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The '''Living Church''' (also called '''Renovated Church''' or ''Obnovlencheskaya Tserkov'') was a theoretical, reformed "Orthodox church" set up in the old Soviet Union by the Bolshevik government after it confiscated all property of the [[Church of Russia]]. It was disbanded in 1943 when Stalin was desperate to bolster the morale of the Russian people in the Second World War.
This church had almost no following among the people, and a number of clergy who had been in the movement in good faith repented and returned to the Orthodox Church. The few who tried to exist in the state run church of the atheistic government, were used by the state against those faithful to Patriarch Tikhon. The government knew the renovation (reformation) would cause division and weakening to government opposition. In the As the leader of the party said, "I will smite the shepherd and scatter the sheep," Patriarch Tikhon was arrested and isolated from the populace and the Church was given to the wolves. But even by the late twenties, it became of little use to the state.
The legacy of this movement, is that now all change is seen to be renovation of the faith. The Living Church used modern Russian, the revised calendar, and non monastic Bishops.