Minister of Confessions A.V. Kartashev and confessional policy of the Provisional Government

The article considers the views of A. Kartashev, an outstanding theologian, Minister of Confessions of the Provisional Government, on relationship between church and state in Russia and the measures he proposed in order to reform them. What Kartashev advocated was not the complete separation of church and state, but rather such a “growing distance” between them which would give the Russian Orthodox Church independence and would allow the state to be secular rather than unilaterally confessional. During the short period when the Ministry of Religious Confessions was working, Anton Kartashev tried to be less involved into church administration, defended the interests of the religious department in the government, and supported a number of proposals from the Local Council. Kartashev began to implement the legal registration of the multi-confessional state system and consistently defended the interests of the Orthodox Church in other ministries and government departments. He gradually moved away from the doctrinal guidelines of the Provisional Government on the separation of church and state and became inclined to strengthen the influence of the church in the life of society, seeing its activities as a guarantee of the spiritual salvation of Russia. This approach did not coincide with the ideas about the role of the church in the life of society which had developed in liberal and socialist circles of that time and led to a discrepancy between the declarations of the Provisional Government and the activities it carried out in the church sphere. The article considers the reasons why Kartashev was able to pursue his line of confessional policy. The most important of these reasons was that neither the Provisional Government nor the Constitutional Democratic Party or the Socialist Revolutionary Party considered the problems of church-state relations a priority. They treated such problems in the context of general problems of the democratic transformation of Russia and attributed the right to solve them to the Constituent Assembly. It is emphasized that in the tense atmosphere of 1917 neither the Provisional Government nor the Russian Orthodox Church wanted to conflict with each other. In this situation, the compromise policy of Anton Kartashev suited both sides and softened the negative attitude of the church circles towards the activities of the Provisional Government.

Antoshchenko, A.V. “Istoriograficheskii obzor issledovanii zhizni i tvorchestva A.V. Kartasheva” [Historiographical review of studies of the life and work of A.V. Kartashev]. Uchenye zapiski Petrozavodskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, no. 4 (181) (2019): 26–33. (In Russian)
Babkin, M.A. Dukhovenstvo Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi i sverzhenie monarkhii (nachalo XX v. – konets 1917 g.) [The clergy of the Russian Orthodox Church and the overthrow of monarchy (early 20th century – late 1917)]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennaya publichnaya istoricheskaya biblioteka Rossii, 2007. (In Russian)
Babkin, M.A., comp. Konfessional'naya politika Vremennogo pravitel'stva Rossii: sbornik dokumentov [Confessional policy of the Provisional Government of Russia: collection of documents]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2018. (In Russian)
Benigsen, G.M., Rev. “The year 1917 in the history of the Russian Church.” St. Vladimir’s Seminary Quarterly, no. 3 (1963): 115–25.
Bulgakov, S.N. Khristianskii sotsializm: sbornik [Christian socialism: a collection], edited and compiled by V.N. Akulinin. Novosibirsk: Nauka: Sibirskoe otdelenie, 1991. (In Russian)
Egorov, A.N. “‘Demokrat po nedorazumeniyu’: politicheskaya deyatel'nost' A.V. Kartasheva v gody Grazhdanskoi voiny” [‘A democrat by mistake’: political activity of Anton Kartashev during the Russian Civil War]. Historia Provinciae – the Journal of Regional History, vol. 4, no. 3 (2020): 929–73. (In Russian)
Egorov, A.N. “Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev: ‘My byli slishkom Gamletami i ne mogli ugnat'sya za katastroficheskim khodom sobytii…’ [Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev: “We were too much Hamlets and could not keep up with the catastrophic course of events...]. In Rossiiskii liberalizm: idei i lyudi: sbornik statei [Russian liberalism: ideas and people: a collection of articles], 2nd ed., edited by A.A. Kara-Murza, 831–42. Moscow: Novoe izdatel'stvo, 2007. (In Russian)
Egorov, A.N. “Kadety i vystuplenie generala L.G. Kornilova: diskussionnye problemy istoriografii” [Cadets and the speech of General L.G. Kornilov: controversial problems of historiography]. Voprosy istorii, no. 8 (2005): 157–66. (In Russian)
Evlogii (Georgievskii), Metropolitan. Put' moei zhizni: Vospominaniya Mitropolita Evlogiya (Georgievskogo), izlozhennye po ego rasskazam T. Manukhinoi [The path of my life: memoirs of Metropolitan Eulogius (Georgievskii) retold by T. Manukhina according to his stories]. Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, Vsetserkovnoe pravoslavnoe molodezhnoe dvizhenie, 1994. (In Russian)
Firsov, S.L. Russkaya Tserkov' nakanune peremen (konets 1890-kh – 1918 gg.) [The Russian Church on the eve of changes (the late 1890s – 1918)]. Moscow: Dukhovnaya biblioteka, 2002. (In Russian)
Kartashev A.V. Reforma, reformatsiya i ispolnenie tserkvi [Reform, reformation and the fulfillment of the church]. Petrograd: Korabl', 1916. (In Russian)
Kartashev, A.V. “Revolyutsiya i sobor 1917 – 1918 gg. (Nabroski dlya istorii Russkoi Tserkvi nashikh dnei)” [The Revolution and the Council of 1917–1918 (Notes for the history of the Russian Church of the present day)]. In Delo velikogo stroitel'stva tserkovnogo: Vospominaniya chlenov Svyashchennogo Sobora Pravoslavnoi Rossiiskoi tserkvi 1917–1918 godov [The great church building: Memoirs of the members of the Holy Council of the Russian Orthodox Church of 1917–1918], compiled by N.A. Krivosheeva, 486–513. Moscow: Pravoslavnyi Svyato-Tikhonovskii gumanitarnyi universitet, 2009. (In Russian)
Kartashev, A.V. “Sinod i Vremennoe pravitel'stvo” [The Synod and the Provisional Government]. Russkoe slovo, no. 87, April 20, 1917, p. 2–3. (In Russian)
Kartashev, A.V. “Vremennoe pravitel'stvo i russkaya tserkov'” [The Provisional Government and the Russian Church]. Sovremennye zapiski, Paris, no. 52 (1933): 369–88. (In Russian)
Kashevarov, A.N. Pravoslavnaya Rossiiskaya Tserkov' i Sovetskoe gosudarstvo (1917–1922) [The Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet state (1917–1922)]. Materialy po istorii Tserkvi [Materials on the church history], bk. 35. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Krutitskogo podvor'ya, Obshchestvo lyubitelei tserkovnoi istorii, 2005. (In Russian)
Kerenskii, A.F. Rossiya na istoricheskom povorote. Memuary [Russia and history’s turning point. Memoirs]. Moscow: Respublika, 1993. (In Russian)
Kovyrzin, K.V. Rossiiskaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkov' i poiski printsipov tserkovno-gosudarstvennykh otnoshenii posle Fevral'skoi revolyutsii [The Russian Orthodox Church and the search for the principles of church-state relations after the February Revolution]. PhD thesis, St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, 2010. (In Russian)
Lyubimov, N., Protopresbyter. “Dnevnik o zasedaniyakh vnov' sformirovannogo Sinoda (12 aprelya – 12 iyunya 1917 g.)” [Journal of the meetings of the newly formed Synod (April 12 – June 12, 1917)]. In Rossiiskaya Tserkov' v gody revolyutsii (1917 – 1918 gg.): sbornik [The Russian Church during the Revolution (1917–1918): a collection], published by M.I. Odintsov, 15–120. Moscow: Krutitskoe Patriarshee podvor'e, 1995. (In Russian)
Milyukov, P.N. Istoriya vtoroi russkoi revolyutsii [The history of the Second Russian Revolution]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001. (In Russian)
Milyukov, P.N. Ocherki po istorii russkoi kul'tury [Essays on the history of Russian culture]. 3 vols. Vol. 2, pt. 1. Moscow: Progress, 1994. (In Russian)
Mitrofanov, G., Protoiereus. Istoriya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi, 1900–1927 [History of the Russian Orthodox Church, 1900–1927]. St Petersburg: Satis'', 2002. (In Russian)
Nabokov, V.D. “Vremennoe pravitel'stvo” [The Provisional Government]. In Arkhiv russkoi revolyutsii [The archive of the Russian Revolution], vol. 1, 9–96. Berlin: Slovo, 1921. (In Russian)
Nikolaevskii, B.I. Russkie masony i revolyutsiya [Russian freemasons and the revolution]. Edited and compiled by Yu. Fel'shtinskii. [Moscow]: TERRA, 1990. (In Russian)
Pospelovskii, D.V. Russkaya pravoslavnaya tserkov' v 20 veke [The Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century]. Moscow: Respublika, 1995. (In Russian)
Red'kina, O.Yu. Veroispovednaya politika Vremennogo pravitel'stva Rossii (fevral'–oktyabr' 1917 goda) [Religious policy of the Provisional Government of Russia (February–October 1917)]. PhD thesis. Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), 1996. (In Russian)
Rogoznyi, P.G. Tserkovnaya revolyutsiya 1917 goda (Vysshee dukhovenstvo Rossiiskoi Tserkvi v bor'be za vlast' v eparkhiyakh posle Fevral'skoi revolyutsii) [The church revolution of 1917 (Higher clergy of the Russian Church in the struggle for power in dioceses after the February Revolution)]. St Petersburg: Liki Rossii, 2008. (In Russian)
Schulz, G. Das Landeskonzil der Orthodoxen Kirche in Russland 1917/18 – ein unbekanntes Reformpotenzial. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1995.
Serkov, A.I. Russkoe masonstvo. 1731–2000 gg.: entsiklopedicheskii slovar' [Russian Freemasonry. 1731–2000: encyclopaedic dictionary]. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2001. (In Russian)
Smolitsch, J. “Die Russische Kirche in der Revolutionszeit vom März bis Oktober 1917 und das Landeskanzil 1917 bis 1918 (Zur Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Staat und Kirche in Russland).” Ostkirche Studien, no. 4 (1965): 3–34.
Smolitsch, J. Geschichte der russischen Kirche. 1700–1917. Bd. 2. Berlin: [n.p.], 1991.
Sokolov, A.V. Gosudarstvo i Pravoslavnaya tserkov' v Rossii, fevral' 1917 – yanvar' 1918 gg. [The state and the Orthodox Church in Russia, February 1917 – January 1918]. Doctoral diss. St Petersburg State University, 2014. (In Russian)
Tsypin, V. Istoriya Russkoi Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi: Sinodal'nyi i noveishii periody, (1700–2005) [History of the Russian Orthodox Church: synodal and contemporary periods (1700–2005)]. Moscow: Sretenskii monastyr', 2006. (In Russian)