Comparative characteristics of the Renovationist and Gregorian schisms of the 1920s - 1940s

The article is devoted to the comparison of the two most significant schisms in the Russian Orthodox Church of the first half of the twentieth century - the Renovationist and the Gregorian ones. Compared are the causes and mechanisms of these schisms, the goals of the Soviet power behind their appearance, and the characteristics of the leading schismatic figures. The scale of the two schisms and their consequences are estimated. The essential similarities of the two schisms are revealed, which is why «gregorianism» was called «renewal No. 2» by the people, as well as their differences. Canonically both new movements cannot be classified only as a schism, but the renovationists went on a more radical break with the lawful hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church in the person of Patriarch Tikhon, compounding is anticanonically such actions as the accepting of married «bishops», the resolution of second marriage clergy, etc. From the moral point of view the renovationists, whose main task was «the struggle with the Church and the counterrevolution» (i. e., whistleblowing), showed considerably more ugly picture than the Gregorians, whose leaders in the late 1930s were almost completely killed by the NKVD.