p These measures taken by the Soviet government met with fierce opposition from the overthrown exploitative classes and church dignitaries. The secular counter-revolutionaries went hand- inhand with the church counter-revolutionaries. The clergy vigorously assisted the overthrown classes. Anti-Soviet actions by 39 the clergy were inspired by Council of the Russian Orthodox Church. The idea of convening the Council had been set forth under the Provisional Government, and it met on August 15, 1917 expressing support for General Kornilov’s counter- revolutionary revolt and continued its deliberations after the October Revolution.

p After Soviet power had been established, the Council hurried to restore the Patriarchate and elect a Patriarch—the institution abolished by Peter the Great long ago. The forms of church management are, of course, an internal affair for the church but at that point in history, the hasty decision to reestablish the Patriarchate surprised even many members of the Council. “And generally speaking, all this haste with elections,” said Archpriest P. I. Leporsky at the Council, “reminds me of making a shroud for the deceased rather than a garb for a live man.” Speaking against such sentiments, princes of the church did not even try to conceal the counter-revolutionary nature of the plan to restore the Patriarchate. “The matter of the restoration of the Patriarchate can’t be put off,” said Metropolitan Metrophanes of Astrakhan. “Russia’s on fire, everything is perishing. And can we now waste time arguing that we need some way to gather forces, to unite Russia? When war is on, one leader is needed; an army is in disorder without him.” The overthrown classes wanted to have a new leader in the person of the Patriarch. The reactionary clerical and secular forces thought that the elected Patriarch would be like a banner in their struggle against Soviet power.

p On November 5 (18), 1917 Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow (Vasily Belavin when a layman), a monarchist and Black- Hundreds sympathiser, was elected Patriarch. “What do we expect of the Patriarch, what will he be for Russia?”, said Metropolitan Metrophanes at the Council. He then answered himself: “In the present circumstances he must, first thing, gather all active religious forces of the people and inspire them to the feat of serving the ancient behests that Russia was built upon and lived by.” The Local Council headed by the elected primate became the organiser of the struggle by the Russian Orthodox Church against Soviet power. The Council could not help taking this stand. It was composed of 174 church dignitaries, 15 princes and counts, 40 22 landowners, 41 bourgeois, 10 high-ranking military officers, 132 officials of the old administration, and 62 representatives of the bourgeois intelligentsia.

p The secular and ecclesiastical magnates overthrown by Soviet power hated to part with their privileges and enormous wealth amassed through robbing exploited men of their labour. Even after the major decrees of Soviet power had been issued and were carried out, the Council of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted on December 2, 1917 The Enactment on Legal Status of the Church in Russia which tried to vindicate the privileges and benefits of the Russian Orthodox Church that it had enjoyed for centuries under the old regime. The Orthodox Church, said the document, “holds the pre-eminent public and legal position in Russian state among other denominations”. It went on to say that in all cases of the state life, when the state turns to religion, it was to give preference to the Orthodox Church. It was to be understood that the church should enjoy privileges and support rendered by the state just as before. Moreover, the Enactment demanded that “Head of Russian State, the Minister for Religious Affairs and the Minister for Public Education and their deputies" should always be of Orthodox denomination.

p The Enactment specified that the church should retain the right to register marriages, births and deaths, to teach religion at all schools, and that all schools run directly by the church should be preserved intact. In essence, it wanted to retain all the provisions of the tsarist government legislation which legalised the privileges of the Orthodox Church and priests. There was also a demand that the Church should keep all its property with the right to enter into commercial transactions without restrictions.

p The clergy of other denominations also resisted Soviet power. Ministers of Catholic and Protestant religions, of Judaism and Islam, in conjunction with representatives of the overthrown classes, tried in every way to sabotage the radical reforms provided for by Soviet decrees. Incited by the anti-Soviet top hierarchy, many priests continued to serve the old system. They gambled on the religious feelings of believers and spread lies about alleged harassment and persecution of the church and believers; they tried to stir up the masses to the anti-Soviet struggle.

p Although their anti-Soviet activities did not enjoy support and sympathy from the broad masses of working people, including believers among workers and peasants, the counter-revolutionary actions of the churchmen did not stop. It was necessary to deprive the church of the opportunity to utilise its places of worship handed over to the parishioners for free use for political manipulations and organisation of the struggle against Soviet power. Legislation was needed to abolish forever the church’s former privileges, reserving only the right for religious organisations to perform religious rituals and ceremonies. It was necessary to formulate clearly believers’ right to freely worship any religion and, in addition, to guarantee full freedom to those citizens who had scientific and materialistic views and were atheists. It was important to sum up the previous activities of the young Soviet state in ensuring freedom of conscience, as well as adopting a law that would express in a concentrated form the policy ol the proletarian party toward religion, church and believers.

In addition, believers, who were in an overwhelming majority, had to be brought into effective public, political and economic activities and all the governing bodies had to be directed to avoid highhanded actions, so as not to offend believers’ religious feelings.