TIKHON (Vasiliy Ivanovich), Belavin. - Patriarch of Moscow, b. 17 Jan. 1865 at Toropets, d. 7 Apr. 1925 at Moscow.
Having completed his studies in 1888 at the Theological Academy of St. Petersburg and been appointed professor at the Seminary of Pskov, in 1891 he became a monk, changed his baptismal name from Basil to T., and received priestly ordination. He was subsequently appointed rector of the Seminaries of Kazan and of Chełm, until in 1897 he became bishop of Lublin, auxiliary to the Ordinary of Chełm. From 1898 to 1907 T., with the title of bishop of the Aleutians (from 1905 archbishop), had the spiritual care of the Eastern dissidents in America. In 1907 he was transferred to Yaroslavl in Russia and in 1913 he moved to Vilna. On 23 June 1917 a diocesan assembly of clergy and laity elected T. archbishop of Moscow and Kolomna; on 13 Aug. the Holy Synod granted T. the title of metropolitan. T. immediately fell to the delicate task of hosting in Moscow the All-Russian Council convened on 28 Aug. 1917, and he discharged it with such tact and modesty as to win the sympathies of all.
The Council restored the patriarchal dignity suppressed by Peter the Great, and on 10 Nov., in the midst of the Bolshevik revolution, T. was elected patriarch of Moscow and of all Russia. Under him, the Council drew up a plan of profound reforms in the Russian Church. However, the civil war forced the Council to suspend its sessions at Easter 1918 and then in Aug. to adjourn indefinitely. T. traveled to various cities, including St. Petersburg, then the center of the revolution, and everywhere he was received with enthusiasm by all classes. But on 23 Jan. 1918 the Bolshevik government, having meanwhile moved to Moscow, issued a decree that proclaimed the separation of Church from State and of school from Church and confiscated all ecclesiastical property, including buildings and sacred furnishings. T. in an open letter addressed to the government protested against all the abuses and violence perpetrated by the Bolshevik regime. Meanwhile T. also had to struggle against the internal schisms of the patriarchal Church, fomented by the Bolsheviks. Finally in May 1922 the patriarch, who continued to fight against the harassment of the Bolshevik authorities, was imprisoned and released only in June 1923, after having formally recognized the legitimacy of the Soviet government, hoping thereby, unfortunately in vain, to mitigate the persecution of his Church. T. then attempted to consolidate the ecclesiastical administration, thrown into disarray by internal schisms and by the continuous arrests of bishops and priests.
Bibliography4 works
Giuseppe Olsr