Archpriest Vladimir Tsurikov gives a presentation at St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities in Moscow at the Conference “A Study of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Current Generation: Issues and Perspectives”
On November 21, 2012, the conference “A Study of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Current Generation: Issues and Perspectives” commenced in the auditorium of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities in Moscow. It was attended by the heads of the leading secular and religious research centers in Russia.
Presentations came from the following persons: His Grace, Bishop Michael of Geneva and Western Europe (ROCOR), V. Rev. Archpriest Vladimir Vorobev, rector of St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities, S.V. Mironenko, director of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, V. S. Khristoforov, director of the FSB archives, A. I. Sorokin, director of the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History, S. L. Kravets, head of the Center of Church Studies “Orthodox Encyclopedia,” S. L. Firsov, professor at St. Petersburg State University and St. Petersburg Orthodox Academy, and V. Rev. Archpriest Vladimir Tsurikov, member of the Board of Trustees of Holy Trinity Orthodox Seminary in Jordanville, NY and director of the Foundation of Russian History.
Father Vladimir congratulated St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University of the Humanities on its 20th anniversary and presented a paper entitled, “The Preservation of the Russian Archival Rossica in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia.” After the revolution and the massive emigration of Russians beyond Russia's boarders, the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad were able to utilize churches which existed abroad from before the revolution. The Russian Church was faced with the task of preserving the national identity of the Russian émigrés for which education became the driving force. Parish and Sunday schools were created. Already in the first years of the Russian emigration pastoral-theological schools were founded. In 1925, the St. Sergius Theological Institute was opened. The basis of all the academic institutions was a library center. With the rewriting of the political map of Europe after WW II, the Russian Church Abroad lost the archival documents of its early history which Czechoslovakia had handed over to the Soviet Government as a gift. Therefore, through the efforts of laymen who sent in all the materials they had, the Archive-Museum of the Russian Church Abroad was founded, which later was supported by its Synod of Bishops. In 1948, Holy Trinity Theological Seminary was founded in Jordanville where, at the end of the 1950’s, a Synodal museum and archive was created again. The Seminary was able to collect a large archive. The Russian Church Abroad collaborated together with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University in 2005 for the preservation of the archive. At the present time, the Seminary archive houses more than 160 collections.