Alexander Vvedensky (religious leader)

Alexandr Ivanovich Vvedensky (Russian: Александр Иванович Введенский) (August 30, 1889 – July 26, 1946) was one of the leaders of the Living Church movement (Живая Церковь, also known as the Renovationist Church, Обновленческая Церковь), a movement of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1922-1946 to reform the Russian Church life; he is considered the person "most identified with renovationism in the Soviet era" and is considered a heretic by the Russian Orthodox Church.

He should not be confused with the Russian poet of the same name.

Vvedensky's paternal grandfather was Jewish but converted to Christianity and served as a psalmist (cantor) in the diocese of Novgorod the Great. In the process of converting his grandfather changed his surname to Vvedenskii after Vvedenie, the feast of the Presentation of the Virgin. Alexander's mother was a member of the provincial bourgeoisie and his father became a nobleman and was headmaster of a school at Vitebsk.

Vvedensky was born in Vitebsk in 1889. He graduated from the History department of St. Petersburg University in 1913. While a student at St. Petersburg, he played the piano and frequented the salon of Dmitrii Merezhkovskii and Zinaida Gippius, important figures in the symbolist movement. With their encouragement, he wrote an article entitled "Reasons for Non-belief among the Russian Intelligentsia,” published in the journal Palomnik, finding that the two main reasons for non-belief were

His desire to bridge the gap between religion and science and be an apologist and reformer of the church is seen throughout his subsequent career.

Vvedensky decided to enter the priesthood in 1910 and, as unmarried priests were forced to take monastic vows, he married prior to his ordination, though accusations of marital infidelity plagued him for the rest of his life. He received a diploma from the St. Petersburg Spiritual Academy in 1914, but was refused ordination due to his Jewish background and perception in intellectualism. He was finally ordained by the head Chaplain of the Army, Georgy Shavelsky, as a regimental chaplain in July 1914. He served as a regimental chaplain for two years before being assigned as Chaplain of the Nikolaevsky Cavalry School in Petrograd in 1916.

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