The essence of Grigorian schism in the Russian Orthodox Church of the 2nd quarter of the 20th century in the 1930s-2010s historiography ofthe problem: aspects of terminology

The author analyzes Russian and foreign historiography of the 1930s-2010s that concerns the history of the Russian Orthodox Church and the schisms of the 2nd quarter of the 20th century. Three groups of terminological problems are determined. They are related to the introduction of names of church groups as scientific terms, the grading of church currents as political parties, such as the left and the right, and pointing out their features and characteristics according to their composition and administrative management. Special attention is given to those differential features that allow to identify Orthodox currents: synonyms, names of hierarchs who led these formations, church administrative bodies, social composition as regards their political orientation towards the Soviet state, territorial situation and political activity. With the help of differential features, the author introduces the principle of division of the church body into two opposing camps: renovationists and Tikhonovtsy. The latter is further divided into three autonomous branches: Grigorievtsy (Grigorians), Sergievtsy (Sergians, neo-renovationists, Moscow Patriarchate) and various sorts of autocepha-lists. The author also formulates definitions for each of the denominations, including Grigorians that are defined as apostates from Tikhon's group. They began their own church activity as a governing body of the Temporary Higher Church Council under the aegis of Yekaterinburg archbishop Grigoriy (Yatskovskiy) and other distinguished hierarchs after the death of Patriarch Tikhon (Belavin) in 1925. This group functioned in opposition to the deputy of the Patriarch, metropolitan Sergiy (Stragorodskiy). For the members of Grigorian schism in Tomsk, the usage of the name of archbishop Dimitriy (Belikov) and the proper names Tomsk, Siberia was typical. The followers of Grigorianism (Borisovchina) in Moscow used the name of bishop Boris (Rukin). The issues of such names of group membership as "old church" and "Patriarch's church" are still up for debate, as is the issue of defining Grigorians as either left- or right-wing schisms of Tikhon's church. As a result, there continues to exist a terminological ambiguity that poses additional problems in the study of the Grigorian schism both nation-wide and at a regional level.

Keywords

Authors

References