This article is devoted to the study of the problem of Church autocephaly made by a prominent scholar, an expert in canonical law, Vladimir Beneshevich. The article is based on the unpublished documents from the Beneshevich archive in St. Petersburg. The documents help reconstructing religious life of the country of the first post‑revolutionary years (1917–1922). Their significant part deals with the problems of the canonical law, mostly related to the issue of autocephaly of the Georgian Church. In spring 1917, Beneshevich was sent to Tiflis by order of the Provisional government as a Temporary Commissioner for the Affairs of the Georgian Church. Numerous documents (correspondence, documents of the Provisional government, newspaper clippings, etc.) help to see how a complex conflict between Beneshevich, the Russian authorities and the representatives of the Georgian Church unfolded between the two revolutions of 1917.