Today, the ideas of the Russian monarch or Russia itself as “katechon” are popular in the right‑conservative circles, and on this basis attempts are made to explain the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent events of the twentieth century as a fight against “katechon” up to his “ritual murder”. According to these views, the Freemasons and Jews were responsible for the Revolution, as they were preparing the coming of the Antichrist. What role such representations played in pre‑revolutionary and revolutionary Russia and whom did they attract?

This article traces changes in the practice of sacramental confession in the Soviet period, from 1917 to 1991. The combination of secularizing pressures, church closures, and fewer priests, meant that the routine, institutionalized aspect of confession before 1917, which had made individual confession something familiar to the average Orthodox Christian believer, vanished, replaced in most cases by the general confession. On the other hand, for religious “virtuosi,” confession became a more central element of religious life.