The Council coincided with important events in Russian history such as the continuation of the war with Germany, the Kornilov affair in August 1917, the proclamation of the Republic in Russia (1 September 1917), the fall of the Provisional Government and the October Revolution, the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly, the publication of the Decree on the separation of church and state and the beginning of the Civil War. Cathedral made the statement in response to some of these events. Bolsheviks, whose actions and legitimize directly condemned by the council (or personally Patriarch), did not put direct obstacles holding sessions of the Council.