The Question of the Membership of the Local Council: The Evolution of Views During the Period Preceding the Local Council (1905–1917)

Abstract

The article is devoted to a question which still conceals a mass of mysteries and unexpected facts. The problematics of the membership of the expected Local Council was one of the main issues at the beginning of the twentieth century during the discussions about the desirable transformations in the life of the Church, the apogee of which was to become the All-Russian Sacred Council. The participants of the proposed Council were to be the best representatives of all levels. Decisions on such an ambiguous question were not taken all of a sudden. The article analyses the various proposals made by bishops in 1905, the discussions and decisions of the official authority, the Presence preceding the Local Council in 1906, the theses of the approved at a high-level Regulation on convocation of the Council in 1907, and the resolutions of the Council preceding the Local Council in 1917. As a result of the study one can conclude that the question of the membership of the Local Council had been evolving and perfecting itself for more than a decade and, thanks to the careful attention of the Russian bishops and representatives of the theological science, the best delegates from the Russian Empire, who were concerned about the Church and their homeland, arrived in Moscow in August 1917 for the Local Council.