The trial of the Orthodox clergy of Simferopol in November-December 1922 (based on unpublished materials from the State Archive of the Russian Federation)

The subject of this study is the state-religion relations in Crimea during the 1922 campaign for the seizure of church valuables. The research focuses on the trial of the Orthodox clergy of Simferopol in November–December 1922. The author examines the prerequisites for organizing the trial, detailing the individuals who found themselves in the dock, their brief biographical data, and identifies the legal grounds that led to their conviction, release from punishment, and amnesty. The source base of the study consists of materials from the case of the pardon of the ruling archbishop of the Taurida Diocese Nikodim (Krotkov), and other Orthodox clergy of Simferopol, stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation. The discovered documents allow for a more comprehensive reconstruction of past events that had a significant impact on the history of the canonical Orthodox Church in Crimea. In writing the article, the author employed both general scientific research methods and special (historical-genetic, biographical historiography and narrative) methods. The novelty of the research lies in the author's introduction of previously unpublished archival documents into circulation. The diagrams clearly identify the entire range of participants in the trial of the Simferopol clergy, which took place in 2022, and structure their religious and social affiliations, personnel, age, and level of education. The main conclusions of the study indicate that the number of defendants in the trial makes it one of the largest after the second Moscow and Petrograd trials of 1922. The confessional affiliation of 80% of the defendants (59 out of 73 individuals) with the Russian Orthodox Church suggests that the main blow of the young Soviet power in Crimea was directed specifically against it. The removal of Archbishop Nikodim (Krotkov) from the administration of the Taurida Diocese, who represented the old church (Tikhon's or, in other words, patriarchal) orientation and was a key figure in the trial, significantly affected the weakening of his supporters' position and the subsequent rise of the renewal movement in the territory of the Crimean Peninsula.