The Moscow Council (1917–1918): The Creation of the Conciliar Institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church

by Hyacinthe Destivelle O.P., Hyacinthe Destivelle O.P., Michael Plekon (Editor)

By the early twentieth century, a genuine renaissance of religious thought and a desire for ecclesial reform were emerging in the Russian Orthodox Church. With the end of tsarist rule and widespread dissatisfaction with government control of all aspects of church life, conditions were ripe for the Moscow Council of 1917-1918 to come into being. The council was a major event in the history of the Orthodox Church. After years of struggle for reform against political and ecclesiastical resistance, the bishops, clergy, monastics, and laity who formed the Moscow Council were able to listen to one other and make sweeping decisions intended to renew the Russian Orthodox Church. Council members sought change in every imaginable area―from seminaries and monasteries, to parishes and schools, to the place of women in church life and governance. Like Vatican II, the Moscow Council emphasized the mission of the church in and to the world. Destivelle’s study not only discusses the council and its resolutions but also provides the historical, political, social, and cultural context that preceded the council. In the only comprehensive and probing account of the council, he discusses its procedures and achievements, augmented by substantial appendices of translated conciliar documents. Tragically, due to the Revolution, the council's decisions could not be implemented to the extent its members hoped. Despite current trends in the Russian church away from the Moscow Council’s vision, the council’s accomplishments remain as models for renewal in the Eastern churches.

466 pages, Paperback

First published November 15, 2014

Reviews

[Ted · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the book an interesting read - looking at one very short period of the Russian Church, but what a period! The Church was striving to creatively deal with a rapidly changing situation - a change which the Church itself wanted. However, though the Church wanted a separation from the state, it could not really imagine it or incarnate it. It wanted separation from the state while simultaneously assuming and even demanding a favored status and protection and support from the state. Thus it couldn't see what was happening in the country as a whole. The Soviet state would enforce the separation for sure, but by imposing it on the church, surrounding it, cutting it off from society and confining it to an ever shrinking "reservation" [like what the U.S. government did to the native American population]. Still it is amazing what churchmen were willing to discuss as they imagined a future for the Church. But even more amazing, and much sadder, was that for all of the Church's supposed place in the society, the people were not really "in" the church. The church was an institution of rules distant from their hearts and lives. The claimed 100 million members did not stand to defend their church, but allowed it to be dismantled and marginalized. Was that was really the role it had in their lives anyway?