CHAPTER II. PERSECUTION OF THE CHURCH IN THE USSR IN 1958–1964: THE ROLE OF THE STATE AND SOCIETY IN THEM

How the Soviet government tried to destroy the Church

Now you can practice your faith freely. You can come to the temple any day and pray. But less than a century ago, everything was completely different: the Bolsheviks came to power and began a fierce fight against religion. Why did they need this and how it happened - read in an excerpt from Andrei Zaitsev’s book “Church History”

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At the All-Russian Church Council on December 2, 1917, its participants adopted a definition “On the legal status of the Orthodox Russian Church” - this was a desperate attempt to save the situation. The Bolsheviks had already come to power, and the Church wanted to formulate the principles on which the new rulers and Orthodox Christians could coexist.

Some of these proposals were impossible in principle, for example, that the head of state, the minister of education and the minister of religious affairs should be Orthodox, but in general it was a balanced position for starting negotiations. Thus, the “Definition” proposed to issue state laws concerning the Church only in agreement with the church authorities, asked to recognize church weddings as a legal form of marriage, and to exclude the possibility of confiscation of church property.

History of the Church. Second stage: History

Andrey Zaitsev

RUR 317

The hand extended for a handshake hung in the air. The new authorities did not want to come to an agreement: they wanted to destroy the Church. At the beginning of 1918, on January 20, the Council of People's Commissars adopted the “Decree on the separation of the Church from the state and the school from the Church.” This document became the basis for church-state relations in the Soviet Union for at least 70 years.

At first glance, the decree merely proclaims the principles of a secular state in which all citizens are equal before the law, regardless of their religious affiliation: it was forbidden to establish any advantages or privileges on the basis of religion; “every citizen” could “profess any religion or profess none.”

In fact, the Church and believers were almost immediately amazed at their rights: it was forbidden to teach children and adults the basics of religions (this was allowed only “in private”), the Church was deprived of the right of a legal entity and its property, which was declared by decree to be “national property.” In Petrograd, the Bolsheviks began to seize churches and monasteries, evict monks from monasteries, placing various institutions, agricultural artels and shelters for street children in former monasteries.

In the first years of Soviet power (before the start of the campaign to confiscate church property in 1922), the closure of churches and monasteries was unsystematic and was often justified by the fact that there were no believers in the village. Representatives of the authorities came to a village or small town, gathered people, asked believers to sign a document stating that they were ready to use their own money to maintain the temple building, the priest and everything necessary for performing divine services. Then those who agreed

asked to tell about what property they own. In the conditions of the Civil War, devastation, surplus appropriation and war communism, there were not very many people willing to risk their lives, and churches were closed. Then they could be used as a club, a warehouse, or simply dismantled for building materials.

Already in 1918, believers came out with peaceful protests against the policies of the new authorities. Religious processions of many thousands took place in Moscow and Petrograd; Patriarch Tikhon, other Orthodox hierarchs, and members of the All-Russian Church Council issued messages and spoke from the pulpit about the inadmissibility of persecution.

On January 19, 1918, Patriarch Tikhon issues the “Message on the anathematization of those who commit lawlessness and persecute the faith and the Orthodox Church,” which is often called “anathema to the Bolsheviks.” In it, the High Hierarch lists the facts of desecration of shrines and persecution of believers, and then excommunicates the persecutors from the Church. “Come to your senses, madmen, stop your bloody reprisals. After all, what you are doing is not only a cruel deed, it is truly a satanic deed, for which you are subject to the fire of Gehenna in the future life - the afterlife and a terrible curse.

Let us note that the Patriarch excommunicated from the Church not members of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), not the Soviet government, but specific executors. This is a very important point. The Church is not a political organization; it can exist even under

communist regime, but she condemns persecutors and desecrators of temples, no matter what political beliefs they adhere to. So this document cannot be seen as a break in relations between the Church and the new authorities. On the contrary, Patriarch Tikhon and other hierarchs tried to convince the Bolsheviks of their loyalty to the system, but at the same time they spoke about the inadmissibility of persecution of believers.

However, the new government was of little interest in such subtleties. On January 28, 1919, an all-Russian campaign to open the relics began with the examination of the remains of Saints Tikhon of Zadonsk and Mitrofan of Voronezh.

One caveat needs to be made here. The Slavic word “relics” means bones, remains of the deceased (regardless of the degree of their preservation). The remains of canonized saints are venerated by believers regardless of their state of preservation. As you know, a small piece of relics is sewn into each antimension (plate lying on the throne, without which the liturgy cannot be performed). Ancient Christians collected the remains of martyrs, which often could only be scattered fragments of the human body.

But during the Synodal period in the Russian Church, many laymen believed that the relics of the holy saints were incorruptible, that is, not subject to decay, and preserved the human appearance of the deceased. Unfortunately, during the canonization of saints and the discovery of relics, in some cases the bones were folded in such a way as to give them the appearance of a fully preserved human body. For example, the synodal decree of May 15, 1722 directly prohibits the construction of any structures in crayfish to support remains.

The campaign itself to remove the relics was often carried out very crudely. The Bolsheviks smoked in churches and went there wearing hats, and allowed themselves offensive statements about the clergy and believers.

Moreover, in many cases, the results of the opening of the relics could indeed cause confusion among the Orthodox: foreign objects, bones belonging to different people, “wax dolls” and strange items of clothing were often found in the crayfish (for example, from the protocol of the opening of the relics of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk it follows that, in addition relics, there were the following items: "cardboard, painted flesh-colored. Falsification of hands and feet using cotton wool and cardboard. There is a slot in the glove, into which flesh-colored cardboard is inserted, and believers are attached to it. Ladies' stockings, boots, gloves..." ).

Of course, the cited protocols may somewhat distort the picture. On February 20, 1919, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Vladimir asks the diocesan clergy to conduct a preliminary examination of the holy relics and remove foreign objects from the shrine. From the point of view of the authorities, this order of the ruler was a crime, an attempt to hide the centuries-old “priestly deception” from the people.

Opening of the shrine with the relics of St. Alexander Nevsky. 1922

In fact, the reason why strange things ended up in cancer was not always someone’s malicious intent. The fact is that the relics of saints must be periodically re-veiled, sometimes transferred from shrine to shrine and their condition checked. During each such operation, some things could get into the ark with the holy remains. As for the stockings, we could be talking about fixing the bones; For the same purpose, various devices made of cardboard, metal and wax were used. Representatives of the clergy, like other people, may be tempted to better decorate the venerated remains, as well as to “adjust” the condition of the relics to the requirements of pilgrims in order to receive more income from pilgrims...

But the above does not justify the organizers of the campaign to uncover the relics. The remains of saints and precious shrines were removed from churches and exhibited in museums and anatomical theaters; shrines were desecrated and plundered. In addition, the removal of all relics (including from the antimensions) would make it impossible to perform the liturgy, so this action of the Bolsheviks can be considered the first large-scale attempt to destroy the Russian Church as such.

Even worse were the consequences of the campaign to confiscate church valuables, which began in 1922. By this time the Bolsheviks were desperate for money. Soviet Russia was isolated, the country was in ruins after the Civil War, and Vladimir Lenin wanted not only to rob the Church, but also to destroy the clergy loyal to Patriarch Tikhon.

On March 19, 1922, Lenin writes a secret letter to members of the Politburo about the events in the city of Shuya and the policy towards the “reactionary clergy and philistinism,” in which he says that now, when famine is raging in the country, there is an opportunity to finally defeat the Church: “It is now that Only now, when people are being eaten in starved areas and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, can we (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy and without stopping by suppressing any resistance. It is now and only now that the vast majority of the peasant masses will either be for us, or in any case will not be able to support in any decisive way that handful of Black Hundred clergy and reactionary urban philistinism who can and want to try a policy of violent resistance to the Soviet decree.”

The reason for this terrible document was the events in Shuya on March 15, 1922: believers resisted the removal of valuables from the cathedral. The Red Army soldiers began to shoot at the protesters with a machine gun. Four people were killed and fifteen were wounded. Here it is necessary to say about the position of the Church. The Patriarch, clergy and laity were not against helping the hungry. On February 28, 1922, Saint Tikhon addresses the believers with a “Message on helping the hungry and confiscating church valuables,” in which he authorizes donating all church objects, except Eucharistic vessels, to fight hunger.

A terrible famine for the “leader of the world proletariat” is only a pretext for reprisals against the clergy. In addition, the Bolsheviks had an economic task - to provide themselves with money in order to strengthen power and conduct international policy towards the recognition of the RSFSR at the conference in Genoa. But the confiscation campaign failed to provide the Bolsheviks with even the income they had hoped for. Lenin and Trotsky believed that the confiscation of valuables would yield about three hundred million gold rubles, which the Bolsheviks had no intention of using to help the starving (by the summer of 1922, the Bolsheviks transferred only 2 million gold rubles to the needs of the hungry).

The Bolsheviks were somewhat mistaken in their calculations, but they almost openly destroyed shrines and sold them abroad at bargain prices. The main goal of this attack on the Church was to transform bishops, priests and ordinary believers into enemies of the Soviet Union in the eyes of the people.

The Bolsheviks almost succeeded in doing this. Renovationists enter the historical scene, Patriarch Tikhon is sent under house arrest, then to prison, and is forced to sign a document in which, in particular, he says that “he is no longer an enemy of Soviet power.” Saint Tikhon dies on April 7, 1925. According to the will of the High Hierarch, Metropolitan Agafangel (Preobrazhensky) was to become the Patriarchal Locum Tenens; if this was not possible, Metropolitan Peter (Polyansky) was to become the Patriarchal Locum Tenens. But both of these hierarchs were deprived of their freedom soon after the death of the Patriarch. It is impossible to choose a new Primate. Bishops are constantly threatened with prison or exile.

The Russian Orthodox Church is not recognized by the authorities as a full-fledged organization. Under these conditions, the management of the Church actually passes to the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), who in 1927 issued his famous “Declaration”.

The Church repelled the first terrible onslaught of persecution, but it was incredibly difficult for her. The following years, until the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War, would become years of martyrdom and confession for the faith.

Read other interesting facts from the history of Orthodoxy in the book by historian Andrei Zaitsev
“Church History” .

Orthodox Life

Systematic, planned struggle with God. So, in the Soviet way they eradicated religion in the 20s and 30s of the last century. The Bolsheviks began to fight with the Church immediately after coming to power. We fought according to plan, just like in the economy.

The closing of churches was part of politics and organized godless five-year plans. In 1927, the first godless five-year plan was announced. The second one was launched in 1932. They planned “the widespread eradication of religion”, “the name of God was to be forgotten in the USSR until 1937.” All churches must be closed. To check the achieved “results,” a one-day population census was planned at the beginning of 1937. The question about religion was introduced into the census form personally by Stalin, who edited the last version of the questionnaire on the eve of the census. The population aged 16 years and older was surveyed. The thesis about the “complete atheism of the population,” which the census was supposed to confirm, was deliberately advertised in the mass media. However, this kind of expectation was not met.

The 1937 Christmas census showed that 56.7% of the country's population were believers. Moreover, some deliberately described themselves as believers, in the hope that churches would be opened. Evidence from that time has reached us, indicating how people yearned for churches: “Become believers, then churches will be opened,” peasants in the Stalingrad region passed from mouth to mouth. Some of them defended their right to perform religious rituals, “came to the chairman of the REC and asked when the church would be freed from the club.” In the Klimovichsky region of the Byelorussian SSR they even hoped for help from international organizations: “The census will go to the League of Nations for consideration, and the League of Nations will ask Comrade Litvinov why we closed the churches when we have many believers.”

Many priests from the church pulpit called on believers to answer frankly the question about religion, as they also hoped for the opening of churches. The temple, as a house of prayer, was not forgotten; faith was not so easily killed in the hearts.

In mid-March, a letter was prepared to Stalin and Molotov from the Central Executive Committee of the USSR “On the preliminary results of the All-Union Population Census.” We are interested in the fact that the issue of religion was of most concern to the population; this is confirmed in the words of the letter: “When preparing the census, we encountered very active attempts by class-hostile elements to prevent its implementation by spreading hostile rumors, especially on the issue of religion.”

According to the researchers, such a census result did not satisfy the atheistic machine. In 1937 the last godless five-year plan began. It was planned to end in 1942; all religious organizations were to be destroyed. This was the plan of the Union of Militant Atheists, which voiced the general line of the party. The relics of the saints suffered, the faithful suffered, the holy churches suffered.

We know about the closure and destruction of churches from the stories of our fathers, mothers, grandfathers and grandmothers. Images of destroyed shrines are still alive in memory. And this memory must be preserved. So that this doesn't happen again.

Churches no longer turned into temples of “Reason” or the Eternal Absolute, like one hundred and fifty years ago during the days of the French Revolution. In the USSR they had to be destroyed or remade in a “useful” direction. Allowed: garage, warehouse, gym, club, later planetarium, etc. In general, what atheistic pragmatism was enough for, and so that now it can be seen that before this they were engaged in parasitism. Until now, both in Ukraine and in Russia, I myself have seen, and I think in Belarus, there are neglected shrines where normally there are exhibitions of paintings, a “scientific” space museum and other “useful” things.

All church property back in 1918 was declared public property and was part of state property. The decree “On the separation of the Church from the state and the school from the Church” in fact meant that the Church was deprived of its shrines with an insolent stroke of the pen: “No church religious societies have the right to own property. They do not have the rights of a legal entity. All property of existing church religious societies is declared public property.”

His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon, through the private press, addressed an appeal to the authorities and the people on January 19, 1918: “The most severe persecution has been brought against the Holy Church of Christ... holy churches are either destroyed or robbed and blasphemously insulted, holy monasteries revered by the believing people are captured by the godless rulers of darkness this century and are declared some kind of supposedly national property... The property of Orthodox monasteries and churches is taken away under the pretext that it is the people's property, but without any right and even without the desire to take into account the legitimate will of the people themselves...”

The Local Council of 1918 responded to the raider decree on January 25. In the resolution of Fr.

We find a description of the destruction and seizure of churches in the message of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon to the people's commissars on the first anniversary of the revolution. “The violation of freedom in matters of faith is especially painful and cruel. You closed a number of monasteries and house churches, without any reason or reason... We are going through a terrible time of your rule and for a long time it will not be erased from the soul of the people, darkening the image of God in it and imprinting on it the image of the Beast...”

From 1918 to 1921, more than half of the existing monasteries were nationalized - 722. It was at this time that the plan for the confiscation, and in fact, the looting of churches throughout the Union, finally matured. The spring of 1922 became a time of church looting. On March 19, Lenin wrote his famous letter, where the demonic meaning and goals of this campaign were revealed: “... For us, this particular moment is not only an extremely favorable, but generally the only moment when we can smash the enemy headlong and provide for ourselves the necessary positions for many decades. It is now and only now, when people are being eaten in hungry places and hundreds, if not thousands of corpses are lying on the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables with the most furious and merciless energy. The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the reactionary clergy we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better. It is now necessary to teach this public a lesson so that for several decades they will not dare to think about any resistance.”

As many new martyrs thought, there would be nothing terrible in helping the hungry; it was bad that they did not notice that the Church was voluntarily giving away its property. The goal was to destroy the Church, not to help the hungry. Therefore, temples continued to be destroyed without good reason.

The memoirs of the spiritual daughter of one of the Kyiv holy martyrs of 1923 have reached the modern reader, conveying the depth of suffering of the believing heart at the following picture: “It was a gray morning. The hammers were banging. Our blue temple has ceased to be a temple. They carried everything away, the whole family worked. There was a funeral, and he burned with the red fire of martyrdom. It was a gray morning. Empty, bare walls... rubbish... destruction. The altar disappeared, became level, only the throne stood... More blows of the hammer. Quietly... They lifted... they carried... And He followed us. On a long journey. They cried, buried, but also resurrected. While carrying it out, they sang the troparion. They walked on the stones of the world in silence. Four people are carrying the throne, and He (Schmch. Anatoly) is behind us in a green stole, no one else. Since then there have been many storms and sorrows, and darkness, and temptations, and joys.”

The godless machine kept speeding up. In 1928, it was decided to consider the moment of its construction as the main criterion by which the “structure” was classified as an architectural monument. Structures built:

until 1613 - were declared inviolable; in 1613-1725 - “in case of special need” could be subject to changes; in 1725-1825 - only the facades were preserved; after 1825 they were not classified as monuments and were not protected by the state.

Guided by this criterion, mass demolition of churches was initiated locally - their total number decreased from 79 thousand in 1917 to 7.5 thousand in 1928. Children were involved in the desecration and destruction of temples. From a young age it was necessary to instill wickedness and hatred of religion.

During the last five-year plan, it was decided to destroy all religious buildings. By 1941, there were only 100 to 200 active churches left in the USSR, if you do not include the territories of western Ukraine and Bessarabia annexed in the first days of World War II. At the same time, churches were left in large tourist cities as “evidence” that there was no religious persecution in the USSR.

Temples were closed, but catacomb (underground) churches and monasteries appeared, operating from house to house. The place where believers lived became a temple. In the biography of St. Sebastian of Karaganda we find information about when every day before the start of the working day he served in different parts of the city in different dugouts and huts. This was all done secretly, at three o’clock in the morning, closing the windows and with a minimum crowd of people. Believers tried not to leave any traces for state investigation agencies.

In 1914, there were 54,174 Orthodox churches in the territories of the Russian Empire, excluding military churches and 1,025 monasteries and convents.

Many monasteries were completely destroyed - blown up, dismantled into bricks. Only a few of the monasteries have been turned into architectural museums. But even this status did not protect them from destruction.

We cannot fully imagine how believers felt during the closing and trampling of shrines. Small grains have reached us: testimonies and sermons, which we will convey in as much detail as possible in order to convey the spirit of the experience on these pages.

August 1922, from the sermon of Hieromartyr Anatoly Zhurakovsky: “I must say sad words to you, dear brothers and sisters: our divine service today, apparently, will be one of the last: we have to go through a great test - our church, along with many others, is destined for closure ... Almost, probably, our temple will be closed, but we believe, hope and trust that the closure of our temple and its destruction, the destruction of our altar will only be a test for us, that our Church, organized in Christ and sealed by love for Him and for each other , will not die from this test. It is infinitely sad for us to think that in this temple other words, other speeches will be pronounced, but we will accept this as a test, and we will not lose either courage, faith, or desire to walk the path we have embarked on. Let us hope and believe that our community will be strengthened and strengthened during the trial. It remains to be seen which way the Lord will direct our lives, where we will find refuge, but I deeply believe that we will find it. I want to believe that the external inconveniences that will arise under new circumstances will not prevent our community from living the life that it began to live.”

The priest needed to find words of peace and consolation. It was necessary to give hope that in the midst of darkness the fire of faith would never go out as long as we were with Christ. After all, no one can ever take God away. The word flowed from the priest’s lips: “I believe and hope that we will accept this test for granted, as the will of God, who allows this test, knows our benefit better, leads us in an invisible way. What do we know, what do we understand about His ways, His mysteries? We know and feel one thing: that He is infinitely wise and gracious, that He knows where He is leading us, that sometimes through suffering and sorrow He leads us to bright, eternal, undying shrines. The helmsman of the ship is the Savior, He knows where He is leading His Church. Enemies worry in vain, the Church is indestructible. The Divine Pilot is wiser than all the sons of men. Let's be calm and look at the future brightly and calmly. Let us be joyful, because for us Christians everything is joy, our God is the God of joy and light, we believe in His wisdom and in His love, in His goodness. And we accept all trials as a gift from His loving hand.”

In the entire USSR in 1939 there were fewer churches than in Bessarabia alone, which was occupied by the Romanians at that time. Some of the believers were afraid, others despaired.

Centuries earlier, Chrysostom wrote: “Do not despair of a change for the better. Just don’t be discouraged, without losing good hopes... it is characteristic of a courageous soul not to fall and not to despair in the face of the many calamities that befall and, after repeated and unsuccessful prayers, not to retreat, but to wait until He has mercy on us.”

Renovationists-schismatics played a significant role in the closure of churches. For resisting the seizure of churches by renovationists, bishops, priests and laity were arrested and exiled to Siberia, Solovki, and Central Asia. In addition, denunciations against the faithful to Patriarch Tikhon and his locum tenens were written precisely by the renovationists. Our new martyrs and our churches were destroyed by their hands. Decades passed, the Lord returned His mercy to us. The godless country collapsed, although there was a lot of human good in it. She collapsed because she was godless. Many temples have been restored, many are still waiting for their builders. But the most important thing is to educate the people in the fact that they need God, that without Him you cannot build a future.

Priest Andrey Gavrilenko

The revolution in Russia began back in February. The king had already abdicated the throne by that time. The provisional bourgeois government began to take power into its own hands. But it was the occupation of government buildings in Petrograd on October 25, 1917 by the Bolshevik Red Army that marked the full beginning of the era of communism. It was from this time that an unprecedented experiment began in world history - a systematic, state-sponsored attempt to destroy religion. “Militant atheism is not a detail, not a periphery, not a side consequence of communist policy, but its main screw,” wrote Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Lenin compared religion to a venereal disease.

Just a couple of weeks after the October Revolution, the People's Commissariat of Education was established, whose task was to eliminate all references to religion from school curricula. In subsequent years, churches and monasteries across the country were either demolished or converted into public toilets. Their lands and property were confiscated. Thousands of bishops, monks, and clergy were systematically destroyed by the special services. Special propaganda units were formed - for example, the Union of Militant Atheists. Christian intellectuals were detained and sent to camps.

In the land of the Soviets, it was initially believed that when the church was deprived of power, religion would quickly die. When this did not happen, efforts to combat it redoubled. During Stalin's purges of 1936-1937, tens of thousands of clergy were arrested and executed. Under Khrushchev, it was illegal to give religious education to your children. From 1917 until the period of perestroika in the 1980s, the more resistance there was to religion, the more creative new ways the Soviets found to destroy it. Today Orthodox churches in Russia are full of parishioners. As soon as the grip was released, millions of believers returned to church.

Die Welt 05/06/2017 Globes 02/05/2017 Nautilus 11/30/2016 The Soviet experiment clearly failed. If you want to know why, there's nothing better than going to London's British Museum next week, where the Living with Gods exhibition is opening. Together with a series produced by BBC Radio 4, the exhibition explores the thousands of ways faith can be practiced, using religious objects to explore how people believe, rather than what they believe. The first sentence of the British Museum presentation is quite telling: “The practice and experience of faith is natural to all peoples.” From prayer flags to Leeds United yarmulkes, from water jugs to ceremonial floats, this exhibition tells the story of humanity's immanent and passionate desire to find meaning in a world beyond the purely experiential.

Jill Cook, curator of the exhibition, recalls a visit to the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg in the pre-glasnost era, when it housed a museum of atheism. One of the exhibits of the exhibition was an image of Christ embroidered from velvet and silk from the back of Pluvial 1989. The author of this image had no other vestments to work with - all of them had been destroyed by that time - except those used to ridicule Christianity in the museum of atheism. What was once a joke has become an object of cult. Services in the Kazan Cathedral resumed in 1992.

The exhibition's penultimate piece is a 1975 poster depicting a brash astronaut in space declaring that there is no God. Beneath it on Earth is a crumbling church. This poster belongs to the era of so-called scientific atheism.

But there is one more exhibit worth seeing at the exhibition. Around the corner, in a glass box, are small model ships with burnt matches representing crowded people. And two small shirts used as shrouds for drowned children. To the side of them is a small cross made from the wood of a ship that crashed on October 11, 2013 off the Italian island of Lampedusa. The ship was carrying Somali and Eritrean refugees trying to escape poverty and persecution. Francesco Tuccio, a carpenter from Lampedusa, desperately wanted to do something for them that he could. And he did everything he knew, making a cross for them. Probably, like the famous carpenter before him. This exhibition demonstrates that nothing - not decades of propaganda, not state terror - can suppress this instinct in people's lives.

InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.

Christian view of the USSR

Today, in some circles of the patriotic community, the issue of the admissibility of a synthesis of the ideas of Christianity and communism is being very actively discussed. It seems that the question should be posed not so much about admissibility as about expediency. Not “can/can’t”, but “what is this for?” Most likely, this is completely unnecessary.

It is necessary to connect something when the parts are defective and require addition. If you look at Christianity, it is a complete, complete system of values, a self-sufficient worldview. There is nothing to add to it and nothing to take away from it. Any worldview in a generalized form is a system of views on man and society, a specific specific understanding and assessment of the meaning of human life, the destinies of mankind, as well as a set of philosophical, scientific, legal, social, moral, aesthetic values, beliefs, convictions and ideals of people.

Communism, like Christianity, is also a worldview, that is, it has self-sufficiency and its own value system. The communist doctrine is not only the political or economic sphere, it is the answers to all questions concerning the life of society (economics, politics, culture and social sphere). If communism were only a political economic theory, then there would be no militant atheism, modernist culture, the doctrine of the “new man”, there would not be much of anything, but there would be only dry economic constructions. But communism is a doctrine that has its own idea of ​​man, history, society, past and future. Christianity also has such a comprehensive idea: Christian philosophy, Christian culture, Christian economics, Christian politics, Christian historiosophy, etc. In this regard, it is necessary to understand that we are not talking about two different non-overlapping spheres: Christianity and communism, but about two parallel, competing worldviews. In view of this, it is very difficult to talk about their synthesis.

Moreover, from history we know that the Christian religion coexisted with virtually any socio-political system (slave, feudal, bourgeois), and only in relations with communism did friction arise, to put it mildly. And to put it more precisely and crudely, communism (represented by Bolshevism within the USSR) took up arms against the Christian faith with unprecedented unprecedented persecution. Even the first three centuries of its existence, Christianity did not know such a systematic and bloody extermination of clergy, monastics and lay believers. In personal conversations with us, modern communists timidly and somewhat awkwardly try to justify those terrible crimes with the assertion that, they say, the Church was also an exploiter and, they say, is fed up. This point of view does not stand up to criticism. History shows that clergy and lay believers were destroyed because of their affiliation with the clergy and the Orthodox faith, and not because of their economic status. And Peter I deprived the Church of certain property, and Catherine II carried out the famous secularization of the lands. Did they really need a policy of mass extermination of believers for this? What class or social aspects can explain the destruction of temples and public mockery of shrines? How can we explain the policy of total discrimination against believers, which includes segregation (loss of rights), as well as a ban on the publication and distribution of Christian literature, and the destruction of Christian symbols? And here it would be very appropriate to bring one historical retrospective from the school days of V.I. Lenin. One day Volodya Ulyanov ran out into the yard, tore the pectoral cross he was still wearing from his neck, threw it on the ground and fiercely trampled it into the soil until the earth completely swallowed the cross. I understand that a person may have reasons and motives not to love the Church, but why did the Naked Man Crucified on the Cross prevent him?

“Bolshevism is a mass enthusiastic totalitarian quasi-religion”

What is the reason for such total persecution of Christians in the countries of “victorious communism”? You know, there is an answer to this question. The fact is (and partly we have already said this above) that communism is not just a social or political doctrine, it is not just an ideology or worldview. Communism (and in historical retrospect, Bolshevism) is, in fact, the experience of the socialist model of society in religious pathos, in religious ecstasy. Bolshevism is a religion, it is a totalitarian religion that demands absolute recognition and loyalty from those whom it considers its followers. In this sense, it is even unique, because... historical world religions declare the principles of missionary and proselytism as their main instruments of dissemination (although they do not always follow them exactly). In communism, it is not enough just to be loyal to the authorities and a law-abiding citizen; you must selflessly and undividedly love the leader (even the deceased) and believe in the teaching.

Bolshevism of the 20s. last century is a mass enthusiastic quasi-religion, which contains all the attributes of classical religion. Its “holy scripture” in the form of collected works of “classics”, with its “holy trinity” - Marx-Engels-Lenin, with its “ecumenical councils” - party congresses, with its “heretics” - Trotsky, Kautsky, etc., with their “processions of the cross”, with their “holy relics”, with their “iconography” and “hagiography”, “martyrology”, “martyrs”, etc. And finally, communism has its own teaching about the “new man” and the “new world” (like the Kingdom of Heaven). In the 20s pamphlets are written in all seriousness in the spirit of “we will destroy the old world, we will create a new one, where everything will be different,” where, in particular, it is said that under the “new regime” even the sun will rise not from the east, but from the west. The literally cosmic (downright “divine”) scale of the planned transformations cannot but amaze.

Moreover, the quasi-religiosity of Bolshevism was reflected even in the literature of that time. Mayakovsky’s famous phrase “Lenin lived, Lenin is alive, Lenin will live” is a subconscious allusion to the Christian greeting-dialogue “Christ is Risen! Truly He is Risen!” Other words of Mayakovsky “We say Lenin, we mean the party, we say the party, we mean Lenin” is a repetition of the Christian teaching about the Church as the Body of Christ. Christian ecclesiology in Mayakovsky is profane and turns into political. Already in the 60s. Andrei Voznesensky, trying to revive the original romance and enthusiasm of Bolshevism, writes the poem “I am in Shushenskoye” (“Lenin moved into Ulyanov”). From the point of view of religious studies, using the example of this poem, we see the subconsciously transmitted Hindu concept of avatar, when a certain “divine spirit” (Rama or Krishna) inhabits different people from time to time in order to remind humanity of the original laws of justice (karma). Although in the case of the profaned Bolshevik “theology”, this spirit (according to Voznesensky) is aimed at exploding the established reality. I don’t think that Andrei Andreevich himself was a specialist in the field of Hindu thought and religion. Where then do such interesting images come from in his poems? I think that Orthodox believers are free to judge for themselves what spirit was behind these words. The over-Christianized religiosity of Bolshevism is nothing more than apeism, and we remember who philosophers call the monkey of God.

“It is worth raising the question of the communists’ acceptance of Christianity, and not of the synthesis of Christianity and communism”

When communists talk about the similarities of Christianity and communism (which are indeed visible in some moments), then the question arises not about the possibility or impossibility of synthesis, but precisely the question about its necessity. Why synthesis if Christianity provides the key to answers to all social, historical, political, economic, existential questions? It is probably worth raising the question of the communists' acceptance of Christianity, and not of the synthesis of Christianity and communism. If, as modern leftist ideologists of synthesis, ideologists of “liberation theology”, etc. argue. concepts, communist ideology is so similar to Christianity , then it is easier for them to accept Christianity. In this situation, nothing will change significantly for them. If they are not capable of such a step, then why talk about the similarity of these worldviews?

The “liberation theology” movement and other left-wing movements that specialize in generating ideas of synthesis are based on ordinary disbelief in God, disbelief that God is Love, that there is God’s Providence. Such “theologies” claim that religious people must advocate liberation from exploitation and fight armed for their social and economic rights. What does Christianity talk about? To what extent can Christianity really justify such ideas? We answer. Firstly, in the entire New Testament we will not find anywhere a word or thought condemning the system (slaveholding) in the era of which Christianity arose. We will find something different: “Servants, obey your masters in everything” (Col. 3:22); “There is no power that is not from God; the existing authorities have been established by God. Therefore, he who resists authority resists God’s ordinance” (Rom. 13:1-2), etc. Here we do not find any call for social revolutions, and even moreover, there is no condemnation of the social injustice that was a blatant factor of that time. The quintessence of the goal of the Christian Church is given by Christ - “do not worry and do not say: what shall we eat? or what to drink? or what to wear... seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness” (Matthew 6:31-33). The Apostle Paul writes “we do not have a permanent city here, but we are looking for the future” (Heb. 13, 14), which shows that the goal of creating the Christian Church is not at all the fight against social injustice.

But a serious question immediately arises. If Christianity calls love the central point of its teaching, then how can one understand the possibility of realizing love without overthrowing social injustice? The fact is that in his Sermon on the Mount, Christ, when he says “do not worry...”, is by no means calling for idleness. All interpreters of the Gospel clearly indicate that “don’t worry” means “don’t be tormented by your soul, don’t give your whole soul to these earthly worries.” But this does not mean at all that a Christian should not think about his earthly life in any way. The Apostle Paul writes: “Whoever does not want to work, neither should he eat” (2 Thess. 3:10) - and very strictly denounces those Christians who have abandoned their “worldly affairs” and were only waiting for the Second Coming: “If anyone cares about his own and does not particularly care for his family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. 5:8). In his prayer, the Lord teaches us to ask for our daily bread. From all this we see that Christianity in its own way fights social injustice, but it turns its gaze to the most important thing - to the source from which human injustice comes, namely, to the lack of love in man. This is where all the troubles come from, both personally and socially. It is to this that Christianity has directed the entire spearhead of its teaching.

“Christianity establishes an amazing moral principle of social equality, which concerns not the discipline of life, but only moral relations”

The Apostle Paul writes to Philemon about the runaway slave Onesimus: “But you accept him... not as a slave, but as a higher servant, a beloved brother” (Phil. 1, 12; 16). Christ says in the Gospel: “I no longer call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends” (John 15:15), “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35). Christianity establishes an amazing moral principle of social equality, which does not concern the discipline of life (social order), but only moral relations. After all, if the slave owner and the slave, the landowner and the serf, the capitalist and the worker are essentially brothers, does it matter what the system will be? The slave-owning system will cease to be a slave-owning system (even if it retains its previous form and name), because the slave will be in the position of the beloved’s brother. Christianity looks at the heart of a person and educates this heart. A Christian should see his brother in every person, i.e. an equal, not a slave. This thereby cuts the basis under any social injustice, but not under the discipline of life. Christianity educates the human soul, and does not engage in social upheavals and political upheavals.

Apologists of “liberation theology” quote the Gospel parable about the rich and wealth: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24), but they do not understand that the Gospel itself warns people who are in the service of Golden Taurus, that they will not see eternal life. What else do communists need? The Holy Scripture itself denounces the lovers of wealth and speaks of their punishment. It even turns out that the poor are to some extent in a better position, because it is easier for them to “go through the eye of the needle” and receive eternal life. But liberation theologians are not satisfied with this. Due to their lack of faith in the life of the next century, they are not satisfied with such a punishment - the loss of the opportunity to enter eternal life. They need to punish the rich here and now and make the hungry happy. Stand in God's place and pass judgment here and now. And for this purpose, rebellion, revolution, armed uprising, murder and expropriation are carried out.

Christian consciousness is incompatible with this kind of struggle. “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44), says Christ. “Love your enemies, abhor the enemies of God and crush the enemies of the Fatherland,” reveals the meaning of the teachings of Christ, St. Philaret (Drozdov), Metropolitan of Moscow. What the communist doctrine teaches about struggle can be clearly seen from the lines of the famous work “The International”: “Rise up, cursed, hungry, oppressed people!... The slaves will rise, and then the world will be changed at its core: now nothing - we will become everything! ….No one will give us deliverance: neither God, nor the king, nor the hero. We will achieve liberation with our own hand.” And here is what the Holy Scripture says about this: “Slaves, obey your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in the simplicity of your heart, as to Christ, not with only visible obsequiousness, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the soul , serving with zeal as the Lord, and not as men, knowing that everyone will receive from the Lord according to the measure of the good that he has done, whether slave or free. And you, gentlemen, do the same with them, moderating your severity, knowing that both over you and over them there is a Lord in heaven, with whom there is no respect of persons” (Eph. 6:5-9).

Everyone will receive from the Lord according to the good he has done, so if a rich person does not fulfill the requirements “treat your neighbor as yourself,” “help your neighbor,” “moderate severity,” etc., then such gentlemen will definitely punished by deprivation of the right to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Consequently, the desire to restore social justice by force, to take away property (“rob the loot,” etc.) has nothing to do with Christianity, and talk that “Christ was a revolutionary” is not at all justified. A Christian, when he sees a beggar on the street, he takes and feeds the beggar, helps him. Representatives of some political movements act differently - they see a beggar and say: “We will build an ideal, fair socio-political system, no one will suffer in it, as soon as we come to power, and then...” And then half the world will be covered in blood. In the Gospel, Christ warns his disciples against adherence to wealth, but He nowhere says that wealth itself should be taken away from the rich and divided among the poor (this is not what Christ taught, but Polygraph Poligrafovich).

Social service, as well as the pursuit of justice, for a Christian is a means to achieve humility, and not pride and complacency! What is humility? This is a peaceful state of spirit, contrition of heart, in which a person sees his unworthiness and understands that without God he cannot do a single truly good deed. Those. For a Christian, social service and the pursuit of justice are not valuable in themselves, but only if they give birth to genuine humility in a person’s heart, which leads a person along the path to Eternity, to the Kingdom of Heaven! Will we find a similar thought in the ideologies of Marxism-Leninism or the modern “left”?

However, in connection with the speech of Patriarch Kirill in the State Duma as part of the Christmas readings, articles began to appear on some left-wing patriotic sites, the subject of which is that, supposedly, the Church is moving towards the recognition of communism and almost comes up with the idea of ​​​​the need synthesis of ideas of communism and Christianity. In fact, His Holiness the Patriarch said that there were positive aspects in the Soviet period, among which he named people’s desire for justice and solidarity. This is absolutely true, but the desire for justice does not at all mean the desire for communism. In addition, identifying the positive aspects of the Soviet Union also does not mean recognition of communism as such, and certainly does not mean the need for a synthesis of Christianity and communism. The Soviet Union won the Great Patriotic War, but does this mean that communism won it? Obviously not, and several decades later we see that there can be no talk of any victory of communism. At the beginning of the war, the future Patriarch, Metropolitan Sergius of Stragorodsky, made a patriotic speech to citizens and called for the defense of the Soviet Union from the occupiers. But again, this is not connected with the Vladyka’s love for communist ideology, but with the traditional patriotic consciousness of Orthodoxy, with the understanding that popular unity creates a powerful centralized state, i.e. that irresistible force capable of holding back the evil of Nazism.

In view of the identification of communism and the USSR by some left-wing patriotic figures, a few words should be said about a possible Christian attitude towards the USSR. This should be associated not with the attitude towards communism, but with the attitude towards the institution of the state, the institution of the Empire, the empire not in a historical, political-territorial context and not in the context of forms of government, but in an eschatological, historiosophical sense. Here we come across the idea of ​​katechon. In the Roman Empire, the official religion was paganism, incl. the cult of the emperor, in Byzantium and Moscow-Petersburg Russia - Orthodoxy, in the USSR such a quasi-religion was Marxism-Leninism, which proclaimed the cult of personality of the party leader. But from a Christian point of view, in addition to these religions, there was also a basic level that existed regardless of what religion or quasi-religion was in the Empire at one stage or another. This meta-level is statism (katechon - “holding”).

The Apostle Paul clearly formulated this universal idea of ​​katechon. Its universality lies in the fact that it always operates, continuously until apocalyptic events and regardless of the official religion. This is directly stated in the New Testament, where the pagan Roman kingdom at that time is called katechon. Katechon is a biblical category that applies to statism as such, not just Christian statism. Catechon is not so much a state that supports, disseminates or preserves Christian values. A katechon may or may not be a Christian empire; this does not make the empire cease to be a katechon. The Apostle Paul writes about pagan Rome, which was not a Christian empire. But Rome is called restraining. This is due to the fact that Rome at that time was a force restraining global chaos. This is also where the category of Pax Romana (Latin: Roman Peace) came from - a period of peace and relative stability within the Roman Empire of the Principate era, associated with strictly centralized administration and Roman law, which pacified regions that had previously experienced incessant armed conflicts.

“The atheistic Soviet Union, which defeated Nazism, is a katechon, a state machine for suppressing evil, and this is the only possible Christian perception of the USSR”

Saint John Chrysostom, in his interpretations of the 2nd letter of the Apostle Paul to the Thessalonians, pointed out that when the existence of the Roman state ceases, then the Antichrist will come, because as long as the Empire exists and state laws are observed, a lawless person cannot come to power and no one will soon submit to the Antichrist. But after the Empire is destroyed, anarchy will reign, and the Antichrist will strive to steal all power - both human and Divine. Thus, based on the patristic interpretation, the presence of the “holding” status is associated precisely with the sovereignty of state power and legality. A katechon is, first of all, a machine for suppressing evil and minimizing it. This is the basis, everything else in the idea of ​​katechon is secondary. Therefore, the atheistic Soviet Union, which defeated Nazism, is katechon, this is the only possible Christian perception of the USSR. But this is not connected with the recognition of communism. After all, the opposite would mean recognition of paganism by the Apostle Paul. The whole point is that it is not paganism that is recognized, but the Roman Empire as a categorical statehood; it is not communism that is recognized, but the USSR as a categorical statehood. Those who believe that the katechon (“Third Rome”) was destroyed forever by the 1917 revolution or that it ceased to exist during the period of apostasy, and then could return again (for example, with the restoration of the monarchy) are completely far from the truth. If only because in all interpretations on this matter, the holy fathers of the Church clearly emphasized the instantaneous appearance of the Antichrist in connection with the fall of the katechon. This is also recorded in Scripture: “until he who now restrains is taken out of the way, the wicked will not be revealed” (2 Thess. 2:7). There is either a katechon or it is not. If he doesn’t exist, then Russia doesn’t exist either. And since Russia exists, and there is a Russian Orthodox Church in it, then the USSR played the role of the “Third Rome”.

But here we should still make some excursion into history. The fact is that V.I. Lenin indicated in his writings that with the further development of democracy (remember that it was he who created the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, RSDLP), the state would be dismantled, because all power is violence. Here the opinion of the leader of the world proletariat very smoothly correlates with the heretical opinion of Count L.N. Tolstoy about non-resistance to evil by force. First of all, according to V.I. Lenin, law enforcement agencies, the army, the state will be abolished and... (we can continue) the way will be opened for the Lawless One and lawlessness. So what was the leader of the world proletariat leading our country and the whole world to?

By the way, the idea of ​​katechon as a deterrent of evil is present not only in Orthodoxy, but also in Roman Catholicism and Protestantism (there is a certain analogue of this idea in Islam). So, Clive Lewis has a fantastic work called “Space Trilogy”. In the third part of this work, the novel “The Vile Power,” one of the heroes is King Arthur’s wizard Merlin, who slept for many centuries and woke up in the 50s. XX century And this Merlin, being, by the way, a pagan, learns from an Englishman with whom he is talking that Great Britain is threatened by a demonic invasion and satanic enslavement. Then Merlin tries to go through different options for salvation: turn to the knights, appeal to the council of bishops - and nothing works. And as a last and final chance to escape, Merlin suggests appealing to the one whose duty is to restore kingdoms and overthrow tyrants - to appeal to the emperor. And when Merlin finds out that the emperor is no more, he comes into horror and despair... Let me remind you that the author of this work is not Orthodox, but an Anglican.

In conclusion, I would like to say: the fact that communists and people of socialist views have become interested in Christianity is very good . It is also completely clear why such interest arose: in modern conditions of the kingdom of the “golden calf” and the ideology of mass consumption, two worldviews that place service to others above animal instincts could not help but pay attention to each other. But it is also obvious which worldview should take steps towards - the old one, which has a two-thousand-year history, or the new one, which has revealed almost complete inconsistency after 70 years of its existence. After all, what is the reason for the fact that those states that accepted communist ideology as state ideology ultimately became totalitarian? The answer is simple, it was given back in the 19th century. F.M. Dostoevsky, who said: “If there is no God, everything is permitted.” The atheistic ideology of communism actually led to the fact that the people very quickly degraded, dissolved, and became corrupted to such an extent (remember the era of the New Economic Policy) that it threatened both the health of the nation and the integrity of the state. And the only way to gather the people into a fist, restore discipline and at least somehow stop crime was a totalitarian model of government.

Today, thank God, the Russian Orthodox Church can preach freely, the general public is interested in its opinion and, perhaps, that is why our government is able to gradually heal the moral crisis of the late 80s and 90s. bloodless. And in this case, we would strongly advise new communists and people of socialist views not to perceive the Church as a servile organization in which they will find complete and categorical support for their ideas of “justice” and “collectivism” (in the sense of the image of the Christian community). No, comrades! You should not look at the Church through the prism of communist views and point out what you like and what you don’t like, but, on the contrary, look at communist teaching through the prism of the Gospel and soberly and honestly give a moral assessment of those declarations and real deeds that one way or another otherwise they are derivatives of the political movement for which you so ardently support.

See the statements of the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation G.A. Zyuganov - https://www.zyuganov.kprf.ru/news/pravoslavie-i-kommunizm

Deacon Artemy Silvestrov and Semyon Drobot

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Shocking story: The destruction of Orthodoxy in Russia 1917-1930.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was created by the Bolsheviks in 1924, on the site of the Russian Empire. In 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) was deeply integrated into the autocratic state and had official status. This was the main factor that most worried the Bolsheviks and their attitude towards religion. They had to take complete control of the Russian Church. Thus, the USSR became the first state, one of whose ideological goals was the elimination of religion and its replacement with universal atheism. The communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, persecuted believers, and actively promoted atheism in schools and educational institutions.

Confiscation of valuables from the tomb of Alexander Nevsky.

Restored photograph “The Red Guards are converting the church into a club.” Central State Archive of Film-Photo-Phono Documents of the USSR. A. Varfolomeev/RIA Novosti

Trial of a priest.

Church utensils were broken.

Red Army soldiers take church property out of the Simonov Monastery at a subbotnik, 1925.

On January 2, 1922, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee adopted a resolution “On the liquidation of church property.” On February 23, 1922, the Presidium of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee published a decree in which it ordered local Soviets “... to withdraw from church property transferred for the use of groups of believers of all religions, according to inventories and contracts, all precious objects made of gold, silver and stones, the withdrawal of which cannot significantly affect the interests of the cult itself, and transfer it to the People’s Commissariat of Finance to help the starving.”

Soviet propaganda:

RELIGION willingly dresses itself in the patterned garments of ART. A TEMPLE is a special type of THEATER: ALTAR - STAGE, ICONOSTAS - DECORATION, CLERGY - ACTORS, WORSHIP - a musical PLAY.

In the 1920s Temples were closed en masse, refurbished or destroyed, shrines were confiscated and desecrated. If in 1914 there were about 75 thousand active churches, chapels and houses of worship in the country, then by 1939 there were about a hundred of them left.

Confiscated miters, 1921

In March 1922, Lenin wrote in a secret letter to members of the Politburo: “The confiscation of valuables, especially the richest laurels, monasteries and churches, must be carried out with merciless determination, certainly stopping at nothing and in the shortest possible time. The more representatives of the reactionary bourgeoisie and the reactionary clergy we manage to shoot on this occasion, the better.”

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Arrested priests, Odessa, 1920.

Atheism was the norm in schools, educational institutions and branches of communist organizations (for example, Komsomol and Pioneer), and religion was fought very harshly in the media. In the 1920s and 1930s, there were even organizations specializing in anti-religious activities, such as the League of Militant Atheists.

The Resurrection of Christ was celebrated with raids and dances in churches, and believers organized “hot spots” and confessed in letters. If religion is opium, then Easter is its superdose, the Soviet government believed, preventing people from celebrating the main Christian holiday.

They did not skimp on the fight against the church in the USSR.

The converted premises of churches were used to make clubs for youth, organize production, or use them as warehouses for manufactured goods.

A believer could be kicked out of work or expelled from the collective farm. The fear was so ingrained that even the kids were cautious and knew that they couldn’t talk about the fact that they were baking Easter cakes at home. They were baptized on the sly; it became very dangerous to be Orthodox.

In 1930, the Easter holiday was moved from Sunday to Thursday, so that the holiday became a working day. When this practice did not take root, the townspeople began to be driven out to Lenin’s subbotniks, Sundays and mass processions with stuffed priests, which were then burned. According to researchers, anti-Easter lectures were dedicated to this day: children were told that Easter festivities breed drunkards and hooliganism. They tried to send collective farmers to work further away in the fields, and children were taken on field trips, for ignoring which parents were called to school. And on Good Friday, a time of deep sorrow for Christians, they liked to organize dances and noisy fun for schoolchildren.

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Immediately after the revolution, the Bolsheviks began vigorous activity to replace religious holidays and rituals with new Soviet ones. “The so-called red christenings, red Easters, red carnivals (those with the burning of effigies of priests) were introduced, which were supposed to distract people from Orthodoxy, have a form and ideological content that was understandable to them,” says historian Viktor Yelensky. “They relied on Lenin’s words that the church replaces theater for people: they say, give them performances, and they will accept Bolshevik ideas.” Red Easters, however, only existed in the 20s and 30s - they were too mocking and disgusting a parody.

In the late 40s, families still kept Easter preparations secret. “When the religious procession left the church at midnight, they were already waiting for it: teachers were looking out for schoolchildren, and district representatives were looking out for the local intelligentsia,” he gives an example from the testimonies of participants in those events.

— For the holiday, we learned to confess in absentia: a person passed a note with a list of sins to the priest through his messengers, and he released them in writing or imposed penance.

Since there were only a few functioning churches left, going to the all-night vigil turned into a whole pilgrimage.

“From the report of the Commissioner of the Supreme Council for Religious Affairs in the Zaporozhye region B. Kozakov: “I had a chance to observe how, on a dark night under the rain, at a distance of almost 2 km to the Veliko Khortytsia Church, old people with baskets and bags in their hands were literally making their way in the mud and swamp . When they were asked why they were torturing themselves in such bad weather, they answered: “It’s not torment, but joy—to go to church on Easter!”

An unexpected surge in religiosity occurred during the war, and, strangely enough, citizens were not persecuted. “Stalin, in his speech in connection with the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, even addressed the people in a church manner - “brothers and sisters!”

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And since 1943, the Moscow Patriarchate has already been actively used in the foreign political arena for propaganda,” notes Viktor Yelensky. Aggressive ridicule and burning of effigies were stopped as too cruel, and believers were given premises to quietly celebrate their favorite holiday.

Crazy amounts of money were allocated for atheistic propaganda in the USSR; in each district, responsible people reported on the anti-Easter measures taken. In typical Soviet fashion, they were required that each year the number of church visitors be lower than the previous year. They especially pressed on Western Ukraine.

To keep people at home on the holy night, the authorities gave them an unprecedented gift - they broadcast rare television concerts (Melodies and Rhythms of Foreign Pop). “I heard from my elders: they used to put on a musical orchestra at the church at night, or put on obscene performances and skits, making deacons and priests appear to be drunkards and money-grubbers,” says Nikolai Losenko, a native of the Vinnitsa region.

And in the native village of the priest’s son Anatoly Pogodin, not a single all-night vigil was complete without a musical background. In the center of the village, the temple was adjacent to the club, and as soon as the parishioners came out with the procession, cheerful music thundered louder than ever at the dances; When we came back, the sound was muffled. “It got to the point that before Easter and for a week after, my parents didn’t keep eggs in the house at all - neither raw nor boiled, neither white nor red.

“Before the war, my father was forced to go further into the field and sing Easter chants alone.

Closer to the 90s, the fight against religion slowed down in pace and intensity. Adequate “controllers” did not punish anyone. “The teachers talked about the “priest’s darkness” purely for formality; they could only scold them in a fatherly way for coloring,” says Pogodin. “Although the supervisors themselves and the chairman, together with the village council, baked Easter cakes and baptized children, they simply did not advertise it.”

God will forgive: why was religion banned in the USSR?

In the Soviet Union there was one ideology for everyone, everyone should be equal, everyone should be the same. The authorities controlled all spheres of activity and could even get into the private lives of their citizens.

One of the most important enemies of the USSR was not the West at all, but religion. The authorities constantly tried to fight it. Representatives of higher positions were convinced that faith can turn a person away from the ideology that was accepted, faith interpreted the existing world differently, it has its own laws and rules. Therefore, it seemed to the USSR that the ideology of any faith could compete with the already existing Marxist-Leninist one. Because it was then that the leader said: “We must fight religion. This is the ABC of all materialism.” Lenin's words began to be constantly quoted, and the party stuck to this statement as a political direction.

In the 1920-1930s, the Soviet government began to fight religion in the bud. And it could only be destroyed if people did not have any attributes and those who carried it to the masses. Thus, this period of time will forever remain in history as a period of mass executions and reprisals against clergy.

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In the 20s, active propaganda began, then anti-religious societies appeared, but they were all part of one, called the “Union of Atheists.” Supporters of this ideology got together and developed concepts of ideology, or, to be more precise, they sought to introduce their views into society, so that this idea would slowly seep into the spheres of citizens’ lives. A large number of newspapers with very characteristic materials were published, lectures and seminars were held where people were told in detail about the disadvantages of religion and how it was necessary to abandon it. The “Union of Godless” had its own divisions, that is, there were representatives of this union at factories, factories and various organizations. Workers were required to attend meetings and events that were organized by the union.

The Soviet government actively tried to change the consciousness of people, so it began to take away lands with churches, temples and monasteries from the clergy. In the early 30s, a number of regulations came into force, which stated that the government had every right to confiscate land and close the church.

In 1929, one of the most important documents “On Religious Associations” was adopted, this is a rare case when a resolution lasted until the collapse of the USSR. This document consolidated the activities of clergy, prohibited the collection of any money (alms, donations) in favor of the church, it was prohibited to provide financial support to everyone who belongs to the church, and any events were prohibited, for example, children's excursions, or the provision of medical or medical assistance.

Photo: forum.durdom.in.ua

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Chapter 3. The Russian Church in 1917–1921.

Almost the entire 20th century. was a period of persecution for the Church by the communist state. Repression was inevitable.

Back in the 19th century. There were debates among Marxists regarding the place of religion under socialism - whether it was necessary to eliminate it by force or wait until it died out on its own. It is clear that representatives of the latter opinion, if they came to power, would treat the Church much more calmly than the Bolsheviks. It must be taken into account that some socialist parties also allowed a multi-party system, which would undoubtedly soften the blow to religion.

The establishment of genuine Soviet power in Russia could also reduce the scale of persecution - such a system assumed that the country would be governed by elected representatives of the common people, among whom there were many believers. However, the “power of the Soviets” remained a formality for 70 years: real power was seized by the most brutal faction of communism - Bolshevism. In 1918, all political parties were banned, except for the Bolshevik Communist Party.

Although freedom of conscience was officially declared, believers turned out to be second-class citizens. Only members of the Communist Party, for whom militant atheism was an obligatory part of their worldview, could count on promotion. Communist leader V.I. Ulyanov-Lenin, who threw his cross into the trash at the age of 15, did not envisage any ideological concessions towards members of his party. While declaring that religion was a private matter in relation to the state, Lenin and his successors insisted that this did not apply to the Communist Party. The “leader of the proletariat” called for the expulsion from the party of communists who participate “in religious rituals.”

Atheism, according to Lenin, was the basis of Bolshevik ideology. “Our party,” he wrote, “is a union of conscious, progressive fighters for the emancipation of the worker. Such a union should not be indifferent to unconsciousness, darkness or obscurantism in the form of religious beliefs.” Or: “We must fight religion. This is the ABC of all materialism and, therefore, Marxism.”

In private letters, Lenin did not at all hide his deep aversion to religion. “Every little god,” he wrote to Maxim Gorky, “is a corpse. <…> Every religious idea, every idea about any little god, every flirtation even with a little god is the most unspeakable abomination, the most dangerous abomination, the most vile “infection.”

Thus, the authorities were determined to decisively fight the Church, while the latter’s influence on the people began to decline long before the tragedy of 1917. Warnings of impending disasters had been heard from the mouths of Orthodox ascetics, writers and thinkers since the end of the 19th century. Unfortunately, the warnings were not heeded.

On October 25 (November 7), 1917, the Bolsheviks carried out a coup in Petrograd. The new leaders did not allow pluralism - the multi-party Constituent Assembly managed to hold only one meeting, after which it was dispersed by the new government. The communist dictatorship established itself in the country for more than 70 years.

The first Bolshevik measures against the Orthodox Church began almost immediately after the October coup. On October 26, 1917, in accordance with the Decree on Land, the Church and the clergy were deprived of land ownership. In the same year, the process of closing churches began, and on December 31, 1917, a draft decree was published on the separation of the Church from the state and the school from the Church. A wave of godless propaganda immediately began. On Lenin’s instructions, the inscription “The Light of Christ enlightens everyone” was removed from the pediment of Moscow University and the words “Science to the working people” were inscribed. On the building of the Mosfinotdel not far from the Iverskaya Chapel there was an inscription: “Religion is the opium of the people.”

The first martyrs also appeared. On October 31, the Red Guards shot Tsarskoe Selo Archpriest Ioann Kochurov in front of his son, a high school student. The garrison dean of Narva, Archpriest John Yukhnovsky, wrote in those days: “And now there is a new coup and execution in Tsarskoye Selo of Archpriest John Kochurov. The soldiers of the entire garrison went completely mad and became brutal. On the streets there are insults to priests and threats out loud: “Wait, we’ll hang these priests here too.” Archpriest Mikhail Chafranov and priest Isaac Popov were killed in Sevastopol. In December 1917, the rector of the Sevastopol St. Nicholas Cathedral, Archpriest Roman Medved, was sentenced to death. The shepherd escaped almost miraculously - he managed to get to the station unnoticed, board the train and leave for Moscow. Military priests were expelled en masse from the active army. In January 1918, by order of the People's Commissariat for Military Affairs, the position of military priests was officially abolished - they were replaced by commissars. Anti-church terror also affected monastics - in December 1917, the inhabitants of the Nosovsky Transfiguration Monastery in the Tambov region, Hieromonk Sergius (Galkovsky) and Hierodeacon Andronik (Barsukov), were brutally murdered.

The murders of clergy, which began in 1917, became part of the mass social terror carried out by the Bolsheviks. Officers and merchants, nobles and officials died.

Patriarch Tikhon did not hide his attitude towards the madness that had begun in the country. In a sermon for the new year 1918, the saint compared the February and October revolutions with the experience of building the Tower of Babel. “All this devastation,” the patriarch said prophetically, “is because the Russian state is now being built without God.”

And the situation became increasingly tense. In January, the Soviet administration demanded that the monks of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra leave the monastery, transferring the buildings to the infirmary. The brethren were ready to give up part of the premises, but refused to leave the monastery. On February 1, 1918, a detachment of sailors and Red Guards arrived at the monastery with an order for the confiscation of property, signed by the People's Commissar of State Charity A.M. Kollontai. The inhabitants of the monastery refused to comply with the order, and several people were arrested. Many believers gathered in the Lavra, trying to prevent the Red Guards from approaching the people's shrines. Archpriest Pyotr Skipetrov addressed the Bolsheviks. The shepherd persuaded them not to commit violence against believers and not to desecrate the holy place. In response, one of the Red Guards shot Father Peter in the face. In serious condition, the archpriest was taken to the hospital, where he was visited by his wife and Metropolitan Benjamin. In the evening, Hieromartyr Peter died (February 1).

On the same day, the patriarch issued a message in which participants in the massacres of innocent people were anathematized. Those who committed violence and blasphemy, including desecration of monasteries, were called “godless rulers of the darkness of this age” and “enemies of the Church.” “The government that promised to establish order,” wrote St. Tikhon, “everywhere shows only the most unbridled self-will and complete violence against everyone and, in particular, over the Holy Orthodox Church.” Although the message did not directly refer to communist power, the Soviet administration understood that the patriarchal anathema was addressed specifically to it. The patriarch himself subsequently also confirmed that the anathematization concerned state power.

The next day, February 2, 1918, the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree on the separation of Church from state and school from Church, published on February 5. The church was deprived of property rights and legal personality, religious education and schooling were also prohibited. In accordance with Lenin's orders, clergy of all faiths were deprived of voting rights and were also deprived of the right to work in government agencies and enterprises.

The persecution of clergy continued. A difficult situation developed around Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany) of Kyiv, who opposed local state and church separatism. On January 25 (February 7), 1918, a group of armed men entered the chambers of Metropolitan Vladimir. The saint was taken outside the territory of the monastery and shot.

Another serious reason for the patriarch’s anti-Soviet speech was the infamous Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, which crossed out everything that had been done by the Russian army during the years of the World War. Beginning in 1916, the army of Tsarist Russia gradually moved to the West, and the famous Brusilov breakthrough showed that Germany lost the First World War. Even the Provisional Government with a disintegrated army generally held the front line and pulled back German and Austrian troops, which gave Russia the right to be among the victorious powers. However, in order to maintain their power, the communists took populist measures, declaring peace and exit from the war. Germany, for its part, set humiliating conditions for Russia.

In February 1918, Patriarch Tikhon issued a message calling for an end to internecine warfare and to repel the external enemy, but was not heard. On March 3, 1918, the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, shameful for the fatherland, was nevertheless concluded. The Vistula provinces, Ukraine, part of Belarus, the Estland, Courland and Livonia provinces, and Finland were torn away from Russia. Part of Transcaucasia was transferred to Turkey. Soviet Russia was obliged to recognize the independence of Ukraine and pay an indemnity in the amount of 6 billion marks.

Patriarch Tikhon addressed his flock with a message regarding the shame that had occurred. The saint perspicaciously pointed out that in this treacherous “peace”, concluded allegedly on behalf of the Russian people, there were germs of future wars and evils. The Patriarch stated that the Church cannot bless this peace treaty. The message ended with a call to repent of mutual hostility, rally around the Church and return to work, love and unity. This call also turned out to be in vain - the most terrible years for Russia were still ahead. During the Civil War, the killings of priests and monks became widespread. Clergymen and other class aliens began to be arrested and destroyed on a social principle, like hostages, either in response to the murder of one or another communist figure, or to intimidate the population.

The policy of social genocide was reflected both in the press and in official orders of the authorities. The “Catechism of the Class-Conscious Proletarian,” published in the Pravda newspaper, said that “the power of capital will disappear only when the last capitalist, the last landowner, priest, officer dies.”

On August 9, 1918, Lenin telegraphed to Penza: “Carry out merciless mass terror against priests, kulaks and White Guards; those who are dubious will be locked up in a concentration camp outside the city.” The authorities did not plan to understand the degree of guilt of each person; class origin remained the main reason for whether he would live or die.

In accordance with the new policy, arrests and executions began. On June 4, 1918, Archbishop Andronik (Nikolsky) of Perm was arrested (June 20). The people tried to prevent the arrest of their beloved archpastor, but popular indignation was suppressed. On June 6, 1918, the interrogation of the archbishop took place. The saint did not answer for a long time, then he took off the panagia, wrapped it in a scarf, placed it in front of him and, turning to the investigators, said: “We are open enemies, there can be no reconciliation between us. If I were not an archpastor, and there was a need to decide your fate, then I, having taken the sin upon myself, would have ordered you to be hanged immediately. There’s nothing more for us to talk about.”

Having said this, he put on a panagia and, immersed in prayer, did not utter another word. The executioners took the archbishop to the forest and buried him alive, although they later shot the hierarch through a layer of earth.

In April 1918, Bishop Hermogenes (Dolganev) of Tobolsk (June 29), known since tsarist times for his consistent monarchical position and willingness to die for his principles, was arrested. The diocesan congress sent a delegation to the Bolsheviks, which was supposed to petition for the release of the saint. Members of the commission were arrested and shot. Bishop Hermogenes himself was drowned in Tours on the night of June 29, 1918.

The royal passion-bearers occupy a special place among the new martyrs. The family of the last emperor, arrested under the Provisional Government, was in Tobolsk, from where they were taken to Yekaterinburg. Here, on July 17, 1918, Emperor Nikolai Alexandrovich and his family - Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, Tsarevich Alexei, princesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, Anastasia were shot. Together with the Royal Family, their servants also died, refusing to leave the arrested - physician Evgeny Botkin, maid Anna Demidova, cook Ivan Kharitonov, valet Aloysius Trupp. The execution was reported to the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Ya.M. Sverdlov. The next day, the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, headed by Sverdlov, approved the murder of the emperor.

On July 18, in Alapaevsk, the founder of the Martha and Mary Convent of Mercy, Grand Duchess Elisaveta Feodorovna, together with nun Varvara (Yakovleva), as well as Grand Duke Sergei Mikhailovich, princes Igor, Konstantin and John Konstantinovich, and Count Vladimir Paley were killed. Sergei Mikhailovich was shot, the rest were thrown into the mine alive. Several Grand Dukes were shot in Petrograd, Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich was killed in Perm.

In Petrograd, Archpriest Philosopher Ornatsky, beloved by his flock, was also killed. The shepherd took part in the creation of shelters for the homeless, shelters for orphans, and during the First World War he gave his apartment as an infirmary. In August 1918, the holy martyr was arrested along with his eldest sons. A huge crowd gathered near the Cheka building on Gorokhovaya Street, demanding the release of those arrested. The Chekists promised to release the shepherd and his sons, but all of them were shot in October of the same year (saints commemorated on June 13).

In Bogorodsk near Moscow, another remarkable shepherd died - Archpriest Konstantin Golubev (October 2), who devoted his life to missionary work and the fight against drunkenness.

Father Konstantin was a supporter of the creation of women's theological schools. The religious education of the people depended on women, in the opinion of the holy martyr, because what kind of women will be, so will all citizens of Russia subsequently be. The archpriest was sentenced to death. The wounded father Konstantin was thrown into a hole and began to be covered with earth. The shepherd begged to shoot him; his daughter, who was also there, also asked with tears not to bury her father alive. But nothing touched the hearts of the killers - the holy martyr was buried alive, and the earth above the place of his burial moved for some time.

On August 23, the famous missionary and preacher Archpriest John Vostorgov was shot along with a group of dignitaries. Before the execution, Hieromartyr John blessed the laity.

In August of the same year, the abbess of the Prophet Elias Monastery in Menzelinsk, Abbess Margarita (Gunaropulo), died. The nuns subsequently claimed that St. Nicholas appeared to the abbess, who was about to leave the city, and said: “Why are you running away from your crown?” Shocked by the miraculous vision, Abbess Margarita returned to the monastery, told the monastery priest about what had happened and asked that a coffin be prepared in advance for herself. For the remaining days, the abbess prayed intensely in the church. On August 21, the Bolsheviks burst into the city. The massacres these days were massive. On August 22, the Venerable Martyr Margarita was also shot.

The rector of the Admiralty Cathedral, Archpriest Alexy Stavrovsky (October 14), was shot as a hostage in response to the murder of the head of the Petrograd Cheka, Uritsky. According to legend, the shepherd could have avoided death, but he deliberately went to death instead of the young priest.

In December 1918, security officers killed Bishop Feofan (Ilmensky) of Solikamsk. In a 30-degree frost, the holy martyr Theophan was brought to the bank of the Kama River, they undressed him, braided his hair and, having threaded a pole through it, they began to slowly lower him into the ice hole. The saint was immersed in the hole until his body was covered with a layer of ice. Since the sufferer was still alive, the executioners drowned him (December 24).

Another victim of Bolshevik terror was the famous missionary and fighter against sectarianism Nikolai Varzhansky (September 5). The martyr was accused of his publications in defense of Orthodoxy. One of them concerned the miracle with the icon of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker on May 1, 1918. The day before, in preparation for their holiday, the communists covered the image of St. Nicholas on the Nikolsky Gate of the Kremlin with a red cloth with the inscription: “Long live the May Day international holiday!” But a miracle happened - the image itself freed itself from the cloth. Nikolai Varzhansky described this in a leaflet he issued. “Red Square was guarded all night, and no one could come here. On the morning of Holy Wednesday, they noticed that the whole red cloth that had been hung broke through so that the miraculous image of the Pleasant of God Nicholas became visible to everyone and became, as many noted, incomparably brighter than it had been before. The red banner began to tear in pieces, pieces, ribbons and fell completely. At first they wanted to explain that the cloth had been torn by the wind, and then it was printed that the cloth had been hung cut, although thousands of people saw that it was intact. The red banner scattered. The Wonderworker Nicholas once saved from the Tatars, and he will save us now, if only we earnestly pray to him and stand for the holy Orthodox faith and for our shrines even to death.”

After his arrest, Nikolai Varzhansky was given an icon of the Mother of God to prison with the inscription: “We fervently pray for the dear passion-bearers.” Having learned that he was sentenced to death, Nikolai Yuryevich gave the image to his wife, writing on the other side: “May the Most Pure Intercessor Mother of Light protect you and protect you with Her Mother’s Cover. Pray, dear Zinochka, my dove, to the Mother of God, She will cover your early widowhood and orphans. Forgive me, my dear, and pray for me.”

It happened that priests were killed on the spot without any trial. Priest Averky Severvostokov from the Ufa diocese (June 30) was performing a prayer service in the square with a large crowd of parishioners when the Red Army soldiers entered the village. The holy martyr was immediately taken aside and shot. Priest Konstantin Sukhov from Buguruslan (October 22) was arrested during a memorial service for the Royal Family, taken out of the church and shot. Priest Mikhail Belorossov (May 24) was arrested near Romanov-Borisoglebsk by local activists while traveling from his village to Yaroslavl. The shepherd was shot without trial simply for being a priest.

Sometimes the Soviet leadership tried to play the rule of law and organized trials with the participation of lawyers. A striking example of this was the Saratov trial against the clergy, which opened in the fall of 1918. In the dock were priest Mikhail Platonov, known for his monarchical and patriotic position, Bishop German of Volsky (Kosolapov), and several members of the diocesan council. The accusation fell apart immediately - the lawyers proved the complete innocence of those arrested. However, the sad outcome of the trial was a foregone conclusion. Hieromartyr Mikhail Platonov said: “Even now I am calm, although you will sentence me to death. <...> I believe that the sky is not empty, that there is life there - and I do not believe in death. If you kill me, I will live."

In January 1919, priest Mikhail Platonov was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and Bishop German to 15. However, the Soviet administration was tired of playing “courts” and “justice.”

On the night of October 10, 1919, Bishop German and priest Mikhail Platonov were shot in prison by decision of the provincial Cheka, along with a group of other arrestees (memory of the holy martyrs on October 10).

It is not possible to name the exact number of those killed for their faith in the first years of Bolshevik rule due to the lack of documents and general disorder in the country, but approximate data allows us to talk about thousands of those killed in religious matters. Thus, the authors of the collection “The Investigative Case of Patriarch Tikhon” (Archpriest V. Vorobyov, Priest A. Shchelkachev, etc.) talk about 11 thousand repressed, of which 9 thousand suffered to death. According to O.Yu. Vasilyeva’s calculations, the number of priests and laity who did not participate in the Civil War and became victims of the Bolsheviks in 1918–1920 was more than 10 thousand people.

In response to communist terror, Patriarch Tikhon sent a message to the Council of People's Commissars on November 7, 1918 in connection with

the first anniversary of the October Revolution. “The blood shed in rivers of our brothers, mercilessly killed at your call, cries out to heaven and forces us to tell you a bitter word of truth,” the saint wrote. – When seizing power and calling on the people to trust you, what promises did you make to them and how did you fulfill these promises? Truly, you gave him a stone instead of bread and a snake instead of fish... <...> You divided the entire people into hostile camps and plunged them into fratricide of unprecedented cruelty. You openly replaced the love of Christ with hatred and, instead of peace, artificially incited class enmity. <…> No one feels safe; everyone lives under constant fear of search, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. They seize hundreds of defenseless people, rot for months in prison, and often execute them without any investigation or trial.”

In fact, refusing support to the new state, the saint wrote that the power allowed by God would attract the blessing of the Church, but only the power that is truly “God’s servant” is terrible for evil deeds, and not for good ones.

The message of His Holiness did not produce results - murders and lawlessness continued with even greater force. It was also difficult to realize that the atheistic government would be established for a long time. The understanding that denunciation of the Bolsheviks could lead to new repressions against the Church was the reason for the appearance of a new message from Patriarch Tikhon on October 8, 1919. Trying to remove the clergy from under attack, the saint urged him not to interfere in the political struggle.

By that time, the Soviet anti-church campaign was gaining momentum. 1919 was marked by the opening (actually desecration) of the relics. The Bolsheviks counted on the ignorance of the common people, who for the most part believed that the relics of saints must necessarily be incorruptible. The goal of the campaign was to expose “religious prejudices,” which was supposed, firstly, to turn people away from the Church, and secondly, to deprive it of monetary receipts from pilgrims who came to the shrines.

The reason for the campaign was information that appeared at the end of 1918 that in the shrine with the relics of St. Alexander of Svirsky there was a wax doll. Propaganda immediately began to work, demanding an end to the “priest’s deception.” In March 1919, Lenin launched a new campaign by ordering the examination of the relics located in the Chudov Monastery.

During 1919–1920 According to some sources, 57, according to others, 65 autopsies of relics were performed. Autopsies were often accompanied by blasphemy. A case became widely known when a Red Army soldier spat several times on the head of the Monk Savva of Storozhevsky. The desecration of the remains of saints became an end in itself for the Bolsheviks - how else to explain, for example, the opening of the shrine of St. Seraphim of Sarov, whose relics were well known to be preserved in the form of bones?

Indeed, many relics have been preserved in the form of skeletal remains. But Soviet propaganda presented this in its own way, trumpeting that instead of relics, the crayfish contained rotted bones and foreign objects, and some crayfish were completely empty. Newspaper publications often did not correspond to autopsy reports. In the Soviet press, bone remains were turned into “dust” and “accumulations of dead moths.”

The presence of foreign objects in crayfish also finds an explanation. According to Academician D.S. Likhachev, there were cases when, before the official opening, foreign objects, for example, cigarette butts, were secretly thrown into the crayfish.

The opening of the relics also implied their forcible removal from the Orthodox Church. This is due to the fact that even after the “revelations” organized by the state, the veneration of the remains of the holy saints did not stop. The authorities also planned to destroy the relics, but a considerable part of them was still preserved. The relics of the righteous Simeon of Verkhoturye, for example, were saved at the cost of his own life by the director of the Nizhny Tagil museum, A.N. Slovtsov. It happened that the relics were hidden, as happened, for example, with the remains of the righteous Artemy Verkolsky.

Representatives of the Church, for their part, tried to prevent the mockery of the bodies of saints. The future hieromartyr Bishop Alexander (Trapitsyn) of Vologda (January 14) was indignant at the blasphemous manipulations with the relics of St. Theodosius of Totem, exposed naked to public display, and demanded an end to the lawlessness. However, the local administration remained deaf to the requests of the holy martyr.

The saint addressed not only the authorities, but also the people, explaining to them that the opinion about the indispensable incorruption of relics as a sign of holiness has no basis in the teaching of the Church.

“Only our God-man, Jesus Christ, did not see corruption,” wrote Hieromartyr Alexander, “yet people, by virtue of God’s definition, “Thou art earth, and unto earth thou hast gone forth,” must and are subject to corruption. There are people who claim that the relics of saints are certainly incorruptible. The opinion of these people, as one-sided and incorrect, brings a lot of harm to the Church. The Church, by relics, generally means the remains of saints in the form of more or less whole bodies or in the form of just bones without a body.” Archbishop Alexander gave examples from the works of ancient historians, showing that the relics of some of the apostles (Peter, Paul, Andrew, Luke, Timothy) and early Christian martyrs in the 4th–5th centuries. were stored in the form of bones.

The relics that remained incorrupt, for example, the bodies of Saints Theodosius of Chernigov and Joasaph of Belgorod, caused particular confusion among Soviet atheists. In such cases, atheist agitators announced “natural mummification” associated with special weather conditions. But they did not forget to desecrate the remains. The body of St. Joasaph, for example, was pierced with a bayonet, then it underwent an autopsy and was exhibited in the museum. Orthodox Christians secretly came to pray to the saint, and after some time the exhibition was closed.

In August 1920, the People's Commissariat of Justice issued a circular on the liquidation of the relics. Many holy remains were transferred to museum storerooms; many were lost. And the people later said that the famine that struck the country in 1921 was a punishment for the desecration of shrines.

In addition to the blow to the relics, the atheistic state launched an offensive in another direction, destroying the centers of Orthodox spirituality - monasteries. The blasphemous process of liquidation of monasteries began in 1918. Some of the monasteries were immediately adapted by the state to their needs; in the Moscow Novospassky Monastery, for example, already in 1918 a concentration camp was set up. The same fate awaited the Alexander-Svirsky and a little later the Nikolaevsky Verkhotursky and Pafnutyevo-Borovsky monasteries. The most famous and terrible of the Soviet concentration camps was set up in the Solovetsky Monastery.

In 1919, the Resurrection New Jerusalem Monastery was turned into a museum. In the same year, the Nikolo-Babaevsky Monastery and the Trinity-Sergius Monastery near Petrograd were closed.

In 1920, the Council of People's Commissars, despite the requests of believers, encroached on the main Russian shrine - the Trinity-Sergius Lavra. A museum was set up in it, but gradually the buildings of temples and other buildings were adapted into residential buildings, enterprises and organizations. During the following years of Lenin's rule, the Glinskaya, Kursk-Korennaya and Smolensk Zosimova hermitages, the Assumption Svyatogorsk, Joseph-Volotsk, Suzdal Pokrovsky, and Shamordinsky monasteries were closed and desecrated. Some monasteries, usually with strong traditions of clergy, were able at this moment to avoid complete ruin and survive under the guise of “labor communes” or “agricultural artels.” Such were considered, for example, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, Optina Pustyn, Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery, Trinity-Odigitria Zosimova Pustyn, etc.

Along with the monasteries, spiritual literature was also destroyed. In September 1921, Lenin signed a draft resolution of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (Bolsheviks) on the free sale of books stored in Moscow warehouses. The text stated that “from the number of books put on sale in Moscow, remove pornography and books of spiritual content, giving them to Glavbum for paper.”

His Holiness the Patriarch, who was arrested on the night of November 25, 1919, shared his sorrows with his flock. The saint was asked how many messages he had published, how he felt about Soviet power, and whether he had conveyed a blessing to Admiral A.V. Kolchak. The Patriarch listed all the messages he had published, said that he would change his negative attitude towards the Soviet regime only if it itself changed its attitude towards the Church, and stated that he did not send blessings to the leaders of the White movement. Saint Tikhon refused to answer the question about his political convictions.

“What political convictions I personally hold now is completely indifferent to you,” said the patriarch. “I declare to you that the patriarch will never conduct any agitation in favor of this or that form of government in Rus' and in no case will he rape or oppress anyone’s conscience in the matter of universal popular voting.”

Although there was nothing to accuse the patriarch of, he was nevertheless placed under house arrest. The saint was allowed to serve in the house church and walk in the garden. But the confessor could hold meetings of the Synod only with the permission of the Cheka.

The activities of the Higher Church Administration were seriously hampered. In August 1920, Patriarch Tikhon was invited to Geneva to the World Congress of Representatives of Christian Communities and Churches to Combat Irreligion. However, the Soviet leadership did not release the saint from the country. The letter returned to Switzerland with a stamp that the addressee's place of residence was unknown. It was not possible to assemble the full composition of the Synod. In 1921, in addition to Patriarch Tikhon, only a few people could participate in the meetings, usually these were Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), Metropolitan Eusebius (Nikolsky) and Archbishop Mikhail (Ermakov). At the beginning of 1922, only two people could take part in the work of the Synod. The Supreme Church Council also ceased its activities. Communication with the dioceses was no less a problem, in connection with which in November 1920 a decision was made on their self-government in the event that it was impossible to establish contact with the church leadership.

The revolutionary upheavals gave a powerful impetus to further action by both modernists and all kinds of adventurers. In 1917, the church-modernist group “All-Russian Union of Democratic Clergy and Laity” was formed in Petrograd, which included a considerable part of the capital’s clergy. The leaders of this group were Archpriest John Egorov, priests Alexander Vvedensky, Alexander Boyarsky. Branches of the “Union” were formed in a number of Russian cities, and supporters of the reforms published a newspaper and magazine. This group was supported by the professor of the Petrograd Theological Academy B.V. Titlinov, who took the post of editor of the Church Public Bulletin and turned the magazine into the main organ of propaganda of modernism.

One of the ideologists of church renewal, priest Alexander Vvedensky, stated that one must remain in the Church only in order to destroy the patriarchate from within.

The Union was replaced in 1919 by new organizations. Archpriest I. Egorov created the group “Religion in combination with life.” Among the innovations he introduced were moving the throne to the middle of the church, changing the order of rites, etc. In 1920, Archpriest I. Egorov was banned from serving in the priesthood by Patriarch Tikhon, but continued to serve in a private apartment. Other modernists did not lag behind. In 1921, Priest A. Vvedensky created the “Petrograd Group of Progressive Clergy,” and Priest A. Boyarsky in Kolpino created the “Friends of the Church Reformation” movement. In Penza, the “People's Church” was founded by Archbishop Vladimir (Putyata), deposed for debauchery. The future martyr Bishop of Penza John (Pommer) gave resistance to the local schismatics.

On November 4, 1921, Patriarch Tikhon addressed the flock with a message, pointing out the inadmissibility of liturgical innovations.