Theodore Pozdeevsky

Archbishop Theodore Pozdeevsky (Feodor Pozdeevsky), in the world Alexander Vasilyevich Pozdeevsky, was rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, bishop of Volokolamsk (from 1909) and vicar of Moscow, then archbishop and leader of the "Danilovite" opposition to the policy of Metropolitan Sergius. He was born in 1876 (the day is not given in the source) in the village of Makarevskoe, Vetluga district, Kostroma province, in the family of an archpriest, and was shot on 23 October 1937 at Ivanovo. On his canonization it must be said plainly: the Russian Church Outside Russia numbered him among the new martyrs and confessors, with commemoration on the Sunday of the New Martyrs and on 10 October. The Moscow Patriarchate has not decided his canonization, and the matter has remained discussed.

Childhood and studies

He was one of the nine children of an archpriest. He finished the ecclesiastical school at Makarevsk, the Kostroma seminary (1896) and the Kazan Theological Academy (1900), with the title of candidate of theology. In 1900 to 1901 he was a professorial fellow in the chair of patrology. In 1903 he received the title of master of theology for the work "The Ascetic Views of Venerable John Cassian the Roman (Presbyter of Massilia)", which received the Makary Prize.

Monk and teacher

He received monastic tonsure with the name Theodore, in honour of the Holy Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates, was ordained hierodeacon and then hieromonk. He taught fundamental, dogmatic and moral theology at the Kaluga seminary, was inspector of the Kazan seminary, and then rector of the Tambov seminary, with the rank of archimandrite. He fought actively against the revolutionary movement and founded and led the Tambov branch of the Union of the Russian People. A seminarian attempted to kill him. His political activity drew mixed opinions among the clergy: some priests supported him, but the pastoral congress of the diocese forbade the holding of Union meetings in the Seraphim school, holding that the Church should be outside politics.

From August 1906 he was rector of the Moscow seminary, and from August 1909 until 1917 rector of the Moscow Theological Academy, professor of asceticism in the chair of pastoral theology. A strict monk, an ascetic, he showed himself a firm conservative and was the initiator of the dismissal of several liberal professors, among them I. M. Gromoglasov and Vasily Vinogradov. In personnel policy he gave priority to monks and clerics. After the February revolution he was removed from the post of rector, at the demand of the liberal professors and a large part of the students.

Bishop

In 1909 he was consecrated in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow by Metropolitan Vladimir Bogoyavlensky as bishop of Volokolamsk, fourth (from 1916 first) vicar of the Moscow diocese. He was abbot of the monastery of Saint Daniel in Moscow and until mid-1919 kept the title of bishop of Volokolamsk. In July 1917 he was chairman of the second congress of representatives of monasteries, and in the Holy Local Council he was deputy chairman of the eleventh section and member of the third. In 1918 he led the Higher School of Theology at Saint Daniel's monastery. In the monastery lived, retired, his friend Archimandrite Simeon Kholmogorov, gravely wounded by a revolutionary in 1907 and paralysed since; Vladyka Theodore visited him every day and fulfilled his slightest wish. A legend says that Simeon covered the future archbishop during an attack on him, but in reality they were two different attempts. In August 1919, after the death of Archbishop Andronik Nikolsky of Perm, Patriarch Tikhon appointed him to Perm, but he did not accept the appointment and stayed in Moscow.

In the night of 27 to 28 June 1920 he was arrested for "agitation against Soviet power", the pretext being that at the search of 11 June 1920 at Saint Daniel's monastery a crowd of believers had gathered. He was sentenced to a camp "until the end of the civil war", but on 25 October 1920 the sentence was changed to five years of prison, and he was moved from the Lubyanka prison to Taganka, then to Butyrka. On petition, he was released early, on 18 March 1922. On 14 March 1923 he was again imprisoned, then released on 20 June 1923, forbidden to leave.

The Danilovite opposition

On 2 November 1923 Patriarch Tikhon and the Temporary Synod raised him to archbishop, "in view of his outstanding activity for the good of the holy Orthodox Church", and appointed him to lead the diocese of Petrograd. On the back of the document, Bishop Theodore wrote: "I received and read this act with gratitude to the Holy Patriarch and the Supreme Church Administration, but I cannot take upon myself what is set out in it." On 8 November 1923 Patriarch Tikhon decided to release him from governing the Petrograd diocese and leave him abbot of Saint Daniel's monastery in Moscow, with the rank of archbishop.

He opposed any compromise with the Renovationist movement and, with other conservative bishops, had a great part in the church leadership taking a clearly negative position toward the Renovationists. From 16 April to October 1924 he was under arrest for the third time. At the inquiry, asked about his political convictions, he said: "I look on the socialist revolution as a means, whose usefulness I find it hard to determine." He was arrested again on 9 December 1924 and on 19 June 1925 was sentenced to three years of exile, which he served in the town of Aulie-⁠Ata (now Taraz). Released on 4 November 1927, forbidden to live in the six main cities. From 1928 he lived in Turgai (Kazakhstan), then in Orsk.

He led the conservative "Danilovite" opposition (after Saint Daniel's monastery, of which he remained abbot) to the policy of Metropolitan Sergius Stragorodsky, holding, with a group of like-⁠minded bishops, that the latter did not resist the Bolshevik regime and the Renovationists firmly enough. Condemning the acts of the deputy locum tenens, he proposed not to hurry the final break, in the hope that he would change his position, and until 1931 he did not fully break canonical communion. According to the recollections of Schemanun Daniela (Machkina), the Vladyka allowed going only to churches where the authorities are not commemorated. He would say: "If in a monastery they begin to commemorate the authorities, let them not commemorate me. Where they commemorate Sergius, one can still pray, but where they commemorate the authorities, do not go there." In 1931 Archbishop Theodore and the other Danilovites were suspended from service by the Synod, and after that he finally broke communion with Metropolitan Sergius.

In 1929 he was arrested again and in 1930 sentenced to three years of imprisonment, which he served in the second section of Svirlag, released after a petition for pardon. After the exile he lived in Vladimir. In January 1933 he was arrested once more, at Zaraysk, in the case of the "Party of the Revival of Russia"; on 26 July 1933 he was sentenced to five years of exile, which he began in Kazakhstan, and from 1935 he was moved to Syktyvkar.

Last arrest and death

In the autumn of 1937 he was arrested at Syktyvkar, taken to the prison at Ivanovo and, on 22 October 1937, as "leader of an underground anti-⁠Soviet organization of clergy and monastics, the monastic brotherhood of Prince Daniel", was condemned to death and the next day shot. One version says that shortly before his death he received the schema in prison, with the name of Venerable Daniel of Moscow.

The question of canonization

According to A. A. Kostryukov, Archbishop Theodore's name was entered in a provisional list of new martyrs and confessors in preparing the canonization made by the Russian Church Outside Russia in 1981, but the list was not published then. Only in 1998 did his name appear in the official list of new martyrs of the Russian Church Outside Russia in the calendar of Jordanville for 1999, with two dates of commemoration: the Sunday of the New Martyrs and Confessors and 10 October. In the 1990s his canonization by the Moscow Patriarchate was discussed, which the monastics of Saint Daniel's monastery asked, but no decision was taken. Fr Alexander Mazyrin pointed out that, according to the investigation file, Vladyka Theodore admitted wholly baseless accusations and thereby slandered himself and those of like mind; but he added that one cannot fully trust testimony taken in such conditions, in the time of the great terror, when falsification of files was a kind of norm.

Writings

He left the work "The Ascetic Views of Venerable John Cassian the Roman" (Kazan, 1902), articles and addresses in "Bogoslovsky Vestnik", in "Golos Tserkvi" and other journals, "From Lectures on Pastoral Theology (Asceticism)" (1911), "The Meaning of the Christian Struggle" (1911), "On the Spiritual Life" (1914), correspondence with Fr Pavel Florensky and others, and the collection "Service to God and Russia. Articles and Speeches 1904 to 1907" (2002).