The Saint Euphrosynos Cafe

haralampopoulosjc wrote: ↑Sun 17 August 2025 10:36 am

The last Josephite bishop, Avdiy, died in 1978. In the 1980s and 90s, the ROCOR did not recognize ANY of the surviving Catacomb bishops as canonical (which is why they consecrated Lazar Zhurbenko to the episcopate to annex Catacomb parishioners to the Free Russian Orthodox Church). The ROAC (or RTOC or ROCiE, ROCOR-A for that matter) doesn't have any apostolic succession from any of these Josephite, Seraphimo-Gennadite, etc. hierarchs whatsoever. Their parishioners might be descended from or comprised of older lay Catacombniks, but from what I can tell, no True Orthodox synod that exists today received their apostolic succession from any Catacomb bishop.

The more I dig into the question of the Catacombniks the more complicated it becomes to me. The main persons pushing to not recognize any of the other catacomb groups seems to be Metropolitan Laurus Shkurla and Metropolitan Lazar Zhurbenko, i know there are people that want their work double checked. Contrary to what may be said polemically there was at least 9 catacomb groups in the 1980's:

Josephite followers who trusted Rocor

Josephite followers who didn't trust Rocor

Followers of Bishop Anthony Golynsky-Mikhailovsky

Andrewites/Andreevskys (followers of Bishop of Ufa Andrew Ukhtomsky)

Seraphimo-Gennadites (followers of Bishop Seraphim Pozdeev and Bishop Gennady Sekach)

Danilovites/Danilovtsy (named after the monastery) such as Bishop Nicholas Nikolsky

Renovationist Catacombniks claimed to be in communion with the followers of Bishop Aftimios Ofiesh

Old Believers Catacombniks such as Bishop Clement Longinov

UAOC Catacombniks such as Bishop Feodosy Bakhmetev

Now if any of these people have true or dubious succession is above my knowledge at the moment. Obviously we shouldn't accept heretics like the Renovationists. But I do know there are currently bishops in at least Rocor-A and TOC-iR that trace their succession back to these groups and probably more than that.

@BenjaminMcCraw

If they are in these groups now, they were probably either laymen or priests at the time, and
if they were accepted as bishops, they were probably either re-ordained or accepted by cherosethia.

haralampopoulosjc wrote: ↑Sun 17 August 2025 11:25 am

@BenjaminMcCraw

If they are in these groups now, they were probably either laymen or priests at the time, and
if they were accepted as bishops, they were probably either re-ordained or accepted by cherosethia.

It wouldn't surprise me to learn that's the case. Side note, how do you tag someone? I'm still figuring out the forum