Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret

[Грешник]

Epistle of Metropolitan Philaret to 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 Revolutiion of 1917 which
brought it to power.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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The second attempt, after the death of Patriarch Tikhon and the arrest of

the locum tenens of the patriarchal throne, Metropolitan Peter, had greater
success. The Soviet power succeded 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 proclamtion of a declaration of the complete loyalty of the
Church to the Soviet power, even to the point where the joys and successes jof
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 earleir refused to sign a s
imilar declaration, for which they were subjected to arrest, imprisonment, and
banishment.

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Protesting pagainst this declaraion-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*-many
bishoops who were then in the death camp at Solovki** 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 annot acknowledge its successes in this direction as
her own successs" (Open Letter from Solovki, Sept. 27, 1927).

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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.

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But a schism nonetheless occurred. The minority, accepting the declaratlion,

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."

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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 remaniend alive began to live
illegally and to serve Divine services secretly, hiding themselves from the
authorities and orignating in this fashiion of the Catacomb Church in the Soviet
Union.

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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,

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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 ofthen on the secret Church in the USSR, calling it the "sect" of
the True-Orthodox Christians. It was apparently impossible to keep silent about
it any longer; its numbers are too great and it causes the authorities too much
alarm.

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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
into 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 Ort
hodox Church," i.e., against the Moscow Patriachated 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.

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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.

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"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.

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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.

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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 jover the fact that there exist
people who fear God more than men. They are powerless before the millions of
True Orthodox Christians.

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However, besides the True-Orthodox Church in the Soviet Union and the Moscow

Patriarchate, which have communiion 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
Catacomb Church in the homeland. After the last war many members of this Church
appeared abroad and entered into the Russian Church Outside Russia, and thus the
bond between thse two Churchs 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.

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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.

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This 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 moral sin.

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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 foreginers, even Orthodox people and those
vested whith 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 aht they are doing.

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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.

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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.

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 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
presecutions against the faith and to complete absence of freedom of religion.

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 3. As lone 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 Soveit constitution (Metropolitans Pimen,
Nicodim, John of New York, Archbishop Alexy and others.)

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 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.

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 5. As long as churches in the USSR shall be defile 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 the Soviet Union.

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

as churches of God.

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 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.

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 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
trerrible persecutions of her pilgrims, even to killling and murder (letters
from the USSR).***

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 9. Until priests accused by Soviet courts shall receive the right to defend

themselves freely through the Soviet press.

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10. Until there shall cease calumny and ridicule of faith, the Church,

priests, monks, and believing Christians in the Soviet press.

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11. Until freedom shall be givern to every belliever in the USSR openly to

confess his faith and defend it.

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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.

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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.

1. 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.

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

   2. 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, unti
      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 frimly to the truth of Orthodoxy, witnessing of her both
      by one's word and especially by a prayerful, devout Christian life.