Father Stefan Bezhanitskii (1821-1892)

Priestly Pater Familias

A graduate of Pskov seminary and the son of a sacristan, Stefan Bezhanitski was the founder of a large Orthodox dynasty in Estonia: all five of his sons became priests (one of them a martyr), two daughters married priests, one grandson became a priest, and two granddaughters were among the first women in the Russian Empire to receive higher education.

 As the Pskov seminary introduced the study of Estonian and Latvian in 1844, Stefan had the opportunity to learn Estonian; in 1846, he was dispatched to the Riga suffragan diocese where, on 23 June, he was consecrated as a priest by Bishop Filaret (Gumilevskii). He was appointed as a priest to the Nikol’skaia church in Elistvere and also served in the Tartu Iur’evskaia church ‘without salary’. In June 1847, he was dispatched to Saaremaa to officiate in the Pokrovskaia church near Pöide, where he clashed with a guard at the Lutheran cemetery, who shouted abuse at a funeral procession of Orthodox peasants. The trials of the newcomer were not in vain: Bishop Filaret personally endorsed Father Stefan for his missionary work in 1848, as many Lutherans in the parish converted to Orthodoxy.

He gained the trust of bishops: Filaret (Filaretov) appointed him as a deputy to handle diocesan paperwork and money at the Arensburg (Kuressaare) deanery in 1849, while Bishop Platon (Gorodetskii) in 1850 appointed him to the Vasilevskaia Priipalu church in Dorpat (Tartu) district: in 1852, he endorsed the young priest. In 1853, Stefan was elected to the editorial board of the new journal School of Piety and received appreciation for his care for Orthodox education. We also believe that he translated several liturgical texts into Estonian. In 1854, he was appointed as a deputy and a “spiritual counsellor in the religious affairs of Dorpat uezd and deanery”. On 22 January 1860, he received a nabedrennik for conscientious execution of his duties and for spreading the word of God [1].

This reads like a story of an exemplary priest. But was it?

In April 1866, Stefan applied to be transferred from Dorpat to the Tuhalaane parish in Viljandi on the request of the Tuhalaane parishioners. Following his marriage to Anna Egorova (born in 1825) shortly before his ordination in 1846, he quickly became the father of a large family. By the time of his transfer to Tuhalaane, he had at least 5 children, born in 1847, 1852, 1856, 1858 and 1859. Two more children were born in 1862 and 1864.

In 1867, the merchant Belianinov wrote to Kiril Al’bov, dean of the Viljandi deanery, complaining that Stefan has not paid him back a debt of 52 roubles. Belianinov suggested that the money should be paid over the next few months. Stefan wrote in reply that while he had borrowed money from Belianinov, he could not return it before April 1868 because of his large family and high living costs. These were high indeed. Even though the Orthodox clergy in Riga diocese received salaries, the money not enough to cover the costs of a large family like Bezhanitskii’s.

In 1868, he appealed to the bishop to give him the parish of Karkuski, despite the fact that the parish already had a priest. In February, Stefan borrowed 100 roubles from parish funds, aiming to pay it back within two years. The consistory allowed this, stipulating that Stefan had to pay it back at a 25% annual interest rate!

To solve his permanent financial problems, in 1868 Stefan even ‘rented out’ rooms in his house to the church to prepare children for confirmation. This scheme failed, however. The priest Panov, dean of Viljandi, discovered that Stefan had not, in fact, provided the rooms to the confirmation classes: Panov demanded the return of the rent, threatening to take the money from Stefan’s salary.

In 1869, Stefan sent two of his sons to the Riga seminary (the elder son Viktor had already studied there). The boys, who enrolled at the age of 10, most likely received scholarships, but the family still had to provide them with clothes and house them during the winter and summer vacations. Tamara Miljutina, Stefan’s great granddaughter, remembered that the two brothers Nikolai and Aleksander shared one sheepskin coat when coming back home for Christmas: occasionally swapping places, one rode on a horse-driven carriage wearing the coat, while the other ran alongside the carriage to keep warm (Miljutina, p. 13).

The first complaint that Stefan Bezhanitskii was a drunk reached the authorities in September 1871. The petitioners, all members of the parish, accused Stefan of drinking and failing to celebrate some church feasts. According to the letter, Bezhanitskii’s children were running around barefoot and in rags, which parishioners regarded as inappropriate for the offspring of a priest. As a result, they complained, many parishioners were leaving Orthodoxy for the Lutheran faith. How did Stefan react to this criticism? According to the petitioners, he allegedly responded: “Let them go to hell, and you should go there too”.  However, the dean Popov, who was sent to investigate the complaints, did not find any evidence against Bezhanitskii.

But this was not the end of the matter. Another petition reached the bishop of Riga in 1872, reiterating similar accusations. The commission subsequently sent by the bishop questioned 18 petitioners who had signed the complaint: they told a confusing story. Some had never actually witnessed Stefan being drunk, while others claimed that they saw him drunk once and swore that his children played in ‘a tavern’ and went barefoot on the street. Some argued that Stefan did not speak adequate Estonian, while still more hinted at family discord and accused Stefan of beating his wife: it was suggested that he should be replaced with Dionissii Välbe, originally from Viljandi, or Mikhail Suigusaar. Both candidates were Estonians and sympathetic to the rising national movement.

The consistory had to make a decision: since some of the parishioners approved of the priest while others did not, the consistory proposed organising a vote! [2]

 On 11 May 1873, the election took place: 192 votes were cast in favour of Bezhanitskii and 15 votes against (in a parish with 1082 male parishioners). Despite the favourable vote, Bezhanitskii was replaced a year later with another priest. Efim Küppar, a supporter of Carl Jacobson, the champion of Estonian national awakening, became the new leader of Tuhalaane parish for the next 20 years.  In 1874, Küppar reported that Stefan owed the church 286 roubles: the sum was withdrawn from his salary.

After his conflict with the parishioners in Tuhulaane, Stefan served in six other parishes, including Penuja, Mäemõisa, and Pärnu. He died in 1892 when he was 71. With his five priestly sons celebrating the funeral, it must have been quite a spectacular sight!

Notes

[1] A nabedrennik is a square or rectangular piece of cloth worn over the shoulder by Russian Orthodox priests. In the imperial period, such vestments were often issued as awards.

[2] Priestly election had virtually ceased to exist in the Russian Orthodox Church by the beginning of the nineteenth century.

Author

Irina Paert

Sources

EAA 1655.2.3721 (Delo o sviashenniki Bezhanitskom)

EAA 1655.2.2419 (Fellinskoe blagochinie, delo Stefana Bezhanitskogo (1866-1874))

https://www.eoc.ee/vaimulik/bezanitski-stefan/?v=a57b8491d1d8

Published: 10/12/2020

Grant reference: Estonian Research Council grant PRG1274