Protocol of the Penza Diocesan Congress of the Clergy and Laity

Abstract

This publication presents the previously unpublished Protocol of the Penza Diocesan Congress of the Clergy and Laity, which took place from April 25 to May 1, 1917. It reflects the general mood of ordinary clergy and laity of the Russian Orthodox Church at the beginning of the 20th century by the example of a specific diocese. The Penza Congress was held simultaneously with similar Congresses of many other diocesan centers, whose resolutions were developed at the AllRussian Congress of Clergy and Laity in Moscow and further at the Local Council of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917-1918. The issues considered by the participants of the Penza Congress concerned both general church problems and the internal affairs of the diocese itself; some of the decisions were included in the decisions of the Local Council. The number of issues raised at the Congress exceeds two dozen and relates to the most diverse spheres of church-state and church-social relations, as well as to the internal transformations of the Church itself, at the same time embodying the general tendency towards Her renewal and being a consequence of these changes. But among them the most important, in the opinion of the Congress delegates, were the questions about the attitude to the political events taking place in the country and about the gradual reform of church organization, from the parish level to the level of the Local Russian Church.