AN IMPENDING COUP OF THE NAME-WORSHIPPERS IN SUZDAL
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While the attention of most True Orthodox Christians has been directed, quite naturally, at the tragic event of the ROCOR-MP unia, a hardly less sinister coup has been brewing in the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church (ROAC) centred in Suzdal.
On May 9/22, Igumen Gregory (Lourie), who was defrocked for heresy by the ROAC Synod in September, 2005, and Alexander Soldatov, the editor of the notoriously pro-Lourieite "Vertograd", calling themselvesthe "Secretariat of the Initiative Group of Clergy and Laity of the Russian Orthodox(Autonomous) Church", issued a "memorandum" entitled "Half a Year without a Synod" (_http://vertograd.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-post_22.html_ (http://vertograd.blogspot.com/2006/05/blog-post_22.html) ). In it they speak about a "de facto cessation of the activity of the Hierarchical Synod of ROAC", its "paralysis", caused by Metropolitan Valentine's "self-withdrawal from [ecclesiastical] affairs", and leading to a situation in which "each diocese and many parishes have de facto passed over to autonomous administration".
More seriously, the authors of the memorandum accuse the metropolitan of uncanonically concentrating all power into his own hands, so that the Synod has become a mere cipher. And they compare this situation to the situation of the Synod under Metropolitan Sergius. "Our antisergianist True Orthodox Church is ruled by an organ similar to the synod of Metropolitan Sergius. The condemnation by the Russian New Martyrs of the very construction of the sergianist ecclesiastical authority falls also on the Hierarchical Synod of ROAC. Therefore from a canonical point of view there never has existed a genuine ROAC Synod. None of the decisions of this organ have canonical force..."
The authors go on to say that until the convening of a Sacred Council to correct this situation, every diocese of ROAC must exist in a situation of involuntary autonomy. This situation, they say, was blessed by New Hieromartyr Agathangelus of Yaroslavl. And extensive experience of living in these conditions was amassed by the Catacomb Church, "whose example we must follow".
There are so many ironies in this memorandum that it is difficult to know where to start. However, I shall not start there, but with a brief exposition of how ROAC arrived at this impasse.
In the year 2000 ROAC was probably the most canonical jurisdiction of the Russian Church. In 1996 ROCOR had, without even pretending to follow the canons, expelled Archbishop Lazarus, Bishop Valentine, Bishop Agathangelus, Bishop Theodore and the Catacomb Bishop Seraphim, together with hundreds of parishes and thousands of laypeople in Russia. As was suspected at the time, the real motivation for this coup was Archbishop Mark's drive to rid ROCOR of all elements that would be opposed to union with the MP - and the five bishops in question were unanimously opposed to any union with Moscow.
Unjustly expelled in this way, ROAC's position was strengthened by the fact that it did not participate in ROCOR's false council of October, 2000, which recognized the MP and officially made an approach to communion with it via the heretical Patriarch of Serbia.
However, at about this time Reader Vasily Lourie joined the Church, and was quickly tonsured and ordained to the priesthood - uncanonically, because he had a wife (and child), whom he had discarded, against her will, for the sake of "the better part". Almost immediately he started introducing false teachings into the Church: on marriage, on name-worshipping, on the pre-revolutionary Synod, on the Orthodox empire, on rock music, on suicide, on "samobozhie", etc.
These false teachings elicited a strong wave of opposition from within ROAC. At first, Metropolitan Valentine was inclined to listen to these protests. However, he was then accused of pederasty by the secretary of the Synod, and in his desperate struggle to remain out of prison accepted the help of Lourie and his "childhood friend", the Kremlin "polittechnologist", Gleb Pavlovsky. The price of this help, of course, was a suppression of the wave of protest against Lourie's false teachings. And so Lourie survived, and, after the expulsion or silencing of his main opponents by Valentine, gradually increased his influence within the Church.
But times changed: Metropolitan Valentine was at first convicted of pederasty, but then managed to have the verdict changed to conditional discharge. Now he no longer needed Lourie's political connections so much - and these, in any case, became less powerful. Moreover, opposition to Lourie's ideas was again surfacing, led this time by the Catacomb bishops (there are four in ROAC). Weighing up the balance of forces within his Church, Valentine decided to reverse course and defrock Lourie in September, 2005.
Unfortunately, he did this in an uncanonical manner, with no trial and no real theological appraisal and exposure of Lourie's teachings. (Lourie once called Valentine "undogmatic". I objected at the time, but have to admit that he was right in this.) Lourie, who knows the canons better than the bishops, had no difficulty in pointing this out and in using the injustice to elicit sympathy for himself among his still-numerous supporters in ROAC. He continued to serve, and on Palm Sunday, according to Olga Mitrenina, there were 70 communicants in his church in St. Petersburg - not bad for a defrocked priest serving without the blessing of a bishop. Meanwhile, Valentine's health deteriorated, he had an amputation, and the "de facto paralysis" of which Lourie and Soldatov speak became evident.
Moreover, disturbing signs of what can only be called paranoia began to appear in Valentine. Without initiating a church trial, he recently went to the secular authorities and accused two of his closest associates, Protopriest Nicholas Novoselov and Deacon Sergius Slonov, of stealing objects from his "Museum of the White Warrior". The result was that Fr. Nicholas - a Catacomb Christian of great talents and unimpeachable honesty, modesty and virtue - landed up in Vladimir prison, from which he has only just been released. This behaviour was exploited, of course, by Lourie and Soldatov, and Lourie even hinted (this was probably only bravado) that he had had a hand in Fr.Nicholas' release.
And now Lourie has made his move to take control of the Church. The memorandum is clearly a call to arms, to convene a Sobor at which Valentine will be retired, his successor named, and Lourie reinstated. This successor the Kerensky-like figure who will facilitate Lourie-Lenin's eventual revolution - will almost certainly be Archbishop Theodore, the present number two in the hierarchy - a very pleasant, hard-working man and a sincere believer, but a man who appears to sympathise with the name-worshippers. Theodore will be ideal to effect a smooth transition from Valentine's rule to that of Lourie. His presence at the helm will serve to soothe the consciences of those, especially the Catacomb Christians, who don't trust Lourie but who don't want to leave the Suzdal jurisdiction if at all possible. Meanwhile, with Theodore as metropolitan, real power will remain in the hands of Lourie, Soldatov and, probably, Igumen Theophan (Areskin), a name-worshipping disciple of Lourie whom Valentine rashly introduced into the centre of his administration like a Trojan horse (Theophan recently defended Valentine's actions against Fr.Nicholas, but this was probably only a smokescreen).
How is this potential take-over of one of the last outposts of True Orthodoxy in Russia by heretical forces to be averted?
The first thing to do is to recognize those elements in Lourie's critique of Valentine's regime that are true. For to deny this will only strengthen Lourie's case in the long run. But at the same time we must show how hypocritical his critique is.
And so: it is true that Valentine's Synod has been essentially a rubber-stamp to his one-man absolutist rule, and that a series of decisions have been made uncanonically. These include both the expulsions and anathematizations of Lourie's opponents and the defrocking of Lourie himself. Of course, Lourie - this is the first irony I spoke of earlier - was quite happy to go along with the earlier series of uncanonical bans on his opponents, and only begins to cry foul when he falls victim to such a ban. This hypocrisy accords with his real nature as a Church revolutionary who only uses the canons to the extent that they further his essentially political (by which I mean: power-seeking) aims.
Secondly, it is true that Valentine has displayed sergianist traits - and not only in his manipulation of a subservient Synod. Deeply suspect, also, is his appealing to the authorities when it suits him in order to keep himself out of prison or crush an opponent (or even a friend, such as Fr. Nicholas). But the irony is that Lourie has been the first to assist him in this! For Lourie's own attitude to Soviet power, to Putin's neo-Soviet power and to the prospect of the revival of the Orthodox autocracy is profoundly sergianist. Hence the irony - and hypocrisy - of his calling Valentine a sergianist.
Thirdly, we can agree with Lourie and Soldatov that the only way to restore order in the Church is to convene a Sobor that is conducted in a truly conciliar spirit. It is a sad fact about contemporary Russian Church life and not only in the MP, but also in the True Orthodox jurisdictions -that almost everywhere important decisions are taken in a non-conciliar manner, contrary to the holy canons, as if Peter the Great's uncanonical "Spiritual Regulation" were still in force. Perhaps the new Synod that has recently emerged under Metropolitan Tikhon of Omsk is an exception to this rule - I don't know. But in any case, the convening of a Sobor in Suzdal would be an opportunity not only to restore order to the Suzdal jurisdiction, but also to display to the world that the True Orthodox Christians can still order their affairs in accordance with the holy canons.
However, it is not only the holy canons that are at stake. It is also the holy dogmas, the very foundation of the Church, without which the Church ceases to be the Church. The Sobor must investigate the false teachings of Fr. Gregory Lourie afresh, in a much more searching and systematic manner than has been up to now, and condemn unequivocally.
If this is not done - and the preparations for this must start now - then I fear that the forthcoming Sobor, if it takes place, will only restore the heretic Fr. Gregory Lourie to power, making his false teachings official and thereby removing ROAC from the list of True Orthodox jurisdictions...Vladimir Moss.
10/23 May, 2006.
Holy Apostle Simon the Zealot.
St. Simon, Bishop of Vladimir and Suzdal.
