Conservative Clergy and Official Church Periodicals in 1905

Abstract

The article is about the interaction of conservative-minded clergy and church periodicals. The revolution that broke out in 1905 presented the clergy of the Russian Church with the need to define their political sympathies. Most of the episcopate and a significant part of the rank-and-file clergy supported the Black Hundred parties. The reason for such sympathies is in the programmatic attitudes of the right, oriented towards traditional political and religious values as opposed to representatives of the liberal and left parties. The political activity of bishops could be expressed in various actions: from the creation of printed and oral appeals to maintain order to the organization of their own political parties. The ideological preferences and activity of a hierarch, among other things, can be traced to the example of the editorial policy of the Diocesan Gazette. Using their power within the diocese, the conservative-minded bishops directed the editorial policy of local periodicals in the appropriate direction. In this case, the pages of the magazine contained materials of patriotic, anti-revolutionary content. Moreover, even if the Diocesan Gazette was unable to attract authors to create original materials, the editor selected suitable ones from other publications and reprinted them.