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Epistles and Statements, 1918–1923

St Tikhon of Moscow, The Christian East, 1920–23; Emhardt, 1929

Chapter 6

Appealing with the present declaration to the Supreme Court of the Russian Soviet Federation of Socialistic Republics, I regard it as my duty, dictated by my pastoral conscience, to declare the following:

Having been nurtured in a monarchistic society, and until my arrest having been under the influence of anti-Soviet individuals, I was filled with hostility against the Soviet authorities, and at times my hostility passed from passivity to active measures, as in the instance of the proclamation on the occasion of the Brest-Litovsk peace in 1918, the anathematizing of the authorities in that same year, and finally, the appeal against the decree regarding the removal of church treasures in 1922. All my anti-Soviet acts, with the exception of a few inexactitudes, were stated in the act of accusation drawn up by the Supreme Court, acknowledging the correctness of the accusation of the Supreme Court and the sentence as conforming to the clauses of the criminal code, I repent of all my actions directed against the government and petition the Supreme Court to change its sentence and to set me free.

I declare hereby to the Soviet authorities that henceforth I am no more an enemy to the Soviet Government, and that I have completely and resolutely severed all connections with the foreign and domestic monarchists and the counter-revolutionary activity of the White Guards.¹

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