THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE: TESTIMONY OF ORTHODOX BISHOPS

[尼古拉前执事]

Source: Living Orthodoxy (A ROCOR Magazine); #146; Vol. XXV; #2, March-April 2005 (can be ordered from sjkp.org)

THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE:
TESTIMONY OF ORTHODOX BISHOPS

"The defenders of Sergius say that the canons allow one to separate from a bishop only for a heresy which has been condemned by a council. Against this one may reply that the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius may be sufficiently placed in this category as well, if one has in view such an open violation by him of the freedom and dignity of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic."

• St. Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd (d. 1938),
  Letter to an Archimandrite of Petrograd, 1928

"If you are helpless to defend the Church, step aside; clear the space for someone stronger than you."

• St. Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsk (d. 1936)
  (Locum Tenens of the Patriarchate)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1930

"... You are nothing other than a continuation of the so-called 'Renovationist' (Living Church) movement, only in a more refined and very danger now already criminal silence over your mistakes and incorrect actions and, with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, to disassociate ourselves from you and those who surround you. Leaving you, we do not depart from the lawful Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and we shall give ourselves over to the judg ment of a future council."

• Letter of the Clergy and Laity of Serpukhov to Metropolitan Sergei, 1927
  (Possibly written by St. Maxim, Bishop of
  Serpukhov (d. 1931))

"As for me, acknowledging my responsibility be 10/23 of this year to Bishop Sophronius, who has been assigned to the See of Great Ustiug by [Sergius'] Synod, that my flock and the clergy of Nikolsk - except for the
cathedral clergy, who have been rejected by the people - cannot accept him because we have separated from Sergius and his Synod. And on the other hand I have informed Metropolitan Joseph that I canonically join to him the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, in accordance with the blessing of Vladika Irinarch, whose lawful Substitute I am at the present time for the whole Diocese of Great Ustiug. (...) I propose that my epistle be read and considered at assemblies of the faithful, so that all might know the way the matter stands and freely enter into unity with me, remain ing faithful to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, Metropolitan Peter, and to the entire Ortho Cathedral of the Lord's Meeting in Nikolsk... are in a state of excommunication from me until they shall show sincere repentance in the form established for Renovationists, or until a complete council of bishops shall judge the case of Metropolitan Sergius and those who are with him (10th Canon of the HolyApostles)." I place before you these hirelings, who see the wolf approach and flee; do not follow them, my brethren and children...."

• St. Hierotheus, Bishop of Nikolsk (d. 1928)
  Letter to the clergy and laity
  of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, 1928

"After the historic Petrograd Delegation Metro of Archbishop and temporary head of the Petrograd Diocese. Metropolitan Sergius thereupon placed Archbishop Dimitry un to accept this or any other decrees coming from Metropolitan Sergius, recognizing that by his `adaptation to atheism' he had placed himself in schism from the Russian Church."

• I.M. Andreyev on St. Dmitri,
  Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938)

"....I accept you into communion in prayer with myself and under my archpastoral leadership... until such time as a complete Local Council of the Russian Church, at which there will be represented the entire active episcopate - i.e., the present exiles-confessors - shall justify by its conciliar authority our way of acting, or until such time as Metropolitan Sergius will come to himself and repent of his sins not only against the canonical order of the Church, but also dogmatically against her person...."

• St. Dmitri, Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938)
  Letter to the priests of the Petrograd Diocese, 1928

"But if the temporary substitute of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens will stubbornly continue in his scheme, and will not free his post, we will depart from him as a whole Church, for the episcopate has the right and the foundation to deprive him of the authority in which it clothed him for building up and not destroying (II Cor 10:8) the life of the Church. ... But if he (Metropolitan Sergius) dis policy and pretend to the authority of the chief hierarch, then he of course will turn out to be a church rebel and schismatic."

• St. Pachomius, Archbishop of Chernigov (d. 1937); and St. Averky, Archbishop of
  Zhitomir (d. 1938?)
  Epistle of 1927

"Let the whole visible world perish; let there be more important in our eyes the certain perdition of the soul to which he will be subjected who presents such outward pretexts for sin. "But if the hardness of your heart has gone far, and there remains no hope for repentance, even for this outcome we have a text to enlighten us: Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not their uncleanness; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

• St. Victor, Bishop of Glazov (d. 1934),
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1927

"We, the bishops of the Yaroslav church region, acknowledging the responsibility which lies on us before God for those things which have been en freedom for the ordering of the inward church-religious life which Christ has given us as a testament - in order to calm the disturbed conscience of the faithful, having no other way out of the fatal situation which has been created for the Church, from this time onwards separate from you and refuse to acknowl right to the higher administration of the Church."

• St. Agafangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslav (d. 1928) - St. Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (Vicar of the Yaroslav Diocese, former Substitute of the Locum Tenens) (d. ca. 1935)
• St. Barlaam, Archbishop of Perm (temporarily governing the Lyubinsk Vicariate) (d. 1942)
• St. Eugene, Bishop of Rostov (Vicar of the Yaroslav Diocese) (d. 1937)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1928

"Bishop Philip (Gumilevsky) [was] shot to death in the Krasnoiarsk prison in 1934 for refusing to accept the authority of Metropolitan Serge."

• Archpriest Michael Polsky

"With what joy I gave over to you my own rights as Substitute of the Locum Tenens, believing that your wisdom and experience would cooperate with you in the governance of the Church. But what happened? Can this fatal act really not be corrected? Will you really not find the courage to acknowledge your error, your fatal mistake, the issuance by you of the Declaration of July 16/29, 1927?"

• St. Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (d. ca. 1935)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1928

"Concerning the modernized church or concerning Sergian ‘Orthodoxy', I, a sinner, believe that, as regards such church activists, we must call them not only heretics and schismatics, but as those who have apostasized from God. After all, Metropoli heresy of modernized apostasy from God - of which the natural consequence has been confusion and schism in the Church. Can one, after this, affirm that the declaration and activity of Metropolitan Sergius concerns only the external life of the Church, and does not touch in anyway the essence of the Church's Orthodoxy? In no way can this be said. Metropolitan Sergius, by his self wise and evil-worshipping declaration and the anti-Church work which followed it, has created a new renovationist schism or Sergian renovation, which while preserving for the `little ones' a fiction of Orthodoxy and canonicity is even more criminal than the first two renovationisms of 1922 and 1925. And so Metropolitan Sergius has trampled on not only the external, but the very inner essence of the Orthodoxy of the Church, since his 'ho the very essence of Christian Faith and presents by itself clear apostasy, falling away from the Faith, and departure from God."

• St. Paul, Bishop of Starobela Epistle of 1928

"By his actions against the spirit of Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Sergius has torn himself away from unity with the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and has forfeited the right of presidency in the Russian Church."

• St. Alexei, Bishop of Kozlov (administering
  the Diocese of Voronezh) (d. 1936)
  Epistle of 1928

"...it is essential for an Orthodox Bishop or priest to refrain from communion with Sergianists in prayer."

• St. Cyril, Metropolitan of Kazan (d. 1937?) Epistle of 1934

"The chief priest of Soviet Russia, the head of the Moscow Orthodox Church, Bishop Andrew re betrayer of Christ."
Testimony of a fellow prisoner
regarding St. Andrew, Bishop of Ufa (d. 1937)

"All followers of the lying-Metropolitan Sergei are themselves filled with lies and evil, and have fallen away from the truth of Christ; they have fallen away from Christ's Church. The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is somewhere, in some other place, but not with Metropolitan Sergei, not with `his synod.' ...The holy Church will remember with horror the sins of Sergei and his fellow activists, having placed his name next to the names of ecumenical pseudo-Patriarchs Nestorius, Dioscorus, and other terrible traitors to Orthodoxy."

• St. Andrew, Bishop of Ufa (d. 1937), quoted in Zelenogorsky,
  Life and Work of Archbishop Andrew

"If looking from afar I still supposed that there were some circumstances justifying his behavior, I have completely lost this belief."

• St. Damascene,
  Bishop of Glukhov (d. ca. 1935)
  After meeting with Metropolitan Sergei in 1928

"And we must not only teach others, but ourselves also fulfill, following the examples of the Moscow saints, whom we have commemorated today. They stand before us as Orthodox zealots, and we must follow their example, turning aside completely from the dishonesty of those who have now occu not only would not recognize any of their succes condemnation."

• Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky) (d. 1965)
  Address to the Sobor of Bishops, 1959

"Those hierarchs who have compromised the free the State have committed in the words of Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov), one of the first Russian confessor bishops to speak out against Sergianism, `a sin that is not less than any heresy or schism, but is rather incomparably greater, for it plunges a man immediately into the abyss of de struction, according to the Unlying Word: 'Who Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven' (Matt. 10:33)."'
from Andreev, Russia's Catacomb Saints

"Bishop Hilarion, formerly of Smolensk, was a most irreconcilable enemy of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergei of 1927; he denied the sacra those already married in a'Soviet Church."'

• Protopresbyter Michael Polsky,
  New Martyrs of Russia

"We, the free bishops of the Russian Church, do not want a truce with Satan, although you are trying to obscure the question by calling our hostile relationships only a policy.... "Here, we offer you the salutary oil of faith and loyalty in the Holy Church. Do not refuse it, but reunite with it as in 1922 ..."

• Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) (d. 1936)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1933
  (Alluding to Sergei's return to the Church
  from the Renovationist schism)

"It is noteworthy that several hierarchs and their flocks, for the most part Russians, have already fallen away from the Ecumenical unity, and to the question: `What dost thou believe?' reply with references to self-proclaimed heads of all sorts of schisms in Moscow, America and Western Europe. It is clear that they have ceased to believe in the unity of the Church.... Those who have cut themselves off from her deprive themselves of the hope of salvation, as the Fathers of the Sixth
Ecumenical Council teach concerning this, having recognized the renegades as being totally devoid of grace.... Unfortunately, some Orthodox laymen, even, alas, many-priests (and hierarchs) have sub state of gracelessness, although still retaining the outward appearance of the church services and the apparent performance of the Mysteries."

• Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) (d. 1936)
  Paschal Encyclical, 1934

"The mystical desert-like catacomb Church has anathematized the Sergians and all that are with them."
-St. Maxim, Bishop of Serpukhov (d. 1931)
quoted in Polsky, New Martyrs of Russia

"Since the Moscow Patriarchate initially was di intelligence, but, simultaneously, with a flexible conscience, it rejected the crude violations of Orthodoxy which could be recognized by the simple faithful.... But Patriarch Sergius also, per the Church at the disposal of apostasy."

• Protopresbyter George Grabbe (later Bishop Gregory) (d. 1995)
  The Dogma of the Church in the Modern World

"Why did this calamity befall Father Dimitry Dudko? (...) "Because his activity took place outside of the true Church.... What then is the Soviet church'? Archimandrite Constantine has often and insistently stated that the most horrible thing that the God-hating regime has done in Russia is the creation of theSoviet church,' which the Bolsheviks presented to the people as the true Church, having driven the genuine Orthodox Church into the catacombs or into the concentra tion camps. This pseudo-church has been twice anathematized. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and the All-Russian Church Sobor anathematized the Communists and all their collaborators. This dread anathema has not been lifted till this day and remains in force, since it can only be lifted by a similar All-Russian Church Sobor .... When Met ropolitan Sergius promulgated his criminal Decla children of the Church immediately separated themselves from the Soviet church, and thus the Catacomb Church was formed. And she, in her turn, has anathematized the official church for its betrayal of Christ."

• Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) (d. 1985)
  Letter Concerning Father Dmitri Dudko, 1980

"Then the True Church went into the catacombs, into a position of illegal existence. From that time to this day the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate is liable to judgment, and until that future true council there can be no kind of contact, not even in everyday matters, as Metropolitan Anastasy, re testament."
-Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Vitaly (Ustinov) (b. 1910)
On Father Dmitri Dudko, 1981

"Archbishop Nikodim was approached by one of the faithful who said to him But Vladika, these poor people in Russia have no other Church to go to but the Patriarchal ones!' The bishop replied to herBetter no Church than a Soviet church!"'

• from a conversation with a seminarian, now a Synodal Priest (Monastery Press)

"This being the case, which of us is really the schismatic? Of course it is not those in the spirit of traditional Orthodoxy, but those who have apostasized from the true faith of Christ and re piety; even though all the contemporary patriarchs, who have altered our age-old, patristic Orthodoxy, may be on the latter's side ..."

• Archbishop Averky (Taushev) (d. 1976) “Are the Terms Christian 'andOrthodox' Accurate in Our Times?" (1975)

"But you know that the new church is a lawless church."

• St. Arseny, Metropolitan of Novgorod (d. 1936)
  refusing to join the Sergianist schism

"In an edict of Metropolitan Sergei, concerning Bishops Dimitry Gdov and Sergei Korporsky, it is written that Bp. Dimitry had called those churches which commemorated Metropolitan Sergei "inno priests as without grace; and moreover, that one of such churches he publicly calleda temple of satan."'

• Monastery Press (Montreal)

"According to many canonical rules, all of the so Patriarchate, being KGB agents, are apostates from Christ. The 621" Apostolic Canon deprives them of these titles, and if they repent, it calls for them to be accepted as laymen and not to be ordained. Similar orders are found in numerous (24) canonical rules. From this, we see that the Divine Canons do not admit the Divine Gifts to apostates - KGB agents. "

• Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles
  "Last Will and Testament" (1995)

[Kollyvas]

http://oag.ru/icon/price_of_freedom.html#stalin

...When Stalin at last realized that persecution of the Church was, among other things, a huge political blunder (the religious-moral aspect of the problem most likely did not interest him) he remembered that certain members of the Church heierarchy had offered a more constructive approach to church-state relations as far back as the early 1920's. Therefore it was no accident that the invitees at the historic Kremlin meeting on the night of September 4th, 1943 were none other than Metropolitans Sergey (Starogorodsky), Alexey (Simansky) and Nikolai (Yarushevich).

The result of this meeting was not only the complete cessation of anti-Church persecution, but the offer on the part of the government of resources (albeit not very significant) for the rebuilding of normal Church life. Naturally, such a sharp turnabout in government policy was not purely disinterested on the part of the USSR leadership. In essence, the Orthodox clerics were offered a sort of deal. The Church would be allowed to solve its internal problems only on the condition that its leadership help out with certain (for the most part international) political tasks standing before the Soviet government.

The Church leaders agreed to the deal, and it was probably for its sake (and not for the sake of any internal needs of the Church) that the OVCS was "reanimated" in 1946.

Today its the easiest thing in the world to condemn, from a position of lofty "democratic" ideals, the Church leaders' tractability, to pin on them the labels of "appeaser" or "apostate". Unfortunately many even well-intentioned representatives of the Orthodox world (especially from among the Russian emigration) continue to do just that. In actual fact nothing was so simple and unequivocal.

ORTHODOX STALINISM

What's more, from the point of view of the Metropolitans present at the famous 1943 meeting with Stalin everything was quite the reverse. Judge for yourself: ...Persecution was ended. For the purpose of church-state coordination a special government body was formed, the Governmental Council on Russian Orthodox Church Matters. None other than Stalin himself issued the following instructions to the first chairman of the Council, Georgy Karpov:

The Council is enjoined:

to prevent direct interference in the administrative, canonical and dogmatic life of the Church and to emphasize the Church's independence;

not to peek into the pockets of the Church and the clergy;

not to stand in the way of the founding of seminaries, church industry, etc.

(Source: Tsentr Khraneniya Sovremmenoj Dokumentatsii, f.5, op.16, d.669, ll 4-5).

It would seem: what else could the Church desire after a quarter-century of ruthless persecution? In essence, the atheist state admitted defeat in its battle against the Church of Christ. "The effects of the sudden change of course were truly overwhelming", writes Metropolitan Ioann (Samoderzhavie Dukha, St. Petersburg, p.320). "Within a few short years on the territory of the USSR where according to various estimates only 150 to 400 working parishes remained by the beginning of World War II thousands of churches were reopened, and the number of Orthodox parishes rose, according to some sources, to 22,000. Holy Russia had returned to life. The Church had weathered the storm. In a war waged against Orthodoxy by atheists, a religious war unprecedented in its scale and cruelty, the atheists had been forced to retreat."

However, in order improve the lot of Orthodox believers the Church authorities were obliged to pay the high price of difficult and painful moral compromises. "We are living and will continue to live under the spell of those impressions which overcame us during our meeting with the beloved leader of the people", wrote Metropolitan Nikolai in the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate ("Zhurnal Moskovoskoj Patriarchii", 1944, vol.2, p.2). "Excited and overwhelmed with joy at our meeting with Iosif Vissarionovich, we were touched to the depths of our souls not only by his attention to the needs of the Church, but also his warm concern for the everyday needs of each of us. Iosif Vissarionovich's attention and concern over the needs of the Church inspires us... The Russian Orthodox Church blesses the life and work of the great leader of our country and the Red Army." In the postwar years Metropolitan Nikolai (in his capacity as head of the OVCS) often traveled abroad on assignment. Assured of the loyalty of the Church leadership, Stalin attempted with its help to increase the USSR's influence abroad, especially in the key geopolitical regions of Europe and the Middle East. Such a state of affairs prompted certain foreign analysts to regard the Moscow Patriarchate as an "advocate for Soviet imperialism". (See, for example, W. Fletcher, The Russian Orthodox Church Underground 1917-1970, Oxford, 1971).

Indeed, in the period from 1943 to 1948 the leadership of the USSR was actively preparing for a geopolitical breakthrough to the south, to the Mediterranean. The presence in that region of a large Orthodox diaspora and the need to find a worthy counterweight to the Vatican, which in its turn was doing everything in its power to foil the plans of the Soviet leaders -- all of this involuntarily drew the Moscow Patriarchate into the maelstrom of world politics. (M.B. Shkarovsky, R.P.Ts. i Sovetskoye Gosudarstvo v 1943-1964 Godakh, St. Petersburg, 1995, p.10). Having understood this, Father Nikolai suffered greatly from the ambivalent nature of his position. One Church official of the Russian emigration who met with him in London described his impressions from that meeting: "What stunned us greatly were his pale blue eyes, which penetrated deeply into the soul of his interlocutor. One could feel the enormous inner tension of a man who had taken an great burden upon himself, carrying that burden unbendingly." True are the words of Scripture which state that under the influence of all-powerful Providence evil itself "assists Good even in the absence of good intentions". Stalin's global-scale political appetite allowed the Church not only to reacquire the unity lost in the revolutionary years, not only to nip in the bud all of the Vatican's designs on the canonical territory of the Russian Orthodox Church, but also to fortify the foundations of dogma and step forth confidently as the unchallenged leader of the Orthodox world.

This was especially forcefully demonstrated at the Moscow Conference of Orthodox Church Leaders, which took place in Moscow in June of 1948. If the Chekists who "patronized" that event (the organization of which, by the way, was covered under a special decree of the USSR Soviet Ministry dated February 25, 1948) noted in their report that the conference "disrupted the plans of the Anglo-American reaction", contemporary Church historians are inclined to emphasize another aspect: the conference's "loyalty to Orthodox tradition, healthy conservatism and sobriety in its assessment of Western church life" (Protoierei V. Tsypin, Istoriya R.P.Ts., Moscow, 1994, p.147).

RUIN

In the meanwhile Stalin's Mediterranean designs rather quickly met with failure. In addition, the Moscow Patriarchate softly but firmly refused to play the completely inappropriate role of an "Orthodox Vatican". As a result, the government's interest in cooperation with the Church declined sharply. Church-state relations froze in a condition of unstable balance: Repressions and persecutions were not renewed, but the Church's development was harshly limited. It's enough to mention that from the Fall of 1948 to Stalin's death the government did not allow the Moscow Patriarchate to open even one new church. And Khrushchev's final "enthronement" in 1958 marked the beginning of a new era of widespread anti-Orthodox persecution. After the death of the "leader of all peoples and epochs" the balance of power in the country was such that Khrushchev, in his battle against "the Stalinist legacy", had to rely on an influential group of orthodox Party ideologues - M.A. Suslov, E.A. Furtseva, P.N. Pospelov, L.F.Ilichev - who had long since (even before Stalin's death) expressed their disapproval of Stalin's "flirtation with churchmen". Now they received full opportunity to express their discontent in practice. They were dealing with a matter of principle, namely: which ideological model was to serve in the coming decades as the framework of development for the USSR and its satellites. And if the Stalinist model, the creation of an enormous militarized empire built above all around a Russian national backbone and opposed to cosmopolitanism and liberalism, presupposed the abandonment of anti-Orthodox rhetoric and the inclusion of the Russian Orthodox Church in the imperial political structure, the return to doctrinaire internationalist communism led inevitably to a new phase in the standoff between Church and state. To the Moscow Patriarchate's credit, we must mention that neither Patriarch Alexey I nor Metropolitan Nikolai (second-in-command in the Church heierarchy) especially strove to get involved in Stalin's "nation-building" plans. Bearing fully in mind that the atheistic state's inner essence had not changed, they strove to use the historical breathing-space offered to them above all to resolve essential internal church objectives. Thus, in the 1960's Father Nikolai practically wrapped up the OVCS's activities, not desiring to involve the Church in political intrigues alien to her spirit. In the end, it was that principled stand of the venerable cleric which served as the basis for his removal. And the OVCS's new head, Metropolitan Nikodim (Rotov) promised to be much, much more compliant...

Storm clouds began to gather around the head of the aged Metropolitan in the late 1950's. Of course he understood perfectly that the methodology of the new anti-Orthodox persecution was based on corrupting the Church from within, with the full cooperation of the Church's own obedient functionaries. To attain this goal, governmental organs in the USSR began a massive program of selection of the ranks of the clergy. In addition, an attempt was made to interfere in the areas of liturgical and canonical practice. In other words, the government openly and intentionally violated the implied commitments it made in 1943, at the beginning of the church-state "truce". By the end of the '50's it had already become clear: the "peacekeeping" policy of the atheists had met with utter failure...

THE COUP

By that time Metropolitan Nikolai had convinced himself that further retreat was impossible. If earlier compromises with the government were justified by the necessity of preserving the Church's internal freedom, now any participation in the political maneuvers around the Russian Orthodox Church had turned into an aiding and abetment of the Church's persecutors.

So he decided to act. On November 24th, 1959, in a conversation with Chairman of the Council on Russian Orthodox Church Matters Georgy Karpov, Father Nikolai raised the issue of "the fact of the destruction of the Orthodox Church." Having secured permission beforehand from Alexey I, he announced in the name of the Patriarch that "at the present moment a clear policy, even broader and deeper than that of the 1920's, is being carried out for the Church's destruction."

Acting on advice from Father Nikolai, the Patriarch tried to arrange for a face-to-face meeting with Khrushchev, to discuss "the 10 most painful questions" of church-state relations. The meeting never took place. What's more, hardly two months had passed than Karpov summoned the OVCS chairman and presented him with an ultimatum: he must cease his sermons attacking the new wave of religious persecution or else he and the Patriarch would be summoned for a "serious talk" and "appropriate measures" would be taken. On February 16, 1960 the Patriarch fought back with an announcement remarkable in its boldness, by Soviet standards. Appearing at a disarmament conference, Alexey I enumerated all the contributions of the Russian Orthodox Church over 1,000 years of Russian history and added that "the Church of Christ, whose foremost goal is the well-being of people, is under attack", but "what are all the efforts of human beings against the Church? Her thousand-years' history speaks for itself. Christ Himself foresaw all of the attacks against her and gave His promise that the gates of Hell would not overcome her." (Zhurnal Moskovoskoj Patriarchii, 1960, vol.3, p.34-35).

After the Patriarch's demarche Georgy Karpov was considered to have failed in his task of intimidating the clergy and was sent into retirement. His place was taken by the orthodox Party functionary Vladimir Kuroyedov.

The atheists understood clearly that without breaking the resistance of the most "reactionary" clergy and above all the most authoritative and influential among them, Metropolitan Nikolai, they would never be able to realize their plan to corrupt the Church from within. Over at the Lubyanka they were very concerned that a recalcitrant clergyman willing to openly combat the government could turn into a symbol of Orthodox resistance, into an informal spiritual head of the Church around whom would coalesce all those who had not lost their living faith and their will to struggle. However there were no legal means to remove the obstinate Metropolitan. In order to get rid of Father Nikolai and nip in the bud any resistance on the part of his associates it was necessary to carry out a coup d'etat within the Church.

This coup was carried out by the forces of the Soviet secret police with the help of the "liberal-revolutionary" wing of young bishops in the Moscow Patriarchate. As had happened 40 years earlier in the case of the "renewalist" heresy, the authorities used part of the clergy in their battle against the Church, luring careerists and power-seekers with promises of wealth and influence.

The coup plan contained three elements:

Firstly, it would be necessary to drive a wedge between the Patriarch and Nikolai, for experience had shown that, acting in concert, they were able to withstand any attempt to introduce a "new approach" in church-state relations.
Secondly, Metropolitan Nikolai must be formally removed from the Church leadership and deprived of managerial power, so that henceforth any protests on his part could be qualified as merely his personal opinion, not reflecting the official position of the Church.
Finally, severe reprisals against Nikolai would be necessary to send an intimidating message to those who might defend him, and to provoke a purge of the old "reactionary" ranks within the clergy and their replacement with young, "open minded" clerics, free of "prejudices" and ready to cooperate with competent state organs.
The first signal that the above plan had been set in motion was the proposal to remove Father Nikolai from active participation in the Church introduced by the KGB and the Council on Russian Orthodox Church Matters at a meeting of the Communist Party Central Committee in June of 1960. To justify such a proposal, the Metropolitan was accused of "extreme reactionary tendencies" and of unwillingness to move the OVCS in the needed direction. The Central Committee approved the proposal.

Now what remained was to wrest agreement for the Metropolitan's dismissal from Patriarch Alexey I. Alas, that turned out to be none too difficult, for the Council leadership had for a long time been working to intentionally inflame conflict between the two church leaders. To this end any and all means were used: lies, slander, falsification and cleverly fabricated rumors. At last, a deciding visit with the Patriarch took place during the course of which Kuroyedov went straight to the point and proposed that Alexey I remove Nikolai from his post.

GOLGOTHA

As a result, on June 21, 1960 Nikolai was replaced by a representative of the "liberal" wing of the clergy, Archimandrite Nikodim (Rotov), who was hastily elevated to the rank of Bishop for the purpose. But Nikolai, in spite of it all, did not cease his resistance. Broadcasts of his sermons about the rise of anti-Church persecution aired on the BBC. To a visiting clergyman from abroad, the Bishop of Brussels and Belgium Vasily (Krivoshein), he handed over a wealth of information about ever-more-numerous outrages against believers in the USSR and requested that he publish them abroad. He also tried to appeal directly to the world community through the Chairman of Christian Peace Conferences, the Czech Professor Gromadka, through the head of the American Exarchate Metropolitan Boris and others. The "world community", however, enchanted by liberal rhetoric about the Khrushchev "thaw", paid practically no attention to his appeals.

In the meanwhile, comrades from the "competent organs" of the USSR were taking the Metropolitan much more seriously. First they isolated him from all contact with foreigners. Then they decided to move him out of Moscow to a different parish, but he categorically refused. At last, having realized that Nikolai, in the words of the Patriarch, had decided to "go for broke", Kuroyedov insisted on his immediate and total removal from church affairs. This decision was taken on September 15 at a scheduled meeting of the the Council's leaders with Patriarch Alexey I, and within four days the Holy Synod agreed to dismiss Metropolitan Nikolai from all posts and send him into retirement.

But this proved to be too little for the Metropolitan's enemies. They knew that with his uncompromising character Nikolai would carry on the fight even in retirement. And this carried with it the danger of political consolidation of the "reactionary" part of the clergy, which could undo all the gains of the recent coup which had transferred power to more compliant, "liberal" Church functionaries. The Christ-haters had no choice: Nikolai must be silenced at any cost.

By the way, specialists in this field were never in short supply in the Soviet government. Hardly three months had passed than the rebellious clergyman ... died in the hospital among very strange circumstances. That happened on December 13, 1961. [Please note that date. The 13th is the favorite date for Judaic and satanic ritual murders.-- translator's note -- Editor]"According to witnesses", writes the Church historian M.V. Shkarovsky, "those close to Nikolai demanded a medical certificate of death. The official doctor's conclusion was that the death of the deceased was brought on by a 'change in climate'. A large crowd of believers assembled at the morgue and chanted at those who had come to collect the body: 'Killers!'. There remains an anonymous letter to the Council on Russian Orthodox Church Matters demanding an investigation of 'what was undoubtedly murder'. (The letter was passed on to the KGB in order to determine its authors.) What's more, the house in which Metropolitan Nikolai had lived was soon demolished and the church in which he served was closed." (M.V. Shkarovsky, R.P.Ts. i Sovetskoye Gosudarstvo v 1943-1964 Godakh, St. Petersburg, 1995, p.82).

Thus the aged churchman paid with his life for his long-awaited freedom: freedom from compromises with his own conscience and from concessions to the atheist authorities...

[Kollyvas]

http://www.stjohndc.org/russian/saints/ ... _Sofia.htm

Archbishop Seraphim of Bulgaria
13/26 February
The glorification of Vladyka Seraphim (Sobolev), which took place in the Cathedral Church of the Dormition of the Most-holy Theotokos in Sofia, Bulgaria, was celebrated by His Grace Photius, Bishop of Triaditsa, leader of the Bulgarian Old-calendar Orthodox Church, on 12/25 and 13/26 February, 2002, the anniversary of the righteous Archpastor’s repose († 1950). The following is a slightly abridged account of the saint’s life.

Archbishop Seraphim, in the world Nikolai Borisovitch Sobolev, was born in Ryazan. His mother Maria Nikolaevna was a deeply religious person given to fervent prayer. She bore eleven children, most of whom died at an early age. She especially loved her little daughter Vera, an Angel from Heaven. Vera was unlike her peers, and from infancy showed remarkable spiritual potential: she loved God, often prayed, and showed remarkable kindness toward everyone. When she was three years old, her older brother Vasya contracted a fatal disease. Hearing the news, everyone in the family was grief-stricken. Suddenly and unexpectedly, little Vera said “Mama, give me a little tea to drink.” After drinking her tea, she turned the little cup over on its saucer and solemnly announced, “Mama, Vasya will get well, but I shall catch the disease and die.” That is exactly what happened. When the dying Vera saw her relatives weeping bitterly over her, the little three-year-old gently comforted them, saying, “Why should you be crying? You should be praying to God.” Then, like an Angel, she peacefully departed to the Lord. Her mother grief was boundless. She fervently implored God to comfort her with another child that would remind her of Vera. And lo, three years later, in 1881, little Kolya was born. He was endowed by God with a soul unusual for its sensitivity and love for others.

[Like Vera,] Kolya was different from his peers. Affectionate and sympathetic toward others’ pain, the little boy had a nature serious beyond his years. After graduating from the religious school in 1900, he enrolled in the Ryazan Seminary; thereafter he continued his religious studies at the St. Petersburg Theological Academy (1904-1908). Here in 1907, his final year, he was tonsured a monk taking the name Seraphim in honor of the great miracle worker of Sarov.

Fervent, grace-filled love for the Savior animated and inspired the young Nikolai Sobolev from his earliest years, profoundly permeating his being and becoming the moving force for his entire life. Later, Vladyka was to write in his homilies, “The entire purpose of and joy in our life rests in our love for God, in our love for Christ [as shown] by our keeping His Divine Commandments.”

Even before monastic tonsure, Nikolai Sobolev, ever faithful to that love for Christ, strove to avoid giving any manner of offense to the Savior, Who had shed His precious Blood for us. Setting out on his monastic path, the young monk Seraphim intensified his spiritual struggle, [subjecting himself to] strict fasting, and striving in ceaseless prayer. The Savior’s words “…for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me…” (John 14: 30), profoundly touched his soul, and became the foundation for his constant internal activity. He carefully protected his heart from any sin, no matter how tiny, and daily prayed the words of the Psalmist, “Create in me a clean heart, O God. (Ps: 50:12 [KJV 51:10]); in that spiritual struggle, he would always sense God’s grace-filled help.

Vladyka Seraphim greatly valued the instructions and good examples provided to him by his contemporaries, luminaries of piety of the great Russian land. Before he had accepted monastic tonsure, he visited the famous pastor of Kronstadt, Archpriest Fr. John Sergiev, several times. Especially significant was his visit in the Spring of 1907, when he and a friend were present while Fr. John served in the St. Andrew Cathedral in Kronstadt. He had already said goodbye to Fr. John, and was walking past the High Place in the principal Altar, when the great righteous one, hurrying from a side-chapel toward him like one moved by some special, grace-filled inspiration, stopped him and, putting his hands cross-wise on the head of the future Vladyka, stated, “May God’s blessing rest upon you.” At those words, it was as if a fiery spark moved through Nikolai’s body, and his entire being was filled with a great incomparable joy that remained with him for the entire day.

Later, after he was assigned assistant inspector of the religious school in Kaluga, he would often go to Optina Hermitage, where he confessed before Elders Joseph and Barsanophius, and where Fr. Anatoly (Potapov), who nourished particular love for him, became his spiritual director.

From his earliest years of education at the seminary, reading of patristic literature and the lives of the saints of God became his favorite activity. He would call the lives of the saints grace-filled rain that refreshes, encourages, and brings joy to the soul. Vladyka would say, “Reading the lives of the saints, it was as if I found myself in Heaven.”

Eleven times over the course of his life, he read, with undiminished zeal and compunction of heart, the entire 12-volume collection of the Lives of the Saints compiled by Holy Hierarch St. Dimitry of Rostov. Cultivating in the depths of his soul fervent love for the holy saints of God, he would constantly call upon them in prayer. In his teachings and homilies, he would often cite shining examples from their holy and God-pleasing lives. Vladyka would say to his spiritual children, “When we die, we will come to understand how close to us were the Savior, the Mother of God, and all of the Saints, how they would be tolerant towards us in our weakness, and how they answered our prayers.”

Vladyka Seraphim especially loved the Most-pure Mother of God. He loved to reflect on her exalted virtues, emphasizing that they were all the fruits of Divine grace, poured out abundantly upon her on account of her great spiritual struggles. He would speak animatedly about the profound humility of the Mother of God, who had marvelously served the Divine order and who had made possible the Incarnation of the Son of God. Vladyka fervently prayed to her daily, asking for her prayerful intercession.

Scattered about his manuscripts one may find a multitude of short prayers to the Lord, to the Heavenly Queen, and to the worthy ones of God. “O Lord, help!” “O Mother of God, my joy, bless me to successfully begin [this] work. Cause me to rejoice,” “O my Savior, do not abandon me!: Vladyka loved to say “The Lord is near; if you let Him, He will immediately respond.”

While still a young hieromonk, the Lord made Vladyka, who was always of such a prayerful disposition, worthy to have grace-filled spiritual gifts, something that became evident to those around him. Thus, in 1909, when Fr. Seraphim was appointed to teach at the Pastoral Theological School in the city of Zhitomir, the school’s director, Archimandrite Gavriil (Voyevodin) – someone later to become a neomartyr – perceived the grace-filled fruits of spiritual struggle possessed by the young monk, and affectionately called him “Avvotchka” [an affectionate diminutive for Abba, Father – Ed.].

From early childhood, Vladyka had possessed unusual humility. One of the top students in school, and distinguished in the Seminary and the Academy for his excellent compositions, he always manifested exceptional modesty. Subsequently, his spiritual life developed and improved in him that fundamental Christian virtue. In all his works and endeavors, and with a profound sense of personal unworthiness, he sought God’s help, and he sincerely ascribed all of his successes to God alone.

Thus in the very beginning of the manuscript of his most important work, written to oppose the heresy of Sophianism, a work displaying the full depth of his Theological erudition, is Vladyka’s handwritten note, “O Lord, O Mother of God, O My Guardian Angel, O St. Nicholas the Worthy One, O St. Seraphim of Sarov, I do not place my hope in my own powers; I feel that I am a dull-witted person. Help me to thoroughly criticize the teachings of Fr. Bulgakov. O Lord, fulfill in me Thy words, “My strength is made perfect in weaknesses…” (II Corinthians 12: 9).

Vladyka loved to talk most of all about humility – in his homilies, his religious talks and in his instructions. He taught, «Humility is the anchor of salvation, the foundation of all Christian virtues.” When Vladyka would talk in Church about the spiritual life, it was as if his words would lift his listeners up to Heaven, and would light within their hearts the flame of Divine grace. Once, during a Divine Service at which he was serving, a certain little girl exclaimed, “Vladyka, you smell of Paradise!” Thus, through the lips of a babe was uttered that which is so difficult to express in words. And more than once, after his homily on Forgiveness Sunday, before the eyes of the amazed flock, people who had been fighting for years would embrace, and with contrite hearts would ask forgiveness of one another.

What gave this unusual spiritual power to Vladyka’s homily was that it was the fruit of his personal religious experience, based on ascetic works, which Archbishop Seraphim knew so remarkably well.

Vladyka was someone of a gentle, meek disposition. According to his own words, what would distress him most were the distressing words he said to his neighbor, even if they absolutely had to be said. That good shepherd possessed unusual love for his neighbor. The most amazing thing was that the more sorrows he had, the greater love he showed forth to others. That true and sincere love poured forth from his grace-filled heart without any coercion. He would say to his spiritual children:

“You have to see in your brother an Angel, and you have to look upon his sin as a sickness.” “You need to distinguish the sinner from the sin. You can hate the sin, but we must love and take pity on the person.” “According to the Psalmist, the only ones we can hate are the enemies of God.” (See Psalm 138: 21-22 [KJV Ps. 139: 21-22]).

Archbishop Seraphim poured out his love on everyone equally. He sincerely loved Tsar Boris, the last Tsar of Bulgaria. Whenever they met, Vladyka would not only bless him, but also would embrace and kiss him. However, it was with the same love and sincere compassion that he would also kiss the poor before the church, generously sharing with them his extremely meager funds.

And what loftiness of soul he would manifest toward his enemies! After all, despite Vladyka’s angelic manner of life, many bore him ill will. He always replied to their evil toward him with fervent prayer for them and, on commemorating them at the Proskomedia, would take out three particles for each of them. Even on his deathbed, when Vladyka regained consciousness and saw someone who had pained him all his life, he mustered all of his strength to embrace him, and then again lapsed into unconsciousness. It was something so natural and sincere, that it amazed all who were present.

Vladyka Seraphim’s simple candor would rise up to grace-filled heights. He would teach, “To maintain artlessness, to maintain candor, means to not allow yourself any artificiality in anything, to comport yourself before others as you do before God … To become artless: in that rests a changed life. That is the ‘change…wrought by the right hand of the Most High…’(Psalm 76: 11). Then you will not perish, for simple artlessness is humility, and God rests His grace upon the humble, as [He does] upon the Altar Table.” Vladyka often repeated St. John of Kronstadt’s words, “Less complicated philosophizing, and more simple candor.”

Archbishop Seraphim was not avaricious in any way. He lived primarily on kind people’s offerings. Until the end of his life, he rented a little, spare, apartment bereft of the most elemental conveniences. He did not have any attachment to material things, and when one of the poor would ask for some clothing, he would give away everything he had at hand. He would say, “I am burdened by material things; they weigh upon my soul.”

Vladyka often amazed people by his prescience and perspicacity, but he would keep [that gift] hidden except when necessary for the good of his neighbors’ souls. Sometimes while confessing members of his flock, he would lead them toward repentance by reminding them of sins they had forgotten. Frequently, Vladyka answered questions that were on the minds of people with whom he was talking. When they would express their amazement, he would smile and say, “It was a coincidence.”

A year before his end, he often spoke about it, and before his death he accurately foretold the day of his departure into eternity. Already gravely ill and confined to his bed, before the opening of his Holy Protection Monastery, he would give out instructions about how it was to be set up, describing the exact location of each room. And when the surprised nuns asked Vladyka how he knew everything without ever having been there, he replied with a smile, “Oh, really?”

Vladyka Seraphim’s grace-filled, radiant person was truly angelic in appearance. He would always bring in with him unusual peace and quiet. More than one, his spiritual children saw him bathed in light not of this world. That was the manner in which he also appeared after his death to one of his spiritual children, a monk who was weeping over him. Vladyka said to him, “Why are you weeping? After all, I have not died, I am alive!”

Living a life of spiritual struggle, Vladyka had already, at a young age, achieved angelic chastity and purity. From his youth, he strove after them: he imposed upon himself a strict fast, eating but once a day, and strictly obeyed all of the patristic rules of spiritual struggle in the battle with nascent thoughts of physical passions.

While still in Russia, living in unceasing spiritual struggle, and showing restraint in all things, Vladyka contracted tuberculosis, which worsened markedly after his transfer to Bulgaria. Upon learning that his condition was almost hopeless and that he might be near death, his only regret was that he was departing this life without having achieved the dispassion he so desired. However, in answer to his spiritual struggle, the Lord granted to His chosen one both help and consolation. Once, with child-like frankness, Vladyka poured out his sorrow before the Lord: “O Lord, Jesus Christ, You are already calling me to Yourself, while I have not yet cleansed myself of the passions!” Then he wept bitterly. Suddenly, he heard an internal voice, as if from Christ Himself, saying “You will never fall away from Me; you will always be faithful to Me.” After those words, an inexpressible heavenly blessedness filled his entire being. From that moment, he freed himself of the passions, and grew even more firmly strengthened in grace.

Because of his angelic chastity, Vladyka Seraphim was endowed by the Lord with the gift of spiritual sight, the ability to penetrate into the depths of God-revealed truths. Vladyka would often say, “Orthodox theology is directly proportional to chastity.” All of his theological works were the fruit of his grace-endowed sight.

Vladyka was the last bishop abroad to have been consecrated in Russia, on the eve of the White Army’s departure from Crimea. His consecration to the episcopate took place on the day of the Protection of the Most-holy Theotokos, 1/14 October 1920, in the Cathedral church in Simferopol. The consecration was performed by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky), who had known Fr. Seraphim as a student in the Theological Academy and who greatly valued his zealous service to the Church. It was a source of great comfort to the young bishop that by the unfathomable will of God, a great Russian Holy Icon was present in the church during his consecration: the Miraculous Kursk-Root Icon of the Mother of God, the “Icon of the Sign” that was later to become the Indicator of the Path for the Russian Diaspora.

In assuming the hierarchical rank, Vladyka Seraphim was profoundly aware of the full responsibility attendant to serving as a bishop, and the archpastor’s duty “to be a grace-filled light for the world and a firm bulwark for all Orthodox Christians.” [Archbishop Seraphim (Sobolev). Homilies, Sofia, 1944, p. 3.]. Throughout his life, he was ruled by that sense of duty and responsibility before the Holy Church. Aware of the prevalent apostasy of our times that threatened the Orthodox Faith, he labored a great deal in the field of hierarchical service to preserve the Orthodox Faith in all its purity. Following the dictates of his archpastoral conscience, he unstintingly and without compromise denounced any deviation from Orthodox truth, any transgression in the realm of dogma and Church canons. Thus, his priceless theological works appeared. Through them, he would answer troubling questions that affected in one way or another not only the Russian Diaspora, but the entire Catholic [Soborny/Conciliar] Orthodox Church.

Having dedicated his entire life to Christ and the defense of the purity of Holy Orthodox, Vladyka Seraphim was always steadfast, straightforward, and courageous. While yet a student of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, during student assemblies he alone protested against revolutionary resolutions made by the students. In Sofia, Vladyka waged a courageous battle with Russian émigré Masonic organizations, whose active members brought him much grief and troubles through their actions and slander.

At a Conference of Russian scholars held in Sofia in 1930, he publicly condemned those scholars who considered it unnecessary to maintain the Orthodox Faith as the foundation of their scholarly opinions.

In 1935, in his major Theological work The New Teaching About Sophia, the Holy Wisdom of God, he zealously served the Holy Orthodox Church by denouncing the Sophianist Heresy, held by Fr. S. Bulgakov and Fr. Pavel Florensky. In it, he showed himself to possess great knowledge and understanding of patristic teachings and Orthodox tradition. [Publication of Archbishop Seraphim’s books was financed by Stoyan Velichkov, a manufacturer who on more than one occasion had personally experienced the righteous Vladyka’s prayerful assistance.] At a clergy-laity Sobor of the Russian Church Abroad held in 1938, he gave several brilliant talks in defense of Holy Orthodoxy, including one directed against the ecumenical movement. Attending the Sobor was the young Bishop John of Shanghai, now glorified by the Holy Church; he voted in support of Vladyka’s lecture with both hands.

(…) In 1943, scrupulously watching for the slightest deviation from Orthodox patristic theology, he published his work Distortion of Orthodox Truth in Russian Theological Thought. In 1944, for the some of Vladyka’s homilies were published for the first time.

Vladyka Seraphim also showed his zealous dedication to and unwillingness to compromise in the defense of, Orthodox truth, at a Moscow Conference in 1948. Taking to heart all of the questions troubling the Holy Church, he prepared three lectures from among the four topics offered for consideration: against the ecumenical movement, about the new and old calendars, and about the Anglican hierarchy. Vladyka Seraphim considered the Conference resolution with respect to the new calendar unsatisfactory, and he expressed his dissatisfaction in a “special opinion” (which unfortunately was not mentioned in the Conference Proceedings). In his talk in opposition to ecumenism, he emphasized the idea that the presence of Orthodox representatives at ecumenical conferences even as observers was a deviation from Holy Orthodoxy.

And like awarding a crown for his uncompromising service to the Holy Orthodox Church, the Lord made Archbishop Seraphim worthy of a righteous repose on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, 13/26 February, 1950.

Over 50 years have passed since the death of the worthy hierarch, and an unending stream of people continues to come to his grave in the Russian Church of St. Nicholas in Sofia. In faith, they ask his help, and they receive it. Thus the words of the Lord have been fulfilled in him, “Them that honor me I will honor.” (I Kings 2: 30 [KJV I Samuel 2: 30]).

© Women’s Monastery of the Protection of the Most-holy Theotokos — Knyazhevo, Sofia

[Kollyvas]

A call for reconciliation, repentance and Orthodox witness.
R

http://www.orthodoxengland.btinternet.co.uk/ruschu.htm

The Russian Church and Its Divisions -

High, Broad or Low?

Like a giant awakening from the cruel heritage of seventy five years of atheistic persecution and infiltration, the Church in Russia is yet to be freed from its nightmares. Waking from a State induced sleep, it finds itself divided into what we might call a 'High Church', a 'Broad Church' and a 'Low Church', and this both inside and outside Russia. At such a time it is therefore important to recall just how these divisions in the Russian Church occurred, thus reminding ourselves both of their forms and consequences, and also of constructive ways in which these divisions might eventually be overcome.

Introduction

Long before the Revolution of 1917 different tendencies had appeared in the Russian Orthodox Church. Some of them were 'high', nationalist and ritualist, they stressed the links of the Church with the State; others were 'broad', they were political and leaned to the fashions of uprooted liberalising intellectuals and modernists; yet others were 'low', more linked to a fundamentalist peasant culture and, close to Old Ritualism, verged on sectarianism. In a sense it may be said that these tendencies have always existed in every Church, for they correspond to human and sociological realities, which is why they may be termed 'high', 'broad' and 'low'. However, at times when the Church suffers from a lack of spirituality, the glue which holds together human-beings of different backgrounds in the same Church, these human tendencies can become so strong that they cause divisions and even schisms in the Church. This was and still is the case with the Russian Church, for these polarising tendencies were at the root of the divisions which occurred both outside and inside Russia.

Divisions Outside Russia

After the Revolution, expatriate Russians, though initially united, were to split the Church in the emigration into different 'jurisdictions'. From the initially united Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, there appeared: in France, the Paris Russian jurisdiction under the Patriarchate of Constantinople; in the USA, the Russian Metropolia, now called the OCA (the Orthodox Church in America); the Moscow Patriarchate. The former two were and are purely local phenomena, resulting from local dissidence. The Moscow Patriarchate, however, ironically the smallest, claimed and claims universal jurisdiction. How did these divisions come about?

After the Revolution, Russian bishops, cut off from the central Church administration in Moscow by civil war, formed a 'Higher Church Authority'. This Authority was formally recognised by the Russian Patriarch (later Saint) Tikhon and his Synod on 20 November 1920 (Decree No. 362). Then, exiled in Constantinople, it was recognised by the Patriarchate of Constantinople by official act on 29 December 1920. By the time the civil war had ended, not only were no fewer than thirty-four Russian bishops and perhaps some two million émigrés cut off from Moscow, but they were also living scattered abroad all over the world outside Russia. Their only unity was in this Higher Church Authority. Seeing the persecution of the Church inside Russia, by 1922 the Council of Bishops of this Higher Church Authority had become fearful of future Soviet pressure, persecution and interference in Church life outside Russia. Implicitly encouraged by the Church authorities in Russia who were already under vicious persecution, on 31 August 1922 this Council of Bishops, by then guests of the Serbian Church, established the universally recognised Higher Church Authority as a temporary 'Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia'. Temporary, because this Synod was to last only until normal communications could be resumed with a Patriarchate freed from State interference. In fact this Synod, having already moved from Constantinople to Serbia, later moved to Germany and finally the United States, where it still exists, waiting for the day of true Church freedom in Russia.

Unfortunately, certain individuals in the emigration as well as the Soviet authorities were displeased with this situation. Influenced by unchurchly and even anti-churchly elements in the diaspora, directly or indirectly backed by the Soviet State, divisions took place. Thus in France in 1926, Metropolitan Eulogius and his two vicars, under pressure from various lay-people and intellectuals newly arrived from the Soviet Union, broke away from the Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. After many tortuous changes, these three breakaway bishops and their flock eventually found themselves in the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, thus cutting all links with the Russian Church. They formed what is known to Church history as 'the Paris jurisdiction'. Meanwhile in North America in the same year, 1926, Metropolitan Platon and his vicars, also under pressure from lay groups, broke away from the Church Outside Russia too. These bishops also cut off links with the Russian Church, forming their own unrecognised Church or 'Metropolia', which eventually received the name of the 'OCA' (Orthodox Church in America). This was a quite uncanonical situation.

In both the United States and France the motivations for cutting links with the Russian Church came from political, financial and ideological pressures from outside the Church Tradition. Pressures came from the Protestant-run YMCA, from newly-converted bourgeois modernists and thinkers, who had lost all Orthodox roots and whose ideal was to 'renew' the Church after their own fashion, and from groups of unchurched people who had financial and political power. Their disincarnate ideologies, heavily influenced by various extra-ecclesial philosophies as well as personal interests, were opposed to the incarnational links of Church with State, opposed to Church Tradition. They were also often violently anti-monastic, with the result that to this day there are no traditional monasteries of monks in either the OCA in North America or in the Paris jurisdiction. These ideologies wished for a modernisation of the Church on the Western model and were strongly under the influence of Protestant (in the United States) and Catholic (in France) modernism. The ideal in France was the reconciliation of Orthodoxy with the liberal, humanistic culture of twentieth century Europe. And in the United States the same ideal, in the cruder but perhaps humbler forms of compromise with popular American culture, similarly influenced those bishops who broke with the Russian Church Outside Russia. At worst this eventually led parishes of the so-called Paris jurisdiction to resemble branches of the Roman Catholic Church with an exotic ritual, to become in fact Russian Catholics. And in the United States the OCA has long been thought of as 'Eastern-rite Protestantism'. Collectively, these tendencies in the United States and France may be called those of a 'Broad Church', for they brought together all those whose interest in the Orthodox Church was much more cultural than spiritual. For to put secular culture above spirituality is the very definition of a 'Broad' Church. And it was this fundamental spiritual deficiency that led to their adaptionism to the local French and North American cultures, with the loss not just of Russian cultural customs, but above all of the essential spirit of Orthodoxy.

What were the reactions of the Church authorities outside Western Europe and North America?

The Soviet State, having helped to create this dissidence, rejoiced at it. It was not long before the Moscow Patriarchate, so closely controlled by the Soviet State, opened its own parishes both in Western Europe and in North America, thus creating yet another grouping in the previously united emigration. Thus the original Synod of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, descended from the 'Higher Church Authority', lost up to a third of its strength to the three groups which had broken away from it. Worse still, in France the 'Broad Church' tendencies of bourgeois Orthodoxy were encouraged by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The latter was only too glad to see the Russian Church weakening and thus its own long eclipsed, almost negligible, influence growing. This sad story of the divisions in the Russian emigration is completed by a similarly sad story of the divisions in Russia.

Divisions inside Russia

As soon as the Bolsheviks came to power, the Russian Church came under fierce persecution. Altogether some 250 bishops were to be martyred or die as confessors for the Faith. This included, in 1925, Patriarch Tikhon himself, with tens of thousands of faithful priests, monks, nuns and millions of faithful lay-people. In other words, the best of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian culture was slaughtered in the greatest martyrdom ever seen in history, far outmatching even that managed by the Roman Empire in the first three centuries after Christ. Given that the very best of Russian Orthodoxy in Russia had disappeared, it was clear that the three polarising tendencies, 'high', 'broad' and 'low', present in the Church even before persecution, as mentioned at the beginning of this essay, were to be considerably strengthened. The spirituality and genuine faith of the Church, that divine glue which holds the Church together, had been so much weakened. What were the tendencies that developed?

Firstly, there was the tendency of the Moscow Patriarchate. With the appointment of Metropolitan (later Patriarch) Sergius, who replaced the holy Patriarch Tikhon, the Patriarchate became increasingly erastian, State-worshipping. Indeed its attitude of Church collaboration with a militant atheist State, on the pretext of 'saving the Church', was to become known as 'Sergianism'. Its ethos was ritualistic, with emphasis on elaborate Italianate choral singing and ornate decoration, pomp and glory. Formally this Church was Orthodox, but, subservient to an atheist State, it was becoming an empty, ritualistic shell, forbidden to preach and spread Orthodoxy, forbidden to take part in social life, to preach on personal morality and against social, State-imposed iniquities. It could not speak against the huge Gulag of concentration-camps, the quasi-disappearance of stable marriage and family life, abortion by the hundreds of millions, mass drunkenness and amorality, the eco-crimes of widespread industrial and nuclear pollution, let alone its own persecution. And all who tried to live Orthodoxy were cruelly persecuted and massacred in that Gulag in their millions, sometimes with the connivance of venal, State-appointed pseudo-bishops, themselves members of the secret services of the world's then only atheist State. Generally, given the emphasis on formalistic ritualism, we may call these tendencies of the Moscow Patriarchate a 'High Church'. (As we have already mentioned, the Moscow Patriarchate also took over certain parishes in the emigration outside Russia, though on a relatively small scale - most Russian émigrés completely rejected Patriarchal authority. These parishes tended to express a mixture of the Statist 'High Church' attitudes found in Russia, sometimes together with the strong, liberalising 'Broad Church' attitudes found in France and North America, and also in Russia itself, as we shall see below).

In Russia then a second tendency appeared, that of the 'Renovationists', who wanted to 'modernise' the Church, abolishing for example the liturgical language and monastic bishops. This tendency was strongly backed for political reasons by the Soviet State, and a renovationist 'Living Church' was founded. It represented the same Westernising, intellectual 'Broad Church' tendency as in France and the United States. It was similarly backed, and in 1924 formally recognised, by the Patriarchate of Constantinople. This tendency, however, lost the backing of the Soviets and was discredited, officially disappearing, being absorbed into the Moscow Patriarchate. In fact, it was never really absorbed, and has regularly resurfaced and resurfaces among uprooted intellectuals and modernisers in the Moscow Patriarchate, at first outside Russia but then, especially today, inside Russia.

Thirdly, there were and are in Russia catacomb Orthodox. In order to remain faithful to Orthodoxy, many believers felt that they had to go underground. Such people were much attached to the simplified fundamentals of Orthodoxy. Although often uneducated and of peasant origin, these people witnessed to the Faith through their extraordinarily heroic sufferings. Unfortunately, with time, these catacomb Orthodox were no longer able to find canonically consecrated bishops to ordain priests. They lost contact with more sophisticated and spiritually subtle Orthodox traditions. In some cases they tended to become censorious, intolerant and sectarian, seeing everything in terms of black and white, categorically denying the presence of grace in the Moscow Patriarchate. (Similar situations have developed elsewhere in Church history, for example, among the Donatists in North Africa in the fourth century. They, having suffered for the faith, could not forgive those who had so cruelly betrayed them, escaping persecution by collaborating with the persecutors). Today there are, apparently, nine different and separate groups of catacomb Orthodox in Russia in all. We may call the fundamentalising tendencies of the simple and sincere in Russia those of the 'Low Church'.

Conclusion

The question that arises today is what is the spiritual glue which could link these different tendencies, 'High', 'Broad' and 'Low', together, thus reuniting the Russian Church, both inside and outside Russia? This is an essential task, given the need for Russian Orthodoxy to defend itself against its common enemies, represented by the world and all those who love and serve worldly values. How can this fragmentation be overcome? How can we not belong to some High Church or Broad Church or Low Church, but be above this, and simply belong to the Church? How can we relegate our secular, human and sinful characters to second place behind our need for the authentic Church, the Body of Christ?

It is our suggestion that if the Orthodox Church in Russia is to be restored, Russian Orthodox must undo themselves of all that has been done against the Church. The episcopate and senior clergy of the Moscow Patriarchate must renounce those compromises made in the past, and too often become bad habits. We speak here not of compromise born of human weakness, of which we are all capable, but compromise raised up into a system, into an 'ism', far worse than the original weakness. The Patriarchate's present subservience to that 'ism', to the State, its formalistic ritualism, its stagnation, its silence on moral issues and social iniquities must come to an end. In other words, it must reject its 'high-ness'. Otherwise it will never be acceptable to the 'low-ness' of those in the catacombs in Russia who cannot forget the ugly and scandalous compromises of the past.

The only way to do this would be to reject, once and for all, Sergianism, which is compromise raised up into a system, made systematic. At the same time, the Moscow Patriarchate would recover its lost freedom. And as a result of recovering its lost freedom, it would firstly be able to recognise all the New Martyrs and Confessors, whom the present, for the moment, ex-Communist, pseudo-democratic State and their servants do not want the Church to recognise. The effects of a whole Church, calling in repentance on the prayers of the millions of New Martyrs and Confessors of the Soviet Yoke would be unimaginable. Secondly, the Moscow Patriarchate could then reject the State-imposed and sometimes scandalous canonical laxity, caused by its unprincipled adaptionism to the things of this world. Were the Moscow Patriarchate to do this, it would thus gain the recognition firstly of all the New Martyrs and Confessors, that new part of the Church Triumphant. So far it has officially refused to recognise them, thus depriving itself of the most immense spiritual gift. But secondly the Patriarchate would also gain the recognition of all those of goodwill among the catacomb Orthodox and all tendencies of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia, in other words of the whole of the emigration and its missions which remain attached to the Russian Church. The alliance of a reformed Patriarchate together with the new spiritual strength of the Church in Heaven, together with the dissident catacombs and the Church which represents Russian Orthodox and their missions outside Russia would be a most powerful spiritual force. Such an alliance would isolate the 'Broad Church' of disincarnate intellectuals and their allies elsewhere who encourage them, all those who attack Church Tradition both outside and, increasingly, inside Russia.

In order to survive, a nightmarishly crippled Russia has to free itself from atheism and indifference, from spiritual emptiness and the ensuing tide of moral and criminal corruption. In order to do so, the whole of the Russian Church, which in fact represents the majority of the Orthodox world, must restore its heart, its spiritual integrity. The two different parts of the Russian Church, that inside Russia and that outside Russia must put aside low polemics and turn to positive, constructive dialogue. And this will be through a return to the authentic spirituality of the Orthodox Tradition, a return with sincere repentance, love, humility and mutual forgiveness for past mistakes committed on all sides. And only then shall we see Orthodox Russia, for whose Resurrection we have waited and prayed so long, rise up once more. And only then shall we see the dependent miracle of the Resurrection of the whole Orthodox world, which has all sunk so low since the fateful Revolution of 1917. Lord have mercy on us all.

May 1996

[Kollyvas]

The conditions he outlines have been met.
R

http://www.russianorthodoxchurch.ws/eng ... t1965.html

EPISTLE OF METROPOLITAN PHILARET
FIRST HIERARCH OF THE RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHUCH OUTSIDE OF RUSSIA
TO THE BRETHREN IN CHRIST, ORTHODOX BISHOPS AND ALL WHO HOLD DEAR
THE FATE OF THE RUSSIAN CHURCH

In recent days the Soviet Government in Moscow and various parts of the world celebrated a new anniversary of the October Revolution of 1917 which brought it to power.

We, on the other hand, call to mind in these days the beginning of the way of the cross for the Russian Orthodox Church, upon which from that time, as it were, all the powers of hell have fallen.

Meeting resistance on the part of Archpastors, pastors, and laymen strong in spirit, the Communist power, in its fight with religion, began from the very first days the attempt to weaken the Church not only by killing those of her leaders who were strongest in spirit, but also by means of the artificial creation of schisms.

Thus arose the so-called ''Living Church" and the renovation movement, which had the character of a Church tied to a Protestant-Communist reformation. Notwithstanding the support of the Government, this schism was crushed by the inner power of the Church. It was too clear to believers that the "Renovated Church" was uncanonical and altered Orthodoxy. For this reason people did not follow it.

The second attempt, after the death of Patriarch Tikhon and the rest of the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Peter, had greater success. The Soviet power succeeded in 1927 in sundering in part the inner unity of the Church. By confinement in prison, torture, and special methods it broke the will of the vicar of the patriarchal locum tenens, Metropolitan Sergy, and secured from him the proclamation of a declaration of the complete loyalty of the Church to the Soviet power, even to the point where the joys and successes of the Soviet Union were declared by the Metropolitan to the joys and successes of the Church, and its failures to be her failures. What can be more blasphemous than such an idea, which was justly appraised by many at that time as an attempt to unite light with darkness, and Christ with Belial. Both Patriarch Tikhon and Metropolitan Peter, as well as others who served as locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne, had earlier refused to sign a similar declaration, for which they were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and banishment.

Protesting against this declaration—which was proclaimed by Metr. Sergy by himself alone, without the agreement of the suppressed majority of the episcopate of the Russian Church, violating thus the 34th Apostolic Rule [1]—many bishops who were then in the death camp at Solovki [2] wrote to the Metropolitan: "Any government can sometimes make decisions that are foolish, unjust, cruel, to which the Church is forced to submit, but which she cannot rejoice over or approve. One of the aims of the Soviet Government is the extirpation of religion, but the Church cannot acknowledge its successes in this direction as her own successes" (Open Letter from Solovki, Sept. 27, 1927).

The courageous majority of the sons of the Russian Church did not accept the declaration of Metr. Sergy, considering that a union of the Church with the godless Soviet State, which had set itself the goal of annihilating Christianity in general, could not exist on principle.

But a schism nonetheless occurred. The minority, accepting the declaration, formed a central administration, the so-called "Moscow Patriarchate," which, while being supposedly officially recognized by the authorities, in actual fact received no legal rights whatever from them; for they continued, now without hindrance, a most cruel persecution of the Church. In the words of Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd, Metr. Sergy, having proclaimed the declaration, entered upon the path of "monstrous arbitrariness, flattery, and betrayal of the Church to the interests of atheism and the destruction of the Church."

The majority, renouncing the declaration, began an illegal ecclesiastical existence. Almost all the bishops were tortured and killed in death camps, among them the locum tenens Metr. Peter, Metr. Cyril of Kazan, who was respected by all, and Metr. Joseph of Petrograd, who was shot to death at the end of 1938, as well as many other bishops and thousands of priests, monks, nuns, and courageous laymen. Those bishops and clergy who miraculously remained alive began to live illegally and to serve Divine services secretly, hiding themselves from the authorities and originating in this fashion the ../resistance/cat_1974.htmCatacomb Church in the Soviet Union.

Little news of this Church has come to the free world. The Soviet press long kept silent about her, wishing to give the impression that all believers in the USSR stood behind the Moscow Patriarchate. They even attempted to deny entirely the existence of the Catacomb Church.

But then, after the death of Stalin and the exposure of his activity, and especially after the fall of Khrushchev, the Soviet press has begun to write more and more often on the secret Church in the USSR, calling it the "sect" of True-Orthodox Christians. It was apparently impossible to keep silence about it any longer; its numbers are too great and it causes the authorities too much alarm.

Unexpectedly in the "Atheist Dictionary" (State Political Literature Publishers, Moscow, 1964), on pp 123 and 124 the Catacomb Church is openly discussed. ''True-Orthodox Christians," we read in the "Dictionary," "an Orthodox sect, originating in the years 1922-24. It was organized in 1927, when Metr. Sergy proclaimed the principle of loyalty to the Soviet power." "Monarchist" (we would say ecclesiastical) "elements, having united around Metr. Joseph (Petrovykh) of Leningrad'' (Petrograd) '—Josephites,'' or, as the same Dictionary says, Tikhonites, formed in 1928 a guiding center, the True-Orthodox Church, and united all groups and elements which came out against the Soviet order" (we may add from ourselves, "atheist" order). "The True-Orthodox Church directed unto the villages a multitude of monks and nuns," for the most part of course priests, we add again from ourselves, who celebrated Divine services and rites secretly and "conducted propaganda against the leadership of the Orthodox Church," i.e, against the Moscow Patriarchate which had given in to the Soviet power, "appealing to people not to submit to Soviet laws," which are directed, quite apparently, against the Church of Christ and faith.

By the testimony of the "Atheist Dictionary," the True-Orthodox Christians organized and continue to organize house, ' i.e., secret, catacomb churches and monasteries... preserving in full the doctrine and rites of Orthodoxy." They "do not acknowledge the authority of the Orthodox Patriarch," i.e., the successor of Metr. Sergy, Patriarch Alexy.

"Striving to fence off" the True-Orthodox Christians "from the influence of Soviet reality," chiefly of course from atheist propaganda, "their leaders... make use of the myth of Antichrist, who has supposedly been ruling in the world since 1917." The anti-Christian nature of the Soviet power is undoubted for any sound-thinking person, and all the more for a Christian.

True Orthodox Christians "usually refuse to participate in elections," which in the Soviet Union, a country deprived of freedom, are simply a comedy, "and other public functions; they do not accept pensions, do not allow their children to go to school beyond the fourth class..." Here is an unexpected Soviet testimony of the truth, to which nothing need be added.

Honor and praise to the True-Orthodox Christians, heroes of the spirit and confessors, who have not bowed before the terrible power, which can stand only by terror and force and has become accustomed to the abject flattery of its subjects. The Soviet rulers fall into a rage over the fact that there exist people who fear God more than men. They are powerless before the millions of True-Orthodox Christians.

However, besides the True Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and the Moscow Patriarchate, which have communion neither of prayer nor of any other kind with each other, there exists yet a third part of the Russian Church—free from oppression and persecution by the atheists the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. She has never broken the spiritual and prayerful bonds with the ../resistance/cat_1974.htmCatacomb Church in the home land. After the last war many members of this Church appeared abroad and entered into the Russian Church Outside Russia, and thus the bond between these two Churches was strengthened yet more—a bond which has been sustained illegally up to the present time. As time goes on, it becomes all the stronger and better established.
The part of the Russian Church that is abroad and free is called upon to speak in the free world in the name of the persecuted Catacomb Church in the Soviet Union; she reveals to all the truly tragic condition of believers in the USSR, which the atheist power so carefully hushes up, with the aid of the Moscow Patriarchate, she calls on those who have not lost shame and conscience to help the persecuted.

This is why it is our sacred duty to watch over the existence of the Russian Church Outside of Russia. The Lord, the searcher of hearts, having permitted His Church to be subjected to oppression, persecution, and deprivation of all rights in the godless Soviet State, has given us, Russian exiles, in the free world the talent of freedom, and He expects from us the increase of this talent and a skillful use of it. And we have not the right to hide it in the earth. Let no one dare to say to us that we should do this, let no one push us to a mortal sin.

For the fate of our Russian Church we, Russian bishops, are responsible before God, and no one in the world can free us from this sacred obligation. No one can understand better than we what is happening in our homeland, of which no one can have any doubt. Many times foreigners, even Orthodox people and those vested with high ecclesiastical rank, have made gross errors in connection with the Russian Church and false conclusions concerning her present condition. May God forgive them this, since they do not know what they are doing.
This is why, whether it pleases anyone or not, the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia will continue to exist and will raise her voice in the defense of the faith.

She will not be silent:

1. As long as the Soviet power shall conduct a merciless battle against the Church and believers, about which the whole Soviet press also testifies, except for the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate.

2. As long as, by the testimony of the same press, there exists in the USSR a secret, Catacomb True-Orthodox Church, by its very existence testifying to persecutions against the faith and to complete absence of freedom of religion.

3. As long as the Soviet power shall force the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate manifestly to lie and affirm that there are no persecutions against the Church in the USSR and that the Church there supposedly enjoys complete freedom in accordance with the Soviet constitution (Metropolitans Pimen, Nikodim, John of New York, Archbp. Alexy, and others).

4. As long as the Journal of the Moscow Patriarchate, at the demand of the authorities, does not mention even a single church that has been closed and destroyed, while at the same time Soviet newspapers speak of hundreds and thousands.

5. As long as churches in the USSR shall be defiled by atheists, being converted into movie-houses, storehouses, museums, clubs, apartments, etc., of which fact there are living witnesses in the persons of tourists who have been to Soviet Union.

6. Until the thousands of destroyed and defiled churches shall be restored as churches of God.

7. Until the representatives of the Moscow Patriarchate in clerical robes shall cease agitating in the free world in the interest of the godless Soviet power, in this way dressing the wolf in sheep's clothing.

8. Until the hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate end their evil denial of the terrible and dreadful devastation of the Pochaev Lavra and other monasteries, and stop the almost complete liquidation of monks there and the terrible persecutions of her pilgrims, even to killing and murder (letters from the USSR).

9. Until priests accused by Soviet courts shall receive the right to defend themselves freely though the Soviet press.

10. Until there shall cease calumny and ridicule of faith, the Church, priests, monks, and believing Christians in the Soviet press.

11. Until freedom shall be given to every believer in the USSR openly to confess his faith and defend it.

12. Until it shall be officially permitted children and young people to know the foundations of their faith, to visit the churches of God, to participate in Divine services and receive communion of the Holy Mysteries.

13. Until it shall be permitted parents who are believers to baptize their children without hindrance and without sad consequences for their official careers and personal happiness.

14. Until parents who raise their children religiously shall cease from being accused of crippling them, parents and children both being deprived of freedom for this and shut up in mental institutions or prison.

15. Until freedom of thought, speech, action, and voting shall be given not only to every believer, but also to every citizen of the Soviet Union, first of all to writers and creative thinkers, against whom the godless power is now waging an especially bitter battle using intolerable means.

16. Until the Church and religious societies in general in the USSR shall receive the most elementary rights, if only the right to be a legal person before Soviet laws, the right to own property, to direct one's own affairs in actual fact, to designate and transfer rectors of parishes and priests, to open and dedicate new churches, to preach Christianity openly not only in churches, but outside them also, especially among young people, etc. In other words, until the condition of all religious societies shall cease from being, one and the same, without rights.

Until all this shall come about, we shall not cease to accuse the godless persecutors of faith and those who evilly cooperate with them under the exterior of supposed representatives of the Church. In this the Russian Church Outside of Russia has always seen one of her important tasks. Knowing this, the Soviet power through its agents wages with her a stubborn battle, not hesitating to use any means: lies, bribes, gifts, and intimidation. We, however, shall not suspend our accusation.

Declaring this before the face of the whole world, I appeal to all our brothers in Christ—Orthodox bishops—and to all people who hold dear the fate of the persecuted Russian Church as a part of the Universal Church of Christ, for understanding, support, and their holy prayers. As for our spiritual children, we call on them to hold firmly to the truth of Orthodoxy, witnessing of her both by one's word and especially by a prayerful, devout Christian life.

• Metropolitan Philaret
  19/14 XI 1965

[尼古拉前执事]

Source: Magazine Living Orthodoxy; #146; Vol. XXV; #2, March-April 2005

THE MOSCOW PATRIARCHATE:
TESTIMONY OF ORTHODOX BISHOPS

"The defenders of Sergius say that the canons allow one to separate from a bishop only for a heresy which has been condemned by a council. Against this one may reply that the deeds of Metropolitan Sergius may be sufficiently placed in this category as well, if one has in view such an open violation by him of the freedom and dignity of the Church, One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic."

• St. Joseph, Metropolitan of Petrograd (d. 1938),
  Letter to an Archimandrite of Petrograd, 1928

"If you are helpless to defend the Church, step aside; clear the space for someone stronger than you."

• St. Peter, Metropolitan of Krutitsk (d. 1936)
  (Locum Tenens of the Patriarchate)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1930

"... You are nothing other than a continuation of the so-called 'Renovationist' (Living Church) movement, only in a more refined and very danger­ous form.... All this imperatively compels us to boldly raise our voice and cease our now already criminal silence over your mistakes and incorrect actions and, with the blessing of Dimitry, Bishop of Gdov, to disassociate ourselves from you and those who surround you. Leaving you, we do not depart from the lawful Locum Tenens, Metropolitan Peter, and we shall give ourselves over to the judg­ment of a future council."

• Letter of the Clergy and Laity of Serpukhov to Metropolitan Sergei, 1927
  (Possibly written by St. Maxim, Bishop of
  Serpukhov (d. 1931))

"As for me, acknowledging my responsibility be­fore God for the flock entrusted to me, I have declared on January 10/23 of this year to Bishop Sophronius, who has been assigned to the See of Great Ustiug by [Sergius'] Synod, that my flock and the clergy of Nikolsk - except for the
cathedral clergy, who have been rejected by the people - cannot accept him because we have separated from Sergius and his Synod. And on the other hand I have informed Metropolitan Joseph that I canonically join to him the clergy and laity of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, in accordance with the blessing of Vladika Irinarch, whose lawful Substitute I am at the present time for the whole Diocese of Great Ustiug. (...) I propose that my epistle be read and considered at assemblies of the faithful, so that all might know the way the matter stands and freely enter into unity with me, remain­ing faithful to the Locum Tenens of the Patriarchal See, Metropolitan Peter, and to the entire Ortho­dox Russian Church; concerning which I request you to send me a written statement. Only the clergy of the Cathedral of the Lord's Meeting in Nikolsk... are in a state of excommunication from me until they shall show sincere repentance in the form established for Renovationists, or until a
complete council of bishops shall judge the case of Metropolitan Sergius and those who are with him (10th Canon of the HolyApostles)." I place before you these hirelings, who see the wolf approach and flee; do not follow them, my brethren and children...."

• St. Hierotheus, Bishop of Nikolsk (d. 1928)
  Letter to the clergy and laity
  of the Diocese of Great Ustiug, 1928

"After the historic Petrograd Delegation Metro­politan Joseph, then already banished, raised Bp. Dimitry to the rank of Archbishop and temporary head of the Petrograd Diocese. Metropolitan Sergius thereupon placed Archbishop Dimitry un­der interdict.... Archbishop Dimitry, fearlessly following in the footsteps of Metropolitan Joseph, refused to accept this or any other decrees coming from Metropolitan Sergius, recognizing that by his `adaptation to atheism' he had placed himself in schism from the Russian Church."

• I.M. Andreyev on St. Dmitri,
  Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938)

"....I accept you into communion in prayer with myself and under my archpastoral leadership... until such time as a complete Local Council of the Russian Church, at which there will be represented the entire active episcopate - i.e., the present exiles-confessors - shall justify by its conciliar authority our way of acting, or until such time as Metropolitan Sergius will come to himself and repent of his sins not only against the canonical order of the Church, but also dogmatically against her person...."

• St. Dmitri, Archbishop of Gdov (d. 1938)
  Letter to the priests of the Petrograd Diocese, 1928

"But if the temporary substitute of the Patriarchal Locum Tenens will stubbornly continue in his scheme, and will not free his post, we will depart from him as a whole Church, for the episcopate has the right and the foundation to deprive him of the authority in which it clothed him for building up and not destroying (II Cor 10:8) the life of the Church. ... But if he (Metropolitan Sergius) dis­obeys the voice of the Church and will stubbornly continue in his policy and pretend to the authority of the chief hierarch, then he of course will turn out to be a church rebel and schismatic."

• St. Pachomius, Archbishop of Chernigov (d. 1937); and St. Averky, Archbishop of
  Zhitomir (d. 1938?)
  Epistle of 1927

"Let the whole visible world perish; let there be more important in our eyes the certain perdition of the soul to which he will be subjected who presents such outward pretexts for sin. "But if the hardness of your heart has gone far, and there remains no hope for repentance, even for this outcome we have a text to enlighten us: Wherefore come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not their uncleanness; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

• St. Victor, Bishop of Glazov (d. 1934),
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1927

"We, the bishops of the Yaroslav church region, acknowledging the responsibility which lies on us before God for those things which have been en­trusted to our pastoral guidance - the purity of the Holy Orthodox Faith, and the freedom for the ordering of the inward church-religious life which Christ has given us as a testament - in order to calm the disturbed conscience of the faithful, having no other way out of the fatal situation which has been created for the Church, from this time onwards separate from you and refuse to acknowl­edge for you and your Synod the right to the higher administration of the Church."

• St. Agafangel, Metropolitan of Yaroslav (d. 1928) - St. Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (Vicar of the Yaroslav Diocese, former Substitute of the Locum Tenens) (d. ca. 1935)
• St. Barlaam, Archbishop of Perm (temporarily governing the Lyubinsk Vicariate) (d. 1942)
• St. Eugene, Bishop of Rostov (Vicar of the Yaroslav Diocese) (d. 1937)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1928

"Bishop Philip (Gumilevsky) [was] shot to death in the Krasnoiarsk prison in 1934 for refusing to accept the authority of Metropolitan Serge."

• Archpriest Michael Polsky

"With what joy I gave over to you my own rights as Substitute of the Locum Tenens, believing that your wisdom and experience would cooperate with you in the governance of the Church. But what happened? Can this fatal act really not be corrected? Will you really not find the courage to acknowledge your error, your fatal mistake, the issuance by you of the Declaration of July 16/29, 1927?"

• St. Seraphim, Archbishop of Uglich (d. ca. 1935)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1928

"Concerning the modernized church or concerning Sergian ‘Orthodoxy', I, a sinner, believe that, as regards such church activists, we must call them not only heretics and schismatics, but as those who have apostasized from God. After all, Metropoli­tan Sergius brings into the church service a heresy unheard of in the history of the Church, the heresy of modernized apostasy from God - of which the natural consequence has been confusion and schism in the Church. Can one, after this, affirm that the declaration and activity of Metropolitan Sergius concerns only the external life of the Church, and does not touch in anyway the essence of the Church's Orthodoxy? In no way can this be said. Metropolitan Sergius, by his self wise and evil-worshipping declaration and the anti-Church work which followed it, has created a new renovationist schism or Sergian renovation, which while preserving for the `little ones' a fiction of Orthodoxy and canonicity is even more criminal than the first
two renovationisms of 1922 and 1925. And so Metropolitan Sergius has trampled on not only the external, but the very inner essence of the Orthodoxy of the Church, since his 'ho­sanna' to Christ and Antichrist, which is now being performed in Christian churches, touches the very essence of Christian Faith and presents by itself clear apostasy, falling away from the Faith, and departure from God."

• St. Paul, Bishop of Starobela Epistle of 1928

"By his actions against the spirit of Orthodoxy, Metropolitan Sergius has torn himself away from unity with the Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church, and has forfeited the right of presidency in the Russian Church."

• St. Alexei, Bishop of Kozlov (administering
  the Diocese of Voronezh) (d. 1936)
  Epistle of 1928

"...it is essential for an Orthodox Bishop or priest to refrain from communion with Sergianists in prayer."

• St. Cyril, Metropolitan of Kazan (d. 1937?) Epistle of 1934

"The chief priest of Soviet Russia, the head of the Moscow Orthodox Church, Bishop Andrew re­ferred to as a betrayer of Christ."
Testimony of a fellow prisoner
regarding St. Andrew, Bishop of Ufa (d. 1937)

"All followers of the lying-Metropolitan Sergei are themselves filled with lies and evil, and have fallen away from the truth of Christ; they have fallen away from Christ's Church. The Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church is somewhere, in some other place, but not with Metropolitan Sergei, not with `his synod.' ...The holy Church will remember with horror the sins of Sergei and his fellow activists, having placed his name next to the names of ecumenical pseudo-Patriarchs Nestorius, Dioscorus, and other terrible traitors to Orthodoxy."

• St. Andrew, Bishop of Ufa (d. 1937), quoted in Zelenogorsky,
  Life and Work of Archbishop Andrew

"If looking from afar I still supposed that there were some circumstances justifying his behavior, I have completely lost this belief."

• St. Damascene,
  Bishop of Glukhov (d. ca. 1935)
  After meeting with Metropolitan Sergei in 1928

"And we must not only teach others, but ourselves also fulfill, following the examples of the Moscow saints, whom we have commemorated today. They stand before us as Orthodox zealots, and we must follow their example, turning aside completely from the dishonesty of those who have now occu­pied their throne. Oh if they could but arise; they not only would not recognize any of their succes­sors, but rather would have turned against them with severe condemnation."

• Metropolitan Anastasy (Gribanovsky) (d. 1965)
  Address to the Sobor of Bishops, 1959

"Those hierarchs who have compromised the free­dom of the Church by allowing themselves to be subservient to the State have committed in the words of Bishop Victor (Ostrovidov), one of the first Russian confessor bishops to speak out against Sergianism, `a sin that is not less than any heresy or schism, but is rather incomparably greater, for it plunges a man immediately into the abyss of de­struction, according to the Unlying Word: 'Who­soever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father which is in heaven' (Matt. 10:33)."'
from Andreev, Russia's Catacomb Saints

"Bishop Hilarion, formerly of Smolensk, was a most irreconcilable enemy of the declaration of Metropolitan Sergei of 1927; he denied the sacra­ments when performed by Sergeites, and for a second time baptized infants and married those already married in a'Soviet Church."'

• Protopresbyter Michael Polsky,
  New Martyrs of Russia

"We, the free bishops of the Russian Church, do not want a truce with Satan, although you are trying to obscure the question by calling our hostile relationships only a policy.... "Here, we offer you the salutary oil of faith and loyalty in the Holy Church. Do not refuse it, but reunite with it as in 1922 ..."

• Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) (d. 1936)
  Letter to Metropolitan Sergei, 1933
  (Alluding to Sergei's return to the Church
  from the Renovationist schism)

"It is noteworthy that several hierarchs and their flocks, for the most part Russians, have already fallen away from the Ecumenical unity, and to the question: `What dost thou believe?' reply with references to self-proclaimed heads of all sorts of schisms in Moscow, America and Western Europe. It is clear that they have ceased to believe in the unity of the Church.... Those who have cut themselves off from her deprive themselves of the hope of salvation, as the Fathers of the Sixth
Ecumenical Council teach concerning this, having recognized the renegades as being totally devoid of grace.... Unfortunately, some Orthodox laymen, even, alas, many-priests (and hierarchs) have sub­jected themselves to this state of gracelessness, although still retaining the outward appearance of the church services and the apparent performance of the Mysteries."

• Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) (d. 1936)
  Paschal Encyclical, 1934

"The mystical desert-like catacomb Church has anathematized the Sergians and all that are with them."
-St. Maxim, Bishop of Serpukhov (d. 1931)
quoted in Polsky, New Martyrs of Russia

"Since the Moscow Patriarchate initially was di­rected by a man like Patriarch Sergius with such undoubted intelligence, but, simultaneously, with a flexible conscience, it rejected the crude violations of Orthodoxy which could be recognized by the simple faithful.... But Patriarch Sergius also, per­haps unwillingly in the beginning, put the Church at the disposal of apostasy."

• Protopresbyter George Grabbe (later Bishop Gregory) (d. 1995)
  The Dogma of the Church in the Modern World

"Why did this calamity befall Father Dimitry Dudko? (...) "Because his activity took place outside of the true Church.... What then is the Soviet church'? Archimandrite Constantine has often and insistently stated that the most horrible thing that the God-hating regime has done in Russia is the creation of theSoviet church,' which the Bolsheviks presented to the people as the true Church, having driven the genuine Orthodox Church into the catacombs or into the concentra­tion camps. This pseudo-church has been twice anathematized. His Holiness Patriarch Tikhon and the All-Russian Church Sobor anathematized the Communists and all their collaborators. This dread anathema has not been lifted till this day and remains in force, since it can only be lifted by a similar All-Russian Church Sobor .... When Met­ropolitan Sergius promulgated his criminal Decla­ration, then the faithful children of the Church immediately separated themselves from the Soviet church, and thus the
Catacomb Church was formed. And she, in her turn, has anathematized the official church for its betrayal of Christ."

• Metropolitan Philaret (Voznesensky) (d. 1985)
  Letter Concerning Father Dmitri Dudko, 1980

"Then the True Church went into the catacombs, into a position of illegal existence. From that time to this day the Soviet Moscow Patriarchate is liable to judgment, and until that future true council there can be no kind of contact, not even in everyday matters, as Metropolitan Anastasy, re­posed in God, commanded us in his last will and testament."
-Archbishop (later Metropolitan) Vitaly (Ustinov) (b. 1910)
On Father Dmitri Dudko, 1981

"Archbishop Nikodim was approached by one of the faithful who said to him But Vladika, these poor people in Russia have no other Church to go to but the Patriarchal ones!' The bishop replied to herBetter no Church than a Soviet church!"'

• from a conversation with a seminarian, now a Synodal Priest (Monastery Press)

"This being the case, which of us is really the schismatic? Of course it is not those in the spirit of traditional Orthodoxy, but those who have apostasized from the true faith of Christ and re­jected the genuine spirit of Christian piety; even though all the contemporary patriarchs, who have altered our age-old, patristic Orthodoxy, may be on the latter's side ..."

• Archbishop Averky (Taushev) (d. 1976) “Are the Terms Christian 'andOrthodox' Accurate in Our Times?" (1975)

"But you know that the new church is a lawless church."

• St. Arseny, Metropolitan of Novgorod (d. 1936)
  refusing to join the Sergianist schism

"In an edict of Metropolitan Sergei, concerning Bishops Dimitry Gdov and Sergei Korporsky, it is written that Bp. Dimitry had called those churches which commemorated Metropolitan Sergei "inno­vative" and those Orthodox priests as without grace; and moreover, that one of such churches he publicly calleda temple of satan."'

• Monastery Press (Montreal)

"According to many canonical rules, all of the so­called bishops, archbishops and metropolitans of the Moscow Patriarchate, being KGB agents, are apostates from Christ. The 621" Apostolic Canon deprives them of these titles, and if they repent, it calls for them to be accepted as laymen and not to be ordained. Similar orders are found in numerous (24) canonical rules. From this, we see that the Divine Canons do not admit the Divine Gifts to apostates - KGB agents. "

• Archbishop Anthony of Los Angeles
  "Last Will and Testament" (1995)

[Daniel]

What is most disheartening is that none of this seems to matter anymore. 80years of a resistance to Sergianism is to be thrown straight down the memory hole come May (short of a miracle).

From On the Joint Work of the Commissions
of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (emphasis added)

The Commissions of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia also examined the question of how to view the many official declarations, decisions, epistles and other such documents issued by the First Hierarchs of the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, and also by the organs of ecclesiastical authority in the fatherland and abroad over the course of the decades during which canonical communion between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia was absent. Some of these documents contained canonical suspensions or other expressions of canonical rejection of the hierarchies and of the presence of grace in church life on the other side of the division. In connection with this, it is proposed that when the above Act is put into effect, all previous acts which would hinder the fullness of canonical communion are declared invalid.

Oh, no...Don't even begin to concider the validity of any of these previous acts. A little White Out and a little White Out there...and...There you go, 80 years erased!