MORE THAN 2 PARTS: The Russian Catacomb Church

[Kollyvas]

http://www.stjohndc.org/russian/Homilies/e_0206.htm

THE FACE OF THE CATACOMB CHURCH
What was that part of the Russian Orthodox Church which sprang up in the times of theretofore unheard-of persecution, that part which would not accept the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) and that went underground and became known as the Catacomb Church? In recent years, remarkable documentary books about the Catacomb Church have been published in Russia. They reveal the face of that part of the Russian Church not by means of principled but dry reports, but rather innately memoirs of parishioners and persons instrumental in the work of the underground Church, people such as Archbishop Afanassy Sakharov, S. I. Fudel', and others. Among these powerful testimonies is V. Ya. Vasilevskaya's book The Catacombs of the 20th Century, published in Moscow in 2001. The author was the aunt of Archpriest Alexander Men', who was murdered in the early 1990s. He, by the way, was raised in the Catacomb Church. The Catacombs of the 20th Century consists of extensive recollections by V. Ya. Vasileevskaya and others who took part in the underground Church, including M. S. Zhelnavakova, daughter of S. I. Fudel'. M. S. Zhelnavakova was born in 1931, and now lives in Lipetsk. The following excerpts are taken from her letters, published in The Catacombs of the 20th Century.

20.04.1995 …During the first year that the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra was open, there was a tall and gaunt archimandrite named Fr. Veniamin. He would walk, never raising his eyes, and after Divine Liturgy, would always serve requested molebny and akathists on the right kliros. We - Vera, Galya and I - would always rush to sing there. Standing behind him, we would experience some unexplainable feeling of love for this man - one who was old, weak, who had a muffled, indistinct voice, who never raised his eyes to gaze upon us or in fact on anyone else. Yet we loved him. Why? Because he loved all of us, he loved God and people, and because we could apprehend that he was already acquiring the gift of sanctity. It was said that he had come to the Lavra from a camp, where he had spend something like 30 years, an astronomical number!

1. We were children of the Catacomb Church of those times, a Church to all external appearances apparently weak and persecuted, but in practice powerful and victorious. Its victory was neither loudly trumpeted nor conspicuous. To this day, it has not been marked by anyone. […] During that period of general darkness - I know no other way of characterizing it - it consisted of an assembly of people who in their lives were preserving the bases of Christianity, were "overcoming their nature." Their own fate, i.e. the death of the body, was a matter of no consequence to them.

[…] We prayed in the catacombs, but later, when the churches of the Holy Trinity - St. Sergius Lavra were re-opened, and when vast numbers of people surged in, we mixed in with them, not daring to separate ourselves from them, or to harbor any doubts. We neither debated nor philosophized, but accepted the changes around us as necessary, and we submitted joyously, considering it to have been the will of God. And while standing beside the relics of St. Sergius, what after all was there to argue about? He had summoned us, and we had come. Besides, by then, not one of the catacomb pastors was left in the vicinity. I want to state that the Church in hiding is the very same Church that exists today; it was one of its parts. […] After all, the persecuted Church was founded by the Holy Martyrs, the clergy of those awful years, about whose fate it is too painful to think or talk about now.

[…] As a child, I stood and prayed in a tiny room in which the service proceeded in whispered tones. The windows were tightly sealed, and the light barely flickered. The service was done almost entirely from memory. How could it have been otherwise! An archimandrite, Hieromonk Fr. Seraphim Batiukov conducted the service. The choir was comprised of nuns who had been expelled from their monasteries; among them stood our parents and our nanny (the nun Matrona). Sometimes they would get carried away and raise their voices to above a whisper. Their singing was very beautiful. Then, someone would suddenly realize what they were doing, and would stop the others; again it would become a whisper. From time to time someone would go listen at the outer door, would return and signal that all was quiet, and the service would resume […]

Later, everyone was arrested, and the catacomb believers were dispersed - some sent into exile, others to the camps. I don't know about the others, but Maria Alexeevna Sakatova was in the camp for 10 years, and papa was exiled for 5 years. Maria Alexeevna had been batiushka's favorite spiritual daughter. They sang in a whisper, and for that whisper, got 10 years in the camps. Such was the Catacomb Church. Martyrdom envisaging the future. […] I saw those neo-martyrs, I talked with them, and I remember their radiant faces.

Batiushka Fr. Seraphim always served at a slow pace, very calmly, with solemnity. A black mantiya, an epitrachilion, and a cascade of snow-white hair. Standing before an analogion on which lay an (Iveron) Icon of the Mother of God, and sometimes illuminated by but a single vigil lamp, he was the personification of the vitality, the life of the Church they were trying to either alter or annihilate. No one knew what each new day would bring; in the heart each knock at the door or at the window would echo as the first step on the path to martyrdom. For some time, this tiny part of the isolated, persecuted Church in hiding existed in our home. While batiushka was still alive, we all remained unharmed. The arrests began three years after his death. They exhumed his body from its grave under the house in which he had lived, and took it to be autopsied. Later, the authorities buried him in a "fraternal," i.e. mass, grave at the cemetery. [The location of] his grave is known to us […]

17.01.1997 …A sorrowful account of those years, an account of the most-cruel persecution of the Church of Christ, an account of stoicism and courage, of the faith and endurance of many, has yet to be written. Everything I have read is, by and large, of a political nature: the battle near the throne and for the throne in any of its aspects; nothing of Christ. They write about martyrs - a multitude of martyrs, with worthy people among them - but political martyrs; the martyrs for Christ's sake remain silent. What do we all know of them? […] Everything about what was simultaneously the most difficult and most wonderful of times must be made known to future generations, for in the light of flaming, desecrated, holy things, the identities of the persecutors and of the persecuted, of the torturers and those being martyred were starkly identified, delineated, and distinguished. Such a clear line of demarcation was laid down between them that to this day, so many years later, we see and physically apprehend the reality of their existence. […] This blazing dividing line was drawn by Divine Providence, by God, to Whom belong both judgment and fate, anger and mercy. And He alone knows the hidden purpose of the enormous events to which we were witnesses. M. S. Zhelnavakova

Archpriest V.Potapov, June 2002

[Kollyvas]

http://uk.geocities.com/guildfordian200 ... dyROCA.htm

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The Tragedy of the
Russian Orthodox Church Abroad

Vladimir Moss

Save thyself, O Sion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.

Zachariah 2.7.

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        In 1990 communism began to collapse in Russia. The communist party gave up the monopoly position it had previously enjoyed in political life, and in March the party candidates in the main cities were routed in the first genuinely free elections in Soviet history. Still more important, a law on freedom of conscience was passed, and believers of all religions were allowed to confess their faith without hindrance. 

 

        It was as if the clock had been turned back to the period just before October, 1917, when a large measure of freedom existed under the Provisional Government. Of course, this was not the Holy Russia of the right-believing Tsars; and if the October revolution had been reversed to some degree, the same could not be said of the February revolution. But there were grounds for believing that the restoration of Holy Russia was not “beyond the mountains”.

 

        In many respects, as we shall see, these were de jure rather than de facto changes; and it must be admitted that the spirit and power of communism was far from dead when the red flag was pulled down from over the Kremlin on December 25, 1991. Nevertheless, the changes were significant enough to indicate the beginning of a new era in Church history. If we seek for historical parallels, then perhaps the closest is that presented by the Edict of Milan in 313, when the Emperor St. Constantine the Great came to an agreement with the pagan emperor Licinius whereby the persecution of the Christians in the Roman empire was brought to an end.

 

        Russian Orthodox Christians reacted to these changes in three different ways. The True Orthodox Christians of the Catacomb Church were cautious, fearing a deception, and in general remained in the underground, not seeking to register their communities or acquire above-ground churches in which to worship. The Moscow Patriarchate (MP) – or “Soviet church”, as it was known among True Orthodox Christians - was fearful that its monopoly position in church life under the Soviets would be lost in the new democracy. Nevertheless, it took the opportunity presented by the new legislation to open many churches (1830 were opened in the first nine months of 1990 alone) and to receive all the money budgeted for church restoration by the Russian parliament. The third force in Russian Orthodox life, the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad (ROCA), which throughout the Soviet period had taken a public position against the MP and in support of the True Orthodox Church, decided to open parishes on Russian soil and thereby provide an alternative for believers who on the one hand did not want to join the MP, but on the other hand were not prepared for the rigours of catacomb life.

 

        In this article, the roots of the eventual failure of the ROAC’s mission will be examined, with suggestions as to how a similar failure can be avoided by her successor-church on Russian soil, the Russian Orthodox (Autonomous) Church.

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          The return of the ROCA to Russia was undoubtedly one of the most significant and necessary events in Church history, comparable to the return of the Jews to Jerusalem after the seventy-year exile in Babylon. And yet this momentous step was taken almost casually, without sufficient forethought and without a clearly defined strategy. Hence difficult problems arose, problems that the ROCA in the end found insuperable.

 

        These problems can be divided into three categories: (A) The ROCA in relation to her own flock at home and abroad, (B) the ROCA in relation to the Catacomb Church, and (C) the ROCA in relation to the MP and the post-Soviet Russian State.

 

        A. The ROCA in relation to herself. The problem here is easily stated: how could the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad continue to call herself the Church Abroad if she now had parishes inside Russia? After all, her Founding Statute or Polozhenie stated that the ROCA was an autonomous part of the Autocephalous Russian Church, that part which existed (i) outside the bounds of Russia on the basis of Ukaz no. 362 of November 7/20, 1920 of Patriarch Tikhon and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church, and (ii) temporarily until the fall of communism in Russia. With the fall of communism and the creation of ROCA parishes inside Russia in 1990, it would seem that these limitations in space and time no longer applied, and that the ROCA had ceased to exist as a canonical organisation in accordance with her own definition of herself in the Polozhenie. 

 

        The solution to this problem would appear to have been obvious: change the Polozhenie! And this was in fact the solution put forward by the ROCA’s leading canonist, Bishop Gregory (Grabbe), who possessed unparalleled experience of ROCA life since his appointment as Chancellor of the Synod by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev in 1931. However, the ROCA episcopate declined that suggestion, and the Polozhenie, astonishing as it may seem, remains unchanged to this day.

 

        Why? Although we have no direct evidence on which to base an answer to this question, the following would appear to be a reasonable conclusion from the events as they unfolded in the early 1990s. A change in the Polozhenie that removed the spatial and temporal limitations of the ROCA’s self-definition would have had the consequence of forcing the ROCA episcopate to: (i) remove the centre of her Church administration from America to Russia, (ii) proclaim herself (alongside any Catacomb Church groups that she might recognise) as part of the Russian Orthodox Church inside Russia and distinguished from the other parts only by its possessing dioceses and parishes abroad, and (iii) enter into a life-and-death struggle with the MP for the minds and hearts of the Russian people. 

 

        However, the ROCA bishops were not prepared to accept these consequences. After all, they were well-established abroad, increasingly dependent economically on contributions from foreign converts to Orthodoxy, and with few exceptions were not prepared to exchange the comforts and relative security of life in the West for the uncertainty and privations of life in Russia (to this day the ROCA’s first-hierarch, Metropolitan Vitaly, has not set foot on Russian soil since the fall of communism, in spite of numerous invitations from believers). Of course, the whole raison d’etre of the ROCA was to return to her homeland in Russia (she was previously called the Russian Church in Exile, and exiles by definition want to return to their homeland); and it was in anticipation of such a return that she had steadfastly refused to endanger her Russian identity by merging with other Local Orthodox Churches or by forming local jurisdictions identified with specific western countries (like the formerly Russian schism from the ROCA calling itself the  Orthodox Church of America). But generations had passed since the first emigration, the descendants of that first emigration had settled in western countries, learned their languages, adopted their ways, put down roots in foreign soil. The exiles were no longer exiles from, but strangers to, their native land…

         Тhus saith the Lord of hosts: this people saith: «the time hath not come, it is not time to build the house of the Lord». And the word of the Lord came through the Prophet Haggai: “But is it time for you to live in your decorated house when this House is lying waste? ( Haggai 1.2-4)

 

        B. The ROCA in relation to the Catacomb Church. Since 1927, when the ROCA had broken communion simultaneously with the Catacomb Church from Metropolitan Sergius’ MP, she had looked upon the Catacomb Church as the True Church inside Russia with which she remained in mystical communion of prayer and sacraments, even if such communion could not be realised in face-to-face meeting and concelebration. Indeed, after the death of Metropolitan Peter, the last universally recognised leader of the Russian Church, in 1937, the ROCA commemorated “the episcopate of the persecuted Russian Church”, by which was undoubtedly meant the episcopate of the Catacomb Church. After the war, however, a change began to creep in, at first almost imperceptibly, but then more and more noticeably. On the one hand, news of Catacomb bishops and communities became more and more scarce, and some even began to doubt that the Catacomb Church existed any longer (Archbishop Mark of Berlin declared in the 1990s, when catacombniks were pouring into the ROCA, that the Catacomb Church had died out in the 1950s!). On the other hand, some Catacomb priests inside Russia, having lost contact with, and knowledge of, any canonical bishops there might still be inside Russia, began commemorating Metropolitan Anastasy, first-hierarch of the ROCA. 

 

        These tendencies gave rise to the not unnatural perception that the leadership of True Russian Orthodoxy had now passed from inside Russia to outside Russia, to the ROCA. Moreover, the significance of the Catacomb Church began to be lost, as the struggle was increasingly seen to be between the “red church” inside Russia (the MP) and the “white church” outside Russia (the ROCA). This condescending attitude towards the Catacomb Church was reinforced by the negative attitude taken towards most of the Catacomb clergy still alive in 1990 by Bishop Lazarus of Tambov, the bishop secretly consecrated by the ROCA in 1982 as her representative in Russia. In particular, Bishop Lazarus rejected the canonicity of the groups of Catacomb clergy deriving their apostolic succession from Bishop Seraphim (Pozdeyev), Schema-Metropolitan Gennady (Sekach) and Archbishop Anthony (Galynsky-Mikhailovsky). Basing themselves on this information, on August 2/15, 1990 the ROCA Synod issued an ukaz, signed by Bishop Hilarion of Manhattan, rejecting the canonicity of these groups (although St. Philaret, had recognised the clergy of Archbishop Anthony in 1977 and taken several of them under his omophorion!), and declaring that they would have to seek reordination from Bishop Lazarus if they wished to be recognised by the ROCA.[1]

 

        In evaluating this statement, it should be pointed out that all the Catacomb groups here excommunicated at the stroke of a pen were venerators of the ROCA, even considering her to be in some sense their “Mother Church”. Of course, it was perfectly reasonable and correct that the ROCA should first seek to check their canonical status before entering into communion with them. However, even assuming that the main canonical charge brought against them was valid (that they did not have ordination certificates, in violation of Apostolic Canon 33), the way in which they were rejected without the slightest consultation or attempt to come to some kind of agreement was harmful in the extreme. 

 

        First, the possibility of correcting the canonical anomalies of these groups in a peaceful manner and with their complete cooperation was lost. 

 

        Secondly, the news that the ROCA had rejected them produced catastrophic effects in these Catacomb groups. Thus the present writer remembers coming to a catacomb gathering in Moscow on the eve of the Feast of the Dormition, 1990. The priest entered, and instead of vesting himself for the vigil service, took off his cross in the presence of all the people, declaring: “According to the ROCA I am not a priest.” Then he immediately went to Bishop Lazarus and was reordained. Meanwhile, his flock, abandoned by their shepherd and deprived of any pastoral guidance, scattered in different directions…

 

        Thirdly, the impression was created that the ROCA had come into Russia, not in order to unite with the Catacomb Church and work with her for the triumph of True Orthodoxy in Russia, but in order to replace her, or at most to gather the remnants of the catacombs under her sole authority. And indeed, in one declaration explaining the reasons for the consecration of Bishop Lazarus, the ROCA stated that it was in order “to regulate the church life of the Catacomb Church”.[2] Moreover, in the years to come the ROCA Synod did sometimes describe herself as the central authority of the True Russian Church – in spite of the fact that this “central authority” was based, not in Russia, but thousands of miles away in New York!

 

        The ROCA later came to believe that she had made a mistake. Thus Archbishop Hilarion wrote to the present writer: “The statement which I signed as Deputy Secretary of the Synod was based entirely on the information given to us by Archbishop Lazarus. He reported to the Synod on the different groups of the Catacombs and convinced the members of the Synod (or the Council – I don’t recall offhand which) that their canonicity was questionable and in some instances – their purity of doctrine as well (e.g. imyabozhniki). The Synod members hoped (naively) that this would convince the catacomb groups to rethink their position and seek from the Russian Church Abroad correction of their orders to guarantee apostolic succession. We now see that it was a mistake to issue the statement and to have based our understanding of the catacomb situation wholly on the information provided by Vl. Lazarus. I personally regret this whole matter very much and seek to have a better understanding of and a sincere openness towards the long-suffering confessors of the Russian Catacombs.”[3]

 

        Such repentance was admirable, but unfortunately the fruits of it have yet to be seen. The ROCA continued to look on the humble catacombniks, serving, not in the splendid cathedrals of the emigration, but in poor, dingy flats, if not as contemptible, at any rate as unimportant. How could the Russian Church, so splendid in its pre-revolutionary glory,  be resurrected on the basis of such poverty?

 

         «Who hath remained among you that has seen this House in its former glory, and how do you see it now? Is it not in your eyes as it were nothing? But take heart now» (Haggai 2.3-4)

 

        C. The ROCA in relation to the MP. The Catacomb Church might have forgiven such arrogance if the ROCA had shown herself capable of fighting resolutely against the MP. But here the compromising tendencies developed abroad and noted above bore bitter fruit that was to lead to schism and the collapse of the ROCA’s mission inside Russia. For the ROCA bishops proved themselves incapable of making up their minds whether the MP was their bitterest enemy or their most beloved mother, whether it was necessary to fight her or help her! [4]

 

        The roots of this indecisiveness go back to the post-war period, when large numbers of Christians fleeing towards Western Europe from Soviet Russia were joined to the ROCA. In receiving these Christians, little difference was made between those who had belonged to the Catacomb Church, and those who had belonged to the MP. Some, even including bishops, turned out to be KGB agents, and either returned to the MP or remained as “moles” to undermine the ROCA.[5] Others, while sincerely anti-Soviet, were not sufficiently «enchurched» to see the fundamental ecclesiological significance of the schism in the Russian Church. Thus a certain “dilution” in the quality of those joining the ROCA in the second emigration by comparison with the first – and the problem was to get worse with the third and fourth emigrations of the 70s, 80s and 90s – began to affect the confessing stance of the Church as a whole. Even members of the first emigration were proving susceptible to deception: over half of the Church in America and all except one diocese in China (that of Shanghai, led by St. John Maximovich) were lured back into the arms of the Soviet “Fatherland” and its Soviet “Church”.

 

        Another reason for this diminution in zeal proceeded from the fact that the ROCA did not break communion with the Local Orthodox Churches of “World Orthodoxy” even after all of these (except Jerusalem) sent representatives to the local Councils of the MP in 1945 and 1948. The reasons for this depended on the Church in question. Thus communion continued with the Serbian Church because of the debt of gratitude owed to the hospitality shown by the Serbian Church to the ROCA in the inter-war years. Communion continued with the Jerusalem Patriarchate because all churches in the Holy Land, including the ROCA monasteries, were required, under threat of closure, to commemorate the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Communion also continued, albeit intermittently, with the Greek new calendarist churches, because the Patriarchate of Constantinople was powerful in the United States, the country to which the ROCA moved its headquarters after the war.

 

            This ambiguous relationship towards “World Orthodoxy” in general inevitably began to affect the ROCA’s zeal in relation to the MP in particular. For if the MP was recognised by Serbia and Jerusalem, and Serbia and Jerusalem were recognised by the ROCA, the conclusion was drawn that the MP, while bad, was still a Church. And this attitude in turn affected the ROCA’s attitude towards the Catacomb Church, which was no longer seen by many, including several of the bishops, as the only true Church in Russia, but rather as a brave, but not entirely canonical organisation or collection of groupings which needed to be “rescued” by the ROCA before it descended into a form of sectarianism similar to that of the Old Believers.

 

        As the ROCA began to lose confidence in herself and the Catacomb Church as the only bearers of true Russian Orthodoxy, the accent began to shift towards the preservation, not of Orthodoxy as such, but of Russianness. This was bound to fail as a weapon against the MP. For for a foreign Church, however Russian in spirit, to claim to be more Russian than the Russians inside Russia was bound to be perceived as arrogant and humiliating (especially in the mouth of an ethnic German such as Archbishop Mark of Berlin!). And so, after the need to display a specifically Soviet patriotism fell away in the early 90s, the MP was able to mount a successful counter-attack, claiming for itself the mantle of “Russianness” as against the “American” church of the ROCA.

 

        As a result of all this, at the very moment that the ROCA was called by God to enter into an open war with the MP for the souls of the Russian people on Russian soil, she found herself tactically unprepared, hesitant, unsure of her ability to fight this great enemy, unsure even whether this enemy was in fact an enemy and not a potential friend, sister or even “mother”. And this attitude guaranteed the collapse of the mission. For «if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who will rise up and prepare for battle?» 1 Cor. 14.8). Looking more at her enemies than at the Lord, she began, like the Apostle Peter, to sink beneath the waves. And the MP which, at the beginning of the 90s had been seriously rattled, recovered her confidence and by the middle of the 90s had recovered her position in public opinion.

 

        «Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts. Who are thou, O great mountain, before Zerubbabel? You shall become a plain…» (Zachariah 4.6-7).

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        The problems began on May 3/16, 1990, when the ROCA Synod issued a statement that was in general strongly anti-MP, but which contained the qualification that there might be true priests dispensing valid sacraments in the patriarchate nevertheless. The idea that there can be true priests in a heretical church is canonical nonsense (Apostolic Canon 46), and Bishop Gregory (Grabbe) immediately obtained the removal of the offending phrase. But the damage had been done.

 

        Worse was to follow. Bishops and priests visiting Russia from abroad often showed an extraordinary inability to distinguish between the true Church and the false. Thus Archbishop Lavr, on visiting a village in which there existed a ROCA priest, chose instead to stay with the local MP priest! Another bishop proposed entering into union with the Ukrainian schismatics and the fascist organization “Pamyat’”! A third shared some holy relics with – the MP Metropolitan Philaret of Minsk (KGB agent “Ostrovsky”)! 

 

        The veneration shown by some foreign ROCA clergy for the MP was very difficult to understand for Russian believers, for whom the ROCA represented purity and light in the surrounding darkness, and who thought that the ROCA’s mission in Russia was to rescue them from the MP.

 

        Still more shocking was the way in which visiting ROCA bishops publicly slandered their colleagues in Russia. Thus Archbishop Mark of Germany publicly called Bishop Valentine (Rusantsov) of Suzdal, the most active and successful of the newly ordained Russian bishops, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing”. Then, - together with Bishop Barnabas of Cannes, who in 1992 had been appointed, completely uncanonically, as the Synod’s representative in Russia with authority over all its parishes there, - Mark proceeded to do everything in his power to undermine the very constructive work of Vladyka Valentine.  

 

        Later it became clear who was the wolf. In 1997 Archbishop Mark had a secret meeting with “Patriarch” Alexis. Soon after, with the very active support of Mark, the “patriarch” took over the ROCA’s monastery in Hebron, Israel. Could all this be linked, wondered believers, with the fact that in 1983 Mark was detained at Leningrad airport for more than 24 hours for the possession of anti-Soviet literature, and was then released unharmed, claiming that “nothing had happened”? Could Mark’s great love for the MP, and passionate hatred of his own colleagues in the Russian section of the ROCA, be a product of the fact that he was actually a secret colleague of the MP bishops after all? Could his wrath against Vladyka Valentine be due to the fact that Valentine had been “too” successful, and that it was largely to him that the ROCA owed its very rapid increase in membership in the early 1990s, while the MP suffered a sharp drop in popularity?[6]

 

        The destructive work of Archbishop Mark and Bishop Barnabas elicited a series of protests from the episcopate within Russia. But no reply came. Eventually, in order to protect their own flocks from this invasion by supposed “friends” and “colleagues” from abroad, the Russian bishops were forced to form their own autonomous Higher Church Administration, on the basis of the same patriarchal ukaz no. 362 which had formed the basis for the ROCA’s formation as an independent Church body in the 1920s. At this point (1994), the writing was already on the wall for the ROCA in Russia. If she repulsed even the most loyal and successful of her leaders on Russian soil, treating them as enemies and traitors, how could she claim to be the leader of True Russian Orthodoxy anywhere in the world?

 

        At the Lesna Sobor in November, 1994, the Russian bishops Lazarus and Valentine made a last despairing effort to restore unity with the bishops abroad. Unity was restored, but only for a short time. In February, 1995, seizing on some false information provided by Bishops Evtikhy and Benjamin, the ROCA Synod banned five of the Russian bishops, expelling them from their midst without even an investigation or trial. The banned bishops had no choice but to resurrect their autonomous administration – but this time not in communion with the ROCA. And so there came into being the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church led by Archbishop (now Metropolitan) Valentine of Suzdal and Vladimir, whose task was to gather together what remained of the ROCA’s mission in Russia and start the rebuilding process, with a clear strategy and a well-defined, strictly canonical attitude towards the MP.

 

        As the Scripture says, pride goes before a fall. The fall of the ROCA’s position in Russia, which was confirmed by the catastrophical Sobor of October, 2000, was the result of pride – pride in her own past virtues, pride in relation to the other bearers of True Russian Orthodoxy, pride in her ability and right to claim the leadership of the whole of Russian Orthodoxy. The tragedy of the ROCA’s failure by no means excludes the possibility of a recovery. But that recovery must now come from within Russia, and not from abroad. And it must come with a full understanding of the causes of the past failures, and a determination not to repeat them.

 

        «And the Lord said to satan: the Lord rebuke thee, O satan, the Lord rebuke thee Who hast chosen Jerusalem! Is this not a brand plucked from the fire?» (Zachariah 3.2)

Моscow, October 9/22, 2001.

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[1] Справка из Канцелярии Архиерейского Синода, N 4/77/133, 2/15 августа, 1990 г.

[2] «Заявление Архиерейскаго Синода Русской Православной Церкви Заграницей», Православная Русь, N 18 (1423), 15/28 сентября, 1990 г., С. 6.

[3] Private e-mail communication, July 15, 1998.

[4] См. Алферов, Т. «О положении российских приходов РПЦЗ в свете итогов патриархийного собора», Успенский Листок, N 34, 2000 г.

[5] This forced the ROCA Synod to take special measures to “ferret out” potential spies. См. Епископ Григорий (Граббе), Письма, Moсква, 1999 г., С.

[6] V. Moss, “The Free Russian Orthodox Church”, Report on the USSR, N. 44, November 1, 1991; Л. Бызов, С. Филатов, «Религия и политика в общественном сознании советскаго народа», в Бессмертный, А.Р., Филатов, С.Б. Религия и Демократия, Moсква: Прогресс, 1993 г., С. 41, зам. 5.

[Kollyvas]

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/enarticles/031216212711

THE PATH OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ABROAD. OBSERVATIONS AND THOUGHTS OF AN OLD PRIEST

In connection with the recent turmoil within the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, I think it would be beneficial to share certain observations and reflections. Recently there has been much talk about the path followed by the ROCA. Now it has become obvious that the «straight» path which some people refer to, has led in the end to a schism within the ROCA. This schism has been ripening over many years. In order to understand what is going on, one should look first of all at the Guideposts that actually have determined the course of the ROCA throughout its history.

The First Guidepost was Ukaz (Decree) No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon, dated Nov. 20, 1920, paragraph 2: «In the event that a diocese, as a result of movement of the front lines, or changes of state borders, finds itself out of communication with the highest church authority, or that the highest church authority itself, headed by the Holy Patriarch, for some reason terminates its activity, the diocesan bishop should immediately contact the bishops of the adjacent dioceses in order to organize a higher level of church administration for several dioceses which find themselves in similar circumstances (in the form of a temporary church government or a metropolitan district, or in some other way)».

This Ukaz was formulated at the time of the Civil War in Russia, whose consequence was the departure abroad of a sizeable lay flock (estimated at over a million), and of a substantial number of clergy and bishops.

The Second Guidepost on the path of the ROCA were the early Sobors (Councils) of Bishops Abroad, presided over by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky): the First Sobor in Constantinople in 1920, in which 34 bishops participated in person or in writing; the First Sobor of representatives of the entire ROCA, held in the town of Sremskii Karlovtsi in Serbia in 1921; and the Sobor of Bishops Abroad on September 13, 1922, which estabilished a Temporary Synod of Bishops, based on the above-quoted Ukaz No. 362 of Patriarch Tikhon. At those Sobors, which led to the formal establishment of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, were represented parishes in Europe, the Balkans, the Near and Far East, North and South America, including the soon-to-be-separated Metropolitan Districts: one known as the Paris Metropolia, presently under the Patriarch of Constantinople, and the other known today as the Orthodox Church in America in the USA.

The Third Guidepost was the Resolution of the Sobor of Bishops of the ROCA, in September of 1927, which rejected the Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius and defined the following rule: «The part of the All-Russian Church located abroad must cease all administrative relations with the church administra-tion in Moscow…until restoration of normal relations with Russia and until the liberation of our Church from persecutions by the godless Soviet authorities…The part of the Russian Church that finds itself abroad considers itself an inseparable, spiritually united branch of the Great Russian Church. It does not separate itself from its Mother Church and does not consider itself autocephalous.» This Resolution makes it clear that the emigre Hierarchs, while rejecting what later became known as «Sergianism», did not separate the part of the church that was abroad from that in the homeland, thus showing compassion to those who did not withstand the terror. At about that time evolved the concept of the three parts of the Russian Church: the «Church enslaved», that is, the Moscow Patriarchate; the «Catacomb Church», i.e, the secret, persecuted, underground Church of confessors within the borders of the Soviet Union; and the «Russian Orthodox Church Abroad», which was the free voice of the whole Russian Church.

The Fourth Guidepost was the adoption of the Temporary Polozheniye (Fundamental Law) of the ROCA by the General Sobor of Bishops on September 22-24, 1936. Its first paragraph states: «The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, which consists of dioceses, spiritual missions, and parishes outside Russia, is an inseparable part of the Russian Orthodox Church, which exists temporarily under autonomous administration». This Sobor, in effect, established an orderly administrative leadership of the ROCA for the entire period of its independent existence.

The Fifth Guidepost is defined by the Reply of the Blessed Metropolitan Anastassy in 1945, and of the Bishops' Sobor in Munich in 1946, in response to the address of the Patriarch of Moscow Aleksey I, who called for reunification after the Second World War. During this terrible period of manhunts by Soviet agents for displaced persons and non-returnees all across Western Europe, Metropolitan Anastassy, reasserting the necessity for the continued existence of independent ROCA, writes: «The bishops, the clergy and the laymen, subordinate to the jurisdiction of the Synod of Bishops Abroad, never broke canonical, prayer, or spiritual unity with their Mother Church.» The Sobor of Bishops in its message, writes to the Patriarch of Moscow: «We trust that…on the bones of martyrs a new free Russia will arise, strong in Orthodox truth and brotherly love…then all of her scattered sons, without any pressure or force, but freely and joyfully, will strive to return from all over into her maternal embrace. Recognizing our unbroken spiritual bonds with our homeland, we sincerely pray to the Lord that he may speedily heal the wounds inflicted upon our homeland by this heavy, although victorious, war, and bless it with peace and well-being.» This message was signed by Metropolitan Anastassy, three archbishops, and ten bishops.

The Sixth Guidepost, and probably the most important one in our days, is the Corporate Charter in the USA of our Church Abroad, which was signed by its most prominent Hierarchs, Metropolitan Anastassy, Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko), Archbishop Tikhon, Archbishop Hieronim, Bishop Seraphim, and Bishop Nikon, and registered in the State of New York on April 30th, 1952. It states:

«II. The principal aim and purpose of the corporation shall be to provide for the administration of dioceses, missions, monasteries, churches and parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church, which are located in the United States of America, the Dominion of Canada and other countries which are outside of the Soviet Union and the satellites of the Soviet Union, but including dioceses, missions, monasteries and churches which recognise the corporation as the supreme ecclesiastical authority over them.

«III. The corporation in its corporate functions and operation, and all of its trustees and officers, shall maintain no relations whatever with the Russian ecclesiastical authorities and organizations within the boundaries of the Soviet Union and the satellites of the Soviet Union, so long as the said countries, or any of them, shall be subject to Communist rule.»

Further on, the next paragraph of the Charter refers to Ukaz #362 of Patriarch Tikhon of November 20, 1920, and its acceptance by the Sobor of Bishops on November 24, 1936. This demonstrates that Metropolitan Anastassy and all Bishops, signatories of the Charter, just as, in their time, Metropolitan Anthony and the founding Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad, accepted the fact that the validity of the Ukaz of Patriarch Tikhon, which, in effect, is his Patriarchal Blessing, is limited in time. In turn, they also Blessed the time-limited independent existence of the Russian Church Abroad until the fall of the Communist regime.

The Seventh Guidepost is again the Polozheniye (Fundamental Law) of the Russian Church Abroad, revised and approved by the Sobor of Bishops, presided over by Metropolitan Anastassy, in 1956. Its paragraph #1 states: «The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad is an inseparable part of the Local (Pomestnoy) Orthodox Church, temporarily self-governing until the fall in Russia of the godless authorities, in compliance with the Decision of Holy Patriarch Tikhon and the Highest Church Council of the Church in Russia of 7 /20 November 1920, #362.» The same Paragraph is repeated word for word in the Polozheniye, reviewed and re-approved in 1964.

In 1956 the Reply of Metropolitan Anastassy was reprinted by Holy Trinity Monastery. The same themes were voiced by Archbishop Vitaly (Maximenko) of blessed memory, in his work «Motifs of My Life». Archbishop Andrew (Fr.Adrian) used to refer to the Church Abroad as a temporarily self-governing Diocese of the Russian Church. Holy Archbishop John of Shanghai and San Francisco wrote: «The Russian Church Abroad does not separate itself spiritually from the suffering Mother Church. She offers up prayers for her, preserves her spiritual and material wealth, and in due time will reunite with her, when the reasons which have caused the separation will have vanished.» Similar statements were made by many other archpastors, priests and writers in the church press. It is from them that our generation, which came into the Church after the end of the Second World War in 1945, has acquired the understanding of the temporary existence of the independent Russian Church Abroad until the liberation of Russia from the Communist yoke. The calls of Metropolitans Anastassy and Philaret of blessed memory to abstain even from conventional contacts with the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate had to do with the period of the 1960s and 1970s, when the Soviet government began to use the Church for its own ends througout the Western world. And Metropolitan Vitaly was completely correct when he said that we cannot declare that the Church in Russia is without Grace, but certain specific deeds of its clergy, performed on orders of the godless authorities in order to harm the Church, are, of course, graceless.

In 1991 the Communist regime fell and the totalitarian Soviet state ceased to exist. The leftovers of the Soviet mentality and even of the State government still remain, but the country and the Church consider themselves free and feel free, and there is no more party ideology to interfere with Church communications. Therefore, with the fall of the Soviet government and cessation of terror in 1991, there also ended the time span, blessed by Holy Patriarch Tikhon and the founding Archpastors of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad for the existence of ROCA as a separate entity.

The Path marked by the abovementioned Guideposts began to be subtly changed with the secret (and canonically questionable) consecration of Bishop Varnava (Barnabas) in about 1984. A new ideology began to be evident, subtly but deeply russophobic. Under the guise of restoring the archpastorship of the Catacomb Church, new church bodies began to be created within Russia, subordinate to the Church Abroad. The old Catacomb Church, which was highly respected as the Church of true confessors, was soon forgotten. The new ideology promoted the idea that the Russian Church Abroad is the only true Church, and the bearer of the restoration of the Church in Russia. This led to estrangement and unnecessary confrontations between the Russian Church Abroad and the Mother Church, and then to a strange set of attitudes and actions on the part of some ROCA bishops, first in Russia, and more recently abroad. Now that these bishops and their followers have expelled themselves from the Church Abroad and created their own church organizations, the Church Abroad has regained freedom of opinion and an opportunity to return to the path blessed by Holy Patriarch Tikhon and the Founding First Hierarchs and Archpastors of blessed memory.

The new obstacles to normal relations that have been brought forward within our Church Abroad, such as the absence of repentance, failure to glorify the Royal New Martyrs, Sergianism, and participation in the ecumenical movement, have today ceased to be insurmountable. Back in 1993 His Holiness, Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Alexey II and the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church proclaimed, before God and the Russian people, repentance for the sin of regicide. Their Epistle on the 75th anniversary of the murder of Emperor Nicholas II and his family states: «With augmented prayer and great pain in our hearts we commemorate this sad Anniversary… The sin of regicide, which took place amid the indifference of the citizens of Russia, has not been repented of by our people. Being a transgression of both the law of God and civil law, this sin weighs extremely heavily upon the souls of our people, upon its moral conscience. And today, on behalf of the whole Church, on behalf of her children, both reposed and living, we proclaim repentance before God and the people for this sin. Forgive us, O Lord! We call to repentance all of our people, all of our children, regardless of their political views and opinions about history, regardless of their attitude toward the idea of Monarchy and the personality of the last Russian Tsar. Repentance of the sin committed by our forefathers should become for us a banner of unity. May today’s sad date unite us in prayer with the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, with whom we so sincerely desire restoration of spiritual unity in faithfulness to the Spirit of Christ... .» The call was, unfortunately, ignored.

The Royal New Martyrs were glorified, and Sergianism and ecumenism rejected, by the Jubilee Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church in the year 2000. Sergianism, being in fact not a doctrine but a mode of behavior, was rejected in the chapter «Fundamental Conceptions of Society» in the published Acts of the Sobor, and ecumenism in the chapter «Fundamental Principles of Relations of the Orthodox Church to the Heterodox.» In October of 2001, in his «Brotherly Epistle to the Sobor of Bishops of the Russian Church Abroad,» His Holiness, Patriarch Alexey II again called for mutual forgiveness and restoration of liturgical communion. The answer of the ROCA Sobor of Bishops was only mildly encouraging.

Just as in the Church in Russia the veneration of the Royal New Martyrs was widely practiced by believers long before their official glorification, so it is that parishioners of the Church Abroad, when they visit Russia, pray, confess, and partake of Holy Communion in their beloved churches and monasteries of the Moscow Patriarchate, and have humbly done so for many years, without making an issue of it. And after visiting Russia, many of our clergy, including American converts to Orthodoxy, state in private conversations that those who say there is no Grace in the churches of the Moscow Patriarchate do not know what they are talking about. As no one has wanted to provoke the ill winds of dissension within our ranks, it has been customary not to make such observations publicly. However, now that the bearers of ill winds have expelled themselves from the Church, showing no respect for anyone including the Sobor of Bishops, the possibility has arisen again, and perhaps for the last time, of restoring God-pleasing spiritual unity and normal relations with the whole Mother Church.

Sinful individuals and bad deeds have always existed, exist now, and will continue to exist both there, in Russia, and here in our midst. But a division which was lawful, must not be allowed to evolve into sectarian schism, a phenomenon much discussed and feared by many of our priests and parishioners, both, Russians and Americans. If the Russian Church Abroad is allowed to become «a broken-off vine», it will be doomed to a slow but inevitable drying out, an atrophy from which no collection of selected quotations from the Canons will save us. On the other hand, the restoration of Eucharistic and Canonical unity with the Mother Church, with an autonomous administration of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, appears to be the natural next Guidepost in the current History of the Church of the Great Russian Exodus into Diaspora.

December 11, 2001. Boston

New Martyr Metropolitan Seraphim

(Chichagov) of St. Petersburg.

(Translated and revised by the Author)

Archpriest Roman Lukianov

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...THE CATACOMB CHURCH

The 1917 revolution destroyed the Russian Empire and plunged the world, and especially the Orthodox world, into darkness. The Church in Russia was subjected to vicious persecution by the atheist Bolsheviks.

Patriarch Tikhon, Head of the Church, anathematized the Bolshevik rulers and suffered imprisonment and torture for his refusal to submit to their demands. However, his successor, Metropolitan Sergius, gave in and, with his notorious Declaration of 1927, made the church in the Soviet Union a political tool of the atheist government. The majority of the clergy vehemently protested against this concordat, but they were systematically killed.

Not only the clergy but Orthodox throughout the land suffered incredibly. According to the Soviet government's own statistics, there have been over 20 million new Christian martyrs who have died for the Orthodox Christian Church. Sorrowing for their suffering but rejoicing in the strength of their faith, the Russian Orthodox Church celebrates the millennium of Russian Orthodoxy (988-1988) by glorifying her Holy New Martyrs.

The existence of the Catacomb Church was admitted by the communists themselves. It survives and continues to grow with renewed vigor in spite of the continued and systematic campaign against religion in the USSR

(Editors note: This pamphlet was written before the fall of communism. At this time (1999), there still is a catacomb church in some areas and the official state church continues sometimes violent repression of it's own faithful...)

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HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN TRUE ORTHODOX CHURCH

The Early Foundation of Orthodoxy in Russia

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        According to tradition, St. Andrew, the first called apostle, stopped at hills of what would become the great city of Kiev while preaching the gospel.  It would, however, be nearly one thousand years before Christianity would begin to take hold of the region.  In 954 Princess Olga of Kiev was baptized.  But it was her grandson, Prince Vladimir, whose baptism in 988 would forever establish Orthodoxy as the principal religion of Russia.

        The Orthodox faith grew and flourished throughout the Russian Empire and served as a unifying force in the lives of the Russian people.  Not only did the church provide spiritual strength and nourishment for its people, but it became a center of educational enrichment as well.  The Russian Orthodox Church had forever become an inseparable part of the life of the people and Russia itself.

        The unprecedented growth and stability of this church inevitably led to the establishment of a new patriarchate within orthodoxy, with Metropolitan Job of Moscow becoming the first patriarch of Russia in 1589.  Following the death of Patriarch Adrian in 1700, the church remained without a patriarch for more than two hundred years.  At the insistence of Peter I, a collective administration, known as the Holy and Governing Synod, was established in 1721.  This form of governance lasted until 1917 at which time the All-Russian Council restored the patriarchal office and elected Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow as patriarch.

Orthodoxy in Russia in the Early Twentieth Century

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        The joy of the election of Patriarch Tikhon would be short lived, as Russia entered a very difficult period in its history.  The Bolsheviks, who had come into power in 1917, saw the Russian Orthodox Church as an enemy to be destroyed as resolutely as the tsarist institution.  This period saw the repression of the church as well as the imprisonment of many of its bishops, priests, monastics and laypeople.  Patriarch Tikhon was himself imprisoned a little more than a year.  Upon his release he found a church embattled by division and ever-increasing persecution by the government.  He continued to be a source of unification among the people and fought vigorously to uphold the faith and traditions of the church, but the strain of these years weighed heavily upon him.  His death in 1925 dealt a severe blow to Russian Orthodoxy and the stability of the church.

Orthodoxy in the Post-Tikhon era

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        Following the death of Patriarch Tikhon unrest settled over the Russian Orthodox Church.  The designated successors of Patriarch Tikhon were arrested by the civil authorities and Metropolitan Sergiy was named "locum tenens" of the patriarchate.  In 1927 Metropolitan Sergiy, in a formal declaration to all members of the church, called for loyalty toward the Soviet government.  This event sparked division among the hierarchy, clergy and laity and led to the formation of the True Orthodox Church in Russia.  Those who opposed Metropolitan Sergiy were not simply opposed to his political concessions, which they felt were too extreme, but were also at variance with him on a number of canonical and theological issues.  His alliance with the authorities allowed him to turn over to the civil authorities all hierarchs and clergy who were at odds with him on political issues as well as purely church-related issues.  

While the True Orthodox Church in Russia was never a single organization, many of its followers were labeled "Josephites", after Metropolitan Joseph of Leningrad, the leader of its largest branch.

A considerable part of the church in Russia stood in opposition to Metropolitan Sergiy and took the stand of the True Orthodox Church. The opposition, however, remained primarily on a church-related basis. The overwhelming majority of the True Orthodox Church tried to observe the Soviet laws. This, however, was not enough. The authorities had taken their stand in the church dispute and were prepared to use whatever means necessary to bring the bishops under the obedience of Metropolitan Sergiy. This tragic resolve on the part of the Soviet government caused the numerous True Orthodox Church eparchies and communities to go underground for the length of the Soviet period.

The Emergence from the Underground and the Establishment of the Russian True Orthodox Church - Metropolia of Moscow

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        In the period from the 1970s-80s, many of the True Orthodox Church communities had lost their last bishops and much of their clergy.  Many of these groups were forced to exist and celebrate services in the absence of a priest.

        After the change in political conditions in the late 1980s, the True Orthodox Church began to emerge from the underground.  Various churches solved the question of their future existence in different ways.  Some of the communities joined the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, which by that time had begun to open communities within Russia.  Others renewed their episcopacy and clergy through arrangements made with other jurisdictions.  The Russian True Orthodox Church - Metropolia of Moscow chose the latter.

        In 1996 an initiative group of Russian orthodox clergy and laity approached Patriarch Dimitriy of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, asking him to assist them in the canonical restoration of a hierarchy for the True Orthodox Church.  It was decided that the name for the restored church would be the Russian True Orthodox Church.  In June of 1996, with the blessing of Patriarch Dimitriy, Archbishop Roman and Bishop Methodiy of the UAOC ordained Hieromonk John a bishop of the Russian True Orthodox Church in order to restore apostolic succession.  In December of 1996 Bishop John and Bishop Methodiy ordained Archimandrite Stefan a bishop for the Russian True Orthodox Church.  These two bishops, John and Stefan, would pass the apostolic succession to the rest of the bishops of the Russian True Orthodox Church.  In 2000 the Russian True Orthodox Church officially added "Metropolia of Moscow" to its name in order to distinguish it from other groups within Russia.

        Today, the church is led by Archbishop Vyacheslav of Moscow and Kolomensk together with Bishop Mikhail of Bronitsk and Velensk, and Bishop Alexy of North America.  The church strives to live the Gospel of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ through adherence to the Holy Scriptures, Holy Tradition, the canons of the Ecumenical Councils, and regulations of the Church Councils of the Orthodox Church.  Its desire is to serve the needs of its faithful through spiritual nourishment and with compassion and understanding.

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Introduction to Russia's Catacomb Saints
by Ivan Andreyev (and Fr. Seraphim Rose)
Related Articles
The Epistles of Metropolitan Cyril of Kazan
Metropolitan Joseph of Petrograd and the Beginning of the Catacomb Church

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—which by this time had achieved a certain degree of organization—became Metropolitan Joseph (even though he was in exile).

"At the end of 1938, precisely for his leadership and guidance of the secret Catacomb Church, Metropolitan Joseph was executed.

"After his death, the Catacomb Church began yet more strictly to keep its secrets, especially the names and locations of its spiritual leaders.

"I will not speak of the mystery to Thy enemies"—it is with such a motto that brief information has appeared from time to time on the life of this secret Church." (I. M. Andreyev, Brief Review of the History of the Russian Church from the Revolution to our Days, Jordanville, 1951, pp. 70-72.)

There exists a mass of materials documenting this early period in the history of the Catacomb Church, both in the epistles of bishops and others who separated from Metropolitan Sergius, and in the memoirs and other accounts of individual members of the Catacomb Church who escaped from the Soviet Union during World War II. Many of these documents are contained in the two volumes of Russia’s New Martyrs, compiled by Archpriest Michael Polsky (Jordanville, 1949 and 1957); the most important of these, and a number from other sources, are presented in Parts II and III of this book, most of them for the first time in English.

On the eve of World War II, the persecution of religion in the Soviet Union reached its fiercest peak, when even the "Sergianist" church organization came near to liquidation, and the Catacomb Church disappeared entirely from view. Only a few of the most notable collaborators with the Soviets, such as Metropolitan Sergius himself, escaped imprisonment or banishment, a fact which led to the charge of Boris Talantov thirty years later that "Metropolitan Sergius by his adaptation and lies saved no one and nothing, except his own person."

When Stalin, in order to take advantage of the patriotic and religious feelings of the Russian people in the war against the Germans, opened a number of the closed churches and allowed the election of a "Patriarch" in 1943, a new period began in Church-State relations, when the Moscow Patriarchate became in effect, the "State Church" of the Soviet government, spreading Communist propaganda throughout the world in the name of religion, and categorically denying the existence of any religious persecution whatever in the Soviet Union. The mere existence of a Catacomb Orthodox Church opposed to this policy, of course, could have a disastrous effect on the policy, especially if it became widely known abroad. All groups of Catacomb Orthodox were mercilessly uprooted by the Soviet authorities when discovered, and their members were given long prison terms. Most of the little information we have from this period of the history of the Catacomb Church in Russia comes from the Soviet press; but almost nothing is known to this day about the organization and leadership of the Catacomb Church during this time.

Under Khrushchev in 1959 a new and intense persecution of religion was undertaken in the USSR, inaugurating the most recent period of Russian church history, a period in which the Sergianist puppet church organization is itself being used to liquidate Orthodoxy in Russia, while continuing its Communist propaganda abroad and its now totally incredible assertions of the absence of any persecution of religion in the USSR. A majority of the remaining Sergianist churches, monasteries, and seminaries have been closed in this period, and an especially fierce persecution has been conducted against "unregistered" church bodies such as the Catacomb Orthodox Church, which is known to the Soviet authorities under the names of "Josephites," "Tikhonites," and the "True-Orthodox Church." The persecution was especially fierce in the years 1959-1964; since the downfall of Khrushchev it has been less intense, but it continues all the same, especially against the "unregistered" bodies.

In this most recent period a new spirit of boldness has entered church life in Russia; this, coupled with a greatly increased freedom of communication between the USSR and the free world, has produced what, beginning with a few isolated protests in the early 1960's, has now become a wave of protest and indignation from believers in Russia directed against the religious persecutions of the Soviet government and the spineless apologies for it of the official church organization. The Open Letter to Patriarch Alexis of the Moscow priests Gleb Yakunin and Nicholas Eshliman in 1965, the articles on "Sergianism" by Boris Talantov in 1968, the righteous protests against the church policy of the Moscow Patriarchate from Orthodox Christians as diverse as Archbishop Ermogen and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and most recently the desperate cries of conscience of Father Dimitry Dudko and the new church history of Lev Regelson (who has given the first sympathetic account of the "Josephites" from within the Moscow Patriarchate)—have led to a veritable "crisis of Sergianism" in Russia; the chief factor, it would seem, that now prevents a new break with the Moscow Patriarchate on the scale of the "Josephite" movement of 1927 is a certain fear of the specter of "schism" and "sectarianism," coupled with a widespread ignorance of the actual state and mentality of the present-day Catacomb Church. The most striking testimonies regarding the meaning of "Sergianism" from within the Moscow Patriarchate today are included in Part IV of this book.

Finally, the past few years, beginning with the death of Patriarch Alexis in 1971, have seen a certain re-emergence of the Catacomb Church itself in Russia. In particular, the two "catacomb documents" of 1971 have given us the first real view in forty years of the mentality of the present-day Catacomb Church, which would seem to be quite sober and not at all "sectarian" or "fanatical" (an impression which is only reinforced by the just-printed catacomb epistle of 1962, the very existence of which was known up to now only by a few people in the Soviet Union); the testimony of A. Krasnov-Levitin after his exile from the Soviet Union in 1974 has provided us the first real information since 1935 concerning the episcopate and the chief hierarch of the Catacomb Church; and the information from the Soviet press in 1976 concerning the trial of Archimandrite Gennady is the most striking evidence since before World War II of the actual activity of the Catacomb Church and its astonishing scope. These documents are contained in Part V of this book.

This book should not be regarded as a mere "apology" for the Catacomb Church; our attempt has been to be a little more "objective" than that. In fact, the present historical moment, just after the 50th anniversary of the "Declaration" that divided Russian Orthodoxy in the 20th century, offers an unparalleled opportunity for an "objective" view of the past half-century of church life for us who belong to the only free and uncompromised part of the Russian Church. The soul of Russia is speaking today, more dearly than at any time since the beginning of Sergianism; but the pain and difficulty of speaking make it almost impossible for those inside the Soviet Union to understand the message fully. In particular, those within the Moscow Patriarchate find themselves still enclosed in an "enchanted circle" of inherited opinions about the church organization, which will probably not be broken until the realization finally dawns upon them that the Catacomb Church of Russia is not primarily a rival "church organization" which demands a change of episcopal allegiance, but is first of all the standard-bearer of faithfulness to Christ, which inspires a different attitude towards the Church and its organization than now prevails throughout much of the Orthodox world. This realization will perhaps not dawn until the downfall of the godless regime; but when it does, the Sergianist church organization and its whole philosophy of being will crumble to dust. In this light, it is surely no exaggeration to say that the future of Russia, if it is to be Orthodox, belongs to the Catacomb Church.

A deliberate attempt has been made, in the appendix to this volume where the sources for the history of the Catacomb Church are presented, to indicate the "bias" of the authors, whether "Sergianist" or "Josephite." There have, of course, been exaggerations on both sides. To the future historian of the Russian Church there will indeed be no doubt (in fact, the church history of Lev Regelson already proves it) that the Josephites were correct and the Sergianists were fatally wrong. But the significance of the Catacomb Church does not lie in its "correctness"; it lies in its preservation of the true Spirit of Orthodoxy, the spirit of freedom in Christ. Sergianism was not merely "wrong" in its choice of church policy, it was something far worse: it was a betrayal of Christ based on agreement with the spirit of this world. It is the inevitable result when church policy is guided by earthly logic and not by the mind of Christ.

From Ivan Andreyev's Russia's Catacomb Saints (Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Press, 1982), 15-21.