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Female Monasticism in Revolutionary Times: The Nizhnii Novgorod Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross, 1917–1935

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2020

William G. Wagner
William G. Wagner*
Affiliation:
Brown Professor of History, Emeritus at Williams College
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Even though after the October Revolution in 1917 the Bolsheviks enjoyed uninterrupted power and pursued radical secularist objectives, the majority of female monastic communities in Nizhnii Novgorod province were able to survive much longer than their counterparts in the French and Mexican Revolutions. Using the Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross as a case study, this article shows how—despite extremely challenging conditions and the hostility of the Soviet state—female monastic communities proved to be remarkably resilient and managed to exploit openings created by both the Bolsheviks’ strategy for subverting them and conflicts between Soviet authorities. The resiliency of the community at the Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross stemmed from the solidarity, flexibility, and leadership skills it cultivated prior to World War I through the combination of its religious character and practices and its communal organization. By the early 1920s, the community had adapted effectively to post-civil war Soviet urban conditions and was able to survive local attempts to dissolve it. But by the late 1920s, the survival of the community had become intolerable for Soviet authorities, who—like the revolutionary regimes in France and Mexico—ultimately resorted to compulsory means to “liquidate” the community between 1927 and 1935.

Keywords

female Orthodox monasticismreligion and revolutionmonasticism and revolutionwomen and religionRussian Revolution
Type
Articles
Information
Church History , Volume 89 , Issue 2 , June 2020 , pp. 350 - 389
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Society of Church History

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References

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11 Sapon, Nizhegorodskaia guberniia v 1916–1917 gg., 136, 173, 185–197, 203–211, 235–237, 286–287; Badcock, Sarah, Politics and the People in Revolutionary Russia: A Provincial History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 145–243CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Liubovnikov, M., Nechaev, I., and Shnirov, M., 1917–1920: Khronika revoliutsionnykh sobytii v Gor'kovskom krae (Gor'kii: Partiinoe izdatel'stvo, 1932)Google Scholar; Tikhonova, A. M. and Linde, E. O, “Zavod ‘Fel'zer’ v gornile revoliutsii,” in Revoliutsiia 1917 goda i Nizhegorodskaia guberniia: Sbornik statei, ed. Smirnov, S. A. (Nizhnii Novgorod: Vertikal’. XXI vek, 2017), 163–174Google Scholar; Shul'pin, Nizhegorodskoe krest'ianstvo, 170–200; Arkhangel'skii, “Krest'ianstvo i krest'ianskoe dvizhenie,” 99–107; Voskoboinikova, N. V., “Nizhegorodskaia provintsiia v revoliutsionnykh sobytiiakh 1917 g.,” in Rossiiskaia provintsiia v gody revoliutsii i grazhdanskoi voiny 1917–1922 gg.: Materialy Vserossiiskoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii, 27–28 noiabria 1997, ed. Nabatov, G. B. (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1998), 169–171Google Scholar; and T. A. Medvedeva, “1917: Nizhegorodskoe zemstvo mezhdu dvumia revoliutsiiami,” in Nabatov, Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 161–163.

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13 In late August 1917, the commander of the Russian army, General Lavr Kornilov, directed an attempt to use military forces to replace the Provisional Government and “restore order” in the country. For recent discussion of this event and accounts of the Revolution in general, see Steinberg, Mark D., The Russian Revolution, 1905–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar; Engelstein, Laura, Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, Civil War, 1914–1921 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018)Google Scholar; and Smith, S. A., Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890–1928 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017)Google Scholar.

14 In addition to the sources cited in note 12 above, see V. P. Kozhevnikov, “Istoriografiia ustanovleniia Sovetskoi vlasti v Nizhnem Novogorode,” in Nabatov, Rossiiskaia provintsiia, 73–76; V. Illarionov, “Revoliustionnoe dvizhenie proletariata v Nizhegorodskoi gubernii,” in Arkhangel'skii, Nizhegorodskii krai, 3:159–164; Maslov, K. P., “Iz istorii stroitel'stva mestnykh organov sovetskoi vlasti v Nizhnem Novgorode,” Uchenye zapiski Gor'kovskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta 54 (1961): 66–103Google Scholar; L. P. Gordeeva, V. A. Kazakov, and V. V. Smirnov, comps., Zabveniiu ne podlezhit: Neizvestnye stranitsy nizhegorodskoi istorii (1918–1984 gody) (Nizhnii Novgorod: Volgo-Viatskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1994), 2:7–22; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 7, listy ( hereafter abbreviated l. or ll.) 23, 26, 40, 47, 51, 56, 74, 77–81, 84, 87–87 oborot (obverse, hereafter abbreviated as ob), 99ob, 106; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 87, ll. 39–41ob; and Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Ekonomii, Moscow (hereafter cited as RGAE), f. 478, op. 6, d. 748, ll. 144–148, 152–158. In the elections for the Constituent Assembly in mid-November, the Bolsheviks prevailed within the garrison and in workers’ districts but were badly beaten in Nizhnii Novgorod by the liberal Constitutional Democrats, in most provincial towns by the more conservative Christian Union for Faith and the Fatherland, and in rural areas and the province overall by the Socialist Revolutionaries: F. A. Seleznev, “Vybory v Uchreditel'noe sobranie,” in Revoliutsiia 1917 goda, 102–115. On the development and operation of party and state power in Nizhnii Novgorod province after the October Revolution, see Gordeeva, Kazakov, and Smirnov, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, 2:7–164; and Kulakov, A. A. and Depretto, Zh.-P., ed., Obshchestvo i vlast’: Rossiiskaia provintsiia, vol. 1, 1917–seredina 30-kh godov (Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi istorii Rossiiskaia Akademiia Nauk [RAN], 2002)Google Scholar.

15 Sapon, Nizhegorodskaia guberniia v 1916–1917 gg., 126, 129; Evtuhov, Catherine, “The Church's Revolutionary Moment: Diocesan Congresses and Grassroots Politics in 1917,” in Russian Culture in War and Revolution, 1914–22, vol. 1, Popular Culture, the Arts, and Institutions, ed. Frame, Murray, Kolonitskii, Boris, Marks, Steven G., and Stockdale, Melissa K. (Bloomington, Ind: Slavica, 2014), 387–394Google Scholar.

16 See the editorials in NTsOV for March and April 1917.

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18 A majority at the May congress voted to remove Ioakim (who was also briefly detained by local civil authorities) and to replace him with Bishop Lavrentii (Kniazev), the vicar bishop of Balakhna. Although Ioakim formally retained his position until early 1918, Lavrentii effectively had taken his place by August. On Archbishop Ioakim, see Tikhon (Zatekin, N. I.) and Degteva, O. V., Sviatiteli zemli nizhegorodskoi (Nizhnii Novgorod: Tsentr sodeistviia biznesa, 2003), 204–213Google Scholar. For records and accounts of the diocesan congresses, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 1, d. 6, ll. 1–22, 52–54, 171–171ob, 184; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 1–2; P. Almazov, NTsOV, no. 16, 24 May 1917, 176–179; NTsOV, no. 19, 28 June 1917, special appendix; NTsOV, no. 20, 12 July 1917, special appendix, NTsOV, no. 21, 22 July 1917, special appendix; NTsOV, no. 22, 1 August 1917, 288–290; NTsOV, no. 23, 6 August 1917, 300–304; NTsOV, no. 24, 15 August 1917, 319–320; NTsOV, no. 25, 27 August 1917, 339–341; NTsOV, no. 26, 8 September 1917, 348–349; and Evtuhov, “The Church's Revolutionary Moment.” Preliminary congresses were held in several districts in March and April. For a study of similar congresses held throughout the empire in 1917, see Rogoznyi, P. G., Tserkovnaia revoliutsiia 1917 god (St. Petersburg: Liki Rossii, 2008)Google Scholar. The Church Council met in three sessions between August 1917 and September 1918. For an account of its proceedings, see Destivelle, Hyacinthe O.P.,, The Moscow Council (1917–1918): The Creation of the Conciliar Institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2015)Google Scholar.

19 NTsOV, no. 14, 10 May 1917, 135; NTsOV, no. 19, 28 June 1917, 228–230; NTsOV, no. 30, 24 October 1917, 419; and the editorials published in the October and November 1917 issues of NTsOV in general. See also Seleznev, F. A., “Nizhegorodskii arkhiv: Sviashchennosluzhiteli i vybory,” Pravoslavnoe slovo, no. 19, 1999, 6Google Scholar; Seleznev, “Vybory v Uchreditel'noe sobranie”; and Simonov, I. V., “Politicheskie organizatsii nizhegorodskogo dukhovenstva (1905–1906, 1917),” in IX Nauchnaia konferentsiia molodykh uchenykh i spetsialistov Volgo-Viatskogo regiona: Tezisy dokladov (Gor'kii: s.n., 1989), 1:31Google Scholar.

20 NTsOV, no. 33, 26 November 1917, 482. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are my own.

21 TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, d. 675.

22 In particular, the Dal'no-Davydovo St. Nicholas, Seraphim-Ponetaevka All-Sorrows, and Vyksa Iveron Convents and Ardatov district generally. See TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 11, ll. 10–10ob, 36–36ob, 40–43ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, l. 16ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 9–10; and Liubovnikov, Nechaev, and Shnirov, 1917–1920: Khronika revoliutsionnykh sobytii, 26, 69, 77.

23 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 61, l. 110ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 25, ll. 22–22ob; and Iu. G. Galai and O. Iu. Galai, “Nizhegorodskii Krestovozdvizhenskii zhenskii monastyr’,” in Uchenye zapiski Volgo-Viatskogo otdeleniia Mezhdunarodnoi Slavianskoi Adkademii nauk, obrazovaniia, iskusstv i kul'tury, no. 2 (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1998), 88–89. But see also Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, Moscow (hereafter cited as GARF), f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, l. 237ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 212–213.

24 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 28–30ob, 36–37; and TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, dd. 677, 678.

25 Shul'pin, Nizhegorodskoe krest'ianstvo, 170–200; Badcock, Politics and the People, 181–211; Liubovnikov, Nechaev, and Shnirov, 1917–1920: Khronika revoliutsionnykh sobytii, 19–22, 25–27, 29, 36, 42, 46, 50–51, 54–59, 62, 65, 67, 69–79; Nizhegorodskaia zemskaia gazeta, no. 12, 18 March 1917, 316–317; Nizhegorodskaia zemskaia gazeta, no. 20, 18 May 1917, 465–466; TsANO, f. 570, op. 559 za 1917 g., d. 34; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 121–121aob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 11, ll. 10–10ob, 12–13, 34–36ob, 40–43ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 32–33ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 98, ll. 1–2ob; and RGAE, f. 478, op. 5, d. 436, ll. 11ob-12.

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27 Casanova, “The Secular, Secularizations Secularisms,” 66–73.

28 GARF, f. 1235, op. 7, d. 13, l. 7. See also Kenworthy, “Monasticism in War and Revolution,” 235–249; Kenworthy, Scott M., The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society after 1825 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 292–367Google Scholar; Wynot, Jennifer Jean, Keeping the Faith: Russian Orthodox Monasticism in the Soviet Union, 1917–1939 (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2004)Google Scholar; and Zybkovets, V. F., Natsionalizatsiia monastyrskikh imushchestv v Sovetskoi Rossii (1917–1921 gg.) (Moscow: Nauka, 1975)Google Scholar.

29 See the references cited in notes 26 and 28 above.

30 See the references cited in note 28 above. Strong popular resistance to a Soviet attempt to seize the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in Petrograd in January 1918 reinforced this concern. On this incident, see Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 100–118.

31 Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, vol. 1, 25 oktiabria 1917 g.–16 marta 1918 g. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1957), 17–20. See also Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 39–41, 179; and Zybkovets, Natsionalizatsiia monastyrskikh imushchestv, 45–51. For Nizhnii Novgorod province, see the references cited in note 25 above.

32 Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, 210–211.

33 Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, 371–374. See also Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, 71–73; Husband, “Godless Communists,” 47–54; Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 48–66; and Firsov, Vlast’ i ogon’, 13–147. Groups of believers (eventually a minimum of twenty people was required) could apply to local Soviet authorities to be recognized as a “religious community” (religioznaia obshchina) and receive the free use of nationalized church property. Although the Provisional Government introduced freedom of conscience and freedom for all religious faiths in the empire, transferred Orthodox parish schools into the state system and made religious education optional, and enacted several other liberal measures affecting religion, after midsummer its official policy was to preserve a privileged status for the Orthodox Church, albeit in much diminished form. See Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 28–34; Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 75, 80–87; and Kartashev, A. V., “Revoliutsiia i sobor 1917–1918 g. (Nabroski dlia istorii russkoi tserkvi nashikh dnei),” Bogoslovskii mysl’ 4 (1942): 75–101Google Scholar.

34 See GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 690. See also Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 38–49; and Husband, “Godless Communists,” 47–54. On popular anticlericalism in 1917–1918, see Leont'eva, T. G., “Revoliutsiia i vera,” in Rossiiskaia revoliutsiia 1917 goda: Vlast’, obshchestvo, kul'tura, ed. Petrov, Iu. A. (Moscow: Rossiiskaia politicheskaia entsiklopediia, 2017), 2:29–79Google Scholar.

35 GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, dd. 687–689; GARF, f. 1235, op. 7, d. 13; Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 147–153; Husband, “Godless Communists,” 49–54; and Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, 63–65.

36 For a sampling of the types of issues dealt with by the Eighth Department in its first year of activity, see Otdelenie tserkvi ot gosudarstva i shkoly ot tserkvi v Sovetskoi Rossii: Oktiabr’ 1917–1918 g.; Sbornik dokumentov, ed. V. Vorob'ev, comp. L. B. Miliakova and I. A. Ziuzina (Moscow: Pravoslavnyi Sviato-Tikhonovskii gumanitarnyi universitet, 2016).

37 GARF, f. 1235, op. 140, d. 2, ll. 151–160; Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 153–162; and Husband, “Godless Communists,” 53–54. The instructions were clarified and extended in December 1918 and February 1919. See Gosudarstvo, obshchestvo i tserkov’ XX vek, comp. A. V. Beliaeva (Iaroslavl’: Iaroslavskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1999), 26–31; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 16–18. For reports on their implementation in Nizhnii Novgorod province, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 31–238.

38 Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 99–110. As the discussion below will show, however, at least in Nizhnii Novgorod province, communities that had been formally dissolved continued to exist informally, in most cases until the late 1920s.

39 GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 687, ll. 1–4; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 32–32ob, 38–40, 47–49, 62–69, 75–77ob, 90–94, 134–139, 145–149ob, 193–198ob, 212–214, 222–222ob, 237–238; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 212–213, 245–250ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 701, ll. 17–18ob, 53, 196–196ob, 280–281, 323–324, 345–348; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 61, ll. 110–111; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, l. 145ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 1, ll. 2, 7–11ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 8–11, 14–14ob, 19–26; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 9, 19, 25, 29–31, 34–35, 48–54, 62, 67–68, 75–75ob, 85–85ob, 99–99ob, 102, 107, 109–109ob, 124–127, 131, 135; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 13, ll. 11–12, 28–28ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 21–23; and Galai, Iu. G., “Poslerevoliutsionnaia khronika Blagoveshchenskogo monastyria,” in Nizhegorodskii pravoslavnyi sbornik, no. 1 (Nizhnii Novgorod: Tsentr Nizhegorodskogo Eparkhial'nogo upravleniia, 1997), 27–28Google Scholar.

40 TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 8–11; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 21–23.

41 TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, l. 11.

42 TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, l. 11.

43 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 61, ll. 110–111; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 169, l. 223ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 250; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 259, ll. 105–105ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 277; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 137–145ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 8–11, 14–14ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 23–23ob, 50; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 85–85ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 15, ll. 1–4ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 18, l. 58; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 21, l. 2; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 24–24ob, 33–33ob, 35–35ob, 40–40ob, 42–47ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 237–238; and GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 2–3, 212–213, 245–250ob, 324–325, 376–379.

44 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 9–11, 23–32; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, ll. 15–19, 102–131ob; RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 624, ll. 50–51ob; RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 1069, ll. 2–3, 81–85; and RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 1951, ll. 108–120. In 1919, the provincial department was folded into the provincial department of justice, which in turn was abolished in 1923. Its responsibilities were taken over by a subdepartment for religious affairs established in the provincial administrative department, a part of the Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD). TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 47, 63; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 11, l. 68; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 169, l. 210; TsANO, f. 56, op 4, d. 33, l. 2ob; and TsANO, f. 1028, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 10–11.

45 On conditions in the country as a whole, see the works by Luukkanen, Husband, Odintsov, Firsov, and Kashevarov cited in note 26 above; Gregory L. Freeze, “Subversive Atheism: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and the Religious Revival in Ukraine in the 1920s,” in Wanner, State Secularism, 27–62; and Freeze, Gregory L., “The Stalinist Assault on the Parish, 1929–1941,” in Stalinismus vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg: Neue Wege der Forschung, ed. Hildermeier, Manfred (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1998), 209–232CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

46 On the disruption, functioning, funding, and various reorganizations of the diocesan administration, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 148, 237–238; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 211–213; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 701, ll. 345–348; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 5–7, 102–103ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 58–59ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 6, ll. 36–44, 48, 106–107, 114–129; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 26, ll. 169–171; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 38, ll. 42–46, 51, 94–95; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 41, ll. 1–7; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 45, ll. 1–2; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 46, ll. 29–31ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 87, ll. 2–7ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 89, ll. 5–7ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 14, 47, 59, 63–63ob, 72–72ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 183, ll. 2–3ob, 7–7ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 8–11, 20–23; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 62, 102, 109–109ob; and in general, TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 41; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, dd. 44, 47, 91, 152. On the suppression of the diocesan press, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, l. 52; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 169, ll. 30–30ob, 36–37.

47 On the difficulties experienced by, and disabilities imposed on, parish clergy, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, l. 197; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 701, ll. 345–348; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 169, ll. 16–16ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 59–59ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 1–9, 25–26, 68ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 6, ll. 56–64, 208–213ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 26, ll. 1–5ob, 81; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 38, ll. 72a–73, 81–81ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 1–2, 14–21, 58–59, 69–70, 74; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 149, l. 1ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 167, ll. 74–79; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 171, ll. 1–2ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 41–41ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 2, d. 146, ll. 6–7; and in general, TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 18; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, dd. 8, 44, 185. See also Freeze, “Subversive Atheism.”

48 While both Kashevarov and Odintsov argue that Soviet policy and the position of the central church leadership evolved through interaction with one another, Kashevarov contends that the resistance of the central leadership was more limited, and it reached the point of accommodation earlier, than does Odintsov: Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 87–168, 288–319; and Odinstsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 48–78.

49 On clerical counterrevolutionary activity and the repression of clergy in Nizhnii Novgorod province at this time, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 32ob, 77, 237ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 211–213; TsANO, f. 55, op. 2, d. 2379, ll. 66–71; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 124–124ob, 135; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 8; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 26, ll. 81, 159; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 33, ll. 11, 13, 78–78ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, l. 145ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 74, 80; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 133–133ob, 161–164; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 10–10ob; Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, no. 10, 1 August 1920, 11, 19, 22; Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, no. 12, 1 December 1920, 7–8; and Zybkovets, Natsionalizatsiia monastyrskikh imushchestv, 81–86.

50 Freeze, “Subversive Atheism.” See also Glennys Young, Power and the Sacred in Revolutionary Russia: Religious Activists in the Village (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997). On parish life and governance and the relations between parishioners and clergy in Nizhnii Novgorod province during these years, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 212–213; TsANO, f. 55, op. 2, d. 2379, ll. 24–27; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 37–38, 59–59ob, 63–63ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 1–9, op. 2; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 156–169, 186–192; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 45, ll. 1–2; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 149, ll. 2–5ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 152, ll. 8–9, 75–75ob, 80–81ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 167, ll. 60–61, 74–79; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 171, ll. 1–4; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 10–11, 18–19ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 109–109ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 25–28; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 24–24ob, 41–47ob; and in general, TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, dd. 10, 41, 47; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, dd. 44, 152, 185; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 34.

51 On religious life, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 1–9, 23–34, 53–56, 65–71ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 11a–13ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 14–21; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 146, ll. 1–7; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 147, ll. 2–7ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 5–6ob, 8–9, 30–32ob, 62, 74, 93–96, 122–125, 135–135ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 41, 44, 117–120; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 164, ll. 1–3ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 166, ll. 27–27ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 171, ll. 1–4; and in general, TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 8. For example, annual and special processions with the Oranki Birthgiver of God icon, the most venerated icon in the province, continued. See TsANO, f. 55, op. 2, d. 2379, ll. 60–61; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 95, 120–120ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 5–5ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 58–59; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 18–18ob, 76–82ob, 123–123ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 63–63ob; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 2, d. 168, ll. 28–28ob.

52 See the sources cited in note 23 above. Although the department's official report and the Soviet press attributed the incident to “counterrevolutionary elements,” the head of the department internally blamed it on a misunderstanding by the police.

53 GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 691, ll. 75–77ob, 237–238; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 696, ll. 211–213; TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, d. 677; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 28–30ob, 36–37; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 60–60ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 8–11; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1,d. 6, ll. 19–19ob; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 13, ll. 3–4; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 20; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 7, 39, 41, 56, 70, 72–74, 86–90, 136–137; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, l. 8.

54 TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, d. 678; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 60–60ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 50, ll. 5–6; TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 2, ll. 14–14ob; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 37, 59.

55 Although it is widely believed, especially in Nizhnii Novgorod, that the convent was also used for a time as a concentration camp for political detainees, the abbess does not mention this in her annual reports for 1918 or 1919, nor is the convent included among the prisons listed for Nizhnii Novgorod in the archival records of the relevant Soviet prison agencies. TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 28–30ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op 2, d. 50, ll. 5–6; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 610, l. 10; and GARF, f. 393, op. 89, dd. 39, 111, 214. See also Galai and Galai, “Nizhegorodskii Krestovozdvizhenskii zhenskii monastyr’,” 89–90; but see Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 187.

56 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, l. 30ob (and ll. 28–30ob in general); TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, d. 676; and Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 302–306.

57 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 50, l. 6 (and ll. 5–6 in general); and Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 302–306.

58 NTsOV, no. 33, 26 November 1917, 482; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 81, l. 14; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 94; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 96, ll. 4–6.

59 TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 74–74ob. On Evdokim's conception of church-state relations and positions on church reform, his policies as bishop, and his interactions with Soviet authorities, see TsANO, f. 55, op. 2, d. 2379, ll. 3–30b; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 102–103ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 59–59ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 62, ll. 2–5, 8, 13, 22, 32–32ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 183, ll. 2–3ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 41, ll. 4–5; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 42, ll. 1–2; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 45, ll. 1–2; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 46, ll. 2–2ob, 29–31ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 89, ll. 39–39ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 5–7; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 167, l. 39; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 168, ll. 3–4, 7–8ob, 18–19ob, 24–24ob, 28–28ob, 33–36; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 170, ll. 2–2ob; TsANO f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 74–74ob; and GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 701, ll. 345–348. On Evdokim and his tenure in Nizhnii Novgorod, see Tikhon (Zatekin) and Degteva, Sviatiteli zemli nizhegorodskoi, 215–228.

60 On these points, see the works by Wagner and Wagner and Barnitt cited in note 1 above as well as the following: Wagner, W. G. and Barnitt, K., “Using Statistical Analysis to Study Life within Orthodox Convents,” Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta: Seriia 2; Istoriia 63, no. 2 (2018): 329–344Google Scholar; and Wagner, William G., “The Mother of God and the Lives of Orthodox Female Religious in Late Imperial Russia,” in Framing Mary: The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russian Culture, ed. Adams, Amy Singleton and Shevzov, Vera (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2018), 98–121Google Scholar.

61 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 4–4ob, 67, 78–83; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 25–26, 29, 40–41ob, 45, 53ob, 101ob–103ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 41, ll. 13–13ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 12–12ob, 14–15, 17–21, 31–31ob, 137, 145ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 46, ll. 2–7, 13–14ob, 23, 29–31ob, 74–74ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 775, ll. 45–45ob; Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo, 78, 98–99, 139, 333–366, 507–513; and Kenworthy, “Monasticism in War and Revolution,” 244–248. See also table 2.

62 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, l. 170; TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 23–45ob, 49, 108–118, 125, 153–153ob, 155–162ob, 169–170ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, l. 1; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, l. 116. See also table 3.

63 TsANO, f. 56, op. 4, d. 17, l. 18; and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 164–164ob. See also TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 40–41, 48, 72–74.

64 GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 180, ll. 58–84; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 182, ll. 2, 17–32ob, 118–133; GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 702, ll. 40–40ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 730, ll. 6, 19–19ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 774, ll. 11–16; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 775, ll. 37–40; GARF, f. A-353, op. 4, d. 372, ll. 2–3; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 10, ll. 137, 145ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 38, ll. 1–1ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 174, ll. 8–12ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 250, ll. 26–31, 48–65ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 1–33; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 468, ll. 91–91ob, 111; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 486, ll. 165–171, 182–183ob, 297–307; TsANO, f. 56, op. 4, d. 17, l. 18; TsANO f. 1026, op. 1, d. 33, ll. 16–18; RGAE, f. 478, op. 5, d. 1035, l. 37; RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 634, ll. 1–8ob; RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 637; and RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 1951, ll. 19, 26–27, 89–92, 108–120. On the legal status of “exploiting” and “laboring” sisters, see Gidulianov, P. V., Otdelenie tserkvi ot gosudarstva: Pol'nyi sbornik dekretov RSFSR i SSSR, instruktsii, tsirkuliarov i t. d. s raz”iasneniiami V otdela NKIusta RSFSR, 2nd ed. (Moscow: Iuridicheskoe izdatel'stvo NKIusta RSFSR, 1924), 348–355Google Scholar. Although in France apostolic orders carrying out charitable work were also initially allowed to continue to exist due to their perceived social utility, Soviet policy toward monastic cooperatives differed fundamentally because it was intended to lead to the dissolution or socialist conversion of these communities. On France, see Aston, Religion and Revolution, 134, 232; and Beales, Prosperity and Plunder, 255–256, 263–264, 268.

65 Local Soviet authorities admitted that their welfare organizations could not support old and infirm members of the convent. TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 6, ll. 19–19ob; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 44, ll. 143–145.

66 Previously, an informal group of appointed senior sisters had assisted the abbess and other officers. On the Church Council, see note 18 above. On the discussion of monastic reform in the Church Council and the reforms adopted, see GARF, f. 3431, op. 1, dd. 369–379, 597–598; and Kenworthy, Heart of Russia, 300–303. As in the prerevolutionary debates over monasticism, female monastics had limited input into the deliberations of the Church Council regarding monastic reform, and the particular needs of their communities were given only modest consideration. The issues that provoked the most discussion were the relative authority of an abbess and her convent's clergy and the division of certain income between a convent and its clergy. The former, in fact, became an issue of contention at the Convent of the Exaltation of the Cross in 1921. TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, l. 1; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, l. 116.

67 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 468, ll. 91–91ob. See also GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, l. 87; and TsANO, f. 51, op. 4, d. 31, ll. 18–19.

68 TsANO, f. 53, op. 1, d. 468, ll. 91–91ob; TsANO, f. 53, op. 1, d. 456, l. 50ob.; and GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, ll. 87, 89.

69 Kulakov and Depretto, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 1:164–165, see also 149–151, 173–174, 183.

70 GARF, f. A-353, op. 4, d. 372, ll. 121–121ob, and 118–126 in general. See also GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, ll. 101–102, 104, 115; GARF, f. A-353, op. 5, d. 229, ll. 56–57; and RGAE, f. 478, op. 5, d. 1036, ll. 38–40. Interestingly, the Commissariat of Agriculture's characterization of female monastically based cooperatives echoed a diocesan report on the economic organization and productiveness of convents in Nizhnii Novgorod diocese made to the Holy Synod in 1898: “The work of the sisters exhibits a strong, systematic division and distribution of labor by type into specific groups of toiler-nuns. It is precisely this proper division and appropriate rotation of labor . . . that serve . . . as one of the main conditions for the success and productiveness of this labor and for the high quality of craftsmanship for which monastic products are renowned.” Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv, St. Petersburg, f. 796, op. 442, d. 1731, l. 11.

71 The conversion of the cooperatives at the Vyksa Iveron Convent proved to be particularly contentious and apparently had the negative economic effects feared by the Commissariat of Agriculture. See GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, ll. 102–131ob.

72 Kozlov, V. F., “O knige ‘Pravoslavnye monastyri Rossiiskoi imperii’ i ee avtore Leonide Ivanoviche Denisove,” Otechestvo, no. 7 (1996): 156Google Scholar; and Zybkovets, Natsionalizatsiia monastyrskikh imushchestv, 101–109, which notes the pattern while offering a tendentious interpretation of women's motives. See also Kedrov, N. G., “Pravoslavnyi monastyr’ evropeiskogo severa i severo-zapada Rossii v poslerevoliutsionnyi period,” in Pravoslavie: Konfessiia, instituty, religioznost’ (XVII–XX vv.); Sbornik nauchnyky rabot, ed. Dolbilov, M. and Rogoznyi, P. (St. Petersburg: Evropeiskii universitet v Sankt-Peterburge, 2009), 211–233Google Scholar; Kashevarov, A. N., “K voprosu o sud'be pravoslavnykh monastyrei v pervye gody Sovetskoi vlasti,” Nestor, no. 1 (2000): 331–342Google Scholar; Shkarovskii, M. V., “Sud'ba monastyrei sankt-peterburgskoi eparkhii v XX veke,” Istoricheskie kraevedenie i arkhivy 7 (2001): 404–411Google Scholar; Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 58–69; and Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo. Scott Kenworthy's study of the Trinity-Sergius Monastery demonstrates that those male communities that survived employed a similar strategy as their female counterparts: Kenworthy, Heart of Russia, 330–346. On France, see Aston, Religion and Revolution, 136–137, 232–233; and Beales, Prosperity and Plunder, 258, 265.

73 On the differences between female and male monastic communities in Nizhnii Novgorod diocese, see Wagner, “Transformation of Female Orthodox Monasticism,” 826–830.

74 Introduced beginning in March 1921, the NEP sought to quell social discontent and revive the shattered Soviet economy by ending grain requisitioning and restoring free trade, market relations, and limited spheres of private ownership. On the NEP period, see Smith, Russia in Revolution, 263–373.

75 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 62, ll. 2–39; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 2–4, 11–11ob, 97; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 5, 7; _ska, “Ni minuty promedleniia,” Molot, no. 7, 4 March 1922, 2; and V. Sh., “Iz”iatie tserkovnykh tsennostei,” Molot, no. 16, 5 May 1922, 1. The Patriachate of the Russian Orthodox Church was restored by the Church Council in late October, 1917, with Metropolitan Tikhon then being chosen as Patriarch. See Destivelle, Moscow Council, 73–90.

76 GARF, f. A-353, op. 6, d. 6, ll. 5–6, 12–12ob, 28; GARF, f. A-393, op. 27, d. 1389, l. 479; GARF, f. 1235, op. 140, d. 60, ll. 374, 393, 930; GARF, f. 1235, op. 140, d. 72, ll. 42–42ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 170; and Otchet nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta za vremia s 15 dekabria g. po 15 noiabria 1922 g. (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhpoligraf, 1922), 18. See also the documents collected in Pokrovskii, N. N. and Petrov, S. G., comps., Politburo i tserkov’ 1922–1925, 2 vols. (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 1997–1998)Google Scholar; and Mazyrin, Aleksandr, Goncharov, V. A., and Uspenskii, I. V., eds., Iz”iatie tserkovnykh tsennostei v Moskve v 1922 godu: Sbornik dokumentov iz fonda Revvoensoveta Respubliki (Moscow: Pravoslavnyi Sviato-Tikhonovskii gumanitarnyi unversitet, 2006)Google Scholar. In general, see Krivova, N. A., Vlast’ i tserkov’ v 1922–1925 gg.: Politburo i GPU v bor'be za tserkovnye tsennosti i politicheskoe podchinenie dukhovenstva (Moscow: AIRO-XX, 1997)Google Scholar; Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, 103–119; Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’; 83–112, Kashevarov, Pravoslavnaia rossiiskaia tserkov’ i sovetskoe gosudarstvo, 221–249; Husband, “Godless Communists,” 55–59; Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 73–77; and McMeekin, Sean, History's Greatest Heist: The Looting of Russia by the Bolsheviks (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009), 73–91Google Scholar.

77 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 62, ll. 2–39; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 69, ll. 10–10ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 2–4, 11–11ob, 97; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 5, 7.

78 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 62, ll. 6–6ob; and GARF, f. 1235, op. 140, d. 72, l. 42ob.

79 Galai, Iu. G., “Prodazha za granitsu sokrovishch nizhegorodskikh pravoslavnykh khramov (1920-e-nachalo 1930-kh godov),” Nizhegorodskii Pravoslavnyi Sobrnik, no. 1 (Nizhnii Novgorod: Tsentr Nizhegorodskogo Eparkhial'nogo upravleniia, 1997), 5–11Google Scholar; and McMeekin, History's Greatest Heist.

80 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 58, 104; TsANO, f. 1116, op. 1, d. 397; TsANO, f. 1684, op. 1, d. 87, d. 101, ll. 2–29; and Galai, “Prodazha za granitsu,” 6–10. The campaigns could be repeated in part because Soviet authorities allowed religious communities to substitute cash payments for the physical confiscation of valuables.

81 TsANO, f. 1116, op. 1, d. 397, ll. 30–31, 41; TsANO, f. 1684, op. 1, d. 87, l. 91; GARF, f. 1065, op. 4, d. 81, l. 2; and Galai and Galai, “Nizhegorodskii Krestovozdvizhenskii zhenskii monastyr’,” 89–90.

82 On Renovationism, see Roslof, Edward E., Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and Revolution, 1905–1946 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002)Google Scholar; Shkarovskii, M. V., Obnovlencheskoe dvizhenie v russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi XX veka (St. Petersburg: Nestor, 1999)Google Scholar; Michail Shkarovskiy, “Soviet State and Soviet Church,” in Schönpflug and Schulze Wessel, Redefining the Sacred, 181–195; Kenworthy, Scott M., “Russian Reformation? The Program for Religious Renovation in the Orthodox Church, 1922–1925,” Modern Greek Studies Yearbook 16/17 (2000–2001): 89–130Google Scholar; and Solov'ev, I. V., comp., “Obnovlencheskii” raskol: Materialy dlia tserkovno-istoricheskoi i kanonicheskoi kharakteristiki (Moscow: Krutitskoe podvor'e, 2002)Google Scholar. On popular responses to the Renovationist program, see Freeze, Gregory L., “Counter-reformation in Russian Orthodoxy: Popular Response to Religious Innovation, 1922–1925,” Slavic Review 54, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 305–339CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83 On France and Mexico, see the sources cited in note 17 above.

84 Roslof, Red Priests, 127, table 4.1. On the conflict over Renovationism in Nizhnii Novgorod province and the positions of Archbishop Evdokim and Metropolitan Sergii, see TsANO, f. 55, op. 2, d. 2379, ll. 3–3ob, 11–11ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 43, ll. 50–50ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 44; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 61, ll. 13–14, 17, 22, 26; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 69, ll. 1–1ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 73 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 167, ll. 39–41ob, 56–58; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 168; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 170, ll. 2–2ob; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, dd. 181–183; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 185, ll. 1, 34, 46–51, 55–56, 101–105, 108, 117–119ob; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 11, ll. 74–74ob. Sergii became patriarch in Locum Tenens in 1926 and patriarch in 1943. On his tenure in Nizhnii Novgorod diocese, see Tikhon (Zatekin) and Degteva, Sviatiteli zemli nizhegorodskoi, 229–238; and Odintsov, Mikhail, Patriarkh Sergii (Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 2013), 161–184Google Scholar.

85 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 1268, l. 203; TsANO, f. 56, op. 2, d. 2, l. 233; and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 145–185. While the presidium appears to have made its decision in 1923, one source lists the date as 1924. In the latter part of 1923 the antireligious commission of the party central committee began to promote a more even-handed treatment of Renovationist and Tikhonite communities as a way to intensify the conflict between them. V. V. Lobanov, ed., Protokoly komissii po provedeniiu otdeleniia tserkvi ot gosudarstva pri TsK RKP(b)-VKP(b) (Antireligioznoi komissii): 1922–1929 gg. (Moscow: Sviato-Tikhonovskii gumanitarnyi universitet, 2014), 22–25, 71–77, 113, 129–134.

86 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 1268, l. 203 (and ll. 55ob–56ob, 95, 110, 141, 245, 257–257ob on the use of reregistration as a means for increasing state surveillance over religious groups); and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 138–162ob.

87 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 131–135ob; TsANO, f. 1679, op. 1, d. 314, ll. 1–3; and TsANO, f. 1684, op. 1, d. 101, ll. 25, 27. On the closure of the convent's chapel, Sokolov, Aleksandr, Stopy zhizni v gody gonenii na tserkov’ (Nizhnii Novgorod: Kvarts, 2012), 113Google Scholar.

88 On these disagreements, see Peris, Storming the Heavens; Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief; Luchshev, Antireligioznaia propaganda; and Lobanov, Protokoly komissii po provedeniiu otdeleniia tserkvi ot gosudarstva.

89 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 55, ll. 1–9; and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 164–164ob. On the annual procession with the Oranki Birthgiver of God icon, see note 51 above.

90 The work performed by members of the community is indicated in the membership lists. See TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 35–45ob, 111–118, 156–162ob.

91 Viewed through the lens of Bolshevik class and gender stereotypes, the peasantry and the meshchanstvo were politically suspect because of their allegedly “petit bourgeois” nature or tendencies and, in the case of the peasantry, their ignorance and backwardness, with peasant women being perceived as especially ignorant and prone to religious “superstition” and “fanaticism.”

92 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 41, l. 13; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, l. 85. Mariia was still living at the convent in 1923 but died in the mid-1920s; Nazareta, who apparently died in 1934, was not listed among the members of the community in 1923–1928. TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 35–45ob, 108–118, 156–162ob; and Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 301–307.

93 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 109, 125, 155. Biographical information on members and chairs is drawn from the convent's membership lists for 1887, 1894, 1896, 1902, 1906, and 1917. TsANO, f. 582, op. 1, dd. 460, 531, 577, 588, 631; TsANO, f. 570, op. 559 za 1906 g., d. 62; and TsANO, f. 570, op. za 1917 g., d. 56a. The first chair, Neonila Sizova, was an unmarried meshchanka from Nizhnii Novgorod province who had entered the convent in 1885; the second, Varvara Naumova, was an unmarried peasant from Nizhii Novgorod province who had entered the convent in 1889. Both women were fully literate at the time they entered the convent. Although the third chair was a man, by the early 1930s the chair was a woman again.

94 For similar examples at other convents, see TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 277, ll. 12, 21–22; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 157–158ob; RGAE, f. 478, op. 6, d. 1951, l. 19; and Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, no. 12, 1 December 1920, 7–8.

95 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 11, l. 43.

96 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 90–91; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 167, l. 27ob. See also TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 51, ll. 24–24ob, 83–84ob; and Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo, 512–515. The understanding of the Revolution and Soviet rule as a trial of believers’ faith sent by God was echoed in Patriarch Tikhon's July 1919 epistle to the Orthodox faithful. Shchapov, Ia. N., ed., Vasil'eva, O. Iu., Masal'skaia, A. S., Selezneva, I. N., and Aleksashina, M. E., comps., Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ i kommunisticheskoe gosudarstvo 1917–1941: Dokumenty i fotomaterialy (Moscow: Bibleisko-bogoslovskii institut sviatogo apostola Andreia, 1996), 41–44Google Scholar.

97 GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 701, ll. 38–39ob.

98 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 91, ll. 51–52.

99 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 197–198.

100 TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 45, l. 7.

101 Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo, 99. See also TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 150, ll. 2–3; and TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 1765, l. 126ob. For a similar incident at the Serafim-Ponetaevka All-Sorrows Convent, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 159–160.

102 Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, nos. 1–2, (January–February) 1921, 104.

103 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1, d. 1268, ll. 141, 203, and the material in this delo in general.

104 TsANO, f. 56, op. 1 d. 936, l. 328ob.

105 G. Kr., “Bibliografiia. ‘Bezbozhnik’ No. 1,” Nizhegorodskaia Kommuna, no. 300, 31 December 1922/1 January 1923, 5. On Soviet anti-religious propaganda in Nizhnii Novgorod province during this period, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 171, ll. 2ob–3ob; Vestnik Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo ispolnitel'nogo komiteta, nos. 1–2 (January–February), 1921, 104; “Rabota Agitatsionno-propagandistskogo otdela,” Izvestiia Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo komiteta VKP(b) (hereafter cited as INGKVKP(b)), no. 15, 1922, 36–38; A. Okun'kov, “APO-rabota: Iz opyta antireligioznoi propagandy,” INGKVKP(b), no. 1, 1928, 4–5; V. Malinin, “Itogi antirozhdestvenskoi kampanii v rabochikh raionakh,” INGKVKP(b), no. 3, 1928, 6–7; V. Malinin, “Bol'she vnimaniia antireligioznoi propagande,” INGKVKP(b), no. 15, 1928, 3–4; Iv. Pindiur, “Komsomol: Religioznoe nastuplenie na molodezh’ i antireligioznaia rabota komsomola,” INGKVKP(b), no. 3, 1928, 7–8; and Antireligioznoe vospitanie v shkolakh sotsvoza: Metodicheskoe pis'mo (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskii gubernskii metodicheskii sovet gubernskogo otdela narodnogo obrazovaniia, 1929). On Soviet anti-religious propaganda in general, see Peris, Storming the Heavens; Luchshev, Antireligioznaia propaganda; and Young, Power and the Sacred.

106 For example, see GARF, f. A-353, op. 5, d. 250; Kulakov and Depretto, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 1: 164–165, 235–236; Serzh. Fein, “Beregis’ Komsomol, soperniki est’,” Molodaia gvardiia, 3 September 1922, 2; Malinin, “Itogi antirozhdestvenskoi kampanii”; Malinin, “Bol'she vnimaniia antireligioznoi propagande”; Pindiur, “Komsomol”; and Antireligioznoe vospitanie v shkolakh sotsvoza, 13–14. Interestingly, fearing their appeal to Orthodox believers, local Orthodox prelates also expressed concerns over the growth of religious sects. TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 149, ll. 3–3ob, 8; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 152, ll. 8–9, 107–108; TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 166, ll. 27–27ob; and TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 185, ll. 121–121ob. On debate within the party at this time over policy toward religious sects and concern over their growth, see Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, 168–179, 181–182, 201–205.

107 See Husband, “Godless Communists,” 134–113; and Freeze, “Subversive Atheism.”

108 “Soversheno sekretno”: Lubianka—Stalinu o polozhenii v strane (1922–1934 gg.), vol. 3, 1925 g., part 1 (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2002), 107–109. The surveys were compiled from similar weekly surveys submitted by provincial and other OGPU officials and were distributed to the top party leadership as well as to the heads of provincial OGPU offices. Each typically included a section on “clergy and sects.” See also “Soversheno sekretno,” vol. 4, 1926 g., part 1 (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2001), 115; “Soversheno sekretno,” vol. 5, 1927 g. (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2003), 367, 508–509, 689; and “Soversheno sekretno,” vol. 6, 1928 g. (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2002), 495–497, 541, 594–595. See also Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 139–140, 170–171, 176–179.

109 “Soversheno sekretno,” vol. 3, 1925 g., part 1, 107–109. See also Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 149–155.

110 Gordeeva, Kazakov, and Smirnov, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, 2:279–280.

111 Gordeeva, Kazakov, and Smirnov, Zabveniiu ne podlezhit, 2:281.

112 Bukova, Zhenskie obiteli prepodobnogo Serafima Sarovskogo, 368–371.

113 Koliabin, V. V., comp. Kooperativno-kolkhoznoe stroitel'stvo v nizhegorodskoi gubernii (1917–1927): Dokumenty i materialy (Gor'kii: Volgo-Viatskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1980), 238–239Google Scholar.

114 On the dissolution of monastic communities, see Kenworthy, Heart of Russia, 350–355; and Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 118–122, 134–135. On church closures in Nizhnii Novgorod province/Gorky region, see Kulakov, A. A. and Sakharov, A. N., ed., Obshchestvo i vlast’: Rossiiskaia provintsiia, vol. 2, 1930 g.-iiun’ 1941 g. (Moscow: Institut Rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2005), 1017–1018Google Scholar. There are discrepancies in the numbers reported in different sources (see Kulakov and Sakharov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 2:953–954, 958; GARF, f. R-5263, op. 1, dd. 454–455; and TsANO, f. 2626, op. 2, d. 1061). On the process of church closures in the province/region, see TsANO, f. 1684, op. 1, d. 87; TsANO, f. 2626, op. 1, dd. 656–700, 1144–1189, 1328–1741, 2327–2336, 2621–2671, 3133–3227; TsANO, f. 2626, op. 2, dd. 175–321, 382–493, 562–574, 619–630, 721–757, 907–955, 1061–1095; TsANO, f. 3074, op. 1, dd. 251–317, 785–1135; GARF, f. R-5236, op. 1, d. 21, ll. 196–199; GARF, f. R-5236, op. 1, d. 458, ll. 80–84; GARF, f. R-5236, op. 1, d. 461, ll. 10–14, 119; and GARF, f. R-5236, op. 1, d. 465, ll. 77–78ob. On anti-religious policies, their effects, and the state of religious life in Nizhnii Novgorod/Gor'kii region in the 1930s, see Kulakov and Sakharov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 2:943–948, 971–974, and 943–1022 in general.

115 GARF, f. R-6991c, op. 1c, d. 177, l. 51.

116 Kulakov and Sakharov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 2:944, 958–959, 967–968, 994, 1002, 1011–1013, 1016. An OGPU report on the activities of counterrevolutionary organizations in the central black-earth region for 1930 similarly notes the role of former nuns in allegedly anti-Soviet activity. “Soversheno sekretno,” vol. 8, 1930 g., part 2 (Moscow: Institut rossiiskoi istorii RAN, 2008), 1458–1476, 1500–1503. On France, see Aston, Religion and Revolution, 232–233; and Desan, Reclaiming the Sacred, 79. On Mexico, see Young, “Calles Government and Catholic Dissidents,” 68–71, 78–79.

117 GARF, f. R-6991c, op. 1c, d. 177, ll. 14, 33; GARF, f. R-6991c, op. 1c, d. 372, ll. 29, 156; GARF, f. R-6991c, op. 1c, d. 481, ll. 36–38, 72–74, 79–80, 89–93; and GARF, f. R-6991c, op. 1c, d. 632, l. 32.

118 For a discussion of this practice and description of the pretexts most commonly used, see GARF, f. R-5263, op. 1, d. 21, ll. 16–17, 23–27, 196–199. In general, see Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 194–206; and Luukkanen, Religious Policy, 60–85.

119 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 89–89ob; and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 63–93 in general.

120 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 89–89ob; and TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 63–93 in general.

121 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, ll. 1–93; and TsANO, f. 2626, op. 2, d. 270, l. 234.

122 TsANO, f. 1104, op. 1, d. 34, l. 49.

123 In a sketic monastic community, members live separately in their own dwellings and come together collectively mainly only to worship.

124 A principal goal of the revised law was to exclude religion from all aspects of social, economic, and cultural life and confine it narrowly to participation in worship that took place within an officially designated space. For the text of the law, see Shchapov, ed., Vasil'eva, Masal'skaia, Selezneva, and Aleksashina, comps., Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’ i kommunisticheskoe gosudarstvo, 250–261. On its development and significance, see Odintsov, Russkaia pravoslavnaia tserkov’, 183–184; and Luukkanen, Party of Unbelief, 218–226.

125 TsANO, f. 2626, op. 1, d. 2641; TsANO f. 2209, op. 3, d. 6829; and Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 156–157, 263–264. See also Kulakov and Sakharov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 2:999. Bishop Evgenii and the other clergy were later rehabilitated, one in 1961 and the rest in 1993. The responses of believers and of Soviet authorities provoked in Gor'kii/Nizhnii Novgorod by the coincidence of Easter and May Day in 1935 were not uncommon. See Freeze, “Stalinist Assault,” 226–227. The Kazan Church eventually was razed, the cemetery was turned into a playing field and then a park, and the main convent complex was used for a variety of purposes, including housing and a factory.

126 Filareta (Gazhu) and Matsina, Istoriia, 361–370; Kulakov and Sakharov, Obshchestvo i vlast’, 2:1011–1013; and Lipa Gruzman, Evreiskie tetradi (Jerusalem: LIRA, 2003), 52–53. Gruzman observed sisters still living near the former convent as late as the 1950s. In general, see Kirichenko, Zhenskoe pravoslavnoe podvizhnichestvo v Rossii, 502–623; and Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 128–134, 155–161.

127 For example, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 1, d. 18, ll. 40–44, 101ob. For rare instances of conflict, see TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 47, ll. 3–3ob; and TsANO, f. 1026, op. 1, d. 29, ll. 145–146ob.

128 On the strength of small religious communities in the Soviet Union and the willingness as well as ability of their members to endure severe duress, see Froese, Paul, The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), 71–72, 140–141CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

129 The formation of “false” agricultural cooperatives appears to have been a persistent problem. See the documents in Koliabin, comp., Kooperativno-kolkhoznoe stroitel'stvo v nizhegorodskoi gubernii. Interestingly, in the later NEP period, independent entrepreneurs (“NEPmen”) similarly used faux cooperatives as a way to circumvent Soviet restrictions and maintain their capitalist activities. See Ball, Alan M., Russia's Last Capitalists: The Nepmen, 1921–1929 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 141–144Google Scholar.

130 See TsANO, f. 1016, op. 2, d. 153, ll. 104–114ob; TsANO, f. 56, op. 4, d. 17, ll. 27–27ob; and GARF, f. A-353, op. 2, d. 702, ll. 38–39ob; GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 749, ll. 108–111ob; and GARF, f. A-353, op. 3, d. 775, ll. 45–46ob. See also Wynot, Keeping the Faith, 61. Interestingly, many party members at the time similarly believed that socialism and religion were not incompatible. See Husband, “Godless Communists”; Wynot, Keeping the Faith; and Peris, Storming the Heavens.

131 On the concept of “stadial consciousness” and its radicalizing impact on secularist ideologies, see Casanova, “The Secular, Secularizations, Secularisms,” 57–60. For an archetypical example of such stadial thinking with regard to religion and secularity in the Nizhnii Novgorod press, see V. Khramov, “Nauka i religiia,” Fakel’: Proletarskii dvukhnedel'nyi zhurnal, no. 1, 1919, 28–32.