Editing Russian Orthodox Church (section)

===Russian Revolution and Civil War===
{{see also|Russian Revolution}}
In 1914, there were 55,173 Russian Orthodox [[church (building)|churches]] and 29,593 [[chapel]]s, 112,629 [[priest]]s and [[deacon]]s, 550 [[monastery|monasteries]] and 475 [[convent]]s with a total of 95,259 monks and nuns in Russia.<ref>{{cite web|title=What role did the Orthodox Church play in the Reformation in the 16th Century?|url=http://www.stgeorgegreenville.org/OrthodoxLife/Chapter1/Chap1-9.html|website=Living the Orthodox Life|access-date=25 August 2015|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150829172737/http://www.stgeorgegreenville.org/OrthodoxLife/Chapter1/Chap1-9.html|archive-date=29 August 2015}}</ref>

The year 1917 was a major turning point in Russian history, and also the Russian Orthodox Church.<ref>[[Aurelio Palmieri|Palmieri, F. Aurelio]]. [https://archive.org/stream/catholicworld02unkngoog#page/n166/mode/2up ''"The Church and the Russian Revolution,"''] [https://archive.org/stream/catholicworld02unkngoog#page/n594/mode/2up Part II], The Catholic World, Vol. CV, N°. 629, August 1917.</ref> In early March 1917 (O.S.), the Tsar was [[Nicholas II of Russia#Abdication (1917)|forced to abdicate]], the [[Russian Empire|Russian empire]] began to implode, and the government's direct control of the Church was all but over by August 1917. On 15 August (O.S.), in the Moscow [[Dormition Cathedral, Moscow|Dormition Cathedral]] in the Kremlin, the [[1917–18 Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church|Local (''Pomestniy'') Council]] of the ROC, the first such convention since the late 17th century, opened. The council continued its sessions until September 1918 and adopted a number of important reforms, including the restoration of [[Patriarch of Moscow and all Rus'|Patriarchate]], a decision taken 3 days after the [[Bolshevik]]s [[October Revolution|overthrew the Provisional Government]] in Petrograd on 25 October (O.S.). On 5 November, Metropolitan [[Patriarch Tikhon of Moscow|Tikhon of Moscow]] was selected as the first Russian Patriarch after about 200 years of Synodal rule.

In early February 1918, the Bolshevik-controlled government of Soviet Russia enacted the [[Decree on separation of church from state and school from church]] that proclaimed [[separation of church and state]] in Russia, freedom to "profess any religion or profess none", deprived religious organisations of the right to own any property and legal status. Legal religious activity in the territories controlled by Bolsheviks was effectively reduced to services and sermons inside church buildings. The Decree and attempts by Bolshevik officials to requisition church property caused sharp resentment on the part of the ROC clergy and provoked violent clashes on some occasions: on 1 February (19 January O.S.), hours after the bloody confrontation in Petrograd's [[Alexander Nevsky Lavra]] between the Bolsheviks trying to take control of the monastery's premises and the believers, [[Tikhon of Moscow|Patriarch Tikhon]] issued a proclamation that [[anathema]]tised the perpetrators of such acts.<ref>{{cite web |url = http://st-elizabet.narod.ru/raznoe/anafema_sovetchikam.htm |title = Анафема св. патриарха Тихона против советской власти и призыв встать на борьбу за веру Христову |access-date = 5 March 2015 }}</ref>

The church was caught in the crossfire of the [[Russian Civil War]] that began later in 1918, and church leadership, despite their attempts to be politically neutral (from the autumn of 1918), as well as the clergy generally were perceived by the Soviet authorities as a "counter-revolutionary" force and thus subject to suppression and eventual liquidation.

In the first five years after the Bolshevik revolution, 28 bishops and 1,200 priests were executed.<ref>{{cite news |last = Ostling |first = Richard |title = Cross meets Kremlin |work = [[TIME Magazine]] |date = 24 June 2001 |url = http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070813173443/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,150718,00.html |url-status = dead |archive-date = 13 August 2007 }}</ref>