Information about the author:
Aslan F. Avidzba
Aslan F. Avidzba, DSc in History, Professor, Director of Research, Abkhazian Institute for Humanities Research named after D.I. Gulia under the Academy of Sciences of Abkhazia, Aidgulara 44, 384900 Sukhumi, Republic of Abkhazia.
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Abstract:
Archpriest Georgy Golubtsov — rector of the Sukhumi Cathedral, participant in the second session of the All-Russian Church Moscow Cathedral of 1917–1918. He narrates about the preparation, the trip itself and participation in the work of the Council in his diary, which describes the period from January 16/29 to April 5/18, 1918. The diary contains information about the composition and nature of the organization of the work of the Council; about the murders of major figures of the Church and the confrontation between the new Bolshevik government and the Church; about divine services in which Golubtsov took part or performed himself in Moscow; about his impressions of meetings with Patriarch Tikhon (in the course of the Council, an acquaintance and two conversations with him took place); visiting the Kremlin; at the same time, critical remarks are made on the organization and course of the Council. Golubtsov, while in Moscow, did not cease to be interested in what was happening in Abkhazia. This is evidenced, in particular, by the fact that a fairly large place in the diary entries is given to the events in Sukhum in mid-February 1918, connected with the murder of a sailor by Prince Emukhvari. The main purpose of Golubtsov’s participation in the session was to convince the Russian church hierarchs of the need to withdraw the Sukhumi diocese from the subordination of the Georgian church authorities. After the occupation of Abkhazia by the troops of the Georgian Democratic Republic, Fr. Georgy Golubtsov was expelled from Abkhazia “as an enemy of the Georgian people,” spent some time in the Crimea, and from there in 1920 emigrated with the Volunteer Army. Diary about. George became available to a wide range of readers 80 years after the events narrated in it. The author, forced to leave Abkhazia, and then Russia, took it with him, and after a while the diary ended up in one of the museums in Prague, from where it was already handed over to the Soviet government, after which it lay for a long time in the Soviet archive (now the State Archives of the Russian Federation).