of the twentieth century much thought was given to possi-    synod of the RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ABROAD, in the early 1920s.
ble reform-structural, liturgical and social-of the established church. Many         Sergii’s declaration prompted yet others, led by Metropolitan Evlogii Geor-
churchmen felt that there was room for a plenary council of the Russian church,      gievskii (1866–1946), to join the patriarchate of Constantinople (1913).
the like of which had not been seen for two and a half centuries. But the work             New Soviet laws of 1929 confirmed and extended restrictions on church
of an officially sponsored Pre-Conciliar Commission (1907) and a subsequent          life. The following decade witnessed the dissolution of the few remaining mon-
Pre-Conciliar Consultation (1911–1913) came to nothing. By the existing stat-        asteries, the reduction of parish churches to a matter of hundreds and the im-
utes only the tsar could convene such a council. Yet the tsar temporized and de-     prisonment of millions. Anti-religious propaganda presented this “assault on
layed its convocation until “a favourable time shall come”. Paradoxically, the       heaven” as a beneficial piece of social engineering. Yet the census of 1937, at
professedly Orthodox monarchy needed to be brought to an end before the              the height of the Stalin terror, elicited so positive a response to the question on
council could take place. When it finally assembled in the summer of 1917, its       belief in God that the result simply had to be suppressed.
days were numbered and its promise curtailed. Among its decisions was that a               The war of 1941–1945 proved a turning point in the modern history of the
patriarch be elected once again to lead and represent the church. But this was       church. Stalin recognized the potential of the church to boost morale at home;
carefully qualified: the patriarch, together with his administration, was ulti-      he also saw the propaganda value of advertising “freedom of religion” to his al-

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