Patriarch Tikhon and the Preservation of the Old Calendar Style in the Russian Orthodox Church

Abstract

The persistence of Old Style in the liturgical practice of local Orthodox churches is one of the most pressing religious problems of the 20th century. In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks, who seized power in Russia, tried to accelerate calendar reform in the Russian Orthodox Church. The dependence of the Soviet civil calendar on the church calendar, on the days of its fixed and moving holidays and their recalculation from the Old to the New Style, seemed cumbersome and unacceptable to the Bolsheviks. This article presents the results of a study of the unsuccessful experience of introducing the New Style into liturgical use during the difficult period of state–church relations, when the Russian Orthodox Church was headed by Patriarch Tikhon (1917–1925). The activities in the implementation of the calendar reform of special government bodies—the Anti-Religious Commission under the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (RCP (b))–All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) (ACP (b)) and the VI department of the GPU–OGPU Secret Division, which relied on representatives of the renovationist church schism loyal to the Bolsheviks—are considered. The history of resistance to the forced Gregorian calendar on the part of the clergy and believers who remained faithful to Patriarch Tikhon is traced. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the decisions made by High Hierarch Tikhon on this issue, in the arsenal of means of pressure on whom the key place was occupied by the threat of repression against supporters of the Julian style and the resumption of criminal prosecution of the patriarch himself. It has been established that, in addition to the combination of holidays in the civil and church calendars necessary for the Bolsheviks, the recognition of the new style also contributed to another, no less important goal for the authorities: an even greater deepening of the renovationist church schism and the emergence of new strife and discord in the Russian Orthodox Church.