Relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the American Metropolitanate in the 1950s as shown by the documents of the State archive of the Russian Federation
Abstract
This article examines the relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and the American Metropolitanate that split off from it in the 1950s. This period remains the least studied compared to other decades of confrontation between the North American Metropolitanate and the Moscow Patriarchate. The documentary basis of the article is the Fund R-6991 (Council for religious aff airs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR) of the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The materials show that the 50s are characterised by an almost complete cessation of bilateral dialogue. Metr. Leonty (Turkevich) replaced deceased metr. Theophilus (Pashkovsky) and set a course for the separation of the American Metropolitanate from the Patriarchate. Patriarch Alexy was no longer recognised as the “spiritual head” of the Metropolitan district, and his name was no longer mentioned in the divine service. By the mid-1950s, the Metropolitanate began to consider the possibility of canonical subordination to the Ecumenical Patriarch. The head of the Church of Constantinople, not of the Russian Church, was already seen as a source of Church legalisation. Moreover, with the support of the Greeks, a number of prominent fi gures of the American Metropolitanate began to declare the idea of creating an Autocephalous Orthodox Church in the United States, in which the leading role would be taken by representatives of Constantinople. Moscow Patriarchate could not allow the weakening of its position in the United States and, for its part, made several attempts to approach the leadership of the Metropolitanate, but they were either rejected or completely ignored. Archival documents, being made public for the fi rst time, show, fi rstly, the reaction of representatives of the Patriarchate and state structures of the USSR to certain processes in the USA, and, secondly, allow us to identify a number of reasons which did not make possible for the American Metropolitanate to contact the Patriarchate.
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