Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The article focuses on the regional aspect of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church of the 20th century. It studies the appointment of legitimate bishops to the Siberian dioceses during the initial period of the renewal schism inspired by the Bolsheviks. The analysis of the literature on this issue resulted in establishing the fact that researchers are experiencing an acute shortage of sources on this topic and they do not have a clear image of the events that happened. The article reconstructs in detail the situation that emerged in the largest diocese of Western Siberia, i.e. Tomsk. It portrays the events of the early 1920s in two largest urban centres of religious life of the diocese which are Tomsk and Novonikolayevsk (Novosibirsk). On the basis of historical sources identified and introduced into academic discourse it is concluded that the initiators of the restoration of the canonical diocesan power were ordinary priests and laymen of Novonikolayevsk. The purpose of the study is to analyse and publish the report of the priest Trifon Shostak to Patriarch Tikhon asking him to appoint Archbishop Dimitry (Belikov) as the ruling bishop of the Tomsk diocese. The article establishes the motives of the believers of Novonikolayevsk while making their choice. The study of the scarce evidence found in archives reconstructs main milestones of the clerical biography of the report’s author who was an organizer of struggle against the schismatics in Novonikolayevsk, the citadel of the renewed Siberian metropolis. The report of the priest Trifon Shostak to Patriarch Tikhon is published in accordance with academic norms of archeography, it is provided with a scientific heading, archeographic legend, preserves all features of the published source text.