Mikhail Galkin
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
10 March 1885
Mikhail Galkin | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | Mikhail Vladimirovich Galkin 10 March 1885 |
| Died | 28 March 1948 (aged 63) |
| Other names | Gorev (Russian: Го́рев) |
Mikhail Vladimirovich Galkin (Russian: Михаил Владимирович Галкин; 10 March 1885 – 28 March 1948) was a Russian Orthodox priest, spiritual writer and preacher who became an active figure in atheistic propaganda and an anti-religious writer in 1918.[1]
Galkin drafted the Decree on Separation of Church and State as well as a number of articles and reports on its implementation. A prolific writer, the list of his books and brochures in the National Library of Russia amounts to 58 items.
Mikhail Galkin was born in Saint Petersburg into the family of Vladimir Pavlovich Galkin who was a Russian Orthodox priest.
In 1903, Mikhail graduated from the full course of the classical Vvedenskaya gymnasium with a silver medal. That same year, he entered the Imperial Military Medical Academy, but was expelled from the first year with the wording "as having stopped taking transfer exams without good reason." In August 1904, Galkin entered the Faculty of Law of the Saint Petersburg Imperial University, where he attended lectures for only six months. In 1905, he passed exams as an external student at the Ufa Theological Seminary for a full course of study, and in 1906 he received the corresponding certificate. On 6 April 1906, Galkin was assigned to the post of priest of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary house church at the residence of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna in the Zhdanovskaya embankment of Saint Petersburg. On 29 March 1906, he submitted a petition to Saint Petersburg University to resign. On 8 April 1906, the petition was granted and Galkin was expelled from the university student body. On 9 April 1906, Galkian was ordained a deacon at the Saint Isaac Cathedral. On April 16, 1906, he was ordained a priest there. On September 10, 1908, he entered the St. Petersburg Theological Academy. On September 25, 1908, Mikhail Galkin was allowed to perform priestly duties at the house church of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary at the shelter of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna, which he performed until October 14, 1909.
In 1908, Archpriest Vladimir Pavlovich Galkin and his son Priest Mikhail Galkin began publishing a monthly anti-alcohol magazine Трезвые всходы (Sober Shoots). They published the magazine until 1914 inclusive. The magazine published analytical materials collected from foreign sources and domestic statistics related to alcohol consumption. In addition to the magazine, the Galkins published brochures as a supplement to the magazine. The magazine and supplements were sent to subscribers throughout Russia. Priest Michael was published in almost every issue as an author and as a translator. He did not finish his studies at the theological academy, but left there in his third year. Galkin at this time became a famous spiritual writer. His book about the devotees of piety of the 19th century, “In the Service of God,” published in 1905–1906 in three volumes, became a bestseller. In 1996, it was republished by the Sretensky Monastery.
On August 6, 1911, Galkin was appointed an ordinary priest of the Transfiguration Koltovskaya Church, where his father was the rector at that time. In August 1914, Priest Mikhail petitioned the Protopresbyter of the Military and Naval Clergy, Georgy Shavelsky, to appoint him to the active army while maintaining his parish place for the duration of hostilities. On November 15, 1914, Shavelsky issued order No. 882 on the secondment of priest Mikhail Galkin to the Salyan 206th Infantry Regiment. "For excellent and diligent performance of pastoral duties on the battlefield under enemy fire," Mikhail Galkin was awarded the Order of St. Anne, third degree with swords. On September 22, 1915, by resolution of Metropolitan Vladimir of Petrograd and Ladoga, Priest Mikhail Galkin was appointed to the vacant position of rector of the Transfiguration Koltovskaya Church. While being a rector, Galkin simultaneously led the Koltovsky branch of the All-Russian Alexander Nevsky Temperance Brotherhood, headed the Koltovsky parochial school, was a fellow chairman of the Nikolaev Charitable Society for the Care of the Poor, and edited the “Leaflet of the Koltovsky Parish” in 1916.
Changing worldview and activities
Mikhail later wrote that at this time there were changes in his worldview: “Moving around in the circle of workers, among whom were social democrats, I became acquainted with the class struggle and for the first time with Marx, the pamphlets of Engels, Lafargue and others.” In 1917, Priest Mikhail Galkin began publishing in the Menshevik-Internationalist newspaper “New Life”; he headed the “church department” in it. Mikhail Galkin visited Maxim Gorky and had “conversations with him on topics about religion, <...> and about the unfolding struggle of the proletariat in Russia, the role of the church in it.” In 1917, Galkin, as an editor-publisher, independently began publishing the weekly newspaper “Free Church”. The newspaper was first published in Petrograd, and then, during the meetings of the Local Council, its publication was moved to Moscow.
After the October Revolution, Galkin decided to go to work for the Soviet regime. He wrote in his memoirs: “Immediately after the October Revolution, having read in the newspapers the call of Comrade. Trotsky to participate in work with the Soviet Government, I am going to Smolny, to comrade Lenin and ask him to give me a job anywhere and by anyone, in any office abandoned by the scattered intelligentsia. Vladimir Ilyich, after a 10-minute conversation in which, as it seemed to me, he was testing my convictions, he recommends that I refrain from clerical work for now, and that it is better to write an article in Pravda on the issue of separation of church and state. For further information, he directs me to V.D. Bonch-Bruyevich.”
