Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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Pravoslavac
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Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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His holiness, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Cyril I, at the feast of saint Ilarion the priest-martyr confess the Great Dogma of the Orthodox Church, which is, there is only One Church!

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Barbara
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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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This must be the New Martyr Abp. Hilarion [Troitsky], Archbishop of Verey. It is his words about "There is only 1 Church", not Pat Kirill's, I believe.

The relics of this New Martyr are at Sretensky monastery, right ?

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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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Indeed there is only ONE Church founded by the Holy Apostles. And She will abide undivided until the Day of Jesus Christ. Let us strive to be certain that we are truly in Her, and not sidetracked by mistake into a splinter group.

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Barbara
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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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It was Archbishop Hilarion [ Troitsky ] 's day of martyrdom yesterday.

I read a few weeks ago at random a great writeup in an old Orthodox Life, flipping carefully through yellowed pages.
I didn't know anything about his life, and wanted to hear the details. A very moving story of a brilliant Churchman !

Then I saw that the day was coming up, so I got out the Orthodox Word issue which featured the major theologian and defender of the reinstatement of the Patriarchate.

I was disappointed to see that he was defending the dread Met Sergius and the infamous declaration which makes all of our blood run cold. How could this have been ? Why would the keen and deeply Church-loving Archbishop Hilarion miss the fact that this was a great betrayal of the Russian Church ? Why didn't he see the rightness of the stand of Metropolitan Joseph instead of talking as many prelates as he could into stopping their support for the latter and agreeing to Met Sergius' shameful declaration ?

I am trying to figure out how the Old Rocor handled that. This part was not included in the Orthodox Life article ; perhaps it was not known then ?

One wants to make excuses for Abp Hilarion, that he was maybe exhausted after torture and misery in the Kem and Solovki concentration camps. During those years, he had many forced meetings with an evil character, Tuchkov, who perhaps wore him down into accepting Met Sergius and his collaboration with the atheist state ?

I would like to get to the truth of this, for it's confusing for me. Do the True Orthodox view him as a Saint and include him among the New Martyrs ?

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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

Post by Matthew »

I would like to see the exact quote (within the larger context, maybe even the full document) before I can hazard a guess. If you have the complete quote that would help. Also, it is important to find out (if he did make a very serious error of praising not only a known heretic) if he repented firmly of that error. We have many saints in the Church who sinned grievously such as at least two cases I know of in which desert fathers committed murder and others who even denied Christ but later repented and became saints.

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Barbara
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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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No, there is NO record whatsoever of Abp Hilarion ever repenting in any form of his support for Sergianism.

I was waiting to fetch the exact quotation for you. Here it is.

I see that this Orthodox Word article is a reprint of "The Life of the Holy Hieromartyr Hilarion [Troitsky] by
the MP's metropolitan of St Petersburg and Ladoga, John [Synchev], reposed 1995.

That is why it praises Abp Hilarion as 'being a peacemaker' among the imprisoned hierarchs on Solovki. The author says [ p.27 of Orthodox Word 264-5, 2009 ] :

"In November 1927, certain of the Solovki bishop began to waiver [sic : should be "waver" - I see this mistake a lot these days ] over the Josephite schism. Archbishop Hilarion was able to gather up to fifteen bishops in the cell of Archimandrite Theophan, where all unanimously resolved to preserve faithfulness to the Orthodox Church headed by Metropolitan Sergius.
"No schisms !" Archbishop Hilarion proclaimed. "No matter what they say to us, we will look at it as a provocation!"
"On June 28, 1928, Vladyka Hilarion wrote to his close friends that he was unsympathetic in the extreme with those who had broken off, and considered their actions unfounded, foolish, and extremely harmful. He considered such separation to be an "ecclesiastical crime", quite serious under the current conditions.
" I see absolutely nothing in the actions of Metropolitan Sergius and his Synod that would exceed a measure of condescension and patience," he said. [ My arrows for emphasis ]

As a side note, the footnotes by the Platina Brotherhood hasten to brush under the carpet the disagreement about Met Sergius' Declaration between Rocor and the MP, saying that was all set aside by the 2007 union.
Maybe Platina thinks so...

I didn't like when I read this the first time the description "Josephite Schism". I would consider it the rightful course, and the Sergianists were in schism.

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Barbara
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Re: Patriarch of Moscow Cyril - There is only one Church!

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The issue has excellent photos of the remarkable speaker and writer on theological topics, [ not necessarily on political Church topics ], Archbishop Hilarion [Troitsky].
There is one of the shrine containing his relics at the Sretensky Monastery in Moscow. It looks old, but cannot have escaped the Communists. I wonder if this elaborate shrine in traditional style is new ?
Or did the Soviets ALLOW the veneration of Archbishop Hilarion because he supported Sergius ?

I would like to glean a better understanding. What do you think, Matthew ?

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