The issue of Restoration of Autocephaly of the Georgian Orthodox Church (The Commission for the Agreement on Georgian-Russian Church Interests, 1917)

Abstract

After the declaration of restoration of the independence of the Church of Georgia (March 12 (25), 1917), the Church had to struggle for the full implementation of its autocephalous rights in Revolutionary Russia. The latter contradicted with the goals of the Petrograd Provisional Government and Russian Church.
The Government appointed Professor Vladimir Beneshevich by Petrograd University as its trustee for the affairs of the Church of Georgia. Together with the Autocephalists, he was to develop „the basic Provisions of the legal status of the Church of Georgia within the Russian State“. He was to head the Commission for the Agreement on Russian-Georgian Church Interests. The Commission was established by the Decree of the Provisional Government and operated in Tbilisi from April 21 to June 3, 1917.
The need for its formation arose from the claims of the representatives of the Russian Church on the property of the former Exarchate of Georgia, which originally belonged to the old Iberian Catholicosate or the Georgian clergy. After the restoration of autocephaly, this property should have remained under the ownership of the Georgian Church.
It was evident from the title that the commission's task was to divide the churches, monasteries, and other property of the Georgian Church along national lines. This approach contradicted the spirit of the laws of both the Ecumenical and local church councils.
The appointment of the scholar known as the best canonist and a good-thinking person was met with joy by the Georgian society, but Beneshevich disappointed their expectations.
The Commission sessions discussed the issues of belonging to the churches and monasteries, Church institutions and buildings located at the territory of the former Catholicate of Iveria. The details of the Commission's work have not been discussed in the scholarly literature.
The goal of the article is to fill the history of Georgia and of its Church with the details and facts mentioned in the Protocols of the Agreement Commission sessions. The main source of the article is these minutes.
Georgian side does not highly assess the Protocols in terms of fully reflecting the real situation at the Commission sessions, but the criteria and arguments presented by the Georgian and Russian sides to prove the ownership of churches and monasteries are interesting. At the same time, they are also important for the history of the Controversial churches and monasteries;
The Protocols confirm the facts of distortion by Russian monks of the appearance of churches and frescoes. This was mentioned not only by Georgian but also by Russian members of the commission. This is one of the pieces of evidence that the claim by Russian church authorities, asserting that the purpose of settling Russian monks in Georgian monasteries was also to protect the monuments there, does not correspond to reality.
The Protocols reflect the unfair and tendentious approach of the Chairman of the Agreed Commission, Vladimir Beneshevich, on the issue of Autocephaly of the Church of Georgia;
The Protocols, although indirectly, confirm the opinion of the Autocephalists, according to which Commissioner Beneshevich is evaluated as a biased judge; materials from the Protocols also
More or less, give us an idea of the tense environment in which the defenders of the independence of the Church of Georgia had to work.