PATRIARCH TIKHON (1865-1925) has been overlooked by most historians of Russia and the former Soviet Union, the Russian Orthodox Church being seen as irrelevant within an anti-religious Communist polity. For the first time, a scholarly volume has done justice to an extraordinarily brave Russian priest.
We follow him from his humble beginnings in the Pskov province of north-western Russia, to his ordination and consecration, and then his ministry as bishop of a diocese in Poland, followed by some years (1898-1907) as a bishop in the United States, where he learnt to appreciate democracy, the separation of Church and State, and the vital part played by the laity and parish clergy within the Church.
Most remarkable was his selection at a church Council in 1917 as the first Patriarch since Peter the Great abolished the Moscow Patriarchate, when Tikhon quoted Ezekiel prophetically: “how many tears and groans will I have to swallow. . . ” Indeed, he had to face many years of suffering.
The Russian Orthodox Church experienced a period of renewal early in the 20th century. Freed from its subjugation to the State after the Tsar’s abdication in March 1917, it became once again respected by a large section of the educated population. The Council of 1917-18 was followed by years of persecution: the Church lost its legal status and right to own property; Lenin launched a ferocious attack on it in 1922; and Patriarch Tikhon was imprisoned from May 1922 until June 1923.
While in prison in the Donskoi Monastery, Tikhon was frequently interrogated in the Lubyanka; he was permitted, however, to take walks along the monastery walls, and crowds would regularly gather below to receive his blessing. At his funeral in April 1925, between 30,000 and 40,000 gathered in the Donskoi Monastery, many more than attended Lenin’s funeral in 1924.
Thanks to changes in the Communist regime, but also to support from abroad, particularly from Britain, Tikhon in the end was not put on trial and executed. On 13 April 1923, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Randall Davidson, and other British church leaders, as well as the Chief Rabbi, issued a statement condemning religious persecution in the Soviet Union; according to Davidson’s biographer, “the effect was electric.” The Soviet leadership was desperate to preserve the 1921 Anglo-Soviet Trade Treaty and to maintain good relations with Britain.
On 8 May 1923, the British Foreign Secretary issued an ultimatum to the Soviet government condemning “the definite object of destroying all religion in Russia” and threatening to break off relations. According to this book, “It would not, therefore, be unfair to say that Britain saved Patriarch Tikhon’s life.”
AlamyPatriarch Tikhon of Moscow, in a photo taken c.1920
Many Western scholars tend to define churchmen in the Soviet Union either as dissidents or as collaborators. Patriarch Tikhon was neither: to preserve the Church as an organisation, he tried his hardest to remain apolitical, to criticise the Communist regime without opposing it. The themes of his sermons were faith, forgiveness, and reconciliation. During the Civil War, he did not side with either the Whites or the Reds. He did not want the Church to retreat into the catacombs: it had to remain visible, and he constantly tried to achieve a legal status for it. His view was that the Church should neither be “pro-Soviet” nor “anti-Soviet”: it should be “non-Soviet”.
It is extraordinary to note that the census of 1937 revealed that 40 million Soviet citizens were still committed Orthodox believers. The Bolsheviks had clearly failed to destroy the main rival to their ideology. According to a workman whose words were recorded by a British intelligence officer in November 1920, “There is only one man in the whole of Russia whom the Bolsheviks fear from the bottom of their hearts, and that is Tikhon, the Patriarch of the Russian Church.” That fear proved to be well-founded.
Xenia Dennen, a Russian specialist, is chairman of Keston Institute, Oxford.
The People’s Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and revolutionary Russia
Scott M. Kenworthy
OUP £22.99
(978-0-19-764475-1)
Church Times Bookshop £20.69