Read the messages of Patriarch Tikhon. Message from Patriarch Tikhon to the children of the Orthodox Russian Church

Archpriest GEORGE MITROFANOV

HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

(1900-1927)

The first messages of Patriarch Tikhon*

On January 19, 1918, on the eve of the start of the second session of the Council, just before the appearance of the decree on freedom of conscience, a message from Patriarch Tikhon appeared. This was not his first message. The fact is that no matter what decrees the Council of People's Commissars came up with, the real policy of the Bolshevik authorities had already manifested itself in November-December 1917. It was obvious that the Bolsheviks were not yet in control of the situation in the country, and the masses, finding themselves without guidance from the state authorities, were spontaneously committing many atrocities. It was also obvious that without involving the broad masses of the population in their policies, the Bolsheviks would not be able to implement their policies. Patriarch Tikhon, realizing that it is during this period of beginning persecution of the Church that much will depend on the position of the people, writes several of his messages, in which he first of all addresses the people.

The Patriarch, with amazing insight, was able even then, in the first months of the existence of Bolshevik tyranny, to identify all the most important problems in both church and state life, to indicate the reasons for the destructive tendencies of Russian history at that time. Let us remember his message on accession to the patriarchal throne dated December 18 (31), 1917. It would seem that it should be filled with joy that the patriarchate has finally been revived in our country. What does the Patriarch write?

In the time of God’s wrath, in days of much sorrow and difficulty, We entered the ancient patriarchal place. The trials of a grueling war and disastrous turmoil are tormenting our Motherland, sorrow from the invasion of foreigners and internecine warfare. But most destructive of all is the spiritual turmoil that consumes the heart. The Christian principles of state and social construction have become darkened in the people's conscience, faith itself has weakened, and the godless spirit of this world is raging. Our Holy Church suffers from the neglect of her children, from the coldness of hearts, and our Russian state suffers with it.

This is a very important point. The Patriarch addresses the people already in this first message. In this case, he hopes that the people will come to their senses, stop, and then the chaos in the country will stop.

A little time passes, two weeks, and in his word spoken in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior before the New Year's prayer service, January 1 (14), 1918, Saint Tikhon returns to the same topic.

Unless the Lord builds a house, those who build it labor in vain; they rise early in vain and sit up late.(Ps. 126, 1-2). This was fulfilled in ancient times by the Babylonian builders. It is coming true today and with our own eyes. And our builders want make a name for yourself, with his reforms and decrees to benefit not only the unfortunate Russian people, but also the whole world, and even peoples much more cultural than us. And this arrogant undertaking suffers the same fate as the plans of the Babylonians: instead of good, bitter disappointment is brought. Wanting to make us rich and needing nothing, they actually turn us into miserable, miserable, poor and naked (Rev. 3:17). Instead of the recently great and powerful Russia, terrible to its enemies and strong, they made of it one miserable name, an empty place, breaking it into parts, devouring one another in an internecine war. When you read the Lamentation of Jeremiah, you involuntarily mourn with the words of the prophet and our dear Motherland. We have forgotten the Lord! They rushed after new happiness, began to run after deceptive shadows, clung to the earth, to bread, money, drunk with the wine of freedom - and so in order to get all this, as much as possible, they took it for themselves, so that there was nothing left for others. The Church condemns this kind of construction of ours and We strongly warn that success we will not have any until we remember God, without whom nothing good can be done until we turn to Him with all my heart and with all my mind. Now voices are heard more and more often that it is not our plans and construction efforts, which we were so rich in last summer, that will save Russia, but only a miracle - if we are worthy of it.

These words opened a qualitatively new stage in both our church and state life. Dramatically, almost in the spirit of the holy martyr Hermogenes, the Patriarch appeals to all those who have not yet lost the sense of their connection with the Orthodox Church, and who quantitatively constitute the majority of the Russian people, to the Russian Orthodox people. It is difficult to say how futile these appeals were then, but the Patriarch understood that one appeal had disappeared, another had passed, and everything was increasing.

On the eve of the opening of the second session of the Council, January 19 (February 1), 1918, the Patriarch writes another message, the harshest message he wrote at this time, a message that is known as the “message with anathema.”

The patriarch faces the need to anathematize because he is not heard, and takes full responsibility for this message upon himself, he composes this message on his own behalf.

The Holy Orthodox Church of Christ in the Russian land is now going through a difficult time: persecution has been raised against the truth of Christ by the open and secret enemies of this truth and are striving to destroy the work of Christ, and instead of Christian love, they are sowing seeds of malice, hatred and fratricidal warfare everywhere. The commandments of Christ about love for neighbors have been forgotten and trampled upon: daily news reaches Us about terrible brutal beatings of innocent people and even people lying on their sick beds, guilty only of the fact that they honestly fulfilled their duty to the Motherland, that all their strength They relied on serving the good of the people.

The following episode can be cited as an illustration of these words of the message. It is known that General Dukhonin was appointed the last Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army. When he learned about what happened in Petrograd, learned that a government had come to power preparing a separate peace with Germany and had already destroyed the army, he realized that the fate of the Russian army was decided. Naturally, even at the headquarters of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief, real riots began, they were waiting for a new commissar who would come and authorize the beating of officers by soldiers. Dukhonin courageously remained at Headquarters, giving orders for the release from Bykhov of General Kornilov, Denikin and other prisoners, who were first to be torn to pieces. It was thanks to this that they were able to go to the Don and organize the White movement just at the very time we are talking about. And Dukhonin himself was waiting for his end. The new Commander-in-Chief, Ensign Krylenko, arrives, and Dukhovin was simply torn to pieces by revolutionary soldiers with “advanced consciousness” in front of this Krylenko’s eyes. And there were a huge number of such cases. They killed generals, killed officers, killed officials, killed priests. This is what is meant in the message.

...And all this is happening not only under the cover of night darkness, but also in the open, in daylight, with hitherto unheard of insolence and merciless cruelty, without any trial and with the violation of all rights and legality - it is happening these days in almost all cities and villages of our Fatherland: both in the capitals and on the remote outskirts. Come to your senses, madmen, stop your bloody reprisals. After all, what you are doing is not only a cruel deed, it is truly a satanic deed, for which you are subject to the fire of Gehenna in the future life - the afterlife, and the terrible curse of posterity in the present - earthly life. By the authority given to Us by God, we forbid you to approach the Mysteries of Christ, we anathematize you, if only you still bear Christian names, and although by birth you belong to the Orthodox Church. I also conjure all of you, the faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ, not to enter into any communication with such monsters of the human race: “Remove the evil from you, samekh.”

Whom is he anathematizing? Bolsheviks? What kind of naive Patriarch is this? Did he really assume that, having learned about this anathema, Vladimir Ilyich would remember his “A” according to the “Law of God” and repent? Will Joseph Vissarionovich remember his seminary years? He had a fairly good idea of ​​these people and understood that the Bolsheviks, who even if they were Orthodox by birth, would neglect his words, because they had long ago excommunicated themselves from church communion. Moreover, this could be said about the former Catholic Dzerzhinsky, about the former Judaist Trotsky. They cared neither about their own faith nor about anyone else’s. Of course, the Patriarch has in mind the people, with whose hands these people want to unleash a bloody nightmare in the country. He speaks about them, about those who have recently received communion, about those who have not yet forgotten how to pray, about those who have pious families who, having learned about this anathema, will stop their fathers, sons, and brothers. This is who the Patriarch has in mind, this is why he resorts to anathema. Pay attention to the wording too. We are talking specifically about those who participate in the persecution of the Church and kill innocent people. The Patriarch knows very well: if the people stop, the Bolsheviks will not be able to do anything. And further, at the end of the message, the Patriarch offers specific measures for Christians on how to resist these destructive trends in life, and they are, of course, concentrated more and more in the Bolshevik dictatorship. Then the Patriarch will be accused of blessing the armed resistance to the Bolsheviks, for stimulating the development of the counter-revolution with this message. Nothing like this. Let's look at the text:

...The enemies of the Church are seizing power over Her and Her property by the force of deadly weapons, and you resist them with the power of your faith, your imperious nationwide cry, which will stop the madmen and show them that they have no right to call themselves champions of the people's good, builders of a new life at the behest of the people's mind, for they even act directly against the people's conscience. And if it becomes necessary to suffer for the cause of Christ, we call you, beloved children of the Church, we call you to this suffering along with us in the words of St. Apostle: “Who will separate us from the love of God? Is it tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or trouble, or a sword?” (Rom. 8:35)

And you, brothers, archpastors and shepherds, without delaying a single hour in your spiritual work, with fiery zeal call your children to defend the trampled rights of the Orthodox Church, immediately arrange spiritual alliances, call not by necessity, but by good will to join the ranks of spiritual fighters who They will oppose the external force with the power of their holy inspiration, and we firmly hope that the enemies of the Church will be put to shame and scattered by the power of the Cross of Christ. For the promise of the Divine Crusader Himself is immutable: “I will build My Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against It.”

There are no calls for armed struggle here. Of course, after this the Patriarch had the right to expect some serious changes in the situation of the country, especially since the Council that opened on January 20, 1918 immediately turned to the message of Patriarch Tikhon and on January 22 adopted a resolution in which it approved the content of the message and gave it the the very force of a conciliar document.

Now let's think about it. We collectively anathematized those who created all this internecine turmoil, created all these horrors, from which this world’s first workers’ and peasants’ statehood later grew, trampling on everyone and everything, including the workers and peasants themselves. Let each of us rummage through our ancestral, family memories and remember what our fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers did at this time; Maybe this anathematization falls on them too, and therefore we will draw some conclusions for ourselves about what needs to be done, how we need to atone for these sins, which we have already so conveniently forgotten, as if it had nothing to do with us. Then it will become clear why it is so difficult for us now - because we still have to atone for all this for decades. Moreover, the Patriarch was not heard. And the Council was not heard. At this very time, January 19-21, an armed invasion of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra takes place, and a representative of the revolutionary people kills Archpriest Peter Skipetrov. He wants to stop him, rushing into the temple with a weapon, but he simply shoots at the mouth that denounces him and mortally wounds Archpriest Peter.

Meanwhile, the council will have to discuss a very important internal church issue. The Supreme Church Administration has been created, but issues of diocesan administration have not yet been resolved. In such a situation, given that its honorary chairman, Metropolitan Vladimir (Epiphany) of Kiev, did not appear at the meeting of the Council (for still unknown reasons), work begins. On January 25, 1918, after discussing the decree of the Soviet government on freedom of conscience, which even then was more often called more correctly the decree on the separation of Church and state, the Council adopted a resolution that contained two extremely important points.

The decree on the separation of Church and state issued by the Council of People's Commissars represents, under the guise of a law on freedom of conscience, a malicious attack on the entire system of life of the Orthodox Church and an act of open persecution against it.

Absolutely correct wording. And the point was not only that, in its specific content, the decree seemed to be legal nonsense, even in comparison with the laws on the separation of Church and state in other countries in which they existed. The fact was that the decree actually sanctioned the persecution of the Church, for its implementation could completely paralyze the entire church life.

Any participation either in the publication of this legalization hostile to the Church or in attempts to implement it is incompatible with belonging to the Orthodox Church and brings punishment on the guilty, up to and including excommunication from the Church.

It must be said that such a sharp position of the Council was not only the result of a natural reaction to the outrages being committed in the country, to the fact that the Bolshevik regime from the very beginning became an atheistic regime. It would have been possible to speak out more restrainedly at this moment. But, firstly, it seemed that this nightmare would not last long and that the gang of German mercenaries (this is how many perceived the Bolshevik dictatorship, even at the Council) would soon leave the political arena. Secondly, it seemed that a little more, and the people would come to their senses, and, as was the case in 1612, a militia similar to the militia of Minin and Pozharsky would come to Petrograd and put an end to state madness, especially since at that very time on the Don a volunteer army began to fight, still insignificant in number (we were talking about several thousand people), and these several thousand people seemed to become the key to a broad anti-Bolshevik movement in Russia, which would unite all people with a sense of civic responsibility, with a feeling, even the smallest , patriotic duty to the country. This is where, perhaps, such a harsh statement comes from.

A day or two later, the Council received a message about the murder of Metropolitan Vladimir in Kyiv on January 25, 1918. This, of course, shocked everyone. The point is not that Metropolitan Vladimir was the honorary chairman of the Council, and not even that he was one of the authoritative hierarchs in our Church and the first murdered bishop in the 20th century, but that the circumstances of his murder were terrible. They are scary not because they somehow brutally killed him, they killed him the way they killed many, as they had already killed, for example, Fr. Ioanna Kochurova. They shot him repeatedly, stabbed him with bayonets, and left him torn to pieces on the street for many hours. What was scary was that a small group of armed people did not break in, but entered (the gates were opened for them) into the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra, settled down in the Refectory, the monks helpfully served them a meal, they got into conversation, found out that the main “oppressor” here was Metropolitan Vladimir, they came to his chambers, spent several hours there, plundering everything they could, mocking and mocking the Metropolitan, and then calmly took him out and shot him not far from the Lavra. Is it possible to imagine such a situation: some Poles with Cossacks come to Archimandrite Dionysius in the Trinity-Sergius Lavra in 1610 and, in front of the brethren’s eyes, mock him for several hours, then take him away and kill him? No comments needed. And only when he was already taken away did one of the monks realize to call the local Bolshevik authorities and tell them what had happened. He was told that the authorities were not aware of what was happening. And only many hours later, the already numb metropolitan was found murdered not far from the Lavra. Of course, he was solemnly transferred to the Lavra, solemnly buried, without thinking about the fact that he was simply betrayed. This was the worst thing. I will not talk about the motives for this now; even then, autocephalist sentiments appeared in the Ukrainian Church, and the brethren of the Lavra were propagandized by the autocephalists, and Metropolitan Vladimir, who did not even want autonomy for the Ukrainian Church, was an ardent enemy of the autocephalists. Here you can find different explanations, but the fact itself is important.

By the providence of God, the Council adopted an amazing resolution on January 25, 1918, precisely on the day of the death of Metropolitan Vladimir. The resolution was adopted on the basis of the proposal of the 3 members of the Council, and then finalized. He was, of course, greatly influenced by the news of the murder of Metropolitan Vladimir. This was a decree establishing the institution of patriarchal locum tenens in our country. It was about the following. In the event that our Church is deprived of the opportunity to convene a Council, if the Patriarch is removed from church life, the Church should not be left without a head. The Council authorized the Patriarch, precisely taking into account the exceptional circumstances, to appoint a successor for himself, and not just a successor, but a successor with full patriarchal rights, to appoint him secretly, to appoint not one, but several, giving each the appropriate letters, without informing anyone about this even at the Council. At the Council, after some time, the Patriarch announced that the Council’s instructions had been fulfilled and locums had been appointed. To this day we do not know exactly who these secretly appointed first locums were. The Council understood that the Patriarch could be arrested, could be killed, and the Council itself could be dispersed. And, indeed, the Patriarch was first arrested in 1918.

The resolution on the patriarchal locum tenens, who had full patriarchal rights, was a decision that saved our Higher Church Administration in the 20-30s from the destruction of the canonical succession of the highest church authority, which the Bolsheviks really strived for. And the Patriarch accepted this, the Patriarch implemented this by appointing his locums.

Before continuing the story, let us turn to the personality of Patriarch Tikhon, what kind of person he was, what his life path was before his election to the Patriarchate, because, although the Council was still working, the entire burden of power now rested on the Patriarch.

* Texts of the messages of the SMC. Patriarch Tikhon is given according to the publication: “Acts of His Holiness Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, later documents and correspondence on the canonical succession of the highest church authority.” (Compiled by M.E. Gubonin). M., 1994.

Letter to the Council of People's Commissars
All who take the sword will die by the sword.
(Matt. 26:52)
We address this prophecy of the Savior to you, the current arbiters of the destinies of our Fatherland, who call themselves “people’s” commissars. You have held state power in your hands for a whole year and are already preparing to celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution. But the rivers of blood shed by our brothers, mercilessly killed at your call, cry out to heaven and force us to say a bitter word to you
truth.
When seizing power and calling on the people to trust you, what promises did you make to them and how did you fulfill these promises?
Truly, you gave him a stone instead of bread and a snake instead of a fish (Matthew 7:9-10). To the people exhausted by a bloody war, you promised to give peace “without annexations and indemnities.”
What conquests could you give up, having led Russia to a shameful peace, the humiliating conditions of which even you yourself did not dare to fully disclose? Instead of annexations and indemnities, our great Motherland was conquered, diminished, dismembered, and in payment of the tribute imposed on it, you secretly export to Germany the accumulated gold that was not yours.
You have taken away from the warriors everything for which they previously fought valiantly. You taught them, recently brave and invincible, to leave the defense of their homeland and flee from the battlefields. You have extinguished in their hearts the consciousness that inspired them that sowing love no one has greater, but whoever lays down his life for his friends (John 15:13). You have replaced the Fatherland with a soulless international, although you yourself know very well that when it comes to defending the Fatherland, the proletarians of all countries are its faithful sons, and not traitors.
Having refused to defend your homeland from external enemies, you, however, are constantly recruiting troops.
Who will you lead them against?
You divided the entire people into hostile camps and plunged them into fratricide of unprecedented cruelty. You openly replaced the love of Christ with hatred and, instead of peace, artificially incited class enmity. And there is no end in sight to the war you have created, since you are striving, through the hands of Russian workers and peasants, to bring triumph to the specter of the world revolution.
It was not Russia that needed the shameful peace you concluded with the external enemy, but you, who planned to completely destroy the internal peace. No one feels safe; everyone lives under constant fear of search, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. They seize hundreds of defenseless people, rot for months in prison, execute them by death, often without any investigation or trial, even without a simplified trial introduced by you. They execute not only those who have been guilty of something before you, but also those who, even before you, are obviously not guilty of anything, but were taken only as “hostages”. These unfortunates are killed in retaliation for crimes committed not only by people who are not like-minded, but often by your own supporters or those close to you in convictions. They execute bishops, priests, monks and nuns who are not guilty of anything, but simply on blanket accusations of some vague and indefinite counter-revolution. The inhumane execution is aggravated for the Orthodox by the deprivation of the last dying consolation - the parting words of the Holy Mysteries, and the bodies of the murdered are not given to relatives for Christian burial.
Isn’t all this the height of aimless cruelty on the part of those who present themselves as benefactors of humanity and as if they themselves once suffered a lot from cruel authorities?
But it’s not enough for you that you stained the hands of the Russian people with their fraternal blood: hiding behind various names - indemnity, requisition and nationalization - you pushed them into the most open and shameless robbery. At your instigation, lands, estates, plants, factories, houses, livestock were plundered or taken away; money, things, furniture, clothes were robbed. At first, under the name of “bourgeois,” they robbed wealthy people, then, under the name of “kulaks,” they began to rob more prosperous and hardworking peasants, thus multiplying the beggars, although you cannot help but realize that with the ruin of a great many individual citizens, the people’s wealth is destroyed and the country itself is ruined.
Having seduced the dark and ignorant people with the possibility of easy and unpunished profit, you have clouded their conscience and drowned out the consciousness of sin in them; but no matter what acts are used to cover up the atrocities, murder, violence, robbery will always remain grave and crying to Heaven for vengeance as sins and crimes.
You promised freedom...
The great good is freedom, if it is correctly understood as freedom from evil, which does not constrain others, and does not turn into arbitrariness and self-will. But you did not give such freedom: the freedom you granted lies in all kinds of indulgence in the base passions of the crowd, in the impunity of murders and robberies. All manifestations of both true civil and highest spiritual freedom of humanity are suppressed by you mercilessly. Is this freedom when no one without special permission can bring in food, rent an apartment, or move from city to city? Is this freedom when families, and sometimes the population of entire houses, are evicted, and property is thrown into the street, and when citizens are artificially divided into categories, some of which are given over to starvation and plunder? Is this freedom when no one can openly express their opinion without fear of being accused of counter-revolution? Where is the freedom of speech and press, where is the freedom of church preaching? Many brave church preachers have already paid for martyrdom with their blood; the voice of public and state discussion and denunciation is muffled; The press, except for the narrow Bolshevik press, has been completely strangled.
The violation of freedom in matters of faith is especially painful and cruel. Not a day goes by without the most monstrous slander against the Church of Christ and its servants, evil blasphemies and blasphemies being published in your press. You mock the altar servers, force bishops to dig trenches (Bishop of Tobolsk Hermogenes Dolganov) and send priests to do dirty work. You laid your hand on the church property, collected by generations of believers, and did not think about violating their posthumous will. You closed a number of monasteries and house churches without any reason or reason. You have blocked access to the Moscow Kremlin - this is the sacred property of all believing people. You are destroying the original form of the church community - the parish, destroying brotherhoods and other church-charitable and educational institutions, dispersing church-diocesan meetings, interfering in the internal governance of the Orthodox Church. By throwing out sacred images from schools and prohibiting children from being taught the faith in schools, you are depriving them of the spiritual food necessary for Orthodox education.
And what else will I say. I don’t have enough time (Heb. 11:32) to depict all the troubles that befell our Motherland. I will not talk about the collapse of the once great and mighty Russia, about the complete breakdown of communications, about the unprecedented food devastation, about the hunger and cold that threaten death in the cities, about the lack of things needed for farming in the villages. All this is in front of everyone. Yes, we are experiencing a terrible time of your rule, and for a long time it will not be erased from the soul of the people, darkening the image of God in it and imprinting on it the image of the beast. The words of the prophet come true: Their feet run to evil, and they hasten to shed innocent blood, their thoughts are wicked thoughts, devastation and destruction are in their paths (Isa. 59:7).
We know that our denunciations will only cause anger and indignation in you and that you will only look for them as a reason to accuse us of resisting the authorities. But the higher your “pillar of malice” rises, the surer it will be evidence of the justice of our accusations.
It is not our place to judge earthly power. Any power permitted by God would attract our blessing if it truly appeared to be “God’s servant” for the benefit of those under his command and was terrible not for good deeds, but for evil ones (Rom. 13:3). Now, to you, who use your power to persecute your neighbors and exterminate the innocent, we extend our word of exhortation: celebrate the anniversary of your stay in power by freeing prisoners, ending bloodshed, violence, ruin, oppression of faith; turn not to destruction, but to the establishment of order and legality, give the people the desired and well-deserved rest from internecine warfare. Otherwise, all righteous blood that you shed will be required from you (Luke 11:50), and you yourself, who took the sword, will perish by the sword (Matthew 26:52).
Patriarch Tikhon

This letter was reproduced on a hectograph in tens of thousands of copies on the initiative of the Council of United Parishes of Moscow. It was also distributed in thousands of handwritten lists. Outside Russia, under the title “Message to the Council of People’s Commissars,” it was printed in Russian in five million copies and published in foreign languages ​​in many foreign newspapers.
Cheka agent Alexei Filippov reported to the famous security officer Latsis that in this letter “the patriarch, with extraordinary courage and sharpness, enters into political exposure and accusations. This appeal-letter reproachfully throws in the face of the Bolsheviks that the Brest-Litovsk Peace Treaty, which they concluded, is humiliating, and that is why the Bolsheviks are hiding even the content of its terms, meanwhile taking Russian gold abroad, that they dismembered, fragmented their homeland, extinguished the courage in the hearts of soldiers and undeservedly gave first place in Russia to the proletariat, which is a traitor among us.”
In Ancient Rus', patriarchs and metropolitans were given the right to grieve before the highest authority - the sovereign for those convicted or disgraced. The last case of sadness dates back to 1698, when Patriarch Adrian unsuccessfully petitioned Emperor Peter I for a pardon for the Streltsy sentenced to execution. The new highest power, the Council of People's Commissars, revived by Patriarch Tikhon, perceived the custom of grieving for one's people as a counter-revolutionary political action.
On November 11/24, after Vespers, the patriarch’s apartment was searched, and His Holiness himself was subjected to house arrest. After the search, Commissioner Khrustalev took with him two patriarchal panagias, patriarchal crosses and a miter, declaring that they had been stolen from the Chudov and Ascension monasteries. The Trinity Compound was now ruled by Red Army soldiers around the clock, constantly emphasizing their atheistic consciousness with their appearance and actions.
The Synod and the Supreme Church Council repeatedly appealed to the Council of People's Commissars with requests for “the need for the immediate release of the patriarch in order to prevent extreme difficulties in the course of church affairs and a painful insult to the feelings of the Orthodox people by depriving them of the opportunity to communicate with their spiritual leader in patriarchal services.”
But the Council of People's Commissars listened more to the opinion of the Central Indictment Board at the Revolutionary Tribunal of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, which informed the pseudo-people's representatives, “that since Patriarch Tikhon already has three cases, no statements about lifting his house arrest should not be taken into account.”
One of these three cases was considered to be a letter to the Council of People's Commissars, in which His Holiness allegedly called for the immediate overthrow of Soviet power by force of arms. To this accusation, the patriarch replied that “I do not and cannot sympathize with many of the measures of the people’s rulers, as a servant of Christ’s principles. I do not hide this and wrote about this openly in an address to the people's commissars before the celebration of the anniversary of the October Revolution, but at the same time and just as openly I declared that it is not our business* to judge earthly power, allowed by God, much less take actions aimed to her overthrow. Our duty is only to point out people’s deviations from Christ’s great covenants of love, freedom and brotherhood, to expose actions based on violence towards Christ.”
On the evening of December 24/January 6, when the Bolsheviks realized that by arresting Patriarch Tikhon they were inciting not only Orthodox subjects, but also foreign powers, against themselves, His Holiness was released from custody, and the next day, on the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Muscovites saw him again during the service in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior.
A year earlier, on January 1/14, in the same church, Patriarch Tikhon said with hope: “Now voices are heard more and more often that it is not our plans and construction efforts, which we were so rich in last summer, that will save Russia, but only a miracle - if we will be worthy of it. Let us pray to the Lord that He will bless the crown of the coming summer with His goodness, and may it be a favorable summer of the Lord for Russia” (Ex. 61:2).
But the summer of 1918 did not become the Lord's.

November 7 (October 25, O.S.) marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of St. Patriarch Tikhon addressed to members of the Council of People's Commissars. Being one of the most important messages of the Patriarch, devoted to the consideration of primarily political problems that then faced the Orthodox Church in Russia, the message raises the question of the general spiritual and historical significance of the messages of St. Patriarch Tikhon.

The history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th century was destined to become, first of all, the history of persecution of the Church, which befell it from the moment the communist regime was established in Russia. And it is quite natural that already in the first months after the seizure of power in the country by communist atheists, the Russian Orthodox Church, through the mouth of St. Patriarch Tikhon declared her sharply negative attitude both towards the Bolshevik regime and towards millions of ordinary Russians, until recently Orthodox Christians, whom the leaders of this regime involved in their criminal policies.

One of the first addresses of St. Patriarch Tikhon to his flock - a message dated January 19, 1918, continuing the tradition of messages of Russian church hierarchs, which they announced during periods of various kinds of civil unrest and civil strife, became a formidable warning to the entire Russian Orthodox people on the eve of the bloody internecine warfare that was sweeping Russia. In this message, those who were Orthodox by birth and baptism, who carried out persecution of the Church or murder and violence against innocent people, were subject to excommunication from the Church. At the same time, St. Patriarch Tikhon anathematized not only the Bolsheviks born into families of the Orthodox faith, but above all the numerous representatives of the Russian people baptized in the Orthodox Church and involved in the anti-church policies of the Bolsheviks.

“Come to your senses, madmen! Stop your bloody reprisals! - wrote St. Patriarch Tikhon. “After all, what you are doing is not only a cruel deed, it is truly a satanic deed, for which you are subject to the fire of Gehenna in the future life, the afterlife, and the terrible curse of posterity in this present, earthly life. By the authority given to Us by God, we forbid you to approach the Mysteries of Christ, we anathematize you, if only you still bear Christian names, and although by birth you belong to the Orthodox Church. We also conjure all of you, the faithful children of the Orthodox Church of Christ, not to enter into any communication with such monsters of the human race.” It should be emphasized that on January 22, 1918, this message from St. Patriarch Tikhon was adopted by the Local Council as a conciliar document. Thus, the Local Council, on behalf of the entire Russian Orthodox Church, gave the harshest assessment possible for the Church to those Orthodox Christians who participated in the implementation of the policies of the Bolshevik regime that had just been established in Russia. This kind of decision of the Council, which knew how to be quite moderate in many, and above all political, issues, indicated that even then many participants in the Council realized the danger of the change of power that had taken place in Russia for both the Church and the people.

The beginning of 1918 marked the beginning of the anti-Bolshevik resistance in Russia, for whose participants the conciliar anathema of the supporters of the new regime should have been perceived not only as an anathema addressed to their political and then military opponents, but also as an instruction from the Church that could give many Orthodox for Christians a true spiritual and historical reference point in that difficult historical situation. The development of the White movement in 1918 in different parts of the country certainly indicated that resistance to Bolshevism in Russia was possible, but it was not so significant that Bolshevism could be defeated. It is obvious that the anathema of St. Patriarch Tikhon suggested the possibility that the Orthodox Christians who made up the bulk of the Russian people would be able to come to their senses and, under the threat of church excommunication, would retreat from supporting the Bolsheviks, depriving them of support among the masses. However, already 1918 clearly demonstrated that the White movement failed to become a mass movement.

Nevertheless, on October 25, 1918, after the activities of the Local Council were terminated by the Bolsheviks, St. Patriarch Tikhon issued another message, addressed not to Orthodox Christians, but directly to the Council of People's Commissars. This message was not only the most politically oriented, but also the most anti-Bolshevik message of St. Patriarch Tikhon. It gave an exhaustive assessment, both in its historical content and in its spiritual insight, of the Bolshevik regime, its entire policy and the formidable prospects that opened up for the country if this atheistic regime that kills the people's body and corrupts the people's soul is preserved.

“All who take the sword will perish by the sword.” We address this prophecy of the Savior to you, the current arbiters of the destinies of our Fatherland, who call themselves “people’s” commissars,” wrote St. Patriarch Tikhon. “You have been holding state power in your hands for a whole year and are already going to celebrate the anniversary of the October Revolution; but the rivers of blood shed by our brothers, mercilessly killed at your call, cries out to heaven and forces Us to tell you a bitter word of truth. It was not Russia that needed the shameful peace you concluded with the external enemy, but you, who planned to completely destroy the internal peace. No one feels safe; everyone lives under constant fear of search, robbery, eviction, arrest, and execution. They seize hundreds of defenseless people, rot for months in prison, and often execute them without any investigation or trial, even without the simplified trial you introduced. They execute not only those who have been guilty of something before you, but also those who, even before you, are obviously not guilty of anything, but were taken only as “hostages”.

They execute bishops, priests, monks and nuns who are not guilty of anything, but simply on blanket accusations of some vague and indefinite counter-revolution. But it’s not enough for you that you stained the hands of the Russian people with their brotherly blood; hiding behind various names - indemnity, requisition and nationalization, you pushed him into the most open and shameless robbery. At your instigation, lands, estates, plants, factories, houses, livestock were plundered or taken away; money, things, furniture, clothes were robbed. First, under the name of “bourgeois,” they robbed wealthy people, then, under the name of “kulaks,” they began to rob more prosperous and hardworking peasants, thus multiplying the poor, although you cannot help but realize that with the ruin of a great many individual citizens, the people’s wealth is destroyed and the people themselves are ruined. a country. Having seduced the dark and ignorant people with the possibility of summer and unpunished profit, you have clouded their conscience with it and drowned out the consciousness of sin in them; but no matter what names the atrocities are covered up, murder, violence, robbery will always remain grave and sins and crimes crying to heaven for vengeance.”

This message, in essence, formulated one of the most important conclusions for the Orthodox Church’s understanding of all those events that were destined to happen in Russia subsequently. The Bolsheviks not only destroyed the country, its economy, statehood, they destroyed the soul of the people, essentially discarding the religious and worldview values ​​that had shaped it for centuries. The basic commandments were dismissed as many other “bourgeois prejudices.” The commandment “thou shalt not steal” had to give way to the call to “expropriate the expropriators,” “rob the loot.” The commandment “thou shalt not kill” was abolished, clearing the way for class struggle as the main moral duty of the Russian people. It was about this corruption of the people's soul, which would then continue for decades, that St. wrote. Patriarch Tikhon already then, in his message of October 25, 1918.

In the letters of St. Patriarch Tikhon during the Civil War, it is impossible to find words of condemnation of the White movement, although words of warning, even if not directly named to the White Guards, not to become like the Bolsheviks were heard in his message of July 8, 1919. Only in his message of September 25, 1919, which, however, was a compromise result of negotiations between the Patriarch and the Bolsheviks and did not receive further distribution, he tried to dissociate the church hierarchy from participation in the military-political confrontation taking place in Russia.

The Civil War showed that the White movement was doomed to military and political defeat. At the same time, the Russian people, having failed to support the White movement for the most part, essentially found themselves on the path to spiritual and historical suicide. However, the Church had to deal with precisely such a people, and it had to proceed from the situation that arose in Russia at that very time.

Finding himself in custody after his arrest in May 1922, St. Patriarch Tikhon was already faced with a qualitatively different reality. The last manifestations of the anti-communist movement in the early 1920s were suppressed. The NEP created the illusion of the possibility of a normal life under the Bolsheviks. The participation of the population in church life became less and less significant, and the position of the renovationists in the period 1922-23. strengthened with the support of the state. The authorities could keep the Patriarch himself in custody for as long as desired. From this time began the period of censored messages of St. Patriarch Tikhon. Their appearance will henceforth be preceded by negotiations between the Patriarch himself and his closest advisers with representatives of the state on preliminary agreement on the texts of the messages.

If we turn to two documents of this period - the statement of St. Patriarch Tikhon to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR of June 16, 1923 and his message of June 24, 1923, then we will see texts that are very difficult to agree with, or better yet, simply do not agree with the texts of the messages that were quoted above. And the reason becomes clear if we compare with these texts the contents of the report of the chairman of the anti-religious commission of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) Emelyan Yaroslavsky, which listed the specific conditions for the possible release of St. Patriarch Tikhon and which was the basis for the corresponding resolution of the Politburo of the Bolshevik Party. “It is urgent to carry out the next ruling in the Tikhon case. 1. The investigation into Tikhon’s case should be conducted without a time limit. 2. Inform Tikhon that the preventive measure against him can be changed if a) He makes a special statement that he repents of the crimes committed against the Soviet government, the working people, worker and peasant masses, and expresses his current loyal attitude to the Soviet government; b) That he recognizes that it was fair to bring him to trial for these crimes; c) Dissociates itself openly and sharply from all forms of counter-revolutionary organizations, especially White Guard monarchist organizations, both secular and spiritual; d) Will express a sharply negative attitude towards the new Karlovac Council and its participants; e) Declares his negative attitude towards the machinations of both the Catholic clergy, in the person of the Pope, and the Bishop of Canterbury and Constantinople Meletius; f) Will express agreement with some reforms in the ecclesiastical area, for example a new style. If he agrees, he will be released and transferred to the Valaam metochion, without prohibiting his church activities.” These were the conditions, having fulfilled which Patriarch Tikhon had the opportunity to be released and begin the fight against renovationism, which then seemed to him the greatest threat to the Church.

In his application to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, St. Patriarch Tikhon wrote: “Having been brought up in a monarchical society and being under the influence of anti-Soviet persons until my arrest, I was really hostile to the Soviet government, and hostility from a passive state at times passed into active action, such as an appeal regarding the Brest Peace in 1918, anathematization of the authorities in the same year and, finally, an appeal against the decree on the confiscation of church valuables in 1922 (...) Recognizing the correctness of the Court’s decision to bring me to justice under the articles of the Criminal Code specified in the indictment for anti-Soviet activities , I repent of these offenses against the state system and ask the Supreme Court to change the measure of restraint for me, i.e. release me from custody. At the same time, I declare to the Supreme Court that from now on I am not an enemy of Soviet power. I finally and decisively disassociate myself from both the foreign and domestic monarchist-White Guard counter-revolution.” This statement outlined almost all the points formulated in the report of E. Yaroslavsky and adopted in the Politburo resolution as conditions for the release of Patriarch Tikhon.

In the message of June 28, 1923, which is considered by some historians to have been written directly by the Patriarch himself and which appeared the day after his release, one can find further fulfillment of the same conditions, with mention of requirements that were absent in the application to the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, but contained in the text of the report by E. Yaroslavsky. “Now, for example, we have to ask the Soviet government to come to the defense of the offended Russian Orthodox in Poland - the Kholm and Grodno regions. where the Poles are closing Orthodox churches,” is an expression of a negative attitude towards the Roman Catholic Church. “When we learned that at the Karlovac Council in January 1921, the majority decided to restore the Romanov dynasty, we leaned towards the minority about the inappropriateness of such a decision. And when in March 1922 We became aware of the appeal of the Presidium of the Supreme Church Administration abroad to prevent Russian delegates from attending the Genoa Conference, We abolished this very administration, established with the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople,” this is an expression of a negative attitude towards the Karlovac Council.

Thus, 1923 turned out to be a truly turning point, because from that time on, from the official statements of St. Patriarch Tikhon’s criticism of the Bolshevik regime disappears even from those positions that were initially outlined both by himself and by the Local Council of 1917-1918. Previously freely accepted St. By Patriarch Tikhon, the position of church-historical denunciations gave way in his messages to a forced position of church-political compromises, which the High Hierarch himself will define with one phrase filled with deep historical tragedy: “Let my name perish for history, if only the Church is alive.”

1919
By the grace of God, We, humble Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, to all the faithful children of the Holy Orthodox Russian Church.
The Lord does not cease to show His mercies to the Orthodox Russian Church. He allowed Her to test Herself and test Her devotion to Christ and His covenants, not only in the days of Her external well-being, but also in the days of persecution. Day by day new trials are added to Her. Day by day Her crown shines brighter. Many times a scourge from a hand hostile to Christ mercilessly falls on Her face, illuminated by humility, and slanderous lips blaspheme Her with insane blasphemies, and She, in the apostolic way, imputes the bitterness of Her suffering to futility, introduces new martyrs into the host of the inhabitants of heaven and finds joy for Herself in Her blessing heavenly Bridegroom: “Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and slander you in every way unjustly for My sake; Rejoice and be glad (Matt. 5:11-12).
My children! Let this Holy kindness of the Church, these calls for us to patiently endure anti-Christian enmity and malice, this opposition to trials and ordinary human attachment to the blessings of the earth and the comforts of worldly life with Christian ideals, seem to others to be weakness; let the joy that draws its source from suffering for Christ seem “inconceivable” and “cruel” to the worldly understanding, but We beg you, we beg all Our Orthodox children not to deviate from this only saving disposition of a Christian, not to stray from the path of the cross sent to Us by God , on the path of admiration of worldly power or revenge. Do not overshadow your Christian achievement by returning to an understanding of protecting well-being that would humiliate Her and bring you down to the level of the actions of Her detractors. Save, Lord, our Orthodox Rus' from such horror.
It is a difficult, but also what a lofty task for a Christian to preserve in himself the great happiness of kindness and love even when your enemy is overthrown, and when the oppressed sufferer calls to pronounce his judgment on his recent oppressor and persecutor. And God’s Providence is already placing this test before some of the children of the Russian Orthodox Church. Passions are ignited, riots break out. More and more camps are being created. The fire is growing, scores are being settled. Hostile actions turn into misanthropy. Organized mutual extermination - into partisanship with all its horrors. All of Russia is a battlefield! But that is not all. What follows is more horror. News is heard of Jewish pogroms, massacres of the tribe, without regard to age, guilt, gender, or beliefs. A person embittered by the circumstances of life looks for the culprits of his failures and, in order to take out his grievances, grief and suffering on them, he swings in such a way that a mass of innocent victims fall under the blow of his hand, blinded by the thirst for revenge. In his mind, he merged his misfortunes with the activities of some party that were evil for him, and from some he transferred his bitterness to everyone. And in the massacre, lives are drowned for completely uninvolved reasons that shed such bitterness.
Orthodox Rus', may this shame pass you by. May this curse not befall you. May your hand not be stained with blood crying to Heaven. Do not let the enemy of Christ, the devil, carry you away with the passion of vengeance and disgrace the feat of your confession, disgrace the cost of your suffering at the hands of the rapists and persecutors of Christ. Remember: pogroms are the triumph of your enemies. Remember: pogroms are a dishonor for you, a dishonor for the Holy Church! For a Christian, the ideal is Christ, who did not draw the sword in His defense, who calmed the sons of thunder, and who prayed on the cross for His enemies. For a Christian, the guiding light is the covenant of the holy Apostle, who suffered a lot for his Savior and sealed his devotion to Him with death: “Do not avenge yourselves, beloved, but give room to the wrath of God. For it is written: “Vengeance is Mine, and I will repay, says the Lord.” So, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink: for by doing this you will heap burning coals on his head. (Rom. 12:19).
We are not even talking about the fact that shed blood always calls for new blood. And revenge leads to new retribution. Building on hostility is building on a volcano. An explosion - and again the reign of death and destruction. Our pain is pain for the grace and happiness of Our Holy Church, Our children. Our fears are that some of them may be seduced by this new beast, already showing its gaping mouth, emanating from the abyss of the heart of humanity seething with passions. With one impulse of vengeance you will forever stain yourself, Christian, and all the bright joy of your present feat - suffering for Christ - will fade, for where then will you give place to Christ?
We shudder when we read how Herod, seeking to destroy the Child, destroyed thousands of infants. We shudder that such phenomena are possible when, during military operations, one camp protects its front ranks with hostages from the wives and children of the opposing camp. We shudder at the barbarity of our time, when hostages are taken to ensure the life and integrity of others. We shudder with horror and pain when, after attempts on the lives of representatives of our modern government in Petrograd and Moscow, as if as a gift of love to them and as a testimony of devotion, and to atone for the guilt of the attackers, entire mounds were erected from the bodies of persons completely uninvolved in these attempts and these insane the sacrifices were greeted with delight by those who were supposed to stop such atrocities. We shuddered, but these actions took place where they do not know or do not recognize Christ, where they consider religion to be the opium of the people, where Christian ideals are a harmful relic, where the extermination of one class by another and internecine strife are openly and cynically elevated to an urgent task.
Should we, Christians, follow this path? Oh, it won't! Even if our hearts were torn from grief and oppression inflicted on our religious feelings, our love for our native land, our temporary well-being, even if our feeling unmistakably told us who and where our offender was. No, it is better for us to inflict bleeding wounds than for us to resort to vengeance, especially pogrom, against our enemies or those who seem to us to be the source of our troubles. Follow Christ! Don't change Him. Don't give in to temptation. Do not destroy your soul in the blood of vengeance. Don't be overcome by evil. Overcome evil with good (Rom. 12:21).
My children! All Orthodox Russian people! All Christians! When many sufferings, insults and sorrows would begin to inspire you with a thirst for revenge, they would push a sword into your hands, Orthodox Rus', for bloody reprisal against those whom you would consider your enemy - throw it far away so that not in the most difficult moments for you were tested and tortured, not in the moments of your triumph, never - never would your hand reach out to this sword, would not be able and would not want to carry it.
Oh, then truly your feat for Christ in these evil days will pass on to the inheritance and teaching of future generations, as the best testament and blessing: that only on this stone - healing evil with good - will the indestructible glory and greatness of our Holy Orthodox Church in the Russian land be built, and Her Holy Name and the purity of the deeds of Her children and servants will be elusive even to enemies.
To those who act according to this rule, peace and mercy be upon them. “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit, brothers. Amen” (Gal. 6:18).
July 8 (21), 1919

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"Orthodoxy and peace...

Message from His Holiness Patriarch TIKHON on his attitude towards the existing state power (“Dying Testament”). April 14, 1925

Source: Danilushkin M. and others. History of the Russian Orthodox Church. New patriarchal period. Volume 1. 1917-1970. St. Petersburg: Resurrection, 1997. Page number after text on it.

By the grace of God, the Humble TIKHON, Patriarch of Moscow and all the Russian Churches.

Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. During the years of great civil devastation, by the will of God, without which nothing happens in the world, the Soviet government became the head of the Russian state, taking upon itself the difficult responsibility of eliminating the terrible consequences of a bloody war and terrible famine.

Entering into the administration of the Russian state, representatives of the Soviet government, back in January 1918, issued a decree on the complete freedom of citizens to believe in anything and live according to this faith. Thus, the principle of freedom of conscience, proclaimed by the Constitution of the USSR, provides every religious society, including our Orthodox Church, with the rights and opportunity to live and conduct their religious affairs in accordance with the requirements of their faith, since this does not violate the rights of public order and the rights of other citizens. And therefore, at one time, in letters to archpastors, to shepherds and flocks, we publicly recognized the new order of things and the Workers' and Peasants' Power of the Peoples, whose government we sincerely welcomed.

It is time for believers to understand the Christian point of view that “the destinies of nations are determined by the Lord,” and to accept everything that happened as an expression of the will of God. Without sinning against Our faith and the Church, without altering anything in them, in a word, without allowing any compromises or concessions in the field of faith, in civil terms we must be sincere in relation to Soviet power and the work of the USSR for the common good, conforming to the order of external church life and activities with the new state system, condemning any association with the enemies of Soviet power and overt or secret agitation against it.

Offering our prayers for the sending of God's blessing on the work of peoples who have united their strength in the name of the common good, We call on all beloved children of the God-protected Russian Church at this important time of building the common well-being of the people to unite with us in fervent prayer to the Almighty for the sending of help to the Workers' and Peasants' power in her works for the public good. We urge both parish communities and especially their executive bodies not to allow any attempts by ill-intentioned people towards anti-government activities, not to harbor hopes for the return of the monarchical system and to make sure that the Soviet government is truly the People's Workers' and Peasants' Power, and therefore...

nay and unshakable. We call for the election of worthy, honest and devoted people to the parish councils of the Orthodox Church, who do not politicize and who are sincerely disposed towards Soviet power. The activities of Orthodox communities should be directed not towards politicking, which is completely alien to the Church of God, but towards strengthening the Orthodox faith, for the enemies of Holy Orthodoxy - Catholic sectarians, Protestants, Renovationists, atheists and the like - strive to use every moment in the life of the Orthodox Church to harm Her . The enemies of the Church resort to all kinds of deceptive actions, coercion and even bribery in an effort to achieve their goals. It is enough to look at what is happening in Poland, where out of the 350 churches and monasteries that were there, only 50 remain. The rest are either closed or turned into churches, not to mention the persecution to which our Orthodox clergy is subjected there.

Now We, having recovered from illness with the mercy of Bozkia, entering again into the service of the Church of Bozkia, call on you, beloved brother archpastors and shepherds, having once again condemned all resistance to the authorities, malicious intentions against it, rebellion and all enmity against it, to share Our work according to the pacification of Our flock and the improvement of the Bozkian Church.

In consciousness of the duty that lies upon Us to maintain the purity of the life of the Church, which first of all seeks the salvation of people and the realization in life of the eternal Divine principles, We cannot but condemn those who, in oblivion of God, abusing their ecclesiastical position, give themselves over without measure to human, often crude politicking, sometimes of a criminal nature, and therefore, out of the duty of Our First Hierarchal service, we bless the opening of the actions of a special commission under Us, entrusting it with an examination and, if necessary, the canonical removal from the administration of those archpastors and shepherds who persist in their errors and refuse to bring they repent before the Soviet regime, bringing them before the court of the Orthodox Council.

At the same time, with deep sorrow, We must note that some of the sons of Russia, and even archpastors and pastors, for various reasons, left their homeland and took up activities abroad to which they were not called, and in any case harmful to our Church. Using Our name, Our church authority, they create harmful and counter-revolutionary activities there. We resolutely declare: We have no connection with them, as Our enemies claim, they are alien to Us, We condemn their harmful activities. They are free in their convictions, but they act arbitrarily and contrary to the canons of Our Church on Our behalf and on behalf of the Holy Church, hiding behind concerns for Her good. He brought no good to the Church and the people so

the so-called Karlowitz Council, the condemnation of which We again confirm, and we consider it necessary to firmly and definitely declare that any attempts of this kind will henceforth call on Our side extreme measures, up to the banning of sacred service and bringing the Council to trial. In order to avoid grave punishments, We call on the archpastors and pastors who are abroad to stop their political activities with the enemies of our people and have the courage to return to their homeland and tell the truth about themselves and the Church of God.

Their actions must be examined. They must give an answer to the Orthodox Church consciousness. We instruct a special commission to examine the actions of the archpastors and pastors who fled abroad, and especially the metropolitans: Anthony (Khrapovitsky) - formerly of Kyiv, Platon (Rozhdestvensky) - formerly of Odessa, as well as others, and to give an immediate assessment of their activities. Their refusal to obey Our call will force Us to judge them in absentia.

Our enemies, trying to separate us from our beloved children, entrusted by God to us - the shepherds, spread false rumors that We, in the patriarchal post, are not free to dispose of Our word and even our conscience, that We are dominated by imaginary enemies of the people and are deprived of the opportunity to communicate with the flock, We know. We declare all fabrications about Our unfreedom to be lies and temptation, since there is no power on earth that could bind Our Hierarchal conscience and our patriarchal word. Fearlessly and with great hope, looking at the future paths of Holy Orthodoxy, We humbly ask you, Our beloved children, to guard the work of God, so that the forces of lawlessness may succeed in nothing.

Calling upon the archpastors, shepherds and children faithful to Us the blessing of God, we ask you with a calm conscience, without fear of sinning against the Holy Faith, to submit to Soviet power not out of fear, but for conscience, remembering the words of the Apostle: “Let every soul be submissive to the higher authorities, for There is no authority except from God, but the existing authorities were established by God” (Rom. 13: 1).

At the same time, We express our firm confidence that the establishment of pure, sincere relationships will encourage Our authorities to treat us with complete confidence, will give Us the opportunity to teach the children of Our flock the law of God, have theological schools for training pastors, and publish books in defense of the Orthodox faith and magazines.

May the Lord strengthen all of you in devotion to the Holy Orthodox Faith, the Church and Her hierarchy.

Patriarch TIKHON.

Acts of His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon. M. 1994. pp. 361-363.