The Activities of the Moscow Patriarch ate during 1991

The year 1991 turned out to be the last year of the USSR. The turbulent social and political changes in public life in Russia and the former Soviet republics could not leave church life unaffected. This article, written at the end of 1991, is a survey of events in the life of the Russian Orthodox Church (hereafter referred to as ROC) during that crucial year. Patriarch Aleksi 11 gave his blessing to Boris Yel'tsin as president of the RSFSR on 10 July 1991, thereby apparently demonstrating the Moscow Patriarchate's endorse-ment of the democratic leadership of Russia. Then came the August coup. On the second day of this plot against the people, 20 August 1991, the patriarch noted that the president of the USSR had 'withdrawn from supreme authority in the country' (what did this word 'withdrawn ' mean? Perhaps 'had been removed ' or some other more precise word could have been used, for after all the patriarch later emphasised that 'the circumstances ofthis withdrawal remain unclear'). The patriarch went on to say that 'the consciences of millions of our fellow-citizens have been outraged, as this involves the question ofthe legality of the newly formed Emergency Committee, ' an