"Revolutionary Church" or "Church Revolution"? Some Recent Studies on the History of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917
In: The soviet and post-soviet review, Band 36, Heft 2, S. 182-195
ISSN: 1876-3324
AbstractContemporary Russian scholars usually try to abstain from any criticism to Russian Orthodox Church' actions in past and present. Meanwhile a situation in 1917 was very confused: the Holy Synod supported the abdication of its formal head – the Tsar. So historians discussed: what it was – "revolutionary Church" or "revolution inside Church"? One of them insists that bishops become "liberals", another argue that they operated accordingly old religious canons. In reality the full scale revolution inside Church took place: believers tried to overthrow the "reactionary" and "counterrevolutionary" bishops and priests as "serfs of old regime", rank and file clergy supported them.