The reforms in the management of eastern monastic estates in Bessarabia (1873-1874): causes, objectives, and impact

Abstract

The article focuses on one of the least studied episodes in the history of diplomatic relations between Russian churches and the Eastern Patriarchates - the land estates of foreign monasteries in the Russian Empire in the 1860s-1870s. Using previously unknown materials from the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, the author traces the decision-making process in the Russian government departments (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of State Property, Committee of Ministers) responsible for the management of the land estates of eastern monasteries in Bessarabia in 1873-1874. It was found that the reform approved by the Imperial Decree dated March 9, 1973, was caused not only by the Decree of the 1872 Council of Constantinople on the Bulgarian schism and by the Decision of the Holy Synod of Jerusalem on the deposition of Patriarch Kyrillos II (1872), but also by the discovered abuses of authorized persons (so-called “confidants”), which resulted in the complete deforestation of the land estates, which threatened an ecological catastrophe for the entire Bessarabian region. Another objective of the reform was to suppress the financial violations of the authorized persons (the confidants), who spent a fair portion of income from the land estates in Bessarabia at their own discretion. The new regulations of the Committee of Ministers, aimed at ensuring the respect for the interests of monasteries, changed the entire system of interaction between the Russian power structures and the * The article is part of Project № 20-09-41016 supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research. hierarchies of eastern monasteries in terms of management of monastic land estates within the Russian Empire. Although the Russian reform relating to the land estates in Bessarabia (1873-1874) was drastically different from the sequestration of the Moldovan-Vlachian monasteries estates by the government of Prince A. Cuza (1862), their lands and treasures performed by the government of Prince Aleksandru Cuza (1862), the decrees of the Russian government caused an extremely negative reaction from the Greek monasteries of Athos, which led to the conflict between Greece and Russia at the Holy Mount.