O chosen one of God in a time of trouble, in perfect holiness and love you glorified God. In simplicity and meekness you revealed God's power. You laid down your soul for the Church and for your people. O Holy Confessor, Patriarch Tikhon, pray to Christ our God, with whom you were crucified, to save now the Russian land and your flock.
(Troparion, Tone 3)
“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). With these words did the Lord comfort His disciples and followers before His sufferings on the Cross, and for over two thousand years, these words have described the way of God's faithful servants who walk after Him. On 18 November, we commemorate the renewal of the Patriarchate in the Russian Orthodox Church. A century has now passed. Yet, though brought forth in a time of great unrest, this act remains the most momentous in the Church’s and our land’s modern history.
The New Martyr Michael Novoselov, in a letter to Fyodor Dmitrievich Samarin, described the age in which he lived: “Freedom has created an oppression such as was endured perhaps only under the Tartar Yoke. But above all, lies have so wound themselves round all Russia that one sees no light. The press conducts itself so badly that it earns the birch rod, not to say the guillotine. Deceit, audacity, madness – all have merged into a suffocating chaos. Russia has vanished somewhere; at least, I can barely see her. Were it not for the faith that all these things are the Lord’s judgements, it would be hard to bear this great trial. It seems no solid ground is left, only volcanoes, save for the Cornerstone – our Lord Jesus Christ. In Him alone I place all my hope.”
At just such a time the Lord called His chosen one to take up the first seat.
Opening of the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church, 28 August 1917
On 28 August 1917, the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church took up the question of restoring the Patriarchate in Rus’. The peasants there gave voice to the mind of the people: ‘We have no tsar any more, no father whom we loved; the Synod cannot be loved, and so we, the peasants, want a Patriarch.’ Not long before his own repose, Saint John of Kronstadt said to Saint Tikhon during one of their talks: ‘Now, Your Grace, you take my place, and I shall go and rest.’
The vestments of the ancient holy hierarchs of Moscow, in which His Holiness Tikhon was raised to the patriarchal throne in 1917.
Several years later, the elder's prophecy came to pass. By the will of God, Bishop Tikhon (Belavin) became Russia’s Primate and Defender before the Lord. ‘In the hour of God’s wrath, in days of much sorrow and toil, we have taken up the ancient patriarchal throne,’ he wrote in his epistle to the flock. ‘For myself, through this elevation to the Patriarchate, I am made to feel how much is required of me, and how much I lack for this.’ Through God's providence, this humble archpastor was called to steer the Russian Church in her most tragic years. In that role, he showed himself a bold guardian of truth, a true ascetic and man of prayer for the suffering people, and a fiery confessor of the Christian faith.
Patriarch Tikhon on the presidium of the 1917 Local Council
Hard were all the brief years of his patriarchate (from 21 November 1917 to 25 March 1925); they were one long act of martyrdom. Clothed in the highest authority – by the Church's choice and by God's hand – he became a sufferer for the whole of the Russian Church, the great bearer of her sorrows in that grim age of persecution.
One of the first blows to Orthodoxy came with the killing of Archpriest Ioann Kochurov in Tsarskoye Selo (31 October 1917), of Peter Skipetrov in Petrograd (1 February 1918), and the attack on Metropolitan Vladimir of Kiev, carried out in January 1918 within the walls of the Kiev Caves Lavra. On 31 March 1918, Patriarch Tikhon offered prayers for the rest of God's servants slain for the faith and the Orthodox Church. This was the first service held for the new martyrs. The execution of the Royal Family in 1918 then laid bare, for all to see, the godless nature of the new regime.
Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Veniamin of Petrograd
For the Bolsheviks, the stumbling block was not the Church's protest, but rather her refusal to resist, and the very character of hierarchs like Patriarch Tikhon, Metropolitan Veniamin, Bishop Ilarion of Vereya, and Metropolitan Seraphim (Chichagov). Their bearing, their deep humanity, their great learning and their Christian humility were an unbearable contrast to the godless men who now held power. The clash with the Church, which the authorities provoked, was deep. In those days, to hold the rank of a bishop meant being ready at any moment for torture and death. Each man who answered God's call in that era was worth ten, if not a thousand. As the persecutions grew fiercer, so grew the bloodless martyrdom of the Church's Primate.
The Patriarch
The persecution of the Church grew ever fiercer: authorities seized and looted church property, slaughtering clergy by the hundreds and thousands. No count can be made of the priests and bishops who were killed. The godless rulers spared none, defiling holy places and smashing churches.
When, under the guise of helping the hungry, the state moved to break the Church, Patriarch Tikhon blessed the donation of church valuables yet spoke out against the assault on holy places and the heritage of the people. This gave them one excuse to call him as chief witness, another to arrest him. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon was held in confinement for thirteen months, from 16 May 1922 until 15 June 1923.
The “case” of Patriarch Tikhon
No sooner was he imprisoned than the Bolsheviks set up a new church body, the so‑called ‘Renovationists’. The atheist government drew up charges against the Patriarch, but for both home and abroad, they had to free him, provided he gave a penitent letter to the authorities, accepting the charges as just. Hour by hour he suffered the flames of inner torment, wrestling with one question: ‘How long may one bend to an authority that denies God? Where was the line? When was he obliged to put the welfare of the Church before the good of his people, before human life itself – not his own, but the lives of the faithful Orthodox flock in his care?’
Patriarch Tikhon’s cowl
No longer did he think of his life or what lay ahead. He stood ready for death each day: ‘Let my name be lost in history if only the Church may gain.’ The Patriarch placed his name on the altar, his own martyrdom rising with it, as he ascended his own Golgotha. On 26 June 1923 came a terse announcement, striking all with its suddenness, that the Patriarch was released from confinement. His Holiness agreed to write a letter in which he condemned any assault on Soviet power and disowned all counter‑revolution. Yet the Church’s spiritual freedom he did not yield.
With his beloved flock
Though the outright persecution had ceased, Patriarch Tikhon’s position remained exceptionally hard. The Bolsheviks had spun a web of watchers around the Patriarch, tracking his every move, every step. The tactics had now changed: the plan was to leave the Patriarch himself untouched – beloved as he was by the people and popular not just in Europe, but across the world – and instead to cut him off from any way of reaching the faithful.
His helpers were arrested and exiled; shepherds were driven from their flocks. A Chekist once asked a bishop, ‘What do you think of the Patriarch?’ The reply came: ‘I have truly felt his holiness.’ For these words, they sent him straight into exile…
The Patriarch’s kind smile
Twice, attempts were made on the Patriarch’s life: once a supposed ‘madman’ rushed at a bishop coming from the altar, but seeing it was not the Patriarch, did no harm; and on 9 December 1923 at 8 pm the Patriarch’s cell‑attendant, Yakov Polozov, was killed.
Patriarch Tikhon’s will
The Chekists carried on with their endless secret “conversations” — a form of mental cruelty. Yet even under such persecution, Hierarch Tikhon went on receiving the faithful at the Donskoy Monastery, his secluded home. People came in a constant stream, many travelling great distances, some even covering thousands of miles on foot.
The passing of a righteous man, 1925
The dreadful strain and ceaseless struggle wore down the Patriarch’s health. He, however, placed his duty at the helm of the Church above his own well-being, and those around him often had to accept that they could not persuade him to conserve his strength.
On 23 March 1925, the Patriarch celebrated his final Divine Liturgy in the Church of the Great Ascension. Then, on 7 April, at around midnight in the Bakunin Hospital, with the words, ‘Glory to You, O God!’, and making the sign of the cross, this great intercessor for the Orthodox faith and the Russian Church quietly departed to the Lord. He was a man who always gave himself – his own fate, the Church’s future, his flock, all those dear to him – into the hands of God’s will. This will he followed without fail; this will he constantly sought. Even then, he knew that the will of God alone can guide the Church; it alone saves.
Discovery of the relics of Saint Patriarch Tikhon, 1992
The Bishops’ Council of the Russian Orthodox Church glorified Hierarch Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’, on 9 October 1989. Sixty-seven years after the Saint fell asleep, his incorrupt relics were uncovered by Patriarch Alexy II. Today, they rest in the Donskoy Monastery, where the saint spent so many days of his life of sorrows.
Reliquary with the relics of Hierarch Tikhon in the Donskoy Monastery
Patriarch Tikhon’s words ring out with striking force today: ‘My children! All Orthodox Russian people! All Christians! Only on the rock of healing evil with good will the glory and greatness of our Holy Orthodox Church stand unbroken, and its holy name, the purity of the struggle of its children and servants, will slip even from its foes. Follow Christ! Do not betray Him. Yield not to temptation, stain not your souls with the blood of revenge. Do not let evil conquer you. Overcome evil with good!’
Prepared by the team of obitel-minsk.ru
Photographs from the internet
Sources:
1. Tikhon (Zatyokin), Archimandrite. Saint Tikhon, Patriarch of Moscow and All Rus’. – Nizhny Novgorod: Publishing Department of the Nizhny Novgorod Diocese; Voznesensky Pechersky Monastery, 2010.
2. The Investigative Case of Patriarch Tikhon. Moscow, 2000.
3. The Russian Orthodox Church in the Soviet Period (1917-1991): Materials and Documents on the History of Relations between the State and the Church / Compiled by Gerd Strikker. Vol. 1. Moscow, 1995.
