From the fund of the Special Commission to investigate the atrocities of the bolsheviks under the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces in the South of Russia, stored in the State Archive of the Russian Federation, the author selected folders devoted to the situation of religion and the Orthodox Church in the regions where Soviet power was held for some time in 1917–1919 before the arrival of the White Guards. These folders were examined for information about the murders of representatives of the Orthodox clergy: clergymen, psalmists, monks and novices. It is shown that according to the documents of the Commission a relatively small percentage of clergy died by violent death in these regions, which does not allow us to speak about the mass nature of the red terror against the clergy, much less about the «church genocide».