“Officer of the Church” in the Conditions of the Anti-Religious Policy of the Soviet State: the Feat of Confession of an Omsk Priest V. F. Infantiev

Abstract

Archival materials on the criminal case against Omsk priest V. F. Infantev provides potentially important insights into political repression in the USSR. Because the reliability of various documents in this case might not be of equal validity, it is necessary initially to assess the accuracy of these documents. Information on this priest’s pre-revolutionary life, as well as his religious activities and fight against Renovationism, is beyond doubt and allows for a sufficiently detailed reconstruction of the main milestones of his biography. In contrast, testimonies of witnesses for the prosecution, especially OGPU informers following the instructions of the detectives, are doubtful, as they are suspiciously connected with topics relevant to the authorities and in a short time were refined to the kind required by higher KGB leadership. Infantiev’s execution was not a due to “anti-Revolution propaganda,” as according to the prosecution, but because of his persistent activity defending dogmatic Orthdox faith against Renovationists, supported by OGPU, who tried to use Renovationists to discredit and corrupt the Russian Orthodox church. The article raises the importance of prosographic research of ordinary priests in 1920s and 1930s, as those people backed the independence of Russian Orthodox church during Stalinism.