The Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate decided to implement parish reforms on this day in 1961. According to the Statute of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted at the 1945 All–Russian Council, parish rectors had sole authority over their parishes (no mention is made of parish councils). This provision reflected the authoritarian reality of Stalinist Russia. During Khrushchev’s onslaught on religion the state wanted to control the faithful through the parish councils. On April 18, 1961, the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate decided to discuss at the upcoming Council of Bishops a resolution called – in true Orwellian style! – “On Measures to Improve the Existing System of Parish Life.” The essence of this church “reform” was the removal of clergy from the leadership of parishes. The role of the head of the community was to pass from the rector to the executive body: the parish council (or its warden), to which all financial and economic activities were transferred. The reform largely destroyed the traditional governance of the Church; its organization was legally dismembered. Clergymen were separated from parish life and had to be hired by the community by contract to “fulfill religious needs.” The clergy were not allowed to attend the meetings that elected the church council, where the authorities, who had the legal right to remove its members, gradually introduced their candidates for the position of warden, whose connection with the church was sometimes limited to being baptized as infants. In fact, the leaders of parish life were the wardens, appointed by the district executive committees of the Council for the Religious Affairs by people who were often completely non-churchgoing, and sometimes even unbelievers and morally very dubious. Without their consent, a priest or bishop could not hire or fire even a cleaning lady in a church. They would often monitor priests’ activities. For example, when I was baptized at the age of 17 in 1985, it was important that the warden not be around. The legal status of the bishops and the Patriarch was not specified in any way; legally, they did not exist, and they did not have any legal connection to parish life. Three bishops who spoke negatively about the resolution of the Synod were not invited to the Council (About the Council see my report of November 25 on Archbishop Germogen of Kaluga). Source: Monk Benjamin (Gomarteli), “Letopis’ tserkovnykh sobytii nachinaia s 1917 goda” [Timeline of Church Events Beginning with 1917] Part V: 1961-1971 | 
