The status of monasteries in the diocese of Novgorod during the first years of the Soviet regime

In this article, the author writes of the difficult state of monasteries in the Diocese of Novgorod during the first few years of the Soviet regime, and of their internal financial affairs and atempts to survive in a situation, in which the government adopted a new policy of trying to close all monasteries. Te author also describes the events that led up to the shuting down of these monasteries. He concludes thаt the monasteries had no opportunities to exist only by their religious activities. Despite the authorities’ desire to eliminate the monasteries, they were trying to survive and partly became farming communes. However, in the second decade of the twentieth century, the communes were abolished too. Te author uses different sources such as materials from State Archives of the Novgorod Region (GANA) and Chancery of Patriarch Tikhon and the Holy Synod, Novgorod Diocesan Council, and the data from Commission for the Separation of Church and State of the Tikhvin Council of Workers’ Peasants’ and Red Army Soldiers’ Deputies