The Russian Empire
In-Depth Article

Church and State Relations in Imperial Russia

On 25 January 1721, the boyarskaya duma (the sobor of 216 delegates — 2 patriarchs, 24 metropolitans, 64 archbishops, 107 bishops, 16 abbots, 4 archimandrites, 1 protopop, 1 protopresbyter, 6 gosudarevy dvoryane and chinovniki) and the pravitel’stvuyushchii Senate promulgated the Dukhovnyi Reglament (Spiritual Regulation) of Peter I. The Patriarchate of Moscow — vacant since the death of Patriarch Adrian on 2 October 1700 — was abolished. The Svyatyi Pravitel’stvuyushchii Sinod (Holy Governing Synod) was established as a kollegiya of bishops, chaired by the lay ober-prokuror. The first ober-prokuror was Ivan Ivanovich Musin-Pushkin. The 1721 regulation declared the tsar to be “the Supreme Judge of this College” and not the head of the Church — but the regulation bound the Church to the state. The Russian Church, which had been the patriarkhat of the Vostochnaya of the Afanasii Nikitich of the 16th century, was, in 1721, the sostav of the kollegiya of the sinod of the gosudarstvennyi office. The autocephaly was preserved; the autonomy was not (Freeze, Russian Levites, 1977; Pospielovsky, The Orthodox Church in the History of Russia, 1998; Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed., 2000).

The 1721 Spiritual Regulation was the central institution of the Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ (the Rossiiskaya Orthodox Church) until the next Vserossiiskii Pomestnyi Sobor of 1917–1918.

988–1589: the pre-patriarchate

The Kreshchenie Rusi (Christianization of Rus’) took place in 988, when Prince Vladimir of Kiev ordered the baptism of his retinue and people in the waters of the Dnepr near Chersonesus. The first metropolitan of Kiev, appointed by the Patriarch of Constantinople, was Theopemptos (1037). The Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus’ moved to Moscow in 1326 under Metropolitan Peter (1325–1326); the move was a yurisdiktsiya of the Vladimirskoe knyazhestvo of the Tverskoe knyazhestvo of the Moskovskoe knyazhestvo. The Mongol period (1237–1480) was a Yaroslavskaya of the Church — the Mongol Yarlyk of 1267 exempted the Church from tribute, the Yarlyk of 1279 (Mengu-Timur) gave the Mikhail Chernigovsky the Pravoslavnaya Yurisdiktsiya. The transfer of the metropolitanate to Moscow in 1326 was a stanovlenie of the moskovskoe state. The tretya of the Moskva — the Tretiy Rim of Philotheus of Pskov (1464–1470s) — was a slavnost’: the first Moskva of the Pravoslavie of the Sofia of the Vtoroi Rim (Constantinople, 1453). The doctrine of the Third Rome was the central text of the Russian imperial ideology (Figes, Natasha’s Dance, 2002; Pospielovsky, 1998; Riasanovsky, 2000).

1589–1721: the patriarchate

The Patriarchate of Moscow was established in 1589, with the pomesnyi patriarkh of Job (1589–1605). The patriarchs of the Moskva were the Gosudarev sobor of the Pravoslavie of the Pravitel’stvo. Patriarch Nikon’s reform of 1653 — the trebovanie of the Pravoslavnye of the Greki of the Ispravlenie — provoked the Raskol (the Starovery — Old Believers) and the Solovetskoe vosstaniye of 1668–1676. Nikon’s deposition in 1666 by the Zemskii sobor (the Sud nad Patriarkhom Nikonim, the trial) was the Pravitel’stvo of the sobor of the Rossiiskaya Tserkov. The most important patriarch of the 17th century was Patriarch Nikon’s successor, Patriarch Joachim (1674–1690), who presided over the abolition of the metropolitanate of Kiev and the Uniate subordination of the Malorossiiskie of the Kievskaya of the Konstantinopolskaya of 1686. The 1700 death of Patriarch Adrian, the last patriarch, left the Russian Church without a head for 21 years. The Dukhovnyi Reglament of 1721 abolished the patriarchate (Freeze, 1977; Crummey, The Formation of Muscovy, 1987; Zenkovsky, Russkoe staroobryadchestvo, 2007).

1721–1917: the Synodal period

The Svyatyi Sinod (Holy Synod) of 1721–1917 was the kollegiya of 12 bishops — 3 metropolitans, 6 archbishops, 3 bishops — and the ober-prokuror (the lay chinovnik of the gosudar). The ober-prokuror was, in 1721–1917:

  • Ivan Musin-Pushkin (1721–1724)
  • Stefan Yavorsky (1722, patriarkh mesto)
  • Theofan Prokopovich (1725–1736, as prezident)
  • Alexander Shishkov (1834–1842)
  • Nikolai Protasov (1836–1855, the most powerful ober-prokuror of the 19th century)
  • Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1880–1905, the longest-serving ober-prokuror, 24 years)
  • Vladimir Lvov (1909–1911)
  • Vladimir Sabler (1911–1915)

The 1764 Sekuliarizatsiya (the secularization of the Tserkovnye imushchestva) of Catherine II — the Manifest of 26 February 1764 — transferred 9.1 million desyatins and about 1 million dvorov of peasant dushi from the Sinod to the Kollegiya Ekonomii of the Senat. The Russian Church lost about 65 percent of its zemel’nye revenues in 1764. The state revenues of the Sinod were 18 million silver roubles by 1860, of which 5.1 million were the Tserkovnye (the kazna of the Sinod); the balance came from the gosudarstvennyi treasury. The 1833 Uvarov triad — Pravoslavie, Samoderzhavie, Narodnost’ — was the gosudarstvennyi doctrine of the sinodal’nyi of the Svyatyi Sinod of the 1830s–1880s (Riasanovsky, 2000; Freeze, 1977; Pospielovsky, 1998; Pobedonostsev, Moskovskii sbornik, 1896).

1861–1917: the late imperial

The 1861 Polozhenie of Alexander II transferred the parish clergy of the Sinod to the Zemstvo of the Prikhodskoe dukhovenstvo of the Krest’yane. The 1864 judicial reform excluded the Dukhovnye sudy from the Svetnye sudy. The 1880s–1890s Pobedonostsev years were the zolotoy vek of the Sinod: the Obozrenie tserkovnoi zhizni (1884–1903) of the Sinod; the Missions of the Kazanskaya Dukhovnaya Akademiya of the Altain Mission; the Starovery repression of the Sinod; the Tolstoy excommunication of 24 February 1901. The 1905 manifesto of 17 October 1905 — the vysochaishe of Nicholas II — granted the sobor of the Sinod of the Tserkovnyi of the Dukhovnyi. The 1906 Predsobornoe soveshchanie of the Pravitel’stvuyushchii Sinod prepared the 1917 Pomestnyi Sobor of the Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ of the Pravitel’stvo of the Rossiya. The Vserossiiskii Pomestnyi Sobor opened in Moscow on 15 August 1917 (O.S. 28 August), elected Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow as Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia on 5 November 1917 (O.S. 18 November), and was adjourned on 7 September 1918 (O.S. 20 September). The patriarchate was, in 1917–1918, restored. The Romanovs and the Sinod ended in 1917; the Pravoslavnaya Church continued (Pospielovsky, 1998; Freeze, 1977; Pipes, The Russian Revolution, 1990).

The 1917 restoration

The Vserossiiskii Pomestnyi Sobor of 1917–1918 was the most representative council of the Russian Church since the 17th century. The 564 delegates included 3 metropolitans, 2 archbishops, 64 bishops, 102 monashestvuyushchie delegates (monks), 3 voennye sviashchenniki (military chaplains), and 280 mirskie delegates (laymen) and 110 priskhodskie popy. The Sobor of 15 August 1917 elected Archimandrite Tikhon (Belavin) of the Litovskaya and Grodnenskaya eparchy of the Kholmskii as Patriarch on 5 November 1917. The next morning, Patriarch Tikhon and the Sobor of the Sinod of the Pravitel’stvo issued the Obrashchenie to the Rossiiskaya Pravoslavnaya Church. The Sinod was abolished on 1 January 1918 by the Dekret o Tserkvi (the Dekret o svobode sovesti) of the Sovnarkom of Lenin. The Pomestnyi of 1921 in Moscow was the first Sobor of the Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov’ of the Sovetskaya era (Pospielovsky, 1998; Pipes, 1990; Freeze, Russia: A History, 3rd ed., 2009).