In recent decades scholars have done much to correct the previous neglect of the Russian Orthodox Church, but secular historians have virtually ignored this massive volume of dissertations, books, and articles on the Church. That also applies to the role of the Church in 1917. Although that neglect is largely due to the secularist bias in the traditional historiography, it is at least partly attributable to the new scholarship on the Church — which has tended to have a narrow focus: the internal history of the Church.

Existing scholarship on Russian Orthodoxy during the Soviet era has tended to focus on high politics, the Church (as an institution), and the clergy (especially the hierarchy). It is important, however, to shift the focus to the parish and laity, to whom the Bolsheviks (through the famous decree of 1918) gave full power over the local church and religious life.