Why and how the Bolsheviks inspected the relics of the saints

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

From the very beginning of the existence of Soviet power, its policy acquired a pronounced anti-religious orientation. The decree on the separation of church and state was the first major step. Not satisfied with this, the Bolshevik government launched an extensive educational work with the aim of the so-called liberation of the working masses from religious prejudices. An effective means for this was to be a campaign to uncover the relics of the saints venerated by the Russian Orthodox Church.

How the Bolsheviks planned to expose the counter-revolutionary nature of the Orthodox Church

After the Bolsheviks came to power, church-state relations in Russia deteriorated. The main task of the new government was to eradicate the religious feelings of the people and destroy the church as such. The clergy and believers, declared a hotbed of dissent, were persecuted, Christian values were replaced by class values. The current situation was very favorable for holding events, which, as indicated in party documents, were designed to expose the age-old deception of the people by the clergy and to expose the counter-revolutionary essence of the church.

The Bolsheviks did not disdain either the violent inculcation of atheism, or outright repressions against the clergy and their family members, or accusing them of counter-revolution. The peak of anti-church activity was the campaign to autopsy the cancer with the relics of revered Russian saints. A convenient reason for the start of the action was an incident in the Petrozavodsk (Olonets) province: in the process of registering the liturgical property of the Alexander-Svirsky monastery, an autopsy was carried out on a reliquary with the relics of St. Alexander Svirsky, and a wax figure was found in it. The information quickly became public. Newspapers were full of calls to inspect the repositories of holy relics. Representatives of the People's Commissariat of Justice emphasized that the requirement to revise the contents of the tombs comes from the working masses. And from the fall of 1919, the campaign acquired a massive all-Russian character.

The relics of the saints are an excellent target

The holy relics were not chosen by chance as the target of attacks. It was a psychologically accurate measure. The Bolsheviks took advantage of the insufficient spiritual literacy of most of the believers.

According to church canons, the holy relics are not only the undecomposed flesh of the deceased saints. The same veneration is given to undecayed bones. The atheists' stake was on the fact that, seeing instead of a preserved body the remains of a skeleton, people who do not understand these subtleties will doubt the veracity of the clergy and renounce the church. Very often this happened, which gave reason to report: the elimination of the barbarian remnant, which is the cult of the dead, is proceeding successfully.

The belated decision of Patriarch Tikhon

The anti-religious campaign of 1918-1920 showed that the case with the remains of the Monk Alexander of Svir was, unfortunately, not the only one. Most often, the replacement of the relics of some priests was forced by their own negligence, which could result in the loss of the presentable appearance of the shrines or even their disappearance. Scandalous revelations threatened to compromise the ministers of the church.

In order to prevent the undermining of the authority of Orthodoxy and to protect shrines from sacrilege, in February 1919, Patriarch Tikhon brought to the diocesan bishops a decree, according to which they had to eliminate any reason for mockery of the relics, that is, to carry out a preliminary examination of the tombs and cleanse them of foreign objects. However, many local bishops considered the execution of the order a matter not only difficult, but also risky. This position of some members of the clergy played into the hands of government services.

How was the autopsy carried out on the ground and what was revealed during the inspection

The procedure for inspecting holy relics was determined by a special resolution of the People's Commissariat of Justice. The inspections were to be carried out by special commissions with the involvement of representatives of workers' organizations, local councils, and trade unions. One of the requirements was the observance of tact and correct attitude to the feelings of believers. For example, it was recommended to entrust the opening of the shrine, the removal of the vestments from the relics and their extraction to the clergy.

However, the campaign to reveal the relics, like other anti-religious events, did not escape excesses. There were loyal people on the commissions who calmly waited for the clergy to perform the autopsy. But there are also eyewitness accounts of the unbridled behavior of ardent atheists who indulged in blasphemous statements and offensive actions in relation to Orthodox shrines.

The results of the checks were mixed. In addition to the truly imperishable relics, which were often confiscated and exhibited for all to see in museums, the most hideous falsifications were found in the tombs.

Here are some examples from the summary of the autopsy of the relics in the period 1918-1920. Small bricks, coal and burnt nails were found in the coffin with the alleged remains of the righteous Artemy Verkolsky. Instead of the relics of St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, there was a human skull in the cancer; dry part of the shinbone, crumbled when touched; flesh-colored cardboard; dummies of hands and feet made of cardboard and cotton wool; an iron frame imitating a chest; ladies' stockings, boots and gloves. The remains of the Monk Paul of Obnorsky were replaced by boards, chips, shavings, old coins, a jar with a fixture, bricks and earth.

Naturally, when the holy relics turned out to be completely incorrupt, the results of the autopsy were hushed up. If the remains of the saints of God were found in an incomplete composition (bones, individual tissues), then these facts were immediately made public. This seriously discredited the representatives of the clergy in the eyes of the common people. But, nevertheless, the mass autopsy of the saints revered by the ROC can be considered a gross violation of the right to existence of a consecrated cult of veneration of relics and, accordingly, one of the main provisions of the decree on the separation of the church from the state.

All these persecutions led to the emergence saints canonized for martyrdom at the hands of the Soviet regime.