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“The real crisis of Orthodoxy today—not only in Russia but throughout the world— has not been caused by submission to orders of atheists—and it will not be overcome by refusing to accept these orders. ’The crisis of Orthodoxy lies in the loss of the savor of True Christianity This savor has been largely lost not only by the Moscow hierarchs, but by most of the Russian ‘dissidents’ as well, as likewise by the ‘Paris’ school of émigré theologians, by the apostate Patriarch of Constantinople and all who follow him, by new calendarists and renovationists and modernists of every sort, and by the simple people everywhere who imagine they are Orthodox because their fathers were or because they belong to a ‘canonical church organization. Against this loss of savor of Orthodoxy there has arisen one great movement of protest in the 20th Century: That of the True-Orthodox Christians whether of Russia, Greece, Mount Athos, or the Orthodox Diasporia, Among these True-Orthodox Christians are to be found the authentic Orthodox confessors and martyrs of our times.”—Fr. Seraphim (Rose), The Catacomb Tikhonite Church 1974 (Pages 242-243)
Fr. Seraphim Rose was against the idea of ROCOR and the "MP" uniting unless it was in the full Truth. In his writings this is abundantly manifest:
He wrote: "A veritable "unity-fever" has gripped emigrant circles in recent months, partly under the influence of Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn himself wants to be "one" with the millions of ordinary Orthodox believers in Russia, and with all Russian Orthodox believers abroad. May God grant that he be one with them in the Truth. But if it be not in the Truth, but by means of some compromise in the Truth—such unity is abhorrent to God and His Holy Church; better for Russia to perish than to be "one" not in the Truth. The great confessors of Orthodox history have been precisely those who rose up against false unity, preferring, if necessary, to be alone against the world if only they might be with Christ and His Truth..."
And again: "Metropolitan Sergius’ act in 1927 was condemned by many bishops in the USSR as initiating a “neo-renovationist schism,” that those bishops were imprisoned and/or killed because they opposed Sergius, and that therefore in your ignorance you are not only receiving “legalization” from a neo-renovationist schismatic body but are acting fully in accord with the Soviet “new church politics... you should have waited (even [if] it takes a hundred years — truth is that important for the Church!) for a true and free All-Russian Council..."
And regarding the idea of the ROCOR uniting - even if it were in obedience to their Bishops - with the Russian schisms from ROCOR Fr. Seraphim Rose actually praised those who would be bold enough to resist such a "union".
He wrote: "we really feared ... there might be some kind of hasty “union,” which would be disastrous for the cause of True Orthodoxy, and would have caused a schism, even if perhaps only a few would have been bold enough to separate from this “union.”"
As for Fr. Seraphim's views on the "Moscow Patriarchate" he both believed that a grace-filled remnant remained within the "MP" - hence his defense of Fr. Dimitry Dudko - but he also called this "MP" a "neo-renovationist schismatic body" while also writing that "for the sake of the purity of Christ's Church, [the Catacomb Church] must remain separate from the schismatic body [MP] and thereby show it the way of return to the True Church of Christ... if the Catacomb Church did not exist at all, the Moscow Patriarchate would still be guilty of schism and apostasy, even as Roman Catholicism did not become Orthodox once the last Orthodox communities were finally wiped out in the West."
(“Fr. Seraphim defended Fr. Demetrius out of a sense of deep compassion. Now compassion, when purified, is a great virtue. But it should not be allowed to hinder sober and dispassionate judgement, and there is no doubt that Fr. Seraphim allowed his heart (“the heart is deceitful above all things” (Jeremiah 17.9)) to cloud his judgement in this matter.
Let us consider the facts. Fr. Demetrius was a priest of the Soviet church who refused the invitation of the Catacomb Church to join it. He was an ecumenist – he revered the Pope and asked his blessing on his work, and those who published the English edition of Our Hope told the present reviewer that they had had to edit out large amounts of ecumenist material from the work. And he was a sergianist – under pressure from the authorities, he once told a 15-year-old spiritual son of his to return to the Komsomol. In 1980 he publicly recanted of his anti-Soviet activities on Soviet television. When the ROCOR first accepted parishes on Russian soil in 1990, he stubbornly refused to join it, although there was now far less danger in doing so. And towards the end of his life (he died in June, 2004) he became an ardent advocate of the canonization of – Stalin!
When speaking about Fr. Demetrius, Fr. Seraphim’s usual discernment seems to have deserted him. Thus he wrote that Fr. Demetrius’ “fiery, urgent preaching hasn’t been heard in Russia and probably the whole Orthodox world since the days of St. John of Kronstadt” (p. 859) – an amazing exaggeration which placed Fr. Demetrius above Patriarch Tikhon and other great preachers among the true martyrs and confessors of Russia. Again, he often said that he was in the same Church as Fr. Demetrius, quoting his words: “The unity of the Church at the present time consists in division” (p. 863), as if to assert that the obvious division between the MP and the ROCOR either did not exist or was of little significance.
When Fr. Demetrius “repented” before Soviet power in 1980, thereby fulfilling the prediction of Metropolitan Philaret, who stated quite bluntly that he would fall because he was not in the True Church, there was much talk about the danger of “gloating”. But nobody gloated. Fr. Demetrius’ fall was clearly a matter of profound sorrow, not triumphalism. But neither Fr. Demetrius nor anyone else was served by denying that it was a fall – which is what many liberals tried to assert. The present reviewer heard from a spiritual son of Fr. Demetrius, now a priest of the True Church inside Russia, that he was never the same after his public recantation. And, as was noted above, in his later years he actually became an ardent supporter of the worst aspect of the MP, its worship of Stalin. For the fact is that his house was built on sand, the sand of Soviet communism, and this alone is the reason why he fell (Matthew 7.27).
However much compassion he felt for Fr. Demetrius, Fr. Seraphim was wrong to hold him up as a role model and “confessor”. First, because he did not belong to the True Church and did not confess the True Faith (which is not to say, of course, that he did not sometimes write good things). And secondly, because to glorify a priest of the Soviet church, however courageous, is to undervalue the podvig of the true confessors of the Catacomb Church. If it is possible to be a “martyr” and “confessor” while belonging to a false church and confessing heresy, why should anyone take the trouble and undergo the danger of joining the True Church? But many thousands, even millions, did just that, preferring death to doing what Fr. Demetrius did; and we must recognize that their position was not only canonically “correct”, but the only Christian way.
To take just one example: in the 1970s, at precisely the time that Fr. Demetrius was preaching his fiery sermons, the Catacomb hierarch Gennadius (Sekach) was living near Novy Afon in the Caucasus. The Soviet hierarch Ilia of Sukhumi (a KGB agent since 1962 and now “patriarch” of the official Georgian church), hearing of his whereabouts through spies, offered Gennadius a comfortable place in the Soviet church organization. Gennadius refused, saying that if he accepted the offer he “would lose everything”. Ilia then denounced him to the KGB, who put him prison in Georgia and tortured him till the blood flowed... Gennadius was a true confessor – and Fr. Seraphim devoted a chapter to him in his book Russia’s Catacomb Saints. But then why did he devote another chapter to Dudko, who did everything Gennadius refused to do? How could they both be confessors?!
The present reviewer’s position may perhaps be criticized as being “over- logical” and “super-correct”, demonstrating typically convert pride and lack of compassion. Certainly, he can recognize many of the traits Fr. Seraphim identifies as being typical of the convert mentality in himself. But God forbid that we should ever devalue the podvig of the true confessors by glorifying false ones – that is not the path of true humility and compassion. For let us make no mistake: if we glorify pseudo-confessors, we both injure them (by confirming them in their heresy or schism), and may end up falling away from the truth ourselves. Which is precisely what happened, tragically, to some of Fr. Seraphim’s fellow strugglers after his repose...
Fr. Seraphim himself, in spite of his errors, remained in the True Church until his death, and deserves to be remembered among the true confessors. Indeed, the present reviewer believes that if he had lived to witness the ROCOR’s Anathema against Ecumenism in 1983, and the extraordinary pagan festivals of the ecumenists in Vancouver in 1983, Assisi in 1986 and Canberra in 1991, not to mention the unias of the Orthodox ecumenists with the Monophysites at Chambésy in 1990 and with the Roman Catholics at Balamand in 1994, he would have returned to his earlier, more zealous position and the common mind of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church on this question. For there is only One Church, just as there is only one true confession of the Faith; and all those who deny that fact, such as the present-day Moscow and Ecumenical Patriarchates, have no part in that Faith and that Church, according to the sacred canons and dogmas.
To recognize this in a humble and obedient spirit is not to be “super- correct” or pharisaical, but correct and Orthodox; for “Orthodoxy” means “correct belief”. Moreover, it is to be truly compassionate; for “the greatest act of charity,” as St. Photius the Great says, “is to tell the truth”. It follows that if we arrogantly mock the need for such correctness while glorying in our “Orthodoxy of the heart” – which none of the Holy Fathers did – we run the risk of condemnation. For, as the Lord Himself said: “Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the Kingdom of Heaven...” (Matthew 5.19).
Revised June 19 / July 2, 2004. St. John Maximovich.“— Vladimir Moss: The True Church in the Last times )
On the situation in the Russian Church - where he praises those who would be "bold enough to separate from this 'union'”. Fr. Seraphim looked forward to the day when the "MP" will not only repent of Sergianism, schism, and Ecumenism - but also to the day that a true canonical Authority would be established in Russia (as opposed to that current authority which came to be called "canonical" through the murdering of Saints and bribes). None of this has yet to happen