The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

A consistent attempt to implement conciliar principles in church life was undertaken by the Brotherhood of the Moscow Saints Peter, Alexis, Jonah, and Philip — one of the most remarkable phenomena of Moscow’s church life in the early 20th century, which united prominent Moscow church figures. Its members included F. D. Samarin, P. B. Mansurov, M. A. Novosyolov, Archpriest Joseph Fudel, S. N. Durylin, L. A. Tikhomirov, N. D. Kuznetsov, and many others. The brotherhood’s activities encountered difficulties in mutual understanding with the church authorities, as the voice of the laity, defending their vision of sobornost (conciliarity), clashed with the conservative views of the hierarchy. This was clearly manifested in connection with the “case” of Bishop Germogen (Dolganyov). This issue was raised during a meeting of the brotherhood’s council with its honorary chairman, Metropolitan Vladimir of Moscow (Bogoyavlensky), which was dedicated to the issue of improving liturgical reading. Although the brotherhood’s proposals were quite reasonable and stemmed from practical problems of parish life, even such a straightforward issue proved impossible to resolve. This fact clearly demonstrates the extent of the mutual misunderstanding between the hierarchy and the laity, pointing to a profound systemic crisis in church life at the beginning of the 20th century as a whole. The record of this conversation, accompanied by the publishers’ commentary, is published for the first time. The document is preceded by an introductory article that outlines the circumstances surrounding the raising of the issue of liturgical reading and the historical context of the topics discussed with the metropolitan. This publication may be of interest to historians, primarily researchers of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow’s church life, and the history of brotherhoods in Russia.