The relationships between the clergy of the Oryol Diocese and the peasantry in the spring and autumn of 1917

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the relationships between the clergy of the Oryol-Seversk Diocese and the peasantry during the period of the February Revolution. The research is based on data from the State Archive of Bryansk Region, the State Archive of Oryol Region, the Russian State Historical Archive, as well as materials from local provincial and church press, and represents, in essence, the first comprehensive study on this topic in domestic historiography. The author concludes that after the establishment of the authority of the Provisional Government, the Oryol clergy faced a number of significant problems: in the context of the general agrarian movement, the peasantry began to seize church lands and engaged in expelling unwanted priests from their parishes. It is noted that such actions affected a small minority of rural parishes in the Oryol Diocese. However, the fact of unpunished peasant self-governance regarding the clergy had a negative impact on the moral state of the priests, who found themselves in a completely defenseless position—the state authorities represented by district and volost commissioners were utterly powerless in the face of the expanding peasant anarchy. The author also points out that the initiators of violent actions against the clergy were not all peasants, but rather the most active among them. By manipulating their fellow villagers, such activists created an appearance of mass discontent and sometimes settled personal scores with unwanted priests.