Rosyjska Cerkiew Prawosławna po śmierci patriarchy Tichona (Biełławina)

Abstract

The crisis in the Russian Orthodox Church, connected with the Patriarch Tikhon’s death, initiated the deep divisions between hierarchs. A precedent in the canonical order of the Orthodox Church authorities and nomination of metropolitan of Krutitsy Peter (Polansky) on the Guardian of the Patriarchal Throne were not able to maintain the monolith community. Church was destructed by internal divisions, personal ambitions, manifested especially after the arrest of the patriarchal locum tenes, and persecuted by the communist state authorities. Community was ultimately divided by the taking of the patriarchal throne by the metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod Sergius (Stragorodsky). Sergius position, de facto deputy of the deputy of the Guardian of the Patriarchal Throne, complicated canonical conflict with the archbishop of Yekaterinburg Grigory (Yatskovskiy) and personal controversies arising between him and the metropolitan of Jaroslaw Agafangel (Preobrazhensky). Internal schizm was finally sealed by the announcement of The declaration of the acting locum tenens of the Moscow patriarchal throne the metropolitan of Nizhny Novgorod Sergius citizen Stragorodsky and the list of the temporary so-called “patriarchal Holy Synod” organized by him about attitude of the Russian Orthodox Church to state authority.