‘All Power to the Parish!" An Orthodox Revival in 1920-s

Abstract

Existing scholarship on Russian Orthodoxy during the Soviet era has tended to focus on high politics, the Church (as an institution), and the clergy (especially the hierarchy). It is important, however, to shift the focus to the parish and laity, to whom the Bolsheviks (through the famous decree of 1918) gave full power over the local church and religious life. Focusing on Ukraine in the 1920s, this article examines the impact of Bolshevik policy on the parish, from the social revolution in the clergy to the religious revival of the 1920s-which, in turn, triggered the “velikii perelom” in religious policy in 1929.