The Clergy versus the Church in 1917–1918

Abstract

P.G. Rogoznyi examines the mass character of insubordination to ecclesiastical authorities in monasteries, participation in the revolution of clergymen and the minor orders, and the relationship of religion to revolutionary monarchism and the newly labeled in April 1917 “ecclesiastical Bolshevism.” This phenomenon labeled as Bolsheviks or Leninists all those lower orders and clergy opposed to the church hierarchy. Biographical material on the colorful career of Mikhail Galkin illustrates the shifting labels and allegiances within the Church during the Revolution. These topics are taken beyond October into the first months of the Soviet era. We learn that state vs. clergy or Church is a far too simplistic paradigm during the revolutionary years.

Notes

1. “Bunt monakhov,” Utro Rossii, May 6, 1917.

2. RGIA, F. 796, Op. 204, Ot 1.st 5.D. 85, L.5.

3. RGIA, F. 796, Op. 204, Ot 1.st 5.D. 85 (O nestroeniiakh v Moskovskom Danilovskom monastyre i o naznachenii ego revizii), L. 1.

4. Ibid., L. 4 ob.

5. About the reaction of the clergy to Black-Hundreds agitation, see M.L. Khizhii, Pravoslavie i ideologiia pravogo radikalizma v nachale 20 veka v Rossii. Avtoref. diss… . kand. filol. nauk (St. Petersburg, 2005).

6. For greater detail, see N.P. Zyrianov, Pravoslavnaia tserkov’ v bor’be s revoliutsiei 1905–1907 gg. (Moscow, 1984), pp. 168–74.

7. Cited per B.V. Titlinov, Tserkov’ vo vremia revoliutsii (Petrograd, 1924), p. 23.

8. V.I. Lenin, Poln. sobr. soch (Moscow, 1968), vol. 15, p. 157.

9. See, for example, L.I. Emeliakh, Antiklerikal’noe dvizhenie krest’ian v gody pervoi russkoi revoliutsii (Moscow/Leningrad, 1965).

10. N. Liubimov, protopresbyter, “Dnevnik o zasedaniiakh vnov’ sformirovannogo Sinoda,” in Rossiiskaia tserkov’ v gody revoliutsii (1917–1918 gg.) (Moscow, 1995), p. 24. Liubimov likewise writes about how Tikhvinskii, a former member of the State Duma, linked up with the party of the social-bolsheviks and supposedly took part in a campaign of persons who had made an attempt at overthrowing the government and even on the life of the sovereign (ibid., p. 25). Entry for April 28, 1917.

11. Gosudarstvennaia Duma Rossii. 1906–1917 (Moscow, 2006), vol. 1, pp. 635–36.

12. The most serious remains the monograph about this period by G.L. Sobolev. See G.L. Sobolev, Revoliutsionnoe soznanie rabochikh i soldat v Petrograde v 1917 godu: Period dvoevlastiia (St. Petersburg, 1973).

13. RGIA, F. 796, Op. 204.1 ot, 1st., D. 154, L. 2.

14. Ibid., L. 51.

15. Ibid., D. 283, L. 101.ob.

16. Ibid., L. 114.

17. Ibid., F. 797, Op. 96, D. 296, L. 13ob.

18. Ibid., F. 797, Op. 204, 1.ot.5.st., D. 113, L. 3.

19. Orlovskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti, April 30, 1917.

20. RGIA, F. 796, Op. 204, 1.ot.5.st., D. 135, L. 13ob.

21. “Tserkovnyi bol’shevizm,” Vserossiiskii tserkovno-obshchestvennyi vestnik, April 29, 1917.

22. Ibid., June 22, 1917.

23. By the ecclesiastical “Lenin” is inferred the Synod’s ober-procurator V.I. L’vov.

24. “Tserkovnyi bol’shevizm,” Moskovskie vedomosti, August 19, 1917.

25. Moskovskie vedomosti, August 23, 1917.

26. Articles in the newspaper were signed with initials or pseudonyms along the lines of “An advocate of ecclesiastical righteousness.” Protopriest Vostorgov wrote actively in Vedomosti; true, on religious topics. In August, Vostorgov renewed publication of the magazine Tserkovnost’, which had been interrupted after the February Revolution. All the church policy [tserkovno-politicheskie] articles from Moskovskie vedomosti were reprinted in it. It is possible that Vostorgov was in fact the author of these publications.

27. See Moskovskie vedomosti, September 13, 1917.

28. M.V. Shkarovskii, “Aleksandro-Nevskaia Lavra v gody revoliutsionnykh potriasenii (1917–1918),” in Gorod na vse vremena (St. Petersburg, 2011), pp. 130–33.

29. “Aleksei (Simanskii)–Arseniiu (Stadnitskomu). 3 fevralia 1918 g.,” Pis’ma patriarkha Aleksiia svoemu dukhovniku …, p. 118.

30. For the text of the note, see Sviashchennyi Sobor Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi Tserkvi 1917–1918 gg. Obzor deianii, vtoraia sessiia (Moscow, 2001), pp. 481–83.

31. Ibid., p. 302.

32. RGIA, F. 797, Op. 86.1ot.1.st., D. 119, L. 182.

33. Sviashchennyi Sobor, p. 311.

34. RGIA, F. 833, Op. 1, D. 33 (Protokoly i doklady komissii o ‘bol’shevizme’ v Tserkvi), L. 3ob.

35. Ibid., L. 27, 28. In this connection, the attitude toward the eparchial soviets of clergy in the provinces is indicative. The protopriest dean V. Obraztsov considered that the Tver’ “eparchy is being run by Bolsheviks, for the most part by those who have gotten seats on the eparchial council” (Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Tverskoi oblasti [GATO], F. 160, Op. 1, D. 22518, L. 24). Bishop Aleksii (Simanskii) wrote in July 1917 to archbishop Arsenii (Stadnitskii) from the relatively calm Novgorod eparchy, naming newly elected members of the Consistory “our misguided Bolsheviks” (Pis’ma patriarkha Aleksiia svoemu dukhovniku [Moscow, 2000], p. 42).

36. RGIA, F. 833, Op. 1, D. 33, L. 4.

37. Ibid., L. 4ob.

38. Ibid., L. 28, 29.

39. Ibid., L. 4. As some deans wrote, “the majority of those who call themselves ‘Bolsheviks’ attend God’s temple and discharge the Christian duty of confession and communion” (GATO, F. 160, Op. 1, D. 22918, L. 10ob.). See, likewise, “‘Naskol’ko deshevo stala tsenit’sia zhizn’’. Dnevnik bezhetskogo sviashchennika I.N. Postnikova,” Istochnik, 1996, no. 4, p. 21.

40. RGIA, F. 833, Op. 1, D. 33, L. 4ob.

41. Ibid., L. 33.

42. Ibid., L. 19, 19ob.

43. Ibid., L. 4ob.

44. Sviashchennyi Sobor, p. 448.

45. Deianiia Sviashchennogo Sobora Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi Tserkvi 1917–1918 gg. (Moscow, 2000), vol. 9, p. 112.

46. Ibid., pp. 112–13.

47. This found reflection in the well-known composition of Bulgakov, a member of the commission about “Bolshevism,” which got into the anthology Iz glubiny: “General: It seems that the church has bolshevized [obol’shevichilas’] quite nicely all by itself over the time of the revolution? After all, what was taking place at the church congresses in different places of Russia? Secular theologian: That was but a superficial movement, which gripped the most unstable elements of the Renovationist [obnovlencheskikh] fathers [batiushek] and ecclesiastical social-democrats: social-deacons and social-vergers, with some loudmouths from the laity” (S.N. Bulgakov, “Na piru bogov (Pro i contra): Sovremennye dialogi,” in Khristianskii sotsializm [Novosibirsk, 1991], p. 278).

48. RGIA, F. 796, Op. 204.1ot.5st., D. 223, L. 3, 3ob.

49. Ibid., L. 6.

50. Ibid., D. 102, L. 26(b).

51. “Pis’mo M. Posnova I.Glubokovskomu,” in Sosud izbrannyi. Istoriia Rossiiskikh dukhovnykh shkol. (St. Petersburg, 1994), pp. 16–17.

52. About ecclesiastical separatism in the year 1917, see A.V. Sokolov, Gosudarstvo i Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ v Rossii v fevrale 1917 goda–ianvare 1918 godov (St. Petersburg, 2015).

53. See Tserkovnye vedomosti, May 15 (28), 1918, no. 17–18; Sobranie Opredelenii i postanovlenii Sviashchennogo Sobora Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi Tserkvi 1917–1918 (Moscow, 1994), no. 1–4. No. 4, pp. 58–60.

54. There had already been precedent for such a case at the end of 1917. The judicial commission of the Local Council had examined the case of bishop Makarii (Gnevushev), who had been dismissed from Orel, and found him to have been “driven out of the eparchy completely blamelessly” (RGIA, F. 831, Op. 1, D. 142, L. 9).

55. A.G. Kravetskii and A.A. Pletneva, Istoriia tserkovno-slavianskogo iazyka v Rossii: Konets 19–20 v. (Moscow, 2001), pp. 183–87.

56. A modern-day Catholic historian explained the phenomena of ecclesiastical bolshevism thus: “The political crisis became the reason for the appearance in the Church of a revolutionary movement and even treason.” Destivel’ Iakinf [Hyacinthe Destivelle], Pomestnyi Sobor Rossiiskoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi 1917–1918 godov [The Moscow Council (1917–1918): The Creation of the Conciliar Institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church] (Moscow, 2008), p. 224.

57. M.A. Novoselov, Pis’ma k druz’iam (Moscow, 1994), p. 6.

58. “Aleksei (Simanskii)-Arseniiu (Stadnitskomu). 27, 28 ianvaria 1918 gg.,” in Pis’ma patriarkha Aleksiia svoemu dukhovniku, p. 109.

59. RGASPI, F.17, Op. 100, D. 10902 (M. Gorev-Galkin). Without pagination.

60. From various application forms of Galkin’s, it turned out that he had completed the Saint Petersburg Presentation [of the Most Holy Mother of God] Classical Gymnasium, the Medico-Military Academy, the Petersburg University law faculty, the Saint Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy, and by correspondence the Ecclesiastical Seminary.

61. Pravda, December 3, 1917.

62. Ibid.

63. M. Galkin, Na sluzhbe Bogu. Mezhdu mirom i monastyrem: Ocherki i rasskazy iz zhizni russkikh podvizhnikov XIX stoletiia (Moscow, 1996). Actually, Galkin was a prolific writer: just the list of his books and brochures at the RNB [Russian National Library] comprises fifty-eight items.

64. See N.G. Zarembo, Russiaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ v obshchestvennoi zhizni Sankt-Peterburga (1907–1914). Dissertatsiia na soiskanie uchenoi stepeni kandidata istoricheskikh nauk (St. Petersburg, 2011), pp. 118–21. The author of the given work likewise could not establish the that the priest Mikhail Galkin and one of the leaders of the Union of the Militant Godless Mikhail Galkin-Gorev were one and the same person. See, likewise, S.G. Petrov, “Petrogradskii sviashchennik M.V. Galkin v gody Pervoi mirovoi voiny (po dokumentam RGIA),” in Religioznye i politicheskie idei v proizvedeniiakh deiatelei russkoi kul’tury 16–21 vv. (Novosibirsk, 2015), pp. 382–96.

65. In the only article that was devoted to Galkin, which came out in the “perestroika” epoch, its author wrote that he had been unable to find out how M.A. Galkin had ended [his] life path. “According to professor M.I. Shakhnovich’s story, the last thing that is known about him: in the year 1930 he left for the Ukraine with the latest cycle of atheistic lectures.” (O. Brushlinskaia, “Ia chuvstvuiu pravdu vashego dvizheniia,” Nauka i religiia, 1987, no. 11). In historiography abroad, Peris’s pithy article is devoted to the “red parsons” or “commissars in cassocks,” including Galkin as well. See D. Peris, “Commissars in Red Cassocks[:] Former Priests in League of [the] Militant Godless,” Slavic Review, vol. 54, no. 2 (1995).

66. RGASPI, F. 17, Op. 100, D. 10902 (M. Gorev-Galkin). Without pagination.

67. NIOG RGB, f. 369, k. 256 (V.D. Bonch-Bruevich), ed. kh. 33.

68. In the text of the publication there is an incorrect deciphering of the abbreviation: “init[iative]” instead of “init[ials].”

69. “Iz protokola №12 zasedaniia Soveta Narodnykh Komissarov ot 27 noiabria 1917 g.,” Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov’ i kommunisticheskoe gosudarstvo. 1917–1941. Dokumenty i fotomaterialy (Moscow, 1996), p. 13. This poorly edited and truncated publication of documents should be replaced. A professionally done publication of the Council of People’s Commissars minutes: Protokoly zasedanii Soveta narodnykh komissarov RSFSR. Noiabr’ 1917–mart 1918 gg. (Moscow, 2006). Galkin is mentioned twice there on p. 59 and p. 102.

70. Dokumenty I fotomaterialy, pp. 9–10.

71. In his letter to the head of the eparchy, the auxiliary bishop of the Novgorod eparchy reported that after the allocation of additional supplements for the consistory officials to the Sovietof Workers’ Deputies, he was shown an original copy of a letter to the Soviet from the protopriest Belin, who was writing to chairman of the Soviet Valentinov using the word “comrade” several times and was expressing regrets that a salary supplement had not been received by members of the consistory and that “he feels empathy for the work of the Soviet, is prepared to cooperate with them, making mention of how through the scheming of the black hundred he had been dismissed by you for progressive views.” See “Aleksei (Simanskii)–Arseniiu (Stadnitskomu). 21 fevralia 1918 gg.,” in Pis’ma patriarkha Aleksiia svoemu dukhovniku, p. 126.

72. Sobranie Opredelenii i postanovlenii Sviashchennogo sobora Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi Tserkvi 1917–1918 gg. (Moscow, 1994), no. 1–4, p. 59.

73. This can be seen from excerpts from the journal of protopriest Nikolai Chukov. Thus, at the request of metropolitan Veniamin, he met with Galkin and maintained a correspondence with him. Proceeding from the context of the journal, it can be seen that the metropolitan and Chukov himself hoped that Galkin would be a sui generis intercessor before the powers (“Dnevnik protoiereia Nikolaia Chukova,” Sankt-Peterburgskie eparkhial’nye vedomosti, 2004, no. 32, p. 67). It is interesting to note that Chukov calls Galkin a priest [sviashchennikom] (“Father Galkin”) even in December 1918, when the latter had already stripped [himself of his] ordination.

74. I tried to look into this problem in greater detail. See P.G. Rogoznyi, “Sinodal’naia Tserkov’, obshchestvennoe i revoliutsionnoe dvizhenie, ili pochemu dukhovenstvo privetstvovalo revoliutsiiu?,” Istoricheskaia ekspertiza. Zhurnal retsenzii, 2014, no. 4 (5) (St. Petersburg, 2016), pp. 142–53.

75. It is precisely thus that the given term was described by Council member Golubtsov. See Georgii Golubtsov, protopriest, “Poezdka na Vserossiiskii tserkovnyi Sobor. Dnevnik 1918 g.,” in Rossiiskaia tserkov’ v gody revoliutsii (1917–1918) (Moscow, 1995), p. 249. Likewise, see “Bol’shevizm v tserkvi,” Pribavlenie k Tserkovnym vedomostiam, January 31, 1917, pp. 153–55.

76. “Zapiska L.D. Trotskogo v Politbiuro TsK RKB(b) o politike po otnosheniiu k tserkvi,” in Politbiuro i Tserkov’. Arkhivy Kremlia (Moscow, 1997), p. 162.

77. N.A. Berdiaev, “‘Zhivaia tserkov’’ i religioznoe vozrozhdenie Rossii (1923),” in Padenie Sviashchennogo russkogo tsarstva. Publitsistika (1914–1922) (Moscow, 2007), p. 840.

78. Ibid., p. 846.

79. See, for example, Stalin i Tserkov’ glazami sovremennikov (Moscow, 2016).