Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2024)
TOUCHES TO THE SOCIAL PORTRAIT OF CHURCH ELDERS IN THE SOVIET PERIOD (1918–1961)
Abstract
The article examines the change in the sociocultural characteristics of the institution of church elders in the Urals during the Soviet time (from the first post-revolutionary years to the early 1960s). The author examines the origins of the church elders institution, the range of their responsibilities and describes a number of documents regulating their participation in the life of parish. The resolutions of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1917–1918, which shaped church practices, and the trends that formed the basis of the new parish structure are analyzed. The article considers in detail how the Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the RSFSR “On Religious Associations” (1929) and other contemporary regulations influenced church elders and their position in the parish. It is noted that the persecution of the Church in the 1930s reduced the group of church elders to a historical minimum, but at the same time it did not affect the elders to the same extent as the clergy during the Great Terror of 1937–1938 in the Urals. The improvement of state-confessional relations is analyzed on the basis of the Regulation “On the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church” adopted in 1945, which defined the role of the church warden as an assistant of priest in the management of the parish. The author gives a number of memoirs about the activities of church elders in the 1940s and 1950s (before the parish reform of 1961). Using a comprehensive analysis of sources — registration forms of church elders, memories of relatives and the clergy, the author has come to the conclusion that the number of church elders includes representatives of the parish activists. The article analyzes in detail the age of church elders and concludes that it is gradually increasing. A change in the gender characteristics of the group of elders is traced, which manifested itself in a gradual increase of women in this church position and their consolidation in most parishes. An analysis of complaints and conflict situations in parishes with the participation of elders is carried out on the basis of office documents of regional Commissioners for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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