Politburo And The Church, Kremlin Archives

N. Petrovsky, S.G. Petrov

The petition of Archpriest A.I.Vvedensky to A.I.

No. 24-34

T. RYKOV.

I am disturbing you in writing, being unable to personally address you with the same fervent prayer with which I dare to bother you with my letter.

Let me first of all introduce myself: I am Archpriest Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky. This is me in February. years on the pages of "Petrogradskaya Pravda" was the first to challenge the entire bourgeois Christianity and our Orthodox Church in particular about their heartlessness in the face of a terrible famine. I demanded the realization of church values for the hungry. This was done by me before the corresponding decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and, of course, against the will of Tikhon and Metropolitan Benjamin. It is difficult for a non-church person to imagine what a storm of indignation my letter caused in our midst. "You are Judas, a Jew, you sold yourself to the Bolsheviks ..." The verbal persecution, which continued for several months, turned into an open and organized campaign of the churchmen against me. I was twice brought before the church court; finally, I was excommunicated from the church. This is not enough - the crowd, nudged by the churchmen, attempted on my life several times in the street, and, finally, I was seriously wounded by a stone in the head on June 12 - and still have not recovered from the consequences of the injury, which is why I cannot personally report to you that writing. I will add to this that the persecution of me by the churchmen continues and I am not sure of a single day of my life ... These circumstances, it seems to me, give me the right to be objective on the issue to which I am now turning. I appeal to you with a prayer for pardoning the personality of Metropolitan Benjamin and Archimandrite Sergius Shein. I know Benjamin well. Until I spoke out against Tikhon, he was always kind to me. Under pressure from church circles, in recent months he left me and excommunicated, as I said, then from the church, but earlier I could observe him from month to month. He has objective guilt. He did not find the courage to definitely go against Tikhon's will - not to give up values. He, I know, in his heart and in private conversations was for the return of valuables even before the vessels (beyond the decree). But he was crushed by the strength of the crowd, which, in the form of a mass of reactionary clergy, kulak church councils, etc., pressed on him. He is a weak-willed person, without initiative, without a broad mind. Hence his hesitation. He sometimes gives (the first goes to Smolny), then no (the second message), finally, he compromises - the third appeal. For the third appeal, he was hated by many. He was insulted several times in churches (in the Kazan and Ioannovsky monasteries, etc.) - "you are a red metropolitan" ... He never thought about overthrowing Soviet power. What would the old regime give him? Before the revolution, he was an eternal vicar, who was not allowed to move, which, of course, deeply offended this quiet and narrow-minded monk. Before the revolution he was also financially in need. It was put forward by the revolution, if you will, as somewhat persecuted by the tsarist church bureaucracy. Benjamin, being a metropolitan, always remembered the tsarist regime with a heavy feeling. In the first years of his rule of the Metropolitanate, he immediately acquired the reputation of a "Bolshevik" from the reactionaries. Yes, Benjamin categorically and systematically forbade the clergy from interfering in politics. This is especially after the October coup (when I personally met him). When Yudenich approached Petrograd, he expressed fear that the Whites would come and that he would end. And this is a fact - White would have immediately given him a "head off". We all knew this, because we knew the persecution of him by the church reactionaries. as somewhat persecuted by the tsarist church bureaucracy. Benjamin, being a metropolitan, always remembered the tsarist regime with a heavy feeling. In the first years of his rule of the Metropolitanate, he immediately acquired the reputation of a "Bolshevik" from the reactionaries. Yes, Benjamin categorically and systematically forbade the clergy to interfere in politics. This is especially after the October coup (when I personally met him). When Yudenich approached Petrograd, he expressed fear that the Whites would come and that he would end. And this is a fact - White would have immediately given him a "head off". We all knew this, because we knew the persecution of him by the church reactionaries. as somewhat persecuted by the tsarist church bureaucracy. Benjamin, being a metropolitan, always remembered the tsarist regime with a heavy feeling. In the first years of his rule of the Metropolitanate, he immediately acquired the reputation of a "Bolshevik" from the reactionaries. Yes, Benjamin categorically and systematically forbade the clergy from interfering in politics. This is especially after the October coup (when I personally met him). When Yudenich approached Petrograd, he expressed fear that the Whites would come and that he would end. And this is a fact - White would have immediately given him a "head off". We all knew this, because we knew the persecution of him by the church reactionaries. Benjamin categorically and systematically forbade the clergy to interfere in politics. This is especially after the October coup (when I personally met him). When Yudenich approached Petrograd, he expressed fear that the Whites would come and that he would end. And this is a fact - White would have immediately given him a "head off". We all knew this, because we knew the persecution of him by the church reactionaries. Benjamin categorically and systematically forbade the clergy to interfere in politics. This is especially after the October coup (when I personally met him). When Yudenich approached Petrograd, he expressed fear that the Whites would come and that he would end. And this is a fact - White would have immediately given him a "head off". We all knew this, because we knew the persecution of him by the church reactionaries.

Benjamin's sermons always had the main idea - love for everyone, even for enemies. All his sermons I heard made a pacifying impression. And so Benjamin lived these years, very beloved by the crowd for his kind, even character. I think that he did not harm a single person (knowingly). He was just not loved by those who wanted (and wants - there are a lot of them) to lead the church through the Karlovytsky Cathedral ²⁸ .

This spring Benjamin's personal tragedy began. This is a tragedy, I would say, of his individual character. Kind and weak-willed. Wellintentioned - and very narrow-minded. Perspective - and lack of courage to overcome obstacles encountered. He, as I said, was terrorized by the crowd: to give nothing to the Bolsheviks. This is the slogan of church hatred. Give - you are an apostate from the faith. Add to this that over Benjamin there was also Tikhon's threat of being deprived of his dignity if he did not obey him. And the man was at a loss. He always and sincerely wanted to live in peace with the Soviet regime - and he turned out to be a criminal before it. He could have relied on the progressive clergy, but at the beginning of the campaign I was literally alone in Petrograd. To be with Vvedensky is to be corrupt. Only, after all, in a few weeks 11 priests will join me. And against us are hundreds of priests. And Benjamin is not coming with us. What is it? An attempt to overthrow Soviet power? Oh no - only a lack of courage to go against the crowd, because Benjamin himself, I repeat, was for the surrender of values. He was afraid of the excesses of the crowd against the authorities. When riots broke out on the Haymarket, he pointed out to the rectors the need to isolate the church from those dark people who, under the flag of churchliness, want to pursue their political goals. He published the same thoughts on Friday on Strastnaya in Petrogradskaya Pravda (for this alone he was reprimanded by the churchmen) ... Here's the truth about Benjamin. The truth from the mouth of the man with whom Benjamin broke up, fell with all the strength of his anger, but who does not want untruth to touch Benjamin. Benjamin is condemned, condemned for the cause - in his great post he was supposed to be not that Tikhonov switchman (despite his high rank, he, by his individuality, was nevertheless exactly him), but the leader of the church masses. He, in the time of the people's test, had to urge the people in every way to follow the instructions of the Soviet government. Instead, he maneuvers, double-minded. For this he must be condemned, removed. But he was not an active enemy of the Soviet regime, did not think about its overthrow, did not organize it.

Therefore, his execution will not correspond to his actual crime. I will say more. His execution will have unintended consequences. Here are some of them.

Benjamin is a holy martyr tortured by the servants of the devil and the Jews *. Terrible outbursts of hatred for Jews and for Soviet power will awaken spontaneously in the souls of hundreds of thousands and, m. 6., millions. Of course, the authorities can easily eliminate these explosions, but is it expedient, from the state point of view, to exacerbate the mass psyche in this way? Take into account that the people know well that Benjamin was never for a tsar who did not love Benjamin, that he was always kind, affectionate, called for forgiving everything and everyone and, rather, was a Bolshevik (in the eyes of the same church circles), than a counter-revolutionary.

They will point out that the terry Black Hundreds (many princes of the church, whose names I cannot name) are now at large in general, or just about everything in prison, and Benjamin, who all the time tried ( this is a fact) to live peacefully with the Soviet regime (I think that these attempts failed due to his weak-willed and narrow mind), and Benjamin is shot. And this is now, when executions are so, thank God, rare, when the Soviet government is so strong internationally and internally, when it has many ways to isolate Benjamin and his similar socially unstable comrades-in-arms. I will add to this that the whole matter of renewing the church, an attempt to make it not a servant of the bourgeoisie, but a feasible helper to the proletariat, is morally and factually dependent on the outcome of the sentence. If there are shootings at all, we, the Living Church (and I, first of all, personally), will be murderers of these unfortunates in the eyes of the crowd. The attempt to heal the church will be thwarted.

I allowed myself to turn without knowing you. I know about your humane heart, which will understand Benjamin's psychology and ... yes, will pity him.

I am unhappy that I cannot personally and in more detail state everything that I said above. But I believe in God - and I think that He will help me. And I believe in the Russian people, I deeply respect the workers 'and peasants' power of the people, I believe that the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, as the supreme will of the people, will condemn the deeds of these church criminals, headed by Benjamin, but it will also find in itself the strength, by the grace of the victorious proletariat, to leave life to these unfortunate , neutralizing them by isolation or otherwise.

Forgive me for Christ's sake for taking so much of your time.

Archpriest Alexander Vvedensky

Petrograd, Shpalernaya 34 sq. 17, 25 July 1922

P. S. I asked for more about Shein. Here are the reasons for my request. Despite his aristocratic past, he has always been deeply religious. And, being a priest, he did not interfere at all in any active church affairs.

- L. 50-51 rev. Certified typewritten copy of that time, made for the office work of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Top l. 50 a stamp and a handwritten note on the document's belonging to the proceedings of the Plenum meeting, minutes No. 3, item 5 of August 2, 1922 (No. 2436). Here is also the stamp of the Secret Archives of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) with an inventory number. Handwritten incoming number of the Central Committee of the RCP (b).

Notes and Comments:

The case contains a cover letter on the letterhead of the secretariat of the deputy chairman of the Council of People's Commissars and the STO A. I. Rykov, sent on July 29, 1922 "by order" of A. I. Rykov "for consideration" by the "Central Committee of the RCP, comrade STALIN . All-Russian Central Executive Committee, c. ENUKIDZE "signed by the head of the secretariat, deputy chairman of the STO B. Nesterov. The letter is stamped " SECRET ". Handwritten marks: 1) “vol. Molotov. 29.VII. A. N [azaretyan] "; 2) "29.VII. A. N [azaretyan] ”(made by the hand of A. M. Nazaretyan); 3) “ From the [secret] archive. For your information . 31 / VII. (V. Molotov) "; 4) "V. Kuibyshev ". A stamp and a handwritten note on the document's belonging to the office work of the Plenum meeting, minutes No. 3, item 5 of August 2, 1922 (No. 24-36). Stamp of the Bureau of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) with the date "29 / VIII-22" and the incoming number. (L. 49).

* So the crowd, fanatical brutal, will say.

²⁸The Karlovtsy Council ("Russian All-Foreign Church Council") met in Sremski Karlovtsy (Serbia) November 21 - December 2, 1921. Among the 163 members of the Council were 11 bishops, 22 representatives of monastic and white clergy, as well as prominent Orthodox scholars-theologians and 67 political leaders and military ranks of Wrangel's army. According to the Izvestia newspaper, Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, opening the Cathedral, “conveyed on behalf of the Patriarch a blessing for the cathedral labors,” but we have no documentary evidence of this statement by the newspaper, hostile to the Patriarch. The Council adopted a message to the Russian emigration calling for the restoration of the Romanov dynasty to the throne and an appeal to the Genoese conference participants not to negotiate with representatives of the Soviet government. The highest bodies of the Russian Orthodox Church, headed by Patriarch Tikhon, reacted negatively to these political actions of the Council (condemned and 34 delegates of the Council, headed by Archbishop Eulogius). On May 5, 1922, the Patriarch, together with the Holy Synod and the Supreme Church Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, abolished the Supreme Church Administration abroad, elected at the Council, disavowing the political declarations of the Council. On September 2, 1922, the foreign Bishops' Council, formally declaring its subordination to this abolition of the VTsU, in fact ignored it, instead forming the Provisional Holy Synod of Bishops Abroad. Patriarch Tikhon in November 1923 and in March - April 1925 confirmed his decree of May 5, 1922. The patriarch appointed Metropolitan Eulogius as the head of Russian Orthodox parishes abroad on January 30, 1922, who managed to create the famous theological center of Russian Orthodoxy in Paris. Metropolitan Eulogius broke up with the Karlovytsia center in June 1923.