Alexander Ivanovich Vvedensky (Russian: Александр Иванович
Введенский) was one of the leaders of the schismatic Living
Church movement (Живая Церковь, also known as the Renovationist
Church, Обновленческая Церковь), a reformed Orthodox church set
up in the early Soviet Union by the Bolshevik government after
it confiscated all the property of the Church of Russia.
Vvedensky is considered the person "most identified with
renovationism in the Soviet era" and is considered a heretic by
the Russian Orthodox Church. Alexander Vvedensky was born on
August 30, 1889 in Vitebsk, now in Belarus. His paternal
grandfather was Jewish but converted to Orthodox Christianity
and served as a precentor (cantor) in the Diocese of Novgorod.
During his conversion his grandfather changed his surname to
Vvedensky after Vvedenie. Alexander's mother was a member of the
provincial bourgeoisie and his father became a nobleman and was
headmaster of a school at Vitebsk. Vvedensky graduated from the
History department of St. Petersburg Un