Вестник Екатеринбургской духовной семинарии (Apr 2022)

Parish Reform of 1961 and Russian Orthodox Church Episcopate Reaction

  • Archpriest Alexey N. Marchenko,
  • Pavel A. Efimushkin

DOI
https://doi.org/10.24412/2224-5391-2022-37-199-210
Journal volume & issue
no. 37
pp. 199 – 210

Abstract

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The article describes church-state relations and in-church life in the USSR during the period of N. S. Khrushchev’s government. The authors have studied the Orthodox Church parish administration during the Khrushchev’s persecution in 1958–1964 based on the documents of central and regional archives. Parish administration became one of the key issues in launching another anti-religious campaign of the USSR authorities which was geared towards destroying church life and the Russian Orthodox Church as a social institution. The work analyses a major aspect of the “Khrushchev” persecution — the “parish reform” of 1961. This reform changed the status of priest from the principal and church community leader (according to the “Regulation on the Administration of the Russian Orthodox Church”, adopted at the Local Council in 1945) to the position of an employee of a religious organization (in accordance with the current state legislation — Resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and the Soviet Union’s Council of People’s Commissars “On Religious Associations” of 1929). The authors focus on the targeted actions of the state authorities (CPSU Central Committee, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Council for the Russian Orthodox Church Affairs under the USSR Council of Ministers) to force the Moscow Patriarchate to implement the “parish reform”. At the same time the authors show the reaction of the Russian Orthodox Church episcopate to this anti-Church position such as delay of Moscow Patriarchate leaders — Patriarch Alexy I and Metropolitan Nikolai (Yarushevich) in implementation the government requirements as well as some hierarchs’ protests against the “parish reform”. The study proves that the episcopate and the clergy were under the government dictate. Priests lost their leading role in the parish and were suspended from the financial and economic activities of religious organizations with the entry into force of a new Holy Synod resolution «On Measures to Improve the Existing Structure of Parish Life» (April 18, 1961). The “Parish reform” was adopted by the Moscow Patriarchate with canonical violations. Such Synodical decision required further approval by the Council of Bishops.

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