Plato Kulbusch

Paul Kulbusch

Platon Kulbusch (real name: Paul Kulbusch , Russian Павел Петрович Кульбуш ; * July 25, 1869 in Pootsi, today Tõstamaa parish , Estonia ; † January 14, 1919 in Tartu ) was the Russian Orthodox Bishop of Riga and Episcopal Vicar of Tallinn . Plato was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1919 and canonized in 2000 .

family

Plato was born as Paul Kulbusch in the Russian governorate of Livonia . His father Peeter Kulbusch was a sexton in a Russian Orthodox church. The family had only converted from the Lutheran to the Orthodox faith in the mid-19th century.

education

Paul Kulbusch first attended the Orthodox parish school in Arusaare and then from 1880 to 1890 the clergy school and seminary in Riga . In 1894 he graduated from the Spiritual Academy in Saint Petersburg . Thereafter, from 1894 to 1917, he worked at the Estonian Orthodox community in Saint Petersburg (and the surrounding area), which had around 5,000 believers. His own church and a parish hall were built during his time.

bishop

In 1917, Plato was the first Estonian to be elected Bishop of Riga and Vicar of Tallinn and was ordained bishop in Tallinn on December 31, 1917 . The October Revolution in Russia in November 1917 and the entry of German troops into Tallinn on February 25, 1918 severely hampered his work in Estonia. Plato's advocacy for an independent Estonian state and his support for the Provisional Government of Estonia have been a thorn in the side of the anti-clerical Bolsheviks since their invasion of Estonia in November 1918. On December 29, 1918, they even banned the holding of church services in Estonia.

martyrdom

On January 2, 1919, Plato was arrested in Tartu by the Red Army and the communist government of Jaan Anvelt . Despite the torture, the bishop and other clergymen refused to sign the prepared interrogation protocols. On January 14, 1919, the Bolsheviks shot Bishop Plato and two other priests, Michael Bleive and Nikolai Beschanizki , for "counter-revolutionary activities". On the same day in Tartu the two Lutheran pastors Traugott Hahn and Moritz Wilhelm Paul Schwartz and another fourteen people were executed.

After the conquest of Tartus by civil troops a few days later, Plato was buried in Tartu. His remains were later transferred to Tallinn, where Plato was buried with Estonian state honors.

canonization

On August 18, 2000, Bishop Plato was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church and on September 15, 2000 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople . His feast day is January 1st in the Julian calendar and January 14th in the Orthodox calendar , which currently runs parallel to the Gregorian calendar .

Honors

Since 1922, the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church has awarded the Order of the Holy Bishop Platon (Estonian Püha Piiskop Platoni orden ) for special merits.

In August 1931 a bust for Bishop Plato by the Estonian sculptor Amandus Adamson was inaugurated in Tallinn .

The seminary of the Estonian Apostolic Orthodox Church, established in 2002, is named after Plato.

Web links

Commons : Platon (Kulbusch)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Jüri Poska: L'Evêque Platon Sa Vie Et Son Martyre. Orthodox Church of Estonia, accessed July 14, 2016 (French). 
• Biography in Estonian ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Urmas Klaas: Plato 1869-1919. In: Eesti ajalugu elulugudes. 101 tsat eestlast. 1997, accessed July 13, 2016 (Estonian). 
2. ↑ ^{a b} Claudia Rammelt, Cornelia Schlarb, Egbert Schlarb: Encounters in the past and present. LIT Verlag, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-64-313070-9 , p. 188
3. ↑ ^{a b} Jüri Poska: L'Evêque Platon Sa Vie Et Son Martyre. Orthodox Church of Estonia, accessed January 11, 2017 (French). 
4. ↑ Séminaire de Saint Platon on the website of the Orthodox Church in Estonia, accessed on July 14, 2016 (French)