Father Gapon is mainly remembered as the leader of peaceful crowds of protesters on Bloody Sunday, when hundreds of them were killed by firing squads of the Imperial Russian Army.

[4] In his final year at this school, Gapon was first exposed to the radical philosophical teachings of Leo Tolstoy through one of his instructors, a devoted follower of the Russian writer.

[6] Gapon fell ill from typhus, which incapacitated him for a time, making it impossible to earn a living as a tutor and continue his studies effectively.

[8] The family objected to a proposed marriage due to Gapon's limited employment horizons, however, and as a means of overcoming this obstacle he again sought to become a priest.

[11] Bishop Ilarion made a strong recommendation to Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Procurator of the Holy Synod, that Gapon be allowed to take the entrance examination to the Saint Petersburg Theological Academy despite his lack of the standard Seminary certificate.

[14] As part of this activity Gapon helped to conduct religious discussions in industrial shops, mess halls, and lodging houses, bringing him into close contact with the urban proletariat for the first time.

[14] The tightly wound Gapon found the strain of missionary work plus the demands of academic life to be too great and fell into a state of acute depression and he began skipping classes.

[16] In Crimea he met several prominent members of the Tolstoyan movement, all of whom were intensely critical of the Orthodox Church and urged Gapon to leave the priesthood.

The organization professed loyalty to the Russian Empire, beginning its meetings with the Lord's Prayer and concluding them with the imperial national anthem "God Save the Tsar!"

Before the 1905 Russian Revolution, Gapon preached that the Tsar was a benevolent leader appointed by divine right who wanted to make fundamental reforms but was constantly thwarted by the boyars.

9 January] 1905, the day after a general strike burst out in St. Petersburg, Gapon organized a workers' procession to present an emotionally charged written petition to the Tsar.

[21] Following Bloody Sunday, Gapon anathematized the Tsar and called upon the workers to take action against the regime, but soon after escaped abroad, where he had close ties with the Socialist Revolutionary Party.

Gapon and Rutenberg were welcomed in Europe both by prominent Russian émigrées Georgi Plekhanov, Vladimir Lenin, Peter Kropotkin and French socialist leaders Jean Jaurès and Georges Clemenceau.