Grekulov Ephim

Grekulov Ephim (1893–1979) – historian of Russia, Candidate in History.

Since the late 1920-s, he studied history of Russian proletariat and revolutionary movement in Russia. In 1930-s, he actively wrote for media of the League of Militant Atheists, His main works were dedicated the role of the Church in the history of Russia. He argues that the Church was the biggest landowner and possessed a significant economical and political might. According the traditional Marxist conception of the nature of economical relations, he demonstrated that the union of Church and State and the high classes of the society was built, first of all, on the similarity of economical interests, and the material interests of the Church demanded a support of the ‘dominating classes’. He noted that relations between Church and State were mutually profitable. If some economical interests of the Church were under threat, it fought against State. But the Church knew its dependency on the power and the nobility, that is why it kept that politics which was profitable for the highest classes, first of all. The most know works by G. were dedicated to spiritual censorship and ecclesiastic persecution of religious free-thinkers, progressive science, and atheism.

Compositions

The First Armed Uprising against Tsarism. (Decembrist). Moscow, 1925. (in Rus.)
From the History of the Holy Inquisition in Russia. Moscow, 1929. (in Rus.)
Mores of the Russian clergy. 3rd ed. M .: Atheist, 1929. (in Rus.)
How Did Russian Clergy Suffocated Media. Moscow, 1930. (in Rus.)
Russian Church in the Role of Landowner and Capitalist. Moscow, 1930. (in Rus.)
Spiritual Censorship and Its Struggle against Science // Arkhivnoe delo, 1930, No 1(45). (in Rus.)
Moscow Clergy in the Years of Reaction. Moscow, 1932. (in Rus.)
Orthodox Church – the Enemy of the Enlightenment. Moscow, Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., 1962. (in Rus.)
Orthodox Inquisition in Russia. Moscow, Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., 1964. (in Rus.)
Church, Autocracy, People: 2nd Half of the Nineteenth — Early Twentieth Century. Moscow, 1969. (in Rus.)
Bibliographic Index of Research Literature on Orthodoxy, Old Believers, and Sectarianism in the Soviet Historical Studies in 1922—1972. Moscow, 1974. (in Rus.)
Religion and Church in the History of Russia: Soviet Historians on Orthodox Church in Russia / Comp. and comment. Е. F. Grekulov; edit. and introd. А. М. Sakharov. Moscow, Mysl’ Publishing House, 1975. (in Rus.)

About him

[Ephim Fedorovich Grekulov is 80 years old] // Nauka i Religia. No. 7. 1973. P. 68. (in Rus.)
Pospielovsky D. V. Soviet studies on the church and the believer’s response to atheism. Macmillan Publishers, 1988, p. 18.
Ivanenko S. I. Evolution of Russian Orthodoxy to the Enlightenment and Scientific Knowledge // Voprosy nauchnogo ateizma. Iss. 37: Orthodoxy in the History of Russia. Moscow, Mysl’ Publishing House, 1988, pp. 271-287. (in Rus.)

V. Kh.