The Quarterly Journal of St. Philaret’s Institute

The article analyses the search for the scope of the “parish” concept as part of the discussions prior to and during the 1917–1918 Local Council. The debators considered this a search for a way of expressing the spirit of sobornost. For instance, in the beginning of the XX century, a parish could also be called “domestic church”, “community”, “establishment”, “fundamental group unit of the church society”, “patronage” and “brotherhood”. The most heated discussion unfolded between those who attempted to define the parish using the concept “domestic church” (meaning a congregation of believers) and “God-ascertained establishment”, where the parishioners and the clergy were considered secondary to the parish church. The outcome of the discussions prior to and during the 1917–1918 Local Council was a favoured idea, namely a model where a parish community was associated with a parish church.