ROCOR - read between the lines

[bogoliubtsy]

On the issue of the MP glorifying the New-Martyrs...I have been told (be a ROCOR deacon, I believe) that the MP only glorified some of the New-Martys, not all of them.

Besides, why not just accept ROCOR's '81 glorification?

ROCOR did a sweeping canonization of sorts, which somehow included non-Orthodox. The MP is investigating the life of each martyr cafefully so as to be accurate in their glorification.

And a bit from the clergy conference:

The Council of Bishops of the Moscow Patriarchate of 2000 glorified a host of New Martyrs, including "non-commemorating" clergy. In this way, the Church in Russia not only paid homage to their martyrs, but also placed an unbreachable barrier between the Orthodox Church and communism. In the words of Fr. George, the Orthodox Christian cannot be a communist. In glorifying the New Martyrs of Russia, the episcopacy of the Church in Russia in fact spoke of its own repentance.

[link]

[Waldemar]

Service helps heal Russian Orthodox rift

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3717739.stm

Around 10,000 people gathered at the site of a former secret police base where thousands of people were executed under Soviet dictator Stalin for the service, conducted by the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Alexy II.

The liturgy at Butovo was also attended by the head of the New York-based Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, Metropolitan Laurus, who is on the first such visit since his church split from the Russian Orthodox Church after the Bolshevik Revolution.

The two religious leaders laid the foundation stone for a brick church to be erected on the site in what Interfax news agency described as a "symbol of the unified building" of the Russian church.

Rapprochement

Russian TV said the event was "profoundly symbolic and constitutes the first steps towards the effective rapprochement of the two churches".

The Moscow Patriarchate has long called for reunification with the exile church which was formed in 1920 by Russian emigres who escaped Bolshevik rule.

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Metropolitan Laurus in New York last September and invited him to Russia on Patriarch Alexy's behalf.

A statement by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia said recent transformations in church life in Russia inspired hope that the visit would "promote the establishment of normal relations" between the two.

For almost 60 years ties between the churches were almost nonexistent. A gradual thawing that began in the late 1980s has been slow.

"Butovo became a symbol of Russia's sufferings, our national Golgotha," Patriarch Alexy said after the service, in a reference to the hill outside Jerusalem where Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified.

Around 30,000 people were executed at Butovo during the Stalinist era.

"Here and now, we feel especially keenly the pain of the separation of the Russian people caused by the revolution and the bloody civil war," the patriarch added.

"Here we are regaining confidence that this wound will be healed by the sun of God's truth."

[Waldemar]

"Here we are regaining confidence that this wound will be healed by the sun of God's truth."

[尼古拉前执事]

A quote from Met. Laurus's last visit to Russia in 1993:

When Vladyka Laurus decided to go to Russia - travel then was not so easy as it is now - Vladyka Valentine was asked to draw up the papers for Vladyka Laurus. The visa was granted, and everything was ready. But, if the eparchy management invites a bishop, then he should be received by a bishop or by eparchy representatives. They told us, "Vladyka will arrive in a couple of days, but we don't know on which flight. We'll tell you." A day passed. Two days passed. We phoned to America: "Yes, they departed yesterday. Did you meet them, by the way?" "No." We phoned to Vladyka Lazar in Moscow. He said, "I know, he was supposed to come, but he didn't show up." We called Vladyka Veniamin: "You know, he's already arrived, but we don't know where he is." But it turned out he was right here, in the Vladimir region; he stayed in the village of Dvinskoje, in the house of a priest from the Moscow Patriarchy. The priests of the Moscow Patriarchy had met him; they had shown him around Moscow; they showed him everything. He came to the territory of the Suzdal-Vladimir Eparchy of the ROCOR. He stayed in the village next to the village where our church was. Father Arsenij served there, and Vladyka Laurus stayed in the house of the priest, who announced from the ambon: "Don't go to Sanino. Dissidents serve there. They are godless." And so on. In the house of that man, Father Superior Palladij, lived the very right-hand man of Metropolitan Vitaly. And when he went away, Father Arsenij said, "I didn't need his hundred dollars," and let it pass. But the people who were there said, "You see, your American archbishop contributed a hundred dollars to our parish." And every evening they showed him around the Vladimir region; they showed him monasteries and cloisters. He passed by the church that was subordinate to the ROCOR. Archbishop Laurus didn't see Father Arsenij, didn't even say a service, and didn't say a Liturgy. And when he had traveled over half the province, he came to us. And Father Palladij of the MP appeared brazenly on the threshold and said, "I've brought Vladyka Laurus." And that was after a whole week. We didn't know how to find him. It was we who had invited him, after all.

[尼古拉前执事]

On 15 May, 60 years elapsed since the repose of Patriarch Sergius (Stragorodsky). On this day Patriarch Alexy II served a panikhida on the grave of Patriarch Sergius in the Theophany cathedral in Elokhov, according to "Sedmitsa.Ru ".

"We pay respect to Most Holy Patriarch Sergius and remember him gratefully for conducting in the thirties the ship of the Russian Church in the hardest and most difficult conditions of its history, and for keeping the Church through the troubles of the tempestuous Sea of life"(Patriarch Alexy II).

Moreover, on Butovo (where Alexy started a new church with Metropolitan Laurus) the Partiarch told in his speach about this panihida and asked everyone (including ROCOR delegation) to pray for Sergius. He aslo added that "all new martyrs -- both sergians and anti-sergians" are now in the Heavens.

http://www.sedmitza.ru/index.html?did=13244

http://www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=news&id=21919&cf

[bogoliubtsy]

The wording of what was said at the Panikhida does seem odd.

As for what was said at Butovo, what's the problem? Martyrs are martyrs, regardless of who they followed. Is the martyr who faithfully attended their local "Sergianist" parish any less of a martyr for Christ? As for praying for Sergius...why shouldn't we? If anyone needs our prayers, it's him.

[ania]

As I wrote before regarding Serianists...

In those desperate times when mere survival is not just a daily issue but an hourly one, priests/bishops followed Sergi. I'm sure after they were arrested, they repented, knowing that they had followed a false doctrine. How could they not? The laypeople of those days who went to Sergianist priests wanted contact with God, no matter what, and they had to be very brave to admit that they were Christian in the first place. Them going to Church, possibly to a Sergianist priest, is what probably got them killed. It doesn't change that they died for God.
My great-grandfather was a priest... if he became a Sergianist I do not know. What did happen was that he was inprisoned for a very long time. The last 6 months of that inprisonment they marched him out ever day to stand in line for exectution. At the end of the day, they would march him back. When the released him under house-arrest, he died 2 months later a broken man. If they had executed him, I would consider him a New Martyr either way, if had he been Sergianist or not.
I have heard, time and again, from people who survived the purges, that Sergianism came down to, for the most part, cowardliness.