COUNCIL UNDER THE ARCHDIOCESE AS AN AUXILIARY GOVERNING BODY OF THE OLD BELIEVER CHURCH OF THE BELOKRINITSKAYA HIERARCHY AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 20th CENTURY

Abstract

The article reflects the intermediate results of a large study devoted to the analysis of the management of the Old Believer Church of the Belokrinitskaya hierarchy in the early 20th century. The purpose of the study is to trace the evolution of the development of the church administration of the Old Believer Church of Belokrinitskaya hierarchy in 1898–1917, overcoming the fragmentary vision of it in the period mentioned. The supreme body of church administration of this Christian denomination was the Consecrated Council, with a number of important functions. In 1911, the Council under the Archdiocese became a new link in church administration. This body was established to help the Consecrated Council to solve practical problems in the period between its assemblies. To conduct a comprehensive study based on the existing corpus of sources and present the results as an information model, the author analyzed the activities of the Council under the Archdiocese. This analysis was carried out on wide archival material — documents from Stock 1475 of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, which has been used before to study the histories of individual regional communities or biographical studies. The study used materials new to science: the archives of the Metropolitan of Moscow and All Russia of the Russian Orthodox Old Believer Church, which were formed in the 2010s. Materials of the periodical press were involved, the texts of which were compared with clerical sources. The continuation of the activities of the Council under the Archdiocese was annually questioned by each Sobor, and in the end it was still extended for another year, until a new check of the results of its work. At the same time, the Council also received new powers. Despite criticism, the Council under the Archdiocese proved to be an effective body. In 1911–1913 it was gaining strength, but the freezing of conciliar activities in 1914 and the accumulation of many cases by 1915 raised the question of the need to expand its powers. A draft provision regulating the work of this Council was developed, but its approval did not take place. The question of expanding the powers of the Council was also raised in 1916, but in a different context concerning its judicial function. Formally, this change was neither accepted nor fixed on paper, but already in 1917 the Council received this function de facto. In the course of revolutionary events, the activities of the Council under the Archdiocese gradually ceased.

Keywords

• old believers
• catholicity
• church history
• church ruling
• consecrated council
• belokrinitskaya hierarchy