Вестник Свято-Филаретовского института (May 2024)
“The affairs of the Church are decided in Council…”: Archbishop Tikhon (Bellavin) and the Orthodox Brotherhoods of North America
Abstract
The article is dedicated to the unique experience of practical conciliarity, which Archbishop Tikhon (Bellavin), elected in November 1917 as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, gained during his ministry in the Aleutian and North American Diocese through communion with Orthodox brotherhoods. St. Tikhon’s interest in the ways of the revival of conciliarity was connected with the general situation in the Orthodox Russian Church at the beginning of the twentieth century, which was experiencing a crisis of the Synodal system and was looking for a return to the beginnings of conciliar governance and living arrangements. From 1898 to 1907 St. Tikhon was bishop of the Aleutian and North American diocese, the largest and most remote, as well as the poorest and most understaffed diocese of the Russian Church. Among the conditions that influenced the future patriarch’s interest in lay movements such as Orthodox brotherhoods, the article identifies the following: a different country, lack of state support, flocks from different countries and denominations, lack of funding and personnel. The article considers the history of the emergence of Orthodox brotherhoods in North America, their structure and activities. Fraternities were established in almost every parish, and all were united together in the Orthodox Mutual Aid Society, the chairman of which was the ruling bishop. Among the main areas of co-operation between the bishop and the brotherhoods are such as: social support for the brethren, inter-ethnic unity, building churches and maintaining the clergy, publishing newspapers, and education. The article is based on reports, letters, and sermons of Archbishop Tikhon, which allow us to conclude that in the brotherhoods the future patriarch saw not only an effective tool for gathering the laity and church administration, but also a phenomenon of true churchmanship and conciliarity. The experience gained during his ministry in North America was in demand after the revolutionary events of 1917–1918 in Russia, when the traditional link between church and state broke down and there was an urgent need for voluntary, independent and responsible associations of the laity, on which the patriarch could rely during the Bolshevik persecution of the church.
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