The All-Russian Congress of Learned Monasticism at the Moscow Theological Academy in 1917

Abstract

At the beginning of the 20th century, a special subgroup of scholarly monks emerged in Russian monasticism, whose main task became teaching and scientific activities within spiritual schools. The monk-academicians differed from «ordinary» monastery inhabitants in several ways: they were tonsured without the art of hair cutting, had free disposal of their property, lived and obeyed outside the walls of any monastery, and had frequent transfers as part of their educational and administrative service. All of this separated literate representatives of monasticism from monastic life and made them alien to the Russian monastic tradition. Many representatives of academic monasticism, recognizing their historical isolation from monasteries, sought to overcome the prevailing trend and looked for ways to consolidate their forces for the benefit of the Church. Starting from 1909, there was a positive trend of discussing monastic issues at the all-church level. Nevertheless, little attention was still paid to the topic of academic monasticism. One of the key moments in the consolidation of this subgroup of monks in the face of the Local Council of 1917–1918 was the All-Russian Congress of Scholarly Monks in July 1917. This article will discuss this congress and its decisions.