Met Kallistos spoke about his contacts with Rocor, which he did NOT join. Apparently, he was not too motivated to do so. But then a Rocor Priest in London from the noble Sheremetiev family discouraged the young man !
That is incomprehensible to me, as was the general outlook of Fr George Sheremetiev towards the MP and much else.
Here are the relevant paragraphs from an interview by the Rocor Studies site with Met Kallistos about his decision of which jurisdiction to join when he became Orthodox. It covers primarily the Englishman's interactions with various Rocor figures and their attitudes [ as far as Ware describes them -- how accurate his view was is perhaps open to question ].
To be fair, I left in his praise for Rocor-MP, though of course it is annoying to read of Ware's staunch approval of the merger with the MP.
Most of all, Met Kallistos' wishy-washy approaches to the important Church / political topics of the time emerges. Analyzing this, one is not so surprised to find him having slid sharply down that slippery slope into essentially endorsing the radical social position he appears to have taken in his notorious forward which raised a firestorm of indignation.
Wise indeed was Metropolitan Philaret of Rocor who 'saw Kallistos coming' a long time in advance ! That is to say, the Saint could foresee the sorry place this man would end up in the future. Metropolitan Philaret warned probably not only the Annunciation Convent in London but sent out an all-points bulletin to Beware of Ware. Metropolitan Philaret was too tactful to spell it out, but clearly he strongly wished for Ware to disappear from involvement in any Rocor properties and parishes.
Further evidence of Metropolitan Philaret's clairvoyance ---
Questions posed by the interviewer [ as best I can tell without the original copy in front of me ] are italicized.
"I would have had to make a choice between the Karlovtsy jurisdiction [ Rocor ] and the Moscow Patriarchate. I did not want to join the Moscow Patriarchate. I never seriously considered that, because I could not feel happy about the compromises that the Russian Church in the Soviet Union had made with the communists. But I recognized that they were under persecution and I was not. It was not for me to judge them [ Oh, yeah ? ] . But, at the same time, I felt that I could not be involved with the kind of statements of support that they made for the communist regime.
But for your [monastic] vows you went to St. John the Theologian Monastery on Patmos.
Yes, that’s right. Just to recall the sequence of events: In 1958 I became Orthodox in the Greek cathedral. Bishop James, the assistant bishop received me. He then told me to go for confession to Fr. George Sheremetev. So it was at his own suggestion, with his blessing, that I chose Fr. George as my spiritual father. At that time there were normal relations of concelebration and Communion between the Zarubezhnaya Tserkov and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. It was only at a later date — I think around 1970 — that relations became quite difficult.
So, I continued belonging to the Greek Archdiocese, but with Fr. George as my spiritual father. I tended to go, on the whole, to Russian churches. But Fr. George did not object to my going to the Russian parish in Oxford that was under the Moscow Patriarchate. He did not take an extreme view here. He said, “The Moscow Patriarchate is an Orthodox Church. They have true priests and true sacraments. We do not doubt that. But in a free country we must be free.” That was his position. He didn’t mind if I went to the church here. [ Strange indeed ].
Then in 1963 I went to the monastery of Vladyka Vitaly in Montreal and spent six months there. I returned in 1964 to England. There was a new Archbishop of Thyateira, the Greek Archdiocese: Athenagoras (not to be confused with Patriarch Athenagoras). I had met him earlier, when I was in Princeton in 1960. He offered me the opportunity to come and work for him as his English secretary, and he said he wished to ordain me as deacon. It was then, after I had visited Vitaly, that Fr. George, as my spiritual father said: “I do not bless you to be ordained priest in the Russian Church in Exile.” He said, “Our clergy are becoming very narrow.” He wasn’t very explicit about this, but I think he foresaw the attitude that would be taken by Metropolitan Philaret when he was head of the Exile Сhurch, when he (more or less) condemned the Ecumenical Patriarchate as having fallen away from the Orthodox Faith. He didn’t say that absolutely explicitly, but I think Fr. George was aware of the attitude by some people at that date in the Exile Church who were inclined to say, “We are the only true Orthodox Church (with, perhaps the Old Calendarists in Greece).” Fr. George was not, I think, of that outlook. I think he foresaw that this was a growing attitude in the Church in Exile, and he said to me, “You will find that too narrow.”
I first came across this attitude when I was in Jordanville as a layman in 1960. I went to stay there with a letter from Mother Elizabeth, and I was made very welcome. But then Fr. Constantine (Zaitsev) discovered that I belonged to the Greek Church, and he was not very pleased about that. He said to me, “Yes, we are in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate, but this will not last very much longer.” That was the first time that I had come across this attitude in the Russian Church Abroad. I went to him for confession, he gave me absolution and blessed me to receive Communion. But he said, “It will be better if you only go to Communion in Russian churches,” meaning those of the Zarubezhnaya Tserkov. That was what I did at that time. Fr. George Sheremetev never adopted that attitude.
When I told Fr. George Grabbe, the future Archbishop Gregory, that I had been told that I should not go to Communion in Greek churches if I received Communion in the Russian Church Abroad, he was very indignant. He said, “Who told you that?!” I didn’t mention Fr. Constantine’s name because I didn’t want to make trouble. I just said, “Oh, well — I heard this.” At that time Fr. George Grabbe was very definite: “We are in Communion with the other Orthodox Churches, except for the Moscow Patriarchate, and except for difficulties in Jerusalem.” Because, I think, the Patriarch of Jerusalem in the 1950’s said that clergy of the Church Abroad could not celebrate in the Holy Sepulchre. Jerusalem changed in attitude later. But at that time he was most emphatic that we are in communion, that we have brotherly relations — particularly, he said, in the Patriarchate of Alexandria our priests in North Africa have very close contacts with the Greek clergy. For example, they arranged their holidays so that when the Greek priest goes on holiday the Russian priest looks after the people, and when the Russian priest goes on holiday his people are looked after by the Greek priest.
Well, of course, Fr. George Grabbe changed later and adopted very much the strict view, under the influence, I fear, of Fr. Panteleimon of the Monastery of the Holy Transfiguration in Boston. That’s all sort of background to my time.
When I was ordained priest by the Greeks in 1966, for several years I served regularly in the Russian convent in London with Mother Elizabeth. Fr. George Sheremetev was the chaplain to the convent. His health was bad. He had trouble with his heart, and he was always worried that he might have a heart attack during the Liturgy. So he asked me to come and help with feasts like Christmas (on the old calendar) when I was free and didn’t have duties in Oxford. That continued until 1970.
One day, when I had gone up to celebrate a weekday Liturgy at the convent, Fr. Panteleimon of Boston happened to be there. He clearly — this was 1970 — was not at all pleased to discover that I celebrated the Litrugy at the convent. He made that clear to me. I said to him, “Alright. You are here. I didn’t know you were coming. You celebrate the Liturgy tomorrow for the sisters.” He said, “No, you celebrate. Because you have come especially. They have invited you.” And he came to the service. He didn’t have Communion, but he stayed. But at the end he said, “This is only permitted by extreme economy, and it will not last much longer.
A few weeks later, Mother Elizabeth received a letter from Metropolitan Philaret saying, “It will be best if you do not invite Fr. Kallistos too often to celebrate in the convent.” He did not actually say that she should never invite me, that I should not be allowed to celebrate there. But Mother Elizabeth said (and I said too) that it was clear that he did not want me to celebrate in the convent. Therefore it was better that I should cease doing so. That was in 1970. I no longer went to serve in the convent....
Could we return now to your time with Vladyka Vitaly in Canada?
Vladyka Vitaly wrote to me in the early ’60’s, initially simply saying that he had heard about me and was praying for me. It was a very friendly letter. He had heard about me from a fellow student whom I had gotten to know while I was at Princeton in 1959-60, who was Russian, who came from Canada, who knew Vladyka Vitaly and had told Vitaly about me. Then Vitaly wrote another letter inviting me to come to Montreal and to help him with English Orthodox work.
When I actually went to Montreal he received me very coldly. I realize in restrospect, though he never said this, that he was not pleased with my book “The Orthodox Church,” my first book, a Penguin book. He considered it to be far too liberal. I infer this from things that I heard, but he never said that to me explicitly. But I realized when I came to Montreal that he was not pleased with me. After I’d been there for about six months. He said, “This is not the place for you.” He also said, “You have no proper vocation to the monastic life.” He was quite definite and outspoken. I’m sure that he spoke with sincerity and not out of malice. I respect him. Naturally, I found his words difficult.
When I was living in his monastery, sometimes he used me to help in the printing room. He had another monastic house outside in the country, where they did farm work, but I never went there. I was only in Montreal. But most of the time he said to me — he knew I had to finish my doctoral thesis at the University of Oxford — and he said to me, “Alright, you concentrate on that and you may write and study.” He did not employ me very much to do work in the monastic house. I think he saw my visit, from the start, as only temporary.
But you yourself were not that sure. You were thinking about staying.
Yes, I was thinking about staying, initially. When he finally said, “You cannot stay,” I actually felt a certain sense of relief. But until then I had been willing to stay and struggle. But I suddenly felt that he was right. That is why I don’t bear him ill will for what he decided. I think he considered that I was, by his standards, far too liberal in my approach to Orthodoxy.
He also mentioned to someone else, not to me, that he thought I was a spy. Mother Elizabeth in London heard about that. She spoke to me with great contempt of that opinion. She said, ironically, “Typical D.P. outlook!” After all, he was not a displaced person, but he could have been regarded as such. I knew from what others told me later that she had difficulties with him when he was priest in London, or rather when he was bishop in South America, and he wanted her nuns to go out and help him, and she said no. He was apparently very annoyed about that and wrote her a very fierce letter. But Archbishop John (Maximovich), St. John, told her “Don’t reply to that letter.” (That was a background, there, that had nothing to do with me.)
But when I came back from my time with Vitaly, Fr. George said, “I knew you wouldn’t stay.” He told me how he had found Vitaly very hard-lined when he was parish priest in London.
They were probably together in northern Germany.
Ah, perhaps they were. I don’t know. That’s possible, yes. I think the real reason was not that he seriously thought I was spy (perhaps there were moments when he did), but he just felt I did not fit, and probably he considered I was too independent. When I published such a book he realized that here was somebody who had already studied widely and had made a certain reputation. He wanted somebody who would be more maleable, that he could shape according to his own wishes. I saw in his monastery that the monks were very devoted to him. Well, one was not so close. But certainly the future Bishop Paul was very devoted to him. The others, too, I think, did respect him deeply. Probably he felt I would be too independent, and he was probably right.
Vladyka, you mentioned The Orthodox Church, which is very unique. There are many other attempts to write such an exposition, but I don’t think there are any other books that can compare with the success of yours. There are a number of editions. I remember that one them had something on the back about the author saying that, at the moment, he resides in Montreal.
Yes. It may have even said that I am a member of the Russian Church Outside Russia. That’s true.
It was probably the second one, not the one that Vladyka Vitaly saw.
Yes, it was published in ’63, the year I went there. The first edition was in 1963. I made minor revisions to various editions, to bring it up to date, but I did not do a major rewriting until 1993. Then I rewrote about one third of the book, particularly those parts relating to the Orthodox Church under communism. With the fall of communism, naturally the Church situation had changed radically within Eastern Europe and Russia and therefore it needed to be a great deal altered.
I think that the first edition of 1963 was written a good deal under the influence of the Russian Church Abroad, and that I certainly was quite critical there of the Moscow Patriarchate. Initially, for example, Bishop Antony (Bloom) would not allow my book to be sold in his bookstore. I felt in 1993 that some of the things I had said there were too harsh, and I did modify them. I continued, however, to keep the parts of that book where I expounded the point of view of the Russian Church Abroad. I felt when I wrote it in 1963 that all the material available in the English milieu was favorable to the Moscow Patriarchate, and particularly the material that was used by the Anglicans. That was partly why I wanted to express the other point of view as to why the great majority of Russians in the emigration did not choose to belong to the Moscow Patriarchate.
I found it necessary also to mention that there was a Catacomb Church in Russia. Of course, material put out by the Russian Church Abroad did mention these things, but it, on the whole, did not circulate at all widely. So I felt that it was only right to state the other point of view. I was criticized for being, as people saw it, too favorable to the Church Abroad. That was a point taken up by a number of reviewers of the book. I even remember one of the bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate, Archbishop Alexis (van der Mensbrugghe), saying to me, “There is not Catacomb Church in Russia!” There was, he said, in the twenties and thirties, but since, he said, the Second World War, “it has not existed.” And he even said, “I am a bishop of the Moscow Patriarchate. I know these things.” Well, we now, of course, have plenty of evidence that there was indeed a catacomb movement. Perhaps we should not say a “Catacomb Church,” because it is not clear that there was a single hierarchical organization. But there wer certainly, even in the forties and fifties, bishops who did not belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. Of course, evidence has come to that. But at that time I was a lone voice. That was not so widely said.
I think they were perturbed in the Moscow Patriarchate that here was a book published by a major non-religious publisher — Penguin’s — whose books get into ordinary bookshops, not just specialized religious bookshops. And this was perhaps the first book to be issued in this way by a major non-religious publisher on the Orthodox Church. I think they were perturbed.
But I was also criticized by Fr. George Grabbe for being too favorable to ecumenism in the final chapter. That may be also why Vladyka Vitaly was not so pleased when he saw this book. I have reason to believe that he had read it actually, or had read the parts that interested him. If anything, in the 1993 revision, I am a little less negative about Christian unity, though I kept the statements in my first edition unchanged — the claim of the Orthodox Church to be the true Church of Christ, and that we do not accept any form of the “branch theory” of the Church.
The Russian Church Abroad identity was always closely connected with Russian nationalism and anti-communism. This helped its self-definition; like it or not – as Fr. Alexander Schmemann said, it definitely has style. But now that communism has ceased to exist, what identity is there for it to recover?
What I have always admired in the Russian Church Abroad is its faithfulness to the liturgical and ascetic spiritual traditions of Russian Orthodoxy in particular and Orthodoxy in general. I was always impressed by their faithful performance of the church services and their re-printing of the liturgical books, at a time when they were very difficult to obtain. I helped priests of the Moscow Patriarchate, who were afraid to write directly to Jordanville, to take church books back into Russia. I asked one priest if he would have any trouble with the customs, taking books which included prayers for those suffering under atheist oppression, but he said no, as the Soviet customs officials could not read Slavonic.
I also admired the faithful presentation of liturgical piety at a time when other Orthodox, like the Greeks in America, were making changes in the services. I had not visited Russia at that time though of course there too the services were properly performed.
The Church Abroad also upheld the spirituality, for example, of the tradition of the Philokalia, Saints Theophan the Recluse and Ignaty (Brianchaninov).
Now there is a restoration of communion between the Church Abroad and the Moscow Patriarchate. I am very pleased about this and also that the Russian Church Abroad retains its own identity. Of course it would have been difficult for the Moscow Patriarchate to condemn Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and deny their own identity, but they have canonised the New Martyrs of Russia who are now venerated by the whole Russian Church.
Since the restoration of communion there has been much more openness by the Church Abroad towards Russia and to Orthodoxy in general. Yet they have continued to be faithful to their liturgical and ascetic traditions to an extent which is not found in the same way among other Orthodox. This emphasis is very much needed today.