Imperial Russia as a Failed State: The Role of Orthodox Church

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to assess the role of the Orthodox Church during the prelude to the February Revolution. Recent historiography on the Great War in Western scholarship has foregrounded the role of the Churches, Protestant and Catholic, in sustaining popular support for a war that entailed unprecedented death, suffering, and hardship. That new research, seeking to explain the “endurance problem” (Durchhaltsproblem), point to the Churches in the West as the pillar of the existing regimes right to the very end of the war and as an effective instrument in mobilizing support and patriotism to defend each country’s “civilization”. Hence, no less important than brilliant military plans and effective governance, the Churches provided critical support and raised morale of both troops and civilians. Such was not the case in Russia. With few resources at its disposal, the Orthodox Church provided initial but ephemeral support. As is shown here, the Church was not only unable but unwilling to embrace the ancient regime: against a background of general war weariness, the Church elites, parish clergy, and ordinary parishioners were increasingly determined to pursue their own interests, not those of the state. By February 1917 the Church did not condemn but welcomed the overthrow of the monarchy that ultimately led to the Bolshevik seizure of power and years of brutal civil war. The monograph by I. V. Potkina “On the eve of the catastrophe. The state and the economy in Russia in 1914–1917” has many positive elements, but it is important — given recent historiography, which foregrounds the role of Churches and religion in sustaining society’s willingness to endure the Great War — to pay attention to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church.