Editing Russian Orthodox Church (section)

===Soviet period===
{{See also|Religion in the Soviet Union|Persecution of Christians in the Soviet Union}}

[[File:Tikhon of Moscow.jpg|thumb|Patriarch [[Tikhon of Moscow]]]]

The Soviet Union, formally created in December 1922, was the first state to have elimination of religion as an ideological objective espoused by the country's ruling political party. Toward that end, the Communist regime confiscated church property, ridiculed religion, harassed believers, and propagated materialism and atheism in schools.<ref>Religious Persecution in the Soviet Union (Part II): Hearings before the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, 99th Cong. (1986). <nowiki>https://www.csce.gov/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/19862D072D1020hearing20religious20persecution20in20USSR20part202_0.pdf</nowiki> </ref> Actions toward particular religions, however, were determined by State interests, and most organized religions were never outlawed.

Orthodox clergy and active believers were treated by the Soviet law-enforcement apparatus as anti-revolutionary elements and were habitually subjected to formal prosecutions on political charges, arrests, exiles, [[Gulag|imprisonment in camps]], and later could also be incarcerated in [[Punitive psychiatry in the Soviet Union|mental hospitals]].<ref>''Father Arseny 1893–1973 Priest, Prisoner, Spiritual Father.'' Introduction pp. vi–1. St Vladimir's Seminary Press {{ISBN|0-88141-180-9}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|newspaper=The Washington Post|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/25/AR2006112500783.html|title=Anti-Communist Priest Gheorghe Calciu-Dumitreasa|first=Patricia|last=Sullivan|date=26 November 2006|page=C09}}</ref>

However, the Soviet policy vis-a-vis organised religion vacillated over time between, on the one hand, a utopian determination to substitute secular rationalism for what they considered to be an outmoded "superstitious" worldview and, on the other, pragmatic acceptance of the tenaciousness of religious faith and institutions. In any case, religious beliefs and practices did persist, not only in the domestic and private spheres but also in the scattered public spaces allowed by a state that recognized its failure to eradicate religion and the political dangers of an unrelenting culture war.<ref>John Shelton Curtis, ''The Russian Church and the Soviet State'' (Boston: Little Brown, 1953); Jane Ellis, ''The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History'' (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986); Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, ''The Russian Church Under the Soviet Regime 1917–1982'' (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1984); idem., ''A History of Marxist–Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies'' (New York; St. Martin's Press, 1987); Glennys Young, P''ower and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village'' (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997); Daniel Peris, ''Storming the Heavens: The Soviet League of the Militant Godless'' (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998); William B. Husband, ''"Godless Communists": Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia'' (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000; Edward Roslof, ''Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905–1946'' (Bloomington, Indiana, 2002)</ref>

[[File:St. Sophia Cathedral, Harbin, China.jpg|thumb|[[Saint Sophia Cathedral in Harbin|St. Sophia Cathedral]] in [[Harbin]], northeast China. In 1921, Harbin was home of at least 100,000 [[White émigré|White]] [[Harbin Russians|Russian]] émigrés.]]
The Russian Orthodox church was drastically weakened in May 1922, when the [[Living Church|Renovated (Living) Church]], a reformist movement backed by the Soviet secret police, broke away from Patriarch Tikhon (also see the [[Josephite Movement|Josephites]] and the [[Catacomb Church|Russian True Orthodox Church]]), a move that caused division among clergy and faithful that persisted until 1946.

Between 1917 and 1935, 130,000 Eastern Orthodox priests were arrested. Of these, 95,000 were put to death.{{citation needed|date=August 2023}} Many thousands of victims of persecution became recognized in a special canon of saints known as the "[[New Martyr|new martyrs]] and confessors of Russia".{{citation needed|date=August 2023}}

When Patriarch Tikhon died in 1925, the Soviet authorities forbade patriarchal election. Patriarchal ''locum tenens'' (acting Patriarch) [[Patriarch Sergius I of Moscow|Metropolitan Sergius]] (Stragorodsky, 1887–1944), going against the opinion of a major part of the church's parishes, in 1927 issued a declaration accepting the Soviet authority over the church as legitimate, pledging the church's cooperation with the government and condemning political dissent within the church. By this declaration, Sergius granted himself authority that he, being a deputy of imprisoned [[Peter of Krutitsy|Metropolitan Peter]] and acting against his will, had no right to assume according to the XXXIV [[Canons of the Apostles|Apostolic canon]], which led to a split with the [[Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia]] abroad and the [[Catacomb Church|Russian True Orthodox Church]] (Russian Catacomb Church) within the Soviet Union, as they allegedly remained faithful to the Canons of the Apostles, declaring the part of the church led by Metropolitan Sergius [[schism (religion)|schism]], sometimes coined ''Sergianism''. Due to this canonical disagreement it is disputed which church has been the legitimate successor to the Russian Orthodox Church that had existed before 1925.<ref name="14spravka">{{in lang|ru}} Alekseev, Valery. [http://www.ipc.od.ua/14spravka.html Historical and canonical reference for reasons making believers leave the Moscow patriarchate]. Created for the government of [[Moldova]] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061129175211/http://www.ipc.od.ua/14spravka.html |date=29 November 2006 }}</ref><ref>Talantov, Boris. 1968. [http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/cat_tal.aspx The Moscow Patriarchate and Sergianism] (English translation).
</ref><ref>[http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/01newstucture/pagesen/news04/meylavrinsa.html Protopriest Yaroslav Belikow. 11 December 2004. The Visit of His Eminence Metropolitan Laurus to the Parishes of Argentina and Venezuela] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070429165319/http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/01newstucture/pagesen/news04/meylavrinsa.html |date=29 April 2007 }}."
</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=http://catacomb.org.ua/modules.php?name=Pages&go=page&pid=1099|title=Церковные Церковные Ведомости: Духовное наследие Катакомбной Церкви и Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей - Patriarch Tikhon's Catacomb Church. History of the Russian True Orthodox Church] Ведомости: Духовное наследие Катакомбной Церкви и Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей – Patriarch Tikhon's Catacomb Church. History of the Russian True Orthodox Church|website=catacomb.org.ua|access-date=25 December 2022}}</ref>

In 1927, Metropolitan [[Eulogius (Georgiyevsky)|Evlogy]] of Paris broke with the ROCOR (along with Metropolitan [[Platon (Rozhdestvensky)]] of New York, leader of the Russian Metropolia in America). In 1930, after taking part in a prayer service in London in supplication for Christians suffering under the Soviets, Evlogy was removed from office by Sergius and replaced. Most of Evlogy's parishes in Western Europe remained loyal to him; Evlogy then petitioned Ecumenical Patriarch [[Photius II of Constantinople|Photius II]] to be received under his canonical care and was received in 1931, making a number of parishes of Russian Orthodox Christians outside Russia, especially in Western Europe an [[Exarchate]] of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as the [[Archdiocese of Russian Orthodox churches in Western Europe]].

[[File:Christ saviour explosion.jpg|thumb|left|Photograph taken of the 1931 demolition of the [[Cathedral of Christ the Saviour]] in Moscow]]

Moreover, in the [[1929 Soviet Union legislative election|1929 elections]], the Orthodox Church attempted to formulate itself as a full-scale opposition group to the Communist Party, and attempted to run candidates of its own against the Communist candidates. Article 124 of the [[1936 Soviet Constitution]] officially allowed for freedom of religion within the Soviet Union, and along with initial statements of it being a multi-candidate election, the Church again attempted to run its own religious candidates in the [[1937 Soviet Union legislative election|1937 elections]]. However the support of multicandidate elections was retracted several months before the elections were held and in neither 1929 nor 1937 were any candidates of the Orthodox Church elected.<ref>[[Sheila Fitzpatrick|Fitzpatrick, Sheila]]. 1999. ''Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s''. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 179-82.</ref>

After [[Operation Barbarossa|Nazi Germany's attack on the Soviet Union]] in 1941, [[Joseph Stalin]] revived the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort. In the early hours of 5 September 1943, Metropolitans Sergius (Stragorodsky), [[Patriarch Alexy I of Moscow|Alexius (Simansky)]] and [[Nicholas (Yarushevich)]] had a meeting with Stalin and received permission to convene a council on 8 September 1943, which elected Sergius Patriarch of Moscow and all the Rus'. This is considered by some as violation of the [[Canons of the Apostles|Apostolic canon]], as no church hierarch could be consecrated by secular authorities.<ref name="14spravka"/> A new patriarch was elected, theological schools were opened, and thousands of churches began to function. The [[Slavic Greek Latin Academy|Moscow Theological Academy Seminary]], which had been closed since 1918, was re-opened.

In December 2017, the [[Security Service of Ukraine]] lifted classified top secret status of documents revealing that the [[People's Commissariat for State Security|NKVD]] of the USSR and its units were engaged in the selection of candidates for participation in the [[1945 Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church|1945 Local Council]] from the representatives of the clergy and the laity. NKVD demanded "to outline persons who have religious authority among the clergy and believers, and at the same time checked for civic or patriotic work". In the letter sent in September 1944, it was emphasized: "It is important to ensure that the number of nominated candidates is dominated by the agents of the NKBD, capable of holding the line that we need at the Council".<ref>{{cite web |url = https://espreso.tv/news/2017/12/10/moskovskyy_patriarkhat_stvoryuvaly_agenty_nkvs_svidchat_rozskerecheni_sbu_dokumenty |title = Московський патріархат створювали агенти НКВС, – свідчать розсекречені СБУ документи |website = espreso.tv }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.znak.com/2017-12-10/sbu_rassekretila_arhivy_moskovskogo_patriarha_v_1945_godu_izbirali_agenty_nkgb|title=СБУ рассекретила архивы: московского патриарха в 1945 году избирали агенты НКГБ|website=www.znak.com|access-date=11 December 2017|archive-date=11 December 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171211003534/https://www.znak.com/2017-12-10/sbu_rassekretila_arhivy_moskovskogo_patriarha_v_1945_godu_izbirali_agenty_nkgb|url-status=dead}}</ref>

====Persecution under Khrushchev====
A new and widespread persecution of the church was subsequently instituted under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. A second round of repression, harassment and church closures took place between 1959 and 1964 when [[Nikita Khrushchev]] was in office. The number of Orthodox churches fell from around 22,000 in 1959 to around 8,000 in 1965;<ref>{{Cite book|title=Tsarist and Communist Russia 1855–1964|last=Sally|first=Waller|date=30 April 2015|isbn=9780198354673|edition= Second |location=Oxford|oclc=913789474}}</ref> priests, monks and faithful were killed or imprisoned{{citation needed|date=March 2023}} and the number of functioning monasteries was reduced to less than twenty.

Subsequent to Khrushchev's ousting, the Church and the government remained on unfriendly terms{{Vague|reason=What characterised it as unfriendly? Also its unscientific term|date=April 2023}} until 1988. In practice, the most important aspect of this conflict was that openly religious people could not join the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]], which meant that they could not hold any political office. However, among the general population, large numbers{{Clarify|reason=Needs statistics|date=April 2023}} remained religious.

Some Orthodox believers and even priests took part in the [[dissident]] movement and became [[prisoner of conscience|prisoners of conscience]]. The Orthodox priests [[Gleb Yakunin]], Sergiy Zheludkov and others spent years in Soviet prisons and exile for their efforts in defending freedom of worship.<ref>"Dissent in the Russian Orthodox Church," ''Russian Review'', Vol. 28, N 4, October 1969, pp. 416–27.</ref> Among the prominent figures of that time were Dmitri Dudko<ref name="Dudko">{{Cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/fr-dmitry-dudko-550017.html|title=Fr Dmitry Dudko|date=30 June 2004|work=[[The Independent]]|accessdate=25 December 2022}}</ref> and [[Alexander Men|Aleksandr Men]]. Although he tried to keep away from practical work of the dissident movement intending to better fulfil his calling as a priest, there was a spiritual link between Men and many of the dissidents. For some of them he was a friend; for others, a godfather; for many (including [[Yakunin]]), a spiritual father.<ref>''Keston Institute and the Defence of Persecuted Christians in the USSR''</ref>{{Obsolete source|date=April 2023}}{{Unreliable source?|date=April 2023}}

According to [[Vladimir Bogoyavlensky|Metropolitan Vladimir]], by 1988 the number of functioning churches in the [[Soviet Union]] had fallen to 6,893 and the number of functioning convents and monasteries to just 21.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Dunlop |first=John B. |date=December 1990 |title=The Russian Orthodox Church and nationalism after 1988 |url=https://biblicalstudies.gospelstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/18-4_292.pdf |journal=Religion in Communist Lands |language=en |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=292–306 |doi=10.1080/09637499008431483 |issn=0307-5974}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Bell |first1=Helen |last2=Ellis |first2=Jane |date=December 1988 |title=The millennium celebrations of 1988 in the USSR |url=https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/pdf/rcl/16-4_292.pdf |journal=Religion in Communist Lands |language=en |volume=16 |issue=4 |pages=292–328 |doi=10.1080/09637498808431389 |issn=0307-5974}}</ref> In 1987 in the [[Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic|Russian SFSR]], between 40% and 50% of newborn babies (depending on the region) were baptized. Over 60% of all deceased received Christian funeral services.{{citation needed|date=March 2023}}

==== Glasnost and evidence of collaboration with the KGB ====
{{Main|Glasnost}}

Beginning  in the late 1980s, under Mikhail Gorbachev, the new political and social freedoms resulted in the return of many church buildings to the church, so they could be restored by local parishioners. A pivotal point in the history of the Russian Orthodox Church came in 1988, the millennial anniversary of the [[Christianization of Kievan Rus']]. Throughout the summer of that year, major government-supported celebrations took place in Moscow and other cities; many older churches and some monasteries were reopened. An implicit ban on religious propaganda on state TV was finally lifted. For the first time in the [[history of the Soviet Union]], people could watch live transmissions of church services on television.

[[Gleb Yakunin]], a critic of the [[Moscow Patriarchate]] who was one of those who briefly gained access to the [[KGB]]'s archives in the early 1990s, argued that the Moscow Patriarchate was "practically a subsidiary, a sister company of the KGB".<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119792074745834591?mod=hpp_us_inside_today |title=Born Again. Putin and Orthodox Church Cement Power in Russia|author= Andrew Higgins|work=[[Wall Street Journal]]|date= 18 December 2007}}</ref> Critics charge that the archives showed the extent of active participation of the top ROC hierarchs in the KGB efforts overseas.<ref name="Vypiski">[http://www.krotov.info/acts/20/1960/1967_loubyanka.html Выписки из отчетов КГБ о работе с лидерами Московской патриархии] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081208122858/http://www.krotov.info/acts/20/1960/1967_loubyanka.html |date=8 December 2008 }} Excerpts from KGB reports on work with the leaders of the Moscow Patriarchate</ref><ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/world/1999/feb/12/1 |title=Russian Patriarch 'was KGB spy|work= [[The Guardian]]|date= 12 February 1999}}</ref><ref name="Andrew">[[Christopher Andrew (historian)|Christopher Andrew]] and [[Vasili Mitrokhin]], The [[Mitrokhin Archive]]: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), {{ISBN|0-14-028487-7}}</ref><ref name="Albats">[[Yevgenia Albats]] and Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. ''The State Within a State: The KGB and Its Hold on Russia – Past, Present, and Future''. 1994. {{ISBN|0-374-52738-5}}, p. 46.</ref><ref name="PrChurch">[[Konstantin Preobrazhensky|Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy]] – [http://cicentre.com/Documents/putin_espionage_church.html Putin's Espionage Church] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081209002520/http://cicentre.com/Documents/putin_espionage_church.html |date=9 December 2008 }}, an excerpt from a forthcoming book, "Russian Americans: A New KGB Asset" by [[Konstantin Preobrazhensky|Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy]]</ref><ref name="CWNrep">[http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=13868 Confirmed: Russian Patriarch Worked with KGB, Catholic World News. Retrieved 29 December 2007.]</ref> [[George Trofimoff]], the highest-ranking US military officer ever indicted for, and convicted of, [[espionage]] by the [[United States]] and sentenced to [[life imprisonment]] on 27 September 2001, had been "recruited into the service of the KGB"<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Trofimoff_Affidavit.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080627153846/http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Trofimoff_Affidavit.htm|url-status=dead|title=George Trofimoff Affidavit|archive-date=27 June 2008}}</ref> by Igor Susemihl (a.k.a. Zuzemihl), a bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church (subsequently, a high-ranking hierarch—the ROC Metropolitan Iriney of [[Vienna]], who died in July 1999).<ref>[http://ortho-rus.ru/cgi-bin/ps_file.cgi?2_599 Ириней (Зуземиль)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071109133930/http://www.ortho-rus.ru/cgi-bin/ps_file.cgi?2_599 |date=9 November 2007 }} Biography information on the web-site of the ROC</ref>

Konstanin Kharchev, former chairman of the Soviet Council on Religious Affairs, explained: "Not a single candidate for the office of bishop or any other high-ranking office, much less a member of the Holy Synod, went through without confirmation by the Central Committee of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|CPSU]] and the [[KGB]]".<ref name="Albats" /> Professor Nathaniel Davis points out: "If the bishops wished to defend their people and survive in office, they had to collaborate to some degree with the KGB, with the commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, and with other party and governmental authorities".<ref>Nathaniel Davis, ''A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy'', (Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p. 96 Davis quotes one bishop as saying: "Yes, we—I, at least, and I say this first about myself—I worked together with the KGB. I cooperated, I made signed statements, I had regular meetings, I made reports. I was given a pseudonym—a code name as they say there. ... I knowingly cooperated with them—but in such a way that I undeviatingly tried to maintain the position of my Church, and, yes, also to act as a patriot, insofar as I understood, in collaboration with these organs. I was never a stool pigeon, nor an informer."</ref> Patriarch Alexy II, acknowledged that compromises were made with the Soviet government by bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, himself included, and he publicly repented for these compromises.<ref>He said: "Defending one thing, it was necessary to give somewhere else. Were there any other organizations, or any other people among those who had to carry responsibility not only for themselves but for thousands of other fates, who in those years in the Soviet Union were not compelled to act likewise? Before those people, however, to whom the compromises, silence, forced passivity or expressions of loyalty permitted by the leaders of the church in those years caused pain, before these people, and not only before God, I ask forgiveness, understanding and prayers." From an interview of Patriarch Alexy II, given to ''Izvestia'' No 137, 10 June 1991, entitled "Patriarch Alexy II: – I Take upon Myself Responsibility for All that Happened", English translation from Nathaniel Davis, ''A Long Walk to Church: A Contemporary History of Russian Orthodoxy'' (Oxford: Westview Press, 1995), p. 89</ref><ref>[http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/roca_history.aspx History of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090513181214/http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/roca_history.aspx |date=13 May 2009 }}, by St. John (Maximovich) of Shanghai and San Francisco, 31 December 2007</ref>