The Truth of Christ in Public Life: from the Experience of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Early Twentieth Century

The article is devoted to the reaction of representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church to the revolutionary situation of 1905–1906. Four possible models of church-social action are given: official (Epistle of the Most Holy Governing Synod of January 14, 1905); radical (activities of the Christian Brotherhood of Struggle, aimed at the Christianization of the revolutionary movement); socio-ethical (the choice of a moral position in difficult social situations by members of the group of 32 St. Petersburg priests); fraternal (N. N. Neplyuev on the dissemination of the experience of the Holy Cross Labor Brotherhood). Examples of the implementation of each of the named models are given. A conclusion is made about how each of the described paradigms uses the expression “the truth of Christ” in its rhetoric.