“The trial of Metropolitan Benjamin”: Memoirs of Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov) about the campaign to seize church valuables and the Petrograd trial of 1922

The published article by Bishop Cassian (Bezobrazov) “The Trial of Metropolitan Veniamin” is his memoirs about the campaign to confiscate church valuables in Petrograd in 1922 and the resulting trial of the clergy and laity of the city. The memoirs were written by S. S. Bezobrazov immediately after emigration, in 1922. Only in 1949, their fragments, brought together under the title “The Trial of Metropolitan Veniamin” were published in “The Word of the Church,” a supplement to the Parisian newspaper “Russian Thought.” The memoirist vividly describes church-state relations during the campaign to confiscate church valuables in Petrograd and the internal church discussions it provoked, touches on the circumstances of the emergence of the “renovationist” schism and dwells in detail on the course of the meetings of the Petrograd trial, of which he had the opportunity to be a direct witness. Published memoirs are provided with an introductory article and scientific commentary.