Bishop Nazariy (Andreev) in the modern church history (on the phenomenon of conformism in the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s)

This article studies life and work of Bishop Nazariy (Andreev, 1865–1940), the prominent representative of the conformist episcopate of the 1920s. The use of a large range of previously unknown documents allowed the authors to compile a complete biography and to clarify the bishop’s church-related and political views, to specify the staff of the dioceses under his control, to reveal some methods of the Joint State Political Directorate (Russ. ОГПУ) in designing church schisms. It is shown that bishop Nazariy publicly defended the church after the February and October revolutions. During the Civil War he denounced the ideology of Bolshevism and, at the same time, criticised the policy of the Siberian White governments in connection with the foreign intervention and the involvement of the church in civil confrontation. After the war, he sought to find a compromise with the Soviet authorities and argued that the main task of the clergy was to christianise society and to dissociate from “political gambling”. In September 1922, by the eff orts of the State Political Directorate, he was removed from Yenisey diocese, lapsed into the Renovationist schism and started to support the methods of bishop of Tomsk Sophroniy (Arefyev) in pushing back the radical Renovationist group Living Church from the administration of Siberian dioceses in favour of the more moderate Union of Church Revival. He became one of the founders of the Renovationist episcopate of Siberia. The article gives data on the activities of Bishop Nazariy at the Renovationist see in Rostov-on-Don, his repentance to patriarch Tikhon and his appointment to Syzran, the new lapse into the Renovationist schism. The article shows the role of the State Political Directorate in the seduction of Bishop Nazariy into the Gregorian schism. It also outlines his return to the Orthodox Church and his activity at Chelyabinsk see in 1928. His fate after the arrest and conviction is also described.