The difficulties of overcoming the renovationist way of life in parish life in the 1940s on the example of the intercession cathedral of Samarkand

The article examines the problems indicative of the 1940s in the Intercession Cathedral in Samarkand. In 1944, the future metropolitan, Archimandrite Guriy (Egorov), was appointed rector of the Samarkand Cathedral, who entered the open ministry after 11 years of leadership of the underground community (first in Tashkent, then in Ferghana). He served in the Samarkand parish for less than five months, after which, by decree of Bishop Kirill (Pospelov) of Tashkent and Central Asia, he was transferred to Fergana. In Russian historiography, this period of His Eminence Guriy's ministry has remained little studied to the present moment: it was believed that in the autumn of 1944 he left the staff due to illness. The true reasons for the transfer were established through the study of documents identified in the State Archive of the Samarkand region of the Republic of Uzbekistan. The Intercession Cathedral of Samarkand was occupied by Renovationists for 20 years until 1944, which left a negative imprint on the local community. For many years there was an unhealthy situation in the parish of the cathedral, created as a result of the actions of the so-called Moroz-Turan group, supported by local authorities and partly by the Tashkent bishop in the person of Bishop Kirill. Archimandrite Guriy made significant efforts to improve the health of the Samarkand Cathedral parish, but without the support of the diocesan church authorities and the authorized Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church, the conflict situation could not be resolved. Archimandrite Guriy, having received no support, was eventually forced to leave Samarkand. He managed to solve this problem only two years later, when he returned to Central Asia as the ruling bishop.