Today is the feast day of St. Tikhon (1865-1925), Bishop of the Aleutians and North America (1898-1907) and Patriarch of Moscow (1917-1925). Distinguished for both his labors in building up the Orthodox Church in the New World and his sufferings under the communist regime in Russia, he was recognized as a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church in October 1989, as communism was giving way to a more hopeful future.
Born Vasily Ivanovich Belavin, the son of a country priest, the future saint graduated from the St. Petersburg Theological Academy in 1888 and became a seminary instructor. Three years later, he took monastic vows and assumed the name “Tikhon”, after St. Tikhon of Zadonsk (1724-1783). In 1898 he was chosen as Bishop of the Aleutians and Alaska, which made him the only Orthodox prelate in the Western Hemisphere. As the name of the diocese suggests, its attention had hitherto been focused on the Orthodox community in Alaska, a legacy of Russian rule. Bishop Tikhon looked to the rest of the continent. He changed the name of the see to “the Aleutians and North America”, moved its headquarters to New York and, after being raised to the rank of Archbishop, appointed two auxiliary bishops, one of them an Arab, St. Raphael Hawaweeny, the first Bishop of Brooklyn. He also obtained the approval of the Holy Synod in Moscow for an Orthodox Western Rite with a liturgy is based on the Book of Common Prayer (now known as the “Rite of St. Tikhon” and used by the Western Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese).
In 1907 he was recalled to Russia, serving as Bishop of Yaroslavl (1907-1913) and Vilna (1913-1917). After the February Revolution in 1917, which briefly gave Russia a democratic government, the Holy Synod was reorganized, with Tikhon as one of its members. In August of the same year, the first general council of the Russian Church since 1666 met in Moscow. It elected Tikhon both Metropolitan of Moscow and chairman of its deliberations. The first great issue facing the Council was a proposal to restore the office of Patriarch, which Peter the Great had suppressed after the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700. Even as the Bolsheviks were taking power in the streets, the assembled bishops voted in favor of restoration and conducted the election of the new Patriarch. Under the time-hallowed procedure, the names of the three top vote getters were placed in an urn. After a night of prayer, the oldest monk present drew one of the names. Providentially, Tikhon, the third place finisher in the balloting, was selected. He was enthroned on November 21, 1917.
A believer in strict noninterference by the Church in secular politics, the new Patriarch tried to remain neutral in the Russian Civil War, going so far as to refuse on one occasion to bestow a blessing on a White commander. Naturally neutrality did not please the Bolsheviks, who wanted only subordination. Assaults on churches and priests, including the murder of the Metropolitan of Kiev in January 1918, led Tikhon to issue an encyclical denouncing “the open and concealed enemies of the Truth of Christ who have begun to persecute the [Church] and are striving to destroy Christ’s Cause by sowing everywhere, in place of Christian love, the seeds of malice, hatred and fratricidal wrath”. [Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, p.343]
The next day, the communist government issued a decree implementing its notions of “freedom of conscience” and “separation of church and state”: All Church property was confiscated, clergymen were forbidden to receive salaries or gifts from their parishioners, and the teaching of religion to minors was banned. On October 26, 1918, the Patriarch urged the authorities to –
celebrate the anniversary of taking power by releasing the imprisoned, by ceasing bloodshed, violence, ruin, constraints on the faith. Turn not to destruction, but establish order and legality. Give the people the respite from fratricidal strife that they long for and deserve. Otherwise, all the righteous blood you shed will cry out against you and with the sword will perish you that have taken up the sword.
As Richard Pipes says,
It was the most daring challenge to the new regime that any public figure had had the courage to issue: it recalled the admonition three hundred fifty years earlier by another Metropolitan of Moscow, Philip, to Ivan the Terrible, condemning the tsar’s barbarities, for which he paid with his life. It is not quite clear what was on the Patriarch’s mind when he spoke out: whether he wanted to arouse the population against the regime or merely [sic] to fulfill a moral purpose. Some historians, assuming the former and observing the population’s failure to act, conclude that it failed in its purpose. Such judgment ignores not only the atmosphere of unbridled Cheka terror prevailing at the time, but the fact that Tikhon in a subsequent epistle (July 21, 1919) urged Christians under no condition to wreak revenge for the sufferings they had endured. . . . [op. cit., p. 345]
In 1922 the regime, after killing or imprisoning thousands of bishops, priests and pious laity, attempted to place control of the Church in the hands of a GPU-run “Living Church” movement. Tikhon, by now in confinement, at first attempted to resist. Eventually decrees appeared in his name purportedly acquiescing in all of the government’s measures. It is unlikely that he actually consented to them, and some were palpable forgeries. Death from heart failure released him from his ordeal 80 years ago, on April 7, 1925. The ordeal of his motherland lasted more than 60 years longer. Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, the seeds of Orthodoxy that he planted have grown into a flourishing vine.
Troparion - Tone 1
Let us praise Tikhon, the patriarch of all Russia,
And enlightener of North America
An ardent follower of the Apostolic traditions,
And good pastor of the Church of Christ.
Who was elected by divine providence,
And laid down his life for his sheep.
Let us sing to him with faith and hope,
And ask for his hierarchical intercessions:
Keep the church in Russia in tranquility,
And the church in North America in peace.
Gather her scattered children into one flock,
Bring to repentance those who have renounced the True Faith,
Preserve our lands from civil strife,
And entreat God's peace for all people!
Troparion - Tone 8
From your youth you have loved Christ, O blessed one.
You have been an example for all by word, life, love, spirit, faith, purity and humility.
Therefore, you now abide in the heavenly mansions,
Where you stand before the Throne of the all-holy Trinity.
Holy hierarch Tikhon, pray for the salvation of our souls.
Kontakion - Tone 2
A gentle manner adorned you,
Kindness and compassion you showed to those who repented,
You were firm and unbending in confessing the Orthodox Faith,
And zealous in loving the Lord.
O holy hierarch of Christ and confessor Tikhon,
Pray for us that we may not be separated from the love of God,
Which is in Christ Jesus our Lord!
Kontakion - Tone 8
Successor of the Apostles, adornment of the hierarchy, teacher of the Orthodox Church.
Pray to the Master of all that peace be granted to all the world,
And great mercy to our souls!