Trials for Countering the Seizure of Church Valuables in Western Siberia (1922– 1923)

Abstract

The subject of the study was the analysis of the causes and the identification of the features of the trials, as well as the description of their consequences for the Russian Church on the example of Western Siberia. The source base for the study was the materials of daily Siberian newspapers Krasnoe Znamya and Krasny Altai, archival documents and electronic databases of the Russian Orthodox Church. It was revealed that the believers’ attempts to resist the seizure of valuables in one form or another were recorded in all territories, but they were not of a large-scale nature and were not accompanied (with some exceptions) by believers’ tough actions. In Siberia, the campaign to confiscate church valuables ended with the initiation of criminal cases, and in a number of cities (Tomsk, Barnaul) with show trials in the case of parishioners and Tikhonovite clerics, with active and atheistically offensive covering these trials in local newspapers. An important role in the implementation of the church policy of the young atheistic state was played by the secret services (GPU), which secretly controlled the ongoing processes, using, among other things, a network of informers and agents. During the trials, facts of bias on the part of the prosecution and pressure on public opinion with the help of newspaper propaganda and campaigning public events were noticed. It has been established that the death sentences handed down in the course of most trials to convicted hierarchs were canceled and the long sentences were reduced. After a short time, most of the clergy were amnestied, and quite soon they resumed their spiritual service. It was a planned and coordinated operation of the Soviet-party authorities on the ground in collaboration with the Main Political Directorate, aimed at decomposing and weakening the Church as an ideological enemy.