Życie i działalność cerkiewna metropolity Siergieja (Stragorodzkiego) do publikacji Deklaracji (1927)
The Life and Church Activity of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) Until the Publication of the Declaration (1927)

Summary/Abstract: The most important questions facing Russian Orthodox Church in the 20th century were undoubtedly the relations between the Church and communist state. One of the projects of legalization of the Church in the Soviet Union was created by Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) of Nizhny Novgorod, the deputy Patriarchal locum tenens (1925-1937) subsequently Patriarchal locum tenens (1937-1943) and Patriarch of Moscow (1943–1944). His famous Declaration of Loyalty, dated 1927 July 16/29, originated in the views of patriarchal locum tenens about the role and place of the community in the public sphere. Sergius’s acquiescent or even servile attitude was still one of components of the internal organization of the community and its external relations with the authorities. The spiritual basis expressed in the document and accepted by party dissidents became an element of the internal organization of the community and its external contacts with state authorities. The Russian Church led by Metropolitan Sergius never rejected the Church party line which was already chosen in the 1920’s. This text discusses the sources of Sergius’s convictions and actions undertaken until the moment of the publication of The Declaration.

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