Desacralization of tsarist authority in the works of the ideologist of the renovationist schism, professor B. V. Titlinov

This article discusses the development of the topic of desacralization of Tsarist authority in the works of a prominent figure in the Renovationist schism, prof. B. V. Titlinov. Studying Titlinov's position through the prism of a wide palette of views of the figures of church and social thought in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, the author of the article finds the similarity of the professor's ideas with the ideology of Marxism, and the similarity of ideas can be recorded starting from the period of the First Russian Revolution. Both Marxists and Titlinov ascribed to the Church an active position on the deification of tsarist authority. The author of the study compares Titlinov's position before the Revolution and after the 1917 Revolution, reveals the beginnings of the desacralization of royal authority in B. V. Titlinov's master's thesis of 1905, determines the activation of open anti-monarchism during the February Revolution of 1917 and generalizes Titlinov's theses in the Renovationist 1920s. The author also makes an assumption that the idea of desacralization of tsarist authority, which in the early twentieth century united many church thinkers in Russia, after its implementation in the reality of the Soviet system, ceased to be unifying. Such a change is interpreted in the study as an indicator of the illusory nature of the unity built on the desacralization of tsarist authority in the circles of church thinkers of the early 20th century. The difference in views on the sacred function of tsarist authority is indicated in the article as one of the prerequisites for the schism of 1922.