"Are you in unity with matropolitan Sergy or in separation?" The correapondence of hieromartyr Seraphim (Samoylovich), Archbishop of Uglich with hieromartyr Veniamin (Voskresensky), Bishop of Romanov (1928-1929)

Abstract

This article for the fi rst time publishes the correspondence of hieromartyr Serafi m (Samoilovich), archbishop of Uglich, with another vicar, the bishop of Romanov hieromartyr Veniam (Voskresensky) from the period of December 1928 — January 1929. The article draws on the hand-written documents that have been submitted to St. Tikhon’s University as part of the archive of hieromartyr Serafi m, preserved by confessor Iraida Tikhova. The letters published here raise a range of key issues that refer to the history of Yaroslavl diocese and, on the whole, to problems of church life of the late 1920s — early 1930s including the attitude to metropolitan Sergy (Stragorodsky) and his administrative activities in the capacity of Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens. Apart from Yaroslavl hierarchs, the letters make mention of such fi gures of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 1920–1930s as canonised metropolitans Pyotr Krutitsky (Polyansky) and Kirill (Smirnov) of Kazan, as well as metropolitan Iosif (Petrovyh), etc. Particularly valuable is the fact that Archbishop Serafi m with all clarity demonstrates his church position at the turn of 1928–1929, stating and providing grounds for his internal determination to fi nally separate from metropolitan Sergy. In the written dialogue of the two hieromartyrs, their ecclesiological views become manifest; these views were shaped in the atmosphere of accumulating repressions and the policy towards the centralisation of the church power implemented by Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens on conditions off ered by Soviet authorities.

Keywords

• Hieromartyr Seraphim Samoilovich
• Hieromartyr Benjamin Voskresensky
• correspondence
• nepominaiushchie
• diocese of Yaroslavl
• Yaroslavl opposition
• Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky