Special Features February 1917: The Church in America Responds to the Democratic Revolution in Russia — Events in New York City by Fr. John Jillions One of the treasures in the Archives of the Orthodox Church in America is our collection of The Russian Orthodox American Messenger (Amerikanskii Pravoslavnyi Vestnik), published from 1869 until 1973. This was the first official publication of what eventually became the Orthodox Church in America. Over its history it was published in English and Russian, and then Russian only, and then ceased publication in 1973 (The Orthodox Church newspaper started in 1965.)
Summer 2016
with Tsar Nicholas II’s letter of abdication, signed on March 15, 1917 and published as the first item in the issue of March 29, 1917. In 1917 the North American Mission was a multi-ethnic collection of parishes that included over 300 communities that were Alaskan, Russian, Galician, Carpatho-Rusyn, Albanian, Serbian, Arabic, Romanian, Bulgarian, and Greek. There had long been hopes that the American diocese, with its unique missionary situation in comparison to a typical diocese in Russia, would be able to organize itself more nimbly to reflect the pastoral needs and mission in North America. Now, with the abdication of the Tsar and the installation of a democratic government, it looked like the Church both in Russia and in America would be free to order its own life without government interference.
I was interested in how our Church reacted to the two revolutions in Russia in 1917. First, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated in February 1917 and the Provisional Government was installed. Then eight months later the Bolshevik Revolution broke out in October 1917. The North American Mission has been accustomed to a high degree of self reliance, but from then on it had to adapt to completely living on its own after more than 125 years of existence under the Fr. Leonid Turkevich and family Russian Orthodox Church. The Messenger’s editor at the time was Fr Leonid Turkevich (1876 - 1965), the Dean of St. Nicholas Cathedral in New York City (15 East 97th St) and a leading figure in the North American Mission as pastor, scholar, poet, administrator, and later as Metropolitan Leonty. I was inspired to see our church newspaper engaging with big issues well beyond parish life. To give a taste of this (from a much longer article on the two revolutions), here’s how The Messenger covered the arrival in New York City of the new Russian Ambassador of the Provisional Government in July 1917. Welcoming Ambassador Bakhmeteff to New York City The first notice in The Messenger that the situation in Russia has changed dramatically comes
This hopeful atmosphere is amplified enormously by the enthusiastic welcome the United States government gave the new democratic Russian government and its ambassador to the US, Boris Bakhmeteff (1880-1951.) The Messenger has a substantial two-part article (in Russian by an unsigned observer – Fr. Leonid Turkevich?) in the issues of July 26 and Aug 2, 1917, reporting in detail on Bakhmeteff’s reception in New York in early July. There were major events at Battery Park, a procession to City Hall, and programs at Carnegie Hall and Madison Square Garden. The celebrations began in Battery Park with starring roles played by former President Theodore Roosevelt, Mayor John Mitchell (at 34 the youngestever mayor of New York), and the famous union leader Samuel Gompers. There were a number of brief welcoming speeches, including Fr. P Popov on behalf of Archbishop Evdokim, the Mission, clergy, and the brotherhoods. It was a glorious
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