Synod Commission for the canonization of saints

The Russian church has historically not had a permanent body for the consideration of the canonization of the saints . In order to prepare for the celebration of the 1000th anniversary of the Baptism of Russia in May 1981, the Historical Canonic Group was created, which was part of the Commission for the celebration of celebrations ^[2] . She prepared materials for the canonization of nine devotees, which was held at the Local Council in 1988 . At the same time, the Local Council determined:

To consider it necessary to continue the work on further canonization in the after-war period in order to glorify other devotees of the faith and piety who are esteemed by the people, and that the Holy Synod should take care of it.

In pursuance of this, the decision of the Holy Synod of April 11, 1989 established the Synodal Commission for the canonization of saints. Yuvenaly (Poyarkov), Metropolitan of Krutitsy and Kolomna, was appointed Chairman of the Commission.

The Synodal Commission, in cooperation with the episcopate, clergy and laity, performs a coordinating role in the process of studying and preparing the glorification of devotees of faith and piety. The Commission submits its conclusions either to the Most Holy Patriarch or the Most Holy Patriarch and the Holy Synod. According to the Definition of the Holy Synod of July 7, 1989: “... the initiative to initiate questions about canonization should come from the Holy Synod or from the ruling High Reverend hierarchs”. The laity who worships the ascetic of piety, on all matters of his glorification appeal to the ruling Grace. The Synodal Commission for the canonization of the saints does not come out with the initiative of glorifying one or another devotee.

By the decision of the Council of Bishops of 1992, their own commissions for the canonization of saints were formed in the dioceses ^[3] .

In 1995, the Synodal Commission for the canonization of the saints developed a document entitled “Historical canonical criteria for the canonization of the new martyrs of the Russian Church in connection with the church divisions of the 20th century”. This document was approved and formed the basis of the commission’s work on the study of the feat of the new martyrs and confessors ^[4] .

The Commission prepared materials for the canonization of the new martyrs and confessors of the twentieth century to the jubilee Bishops' Council of 2000 . The cathedral glorified by the name of the saints 1097 people. For the years 1989–2011, according to the materials prepared by the commission, 1,866 devotees of piety were canonized, including 1,776 new martyrs ^[5] .

The canonization of the twentieth century devotees was significantly hampered after the entry into force of the federal law of June 27, 2006 No. 152 (Federal Law “On Personal Data”), which provides for the closure of researchers' access to the judicial and investigative cases contained in Russian archives ^[6] . According to the hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky): “ A thorough check of the materials about the repressed clergy and laity in judicial-investigative matters has become in principle impossible ” ^[6] .

According to the long-term member of this commission, Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky) , to make a decision on the canonization of a person, it is necessary to examine the entire fund of archival and investigative cases ^[7] :

For example, a priest is arrested in 1937; according to the interrogation protocols, we see that he holds on courageously, does not make compromises, does not perjure to alleviate his fate, does not yield to the pressure of investigators. If we stop studying here, then we will have no doubts about his exclusively confessional life - but in reality, if we familiarize ourselves with the entire archival fund, things may turn out differently. Two years before the last arrest, the NKVD officers summoned this priest as a witness and demanded that he slander his colleague, otherwise he might turn from a witness into an accused - and he agreed to testify against his brother, contributing to the legal formalization of his conviction. Since the card file is kept by the names of the accused, and not witnesses, you can only find the accused who acted as a witness by examining the entire fund of archival and investigative cases.

Priest Maxim Plyakin , member of the Inter-Council Presence, secretary of the Saratov diocesan commission for canonization of saints, indicates that until 2002-2003 the principle was in effect at the Synodal Commission on Canonization: if the materials of the investigation and other cases did not find any mention of cooperation with the authorities, the applicant was considered innocent. However, over time, a different point of view prevailed, finally enshrined in the “Recommendations for the activities of the diocesan commissions for the canonization of saints in the dioceses of the Russian Orthodox Church”, adopted by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church on October 6, 2011. According to this document, the information collected should detail the life of the applicant for canonization during all periods of life and clearly indicate that he was not an employee of the Cheka, the NKVD, the OGPU. Moreover, the answers of the archives that they do not contain documents that the person was an employee of the above-mentioned bodies, in this case, are not considered sufficient evidence. Thus, to date, the Commission actually formed an idea of ​​the presumption of guilt of candidates for canonization. At the same time, the Commission is guided by the principle that, if information compromising one or another applicant has not been found to date, they can be found further ^[8] .

In practice, this led to the fact that after December 24, 2010 in the Russian Orthodox Church until the Bishops' Council of 2016, not a single martyr was glorified ^[8] . The criticism was caused by the disappearance in the church calendar in 2013 of the names of 36 new martyrs.

Monk Diodorus (Larionov) , noting that the Church does not have a procedure for deanonization, assesses the shortcomings in the work of this commission: “ I would call three main problems: haste, the lack of clear criteria in the work of the commission and, most importantly, making the the theological approach, which essentially should be the foundation of any activity of any church commission. It is without a theological understanding of the concept of canonization, of what is holy, holiness, and other fundamental issues, it is impossible to develop correct and adequate criteria for specific canonizations ” ^[9] .

Ksenia Luchenko in February 2013 wrote:

For 20 years of work on the preparation and conduct of mass roll-by-canonization, the commission has stalled: in recent years, the state has effectively closed access to the archives, but even if they were available, it would only exacerbate the contradictions. The initial idea that for most of the new martyrs there is no other information besides investigative cases, turned out to be vulnerable. It was not possible to work out the criteria for whom to be considered a martyr, and who is a victim of a political regime. In addition, the main goal was not achieved - the reception of the feat of the new martyrs in the church consciousness did not happen, the number of canonized ones did not turn into the quality of their veneration. Only a few of the names of the new saints are well known, only some of them are truly revered by the people. For most non-church people, there is generally news that there are saints in Russia — victims of terror and repression, and there are more than 1,500 of these saints ^[10] .

The commission’s full confidence in the investigative protocols and the confessions of their own guilt contained in them was repeatedly criticized.

Alexey Artsybushev , past Soviet prisons and camps, notes:

By all means, the investigator had to blame and shoot the man, because there was persecution of the Church. How can you use the documents when a person during the investigation was brought to insanity? How can the question be: signed - not signed, said - did not say? ^[eleven]

Lidia Golovkova, a researcher at the PSTU, who examined more than 20,000 investigative cases of victims for the faith, is sure that it is a mistake to judge the person’s holiness in an investigative case. Some cases were drawn up at all after the person was shot: “All district departments of the NKVD, including Moscow and the Moscow Region, were engaged in falsifying investigative cases or, in the language of the Chekists,“ confiscated ”. Evidence of this was obtained by the author during his work with the investigative affairs of 1950-1960; it was during these years that the employees who falsified cases in the thirties were judged ” ^[4] .

The composition was approved by the decision of the Holy Synod of March 12, 2013 ^[12] .

• Bishop Trinity Pankraty (Zherdev) , Vicar of the Moscow Diocese - Chairman of the Commission;
• Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride John (Siopko) , Chairman of the Commission for the Canonization of Saints of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church;
• Bishop Stephen (Nescheret) of Gomel and Zhlobin, Chairman of the Commission for the Canonization of the Saints of the Belarusian Exarchate;
• Bishop Peter of Ungheni and Nisporensk (Mustate) , Chairman of the Commission for the Canonization of the Saints of the Moldavian Land;
• Bishop of Pavlodar and Ekibastuz Barnabas (Safonov) , Chairman of the Commission for the canonization of the Saints of the Metropolitan District in Kazakhstan;
• Archpriest Vladimir Vorobyov , professor, rector of St. Tikhon’s Humanitarian University Orthodox - secretary of the Commission ^[13] ;
• Archimandrite Alexy (Polikarpov) , governor of Danilov, a male stavropegic monastery in the city of Moscow;
• Hegumen Damaskin (Orlovsky) , Moscow City Cleric - from July 27, 2011 to October 22, 2015; Secretary of the Commission;
• Archpriest Vladislav Tsypin , professor of the Moscow Theological Academy;
• Archpriest Kirill Kaleda , cleric of the city of Moscow;
• Archpriest Maxim Maximov , cleric of the Moscow Diocese;
• Archpriest Oleg Mitrov , cleric of the Moscow Diocese;
• Hegumen Nektariy (Blinov) , vicar of the Holy Trinity St. George Monastery of the city of Chirchik (Uzbekistan);
• Zvyagin Viktor Nikolaevich , Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor of the Russian Center for Forensic Medical Examination of the Ministry of Health of Russia.

• April 11, 1989 - March 22, 2011 - Juvenaliy (Poyarkov) , Metropolitan of Krutitsky and Kolomna
• from March 22, 2011 - Pankraty (Zherdev) , Bishop of Trinity, Vicar of the Moscow Diocese

• Semenenko-Basin Ilya Viktorovich Restoration of the canonization of saints in Russian Orthodoxy (1964-1990) // Bulletin of the Northern (Arctic) Federal University. Series: Humanities and Social Sciences. № 4/2010

• Synodal Commission on the Canonization of Saints (official site)
• Synodal Commission on the Canonization of Saints // Patriarchy.Ru
• Canonization of Saints in the Russian Orthodox Church
• Canonization: Spores should not lead to splits