Archival documents on the development of the renovation movement in the Russian Orthodox Church in Kazakhstan (1920–1930s)

Алпыспаева Галья Айтпаевна

2026

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DOI 10.17223/19988613/99/1
Data confidence 70 medium
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Abstract

The article analyzes the development of the renovation movement within the Russian Orthodox Church in the 1920s-1930s, using the materials of Kazakhstan. The methodological basis of the work is the civilizational approach and the principle of historicism, complemented by a complex of general scientific and special historical research methods. Regulatory documents on state-church relations and administrative records from local authorities are used as sources. Critical analysis was applied to documents from the regional archives of the Republic of Kazakhstan. The study's objective is to examine and identify the regional features of the renovation movement in Kazakhstan during the first decades of Soviet power. The Orthodox denomination was one of several in the republic, ranking second only to Islam in terms of the number of believers. The schismatic movement within the Russian Orthodox Church reached the regions of Kazakhstan, manifesting as a confrontation between the "Tikhonovites" and the "Renovationists." In the cities and towns of Kazakhstan, where Orthodox religious communities were divided into supporters and opponents of renovationism, an irreconcilable struggle ensued between believers for places of worship. The struggle was most acute in the cities of Kazakhstan, where church clergy aligned themselves with the Renovationists. In the volosts and counties of the republic, Renovationism did not find broad support among the Orthodox population. The majority of ordinary believers remained faithful to the ideas of Patriarch Tikhon. Temporary alliances with the Renovationists were often linked to the transfer of places of worship to their control. An analysis of archival sources testifies to the political dimension of the split and the formal support of the "Renovationists" by local Soviet authorities in the 1920s, which granted them advantages in legal disputes with the "Tikhonovites." However, with the radicalization of state-church relations by the early 1930s, Soviet policy shifted towards the destruction of religion. All places of worship were subject to seizure and closure, regardless of whether the community belonged to one faction or the other. The author declares no conflicts of interests.