scholarly journals Russian Foreign Ministry and the Reorganization of Russian Orthodox Churches Abroad in 1860-s

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 7-25
Author(s):  
V. O. Pechatnov ◽  
V. V. Pechatnov

Based on the unearthed documents from the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, the article examines an interaction of Russian diplomacy and Russian orthodox churches abroad in the process of their reform in the early 1860-s. This reorganization was undertaken in context of the “Great reforms” of Alexander II and aimed at rationalization of the previous system of subordination of those churches to civil and ecclesiastical authorities in St. Petersburg. The architects of the reform initiated by the Tzar himself sought to create a unified system of subordination and financing of those churches with identical criteria for their personnel, their rights and duties vis-à-vis heads of diplomatic missions. Accordingly, the Russian Foreign Ministry became responsible for their operation and financing while in ecclesiastical matters they were to answer to the Holy Synod. Foreign Ministry and personally Alexander Gorchakov, as demonstrated in the article, played a leading role in the reform preparation and implementation conducted on an inter-agency basis with the Holy Synod, Ministry of the Court and Finance Ministry taking part. The heads of diplomatic missions and of the affiliated churches were also consulted in the process. The authors trace all stages of these complex negotiations that resulted in achieving a balance of interests between all the actors involved. The newly created system proved to be quite efficient and lasted till the end of the Russian empire. The reorganization revealed a state of the churches abroad and their clergy that was a crème of Russian Orthodox Church. The reform experience is also instructive as a case study of Russian government apparatus in action.

Author(s):  
V. S. Blokhin ◽  
◽  

An analysis of the religious conversions of persons of Armenian confession to Orthodox allows the author to evaluate them as a special phenomenon in the history of Russian-Armenian church relations, as well as to establish the features of economic, social, national, and confessional policies of the Russian Empire in the Transcaucasus in the 19th – early 20th centuries. The sources are the unpublished documents in Russian from the collections of the National Archives of the Republic of Armenia. Based on the available archival sources, it was established that the cases of the adoption of Orthodoxy by the Armenians were caused by three motives: 1) economic, 2) various situations of a non-economic nature, and 3) coercive measures. Despite the absence of a special “Armenian mission” among the Orthodox priests, the cases of Armenians’ conversion to Orthodoxy, especially those made for economic reasons, were rather actively encouraged by the Russian Orthodox Church. For the Russian government, the Armenians who converted to Orthodoxy were seen as a reliable social base in the Transcaucasus. The relevance of studying the issue is since, in the 20th century, despite the contradictions of the synodal period, the Russian Orthodox Church built relations with the Armenian Apostolic Church based on the principles of friendship, good neighborliness, and mutual assistance. Today, this factor contributes to the strengthening of both church and political relations between Russia and Armenia.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 480-489
Author(s):  
Tamara S. Olenich ◽  

The article discusses the features of the emergence and spread of sectarian organizations and Old Believer communities in the Azov region in the 19th century. It is shown that the processes of the spread of sectarian organizations century were very active, which is explained by the fact that sectarian organizations had a broad social base and expanded dynamically, despite restrictions from the official government. The laws in force at that time limited the activities carried out by the Russian Orthodox Church in counteracting the process of promoting sectarian teachings at that time. The article illustrates that some of the representatives of sectarianism disguised themselves as Orthodox and compactly lived within the boundaries of church parishes. Proselytizing sectarianism was especially active in the territory of the Yekaterinoslav province by organizations such as the Molokans, Khlysts, Skoptsy, Old Believers, and others. This article characterizes the prevailing political and legal conditions for the spread of the sects, as well as the features of the system of religious relations that have developed in the region. On the basis of archival data, the number of such sects as the Molokans, the Whips, the Old Believers and the Evangelists, etc., was studied. The specificity of religious relations between representatives of different religious groups in the Azov region is analyzed within the framework of a unique phenomenon — a polymodel system of the interfaith relations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 129-149
Author(s):  
Antoni Mironowicz

The article is dedicated to the 300th anniversary of St. Georgy Konisky Bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, Archbishop of Mogilev, Mstislavl and Orsh. Philosopher, teacher, theologian and public figure of the Commonwealth, and then the Russian Empire.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 98-118
Author(s):  
Irina V. Dergacheva

The article presents the results of an archival search for information regarding Sergey P. Koloshin, a publicist and the publisher of the <i>Zritel obschestvennoy zhizni, literatury i sporta</i> (<i>Spectator of public life, literature and sports</i>) magazine, who went bankrupt in 1863. In the 1860s, he lived in Italy, attempted to collaborate with the <i>Epokha</i> (<i>Epoch</i>) magazine, corresponded with the brothers M. M. and F. M. Dostoevskys, and died on November 27, 1868 in Florence. The discovered documents allow to clarify the time and circumstances of his death. The Russian Empire’s Foreign Policy Archive contains a file regarding the assignment of the transportation the body of the deceased to Milan for burial in the columbarium to Mikhail Orlov, the Archpriest of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Nativity of Christ and St. Nicholas in Florence, who already performed the rite of blessing S. Koloshin. The latter was also entrusted with fulfilling the last will of the deceased, completing his settlements on this Earth, including those with the owner of his rented residence. Her receipt for money received indicates the address of Koloshin's residence in Milan, which is significant in connection with the search for his archive, which probably includes the letters of Dostoevsky. The article also introduces the encrypted telegrams of the Russian mission to Turin into scientific circulation for the first time. These telegrams are signed by the name Koloshin (Kolochine), and the authors suggest that they belong either to Sergey’s brother, Dmitry Pavlovich, junior secretary of the Russian mission in Brussels, or to Ivan Petrovich Koloshin, Resident Master of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Empire, cousin of S. P. Koloshin. He could have also provided the documents from the personal archive of S. P. Koloshin, which likely included letters from Dostoevsky.


2007 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 511-540
Author(s):  
Matthew P. Romaniello

Muscovy's active period of eastward expansion began with the conquest of the Khanate of Kazan’ in 1552. By the seventeenth century, one observer claimed that the conquest of Kazan’ was the event that made Ivan IV a tsar and Muscovy an empire. With this victory, the tsar claimed new lands, adding to his subjects the diverse animistic and Muslim population of Turkic Tatars and Chuvashes, and Finno-Ugric Maris, Mordvins, and Udmurts. The conquest of Kazan’ provided both the Metropolitan of Moscow and Ivan IV (the Terrible) an opportunity to transform the image of Muscovy into that of a victorious Orthodox power and to justify the title of its Grand Prince as a new caesar (tsar). Since the conquest was the first Orthodox victory against Islam since the fall of Constantinople, commemorations of it were immediate, including the construction of the Church of the Intercession by the Moat (St. Basil's) on Red Square.The incorporation of the lands and peoples of Kazan’ has served traditionally to date the establishment of the Russian Empire. Accounts of the conquest have emphasized the victory of Orthodoxy against Islam, with the Russian Orthodox Church and its Metropolitan as the motive force behind this expansion. The conversion of the Muslims and animists of the region is portrayed frequently as automatic, facing little resistance. More recently, scholars have criticized this simplistic account of the conquest by discussing the conversion mission as a rhetorical construct and have placed increasing emphasis on the local non-Russian and non-Orthodox resistance to the interests of the Church and state.


Author(s):  
Yu.A. Lysenko

The article analyzes the structure and information potential of the annual reports on the conditions of the Orenburg and Omsk dioceses to the Holy Synod, prepared science 1870 to 1917. It is emphasized that this set of paperwork is a unique source on the history of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Central Asian outskirts of the Russian Empire and reflects virtually all spheres of life and activities of the dioceses, their institutional and administrative-territorial development, processes of the deanery, church, parish, church and monastery construction. The information capabilities of the reports make it possible to reconstruct a whole range of social, economic, demographic, and migration processes that took place within the boundaries of a particular diocese. That is why the author assigns diocesan reports to the type of “mixed type” paperwork on the basis that they contain information of a normative, narrative and statistical nature. Analysis of reports on the state of the Orenburg and Omsk dioceses allow us to conclude that the 1880s the first decade of the 20th century began a period of active development in the Steppe Territory institutions, the administrative-territorial management system of the Russian Orthodox Church. This was largely due to a sharp increase in the number of Orthodox population in the region, mediated by mass peasant migration.


Author(s):  
Ada Rapoport-Albert

This chapter mentions the scholars of hasidism, the school of spirituality initiated by Israel Ba'al Shem Tov, that have occasionally noted certain parallels between the hasidic movement and the various sects that emerged in early modern Russia. It talks about the Old Believers' faction that seceded from the Russian Orthodox Church at the time of the schism of the second half of the seventeenth century. It also highlights the sects and others whose origins are obscure and independent of the Raskol, which proliferated in the course of the eighteenth century and spread primarily within the rural population of the Russian empire. The chapter discusses the Russian government that endeavoured to suppress Old Believers, making them leave their districts of origin in northern Russia and flee to the border regions of the empire. It recounts the sectarians that settled in Ukraine during the same time that the hasidic movement was getting under way.


Author(s):  
S. P. Bychkov ◽  
◽  
O. V. Gefner ◽  

The article is devoted to the problem of changing the view of the historian of the Russian Orthodox Church Anton V. Kartashev on the peculiarities of the existence of Orthodoxy in the historical period of the Russian Empire. By comparing pre-revolutionary articles and publications of the 1930s and 1950s, the key positions of these changes are determined, and the factors that contributed to the evolution of the historian's scientific views are identified. The author concludes that Kartashev turns from an active critic of church shortcomings into an apologist of the Russian Church of the imperial period, and reveals many positive features of the existence of Orthodoxy during the period of Synodal administration. Russian Russian Orthodox Church, A.V. Kartashev, The Concept of Russian Church History, Synodal administration.


Author(s):  
Aleksandr Lushin

The article examines the original state-legal views of one of the most prominent hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan Filaret (Drozdov), regarding the form of the state, the system of law, the judicial system and judicial proceedings of the Russian Empire in the XIX century.


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