Vl. Laurus to be in Boston this weekend.

bogoliubtsy · Post by **bogoliubtsy** » Fri 23 January 2004 3:21 am

It looks as if Vl. Laurus will be in Boston this weekend. Anyone going? I might try to make it out. One thing I'm kind of confused about though- it says he will be there January 24th and 25th for the "altar feast" of Holy Epiphany church. This weekend is obviously not Theophany. Anyone who can clarify? Is the date printed incorrectly?

http://bostonrusschurch.org/index_en.html

bogoliubtsy · Post by **bogoliubtsy** » Fri 23 January 2004 3:59 am

In relation to this...I just came across, on the webpage, Fr. Roman's address at the clergy conference.

Address of Fr. Roman at the "Round Table" at the Clergy Conference of the ROCA on December 8, 2003.

(Printed here in the extended form).

From December 8th until December 12th, in the Nayak city near New York, an extended Priestly Conference took place. Clergymen of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad from around the world attended. There were about 160 priests and 10 arch-pastors with Metropolitan Laurus at the head. Also there were three representatives of the Moscow Patriarchy who gave their reports as well. I was given 8 minutes to speak on the topic of my impressions about the Church in Russia. I offer my report in the slightly extended version, since everything I prepared would have taken about 12 minutes.

А.

I have been always interested in what was happening in Russia. When our parishioners would travel to Russia, I would ask them to bring me church papers and magazines. We made four pilgrimages: in 1991, 1995, 1999, and 2001. We visited churches in Moscow, St.-Petersburg, Valaam, Solovki, Pskov, Novgorod, Borodino field; we went on a pilgrimage trip on a boat from Moscow to the Ural Mountains with stops in many historical cities. We visited Sergey Radonezhskiy, Serafim Sarovsky, Alexander Svirsky, Serafim Vyritsky, Varlaam Hutynsky and many others. In 2001, we went to Ekaterinburg, to the Ganina pit, to Alapaevsk and to Simeon Verhotursky. We talked a lot to the church people and priests everywhere. We met bishops and went to Patriarchal services. Below I will write about some of my impressions concerning the reinstatement of the communication between the Church Abroad and Moscow Patriarchy.

ABOUT THE INFLUENCE OF THE "SOVIET" EPISCOPACY IN THE CHURCH OF RUSSIA. About 20 years ago in the report compiled by the chairman of the committee of the religion affairs Furov, it was said that out of 30 bishops of Moscow Patriarchy only 10 were completely cooperative with the Soviet power, 10 did not cooperate at all, and 10 were trying to do something to benefit the church whenever it was possible. Therefore only 1/3 of archpriests completely supported the Soviet power, and 2/3 were trying to benefit the church to the maximum extent possible under the Soviet conditions. I remember the satisfaction that this report produced among the Orthodox emigrants. Now it is rarely remembered. Ever since he was elected in 1990, The Most Reverend Patriarch Alexiy The Second started to renew the Episcopate of the Moscow Patriarchy. As the number of restored parishes and monasteries grew, the Most Reverend divided large eparchies into a number of smaller ones and ordained more and more new bishops. At the moment, there are more than a hundred eparchies and 150 bishops in the Russian Church. Therefore, the number of "Soviet" arch-pastors is not big at all, although their influence can still be felt, since they occupy central eparchies. The same can be said about the interest in ecumenism. There was interest in ecumenism during the times of Soviet power for it opened possibilities of foreign trips. Today disciples of Metropolitan of St. Petersburg Nikodim Rotov who died at the Pope's feet are interested in ecumenism. There are only a few metropolitans and bishops in eparchies near St. Petersburg who are like that. At the Arch-pastors' gathering they have only limited weight. The acts of the Arch-pastors' gathering in the anniversary year 2000, reject both ecumenism and Sergianism.
VENERATION OF THE NEO-MARTYRS. During our pilgrimages we could see how the veneration of neo-martyrs grew. In every church we saw either our Bostonian or Jordanville icon of the Holy Neo-martyrs, or icons of the Royal Neo-martyrs. Fr. Alexander Shargunov compiled five books "Miracles of the Royal Neo-martyrs". Our Bostonian icon of the Russian Neo-martyrs became the prototype for the official icon of the Holy Russian Neo-martyrs during their veneration in the church of Christ the Savior in the year 2000. In Solovki and in many other places, Veneration Crosses are raised in memory of the Neo-martyrs. A church is built now on the Butovo ground near Moscow where more than 60,000 people were shot and are buried, among them thousands of priests. On the day of commemoration of those murdered ones, hundreds of priests and thousands of faithful gather together for a memorial service. St.-Tikhon's Institute in Moscow is publishing a multi-volume collection of biographies of these Neo-martyrs. All this is happening ten years after the fall of the Soviet power, while here, abroad, the Royal Family was only glorified sixty years later!
ABOUT THE PATRISTIC WAY OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH. In the year 1991, during our first pilgrimage to Russia, a number of priests and lay people asked me whether I read Bulgakov, Berdyaev, and other Parisian theologians. My reply that I have not read them was very surprising to them, so I had to explain that religious literature from Paris is discussions about Orthodoxy, while we prefer to read holy patristic literature that is published by the Holy Trinity monastery in Jordanville. When we first visited St. Sergius Lavra, their librarian asked us to bow down on his behalf to Metropolitan Laurus for helping to restore the library at Lavra made possible by Holy Trinity monastery that sent them their publications. Holy Trinity monastery sent over to Russia thousands if not tens of thousands of books, and through this helped the Church of Russia to restore the Holy Patristic content of church life. The veneration of St. John of Shanghai is ubiquitous; his "Life" and articles are printed and reprinted. In Russia everyone admires the articles and books of Fr. Seraphim Rose. People became excited when they learned that we had been personally acquainted. Fr. Seraphim Rose who retold the holy patristic truths in modern language, did very much for the restoration of holy patristic Orthodoxy in Russia. I have heard that he is locally glorified in some places. The "Law of God" by other Fr. Seraphim (Slobodskoy) is sold in all church bookstalls, even in provinces, and it is made the basis of an entrance exam into seminary. On the other hand, I have read that in one of the dioceses, an arch-pastor ordered for the books of Shmeman and Meyendorf to be burned, and quite recently a Romanian man, Dr. of Theology, told me that Orthodox thinkers in Romania are very critical of Shmeman's "theology." Thus, glory be to God, the Church of Russia, stepping on the path of freedom, has not been seduced neither by the Russian Parisians, nor by American modernists, but it continued on its holy patristic way. The Greeks who wanted to summon the Eighth Ecumenical Council for "renovation" of the Orthodox Church, are now afraid of the Russian Church, because the latter, being larger than all the Orthodox Local Churches taken together, will not allow for any "renovation" of Orthodoxy, whereas the supporters of "renovation" risk being placed with the heretics.
ON THE RESTORATION OF CHURCHES. While traveling in Russia and visiting the renovated or newly built churches, one marvels: where do all those icon-painters, architects, church choir conductors, chanters, and other masters of church art come from? Despite the seventy years of persecutions and annihilation of the Russian people, the national genius did not die, and now, led by the Holy Spirit, it finds its expression in the opening of thousands of churches, hundreds of monasteries, in renovation and myrrh-flowing of thousands of icons, in conversion of millions of people who grew up in atheism to Christ! Where else has any of that happened? Truly, the church in Russia is Heaven on earth, the House of the Most Holy Theotokos.
In conclusion, I would like to retell one conversation which took place in the church of Christ the Savior immediately upon its consecration. A delegate of the Greek Seminary in Boston, a Greek priest, after the consecration of the church, entered into a conversation with a Russian priest. The Greek priest praised the church, praised the solemnity of service, but complained on its length and on the absence of pews on which people could sit. The Russian priest replied to this: "They kept us sitting in prisons on extent of seventy years. Now we have stood upright and we'll continue to stand!"
THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS - OUR CONTEMPORARIES. In Russia great books are being published now - the biographical data of confessors of the twentieth century. I dare to say: these are the Lives of the Saints of our times. Lately we read "The Beautiful Pascha" - the life description and murder by a Satanist of three monks in Optina. "In Thy Name" - the life description of a deacon from the town of Kurgany in Ural, who spent ten years in a concentration camp in Magadan and who became a priest upon his return. The episodes when he had been saved by God's Power are absolutely unimaginable. "Paternal Cross" - a biography of a village priest on the border of revolution and afterwards; "Notes of an old woman" - by a pre-revolutionary female doctor who became a nun in Shamordino and who had been in exile near Arkhangelsk. She provides the information about the last place of whereabouts of the Optina elder Nikon and his invaluable teachings. "The Lives" of the elder Amfilochiy of Pochaev; Serafim Vyritsky; life descriptions of the Moscow elder, presbyter Alexei Mechev and his son Sergiy who was executed in 1941. "Paschal Memory" is the story of a priest from Diveyevo, Vladimir Shikin, who literally burned out for the three years of his priestly service. These are only the books which we have read, but there are so many books still waiting on the shelves written about the contemporary to us confessors of the twentieth century! These books should be read parallel with the Lives of the Saints for they are the Saint of our times.
ON THE CATACOMB CHURCH. The years of 1941 and 1942 must have become the time of total extermination of all forms of religion in the Soviet Union. According to historical data, by the beginning of war on the territory of the USSR in 1939, there remained only 600 ( according to other data, 150) churches that were still open. The war started on the day of All the Saints who shined in the Russian land. By the end of 1941, 25% of the population of the USSR were under the German occupation. Everywhere on the occupied territory churches began to open, the Germans did not object to this. Altogether on the occupied territories up to 3,500 churches were open (according to other data, the number was up to 10, 000). There appeared priests who walked out from the underground. Thus, it could be said that the Catacomb Church had walked out from the underground.
In 1943, after the defeat of the Germans in Stalingrad, the Soviet army steadily began to move to the west. At the end of 1943, Stalin called Metropolitan Sergiy to the Kremlin and, having immediately returned from the concentration camps 12 bishops who were still alive, commanded them to choose a Patriarch. Stalin needed an obedient administrative apparatus for governing the thousands of parishes on the territory that was being liberated, as well as supervision over them. Simultaneously Stalin permitted to open a series of spiritual academies and allowed the opening up of churches on the entire Soviet territory. Metropolitan Sergiy was a good proxy for this. This step of propaganda led many catacomb people to stop hiding and to the opening of many churches. In the 1950s, the territory of the USSR had already up to 20,000 churches. Not all, however, entrusted themselves to the Soviet power and walked out from catacombs.
Approximately in 1960, I read in the "Ogonyok" magazine a report about how militiamen smashed a secret compartment of Tikhon church-followers. Several years later a navy sailor fled to Canada from a Soviet boat. He told that during his stay in the Far East he participated in the brigade of Young Communist Leaguers who were attacking secret communities of faithful and beating them up. The sight of one young woman who was meekly accepting the beating, shook up so much that he began to think about what was happening, and after a while, escaped to the West. For this he paid his life: he was found in a motel, allegedly having committed suicide. This was the time of arguments between Professor Andreyev and Fr. Adrian whether the Catacomb church existed at all. The article in "Ogonyok" and the information of the sailor confirmed that the Catacomb Church still existed in the sixties. I remember Metropolitan Vitaly saying that every Russian priest who secretly marries or baptizes, in essence, acts as a priest of Catacomb church. During our pilgrimage in 1991, we got acquainted with a Moscow priest, Dr. of geology, a member of the Academy of Sciences who at the same time was a secret priest. From the blessing of the Most Reverend Patriarch, he stopped hiding his priesthood only when he retired. By 1990s, a clear division between Catacomb Church and Moscow Patriarchy stopped being pertinent: the former members of the Catacomb Church had biologically died, while the priests of Moscow Patriarchy became more and more audacious in carrying out their priestly duties in opposition to the Soviet laws. In this way, by 1990, the border between the Catacomb and Patriarchal Churches was practically erased, whereas the reestablishment of the Catacomb Church in our days when the Church in Russia is free, is an anomaly.

2 December (19 Nov.) 2003. Archpriest Roman Lukianov, Boston, USA.

ania · Post by **ania** » Fri 23 January 2004 12:02 pm

At Boston's Holy Epiphany parish, they always, when the feast falls on a weekday, have the big celebration, with the bishop, banquet, etc the weekend after. It's always been like this for some odd reason, even if the feast is at the begining of the week like this year. There was liturgy on Monday though, as well as Vigil on Sunday night.