Juvenaly wrote:Who are the heads of the Josephite and Tikhonite Churches? Are you sure you're not mixing up decades here?
Most of them are either in ROAC or in communion with them.
Are you trying to say as the new ROCOR line geos that there is not a Catacomb Churches anymore?
They (ROCOR) believed in the Catacomb church up to 1994, but now their party line is that of Bishop Mark that there has been no Catacomb Church since 1950.
Juvenaly
Next Episode: "The Schisms of the GOC"
Sane bat time.
Same bat channel.
(Batman Theme)
Umm... Who are the heads of the Josephite and Tikhonite Churches? Are you sure you're not mixing up decades here?
Also, I believe it's been pretty well documented that the character of the Catacomb Church changed drastically sometime in the 1940's and 50's. In fact, there were catacomb bishops who, it is said, told their faithful to attend the Moscow Patriarchate parishes. One example of this is the bishop who told Fr. Alexander Men's family to attend the Patriarchal parishes. This is not surprising given the fact that catacomb bishops of the past, namely Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan, gave similar directives:
As for laymen, in all conscience they should not participate actively in the church-parish life of parishes which commemorate the name of Metropolitan Sergius at Divine services as the chief Archpastor. But in itself such a commemoration of the name of Metropolitan Sergius cannot be made the responsibility of laymen and should not serve for them as an obstacle to attending the Divine services and receiving the Holy Gifts in churches which submit to Metropolitan Sergius, if in the given locality there is no Orthodox church which preserves unharmed its canonical relation to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne. And to pray for Metropolitan Sergius, together with other Archpastors and Orthodox Christians in general (on lists for commemoration at the Proskomedia, molebens, and so forth) is not a sin.
After the 1950's the Catacomb Church was no longer a single cohesive unit , but a number of small groups operating independently and with little knowledge of each other. In other words, there is no way to say that the underground churches of the 1950's and beyond come directly from the Catacomb churches of Met. Joseph and St. Tikhon's original followers.
