Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Jul 2024)
ON THE HISTORY OF THE RENOVATIONIST SCHISM IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND UNSUCCESSFUL PROJECTS OF RECONCILIATION BETWEEN THE RUSSIAN AND GEORGIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHES (1922–1923)
Abstract
The article is devoted to the initial history of the Renovationist schism in the Soviet Transcaucasia, mainly in the Baku diocese. The main sources of information became letters written in July 1923 to the Holy Patriarch Tikhon by the last governor of the Caucasian Exarchate, Bishop Pavel (Vilkovsky) of Baku and the active Hieromonk Arseny (Sokolovsky) of Baku. Transcaucasian Renovationism had its own specifics. The main factor in the split was the personal dislike of the ruling bishop on the part of the most influential Baku archpriest Alexander Yunitsky, who, however, even with the support of the Soviet government, could not achieve decisive success in the diocese during Patriarch Tikhon’s imprisonment. On the contrary, after the release of the Patriarch, the situation of the Renovationists in Soviet Azerbaijan improved, which was uncharacteristic for the church situation in the USSR as a whole. The emergence of the Renovationist schism also had an impact on the difficult relations between the Russian and Georgian Churches. The Georgian Catholicosate was ready to accept into its jurisdiction the non-Georgian Orthodox parishes of Georgia, Armenia, Adjara and Abkhazia, partially headed in early 1923 by the former vicar of Patriarch Tikhon, Bishop Dimitry (Dobroserdov), although he received his appointment to Tiflis from the Renovationist «Supreme Church Administration», to which he was then formally subordinate. There were plans, at least for Hieromonk Arseny, to extend the GeorgianRenovationist «partnership» to the entire Soviet Transcaucasia. Having failed to meet the understanding of the Moscow Renovationist leaders in May–June 1923, Hieromonk Arseny, after the liberation of St. Tikhon, adapted his idea of double subordination to the Russian Transcaucasian diocese to the new situation and proposed it to the Patriarch. Bishop Pavel of Baku also presented his project of reconciliation of the Russian and Georgian Churches to St. Tikhon in July 1923. It was based on an unfortunate analogy between Georgian and Ukrainian autocephaly. All these plans remained unfulfilled, both because of their initial defectiveness and because of the rapid change in church and political circumstances.
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