Anti-renovationist opposition in the Orthodox Church in the territory of Donetsk region (1922 – 1925)

The historical circumstances of theorganizational development of the Renovatonist movement in the Orthodox Church in Donbas remain one of the less investigated pages of the Ukrainian Local Church history. Even though the problem of the Ukrainian Church history of the interwar period has been studied by manyresearchers, a large number of questions exist which require elaboration. Nowadays based on the earlier unknown material, it is possible to widen the general picture of the mentioned events. That`s why the main purpose of the article is to figure out a holistic picture based on a comprehensive analysis of historical sources and scientific literature, as well as the grounds of the anti-renewal opposition's struggle against the reformation and organizational development of theRenovatonist movement in the Orthodox Church in the territory of Donetsk province in 1922 – 1925. The originality of the article involves an attempt to research the events of Donbas Church history without traditional historical clichés, and in this case, all the trends of Ukrainian ecclesiastic life of that time should be considered. In our strong opinion ignoring the deep needs of interecсlesiastic life’s normalization led to a Church split. With the help of the atheistic government, theRenovation movement achieved its institutiona organization. The characteristic issue of the religious life in Donbas was its relative conservatism. That was the main cause of the slow development pace of the reformationally oriented Ukrainian Orthodox Autocephalous Synodal Church. Moreover, while speaking about the Synodal Church should be taken into consideration the demonstratively loyal attitude of the Ukrainian Renovationist clerks to the atheistic government. That`s why despite the renovational hierarchs` attempts to the complete curtailment of church reforms the Synodal Church in Donetsk region could cover only a third of the Orthodox parishes on the land’s territory. These circumstances testify to the lack of awareness of the scope of the problem of the national church reformation by the hierarchs of the Synodal Church. The history of the organizational development of the Donbas Renovatonist movement proves the need for the introduction of modern methods of missionary activity against the backdrop of the implementation of a strategy of implementation of current church reforms to effectively develop local Orthodox eparchies. In conclusion, it`s worth mentioning that nowadays the research of Donbas church history of the interwar period is complicated by the difficult political situation in the region. Unfortunately, the material of the Lugansk and Donetsk archives is unavailable for Ukrainian researches, but gradual actualization of this problem makes the strong prospects for its fast research in the future.