DEATH OF TIKHON

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXII, Issue 19325, 2 June 1925, Page 9

DEATH OF TIKHON

VICTIM OF BOLSHEVIST PERSECUTION'.

A Reuter telegrar from Moscow announced that Mgr. Tikhon, the Patriarch of Moscow and Head of the Orthodox Church of Russia, died suddenly of heart failure on A; ril 8. Moscow, April 12. —About 10,000 persons were present this evening at the funeral rites of the late Patriarch Tikhon, High Mass being solemnly celebrated before the burial in the Donskoy Monastery. Among the numerous wreaths was one from the Archbishop of Canterbury.—Reuter. Mgr. Tikhon was the first Russian prelate to hold the office of Patriarch for some two centuries and earned the affection of the faithful in his own country and widspread admiration abroad by the courageous stand he made against the persecution of the Church by the Bolshevists. Amid the turmoil of the Revolution, the Russian Church resolved to restore the Patriarchate after an interval of 200 years. While the Provisional (Karensky) Government was falling and fighting was in progress in and around the Kremlin the Church Council solemnly proceeded to the election of a Patriarch. Three candidates were, chosen —Tikhon, Archbishop or Moscow, and the Archbishops of Novgorod and Kharkoff—and lots were drawn, by order of the Council, by the saintly old recluse Alexei for the final selection. In this way Tikhon became Patriarch, and shortly afterwards was enthroned as such. The revolutionary storm raged and shattered all the earthly defences of

the Church. A spirit of aggressive atheism, crime, and blasphemy swept over Russia. The Church Council was dispersed, communication between the Bishops was interrupted and checked by persecution, civil war, and exile. Churches were plundered and defiled, priests and Bishops were murdered. In such a crisis it was more than ever the Patriarch’s duty to defend the Church and maintain the faith. Ho was no masterful ecclesiastical prince, nor a subtle theologian. He was simply a man of deep piety, tact, and firmness. In November, 1919, Tikhon issued an epistle full of scathing denunciation of the aimless cruelty, the suppression of liberty and faith, and the blasphemy and sacrilege of which the Bolshevists had been guilty. A LONG IMPRISONMENT. Tn May, 1922. there was a great public trial of 55 clergy and laity for obstructing the appropriation of Church treasures. The Patriarch gave evidence, in consequence of which it was announced that he would be put on trial with Archbishop Nicander as spiritual inciters to disorder. But the trial was never held. In spite of the charges made against him, it is certain that the Patriarch took no part in civil war, nor ever encouraged any form of violence. Yet Tikhon was kept in confinement in the Donskoi Monastery for more than a year. Meanwhile, the obvious peril in which he stood aroused urgent protest from the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Free Churches. The outburst of indignation all over the world which greeted the savage sentences inflicted on certain Roman Catholic clergy mad? an impression on the Soviet, which

i was also confronted with the failure of the so-called “Living Church” set up under Antonin, whom Tikhon had known at Kholm. This body illegally “deprived” Tikhon of his office and orders. Rumours wore circulated that Tikhon had recanted, and his “message of repentance” was given great publicity. But it amounted to little more than a declaration that the Church would in future take no part in politics. At length, in June, 1923, Tikhon was released, in consequence, as was generally believed, of British pressure. The release was followed by the complete failure of efforts to discredit the Patriarch. The “Living Church,” by which the government had hoped to divide the Orthodox faithful, collapsed, and the veneration for Tikhon increased to such an extent as to make the Soviet seriously uneasy. Large crowds assembled wherever it was know that he was about to officiate, and his long imprisonment and the sufferings he was believed to have undergone established him as a martyr in the eyes of the faithful.