Petrograd Group of Progressive Clergy and the Soviet Confessional Policy during the Civil War

Abstract

In June — July 1919, informal consultations between representatives of the authorities and a group of “֧progressive” Orthodox clergy were held in the premises of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Council. They discussed the possibility of publishing an appeal on behalf of the invited persons condemning the actions of the White Guards and interventionists as well as expressing solidarity with the Bolsheviks in their struggle against external enemies. Meetings with the clergy were organized by the leadership of the so-called Common sub-department of the Petrograd city department of justice. This kind of initiative contradicted the state policy in the religious issue. At the same time, it corresponded to the directives of the Secret Department of the Cheka. The article describes the course and results of the “private meeting” of the summer of 1919; analyzes the proposals made by its participants, and the variants of the text of the final document discussed at the meetings. In the end, most of the invitees felt that the clergy’s performance with a politicized declaration was contrary to the Decree on the separation of church and state and therefore unacceptable. The history of the “consultations” that once took place in the Common sub-department unexpectedly became the subject of a “discussion” that unfolded in the spring and summer of 1921 between investigators of the Petrograd Provincial Cheka and a participant in the “private meetings” of 1919, one of the leaders of Renovationism in the Russian Church A. I. Boyarsky. The struggle to establish the truth brought about criminal prosecution and prison sentences for the archpriest.