Biography

Patriarch Tikhon

On January 19, 1865, a son, Vasya, was born into the family of the provincial priest Ioann Bellavin. His childhood he spent in the ancient city Toropets. The boy was distinguished by his gentle disposition, was undoubtedly talented and from an early age felt the Calling. After having graduated from seminary and the Petersburg Spiritual Academy, Father Vasily taught theology and French at the Pskov Seminary.

In 1891, he entered the monkhood under the name Tikhon, and a few years later, he was named Bishop of Lyublin – the youngest of all Russian bishops. In oppressed, Catholic Poland, where enmity was smoldering, Tikhon tried to soften relations among the people of different nationalities and cultures.

In 1898, the Synod sent Tikhon on a mission to America, naming him Bishop of Aleutia and Alaska. His Eminence spent seven years there, visiting with the natives in various corners of his vast diocese, founding churches, and performing services in Church Slavonic and in English. Orthodox Americans grew fond of him.

In 1907, he was moved back to Russia, to Yaroslavl as an archbishop, and at the beginning of World War I, he was sent to Lithuania, where His Eminence served as a leader for Army priests, preached and administered communion to soldiers on the front, visited heavily wounded servicemen, and performed funerals for those killed. He received the love and respect of ordinary people for his selfless service, good nature and approachability.

In the summer of 1917, Tikhon was selected as metropolitan of Moscow, and in November at the National Council, the “God’s choice” process took place, by which Tikhon was drawn in a lottery to become the patriarch of all Russia – the first after a 200-year interruption. On the very eve of that event, the October Revolution took place. It seemed that there was still time to change everything. In the face of catastrophe, his peaceableness seemed like indecisiveness: he anathematizes the godless Bolsheviks – and refuses to bless their opponents; he openly holds a requiem for the tsar and his family, executed by the Bolsheviks – and he stresses that it isn’t the Church’s business to depose the authorities, even if they are godless. Meanwhile, the new authorities were waiting and growing stronger.

In 1918, the patriarch was arrested, but shortly thereafter he was set free again – it was still too early for the government to make enemies of the faithful.

The patriarch had an approving attitude toward dialogue with Catholics, and with his blessing, Orthodox priests for the first time participated in joint debates, discussions and lectures about theological issues, begun on the initiative of the Exarch of the Russian-Greek Catholics, Leonid Fyodorov, a future holy martyr like the patriarch himself.

Before long, a “Statement to the Supreme Court” appeared in the Soviet press, signed by Patriarch Tikhon: “I announce to the Supreme Court that henceforth, I am no longer an enemy of the Soviet regime. I … resolutely disassociate myself from both foreign and domestic Monarchist-White Guard counter-revolutionaries.” Only the State Political Directorate knows how he was forced to sign that document. Publicly, however, Tikhon never again spoke out against the Bolsheviks. He wasn’t freed, but his house arrest was relaxed, and with the authorities’ permission, he performed services in Moscow and Petrograd. The last months of his life were mournful. The Church was split by the “Renovationists” and “Revivalists,” who actively cooperated with the Soviet regime, carried on intrigues and passed foolish “resolutions” about stripping the patriarch of his ecclesiastical rank. Attempts on his life were made more than once; his lay brother was shot dead. On March 25, 1925, he died, saying: “A long and dark night is beginning.”  It is unknown whether he died naturally or whether he was assisted.

On September 28, 1989, the Bishops Council of the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Patriarch Tikhon simultaneously with the executed tsar and his family and with all those “new-martyrs brightening up in Russia’s land.”

On February 9, 1992, the undecayed relics of holy martyr Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin) were found.

 

Background

The Turmoil of Revolution

Patriarch Tikhon (Bellavin) was canonized at the end of the 1980s – simultaneously with the tsar and his family, who had been shot by the Bolsheviks, and all those who were victims of the Red Terror.

The life of Patriarch Tikhon is described in this film bearing his name. It is informative, simple and done in the style of a dialogue between a grandfather and grandson. How does a saint differ from other people in childhood; are people born saints, or do they become saints; why was Tikhon a martyr, if he wasn’t killed? These sorts of questions are often asked, but a correct answer isn’t always given. The makers of this documentary film answer these and other questions, avoiding unreliable rumors, sentimentality and histrionics.

The film begins with the saint’s relics being moved into the main church at Donskoy Monastery. The body of the patriarch, who died several decades earlier, had not decayed, and even the pussy willow branch placed in his coffin remained intact.

Vasya Bellavin, as the future saint was known, was born into the family of a village priest and from his early childhood, he stood out because of his peaceableness. After graduating from the Pskov Seminary with honors, and then the Spiritual Academy of St. Petersburg, he taught theology and French in a seminary. After a few years, Vasily Bellavin became a monk, taking the name Tikhon in honor of St. Tikhon Zadonsky. Thanks to his outstanding abilities, he quickly became a bishop and was appointed to serve in Poland, later becoming the bishop of Aleutia and Alaska and then the archbishop of Yaroslavl. World War I found him in Lithuania, where he organized military hospitals, helped refugees and traveled to the front lines. Wherever Father Tikhon worked, he was always available for ordinary believers, and for that, his congregation answered him with genuine love.

In the summer of 1917, Tikhon was chosen as metropolitan of Moscow and in the fall of 1917, the Orthodox Council elected him patriarch – the first time since Peter the Great when the Patriarchate was named by the Synod, which made the Church a government department. 

The Famine of 1922 became a convenient pretense to get even with the Church. The patriarch called upon his congregation to donate to the starving voluntarily; he personally offered to give up “everything, that doesn’t directly concern the church rites.” The Bolsheviks, however, on Lenin’s order, forcefully confiscated Church valuables, with demonstrative brutality, blasphemy and profanation of churches. Tikhon bluntly called it a sacrilege, and the Bolsheviks responded with the mass shootings of priests. The patriarch demanded an account of how the funds received as a result of the confiscations were spent, and he was arrested and locked up in Donskoy Monastery. Christians were murdered by the thousands; tens of thousands were sent to camps; churches were destroyed; saints’ relics were thrown away. Cheka officials subjected Tikhon to unprecedented moral pressure. A show trial with the threat of execution was prepared against him, but thousands of letters from the faithful requesting to have him freed as well as the efforts of world political and social leaders saved the patriarch’s life.

Patriarch Tikhon denounced the Bolsheviks’ militant atheism, which drew Lenin’s ire; Tikhon called upon Christians to suffer for their faith, but to not take vengeance. His unwillingness to take sides during a fratricidal war was the reason Tikhon gave for refusing to bless an armed struggle against the Bolsheviks. The public requiem for the tsar’s executed family, as well as his demand from the authorities of an account of expenses from the funds received from impounded Church valuables, speak to the patriarch’s bravery. His bravery and steadfastness in his faith, which prevented the Bolsheviks from using Tikhon to their ends, led to his arrest. He faced a heavily publicized trial that was to end before the firing squad. Viewers will find out what happened next after having watched the film. Well selected newsreels from those years make the film particularly interesting and reliable.