Russia's Catacomb Saints (an Introduction) by Ivan Andreyev and Fr. Seraphim Rose
This excerpt is from Ivan Andreyev's Russia's Catacomb Saints (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982), 15-21. .
IN JULY 16/29, 1927, Metropolitan Sergius of Nizhni-Novgorod, the then acting Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal Throne of Moscow, issued his infamous "Declaration" of the loyalty of the Russian Orthodox Church to the Soviet government and solidarity with its "joys" and "sorrows." This document was published in the official Soviet newspaper Izvestia on August 6/19 of the same year, and was the overt cause of the fundamental division which occurred then in the Russian Church and has lasted up to the present day. In the words of a church historian of this period (himself a "Sergianist"), the year of the Declaration was "a turning point. Up until now the whole life of the church proceeds under the sign of this year" (A. Krasnov-Levitin, Memoirs, YMCA Press, 1977, p. 91, in Russian).
This division is not merely one between two totally independent church organizations (though it is that also); more basically it is a division between two entirely different views of what the Church of Christ is and how it should act in this sinful world while conducting its children to the banks of the eternal sinless life in the Kingdom of Heaven.
One view, that of the present-day Moscow Patriarchate, to which the name of "Sergianism" has been most fittingly applied, sees the Church first of all as an organization whose outward form must be preserved at any cost; disobedience to or separation from this organization is regarded as an act of "schism" or even "sectarianism." The apologists for Sergianism, both within and outside Russia, continually emphasize that Metropolitan Sergius' policy "preserved" the hierarchy, the church organization, the church services, the possibility of receiving the Holy Mysteries, and that this is the chief business of the church or even its whole reason for existing. Such apologies, products of the general decline of the Orthodox church consciousness in our times, are themselves symptoms of the ecclesiastical disease of Sergianism, of the loss of contact with the spiritual roots of Orthodox Christianity and the replacement of living and whole Orthodoxy by outward and "canonical" forms. This mentality is perhaps the chief cause for the spread of Protestant sects in present-day Russia: the mere semblance of the primacy of spiritual concerns (even if devoid of true Christian content) is enough to overwhelm the mere attachment to outward forms among many millions of Russians who are convinced that the Sergianist church (because it is the only one visible) is Orthodoxy.
The other view, that of the True-Orthodox or Catacomb Church of Russia, sees the first responsibility of the Orthodox Church to be faithfulness to Christ and to the true Spirit of Orthodoxy, at whatever external cost. This mentality does not at all disdain external forms; we know that the Catacomb Church has preserved the Divine services and the church hierarchy down to our own day. The external cost of the Catacomb Church's faithfulness to true Orthodoxy has been the loss of immediate influence over the masses of the Russian people, many of whom do not even know of its existence and the majority of whom would not know where or how to enter into contact with its members. But the loss of outward influence has as its counterpart a moral and spiritual authority which cannot be appreciated by those who judge these matters outwardly, but which will become evident when freedom returns to Russia.
The mentality of the Catacomb Church in the USSR is best described in the words of its own members. Here is how I. M. Andreyev, an active participant in the church events of 1927 and later, describes the formation of the Catacomb Church in those years.
"According to the testimony of the close friend of Patriarch Tikhon, the professor and doctor of medicine M. A. Zhizhilenko (the former chief physician of the Taganka prison in Moscow), the Patriarch, not long before his death, becoming convinced, with great fear, that the boundary of the 'political' demands of the Soviet regime would go beyond the boundaries of faithfulness to the Church and Christ, expressed the idea that probably the only way for the Orthodox Russian Church to preserve faithfulness to Christ would be, in the near future, to go into the catacombs. Therefore, Patriarch Tikhon blessed Prof. Zhizhilenko to accept secret monasticism, and then, in the near future, in case the leading hierarchs of the Church should betray Christ and give over to the Soviet regime the spiritual freedom of the Church, to become a secret bishop.
"In 1927, when Metropolitan Sergius issued his Declaration, after which the church schism occurred, Prof. Zhizhilenko fulfilled the will of Patriarch Tikhon and became the first secret catacomb bishop, Maxim of Serpukhov.
"After the schism of 1927, the followers of Metropolitan Sergius, who accepted his Declaration, began to be called 'Sergianists,' while those who remained faithful to the Orthodox Church, who did not accept the Declaration and separated from Metropolitan Sergius, began to be called 'Josephites' (after Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd). This latter name, given by the 'Sergianists, did not define the position, either in essence or formally, of those who protested. Apart from Metropolitan Joseph, other hierarchs, the most outstanding ones, together with their flocks, departed from communion with Metropolitan Sergius. The religious-moral authority of those who protested and separated was so high, and their qualitative superiority was so clear, that for the future historian of the Church there can be no doubt whatever of the correctness of the opponents of Metropolitan Sergius. These latter could more correctly be called faithful 'Tikhonites.' And the activities of Metropolitan Sergius and those with him must be characterized as a neo-renovationist schism.
"All those who protested against the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius were arrested by the Soviet regime as 'counter-revolutionaries'; they were shot or sent to concentration camps and exile. At interrogations the jubilant Chekist-interrogators with sarcasm and evil joy would prove the 'strict canonicity of Metropolitan Sergius and his Declaration, which 'has not altered either canons or dogmas.' The mass executions, persecutions and tortures which descended upon the faithful of Christs' Church are beyond description.
"For the True Orthodox Church there was left no alternative but to go into the catacombs.
"The spiritual father who gave birth to the very idea of the Catacomb Church was Patriarch Tikhon. In the first years of its existence the Catacomb Church had neither organization nor administration, was dispersed physically and geographically, and was united only by the name of Metropolitan Peter. The first Catacomb bishop Maxim was arrested in 1928 and sent to the Solovki concentration camp; in 1930 he was sent from the camp to Moscow and shot.
"Beginning in 1928 in the Solovki and Svir concentration camps, in the 'Belbaltlag' camp, and in many camps in Siberia, there began to be performed many secret ordinations. (In the Solovki camp, where I was, these were performed by Bishops Maxim, Victor, Hilarion, and Nectary.)
"After the death of Metropolitans Peter and Cyril (both died in exile in 1936), the spiritual and administrative head of the Catacomb Church