On the problem of assessments of the synodal period in the renovationist schism (on the Siberian material)

The present study analyzes the assessments of the synodal period in official declarations, epistles, journalistic articles and theological works of the renovationist “hierarchs” and clerics in the first half of the 1920s. The first part of the article analyzes the assessments of the synodal period in the renovationist schism at the all-soviet level and in certain regions of European Russia. The declarations and publications of the period of institutionalization of the renovationist split are considered. The article examines the assessment of the synodal period in the work of the renovationist “metropolitan” Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky “Church and states”. The assessments of the synodal period are indicated in the materials of the work of the II Local council of 1923 and in articles in the central renovationist press. The second part of the article is devoted to the actual assessments of the synodal period by siberian renovationists. The article examines the references to the pre-revolutionary position of the Church in the official declarations of the siberian renovationist church structures. The messages of individual siberian “hierarchs” and the Siberian regional church council are also analyzed. The works of Irkutsk archpriest N. S. Popov- Kokoulin, who quite actively raised the topic of the pre-revolutionary state of the Church in his writings, are considered separately. It is concluded that in all the considered works the synodal period was evaluated negatively. The subordinate position of the Church and the religious and moral decline in the people were mainly criticized.