Tikhon of Moscow
The first patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church after the office was restored in 1917. He was chosen by lot, protested in 1918 against the killing and the seizure of church property, and in 1922 opposed the removal of consecrated vessels from the churches.
Tikhon announced his accession in a letter of 18 December 1917: the Council sitting in Moscow had resolved to give the Russian church the head it had lacked for more than two centuries, had named candidates, and the lot had fallen on him (Tikhon, Letter on his accession (18 December 1917)). He took his seat in the Dormition Cathedral of the Kremlin on 21 November 1917, saying that the patriarchate was being restored in terrible days and that he was unworthy of it (Tikhon, Address in the Dormition Cathedral (21 November 1917)). Both dates are in the Julian calendar.
His message of 19 January 1918 denounced the killing of innocent people and the seizure of churches and monasteries, pronounced anathema on those responsible if they still called themselves Christians, and summoned the faithful to defend the church by faith and by suffering (Tikhon, Message of 19 January 1918). In February 1922 he permitted the giving of church valuables for famine relief but condemned the forced removal of consecrated vessels (Tikhon, Message of 15 (28) February 1922). Lenin, in a secret letter of that March, held him responsible for the resistance and advised that he himself be left untouched and that his communications be watched (Lenin, Letter of 19 March 1922 whole letter). See the Russian Church under the Bolsheviks.
In the timeline
- 1917 to 1918, firm dateThe Russian Church under the Bolsheviks
In November 1917 a council of the Russian Orthodox Church restores the patriarchate and Tikhon takes the patriarchal seat. Two months later the Soviet government separates church and state by decree and declares all church property to be the people’s.