Today is the anniversary of the Enthronement of the great Metropolitan Philaret of New York
as the 3rd First Hierarch of Rocor.
-- Strangely, MonasteryPress has taken off their article written by an observer describing in detail the extraordinarily grace-filled Vigil and Liturgy on Saturday/Sunday May 30/31, 1964. I have an old copy printed out which wonderfully turned up just in time for this 52nd anniversary of the event. However a page and a half are missing from my copy.
I wonder WHY Monastery Press would have done THAT ?? Since the link no longer works, here is a mention of the immediate action taken by the new First Hierarch to spell out Rocor's opposition to the MP and to explain the Catacomb Church - the True Orthodox in an essay by Vladimir Moss :
"Bishop Philaret of Brisbane was elected to the First Hierarchical see
by the Hierarchical Council of ROCOR, and was enthroned by Metropolitan
Anastassy himself in a service that, for the first time in centuries, used the
ancient text for the enthroning of a metropolitan of Moscow.
Almost immediately, in his 1965 Epistle “to Orthodox Bishops and all who
hold dear the Fate of the Russian Church”, Metropolitan Philaret made clear
his completely uncompromising attitude to the Moscow Patriarchate and his
great love for the Catacomb Church. In view of the continuing relevance of
his words, when the gracelessness of the Moscow Patriarchate is understood
by few, we quote it in full:
“In recent days the Soviet Government in Moscow and various parts of the
world celebrated a new anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 which
brought it to power.
“We, on the other hand, call to mind in these days the beginning of the
way of the cross for the Russian Orthodox Church, upon which from that
time, as it were, all the powers of hell have fallen.
“Meeting resistance on the part of Archpastors, pastors, and laymen strong
in spirit, the Communist power, in its fight with religion, began from the very
first days the attempt to weaken the Church not only by killing those of her
leaders who were strongest in spirit, but also by means of the artificial
creation of schisms.
Thus arose the so-called ''Living Church" and the renovationist movement,
which had the character of a Church tied to a Protestant-Communist
reformation. Notwithstanding the support of the Government, this schism
was crushed by the inner power of the Church. It was too clear to believers
that the ‘Renovated Church’ was uncanonical and altered Orthodoxy. For this
reason people did not follow it.
“The second attempt, after the death of Patriarch Tikhon and the rest of the
locum tenentes of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Peter, had greater
success. The Soviet power succeeded in 1927 in sundering in part the inner
unity of the Church. By confinement in prison, torture, and special methods it
broke the will of the vicar of the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan
Sergius, and secured from him the proclamation of a declaration of the
complete loyalty of the Church to the Soviet power, even to the point where
the joys and successes of the Soviet Union were declared by the Metropolitan
to the joys and successes of the Church, and its failures to be her
failures. What can be more blasphemous than such an idea, which was justly
appraised by many at that time as an attempt to unite light with darkness,
and Christ with Belial. Both Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Peter, as well
as others who served as locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne, had earlier
refused to sign a similar declaration, for which they were subjected to arrest,
imprisonment, and banishment.
“Protesting against this declaration—which was proclaimed by
Metropolitan Sergius by himself alone, without the agreement of the
suppressed majority of the episcopate of the Russian Church, violating thus
the 34th Apostolic Canon—many bishops who were then in the death camp at
Solovki wrote to the Metropolitan: ‘Any government can sometimes make
decisions that are foolish, unjust, cruel, to which the Church is forced to
submit, but which she cannot rejoice over or approve. One of the aims of the
Soviet Government is the extirpation of religion, but the Church cannot
acknowledge its successes in this direction as her own successes’ (Open Letter
from Solovki, September 27, 1927).
“The courageous majority of the sons of the Russian Church did not accept
the declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, considering that a union of the
Church with the godless Soviet State, which had set itself the goal of
annihilating Christianity in general, could not exist on principle.
“But a schism nonetheless occurred. The minority, accepting the
declaration, formed a central administration, the so-called ‘Moscow
Patriarchate,’ which, while being supposedly officially recognized by the
authorities, in actual fact received no legal rights whatever from them; for
they continued, now without hindrance, a most cruel persecution of the
Church. In the words of Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd, Metropolitan
Sergius, having proclaimed the declaration, entered upon the path of
‘monstrous arbitrariness, flattery, and betrayal of the Church to the interests
of atheism and the destruction of the Church.’
“The majority, renouncing the declaration, began an illegal ecclesiastical
existence. Almost all the bishops were tortured and killed in death camps,
among them the locum tenentes Metropolitan Peter and Metropolitan Cyril of
Kazan, who was respected by all, and Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd, who
was shot to death at the end of 1938, as well as many other bishops and
thousands of priests, monks, nuns, and courageous laymen. Those bishops
and clergy who miraculously remained alive began to live illegally and to
serve Divine services secretly, hiding themselves from the authorities and
originating in this fashion the Catacomb Church in the Soviet Union.
“Little news of this Church has come to the free world. The Soviet press
long kept silent about her, wishing to give the impression that all believers in
the USSR stood behind the Moscow Patriarchate. They even attempted to
deny entirely the existence of the Catacomb Church.
“But then, after the death of Stalin and the exposure of his activity, and
especially after the fall of Khrushchev, the Soviet press has begun to write
more and more often on the secret Church in the USSR, calling it the ‘sect’ of
True-Orthodox Christians. It was apparently impossible to keep silence about
it any longer; its numbers are too great and it causes the authorities too much
alarm.
“Unexpectedly in the Atheist Dictionary (Moscow, 1964), on pages 123 and
124 the Catacomb Church is openly discussed. '’True-Orthodox Christians,’
we read in the Dictionary, ‘an Orthodox sect, originating in the years 1922-24.
It was organized in 1927, when Metropolitan Sergius proclaimed the principle
of loyalty to the Soviet power.’ ‘Monarchist’ (we would say ecclesiastical)
‘elements, having united around Metropolitan Joseph (Petrovykh) of
Leningrad' (Petrograd)— the Josephites,’ or, as the same Dictionary says, the
Tikhonites, formed in 1928 a guiding centre, the True-Orthodox Church, and
united all groups and elements which came out against the Soviet order’ (we
may add from ourselves, ‘atheist’ order). ‘The True-Orthodox Church
directed unto the villages a multitude of monks and nuns,’ for the most part
of course priests, we add again from ourselves, who celebrated Divine
services and rites secretly and ‘conducted propaganda against the leadership
of the Orthodox Church,’ i.e, against the Moscow Patriarchate which had
given in to the Soviet power, ‘appealing to people not to submit to Soviet
laws,’ which are directed, quite apparently, against the Church of Christ and
faith. By the testimony of the Atheist Dictionary, the True-Orthodox Christians
organized and continue to organize house, 'i.e., secret, catacomb churches and
monasteries... preserving in full the doctrine and rites of Orthodoxy.’ They ‘do
not acknowledge the authority of the Orthodox Patriarch,’ i.e., the successor
of Metropolitan Sergius, Patriarch Alexis.
“’Striving to fence off’ the True-Orthodox Christians ‘from the influence of
Soviet reality,’ chiefly of course from atheist propaganda, ‘their leaders...
make use of the myth of Antichrist, who has supposedly been ruling in the
world since 1917.’ The anti-Christian nature of the Soviet power is undoubted
for any sound-thinking person, and all the more for a Christian.
“True Orthodox Christians ‘usually refuse to participate in elections,’
which in the Soviet Union, a country deprived of freedom, are simply a
comedy, ‘and other public functions; they do not accept pensions, do not
allow their children to go to school beyond the fourth class...’ Here is an
unexpected Soviet testimony of the truth, to which nothing need be added.
“Honour and praise to the True-Orthodox Christians, heroes of the spirit
and confessors, who have not bowed before the terrible power, which can
stand only by terror and force and has become accustomed to the abject
flattery of its subjects. The Soviet rulers fall into a rage over the fact that there
exist people who fear God more than men. They are powerless before the
millions of True-Orthodox Christians.
“However, besides the True Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and the
Moscow Patriarchate, which have communion neither of prayer nor of any
other kind with each other, there exists yet a part of the Russian Church—free
from oppression and persecution by the atheists the Russian Orthodox
Church Outside of Russia. She has never broken the spiritual and prayerful
bonds with the Catacomb Church in the home land. After the last war many
members of this Church appeared abroad and entered into the Russian
Church Outside Russia, and thus the bond between these two Churches was
strengthened yet more—a bond which has been sustained illegally up to the
present time. As time goes on, it becomes all the stronger and better
established.
“The part of the Russian Church that is abroad and free is called upon to
speak in the free world in the name of the persecuted Catacomb Church in the
Soviet Union; she reveals to all the truly tragic condition of believers in the
USSR, which the atheist power so carefully hushes up, with the aid of the
Moscow Patriarchate, she calls on those who have not lost shame and
conscience to help the persecuted.
“This is why it is our sacred duty to watch over the existence of the
Russian Church Outside of Russia. The Lord, the searcher of hearts, having
permitted His Church to be subjected to oppression, persecution, and
deprivation of all rights in the godless Soviet State, has given us, Russian
exiles, in the free world the talent of freedom, and He expects from us the
increase of this talent and a skillful use of it. And we have not the right to hide
it in the earth. Let no one dare to say to us that we should do this, let no
one push us to a mortal sin. For the fate of our Russian Church we, Russian
bishops, are responsible before God, and no one in the world can free us from
this sacred obligation. No one can understand better than we what is
happening in our homeland, of which no one can have any doubt. Many
times foreigners, even Orthodox people and those vested with high
ecclesiastical rank, have made gross errors in connection with the
Russian Church and false conclusions concerning her present condition. May
God forgive them this, since they do not know what they are doing.
“We shall not cease to accuse the godless persecutors of faith and those
who evilly cooperate with them under the exterior of supposed
representatives of the Church. In this the Russian Church Outside of Russia
has always seen one of her important tasks. Knowing this, the Soviet power
through its agents wages with her a stubborn battle, not hesitating to use any
means: lies, bribes, gifts, and intimidation. We, however, shall not suspend
our accusation.
“Declaring this before the face of the whole world, I appeal to all our
brothers in Christ—Orthodox bishops—and to all people who hold dear the
fate of the persecuted Russian Church as a part of the Universal Church of
Christ, for understanding, support, and their holy prayers. As for our
spiritual children, we call on them to hold firmly to the truth of Orthodoxy,
witnessing of her both by one's word and especially by a prayerful, devout
Christian life.”