G. P. Fedotov’s reflections on the situation and prospects of the orthodox church in the post-revolutionary Russia

To reveal and analyze the state of the Russian Orthodox Church, its position in the society and relations with the Soviet state, especially in the first post-revolutionary period of forming the new government’s confessional policy, were one of the main needs and tasks of thinkers and publicists of the first wave of the Russian emigration. The purpose of the article is to study the contribution to the solution of this problem made by G. P. Fedotov, a religious thinker, historian and one of the most famous publicists of the Russian diaspora. In his articles published in the journal “Modern Notes” and the “Bulletin of the RSHD”, Fedotov sought, in the first place, to think over the state of the Church and its relationship with the Soviet state in the context of those social and spiritual changes that had taken place in the new post-revolutionary Russia of the first years of the Soviet power. Fedotov noted that a peculiarity of the persecutions of the faith and the Church in the “new Russia” was that they were passed off as political crimes, which in fact were only pretend crimes. G. P. Fedotov gave a very detailed analysis of the essence and results of the church policy of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky), the Deputy Patriarchal Locum Tenens. Initially, its purpose was to continue Patriarch Tikhon’s policy, which was limited to the principle of loyalty towards the Soviet power. However, after the release of the Declaration of 1927, Metropolitan Sergius moved away from this principle. Assessing the whole Sergius’ course “by results”, Fedotov writes “about his failure”, without taking into account that the metropolitan’s compromise policy left a chance to maintain the Church at least partially.