The Issue on Teaching the Law of God in the Relations between the 1917–18 Local Council and Russian Provisional Government

Abstract

The article examines the role of the question on teaching at school the Law of God for the church-state relations in 1917, as exemplified by the discussion between All-Russian Local Council of 1917–1918 and the Provisional Government. The question on the status of the subject «Law of God» in the system of school education has become a test that indicated on the nature of these relations. On July 14, 1917, the Provisional Government published the Law “On Freedom of Conscience”, the fourth paragraph of which reduced the Law of God to the level of an optional subject. The Local Council, due to numerous telegram requests from concerned believers, gave a quick and well-grounded protest against such an action by the authorities. In more detail, the Council members were not unanimous on what was happening. Some Council members did not see this law as dangerous for a school subject that had been bringing up whole generations in the fear of God for more than two centuries. Others, who were in the majority, saw that as a beginning of open persecution against the Church and called on to raise the alarm, standing up for the Law of God being taught in schools. As a result, the point of view of the majority won out, and on October 8–11, 1917 the Council sent delegates to the government, with a telegram which protested against the abolition of teaching the Law of God in schools. In response, the chairman of the government, Alexander F. Kerensky, promised the delegates of the Council to raise this issue at a meeting of the Provisional Government. But, for certain reasons, this problem was not discussed by the government.