VLADIMIR LVOV: FORMER CHIEF PROCURATOR OF THE MOST HOLY SYNOD TURNING TO THE SOVIETS
VLADIMIR LVOV: FORMER CHIEF PROCURATOR OF THE MOST HOLY SYNOD TURNING TO THE SOVIETS

Summary/Abstract: This article focuses on the controversial figure of the ‘revolutionary Chief Procurator’ of the Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Vladimir Lvov. A large landed proprietor, a member of the ‘Union of October 17’ party, a religious expert, he was brought up to the foreground of Russian politics by the Revolution of 1917 and became the first Chief Procurator of the ‘non-Tsarist’ period. However, his excessive radicalism regarding the Church issues, his open hatred of the episcopate very quickly nullified many of the achievements of the March-June 1917 reforms. Lvov also failed to work adequately at the Local Council of 1917-1918. Having arrived in emigration after the Russian civil war, he took up the position of Smenoovekhovtsy and wished to return to Soviet Russia. The main supporters of the return of Lvov among the Soviet leadership were the Soviet envoy to Germany Nikolai Krestinsky and Lev Trotsky. Vladimir Lenin, who was sceptical and ironic about Lvov, nevertheless allowed his return to Russia. Having returned to Russia, Lvov was able to take an active part in the work of renovationists only for a few years. He was arrested and expulsed to Siberia, where he died in 1930. Vladimir Lvov became one of the symbols of the Russian re-emigration (vozvrashchentsy).

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