Hello from the BBC World Service and welcome to the latest edition of the documentary

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I'm Caroline Wyatt for the BBC World Service and this is a new church for the Red State.

A nation and a church in turmoil. Many this month will be remembering how, a hundred years ago,

the Bolsheviks were seizing power in revolutionary Russia.

Yet few will mark the revolution within that revolution.

Even as the political radicals were overthrowing the Tsar,

Russia's red priests aimed to create a new church for this new state,

a more open church closer to the people, one that spoke their language and shared its

earthly riches. At the heart of this revolution was a charismatic priest Alexander

Yiddensky. But what happens to those early hopes and to him?

The last surviving members of his family, Olga and Maria, the daughter and granddaughter of

Alexander Viedensky, have helped us unlock this secret history.

With them, we'll see how the renovationist movement, also known as the Living Church,

almost replaced the Orthodox Church, and that still reverberates in today's

Russia. As we'll find out it's a story that the Church and the Russian state prefer

to forget.

For the Orthodox hierarchy, even today, the renovationists remain heretics whose very name evokes strong emotions.

Until recently, little has been written about them, not least because some of the original documents are still locked up in the Federal Security Service Archive.

To help us find out more about this new church for the Red State.

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