And in this way matters could again have simply degenerated into a compromise that would have frustrated the will of the proletariat, just as it once had been by the Constituent Assembly, and still was in all the chatterbox European parliaments.
The thought came in a stroke of lightning! The thought came—and a decree followed! A decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee on February 26: all valuables were to be requisitioned from the churches—for the starving!
The Patriarch wrote to Kalinin, who did not reply. Then on February 28 the Patriarch issued a new, fateful pastoral letter: from the church’s point of view such a measure is sacrilege, and we cannot approve the requisition.
From the distance of a half-century, it is easy to reproach the Patriarch. Of course, the leaders of the Christian church ought not to have been distracted by wondering whether other resources might not be available to the Soviet government, and who it was who had driven the Volga to famine. They ought not to have clung to those treasures, since the possibility of a new fortress of faith arising—if it existed at all—did not depend on them. But one has also to picture the situation of that unfortunate Patriarch, not elected to his post until after the October Revolution, who had for a few short years led a church that was always persecuted, restricted, under fire, and whose preservation had been entrusted to him.
But right then and there a sure-fire campaign of persecution began in the papers, directed against the Patriarch and high church authorities who were strangling the Volga region with the bony hand of famine. And the more firmly the Patriarch clung to his position, the weaker it became. In March a movement to relinquish the valuables, to come to an agreement with the government, began even among the clergy. Their still undispelled qualms were expressed to Kalinin by Bishop Antonin Granovsky, a member of the Central Committee of Pomgoclass="underline" “The believers fear that the church valuables may be used for other purposes, more limited and alien to their hearts.” (Knowing the general principles of our Progressive Doctrine, the experienced reader will agree that this was indeed very probable. After all, the Comintern’s needs and those of the East in the course of being liberated were no less acute than those of the Volga.)
The Petrograd Metropolitan, Veniamin, was similarly impelled by a mood of trust: “This belongs to God and we will give all of it by ourselves.” But forced requisitions were wrong. Let the sacrifice be of our own free will. He, too, wanted verification by the clergy and the believers: to watch over the church valuables up to the very moment when they were transformed into bread for the starving. And in all this he was tormented lest he violate the censuring will of the Patriarch.
In Petrograd things seemed to be working out peacefully. The atmosphere at the session of the Petrograd Pomgol on March 5, 1922, was even joyful, according to the testimony of an eyewitness. Veniamin announced: “The Orthodox Church is prepared to give everything to help the starving.” It saw sacrilege only in forced requisition. But in that case requisition was unnecessary! Kanatchikov, Chairman of the Petrograd Pomgol, gave his assurances that this would produce a favorable attitude toward the church on the part of the Soviet government. (Not very likely, that!) In a burst of good feeling, everyone stood up. The Metropolitan said: “The heaviest burden is division and enmity. But the time will come when the Russian people will unite. I myself, at the head of the worshipers, will remove the cover [of precious metals and precious stones] from the ikon of the Holy Virgin of Kazan. I will shed sweet tears on it and give it away.” He gave his blessing to the Bolshevik members of Pomgol and they saw him to the door with bared heads. The newspaper Petrogradskaya Pravda, in its issues of March 8, 9, and 10,[209] confirmed the peaceful, successful outcome of the talks, and spoke favorably of the Metropolitan. “In Smolny they agreed that the church vessels and ikon coverings would be melted down into ingots in the presence of the believers.”
Again things were getting fouled up with some kind of compromise! The noxious fumes of Christianity were poisoning the revolutionary will. That kind of unity and that way of handing over the valuables were not what the starving people of the Volga needed! The spineless membership of the Petrograd Pomgol was changed. The newspapers began to howl about the “evil pastors” and “princes of the church,” and the representatives of the church were told: “We don’t need your donations! And there won’t be any negotiations with you! Everything belongs to the government—and the government will take whatever it considers necessary.”
And so forcible requisitions, accompanied by strife, began in Petrograd, as they did everywhere else.
And this provided the legal basis for initiating trials of the clergy.[210]
H. The Moscow Church Trial—April 26-May 7, 1922
This took place in the Polytechnic Museum. The court was the Moscow Revtribunal, under Presiding Judge Bek; the prosecutors were Lunin and Longinov. There were seventeen defendants, including archpriests and laymen, accused of disseminating the Patriarch’s proclamation. This charge was more important than the question of surrendering, or not surrendering, church valuables. Archpriest A. N. Zaozersky had surrendered all the valuables in his own church, but he defended in principle the Patriarch’s appeal regarding forced requisition as sacrilege, and he became the central personage in the trial—and would shortly be shot. (All of which went to prove that what was important was not to feed the starving but to make use of a convenient opportunity to break the back of the church.)
On May 5 Patriarch Tikhon was summoned to the tribunal as a witness. Even though the public was represented only by a carefully selected audience (1922, in this respect, differing little from 1937 and 1968), nonetheless the stamp of Old Russia was still so deep, and the Soviet stamp was still so superficial, that on the Patriarch’s entrance more than half of those present rose to receive his blessing.
Tikhon took on himself the entire blame for writing and disseminating his appeal. The presiding judge of the tribunal tried to elicit a different line of testimony from him: “But it isn’t possible! Did you really write it in your own hand? All the lines? You probably just signed it. And who actually wrote it? And who were your advisers?” and then: “Why did you mention in the appeal the persecution to which the newspapers are subjecting you? [After all, they are persecuting you and why should we hear about it?] What did you want to express?”
The Patriarch: “That is something you will have to ask the people who started the persecution: What objectives were they pursuing?”
The Presiding Judge: “But that after all has nothing to do with religion!”
The Patriarch: “It has historical significance.”
The Presiding Judge: “Referring to the fact that the decree was published while you were in the midst of talks with Pomgol, you used the expression, behind your back?”
The Patriarch: “Yes.”
Presiding Judge: “You therefore consider that the Soviet government acted incorrectly?”
A crushing argument! It will be repeated a million times more in the nighttime offices of interrogators! And we will never answer as simply and straightforwardly as:
The Patriarch: “Yes.”
The Presiding Judge: “Do you consider the state’s laws obligatory or not?”
The Patriarch: “Yes, I recognize them, to the extent that they do not contradict the rules of piety.”
209
12. See the articles entitled “
210
13. I have taken this material from Ocherki po Istorii Tserkovnoi Smuty (Essays on the History of the Troubles of the Church), by Anatoly Levitin, Part I, samizdat, 1962, and from the stenographic notes on the questioning of Patriarch Tikhon, Trial Record, Vol. V.