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A Contemporary Report on the Condition of the Catholic Church in Russia, 1922
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 August 2011
Extract
The modern Catholic problem in Russia, like the Jewish problem, begins with the Polish Partitions; and its history ends with its violent solution in 1923 by the Bolsheviks, who completed the task at which the tsars had so long and persistently worked. The human material of this story consisted of 1,693,549 Roman Catholics and 3,033,968 Greek Catholics in 1804, if we excluded those who had not received the sacraments. By the same year the Latin Catholics had been organized into the vast Archdiocese of Mohylew and seven suffragan sees of Wilno, Samogitia, Luck-Zytomir, Kamieniec, and Minsk. Except for the establishment of Tiraspol-Saratov and the government suppression of Minsk and Kamieniec, this remained the hierarchical organization of the Latin Catholic Church in Russia. The Greek Catholic Church consisted of the Archdiocese of Polock and the dioceses of Luck and Brest, all of which disappeared in the union of Polock (1839) that forcibly annexed the Uniate Church to the Russian Orthodox.
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References
* The author discovered this document in Warsaw while he was on a Ford Foundation grant in Poland.
1 For the papal attitude, see Lescoueur, L., L'Eglise Catholique en Pologne sous le gouvernment Russe (1876), I, 211–215Google Scholar, who quite erroneously claims Gregory XVI (1830–1846), regretted his action; this is denied by Boudou, A., Le Saint Siege et la Russie (1922), I, 187–188.Google Scholar For a magisterial study of the origins of the Encyclical by the most distinguished Polish church historian, see M. Zywczynski, Geneza i nastepstwa Encyklik Cum Primum (1935).
2 An eyewitness account of this trial is contained in F. McCullagh, The Bolshevik Persecution of Christianity (1924); occasionally it is marred by what were for a foreigner unavoidable mistakes.
3 Annuario Pontificio (1923), p. 374, p. 673.
4 Most probably the intermediary between Archbishop Lauri and Monsignor Budkiewicz was Bishop Adolf Szelazek, auxiliary of Polock, who had suggested Monsignor Budkiewicz to the nuncio as a reliable and informed source of information. See also Annuario Pontificio (1923), p. 255.
5 The archdiocesan authorities had noted the plight of war refugees before this. See the extremely rare Kronika archidyecezyi Mohylowskiej i dyecezyi Minskiej, April, 1918, No. 4, pp. 68–70, for Archbishop Ropp's address to the Polish Catholic refugees about returning to Poland.
6 The decrees on nationalization were published in Politika sovetskoi Vlasti po natsionalnom voprosu za tri goda 1917-IX-1920 (1920), p. 24., p. 110
7 For the decree, see Gidulianov, P. V., (ed.), Otdelenie tserkvi ot gosudarstva, 3rd. ed. (1926), pp. 368–369.Google Scholar Pravda, January 21, 1918; Osservatore Romano, June 3, 1921. An English translation is available in Curtiss, J. S., The Russian Church and the Soviet State, 1917–1950 (1953), pp. 332–333 a work that occasionally betrays a naïvete about Bolshevik intentions.Google Scholar
8 The Instruction demanding again the signatures of committees was published in Izvestiia, August 12, 1922.
9 M. Milich, “Protsess rimsko-Katolicheskogo dukhovenstva,” Revolutsiia itserkov (1923), Nos. 1–3, pp. 110–111 describes the closing of churches which Monsignor Budkiewicz feared.
10 For the preliminary peace and the Treaty of Riga, see Shapiro, L., (ed.), Soviet Treaty Series (1940), I, 67–69, 105–116.Google Scholar For details of the negotiations by participants, see S. Grabski, The Polish-Soviet Frontier (n.d.), and J. Dąbski, Pokoj Ryski (1931). Typical of the more frivolous treatment is Shotwell, J. and Laserson, M., Poland and Russia, 1919–1945 (1945).Google Scholar
11 Article VII guaranteed the religious liberty and rights of the Polish population in Russia. Demands by Catholics in Russia for protection by virtue of this article led the Bolshevik authorities in Moscow to construe the article in the following way: 1) that even after the Treaty of Riga, Catholics in Russia remain subject to the laws of the country; 2) that the Catholic churches are at the disposal of Catholics on the same terms as other churches are for their members; 3) that the Treaty does not have the effect of an Edict of Restitution, nor does the Catholic Church acquire the status of a juridical person; 4) that Article VII deals with goods that originated in Poland. See Revolutsiia i tserkov (1922), Nos. 1–3, pp. 36–37.
12 For reports on the exposure of relics, see Pravda, April 4, 1919, April 23, 1919. As to the relics of the Jesuit martyr, St. Andrew Bobola, see A. Kwiatkowski, Profanac ja zwlok Bl. Andrzeja Boboli Bezczeszczenie Swietosci Katolickich w Swietle dokomentow (1927).
13 As early as August 5, 1921, Benedict XV (1914–1922) had written to the then papal secretary of state, Cardinal Peter Gasparri, and requested him to approach the heads of state about immediate effective aid of famine stricken Russia, Acta Apostolicae Sedis (1921), XIII, 428–429: Osservatore Romano, August 8–9, 1921. Ultimately, the papacy spent about $1,500,000 in its relief work in Russia.Google Scholar
14 However, Russian officials did lavish fulsome praise on the papal relief mission at least in their contacts with the Vatican. See Osservatore Romano, January 18, 1923, March 18, 1923.
15 For the decree on the confiscation of church valuables, see Izvestiia, February 24, 1922, February 26, 1922. For preliminary reports on church valuables, see Pravda, February 11, 1922; Izvestiia, February 12, 1922.
16 The negotiations between Cardinal Gasparri and Vladimir Vorovskii in Rome are described in Rutkowski, F., Arcybiskup Jan Cieplak (1857–1926): Szkic bio-graficzny (1934), pp. 267–270.Google Scholar
17 Archbishop Jan Cieplak, titular archbishop of Ochrid and administrator of the archdiocese of Mohylew. He was tried in March, 1923 and condemned to be executed; but the sentence was commuted to ten years of solitary confinement. However, he was exiled in the next year. While on a tour of the United States, he died in 1926, without taking possession of the see to which he had been appointed, Wilno; see Acta Apostolicae Sedis, XVII, 647.
18 Peter Krassikov was the head of the section on Religious Affairs in the Commissariat of Justice.
19 Reverend John Troigo, chancellor of the archdiocese of Mohylew.
20 For a survey of the origins of this eastern rite Russian Catholic Church, see the very sketchy Ammann, A. M., Abriss der ostslawischen Kirchengeschichte (1950), pp. 579–580Google Scholar; also Kolpinskij, D., “Poczạtki katolicyzmu wschodniego obrzạdku w Rosji,” Kosciol Katolicki w Rosji: Materialy do jego historji i organizacji (1932), pp. 24–34Google Scholar; F. Karewicz, “Z Dziejow pracy unijnej n Rosji,” Kosciol Katolicki w Rosji, pp. 43–57; Urban, Jan, Katolicyzm i Prawoslawie (1912), pp. 38–57Google Scholar gives an excellent analysis of the ideas of Vladimir Solovev and Bishop J. Strossmayer of Diakovo, which still play such an important rȏle in Catholic activity among eastern rite Slavic peoples.
21 Exarch Leonid Fedorov, ordained as a Catholic in 1911, returned to Russia, but was exiled to Siberia. After his return, he was named Exarch for the some 3,000 eastern rite Russian Catholics by metropolitan Andrew Szeptycki, Uniate Archbishop of Lwow (d. 1944), in 1917. Exarch Fedorov died a prisoner in Viatka, on March 7, 1935. See Mailleux, P., “The Catholic Church in Russia and Exarch Fedorov,” Religion in Russia: A Collection of Essays Read at the Cambridge Summer School of Russian Studies (1940), pp. 31–48.Google Scholar
22 Vladimir Abrikosov with his wife Anna had joined the eastern rite Catholic Church; he was soon after ordained a priest, and his wife established the first Russian Dominican Community of nuns, whose foundress and superior she was. Abrikosov was expelled from Russia in September, 1922. Anna Abrikosova and her eighteen nuns were arrested. See the Archive of Archbishop Cieplak, Memorandum for the Commission for Russian Affairs at the Congregation for the Oriental Church, December 6, 1925, by Vladimir Abrikosov. The text was made available to the author by Professor Boleslaw Szczesniak.
23 Andrew Szeptycki, Greek Catholic metropolitan archbishop of Halicz-Lwow (1901–1944) had a great faith in the eastern rite church as a means to effecting a union of churches. See his views, expressed in a lecture in Rome, Osservatore Romano, February 19–20, 1923. However, his plans for a union between the Catholic Church and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church were a dismal failure. For a Bolshevik account see Edlinskii, E., “Uniia s Rimon i mitropolit graf Sheptitskii,” Revolutsiia i Tserkov (1924), Nos. 1–3, p. 109.Google Scholar See also Osservatore Romano, August 25, 1922. For secondary accounts of events in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church during the revolution, see , S. K., “Ukrainska Prawoslawna Cerkiew,” Sprawy Narodowosciowie (1927), I, 63–64Google Scholar; Luzhnitskii, G., Ukrainska Tserkva mizh skhodom i zakhodom (1954), pp. 545–547Google Scholar, written from a Ukrainian viewpoint; Ammann. op. cit., pp. 623–624.
24 The details of the conflict of the patriarchal Russian Orthodox Church with the Living Church in Russia are amply given by Curtiss, op. cit., pp. 129–153, but this author labors under the illusion that the revolutionary is always progressive, liberal, and democratic. The Living Church, according to the evidence, was the willing tool of an undemocratic regime and used undemocratic means against its harassed opponent, the patriarchal church. For details about the Living Church, see Izvestiia, May 17, 1922; Pravda, May 25, 1922, for an article by E. Iaroslavskii about the rôle of the Living Church in the road to Socialism; Osservatore Romano, April 12, 1922, November 26, 1922, February 17, 1923 for a full report on the Living Church. See also National Archives, Documents, Russian Section, File No. 861. 404/48, May 31, 1922.
25 T. Prokopovich, Christiana Orthodoxa Theologia (1792), is one of theologians who followed Protestant tendencies in Theology. His Dukhovnii Reglament served as the basis for the Russian Orthodox State Church. See for other documents relating to this report, Zatko, James J., “The letters of Archbishop Lauri, Apostolic Nuncio in Warsaw, to Monsignor Budkiewicz of St. Catherine's, St. Petersburg, 1922–1923,” The Polish Review 4 (1959), pp. 127–131.Google Scholar
26 For the deposition of the Patriarch Tikhon by the Living Church, see Osservatore Romano, May 7–8, 1923.
27 The Russian Orthodox relations with the Anglicans are discussed in Ratel, A., “La Question de l'union et du calendrier dans l'église Orthodoxe,” Echos d'Orient 7 (1904), 91–99CrossRefGoogle Scholar; with the American Episcopalian Church, Ratel, A., “La Question de l'union en Russie et en Amérique,” Echos d'Orient 8 (1905), pp. 138–148; see Ammann, op. cit., pp. 282–284, 547–548.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
28 The Conferences at Bonn between Russian Orthodox and Old Catholics (1874–1875) did not achieve any union of the two groups. See Ammann, op. cit., pp. 547–548.
29 Archbishop Antonin had joined the Living Church, then organized his own group of “The Church of the Rebirth,” and finally became reconciled to the patriarchal church that had remained loyal to Patriarch Tikhon.