This article is devoted to the study of the problem of Church auto‑ cephaly made by a prominent scholar, an expert in canonical law, Vladimir Beneshevich. The article is based on the unpublished docu‑ ments from the Beneshevich archive in St. Petersburg. The documents help reconstructing religious life of the country of the first post‑rev‑ olutionary years (1917-1922). Their significant part deals with the problems of the canonical law, mostly related to the issue of auto‑ cephaly of the Georgian Church. In spring 1917, Beneshevich was sent to Tiflis by order of the Provisional government as a Tempo‑ rary Commissioner for the Affairs of the Georgian Church. Numer‑ ous documents (correspondence, documents of the Provisional gov‑ ernment, newspaper clippings, etc.) help to see how a complex conflict between Beneshevich, the Russian authorities and the representatives of the Georgian Church unfolded between the two revolutions of 1917.